Charles Baxter: Saul and Patsy

“Bring him back,” the crow announced to the crowd. He was a tough little crow. But he was improvising and not very clever. “Like you said you could.”

“All right,” Saul said. “I’ll go get him.”

The creatures stared at him. Saul had made of himself a master of resurrection. That was what Jews could do. All of them, including Little Hans, stepped away from him.

“You can do that?” the Himmel asked.

“Just watch,” Saul said.

Five minutes later Saul came back, still bent over, with a small cardboard box. Inside the cardboard box was a cloisonné jar, and inside the jar— Saul showed the creatures this in the dark — were some ashes. The creatures drew back.

“That’s him?” one of them asked.

“That’s him,” Saul said. In his other hand, he held a shovel. “All of you, come on,” he said. He led them around the side of the house to the backyard, and then through the yard to a terrain of undergrowth and scrub and weeds beyond the lawn. Finally, reaching a small patch of ground between two bushes, he stopped. The trees and the night gave to the area a thick, profound darkness in which details — and the passage of time — were not discernible.

“Have we got everybody?” he asked. Quickly he counted the small pillars of darkness. There were seven. “Where’s the bubble-gum boy?” Saul asked. Of course she was a girl, but he would call her a “boy” tonight.

“She got cold,” the crow said. “I think she went back to the car.”

“She was scared, man,” the garbage can said. “That’s all it was.”

“She was crying, too,” the caterpillar told them. “I’m pretty sure. What a wuss.”

“Well, anyway,” Saul said. He held out the shovel. “All right. Here’s the deal. These are Gordy’s ashes. We have to bury him. He’s been undead. When the ashes aren’t buried, you get the undead thing happening. You get the hauntings. So who among you wants to dig?”

“ I can’t,” the garbage can said. “I don’t have arms.”

“Give me that.” Little Hans had finally spoken up. He didn’t sound like a high school student, but maybe he was; maybe he was really Henry Olschanski. He might have been anything. Saul handed him the shovel, and Little Hans began digging with it, his motions reflecting strength and fury. He was obviously practiced with shovels and knew how to use them. He was wearing heavy black leather boots, and he pitched the sharp blade of the shovel into the topsoil, which he lifted and cast off into the distance — the creatures were standing behind him — before arriving at the dirt beneath it, and then the clay. He hit a rock, and he scraped the shovel head around it, then threw the shovel onto the ground and dropped down on his hands and knees and scrabbled with his fingers around until he had a grasp of it, whereupon he lifted it out and heaved it on the dirt pile in front of him.

“I’m glad we brought him along,” the Himmel said. “He’s a force.”

Little Hans picked up the shovel again and resumed digging. “Anyone else want to do this?” he asked in a deep bass voice, between breaths, while he dug, but none of the creatures replied.

“Mr. Bernstein,” the crow asked. “It’s your turn.”

“It’s okay,” Saul told him. “Little Hans is doing a fine job.” Standing there, amid the creatures, Saul reached up and touched his nose, confirming that it was, in fact, broken.

Working in what still seemed to be a total, life-defining rage, Little Hans continued to shovel until the hole was large enough for the jar, and then spacious enough for the box, and then, five minutes later, much larger than it needed to be for their purposes, as if he had been unable to stop, as if the shoveling was a kind of maniacal nightmare gravedigger assignment, tunneling down to the dark he met up with every night, not just this one. Finally, with the smell of sweat in the cold air drifting off of him, he rested.

“Is that deep enough?” he asked. He glanced around.

“Deeper than it needs to be,” Saul said. “Deep enough for everybody.”

“This is creepy,” the crow said with distinct pleasure in his voice.

“Who wants to lower him in?” Saul asked, glancing around at where the group appeared to be, all of them half-unseeable, obscure. He held the box out. None of the creatures took it.

“ You need to do it,” the caterpillar said. “Where’s your wife? Maybe she should, too.”

“She’s not here,” Saul said. “She’s not here.” He waited. “Anyone want to touch the box before I put it into the ground?” The caterpillar reached out, and then the crow raised a wing, and the Himmel touched it, but the rest drew back. It was just too much for them.

“How come you didn’t bury it sooner?” the wolf asked.

“You don’t always bury the ashes,” Saul said. “Sometimes you keep them around. That was my mistake. That’s how come we had zombies around town.” With as much tenderness as he could summon, Saul, still bent over, carried the box to the hole that Little Hans had dug, and he lowered it until it rested there, on its deep layer of clay. He stood up again, as straight as he could make himself go with his back out, and he waited, looking at the pitch-black assembly. There was an expressive air pocket of silence. Off in the distance, very faintly, he could hear a jet in the night sky, and, also in the background, freeway noise. The music from The Day the Earth Stood Still was no longer audible, but the truck was still playing AC/DC.

“We need a blessing,” Saul said.

“What the fuck. What blessing?” the crow asked. “What kinda shit is that? He was a total loser. An asshole. Besides, he’s dead.”

“He won’t leave you alone unless you give him a blessing,” Saul said. “That’s why you’re here.”

The creatures were silent.

“This isn’t going to work unless someone says a blessing over him. That’s how it’s done. Either bless him or leave. That’s how it’s done.” His back was causing him excruciating pain now.

“This is America,” the garbage can said. “We don’t do that here.”

“Bullshit,” Saul said, and the creatures seemed surprised that he knew the word.

“ You have to do it,” the wolf said. “ You were his teacher.”

“I can’t,” Saul said. “I never went to services. My mother never took me to a temple or a synagogue. She didn’t believe in that. She still doesn’t. Nobody taught me blessings. And I don’t do them either, except for this, this time, now.” Saul tried to look at them all, but it was so dark he couldn’t quite see them. They had to do it; he could not. “Doesn’t anyone here know a blessing? Doesn’t anyone here know how to be human? Somebody here must. Doesn’t anyone here go to church? Or a temple? Or to an anything where they do blessings?”

“We do,” the wolf said. “Me and my sister and our parents.” The other creatures nodded. “I just wish we had a flashlight.”

“Well, say something,” Saul told him. “Say what they say. We don’t need a flashlight for that. This is what you all came for. I swear to you, if the wolf comes up with something. .” He left the sentence unfinished, and the darkness around him seemed to shift inwardly.

“L-l-l-l-l-l-lord, help help help hellllllp,” the wolf said, before giving up.

“That’s okay,” Saul told him. “Try some more.”

“Amen amen amen amen,” the wolf stuttered. “Please thou please thou let-t-t-t-t-t us depart in please. Peas.” There was a long silence. “I c-c-c-c-c-can’t do it,” the wolf admitted.

“Yes, you can,” Saul said.

“A-a-a-a-awake and mourn, ye heirs of h-h-h-hell,” the wolf said.