Recapitulation: Barry and Jenna managed to steal their prizes from Gertrude Wilborough’s dead body, but in the process Barry managed to knock out Jenna. While extricating the two of them from the grave, an elderly man has come upon them, and is willing to do whatever it takes to leave under his own power.
He didn’t want to do this, but there wasn’t much he could do. Jenna might have had some brain damage in addition to whatever residual injury made her act the way she did. Barry knew exhaustion as he would a lover, panting and wheezing, arms wrapped around it, needing to lie down and go to sleep. He wouldn’t be able to shovel the dirt in by himself in an hour or two, not by himself.
“Come here.” He tried to speak the words with malice, but came off sounding weak. The old man still approached, his Hush Puppies scraping on the grass. Barry wiped the sweat and dirt from his face, then stopped, his forearm still pressed against his nose. That grime might be the only thing keeping the old man from a positive identification. Barry smeared his hand on his coveralls, then rewiped with his left hand, obscuring his true self even more.
“Pick up the shovel.” Barry’s voice wept into the high register, more suited to a castrati in one of Mr. Waller’s older records. The old man trudged to the shovel, still planted in the mound, picked it up.
“Start filling that hole.” The man moved without using his joints, every gesture straight armed, straight legged, straight torsoed. Scoop, turn, empty, turn, scoop, turn, empty. Barry nodded. He walked over and knelt down before Jenna before raising her up in his arms. She slumped through the gaps like a sleeping cat, but remained borne. The old man gasped, but said nothing. Barry took her a bit removed from Ms. Wilborough’s grave, off to Larry Javaad (1958-1994). Laid her down so that she at least wouldn’t have to endure a pelting from random dirt. Stumbled back to the grave and started helping. The old man held Barry’s shovel, Ol’ Rusty. This reserve felt foreign in his hands, too smooth and too clean, too cold. Still, what choice did he have?
Now they raced their exhaustion. Barry should have taken a nap. The old man should have not thought fond thoughts of whomever he was here to visit. The only situation they would have wheezed harder in would be a near vacuum, trying to extract the last particles of breathable air.
“What, what are you going to do to me?”
The only response Barry gave was the continued huffing and shoveling.
“I won’t tell anyone about this, really. I’m old, I don’t have much time. Please, please just let me have what little time I have left.” At this, he dropped the shovel, fell to his knees crying. “Please have mercy on me, please.” The shovel teetered on the edge of the grave before spilling inward.
Damn. “All you had to do was keep on digging and you were going to be fine. Now look at what you’ve done.” Barry threw down the shovel. “Look at what you’re going to have to make me do.”
“No, please.”
“Go get it.”
“What?”
“Get the shovel. I’ll wait right here.”
The old man, his eyes redder than the sunrise stared into the pit. “How do I know you won’t bury me down there? You dropped that shovel in there on purpose.”
“You dropped it, you get it.”
“No, no. Please.” He fell on his face, mumbling incoherent supplications to Barry.
“Fine. I’m going to go down there to get that shovel. When I come back up, if you’re not here, I’m going to hunt you down and slit your throat.” Then he thought for a second. “Give me your wallet.”
“What?”
“Call it insurance.”
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