Though he thinks my request odd, my brother-in-law agrees to assist me in my burial.  Samuel and I move through the darkness, carrying the casket we have stolen from the funeral home, until we reach the spot I have chosen.

"Here," I tell him, pointing to an empty plot that overlooks the bay.  "Bury me here." 

"Why?  So you can have a view?"

"So I can write," I tell him.  "So I can write the great American novel about death."

Samuel is the practical sort and does not understand such things, so we dig in silence, then lower the coffin into the ground.  I get in the grave and take off my shoes so that I might be more comfortable.  I hand the shoes to Samuel.  "Take care of these for me," I tell him and close the lid before he can speak.

From inside my coffin, I listen as shovel loads of dirt thump down upon me in rapid succession.  I suspect Samuel is scared to be in the graveyard alone at night, but I am comfortable and drift off to sleep.

In the morning I awake to find that the ground has a bit of a chill to it.  I wonder if my new dead friends sense the chill, and if they do, are they bothered by it?

"Voices!  I think I hear voices," says the dead man Haskins, interrupting the meanderings of my mind.  His plot is three rows over, near the fallen poplar tree, where he worries constantly about termites.  "Callicoat!" he shouts, "are they over there near you?  Can you tell?"

Callicoat doesn't answer.  Perhaps he's still angry with Haskins for what he did to the women.  Everyone hopes that's the case, though they fear the worst: that the maggots have gorged themselves on the last succulent morsel of what used to be Callicoat's brain.  His casket did not weather the spring floods well.

"No, they're not over that way, they're here by me."  It's Lambert, who used to be an engineer when he was alive. 

"You sure?" Haskins wants to know.

"Yes, I felt the jostling on my right side when they were digging the hole."

"I still want to hear from Callicoat," says Haskins, though he knows he won't. 

How strange it is, I think to myself so that I might remember it for my novel, that hope should linger so among the dead.

"Listen, I know digging when I feel it, and I felt digging," says Lambert, sticking to the facts of the matter.

"Oh, I do hope you're right, Mr. Lambert.  I so love a new burial, you know.  The way it brings fresh blood into the place."  It's Zelski, who's been dead since before the Civil War.  If there were a mayor to this place, it would be Zelski.

"Anyone know anything about the newbie yet?" asks Haskins.  "What they did?  Where they lived?  Man or woman?"

"Please, Mr. Haskins, put it back in your pants if you would.  There are ladies present, you know.  Besides, I doubt the body's even cold in the grave yet."

The ladies giggle at Zelski's comment.  I suspect they are imagining Haskins trying to tuck his dead penis back inside his pants. 

I wonder if corpses blush.

"I was just being curious.  Trying to be neighborly, that's all," insists Haskins, though he knows no one will believe him. 

I can not imagine what it is he did from the confines of his grave, but it is because of Haskins that the ladies do not speak to anyone any more.  Personally, I wish someone would exhume him and get him the hell out of here.  I should think it would be a long eternity without female companionship.

"Quiet, please.  I need everyone to be quiet."  It's Lambert, the dead engineer again.

"What is it, Mr. Lambert?  What do you hear?" asks Zelski.

"I think they're beginning the burial."

"All right, everyone, quiet down.  We wouldn't want to scare the living daylights out of the newly deceased, now would we?"

I like the way Zelski runs the place, the way he mixes compassion with directness, humor with respect.  When my time comes for real, I can't think of a graveyard I'd rather be buried in -- except maybe one that didn't have a Haskins.

"It's a man," Lambert announces as he begins his play-by-play for the benefit of those who are buried too far away to hear for themselves. 

Haskins groans, his disappointment obvious.

"A writer," Lambert continues, "doing research for a novel ... having himself buried alive, he is."

"Not another one," gripes Haskins. 

"What the hell's the matter with those writer people up there?" asks Zelski.  "For heaven's sake, we just got three of them in here last week alone."

"Not to mention two the week before that," adds Lambert, who I suspect has smuggled a computer into his coffin with him and has a database with the name, occupation, and shoe size of everyone who has ever trod above him.

"Maybe I've been dead too long to remember," says Zelski, "but for the life of me, I don't understand why these people have to go and have themselves buried just so they can write about death.  Is death so hard to figure out?"

Though I am sure they were not intended to, Zelski's comments make me feel like I am no longer welcome here in the cemetery.  It is just as well, since I am running out of air.

Following the plan Samuel and I set up in advance, I remove the cell phone from my pocket and call him so that he may dig me up and bring back my shoes.  The recording I get tells me it is sorry my call can not be completed at this time, and I should try again later when the system is not as busy.  I slip the phone back into my pocket.

I do not try again later.