Flesh and Pine

by Domonique Dierickx Krentz

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

Someone unlatches the tailgate of a blue pickup and gently lowers it. Six teenage boys, three on each side of us, place their hands underneath me, lift, then slide us into the bed of the truck. I’m too long to allow the tailgate to close. The boys jump into the truck, still three by three, and firmly hold onto us so we won’t slide out on the fifteen-mile journey to the cemetery. Of course, we would be riding in a pickup. Finn isn’t the Cadillac-hearse type.

“I never realized how rough this road is,” Finn says. His body rocks inside me, nothing to cushion it from my hard planks other than his baby blanket, which his mother laid beside him today after the funeral.

I still can’t believe we found each other. When the mother and father funeral directors lifted Finn off the steel table and placed him ever-so-gently inside me, a warmth and contentedness came over me I never thought possible. I was made for this, and now here we are.

“How long until we’re there do you think?” I ask.

Finn knows this road better than anyone. “Feels like we just passed horseshoe bend. Maybe another mile or so.”

Tires on gravel churn more slowly, the noise shifts from a crunch to a hum, and I realize we’ve turned onto a packed dirt road. Finn jostles around some more and is now resting a little left-of-center. When the teenage casket bearers carry us from the truck to the grave, he will probably end up in the middle of me again.

The truck comes to a stop, and I feel everyone lurch forward, including Finn. The six boys tumble out of the pickup, sending dusty clouds as their feet land on the dry earth. The father funeral director places his hand on my end, which is resting on the open tailgate, and explains that this is where Finn’s head is. They will need to carry us backward then turn so Finn’s feet are facing east. Carefully, the teenagers do this, following the father funeral director’s guiding voice. He warns them of uneven ground and the unsteady plywood surrounding the grave. Finally, he instructs them to lower us onto two-by-fours which suspends us over the hole.

“Chet?” Finn asks.

“Yes?”

“Where are we?”

I’m surprised. “The cemetery.”

Finn shakes his curly head. “No, I mean where in the cemetery? I figured they would put me right next to my grandma.” His voice sounds panicky when he adds, “Do you see a headstone? A tall one. It reminded me of the Ten Commandments when I was little.”

It’s hard to see with all the people standing around us. The only thing I can make out besides living bodies is a blanket of artificial turf covering the mound of dirt meant to pile on top of us.

“I can’t see a headstone, but I don’t have a good view. Too many people.” I concentrate on sending warmth to Finn. “If that’s where you’re supposed to go, I’m sure that’s where we are.”

He tenses.

“I’ll let you know when people move out of the way.”

“Okay.”

The apprehension in his voice pains me. I want to tell him I see the headstone, but I can’t do that.

A preacher drones, people cry, then items are laid on my lid. Flowers mostly, some bottle caps, a few notes.

Then it’s time.

I feel thick, canvas straps sliding under me, near my ends, and pressure as the two-by-fours are pulled away. We are hovering over the grave. Finn suddenly feels heavier inside me. He is directly at my center, but wobbling on his back as tension slackens and tightens with the strength of the people holding the straps. Slowly, we descend. Finn’s mother sobs.

“It’ll be okay, Mom,” he says.

I’m surprised at how gently they set us down. The earth is cold and a little moist. My corners dig into the soft dirt. With a zip and a burst of friction heat, the lowering straps are pulled from underneath me and out of the grave. It’s dim in this hole.

“Are you okay?” I ask Finn. “I want you to be okay.”

I can feel him shrug. He must have done that a lot while he was alive.

“Like I said, I just am.”

A hailstorm of dirt clods thunder upon us, the pounding of each shovelful growing less intense as the soil thickens, like the beat of a drummer marching into the distance, or a dying heartbeat.

“There it is!” I say. “The headstone. You’re where you’re supposed to be.”

I feel him relax. “Thanks.” Finn wiggles into me, as if he is getting good and comfortable.

I want the workers to hurry so Finn can’t ask me any questions about the headstone, which I cannot see.

* * *

For hours they stood beside us, on top of us, but the pressure has dissipated, and the people have gone. I am cocooned in our grave, in an earthy hug that will last forever, and Finn is cocooned in me, with his baby blanket and a tattered stuffed bunny he calls Bebo. Bebo does not talk to Finn; it is simply a relic of his past. Bebo is synthetic. It has never been alive. It cannot communicate. Still, I can feel Finn is happy the bunny is here, tucked protectively under his arm for all eternity.

“Hey, Chet?”

I love when Finn calls my name. “Yes?”

“When you were a sapling, did you ever think of what you wanted to be when you grew up?” He shifts the blanket closer to Bebo. “Do trees do that kind of thing? Dream?”

I think before I answer. “Trees do dream. And I don’t know how it is for others but, for me, I thought of all the possibilities of what I could be, but I never strived to be any. That sort of thing isn’t in our control, you know. We either stand where we are, or we are at the mercy of those who cut us down.”

“What kind of things did you think you could be?”

“Well, I thought if I continued to stand in the forest, I would have liked to be a home for the animals, you know: birds, possums, raccoons. I’d like bear cubs to climb me, and to be a perch for eagles.” The packed dirt surrounding me feels warm and tight. “If I were to be cut down, I wondered what it would be like to be part of a home, or maybe a sailboat. I didn’t want to be a floor in a stable.”

Finn laughs. “I don’t think that would be very pleasant, either.”

I feel that warm sensation flow throughout me again. “But what I’ve become is better than any of those because now I’m with you.”

He murmurs softly.

“What about you?” I ask. “What would you have been when you grew up?”

Finn squeezes his eyes closed and wrinkles his nose, thinking. “I’m not sure. Definitely something that has to do with nature, though. A forester, maybe.” He touches my side and it feels cold, but soft. “We may have met after all, while we were living.”

“But we wouldn’t have been soulmates,” I say quickly.

“Right.”

“You’re not happy?”

He shrugs. I’m beginning to feel him do it before he does it. There is a little tickle in my boards right under his shoulders, telegraphing the action a split-second ahead of time. “I’m not happy and I’m not sad. I just am.” He touches me again. “But I am glad I’m with you.”

The packed dirt expands a little around me, so proud am I.

* * *

Though the winter has set in, Finn remains sheltered from the elements. I can feel the freeze reaching into the ground, nearly touching my lid. The weight of visiting feet has been replaced by snow. When spring comes, the thaw will leave me wet and mourners muddy. I worry Finn’s parents will regret choosing me, wishing they had opted for a sealing, impervious casket to make sure their son is safe and dry.

“They won’t,” Finn assures. “The minute they saw you they knew you were for me.”

* * *

A sudden, explosive impact has brought me out of a sleepy reverie, and I immediately tighten my fibers to protect Finn.

“What was that?” he asks.

“I don’t know. Something heavy just landed, right near my top.”

We both stay silent, listening to muffled voices in the air above.

“Hi, Mom, hi, Dad,” Finn says, smiling.

Finn’s father is speaking to another man, and his mother is lavishing praise. “It’s exactly what we wanted,” she said.

“It’s probably the best headstone I’ve ever done,” says an unfamiliar voice.

Finn’s father speaks up. “It’s the same shape as my mother’s, only it is completely Finn.”

“The Ten Commandments,” Finn’s mother says. “That’s what it reminded him of when he was little.”

I can feel two bodies coming together near my middle, their weight in the soggy ground makes them feel like they are sinking closer.

“Wish you were here, son,” says Finn’s father.

Finn’s mother weeps.

* * *

“Hey, Chet?”

“Yes?”

“How long before you rot?”

“Are you talking about me or you?”

“You. I’m already rotting.”

A trill travels over me. Suspicion, now knowledge. I had hoped the moistness I felt along my middle-bottom was just some condensation from Bebo, but I knew that couldn’t be true. Moisture from Bebo would be in one small place, right under Finn’s arm. The wetness I feel runs the entire length of me, right where Finn lies.

My boards sag and I cry. This most important job I have been tasked with, I am failing. If love and sheer will had anything to do with it, Finn would be protected, by me, forevermore. Yet, I am not protecting him. He is rotting.

“Chet.” Finn senses my distress. “We were always going to disintegrate. Didn’t you know?”

“That can’t be!” I am horrified. “I was made to keep you safe. I’m strong and well-built. How could this happen?”

“Because,” Finn says, “we were alive and now we’re not. That’s just the way it is. It’s nature.”

“But this is my job,” I cry. “I can’t rot.”

Finn touches my side as he has for almost a year now. His touch feels different; not soft, but hard and spiny. “You were chosen because you would rot. Eventually, we will be one. One big pile of organic mush.” He smiles, but his face has gotten thinner, tighter. His teeth seem too large for his mouth. “Your boards and my bones will rest in this hole. You can’t stay intact forever. Neither can I. That’s not how it works.”

I don’t like the idea of disintegrating around Finn. I was built to protect him. I feel like I’m forsaking him and everyone who loves him.

“I wouldn’t want to be encased in steel, my corpse decomposing with nowhere to go,” Finn continues. He’s trying to make me feel better. But I know it’s true. “We’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. I just didn’t know how long it would take you. That’s why I asked.”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Well, rest a little.” Finn pulls his baby blanket to cover Bebo’s paws. “You’re perfect.”

Love surges in my grain, and as I relax, I feel a twinge in my bottom-left corner. A wooden dowel has snapped. “You’re perfect.”

* * *

Finn says it’s okay, that this is only nature taking its course, but I’m struggling. Struggling not to split, struggling not to let him fall through my bottom, struggling with the fact I am weakening. Rotting. When I go, there will be nothing between Finn and the mud, the water, the bugs and worms. The obligation to protect him is felt in my every ring, every knot.

Bebo has begun to lean a little in Finn’s arm. The bunny started upright, but the more time passes the more it shifts away from his body like its support system is gone. Indeed, Finn has changed. The flannel shirt and Carhartts appear to be draped over him, like they were laid out on his bed waiting for the next morning. His skin has grayed, and his head injury is obvious; the reconstructive wax used to cover the wound has not changed color. The last time he touched my side, his fingertip fell off.

Every day, the earth seems to be getting heavier on top of me. Two more dowels have broken at my bottom-left corner, and now my lid is sagging in that spot. I try to remain as rigid as I can, but I am softening, and I am tired.

“Chet,” Finn says.

“Yes?” I keep positive.

“You can rest.”

“Rest? What does that mean?” I don’t want to sound frantic, but I do. “Collapse on you? Give up?”

He seems tired, like it’s hard to talk. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“It’s time.”

A surge of strength tempers my boards. “I can’t. If I let go, all this dirt above us will fall. You’ll be crushed. Not only that, but your parents will see that the grave has caved in and that I’ve failed.”

Finn tries to bring Bebo closer, but the uncoordinated move just topples the ratty stuffed animal to its side, and it ends up farther away. “They will be expecting it. They will take it as a sign that I’m free.”

“No.”

“Yes, believe me, it’s true.” Finn’s fingers, some of them now stumps, wiggle for the bunny but can’t grasp it.

“I can’t,” I cry.

“You can,” coaxes Finn. “You’ve done your job. Now we both rest. Come,” he reaches out and touches my side. “Lie here with me.”

The sudden burst of strength I felt a moment ago is dwindling, and I tremble with the effort of staying together. One wooden peg at my bottom-right corner and two at my top-left snap simultaneously, and my whole frame shifts. I can feel the earth growing heavier and, like a beast with too much burden, I fall. My lid collapses and the force of the mire thrusts Finn’s arm closer to his wasted body, pinning Bebo back into the protective embrace where it started.

“Thanks, Chet,” Finn says. He’s smiling. “Even when you break, you’re perfect.”

I let myself go. My sides cave inward, my bottom bows and cracks. His bones, my boards, finally together. I am fully on top of Finn, holding him in an embrace the best I can.

“We’re perfect,” I whisper.