Prison Town: Part Two

            “There’s a real old cemetery out on 16, take it to Henning Road and go east, maybe four miles. There’s a park there but next to the park is an old cemetery. It’s a dirt road, though, so be careful.” Robert, Sr. appreciated the directions and the warning, both seemed cordial to him. Nice.

            “Thanks. I’m going to head out that way. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.” He meant that as a joke and that’s how she took it.

            “No. That’s fine. You’ve seen one cemetery, you’ve seen ‘em all, if you ask me. But, hey, have fun.” She turned back to the task of folding pillowcases. It being a small motel, everybody had to do everything.

            The Prince of Peace Cemetery was right where she said it would be. Clusters of graves were planted across two small hills with a one lane dirt path cutting through the center. Robert, Sr. parked at the base of the hill and walked into the first cluster, a little town of Johnsons and Swifts. He looked for the oldest headstones and found many with military insignia, Marine Corps, Army, with service in WWI and II, and Korea. It looked like military service was a very big deal up here in the U.P. He knelt down to wipe a clump of green moss off  the H on Henry Border’s headstone, 1898-1974, and heard a car coming up behind him. Here it comes, he thought. What did he think would happen? Black guy nosing around a white cemetery in the U.P. Maybe the desk clerk called the Sheriff. Who knows.

            Robert, Sr. stood up and turned around, put his hands in his pockets and waited for the car to pull to a stop, which it did just ten feet away from him. An older white guy, maybe 75 or so, rolled down the window.

            “Can I help you find something? Or somebody?” He wasn’t smiling but he didn’t look mean either, just matter of fact, like every day, he drove into the cemetery to see a Black guy wiping moss off a grave. Robert, Sr. could see a rose bush wrapped in burlap on the passenger seat. Maybe the guy was the cemetery caretaker. That would make some sense.

            “No, but thanks. I’m just up here visiting family, you know, and I had some time before we get together tomorrow. Just looking around. I’m into cemeteries.” Robert, Sr. wasn’t nervous. It wasn’t like he was expected the Klan or anything. It was just weird – all of it. Being from Detroit, his son in prison, Newberry, how white everything was, the cemetery, having to explain himself. He figured there was no reason to go into it about exactly where the family he was visiting lived and he hoped the old guy didn’t ask.

            “You want to come see my Dad’s grave? It’s a little unusual.” The old guy turned off the engine and got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side and lifted the rosebush along with a trowel off the seat. “I’m planting this. Probably won’t make it through the winter, but it was on sale, you know, so what the hell.”

             The grave was fifty feet from the road but Robert, Sr. could see it right away. It was a statue of a soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder holding a bugle in his hand. WWII vintage Robert, Sr. could see right away. It was big, maybe eight feet tall, like a monument you might find in Washington or something. Crazy that something this big was in a two-bit cemetery at the end of a four-mile dirt road.

            “That’s some monument. Your dad in WWII?”

            “Yeah. He died in Sicily in 1943. I was two years old.”

            Robert thought about his own life growing up, his parents – mom and dad – there every day, every night, until he left home for college. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

            “It was alright. My mom and me and my brother, we got through it. We all did okay. I’m William, by the way. Will.”

            “I’m Robert, Robert, Sr. Robert Jr.’s at the prison.” Robert, Sr. didn’t know why he decided to say that, why this old guy with a rosebush should be privy to this information, this shame, or former shame, or whatever it was. It was private, but still he told him. Maybe because the old guy’s dad had died and there was his monument right in front of him. Robert, Sr. felt sorry for him.

            Will set the rosebush on the ground, then dropped to his knees and started digging a hole with his trowel. Robert, Sr. wondered why a rosebush and why now in October but he didn’t ask. It wasn’t his place to advise on gardening decisions. He listened while Will told him about his son who’d died three years ago and was buried just next to his Will’s dad, but he didn’t have a headstone yet or a statue because Will couldn’t decide what to put there, how to memorialize his son who got bad drunk one night and rammed his truck into a utility pole.

            “My grandson works up there at the prison. That’s a coincidence, don’t you think?”

            “I guess it is.” Robert, Sr. stood watching the digging, his hands in his pockets. He didn’t know whether to go or stay but Will seemed lonely, like he wanted to talk, so Robert, Sr. just stood where he was to see what would happen next.

            “He never met any Black people until he started there – maybe three months ago.”

            Robert, Sr. wasn’t surprised by this. Lord knows how anyone in the U.P. would encounter a Black person except at the university which was way at the other end of the peninsula.

            “Is that right? How about you? You ever met any Black folks?” Robert, Sr. asked this question even though he figured he knew the answer.     

            “Not really. I’ve seen Black people, but from far away, you know, like driving to the State Fair in Detroit. We did that once or twice.” Will went on to explain that he tried to enlist in the Army during Nam but they turned him down because he had a heart murmur. He was ashamed of that, here his father dying in the war and him sitting it out up in the U.P.

“If I’d gone to Nam, I’d probably know some Black people, right? There were a lot of them there. I don’t know. Who knows.”

            “Well, now you can say you met a Black man and that we had a good talk out here in the cemetery.”

            “Yes, now I can say that. After all these years. How about that?” Will considered the hole that he’d dug for the rosebush.

“I need to get some water to put in there before I plant.” He turned to head to the pump at the base of the hill and then remembered he’d forgot a watering can. “I guess I can’t finish this right now. I’ll have to go and come back. You still going to be here?”

            “No. I’m going back to the motel. See my son tomorrow and then head back to Detroit. Been good meeting you though. Unexpected.” He reached out to shake hands with Will.

            “You take care, Robert, Sr. And take care of your Jr. Pray he stays safe.”

            “I’ll do that. Be back here next month to keep an eye on him. Maybe we’ll run in to each other out here with the graves. Who knows.”  Robert, Sr. got in his car and buckled up. He felt different about Newberry now, Prison Town he always called it, now that he could say he’d visited one of its cemeteries and met a local guy, had a conversation, talked about some things. Maybe had something in common. He wondered if Will’s rosebush would take. Maybe he’d check next time.

____________

Prison Town: Part One can be found here.

Photo by Ricardo Resende on Unsplash