The Keeper Of The Crypt

I'm sure my mother thought the possum was dead when she buried it. It was lying in the driveway pretty much where she'd last seen it when she left the house, so she grabbed a shovel, dug a hole in the garden, and buried it. It wasn't until later that she began to wonder if it had moved from the time she had first seen it, to the time she had buried it. And then there was the whole "playing possum" factor that she hadn't initially considered. By then it was too late of course.



There is a place in the back garden at my parents house which might someday be a wonder to archeologists. It's full of bones from dead animals. Rabbits. Dogs. Cats. Birds. Gerbils. Hamsters. A few dozen goldfish. And at least one possum.

Most of these animals had met their demise through more or less natural means. Old age. Lack of feeding. A shovel over the head. This is where animals came to die in our little part of the world.

There is one story in particular that my mother is especially troubled by. Sorry Mom, it's too good of a story and you never tell it at parties or church picnics.

My sister Stacy was dating a boy at the time named Tom. I never thought that much about Tom when he was around. He was kind of quiet. Not particularly remarkable. At least not to a 13 year old. He was simply my sister's boyfriend. Live and let live. That is until he crossed the line and made his way onto my adolescent radar.

We were sitting in the living room, watching TV and I said something about the program I was watching. Come to think of it, I don't even think he was sitting. I had been watching my program and he'd wandered in. That's when he shushed me. I was stunned. Here was this guy, watching my TV, and telling me to be quiet. I never cared much for Tom after that and it wasn't long before she broke up with him and started seeing someone else. I'm pretty sure my rejection of him had nothing to do with it but you never know.

So around the time Stacy was in her last throes with Tom, we had this cat. I don't remember how we came upon it, but I'm pretty sure it was a stray that we had started feeding. We were never really a cat family. We were dog people. Well, the time came where we no longer wanted the cat. I think it was peeing everywhere. My mother must have mentioned that she wanted to get rid of it and Tom offered to do the honors. At the time, I don't know what my mother thought he was going to do. Maybe take it to a shelter. Offer it to a needy family. The reality ended up involving a potato sack and a shovel.

I wasn't there of course, and it took us years to get any details about it at all from my mother. We'd ask what happened to the cat and she would just get this funny look about her and clam up. Apparently it wasn't pretty. When we were older and we learned the loosening effect of wine on the tongue, it would seem that Tom didn't have particularly good aim with the shovel and that the cat had no intention of going quietly. But Tom was persistent and eventually the cat joined the rest of the dead in the backyard garden.

There were a lot of things I learned growing up in that house, but maybe one of the more important lessons (if you were an animal anyway) was to watch where you slept. You just never know who might be watching.