had been ransacked at Forest Hill, everyone would’ve known. People around the world would’ve heard of it. Diggers know better. But if he was dug up at Graceland, different story. You think the Presleys would want that news advertised?”
“Are you saying …,” I started.
Fisher held up his hands. “I’m not saying anything.”
I looked around at each Digger in turn.
“Whose territory is Memphis?”
Slowly all heads turned to the Apologist, a man so innocuous it took me a few seconds to remember why this kindly-looking fogey was sitting at our table. The wan smile that had graced his face all night long did not alter.
My throat burned. My eyes stung. I hailed down the scarred waitress and begged her for more water. The pub had become an asylum, a holding pen for the mad, and there was no way for someone as steeped in extra-credit practicality as I to accept such outlandish and unsourced claims. Yet I did. These men were reminiscing; they were not out to impress me.
Brownie waited until the waitress was gone. “Aberdeen’s dead.”
“Natural causes?” asked Crying John.
Brownie shrugged. “What’s natural?”
“The Inca Prince has the Big C,” Fisher said. “He won’t last another six months, that’s what Knox says.”
“And what happened to Poe? And the General?” Screw sounded like he didn’t really want to know.
“They’re done,” Under-the-Mud said. “Knox has them attending church five, six times a week, praying as fast as they can to make everything right. Too old to dig worth a fig anyway.”
Crying John stroked the sleeping Foulie. “We’re all too old.”
At this, they began tugging at their sleeves and checking their watches. In almost perfect synchronicity they lifted their beers and drank, as if honoring their fallen comrades. Even Harnett chewed the ice from the bottom of his glass.
“And Baby? What about Baby?” asked Screw. “We can’t sit here and pretend he doesn’t exist.”
Fisher raised his head from his glass and looked directly at me.
“Wake up and smell the butter, Screw,” Fisher said. “We got a new baby now.”
At my elbow I felt Under-the-Mud bristle.
“Valerie,” Under-the-Mud rasped. Harnett’s tired eyes rolled upward once more. “Doesn’t the memory do anything to you? Doesn’t it give you pause?”
“I didn’t plan any of this,” Harnett said. “Not her, not the kid.”
“Because it does something to me. Goddamn if it doesn’t do something to me. Of course, I never met her. None of us did. But each report from Knox—why, it thawed the midnight dirt.”
To such solitary men, word of a woman in their midst must have been electrifying. It had only been a few weeks ago that Harnett had told me of the prostitution that once ran rampant in graveyards, a practice that made a kind of sense when you considered how cemeteries were both public and private. These Diggers’ primary experience with females might have been with just such women. So stories of my mother’s open mind, ruthless intelligence, resourcefulness, and, yes, beauty—it might have been enough to shake any underworld. I felt a desperate happiness for her. She had lived some life, at least, before I came along.
“She was something, all right,” said Fisher.
“It was like she was all of ours, in a way,” said Brownie.
The Apologist parted his lips as if to speak, then shook his head helplessly.
“And then she was gone,” Under-the-Mud said. “You can try to place blame elsewhere, but you know where it lies. And look at you now. You’re off and doing it again.”
“You just want me to fail,” Harnett said. “I don’t know why, but you want me to fail.”
“No, I want you out.” For a Digger, the slight increase in volume was tantamount to screaming—everyone cringed. “She could’ve taken you away from all this. Given you a real life. Given you your son. I would risk death for such an opportunity, even today, right now. All of us would. Life, Resurrectionist! Life was handed to you on a platter! And what did you do? You pissed all over it. Now here comes your son and a second chance. And what do you do? What do you do?”
I gripped my cranium. The dropping of mugs upon bar tops was like a stampede.
“It’s late,” Screw said.
Under-the-Mud rolled his tongue around his old teeth. “It’s later than you think.”
Screw nodded for a moment, then stood up. He lifted his coat from the back of his chair and in a single motion flung it onto both arms and was gone without a word. Brownie downed the last of his beer and dropped into