I leaned back and sat on my ass, not caring about grass stains for once. I picked at a few weeds, tearing them apart in my hands—tossing them back onto the ground. “For the first time in my life I can truly say that I’m not exactly up for a fiesta right now.”

He paused his shovel and turned to face me, resting his chin on the wide handle. ’Diego’ embroidered on the right breast of his faded coveralls. “Grief is normal, but you can’t let it consume you.” Diego pointed off into the distance, where just over the cracked sidewalk that ran through the middle of the cemetery a middle aged woman with short blonde hair wearing a short white dress crouched down over a grave and set down a bundle of blue carnations. “You see her?” he asked. The woman began to openly weep, her shoulders jostling, her eyes shut tightly, her mouth contorting and twisting as she laid down over the grave. The sounds of her sobs were picked up by the wind, spreading her sadness over the already depressing graveyard. “She’s here every day at the same time— lays on her husbands grave and cries for hours and hours before she leaves, only to come back and do it all over again the next day. Always wears white like it’s her wedding day.”

“So?” I asked. “I mean it would be odd as fuck if she were doing it in the middle of the truck-pulls or at the bingo hall, but isn’t crying kind of an expected thing at this place?” I shielded my eyes from the sudden presence of the sun peaking out from behind the slow passing clouds as it began to make it’s final descent for the day.

“Her husband died seventeen years ago.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah, exactly,” He resumed his shoveling. “Once you let yourself get lost in it there ain’t no returning from grief like that.” He looked back over to the woman and shook his head. “That’s why you need to celebrate and remember that you’re still alive.” He laid his shovel down and reached into a small red cooler, ice spilled over the sides as he pulled out a six pack of beer. “So what’ll it be, son? We celebrating?” He jerked his head toward the woman in white. “Or are you gonna let someone else’s death swallow up what little life you’ve been given on this earth?”

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, feeling a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “You’re like the fucking graveyard Tony Robbins or something.”

He shrugged. “Or something.” Diego raised the six pack in the air. “Choice is all yours man.”

I glanced down at Grace’s grave, to my MOTHER’S grave, and thought about what she would want for me and instantly I knew it wouldn’t be sadness or tears. She always said she wanted me to be happy and in that moment I wanted to do anything and everything that she’d always wanted for me.

I jerked my chin up to Diego and held out my hands. “What the fuck are you waiting for?” His face lit up, a single gold tooth glinted as he underhanded the beer my way. I caught it, but just barely, fumbling with the cold wet cans as they almost slipped free from my grip. “Diego Martinez,” the groundskeeper said, formally introducing himself as he sat down next to me and held out his hand.

“Samuel Clearwater,” I offered, removing my hand from the beer and wiping it on my already grass stained pants before shaking the hand of my new alcohol providing grave digging life coach.

Diego and I celebrated that night. And by celebrated I mean that we got shit faced right there on Grace’s grave. Not only did he have beer in that cooler but he also had a sizable bottle of unmarked tequila that I’m pretty sure he’d made at home in his bathtub because it tasted like pure gasoline. We were halfway through the bottle when the world faded away and I slipped into unconsciousness.

The warm rays of the sun woke me the next day and then proceeded to blind me as I opened my eyes just a sliver, letting in only a small amount of the already much to bright light. “Buh,” I groaned. My own tongue tasted rancid, my mouth so dry it was as if I gargled with sand throughout the night.

I sat up slowly and blinked a few times to better adjust to the assault on my senses. When I was finally able to open my eyes I discovered that was still in the cemetery, still sitting over Grace’s grave, but I was alone. There were no signs of Diego or his evil bottle of moonshine tequila, shovel, cooler, even the canopy he’d wheeled out the day before. The only sign he’d ever been there at all was the lingering hangover and the agony in my brain that felt as if an angry cat was using it as a scratching post.

“See you later, Grace.” I whispered, resting my hand for a beat on her plaque and giving it a few taps before pushing to my feet. I took a few steps but then my head spun, the graveyard swirling around me. I paused and leaned on a nearby headstone to calm the spinning. After a few seconds I felt good enough to continue but when I straightened it was the name on the headstone I’d leaned on for support that caught my eye. “No fucking way,” I said out loud as I ran my hand over the name engraved in the stone.

DIEGO MARTINEZ.

I rolled my eyes at myself. “It’s a common fucking name,” I explained to myself, which was totally true. In Southern Florida I couldn’t swing my cock without hitting at least three Diego Martinez’s. Then I read what was written below his name and I jumped back from it like it had shocked me. Maybe I’d suffered a lot more mental trauma by the hands of Chop then I’d realized because I was a few ‘the sixth sense’ moments away from printing out my own one-way ticket to one of those nice and cozy padded rooms with no windows.

Diego Martinez

Loving father, husband, grandfather.

Laid to rest in the grounds he cared for lovingly for over thirty years.

Now watching over his hard work from his place in heaven.

We celebrate his life.

May 5th 1944 - June 17th 2016

Delayed long term brain damage.

It was the only explanation for both the hallucinations and the pounding headache.

“Preppy...?” I loved hearing her say my name. I spun around to find the other person in the world who at times had me thinking I was going crazy. Because there, standing less than ten feet from me, wearing a strapless yellow sundress that flowed around her knees, was none other than the Doc herself, staring at me with a concern etched into her forehead.

“You by chance didn’t see a grounds keeper around here did you? Grey coveralls? Looks like the guy from the Machete movies?”