Who Killed the Groundskeeper? (Part 1)

Nestled on the southeastern tip of the emerald hills of the Appalachian Mountains, somewhere between Williamsburg, Kentucky and Bristol, Tennessee, a small local church’s Sunday service is in crisis, for the high-pitched whine of a weed-eater is echoing off the stone and oak walls of the sanctuary without pause or pity. Apparently, some ambitious grounds keeper had taken upon themselves the humble task of trimming the weeds and crab-grass that often beset the roses and lilies of the church flower-beds. As his noble yet misguided efforts sounded forth within the sanctuary, the congregation was busy pulling up from the wells of righteous indignation all that the bucket of their souls could handle, all the while vigorously trying to maintaining the ethics of modern civility: silence and indifference. Miss Doublecrass, a 70-year-old widow with blood red lips and white hair puffed out like a dandelion, sat in a front-right pew where she clasped an afghan around her shoulders with one withered hand and fanned herself with the other. Every time the weed-eater’s hungry whine echoed in the sanctuary, she would tighten her grip on the afghan more and fan herself faster, all the while letting her head sink lower and lower into her lilac blouse like a turtle retreating into its shell. Across the sanctuary in a front-left pew sat Maximus Archibald Walker, a used car salesman by trade and a staunch Calvinist by choice. Dressed in a death black suit with hair slicked back so far that it threatened to peel his scalp, he was caught in the awful conundrum of whether or not it was God’s will for him to address the intruding whine of the weed-eater that rose and fell like cascading waves. He shuffled nervously in his seat and shot his cold green eyes back and forth. In the back-middle, Mr. Avery Wainshot was heroically trying to cover the noise either with an occasional hefty cough or a heartfelt “Amen” that necessity required him to blurt out at inappropriate places. Each time he exclaimed a shout of affirmation to a Sunday School attendance report or a missionary’s letter describing genocide, he occasioned many awkward side-glances, and would quickly grab the thick knot of his pink tie and shake it back and forth, causing the collar of his blue shirt to rub his neck to the point of burning. Reverend Backforth approached the pulpit like it was the executioner’s block and was furiously glancing across the pews’ front rows from deacon to deacon, hoping that one of them would capture the intimate communication that only a deacon can register from their pastor. The choir was to sing their special next, and the reverend was well learned in the fact that choirs are notorious for despising all things that distract from their performance. One deacon finally caught the desperate telepathy of the reverend: a Mr. Gary Hardwick, a man whose eyes always sat in widened bewilderment, and whose nostrils, by some inscrutable birth defect, sat just one-quarter of a centimeter too wide in each direction. His well done yet muted attire suggested that it was something that his wife had picked out for him, and thus revealed a man who was used to following orders and had mastered the art of receiving and deciphering hidden messages. In capturing the correct combination of a wink and a nod and a raised eyebrow and a tap of the shoe from the reverend, Gary stood up and bent over in that style of walking and ducking that only the religious have been able to perform without falling over or passing out. Gary walked out of the church without incident and rounded the circular sanctuary to where the sound of the weed-eater relentlessly roared from the front flower-beds. He flared his nostrils and cleared his throat while tightening his tie, all of which mark the ceremonial preparations one undertakes when they are about to be politely rude to a subordinate. Upon rounding around to the front flower-beds, he found occasion to pause when he noticed the dead body of the offending grounds keeper lying on its side and sprawled out lengthwise along the edge of the flower-bed. His skin was tanned by the constant kiss of the sun, while small shards of green grass lay lazily across his upturned cheek and neck. The weed-eater was being held by his right hand, which had clasped the machine’s trigger in the death grip of rigor mortis. The weed-eater, sprawled out across the flower-bed, was wailing loudly for the three roses and two lilies it had unintentionally beheaded, all the while being mocked by a lone stalk of field grass that stood defiantly just outside of its reach. The trembling machine caused the man’s hand to shake; other than that, the corpse was quite still.
Gary had been witness to enough church cantatas and programs in his lifetime to have all sense of joy and sorrow, and the beauty latent in each, sucked right out of his soul through his over-blown nostrils. Needless to say, he stood eyeing the deceased more out of solemn curiosity than silent horror. He approached the body slowly and kicked its leg with the edge of his black wing-tips. When there was no response, he turned to go back inside, lingered for one moment at the edge of the flower-bed, turned around, bent over the whining weed-eater, and with a sharp pull of its handle and the man’s wrist, he freed it from the grip of death. Its motor kicked out one last lone complaint before the machine lay as silent and as still as its owner. Satisfied, Gary turned to go inside and tell the reverend.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009