Community Service

I’ve never been a religious or spiritual man. On the contrary, I’ve always found those who place their faith in imaginary friends to be not only delusional, but pathetic. I can probably thank my father for that mentality, who taught me from a very young age, “the only things worth worshipping are whiskey and women.” Emphasis on, women.

It was a sunny, Saturday morning when my life changed. I was exactly where a judge had ordered me to be; aggressively stabbing at trash strewn along the road, accompanied by five others in orange jumpsuits. I wasn’t sure why they were there, but my reason was quite simple; because of some fucking marigolds.

Who puts flowers on graves anyway? Those people are dead. It’s not like they’re going to notice someone decorating the stone that marks where their corpse is rotting. Hell, if they are watching, they’ll probably get more of a kick out of someone drinking and laughing rather than sobbing and giving them flowers that are just gonna die anyway.

In my simmering anger, I’d stabbed the same piece of garbage almost five times before a voice interrupted me.

“Having a bad day, are we?” I looked over my shoulder, and the eldest of the other five I was with was smiling kindly at me. Mind you, when I say eldest, I should clarify; I literally mean, eldest.

This woman was at least 70 years old. Definitely not a common sight when it came to mandated community service; and, not to brag, but I was pretty familiar with unwillingly servicing the community.

“Oh, not at all! It’s always a splendid day when you have to clean up after other people.” I gave her a scowl to ensure she understood the sardonic nature of my reply, then turned back around to try and get the severely skewered coffee cup off my stick.

“Well, hopefully whatever you did was worth being here!” I scowled again, but didn’t say anything.

“Oh…it wasn’t worth it then?” I scoffed, and snapped back at her.

“Don’t see how it’s any of your business, but I shouldn’t even be here; I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Well, I don’t know about that…people take desecration of graves very seriously.”

My head whipped around to look at her. It was then I noticed we were well ahead of everyone else, who at this point were all giving us strange looks. I didn’t care.

“Now how the fuck d’ya know about that?”

My crude mannerism did not deter her. “Word travels fast in a town this small, dear. Why did you do it?” I rolled my eyes.

“I didn’t realize you were a cop.” She laughed.

“Oh, definitely not, my dear boy. Just a concerned citizen.”

“Well, thanks for your concern, but I don’t need it.”

“Oh, not concern for you, dearie. Concern for my husband. He was quite distraught when he found out what you did.” I laughed; bitterly.

“Oh, boo hoo for him. I’ll be sure to invite him next time I wanna get bombed at the cemetery. I’m sure we’ll have a good old laugh.”

She carried on like I hadn’t even spoken.

“He spent all season growing the perfect batch of marigolds. He wanted to give them to me for my birthday. They always were my favourite flower. Can you imagine, someone being so disrespectful to someone you love that has passed on?”

While the words all made sense, the joint I’d smoked right before changing into my orange jumpsuit was definitely delaying my ability to process the words coming out of her mouth.

I turned to ask her what the fuck she was on about, but to my immense surprise, she was gone. I was alone, and the other four were far enough back that I couldn’t even yell to them to ask where she went.

“Hey…hey, where the fuck you at?!” No answer.

Okay. What the fuck.

At the end of the day, when I was signing out, I asked the lady in charge of our group who the woman was. She had no idea who I was talking about. The sign in sheet for community service that day had only five names on it including mine, and when I asked the others where she had gone, they looked at me the same way they looked at me earlier; like I was a goddamn nutcase. I decided at that point to stop investigating.

All night I tossed and turned. Though I wouldn’t admit it, a part of me was terrified to look over in the corner of my room, and see an old woman looking back at me.

The next day, I found some marigolds at a garden center; two, beautiful bouquets. That afternoon, I went back to the cemetery, and set one bouquet at the headstone I’d just trashed not even a month before. I then went back to another headstone, the original reason I was at the cemetery in the first place. I set the second bouquet down.

“I’m sorry mom. I know I haven’t been doing good since you left…and I just…I dunno. I miss you. Dad misses you. We both need you.” I wiped the tears away, angry at their sudden appearance. God, I needed a drink.

To this day, I can’t explain what happened. I never looked any more into it, nor did I try to find that woman’s husband. Frankly, I still don’t really care to know the details. All I know is what happened that day forever changed me for the better, and I don’t see a need to question how, or why. I finished my community service, got into a community college, and slowly pieced my life together.

I still go back to the cemetery every month. Always sober, always alone; and always, with two bouquets of marigolds.