Monumental Salesman
BY: JESSE MANBECK
Farmer Nelson pulled his truck into Harton Memorials shortly after one, still in his overalls after harvesting soybeans that morning. Looking at himself in his rearview mirror, he let out a sigh before stepping into the parking lot. With leaden feet he walked through the leaning stacks of blank slate surrounding the entrance of the cement-block building.
Jim Harton was pushing a contractor’s broom across the concrete floor but put it aside when he heard the door open. Jim wore a black dress shirt, magenta tie, khaki pants, and his usual pair of glasses with the thin metal frames straddling his bald head.
“Afternoon, Jim,” said Farmer Nelson.
“Farmer Nelson, how are you? I’m very sorry to hear about Barbara. I wish we could be meeting under better circumstances.” The two shook hands.
“I thank you, but I suppose we all go when it’s our time. Still, it did take us by surprise. Mom had a lot of life in her.” Farmer Nelson spoke slowly with a voice that was deep and thick and gave everyone who heard it the impression of an honest man.
“How’s the family holding up?” Jim asked.
“It’s hard on the kids. Susan and I try to be there for them best we can, but they loved their grandmother. A damned hard thing to deal with at their age.” Farmer Nelson would not mention his own lack of sleep.
“Well, I know they’ll get through it. With you and Susan, they got a lot to depend on. And I know that Barbara would tell you the exact same thing.”
“I suppose she would.” Farmer Nelson looked above Jim and nodded. “It’s strange some of the memories that keep coming back. Like this one time, I remember Mom sitting in the kitchen, staring out the window onto the road, transfixed by something. She was there maybe five, ten minutes before she called me over, ‘Nelson, come here and look at this. What kind of dog is that?’ and I came over and looked out the window just to see a rabbit sitting there in the middle of the road. The kids and I teased her about that for weeks.”
Jim gave a smile. “She was a lovely woman.”
The two grew silent as Farmer Nelson’s mind began to drift.
***
The breeze had made the morning that much colder as Farmer Nelson drove the grain combine out from under the large tin pavilion. He had made it only ten feet before his phone rang.
“Nelson, I don’t know what to do, I need you to get to the house as soon as you can, please. Something’s wrong with your mother, she’s not moving. I came to check on her because she didn’t come down for coffee, and then I came into her room, and I thought she was still sleeping so I tried to wake her but she’s not responding, and I’m getting really wor—”
“Hunny, Hunny, slow down, did you call nine-one-one? I’m on my way right now.”
“No, I didn’t know what to do, I’ll call them, just please get here as soon as you can.”
“Is she breathing?”
“I-I don’t think so.”
“Call 911. I’ll be right there.”
Nelson was out of the combine and running for his pick-up as he hung up the phone. Reaching his truck, he turned and waved to Enrique, who had just finished attaching the dump trailer to the tractor, but decided he couldn’t wait for him and took off down the dirt path.
He tore down the road and arrived at the farmhouse, three miles from the soybean field. Leaving his truck running with the door hanging open, he flew through the front of the house and up the stairs. In his mother’s room, Susan was standing in the corner, still holding her phone. He went to his mother and tried to wake her. ‘Mom?’ is all he could think to say as he clasped her shoulders. He called for her repeatedly, until realizing that he had begun to shake her in his excitement. Her head rolled limply with her body. He released her shoulders and grabbed her wrist to check for a pulse. He had never checked anyone’s pulse before. He must be doing it wrong. He switched from her wrist to her neck. Nothing.
“I called the ambulance,” said Susan.
Nelson tried her wrist again then let it drop to the bed. His mother was still tucked into her light blue sheets with the cream trim. She would look almost peaceful, if it wasn’t for the dishevelment the shaking had caused. Nelson laid his head on her chest and wept. That’s where he was when the EMTs arrived.
They quickly pronounced her dead.
***
“Yup,” said Farmer Nelson. He began noticing the tools in Jim’s workshop. A portable sandblaster, two stonecutters, saw-horses, and some large, white metal box with a glass center panel. The box had a big spool and a small computer on the top of it. “I want to get something nice to remember her by. I don’t really know anything about what I’m getting here, so I was hoping you’d give me the run down.”
“No problem. We make headstones from a lot of materials. Granite, marble—those are the most popular—fieldstone, sandstone. We can make bronze or iron plates to place on them too, everything ranging in size and design.” Jim adjusted his glasses. “Just depends on how much you’re willing to spend on it.”
“I suppose I’ll want something nice that’ll be around for my kids and theirs.”
“Yeah, well, all those are pretty much your basics. They look pretty and they last. Been popular forever. There is something else that we’ve been working with lately. It’s new but the way things are going, I see it as being the future of the business.”
“And what’s that?”
“Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.” Jim smiled at his own pronunciation. “It’s synthetic and offers a lot more in terms of being able to personalize the memorial. Using that, we can make headstones that have extremely precise designs, are multi-color—”
Farmer Nelson scowled. “What is it?”
“Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. It’s technically a plastic but we can make it look however you want.”
“And people are buying these?”
Jim nodded. “Oh yeah. Like I said it’s pretty new, but I think they’re going to replace all the old headstones you see. I didn’t even mention we can make them sparkle at night, put speakers in for Bluetooth. I’ve seen some with small screens on the front so that families can come and watch a video of them and their loved one.”
“I don’t know. I guess I don’t see the problem with a regular memorial.”
“Believe me, I get it. Honestly, with all the bells and whistles they put in these things it does weird me out. Technology encroaching on sacred ground. But—and I mean this with no disrespect—the world’s not about you and me anymore. Almost everyone that wants one of these has children. If you ask me, I think these new generations are losing respect for those that came before them. Nobody wants to pay their respects to a stone anymore. But if you can go and see your loved one and listen to their favorite song again, I think it makes the kids care.”
“Well, I suppose the kids are always looking at their phones.”
“And that’s not so strange these days. You have options, just the way the world is going, I don’t see them leaving the dead out of it.”
Farmer Nelson let out a deep breath. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Again, his mind drifted as he fixed them on the large white box.
***
At the foot of the fresh grave, Nelson stands with Susan on his right and the kids to his left. Everyone dressed in black. Another breezy morning reaches the Norfolk cemetery as the family mourns their loss. The only movement comes from the blowing of the trees bordering the cemetery and a large hawk circling above them.
From a distance, you can barely tell the headstone is made of plastic, but it does stand out from the others. Light blue with cream engraving. The sparkles are supposed to be for night, but scintillations of light can be seen from certain angles during the day too. On the face of the headstone is a tablet-sized screen sunk a quarter inch into the plastic. Susan put together a PowerPoint of the family’s time in Florida, Jeffrey’s eleventh birthday, repainting the farmhouse. The images transition while Dancing Queen by ABBA sounds out from the three slits at both the rounded corners.
Nelson lays a bouquet of tulips at the foot of the headstone, then hits the third rubber button that sat below the tablet. It goes blank, and Dancing Queen ceases. Together the family make their way back to Nelson’s truck.
***
“Do you think you’re leaning any which way?” Jim Harton stared expectantly.
Farmer Nelson snapped back to himself. “I suppose I’ll stick with the granite.”