Allan Gurganus, the Man who Loved Cemeteries

Once, at age 16, I got home 10 minutes past my 11 p.m. curfew; I found myself locked out by one furious Republican father. Where to sleep? Accompanied by a full tender moon I headed for a Pineview mausoleum that’d been broken open years before. I let myself in and, after brushing away dried leaves, after bundling my seersucker jacket as pillow, I slept quite soundly atop a lady’s practiced slab. Bunkmates. Next morning the groundskeeper’s mower woke me. Seeing a youngster in crumpled party clothes emerging yawning from his crypt might’ve mowed a year off that good gardener’s life.

~

Graveyards, being mortal, require defending, too. A few years back, as I sat in this room with a view of its tombs, I noted a brand-new white Volvo wagon pull along the cemetery’s superb hand-laid stone wall. Out climbed a handsome gent wearing golf togs. Maybe 55, he smacked of early retirement. A white terrier accompanied him and set about exploring, hoping for slow squirrels. I assumed the guy had come to do rubbings from possible forebears’ stones. He’d parked illegally and that seemed fine till he opened his station wagon’s back. As I watched, he strolled along the mossy wall, his lively dog frisky at his heels. The guest chose from among the finer stones resting right atop our wall. With no ceremony, without one guilty side glance, he simply started loading ancient slabs into his very new car. I had a clear view of his license number and typed it into my computer before strolling outdoors.

“Beautiful day,” I said. He nodded but showed himself too busy for weather chatter with some local soul. Then I asked the first question all genteel property owners put to invader-vandals, “Can I help you?”

His car already held six slates so richly heavy his Volvo’s chassis slung what looked a full foot lower. “New patio,” he explained. “These are way better quality than anything you find at Home Depot.” He actually said that. Oh, America. Where have you gone? How much of what is sacred do you seek only at discount?

“You want quality?” I pointed. “Those nice white ones with the writing carved in deep? Some of those are six inches thick. And those bad boys have been here since 1757. Know why? Because nobody like you has ever come along and carried them away. Look, I live right here. I see you doing this. Your license number is already online. Unless you put every stone exactly back where you just found it, you’ll be reading about yourself tomorrow on the front page of the Raleigh paper.”

He gave me a head-to-toe look so full of scald and loathing it spurred me to a last grand blast of civic indignation. I had already turned toward my house when, looking back, I added, “Your mother is ashamed of you! Desecrating colonial graveyards!”

I saw I’d finally scared him. He now considered me the psychopath he was. I’d guessed — based on his class and age — that his mom might’ve been a Daughter of the American Revolution, one newly below ground. I made sure his slow rebuilding in no way weakened our wall. We have not seen him or his charming dog since.

I sure do guard my graves, you see. And — far too soon — they’ll return the favor.

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