"What, no drink of water, no bathroom break?" asked J at the front desk. "Just wanted to say hello," I responded, "and to say I miss my friends at the guard shack." She knew about S being "terminated," but nothing about Uncle J. "How is it that I sit here all day at the entrance and you know more than I do?" she asked. "Oh, I pick up gossip when I enter, drop it off at the back of the cemetery, pick up more and return it." She guessed that the boss didn't want the old loyalties any more; he's installing his own people. She was especially fond of S, who'd once called her one of the best looking people he knew. He'd been kind when she'd had surgeries a few years ago.
Up the hill, O and H came zooming around a corner in their John Deere vehicle (lots of them buzz around the grounds like mad golf carts). I pretended to recoil in fear. They stopped, and O fell to the ground in meditation position, right on the asphalt. Lilith came over and he formed a kind of kind arch over her, as he offered her his attention. Fur flew. "You made my day," he says. Upset with the boss. "He tell me what for do when I already know what for do; it's annoying."
The day after Memorial Day: acres of little American flags, paper plates, eggs, fruit cups, crackers, entire lunches, a half-peeled grapefruit. In one trash can, evidence of the new Popeyes in Kaneohe, alongside the usual McDonald's brown bags and napkins. A large Coca Cola cup, with plastic straw and loud flag motif, sat on the grass.
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