I rented a zippy Ford Fiesta and headed to Holy Cross Cemetery. It’s the oldest and largest cemetery in Colma, California, a small town — population 1,500 — thirty miles south of San Francisco. This was where Patty Vance was buried. I’d located her obituary at the library months ago, but was always too busy to drive back to the city. I grew up in San Francisco, but never knew Colma as “The City of Souls,” or that it was founded as a necropolis, a fancy term for a city-sized cemetery. Google didn’t exist back then.
In 1924, due to sanitation issues and the effect on real estate prices, graves all over San Francisco were exhumed and moved. Colma was created. It gave me solace that Patty was at rest in a town where the dead outnumbered the living. I envisioned her at rest in an underworld that might easily be of her own imagining. Nothing like what you might traditionally think of: a place of peace or rest. Rather, it would be filled with continued rejoicing, night and day. Raucous ghosts would rollick and waltz in circles, their heads tilted back in laughter. No one would be glum. The Disney version of the afterlife
I drove along Mission Boulevard, the main thoroughfare, eyeing the florist shops. Ava’s, Paul’s, Lester’s. I screeched across the opposite lane and once I caught sight of Flowerland. Its name sounded inviting. I shouldered the car door open and took a long whiff of the cool spring air. Behind Flowerland’s plate glass window a woman in a lavender suit held a handkerchief clamped over her mouth, appearing to stifle a wail. A young woman alongside her patted her on the shoulder, pointing at a tub of pink roses, then at a pail of tiger lilies. The quietly wailing woman stared glassy eyed at the flowers until her campanion prodded her along to another display.
I wandered inside, but like the wailing woman could make no choice. I might have been there a half hour, maybe an hour, I couldn’t say. Finally I grabbed a succulent with tiny pink blooms and set it down by the register. The man behind the counter had tiny, penetrating gray eyes that made him appear to be squinting, to be in need of corrective lenses.
“You must do a vigorous business here.” I assumed an investment in death, however peripheral, was dependable, a sure thing.
“It’s seasonal,” he said, clearing his throat.
“Oh yeah. I guess you don’t get a lot of business when it rains.”
“Almost none.” He counted the change into my hand, holding each coin up to his squinty eyes before dropping it into my palm.
The office at Holy Cross was just beyond the towering iron gates, so I found the first spot and nudged my Fiesta between two pick ups. Inside the office two women were ahead of me, so I made myself comfortable in the waiting area. I picked up a copy of the Catholic San Francisco newspaper, and spread it across my knee. A photograph of greeting cards sent to inmates at San Quentin by school children was splashed across the front page to commemorate “The Year of Mercy.” “Prison Pen Pals Offer Youth a Lesson in Mercy and Restorative Justice” read the headline.
Hearts cut from construction paper and scribbled the words “God” and “faith” in crayon filled the frame. “Don’t Lose Hope,” was the message on one, “Never Give Up,” on another. They were all signed to maintain anonymity as eighth-grade girl, or seventh- grade boy. The article described restorative justice as distinct from criminal justice. The idea behind the former was to hold the offender accountable, but also join the victim and community in the process. If offenders took responsibility for their actions, understood the harm they had caused, this would discourage them from causing further harm. The article concluded with “someone will always love you,” taken from one of the greeting cards.
I folded the newspaper into quarters and shoved it to the bottom of my purse. My head was swimming with references to mercy and calls to action. I thought of those pen pal kids, of my own years in Catholic school. My early training in unconditional forgiveness never stuck. Restorative justice — what a crock. The last thing I planned on doing was giving a pass to the person who killed my friend. My notion of forgiveness was by its very definition conditional. Besides, how would the “victim” participate? She was long gone.
The receptionist, a wisp of a woman with an inviting smile, asked how she could help me.
“I’m here to visit an old friend. Her name is Patricia Vance.”
The receptionist didn’t so much as flinch at my declaration; perhaps visitors regularly spoke to her in this manner, as if picking up the deceased for a lunch date, a patina of hope in their tone, as if their loved ones might any minute might round the corner, jacket in hand, ready for a mid day bite to eat and a friendly chat before heading back to the office for the afternoon.
She tapped a few keys on her computer, licked her fingertip to get traction on a piece of paper, then placed a map on the desk between us. She jotted down “Row 28, Grave 35” at the bottom of the page. She then swiped a yellow highlighter across the map to designate the route. It formed the shape of a giant question mark on the page. How fitting.
“Do you need help finding it?”
I nodded. I sat outside on the stairs waiting for a staff member, wishing I still smoked. Efron, my guide, greeted me, hand extended. His English was spotty English, but I understood I was to get into his truck. A thick scar ran from one corner of his mouth to his chin, and I tried to imagine the knife that might leave such a wide gash. We gestured and made exaggerated movements while we walked. Between my broken Spanish and his English we were able to make small talk. When finally we reached the grave, I dropped to one knee. I felt deflated. Efron slumped his shoulders in a show of solidarity. I recalled the seven percent rule. Ninety three percent of communication is nonverbal, seven percent verbal.
“There’s nothing here,” I said.
Efron dropped to one knee and spread aside a tuft of grass exposing a marker imprinted with numbers.
“Is this common? What does this mean?” I looked around to see if there were other spots that were unmarked.
“Yes, yes,” he said pointing to a empty plot two rows down.
My eyes followed the line of tombstones wedged in the grass to the other empty plot.
“I’m sorry,” Efron said.
“It’s okay.”
My hand was moist with sweat, so I swiped my palm across my jeans before shaking his hand. He smiled, bowed his head, then left. I plopped down on the grass. I was depleted, exhausted though it was only noon. My eyes welled up, and I mopped them with my shirt sleeve. Suddenly I was overcome by a familiar feeling, what I can only describe as a boot-at-my-neck. On occasion it snapped me erect in the middle of the night, gasping for air.
Towering, wind-bent Cyprus trees punctuated the anemic, patchy lawn. Workers in the distance pushed loud, churning lawnmowers. The machines kicked up whirling clouds of cut grass and caught in the back of my throat? The taste of green. Two mallards teetered towards me, eyeing the pot of pink flowers I’d set down. They circled around before wandering off, tail feathers sweeping the air like Japanese fans. After a few minutes, I calmed down.
I strolled over to the nearby chapel and flung open the one set of doors that were unlocked. I wasn’t looking for consolation, for catharsis, for anything spiritual in nature. I was seeking the pews. My legs had started to wobble halfway between the gravesite and the chapel. Mounted at the front of the room, taking up one entire wall, was a painting of Jesus on the cross, three disciples at his feet. The figure glowed in the reflected sunlight slanting through the windows. It was as if an architect had placed the windows just so, knowing that at a certain time of year, during certain hours of the day the light would play tricks on the eyes, and He would be seen to be radiating light. I dipped my finger into the stoup filled with holy water and crossed myself. I was tempted to submerge my entire face into it, maybe gulp down a mouthful or two. Or I could scoop up a handful and splash it into Jesus’ face. Even imagining this sort of brashness was out of character for me. I would never act on such a reckless impulse. But I bet it would bring me no small pleasure, hypothetically speaking, to answer the lunacy of the situation with my own personal act of derangement.
My eyes felt puffy, and still a bit drippy. My cheeks were stiff and sore to the touch. I’d been grimacing at the massive cross, my dark now fizzled out like a wick. I shifted in my seat to relieve the dull throbbing ache in my lower back. Pews were clearly made with suffering in mind. There was no getting comfortable on them, and no amount of shifting helped. My stomach gurgled. I hadn’t eaten, but food held no interest to me. Loss of appetite. The first sign of a depression. Days, weeks could go by, me surviving on nothing but coffee. Slowly, I’d eat a few bites, get up the strength to get out of bed. Add to depression shame. From eighteen on it was a duty of sorts to be grateful to be alive. Because I got to live and Patty did not. There wasn’t a spiritual bone in my body, but the thought crossed my mind that I might have benefitted from a little divine back patting inside that chapel. It might have been the afternoon lag because I drifted off for a minute. But it wasn’t a normal sleep. It was closer to the sensation of being outside your body, hovering in the rafters, as if experiencing one of those true death experiences you hear about on television.
I pushed open the chapel doors, and a swift wind whipped them shut again. I followed a concrete path that wound alongside a field of tombstones inlaid in neat columns, or stacked upright like dominos. Mausoleums, niches, family columbaria, urn vaults, and indoor and outdoor crypts edged the walkway, forming a jagged skyline of concrete and marble. I stepped into its shade and shivered. In one spot on a gentle hillside sat the military section, and plots exclusively for nuns and priests. To my right was a section of enclosed private gardens, housing one tomb each. These were the crème de la crème, the big money plots.
On my way out I dropped into the office to inquire about donating a tombstone. Purchase had a crass ring to it. Donate was lofty, more magnanimous sounding. I’d already gone online and designed a tombstone: a white marble slab etched with Patty’s yearbook photograph, doves in mid flight scattered around the words “Gone Too Soon.” I was certain she’d agree with my choice, that had she a say, she too would opt for a tasteful, secular design. Patty never forgot that Saint Mary Magdalens School for Girls tossed her out on her heel in sixth grade. There wasn’t a rule that she hadn’t broken. Hemlines, smoking, bad language, you name it. The only words she ever had for nuns I wouldn’t repeat in mixed company. The woman behind the desk had a telephone receiver at her ear, and seemed to be on hold. I tapped my leg, impatient to be helped.
“Can I donate a tombstone?” I half whispered.
“Only the people who own the plot can purchase a tombstone,” she said.
“Her parents have passed. But her brother?” I said.
“Yes, her brother if he’s the only survivor.” She half smiled.
“What about a tree? Could I purchase a tree for the grounds?”
She set the receiver on the desk and stood to hand me a business card.
“Call for an appointment.”
I jumped back into my rented Fiesta, drove out through the gates, and headed north toward Daly City. Tom Petty crooned on the radio. Music usually cheered me up. Not today. I tried singing along. “Last chance for Mary Jane.” It wasn’t working. I was fixated on that tiny marker allotted to Patty, a postage stamp practically, a piece of real estate tinier still than the paragraph given her in The Chronicle. She deserved more.
I drove up Mission Road past blocks of cemeteries, one after the other: The Jewish and Mormon ones bookending yet another Catholic one. Signs for Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Russian, even Serbian burial grounds flitted past in my periphery. There really was nothing more to Colma besides graveyards. A couple gas stations and tourist motels thrown in for good measure.
Once I crossed into Daly City, I spotted a nail salon and flipped a U-ey at the next intersection. There was nothing like dunking your feet in hot water to buoy your mood. Once inside, a slim woman in a surgical mask lowered me into the massage chair. She scrubbed my calves with a grainy gel until it chafed my skin.
“What are you doing in town?” she said.
“I went to Holy Cross Cemetery. My friend is buried there.”
“Oh, I visit my father in the cemetery once a month.”
“It must be nice that he’s so close. Which cemetery is it? They have those cemeteries for, you know, if you’re Catholic or Jewish.”
“Catholic. Yeah, we bring flowers. My husband and me. Lots of flowers.”
She questioned me further in her soft-spoken, tentative English, asked me what happened to my friend. I’d wished I lied earlier. I could have easily been here for the clothes shopping across the freeway at Serramonte mall. I’m typically eager to tell a story, but I’d become weary of telling this one.
“It’s depressing,” I said, “we don’t want to talk about sad stuff.”
I never asked how her father died. I wondered what it took to visit a grave, to be a regular. It wouldn’t be an occasion for sadness for everyone. Maybe not even for this shy masked woman with a husband. Visiting Patty at a grave had never crossed my mind. And neither had visiting a chapel. I pretended to admire the lime green polish job she gave me, smiling, nodding.
My spirits lifted from the pampering until the slog through rush-hour traffic headed north over the Golden Gate Bridge began. The water of the bay sparkled and the sailboats skittered on the surface, from my view, little dots sliding across glass. The flow of cars halted.
I rolled down the window, swallowing a mouthful of moist air. In the slow down, I’d absentmindedly started tidying the passenger seat. The Catholic San Francisco had spilled partway from my handbag. I jammed it down into the dash above the steering wheel. One of the greeting cards in the photograph was addressed “Dear Inmate.” What if my friend’s killer had ended up in San Quentin? Coincidentally, I was approaching that very prison as I was glancing at the front page.
Before I got a good look I’d passed it, the place I’d heard called “The Big House.” Drivers were white-knuckling it, jetting by at top speed, making up for time lost in the gridlock. The acres of gray, boxy buildings, the klieg lights, traffic signs, and loopy roads, made it appear a city unto itself, albeit a gated city. I rubbernecked to get a last look, but it was no more than a blur, a smear against a bucolic rolling hillside off in the distance. I pictured a shadowy figure pressed into the corner of a prison cell, crouched on a bunk, a greeting card in the shape of a heart quavering between his pinched fingers. Suddenly the boot was at my neck again. I pulled into the emergency lane, rolled down my windows, and gasped for air.
