“You know, there’s little in life that satisfies like a cold glass of whiskey.”
Leaning against the marble base of the statue, the speaker tipped the frosted glass he held back and let the golden liquid roll past his lips and around his tongue, savouring the sweet bite of the alcohol. He was an average figure of middle height, with medium-length tan hair that fell in waves off his scalp, cut and trimmed smartly for a middle-aged man. A beard traced his jaw and ran up over his lips, short and streaked with light signs of age.
“Some people, they swear by warm whiskey, saying that room temperature is the only way to do it justice. No, no sir, give it to me on the rocks and give it to me out the freezer.”
He wore a navy peacoat with three large, black buttons, and a pair of black gloves on his hands. He was speckled with flakes of white from the falling snow that danced in the wintry air of the setting sun. Underneath his coat, he had on a red uniform with yellow trimming, that consisted of a red shirt buttoned up to his neck, two stripes about the collar and a pair of ironed, perfectly creased black trousers that bulged out showing that he wore long johns underneath. His thick, woolen, black socks were folded and tucked into his polished, brown dress shoes. The left shoestrings were untied.
“It’s all about the juxtaposition of the fire of whiskey and the ice of cold. It shocks the system, you could say, adding another jolt to the experience of putting it back on top of the already infamous effect of good, hard whiskey.”
Next to him, a taller man in a black, frayed frock-coat stood with his arms by his side, his long fingers falling out from his sleeve and tapping slowly against his long coat’s fabric. Atop his head sat a wide-brimmed, black cotton hat of an Amish style shadowing the man’s wrinkled and gaunt face that bore a wide, impossible smile. Snow collected on his hat and melted through the brim, crystal tears of ice-water crying their way down his face and white strands of wispy hair. A shovel was planted in the ground by his feet, jabbing into the air at an angle away from the straight perpendicular scarecrow-man.
“And I don’t need it. Don’t need whiskey, no sir, I am not one of those kinds of men, who drowns everything in alcohol. I have a good life. A wife, a kid, a job . . . I am a content man with no sorrows to sop up with whiskey . . . I just like it.”
The shorter man in the red uniform tilted his head forty-five degrees backward and put the glass to his lips and pulled the whiskey into his throat thirstily. It dribbled onto his chin, making a golden pathway through his sandy beard. The ice in the glass chinked as it fell against itself and swam around in the glass of whiskey which was occasionally invaded by snowflakes. Making a pronounced Ah! sound, he straightened his head and tossed the ice from the empty tumbler into the snow-covered ground. The scarecrow did not move, still grinning.
“I’ve got a wife, yeah, and a job, here, at the funeral home. Here in Nowhere, with you and José. Taking care of the dead, watching over their graves. It’s a life, alright, a life,” the red-clad man spoke while motioning in a circular sweep encompassing the graveyard of which they stood in the middle, underneath the looming, angelic warrior-woman.
“Indeed,” agreed the black-clad scarecrow.
“Let me ask you something, though? Who names a town ‘Nowhere?’” inquired the man with the empty glass in his hand. “That’s not a proper name for a town, I tell you. That’s what you name a place in a book, in a story. ‘Nowhere, Noplace, Noville.’ Somebody had a dry sense of humour, huh?”
“It’s a name,” agreed the smiling scarecrow.
“And her, eh?” the man turned and threw a hand up at the statue. “Rather ominous visage for a plain graveyard, isn’t she? Kind of dramatic and symbolic, don’t you think? Here in a graveyard in the middle of Nowhere stands the guardian angel of the town, protected by her army of the dead, wielding the holy sword of Heaven in the name of righteous victory — Our Lady Death.”
“That is who she is,” agreed the hatted scarecrow.
Kicking a roe of snow up with his shoe, the man made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat and squatted down. With his left hand, he held the whiskey glass, and with his right, he drew some letters in the snow, spelling out ‘Nowhere.’
“This is where we are, Nowhere. Nowhere, nowhere. Where nothing happens and nobody cares. Where people die and we bury ‘em,” the man softly whispered into his coat. “Where an angel guards the virtuous and demons haunt the sinful. Where a spindly man in a coat buries your rotting carcass after a chubby, bearded guy in red makes him all pretty in your coffin.” He looked up at the scarecrow who now towered over him with his plastered smile. “I remember when you taught me how to embalm a body, I’ve had nightmares about you for years. I have nightmares almost every night, it seems, nowadays. You’re a real piece of work.”
“Am I?”
“You and I standing here under this statue in the graveyard in the middle of Nowhere, it’s like an image from a story you tell your kids, about how the evil men spoil the sacred grounds of the dead and the statue comes to life and kills them both,” the slightly inebriated man with whiskey on his breath rambled. “The sun’s setting in the West, the clouds are covering the sky and snow is falling in the middle of July. It’s the Apocalypse or something, I’m sure.”
Getting back up on his feet, the uniformed man put the glass in the pocket of his peacoat and looked squarely at his tall companion, knocking the snow from his clothes with a flap of his arms. “Well, boy-o, you’re quiet tonight.”
“Gotta lot on my mind, you know? That funeral—“
“Hey, let’s not talk about that funeral, okay?” the red man interjected, hastily, wrinkling his brow.
“Maybe it is the Apocalypse, eh? Wouldn’t that be rich.”
“Can’t be, we’re still here. Rapture and all that, you know?”
“Indeed.”