The Dead Got It made

Generally, the dead got it made.

The overwhelming majority of dead people worked all their lives at jobs they hated for checks that insulted them for the opportunity to go out for pizza once every six months.

If they were lucky.

They drove used cars that broke down all the time and cost them a fortune to repair. They ate discount food off paper plates with plastic forks, paid the Mortgage Vampire or a soul-less landlord for the privilege of having a roof over their heads.

A roof they sold their souls to keep up.

And that is in this great land of ours, America.

Billions of people around the rest of the world live on less than two dollars a day, and consider themselves lucky to perch on a toilet seat that does not burn the skin off their ass.

James Gandolfini does not got it made. He had the world by the balls. He had made a success out of himself and was living large. He won't like being beneath the dirt.

I focus on graveyards on my commutes. Always have. I'm fascinated by these people. Fascinated by the fact that they know what I HUNGER to know. Fascinated to know they are done with the bullshit.

Fortunately I live in NH, so the graveyards I pass are ancient. Stones leaning into each other like the teeth of the insolvent who stagger in to buy booze every day in The Asylum.

I pass two old graveyards every day on my way to work.

These old graveyards ooze history, which is cool when considering death. Fresh death carries less weight.

These people sit up when I drive by. They point at me, I hear the laughter. Knowing what they know, having that awareness that the road I am travelling has been travelled 60 trillion times before and will lead me nowhere but to an untimely death ending a futile life, they are amused that I did not learn from their mistakes.

It unnerves me. I ask for their input but they never offer it. They are smug.

I used to get stoned and walk around graveyards, talk to the dead. Ask them questions. Read the brief summation of their life on the headstones and wonder.

It gave me peace.

I should get back to that. I miss it.

They rest. They have a servant who cuts the grass above them. People bring them flowers and conjure fond memories. They are talked to lovingly (if they are lucky). They don't have to go to work. They don't pay a mortgage. They don't get screwed by billion dollar banks.

They dig the summer warmth. They laugh at the winter cold because they are cold and dead.

No TV, but they have me and thousands of people like me, driving by providing amusement. Hurrying to work. Hurrying home, rushing to satisfy obligations in the desperate hope for 13 minutes of peace before crawling into bed to fall into temporary death before staggering up in the morning to do it all again.

The dead know. They got it made.

Except for the precious few, like James Gandolfini. Lennon, Harrison, Garcia, Morrison, Joplin.............................................................    These are the people whose fingers claw up through the dirt trying desperately for one last hold on life.

Graveyards give me a sense of peace. There is frustration too, kind of like a library that is permanently locked. All that knowledge there for the taking but no way to get to it.

These graveyards - one in Antrim - one in Peterborough - are the highlight of my commute. The focus.

I salute them every day - wagging the hand with index finger, thumb and pinky raised.

They return the salute as they laugh.

A frustrating exchange.