Nobody's Property Episode 15: Rose

Three o’clock in the afternoon, and Shirley, of Shawnee Memorials, just across Harrison Avenue from Fairview Cemetery, was not taking any shit off my dad.

We had come here at my urging; Dad had mentioned that he still needed to order a stone to mark the plot where Jenny’s and Edith’s remains were buried together. I could see that if I didn’t push a little, it wasn’t going to happen any time soon. And the grass in the Rose family plot, though a bit dry and thatched in patches, covered their grave so smoothly that no one would ever know they were there.

Actual memories by Tom Fenley.

"Coals" by Kristin Hersh: kristinhersh.cashmusic.org or www.kristinhersh.com

Nobody's Property Episode 14: Stupid

The sound of pistons pumping, a lawn-mower pulse and wheeze, comes up behind her, and she looks over her shoulder to see the VW coming up fast: black and chrome, some of the shine worn off and anyway looking duller in this flat November light. She keeps her thumbs hooked under the leather of her backpack straps, walks backward and keeps her gaze straight and sober toward the driver of the car. It pulls over a few paces ahead and stops at an angle on the gravel margin. Under her boots the gray gravel rasps and she doesn't slow down or speed up but keeps up her trudge toward the car. In one version of the story she opens the passenger door herself; in another, the driver pushes the door open and it swings out in front of her like a gate, so that if she had wanted to keep going she couldn't; but she doesn't want to keep going.

Translation by Johan Sussenberger

Music by Kristin Hersh: kristinhersh.cashmusic.org or www.kristinhersh.com