One Burnin’ Is Enough, Even For A Dead Man

One hot August day, my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird and I were about to go flying in my Piper Cub when Bubba, a crop duster, walked up. Noticing his gloomy demeanor, Jaybird asked, “What’s wrong, Bubba? You ain’t yo’ usual cheerful self." Handing the old black man a can, he groaned, “All that’s left of my lifelong friend Jack Stone.” Like Bubba, Jack had been a pilot all his days, but having neither wife nor progeny, he departed this earth with one wish — that his cremated remains be spread over the old Stone family homestead.

“Your airplane is just right for this sad ceremony because it can be flown with the doors open,” Bubba said. “Will y’all carry out Jack’s last wishes?” Neither of us wanted any part of this ghastly assignment, but Bubba kept whining about how it was only right to heed Jack’s last need, so we relented. After deciding that managing a sack during the creepy ceremony would be easier, Jaybird removed the can’s lid and glimpsed what looked like chalk dust. With shaking hands, he dumped Jack from can to sack. I piloted the Cub from the back seat while Jaybird, holding the sack, sat in front. The little plane labored in the sultry heat to reach 5,000 feet, at which point we leveled off and approached Jack’s final resting place. Once there, Jaybird gripped the sack’s bottom with one hand and its open end with the other, leaned as far out into the slipstream as possible, and opened the sack’s trailing end. Instantly, the cockpit filled with white powder that coated everything, including the two of us. Still struggling with the sack, Jaybird glanced quizzically at me, blinking like a great white-faced barn owl. “Chunk it out!” I yelled. He did, and — whoomph — the sack snagged on the plane’s tail feathers, causing it to become almost uncontrollable. Struggling with rudder and stick, both uncooperative, I felt sweat beads coursing through my macabre makeup, fearful that returning to Terra Firma all in one piece would be dicey at best. To make matters worse, we encountered a solitary, alabaster cloud. It was Jack’s motes! Straight through it we flew, emerging with yet another white powder coating.

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Any landing that can be walked away from is a good one — an old aviation axiom that we were about to test. Eyeball-to-eyeball with the Grim Reaper, we descended toward the runway. When the wheels touched, the Cub bounced wildly like a jackrabbit, swayed, wallowed, and zigzagged, finally lurching to a stop. A good while later, after savoring the secure feeling of feet on firm ground, we removed the sack from the plane’s tail. Looking inside, Jaybird discovered several handfuls of Jack’s ashes. “What should we do with this sack?” he croaked. “Burn it,” I croaked back. Grabbing a shovel, the old black dug a hole, dropped the sack in it, covered it, said a short prayer, and mumbled: “One burnin’ is enough, even for a dead man.”