“What do you want for Christmas, Honey?” Michael Bisar asked his daughter as he covered the phone from the background noise. There were two phones in the jail cell, and the line of inmates waiting to use one was obnoxious. Each inmate got five minutes to use the phone, and it had been months since he had spoken to his young daughter. It was a stunning and humiliating turn of events that unfolded, but all that mattered was hearing the one voice that mattered most to him in this world.
“I don’t know. Marty is taking us to California. We are going to see Disneyland and then go on a cruise somewhere to Mexico.” Elise replied. She loved her father but was ashamed of him being in jail. Her mother, Barb, immediately divorced him after the accident and allowed her daughter only one visit in three years.
“California is beautiful, and Disneyland sounds great. You will love the cruise ship. They are full of fun things for you to do.” It was all Michael to do to say the words. He wanted desperately to be in his 10-year-old daughter’s life and would have given anything to change his circumstances, but his role was now being filled by his former partner at the firm.
“Mom says you will be getting out soon.” Elise struggled for something to say.
“Yeah, I will be getting out next week. I will be in a halfway house in Cedar Rapids, and I will be able to visit you if you want.” There was a pause. It was an uncomfortable moment of silence.
“Mom says we have to go now. Maybe we can talk when we get back after Christmas.” Elise was being prompted.
“Of course, honey. You be good for your mother. I will drop something off at the house for you so you have it when you return. I love you, Elise.” Michael replied.
“Bye, Dad.” The phone line went dead.
Michael hung his head in shame as he set the phone down. He made his way past the line of thugs, gangsters, petty thieves, and degenerates back to his cell. It had been a long three years in Anamosa State Penitentiary. Michael was the only member of the Bisar family to ever go to jail, let alone prison. It was coming up on almost five years to the month of the accident. Life would never be the same. Had he not been a well-respected attorney in Linn County, he would have received a much stiffer sentence.
Fortunately, for Michael, the person he killed was a homeless degenerate with a lengthy criminal record and no stranger to Judge Person, who also sentenced Michael. Truth be told, Michael did the city of Cedar Rapids a favor by killing Bennie Grimms. Grimms was homeless and a late-stage alcoholic who held the Linn County record at 47 arrests. Half of Grimms’ arrests were for public intoxication when citizens would call in and report Grimms passed out somewhere in the city. The other half of the violations were usually public urination, harassment, trespassing, or petty theft. Grimms had a habit of getting drunk and stealing bicycles. He had been banned years ago from riding the city bus after several encounters with other passengers and drivers. Grimms has been in and out of treatment centers, halfway houses, and homeless shelters for years. Between the hospital visits, stints in jail, and the man-hours spent apprehending, transporting, detaining, and treating Grimms, he was a one-man financial nightmare for the city.
That fateful night started at the company Christmas party at the Cedar Rapids Country Club for the most successful law firm in Cedar Rapids: Bisar, Conley, Hollis, and Green. The firm had a record year, and Michael was the toast of the evening, learning he had been promoted to a full partner only seven years into his legal career. He got the plush corner office at the firm, he and Barb got a new home on the southeast side of town, and he leased a new Porsche in Chicago. He was on top of the world and felt proud he was following in his father’s footsteps. Michael’s specialty was contract law. The firm billed out thousands of hours reviewing many of the railroad, construction, and government contracts the city was engaged in.
The early snow was a serene backdrop to the elegant country club. There was Russian caviar, Kobe beef steaks, first-growth French wine, and 50-year-old scotch to help celebrate in the seasonally themed banquet hall of the Cedar Rapids Country Club. Michael didn’t feel that drunk when he left the party, and the urge to get behind the wheel of his new Porsche was too much to resist. One more ride before he stored it in the garage for the winter, he thought to himself. Michael jumped behind the wheel with Barb in the passenger seat. They drove down First Ave. when Michael realized he had left his briefcase in the office. He turned the car around and headed downtown to the firm. Michael came to a complete stop, put on his blinker, and waited for the light to turn green. When he turned at Third St. his phone slid in between the seat and the console. As he looked down into the crack beside the seat, out of the alley came Grimms at full speed on a stolen 10-speed bike, and Michael hit him head-on.
Michael was only doing about 20 miles per hour, but Grimm’s fell off the bike, hit his head, and died of an aneurysm in the street in front of Michael’s car. Grimm’s autopsy revealed a blood alcohol level of .29%, over three times the legal limit. The police were called, and the scent of the scotch was still on his breath. Michael knew he could refuse the test but felt there was no way he would be over the legal limit for drunk driving. He was wrong. Michael’s blood alcohol level was .09%, .01 percent above the legal limit. Michael was arrested and released the following morning after posting $50,000.00 for bail.
The court case was delayed and rescheduled four times. Barb was crushed by the entire episode. Her husband’s name was all over the paper and in the news. She had never worked since she left college and spent her days at the country club, the gym, and posturing with other affluent wives on a variety of non-profit organizations in the community. When she realized that Michael was going to be disbarred and have to do some time, she filed for divorce, took custody of Elise, and put the home up for sale. By the time the case eventually went to trial and the divorce settlement was arranged, Michael had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. His retirement account was drained, his license to practice law was revoked, and a new family had moved into his home.
During his three years in Anamosa State Penitentiary, Michael worked in the kitchen, made license plates, and eventually ended up in the commissary. The rest of his time he spent in his cell reading everything he could get his hands on. The one fortunate twist for Michael was that once the other prisoners learned he was a former attorney, he began writing appeals for candy bars, stamps, and cups of fruit. More importantly, he was left alone by the other prisoners as all of them realized the one person in the entire prison who might be able to spring them one day was Michael. Michael often laughed to himself, knowing most of the judges would roll their eyes knowing it was him and his legalese on the documents of the mostly incompetent criminals filing appeals from Anamosa. There was no way many of these criminals could afford counsel like Michael, and, in fact, most couldn’t even pronounce many of the words they signed their names to.
Michael was released from Anamosa on the 7th of December to a halfway house on the southeast side of town. He would be required to stay in the halfway house for six additional months. It was a far cry from the 4,000 sq. ft. home he and Barb purchased before the accident, but it was better than Anamosa. The only time he was allowed outside of the halfway house was for employment or a weekend pass. Michael was allowed a weekend pass every other week for the first three months of his stay. Michael had to be able to prove he could hold down a full-time job and pay his own way in society as part of his eventual release from the halfway house and probation. Many of the former ex-cons in the halfway house were working two and three jobs far in excess of forty hours a week. The task was harder than it seemed because Michael wanted no one to recognize him, and the Bisar family name was well known in town. He filled out an application with a representative from the unemployment office who visited the halfway house every Thursday. He was given a job washing dishes at St. Luke’s Hospital thirty hours a week. The wages were barely enough to pay for the halfway house, his bus pass, and his meals. He needed an extra job and quickly to buy Elise a nice gift for Christmas.
Michael sat back on the bus staring out the window after his first shift at St. Luke’s. The job was mindless; spraying off trays, taking out the garbage, sweeping, and mopping up the floor. The bus rolled past Oak Hill Cemetery as it made its way through the poorest section of southeast Cedar Rapids; past the halfway house, the homeless shelter, and St. Wenceslaus Church, as it made its return trip from downtown. Michael noticed a spray-painted sign on an old piece of plywood leaning against the large stone wall of the cemetery that simply read “ help wanted.” Driven by curiosity and desperation, Michael pulled the cord signaling the bus driver to stop the bus at the next stop past Oak Hill Cemetery.
Michael figured he could say he missed his bus on the first day, and as long as he returned within the time it took for the next bus on the route, he would be fine. It was five o’clock, and the sky was getting dark. The sun would be setting soon. The cold wind picked up, and the early snow was past Michael’s ankles. The sidewalk was not shoveled, and Michael moved along quickly before his feet froze in his shoes. He had passed Oak Hill Cemetery almost daily as a lawyer driving along Mt. Vernon Road on his way to the office and then again back home. Oak Hill had once been the preeminent cemetery in Cedar Rapids, sitting up on the hill on the east side of the Cedar River overlooking the factories along the Cedar River. Cedar Rapids had long been known as a manufacturing town. The factories provided jobs to most of the citizens and tremendous wealth to a handful of elitists a few generations previously who took advantage of the railroads linking Iowa’s agricultural output to the rest of the nation.
The entrance gate was open, and Michael noticed a single set of tire tracks in the snow that stopped less than a football field’s length into the drive. The old cemetery had fallen from grace as the surrounding neighborhood fell further and further into poverty and crime. There were no seasonal Christmas lights or even a plowed road. From the looks of the fallen tree branches and headstones leaning in every direction, the cold, dead place received few visitors either. Michael followed the car tracks briefly down the road but saw no vehicle. Michael turned his head towards the southeast and noticed a man in a long gray coat walking alone along the snow-covered gravel road that led towards the back of the cemetery. Michael looked around himself in all directions and there was no one else in the entire cemetery except the one guy walking away from him. Michael picked up his pace and closed in on the gentleman. “Excuse me.” Michael yelled out from behind. The man stopped and turned around. He was a young white male in his early thirties, Michael estimated, and about the same size. For a moment, Michael thought he recognized the guy but could not place him as he got closer. “I saw the help wanted sign out front and was wondering who I speak to about the job.”
“That would be me.” The man replied.
“What is the job, if I might ask?”
“Indeed, you may. The job is mine. We need another groundskeeper and watchman.” The man looked Michael up and down from head to toe.
“What do you do?” Michael asked.
“I mostly walk around looking at headstones and keep an eye out for vandals.” The man said as he looked past Michael, noticing he did not drive into the cemetery.
“What are the hours and the pay?”
“You have to speak to The Man up in the house about that.” The man withdrew his hand from his coat and pointed in the other direction.
“You mean that old beat-up house over there?” Michael replied as he stared at the old boarded-up house on the north end of the cemetery.
“Yes, that exact one. I am sure they will hire you. If you know a little bit about the cemetery, it is almost guaranteed to land you the job. I am making my rounds now if you would like to follow. It won’t take long.” The guy turned away and began walking further into the cemetery.
Michael followed and then walked shoulder to shoulder with the guy. “I do have a little time to kill. I jumped off the bus, and the next one won’t be around for the next half hour.”
“Perfect. What is your name?” The man asked without offering his own.
“Michael Bisar.”
The man stopped for a moment. “Are you related to the other Bisars in town?”
Michael wasn’t sure who the guy was, but the fact that he knew the family name made him uncomfortable. “Same name, but I have no fortune nor fame.” Michael answered.
“Is that so?” The man looked right at Michael and then turned back and began walking again.
“So how long have you worked here?” Michael decided to change the subject about his true identity.
“Me? Oh, several years, I guess.” The man replied without giving a specific answer.
“You obviously like it, or you still wouldn’t be here, right?” Michael continued.
The man smiled without looking at Michael. “It is peaceful, and the dead keep their secrets pretty well.”
Michael began thinking the guy had spent maybe one too many cold nights in the cemetery and was probably a good candidate for his dishwashing job at the hospital. “I am sure they do.”
The man asked Michael nothing more about himself. “This place is full of amazing stories. Have you ever been in here before?” He asked.
“No. I have driven by hundreds of times but never came in.” Michael answered honestly.
“Do you know much about the history of Cedar Rapids?” The man asked Michael without looking at him.
“Probably not as much as I should.” replied Michael.
“You know the old saying, right?” The man withdrew his hands from his long coat and pulled his collar up around his neck as the wind began to pick up.
“What saying is that?” Michael asked.
“Those failing to learn from the mistakes in history are bound to repeat them.” The man started laughing to himself.
Michael failed to see how the saying had any comedy in it at all. “I guess I have heard that before somewhere. Maybe in college, I guess.”
“Oak Hill is where all the industry titans were once buried. The mausoleums are filled with some of the pioneering entrepreneurs who built this very city. Here to the north, we have Howard Hall’s mausoleum. You know much about Howard?” The man turned his shoulders and nodded in the direction of the Hall mausoleum.
“He was the last guy to live in the Brucemore Mansion, right?” Michael remembered the name from a tour he had taken many years ago as a student.
“Yes, he was. Howard was one of our greatest. He invented the portable rock crusher. It might not sound much by today’s standards, but when the war broke out and Hitler started building the autobahn across Europe to move tanks and troops, we realized we needed the same here in America. It was our man from Cedar Rapids, Howard, who came to our rescue. He made a fortune and had all the luminaries of his time partying up at the old mansion. Oh, Howard knew how to throw a party too. Howard married Margaret Douglas, the eldest daughter of George. He even had a lion on the grounds of Brucemore. The lions you see around town are dedicated to Leo’s memory. Leo and Howard’s German shepherds were his children, some say, as Margaret and Howard had no children of their own. Some say the Leo roams these grounds at night to keep watch over Howard and the others.” The man rolled his eyes, laughed under his breath, and then continued walking.
Michael was surprised. The guy actually was smarter than he first thought. “Pretty cold night for a lion.”
“One would think so.” The man smiled a strange grin but continued, “This limestone behemoth here on the right is the Douglas family mausoleum. Are you familiar with the Douglas family?”
“I can’t say that I am.” Michael said as he looked at the huge tan-colored mausoleum with the Douglas name emblazoned across the front.
“Really?” The man looked at Michael like he was stupid. “George Douglas was the guy who founded Quaker Oats here in Cedar Rapids. His boys Walter and George Jr. started Douglas Starch Works, which later became Penford Products on the other side of the river.” The guy paused for a minute to notice Michael still gazing at the mausoleum.
“How much do you think that thing costs?” asked Michael.
The guy simply ignored Michael’s question and continued. “Walter was an aristocrat in his fifties and decided to sell off his share of the factory after he married a much younger Mahalla. He built her a mansion on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, and decided to travel to Europe in 1912 to buy luxury furnishings to fill the mansion. Unfortunately, the couple elected to take the Titanic back to America at the conclusion of their journey. They were first-class passengers, but only Mahalla and their maid made it. Walter was fished out of the Atlantic in a tuxedo with a wallet full of money.”
Michael was taken aback. “Wow. We had a first-class passenger on the Titanic from Cedar Rapids?”
“Of course we did. So many people have forgotten the history of this once great town; it is shameful.”
“I suppose you are right.”
“The story has an even worse ending.”
“There is an ending beyond his death?”
“Indeed. The worst disaster in the city’s history occurred seven years later in 1919 when the remaining factory exploded and burned to the ground, killing 43 and wounding many more. Several of the workers are buried over on the other side of the hill.”
“I never knew that either.” Michael replied. The guy was definitely strange but obviously had done his homework on his subjects even though they were all dead.
“Up here we have the Collins family mausoleum. I am sure you have heard of Collins Radio, yes?” The guy looked at Michael, hoping he recognized the name.
“Of course. They are the biggest employer in town. Art Collins is buried in here too, huh?”
The guy continued, “Arthur was a genius. His radios and communication gear are still manufactured right here in Cedar Rapids and used around the globe. It is now Rockwell Collins, and all of the original people involved with the company are long dead, but it was all created by Arthur.”
“Yeah, I know a guy who lives in his old house. I golfed with him a couple of times a few years back.”
The guy rolled his eyes but said nothing. It began to snow as they walked along.
The guy turned his glance towards a large granite mausoleum. “Here is one of my personal favorite mausoleums of former Cedar Rapids titans of the past, T.M. Sinclair. Thomas was born into wealth and almost single-handedly put Iowa’s meats on almost every aristocrat’s dinner table in America before the turn of the century. Sinclair Meats was the fourth largest meat processing plant in the world. Unfortunately, he was a young man in his thirties when he fell down an elevator shaft in the plant, killing him.”
“What a way to die.” Michael said as he pictured falling down an elevator shaft himself.
Again, the guy continued on as if he were leading a tour of visitors. “The wages were good. Almost all of Cedar Rapids citizens worked at the plant for decades, even after it was renamed Wilsons and then Farmstead. They say Cedar Rapids is the city of five smells. I can tell you all five of the factories that make up the stink in the air today hovering over the city are nothing compared to the stench that emanated from the meatpacking plant. It made no difference to the mostly illiterate Czech workers who had immigrated to Cedar Rapids. They called it the smell of money. It is sad the plant is gone. The factory had long been abandoned when the flood and subsequent fires burned it to the ground. It is a poorly kept secret that the fire department burned the factory down in the middle of the night, twice, when the Federal government refused to pay for it after the flood.”
“Yeah, I actually sat in on a couple of those meetings back in the day.” Michael remembered the city council members trying to get the firm to artificially inflate the value of the old abandoned buildings in negotiations.
“Is that so?” The guy turned and looked right at Michael.
Michael realized he led on a little more than he wanted to. “Well, sort of.”
The man smiled. “Sad to think no one in the entire town speaks Czech anymore.”
Michael knew there was something up with the guy. Who in their right mind would pay some guy to walk around a cemetery in the middle of the night? The guy didn’t have a flashlight, radio, or a gun. He was just roaming around like he was in a museum. “You sure know a lot about some of these people.”
“I have been around a long time.” The guy replied. “If you get the job, you will have plenty of time to do your own studies. We need to keep it moving along towards the other side down here towards the bottom. There have been some vandals that have snuck in, and the fence has been breached. It probably needs repairing.”
“No mausoleums down here?” Michael looked at the small headstones in the distance.
“Correct. Good observation. This is where the working-class citizens were buried. Not only did the wealthy live large, they died large too. Entire families are entombed in elaborate mausoleums while the forgotten are represented by almost anonymous limestone headstones. Most of our dead led simple lives and have been forgotten by time. The only ones buried here now are the unclaimed bodies of the homeless and the degenerates left in the morgue.” The man said as he pointed in the direction of the group of headstones in varying degrees of erectness.
“That is kind of sad when you think about it.” Michael replied.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. One day, you will be dead too, and time has a way of erasing your entire life. Unless you aspire and achieve greatness, you too will be forgotten. Except for a handful of history buffs, the great are forgotten too by most.” The guy made a good point. After three generations, faces in pictures become unrecognizable and are relegated to stories and documentation.
Michael’s feet began to get cold, and he saw they were moving further away from the house towards the fenced-in south side of the cemetery. He thought about losing his privileges at the halfway house if he missed the last bus. “You say I need to go up to the house and speak to someone about the job, right?”
The guy ignored him again and kept walking. “Yes, over here are the losers, the criminals, the prostitutes and the lunatics. Take a good look.” He spoke out loud to himself and pointed with his right hand to several rows of small oval shaped limestone headstones partially covered by the snow. Most of the names and lettering were so worn by time there were unreadable as darkness was falling around them. As Michael was about to bid farewell to the guy and head up towards the house he happened to notice a single headstone where the man had stopped walking. The name was unbelievable; Grimms.
Michael’s heart sank. Time stopped for a moment. He walked directly over to the headstone and looked down at the plot. Bennie Grimms was all that it said. There was no birth or death date. There was nothing on the headstone except his name. A strange feeling overcame Michael. First, it was pity for the man that he killed. Grimms may have been the scourge of the city but it was Michael’s Porsche that killed him. His thoughts soon turned to a silent rage. This drunken and dead bastard changed the entire course of his life. Had it not been for this buffoon he would probably be back in the country club celebrating yet another successful year with beautiful Barb and his colleagues instead of following a strange groundskeeper around a frozen and very dead cemetery.
“You knew Grimms?” The man asked as he turned to face him.
“Yeah, you could say we had a run-in a few years ago.” Michael didn’t want to tell the guy the rest of the story. He just needed an extra job for the time being.
“Ol’ Bennie was a pretty popular guy in town.” The guy acknowledged.
“That is one way of saying it.” Michael shook his head.
“Bennie was not always homeless and alcoholic. If you want to know the truth, he was a gifted lawyer from Chicago a long time ago. He signed many of the contracts for Iowa businesses shipping their goods out of the port of Chicago. It wasn’t a glorious job, but it paid well, and Grimms was quite talented.” The man again began to allude to a bigger story.
“Bennie Grimms? That drunken idiot was a lawyer?” Michael was astounded. There was no way.
“Oh, it is very true. Bennie was a damn good lawyer in his day.”
Michael could feel the guy was telling the truth. He was amazed. Bennie? “What happened to the guy?”
“Grimms signed off on a hull inspection and manifest of a ship that were complete fogeries. Grimms never saw much of the work he signed off on, but the manifest bearing his signature belonged to a ship that should have never left port. Had he done his job correctly, he would have known the ship’s inspection reports were forged, and the manifest was fraudulent. The ship should have been retired years before and was also carrying more freight than it should have. The ship departed out of Chicago bound for Europe but ended up caught in a storm. The ship began taking on water. The pumps failed, and she sank in a few hundred feet in the middle of Lake Michigan, killing the entire crew and the loss of a few million dollars of cargo. Grimms felt guilty for the entire episode. He walked away from everything and took the bottle. He jumped a train to Iowa to escape. He was first arrested in the old Cedar Rapids bus station for an alcohol-related offense years ago and never left, I guess.”
“That is crazy. We spent thousands of dollars and an ungodly amount of hours trying to find out his background. We came up with nothing.” Michael said out loud.
The man smiled but ignored the comment. He simply replied. “It is getting dark. Your bus will be arriving here in a few minutes. If I were you I would hurry up to the house and check on your job before you miss your bus. If anyone asks tell them you spoke with me and I gave you a walk around the cemetery already.” He then turned away and walked towards the fence on the south end.
Michael looked down at Grimms headstone and shook his head. “You have to be kidding me.” Michael said out loud. “You were an attorney you crazy bastard?”
Michael turned his gaze towards the house up on the north hill and realized it was fading into the quickly approaching dark. He started jogging towards the house as he realized the conversation and walk around the cemetery had taken longer than expected. His feet sank into the snow past his ankles and his feet were now freezing as he quickly plodded along. As he approached the house, he realized the old two-story Victorian was indeed boarded up. There was no way someone could be in the home. There were no lights, no smoke coming from the chimney, and no vehicles parked anywhere around the house. He stepped onto the porch and felt the boards below his feet crack once he put his weight down. He felt unsafe even taking another step, and there were no tracks anywhere in the snow. There was no one in the house and no evidence of anyone being in the house for quite some time.
Michael jumped back down and turned back towards the south. Did the guy just lie to his face? Why would he tell him to go to an abandoned house? There had to be a job, or why would someone put the sign out front? The guy in the coat even knew about the job. Michael was confused and was now baffled by the entire ordeal. The history lesson was interesting, but now he almost wished he never would have gotten off the bus in the first place. His feet ached from cold, and the wind blew snow in his face. Michael looked west, and indeed, the sun had gone down. He needed to make it back to the bus stop quickly. If he missed the bus, he not only risked running into problems with the probation officer at the halfway house but would be in serious jeopardy of frostbite.
Michael took off running back towards the front of the cemetery when he looked down to see if his shoes were still tied. The strings were frozen together. He made it back to the snow-covered road and back to the spot where he initially began walking with the guy in the long coat. He stopped in his tracks. He looked to either side and time suddenly stopped. There was only one set of tracks in the snow. This was impossible. There was no way there could only be one set of tracks. He looked behind him and he clearly was leaving tracks coming all the way from the house. Michael’s silence was broken by what sounded like a large iron gate scraping across concrete. The sound sent shivers down his spine and goosebumps racing across his flesh. Then he heard it— something nothing short of terrifying. It was the unmistakable roar of a lion. Michael was horrified. He frantically looked around and saw nothing. Then again, a louder and more ominous roar from the beast. There was no mistaking the sound. There was a lion loose in the cemetery. But how? There were no lions in Iowa and surely none in a cemetery covered in snow. The final roar Michael heard made his blood run cold. He took off at a dead sprint towards the entrance of the cemetery.Michael never looked back and fear overtook every emotion in his body. Several yards in front of him, he could see the entrance to the cemetery. He yelled out, “No, stop!” when he saw his bus make the left turn off Mt. Vernon Road and past his bus stop. One step more and Michael hit the remnants of a curb, stumbled, and crashed into a headstone, smashing his knee into the limestone slab. Michael struggled to get up but collapsed into the snow. He never stood up again.
Four days later, the Cedar Rapids Gazette published a small article on the fourth page in the city crime section of the paper. Michael Bisar was found dead in Oak Hill Cemetery by a city worker. The county coroner ruled the death was from hypothermia. There were no funeral arrangements mentioned, just a one-line sentence that mentioned the burial would be in Oak Hill Cemetery. In the same edition of the paper, on the opposite side of the obituaries column, was the new arrivals. One of the seven children born on the 7th of December was a baby boy named Michael to the loving parents, Mark and Elizabeth Bisar.