Somebody was sitting on our bench. It wasn’t really our bench, but we thought of it that way. It was at the far end of the cemetery over the hill and all but surrounded by tall, scraggly hedges. The nearest tombstones were ancient, the inscriptions worn smooth. In all the time we’d been in the cemetery, nearly every Sunday after church for more than two years now, we’d never seen anyone there. Not even close.

The man on our bench was an older black man, and he was naked. His body seemed to be in pretty good shape for an old guy, with his age showing mostly in his face, all wrinkly. He didn’t seem to notice us, or anyway he paid us no mind. We’d stopped short, about twenty feet away, partially hidden by some of the hedges.