Chapter 14: The burn
I have always been told that there are two reasons to go to a funeral. One of them is to say good bye to a departed friend, the other is to make sure the bastard is dead. The line of people at the viewing was definitely the prior. I was asked to stand at the reception line, I suppose because we were good friends and I was with him when I died. I was hesitant at first, but he had no real family besides his parents. Aunts and uncles came by shuffling slowly, the slow trickle of humanity coming up to see what was in store for all of them.
I had only been to my grandmothers funeral before. All of my other grandparents had spared me the tedium of having to attend their funerals by dying well before I came along so I thought this would be like the other, Catholic, lots of food, some liquor. Erik’s parents didn’t ever drink, nor did anyone in his family and they had never attended a church. I suppose the church of the heathens is the funeral home for that was where the funeral was to take place.
Having only seen the inside of a funeral home in movies I think they must have done their research well for these films - soft colors, plastic plants, plenty of places to sit with a box of tissue on every flat surface. The funeral director is hard to miss, always hovering about in the back, well manicured, perfectly dressed, he stuck out from the rabble that came in to pay their respects.
This was a first come first serve visitation. Mostly elderly relatives that got there early, a wave of people that came directly after work boss, the bosses boss, all there to make an appearance and get home to the wife and TV as soon as they could. The friends stuck around and talked, remembering him as he was, commenting that he died doing something he loved. I sensed some anger towards me, as though it was my fault he had wrecked, that I had pushed him into this. Funerals aren’t the time or the place for the airing of grievances so I just let it slide.
After an hour of shaking hands and saying I was sorry for their loss. After an hour of explaining to people I had never met who I was and why I was standing with the parents I gave up. I saw Robert in the viewing line and motioned for him to come over. We snuck out a side door of the funeral home and crossed the street to buy some beer.
“What time they push they push the button to cremate him?” Robert asks as we sit on the curb of the funeral home drinking good beer. We sat away from the door down toward one end where we wouldn’t be seen, we didn’t want to seem disrespectful, and for that reason we bought good beer.
“Well, the visitation is from four to six but if that goes long they will wait till everybody gets a peek at him in the box before they push the button” I reply. I don’t like my choice of words, I know it is not him in the box, just an empty shell, made up to look lifelike but really just looking like a store manikin, wearing newly bought clothes.
“I think we should be there for that, Hell we should have put him in a canoe and filled it with seasoned wood and burnt him up like a Viking king. I don’t like modern funerals, I want something tribal or barbaric when I go.” Robert paused to sip some more beer. “Perhaps a canoe full of dry wood let lose on the Missouri River, my friends throwing virgin women off of a cliff overlooking the site where I am cremated, now that would be a funeral.”
I smile, glad he is here and unchanged. “When you die it will probably be in some flop house with a bar fly girlfriend stealing your last dollar. You’ll probably sit in the un air-conditioned room for a week or so before the smell drives even the junkies to complain. When the super of the building opens the door the wave of stink from your rotting corpse will cause him puke up the Raviolis he had for lunch.”
“You think? Man that would be awesome.” I don’t know if Robert is serious, I don’t know if he would find that a horrible death or a fine way to go, cause in the end it all boils down to how much fun you can cram into your life and that sounds like his idea of fun.
We head back inside as the time draws nearer. It’s strange now seeing the stony faces of those who loved him, Robert and I have taken on the glow of a few drinks. I notice his ex wife has shown up, luckily I got out of the receiving line before she came along, she and I have never liked each other. She walks over and asks how it happened. I tell her I wrote it all down for his mom but she wants to hear it from me, for her own satisfaction. I recount the tale once again and then wonder why she is here, probably to make sure he is dead, she truly hated him at the end.
The minister says a few words and the coffin moves down a conveyor belt into the oven. Later when the remains of him have cooled they will be put in an urn and given to his parents. Forty four years of life put in a jar. Forty four years of life and this is all that it comes too.
Chapter 15: Release
My boss never talks to me, goes out of his way to avoid me, so I thought something was odd when he came by my cube at eight in the morning with a sad look on his face.
“Can I see you in my office?”
“Let’s just cut to the chase, I’m laid off right?” I ask as I close the door to his office behind me. I’m not surprised, there have been layoffs going on for months. So far five people I know have been let go, it’s just been getting worse.
“Have a seat” he motions to one of the tattered chairs that, with boxes of computer junk, and stacks of paper are the sole decorations of his windowless cell. “As you know the company has been struggling this year. Profits are down, expenses are up, we are having to make some tough choices.” He looks down at a folder on his desk, reads a bit and continues “as the company continues to adjust to the demanding market it is often necessary for a company of this size to rethink the needs of their staffing levels.” He pauses to read more, I notice that all the heavy objects have been removed from anywhere near me, no mugs, scissors, anything that could be used as a weapon. “In an effort to more correctly fit these staffing levels in the IT department we are doing a reduction in force based upon several criteria, years in service, education level, pay level and performance being the major factors.”
“Can you just give me that silly speech, tell me what benefits, if any, I get and let’s get this over with. If I am a free man I don’t want to listen to anymore of this.”
My former boss smiles, “I always liked how you cut through the BS. You get 6 months of pay, I’ll give you a great reference letter. I hate doing this, but as you know it is not up to me and we are getting rid of the entire department. It’s all getting outsourced.” He folds shut the folder he had been reading from. “There’s a form letter in there you can read if you like, plus your final check. You can clean your personal effects out of your cube but HR wants me to grab your laptop so you don’t destroy any code or send out any hate mail to the company.”
“The entire department? Robert too?”
“Everyone. I have a meeting with HR this afternoon, I think I will be let go as well.” I notice that some of the boxes have his personnel stuff already packed. “The economy has gone, nothing to be done about it. This is the nature of things.”
It’s odd for my boss, or former boss, to be so philosophical. I suppose with worries of his own job on his mind he is slipping into comfort mode; rationalizing a major life changing event and coming to grips with his future. We walk back to my cube and he pulls my laptop from it’s docking station and hands me an empty box.
Ten years of cubicle life and you tend to accumulate things. Knick knacks from trade shows, with IBM, Lotus, Sun and other technology companies. Really just garbage to set on your shelf, no need to haul it out to take it home and throw it away. I pack away the few books on programming that I have that are somewhat current and useful, my radio and headphones. Other than that there is nothing in here that I want.
A few cubes over I can hear someone quietly sobbing. They are packing away things as well, I wonder who it was. The sobbing sounds female, it is coming from the general area of the quality assurance team. With no programmers we won’t be needing QA, testers, business anal
ysts, probably a hundred jobs lost today.
Other than that I have the place to myself, I decide to leave a present for the company. Shifting through the top drawer of my desk I find the key to the desk. This kind of desk has one master key on the top drawer that unlocks every drawer through some sort of internal mechanism. Quietly I unzip my pants, pull out the lowest drawer and squeeze everything I can from my colon into a steaming pile dead center in the drawer. Suddenly I realize this was not a well thought out plan, nothing to wipe with. Standard copier paper is rough, but an Intel teddy bear seems appropriate. Luckily there isn’t much of a mess and the point nose of the bear does an adequate job of the cleanup. Adding the bear to the drawer my work here is done.
Quickly locking the desk and pocketing the key I make my escape before being noticed. First stop is the bank, I want that check cashed before they realize it was me, but how could they prove it, anyone could have done it. Of course I would be the prime suspect, it is my old desk, I am the kind of person who would do such a thing, but circumstantial evidence for a random shitting never put anyone away for life.
Outside the building I notice the parking lot is looking bare. Layoffs all over the company today, a black Monday for many, but I am thinking this is might be the push I needed.
Bitter Fish Page 14