by Greg Ames
A snapped branch of lightning brightens the sky beyond their house. Ryder looks into the distance. He feels a shudder beneath his feet, he thinks, though he knows this thunder must be coming from above.
“Another bucket, son,” his father shouts. “Please. It won’t be like last time.”
“Get your own damn drinks,” he says to his laptop.
Cold rain slants through the open roof of the cage. Ryder zips his coat to his neck.
His mother’s eyesight has grown weak. Too proud to admit her failing, she pretends to have perfect vision, even as she trips and tumbles into the chain-link walls. She lowers her face to the chowder bowl, and sniffs. “He’s become such a good cook,” she says.
“Thanks, Mom!” Ryder says without looking up from the screen. “It’s dump-and-stir mostly. Nothing fancy. I’m really getting the hang of that old crockpot, though I haven’t mastered your bread maker yet.”
“He’s a fine boy,” his father says. “You did a terrific job raising him. Best damn mother in America.”
She lowers her head to the corn chowder and takes a tentative lick. “Could use the tiniest dash of salt, I think.”
“Should I try to get his attention again?”
“Oh, no. He’s very busy.” She wipes rainwater from her eyes. “He’s doing important work on that computer.”
“Hey, Mom, have you seen the chewable vitamin Cs?” Ryder shouts from the gazebo. “There was a big thing of chewable vitamin Cs but I can’t find it.”
A gray strand of hair has fallen loose from her barrette. Her husband reaches out and brushes it back. “There’s nothing I like better than eating a fine meal with you, darling,” he says.
“Join me, my love.” She pats the muddy floor beside her. Her beige nylons are gritty, torn. “Let’s share this first entree and save the other for later.”
“Good thinking,” he says. “Winter’s on its way.”
They say grace in unison, their eyes shut. Then they lower their heads and devour the food their son has prepared for them.
BEFORE THE BURIAL
She was holding the stepladder for her husband when he fell. He’d climbed all the way up to the third rung. “Careful,” she’d told him, “careful.” Then he appeared to let go. She watched his fingers peel away from the aluminum—there was no other explanation, really—but everything had happened so fast, who could say for certain?
Sprawled on his back in the grass, he stared up at her, stunned. “I think I’m dead, Jane. Killed in a heroic plummet. Dead at seventy-four.”
“Well, if you’re dead, then surely I’m dead too.” She knelt beside him in the grass. “Oh, we’re dead!”
He tapped her knee. “Focus on my untimely demise, please.”
“We’re dead!” Jane ripped up clumps of grass and flung them into the breeze. “Oh, we’re dead, we’re dead. I never saw it coming.”
Martin and Jane Warner found retirement challenging.
So much time to kill.
While she refilled the birdfeeder and scattered peat moss in the garden, Martin reclined in his armchair and daydreamed about nautical disasters. While he whisked eggs and shook fat sausages in a pan, Jane worked her crossword puzzle at the kitchen table. Minutes ticked off the clock. And yet somehow it was still always eleven in the morning.
After his tragic fall in the backyard, Martin shuffled and dealt a hand of blackjack at the breakfast table.
Jane had a king of hearts showing. “Hit me,” she said.
“Are you planning to look at the other card before you make that decision?”
She picked up the cordless phone and dialed the Adamsons, their next-door neighbors. “Hiya, Barbara,” she said. “How are you? Will Sévérine be visiting you and Frank again this summer?”
“What are you doing?” Martin said and dealt her another card. “We’re in the middle of a hand.”
“Oh, shush, you. You had better sit down, Barbara. I have something awful to tell you. Marty died today.” With the phone cradled between cheek and shoulder, she listened and nodded and sipped her iced hazelnut coffee. “Yes, I know, dear. It’s devastating. He fell picking plums from the tree in the backyard. Plums! The old donkey weakened, and then I weakened. We’re both on the fritz. Tragedy, comedy, who can say?” Cupping one hand over the mouthpiece, she pointed to her cards and mouthed, “I’ll stay.”
Martin flipped a card for himself. “Jack of hearts,” he said. “The Christ card.”
“No, it’s not a sick joke. We’re dead, Barb. I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, dear.” She flipped her cards over. “Seventeen. Barbara, I know it must be hard for you. Anyhow, the funeral will be on Friday. Spread the word.”
Martin said, “Dealer has twenty.”
“Rats.” Jane smiled at him. “I should have taken a hit.”
“You’re not a real risk taker.”
“Watch your tongue, Plum Picker. What, Barbara? No, he can’t speak to you, dear. He’s as dead as I am.”
“Tell Barb I’m too damn busy composing our obituaries. These things don’t write themselves, you know.”
Jane Warner greeted the mourners at the funeral home’s front door. “Thanks for coming,” she said, squeezing hands, her face like a pearl. She wore a black high-collared dress with a fritzy orchid pinned to her breast. “So good of you to make it on such short notice.”
Martin Warner stood on the opposite side of the room, dressed in a black wool suit and his lucky yellow socks, his black orthopedic shoes painstakingly shined. He shook hands with all the men, leaned down to kiss the cheeks of women he had known for decades. “Damned strange business, death,” he said. “Hasn’t really sunk in yet. Who will survive us? Who will remember us?” He looked wildly around the room. “Jane, my darling, where are you?”
She turned toward her husband. “You rang?” she replied in a deep voice.
“There are no grandchildren here to watch us die.”
“Can I take anybody’s coat?” Jane asked of nobody in particular. “I’d love to just hang up a coat or two.”
Dozens of mourners sat with bowed heads, studying their programs and hunting for clues. They read every word at least once. Nobody said anything.
“A terrible mistake, not having sons and daughters,” Martin Warner called out across the room. “My career, my career. Ptoo! It means nothing now. What was I thinking?”
“Soda, anyone?” Jane said. “Seltzer water? Can I make anyone a tuna fish sandwich with potato chips and a dill pickle on the side? I knew I should have prepared a funeral platter. A few pounds of prosciutto and melon—simple. Who doesn’t like honeydew?”
Two coffins, gleaming like muscle cars under the bright ceiling lights, idled against the back wall. They sat atop pedestals draped in purple velvet. A day earlier, the Warners had picked out matching caskets under the supervision of the funeral home director, a sunburned man with a hyphenated name and a Florida-shaped birthmark on his cheek. “An excellent choice, sir,” the man had said. “Bronze. Durable. Classic.”
Martin Warner wasn’t having any of that malarkey. “I am buying two coffins instead of one, so I expect a sizable discount on the second one, yes?”
The funeral director scratched his orange cheek with three fingers, producing a trio of fading white scars in the sunburn. “I suppose I can give you thirty percent off on the second one. A his-and-hers deal.”
Martin Warner extended his hand. “Acceptable,” he said.
They shook.
Jane squeezed her husband’s elbow when they left the negotiating table. “You got him good, didn’t you?” she whispered.
“I won that round,” Martin said.
The mourners watched the Warners stroll down the center aisle to their bronze coffins. The old couple squeezed shoulders and shook hands, kissed cheeks. Good hosts to the last, they surveyed the crowd to ensure everybody was comfortable and lacked for nothing.
Jane lagged behind her husband. “Did you get your hair done
, Colleen?” she said to a woman in the third row. “Looks terrific. I’ve been thinking about having mine frosted but I don’t know if mine would—”
“Jane,” Martin said.
“Coming,” she called merrily. Then she stage-whispered, “He won’t even be late to his own—”
“Jane! There is another ceremony scheduled after ours. Be considerate.”
“Here I am!” she said in a loud voice, mugging for the audience. “Sorry to keep you waiting, your majesty.”
“Oh, don’t start,” he said.
“Then don’t finish.”
The Warners turned away from each other and waved and blew kisses as if departing on a cruise. They smiled and laughed and posed for photographs that nobody took. And why shouldn’t they have smiled, after all they’d been through? This funeral was a celebration of their long lives. They’d been fighting lately, true, and they still strongly disagreed on a number of issues, including the value and necessity of punctuality, but they’d been married for forty-one years. A touch on the shoulder, a smile—it didn’t take much to reverse the tides.
“Janey,” Martin said, taking her hands in his. “You’ve made me so happy. In sickness and in health. I give you my hands, my heart, and my love, from this day forward, until the end of time.”
“Holy cow,” Jane said. “That was really beautiful, Marty. I didn’t know that we—I didn’t prepare.” She patted her hair with both hands. “Um, let’s see here. Just have to wing it. How does that go again? ‘Suntanned, windblown, honeymooners at last alone. Feeling far above par, oh, how lucky we are.’” She shook her head. “No, that’s not quite right. ‘Dum-dee-dum passing strangers now. Funny how things can change. We were so inseparable. Now you’re acting very strange.’ Wait a second, no, that’s not quite right.”
“I think that’s enough, darling.”
But Jane broke free of his grasp and belted out another verse, kicking her heels in the air. “There’s no tomorrow when love is new! Now is forever when love is true!”
Never had a room gone more silent.
“It’s time,” Martin Warner said, tapping the face of his watch. “Allow me to help you, my darling.”
As man and wife, they turned to face their coffins.
Martin supported Jane as she struggled to climb in. He pushed her upward, bending his knees to protect his lower lumbar. She hooked one pale leg over the side but couldn’t seem to bring the other leg up. “I’m stuck,” she cried, straddling the edge. She took a moment to admire the assemblage of her many friends. “Be well,” she said to them. “Have a good weekend.” She patted her husband’s head. “I’m ready. Push me over, please.”
Martin struggled beneath her, sweating. Two young men from the community rushed forward to help, but he waved them off. “I’m fine,” he told them, and, harnessing all of his remaining strength, shoved with tremendous force. His wife toppled over into her coffin.
“Thank you,” she called out.
Now that she was safely ensconced in the plush peach interior of her coffin, Martin Warner turned to face the mourners. The funeral was drawing to a close. Soon it would all be over: the minor triumphs and failures of his quiet life; the years spent alone in his downtown office; all of the birthday parties he’d planned for his wife; the unendurable retirement from work.
Martin glanced back at his own shiny bronze coffin, the lid open. It was as flashy and ostentatious as any new Cadillac in a showroom. The funeral home director—that slick sunburned bastard—had cashed in on a grieving couple’s sorrow. It was so clear to him now under the funeral home’s tawdry fluorescent lights.
“No, sir,” Martin said in a choked voice. “That will not be the end.”
He turned away from his coffin and embarked on a solo climb to his wife’s resting place. The purple velvet bunched under his hands. His dress shirt was soaked through with sweat but he continued to hop and fall, grunting and cursing every time. One of his orthopedic shoes fell to the floor.
The congregation cheered him on. A rhythmic clapping ensued, rolling in waves from the back of the room to the front. “Go get her, Marty.” “Don’t let her get away.”
He mounted the table, teetered, and caught his balance. He peered down at his beloved.
The room fell silent again. What could a man say at such a moment?
“For Christ’s sake, Jane, do you have to take up the whole coffin?”
“What’s wrong with yours? I bet it’s got that delightful new coffin smell.”
“Do I have to give a reason for everything I do? We don’t need the other one.”
“Let me move my purse then. Okay. I’m ready now.”
The ceremony was almost over. Martin Warner wanted to say something wise and clever to everybody, give them a gift to take home, something that might ease their worries about their own aging. The clock above the door told the story. This room would soon belong to other people. A new generation of men and women, strangers to him, waited outside the funeral home. They would pay a hefty fee for this space.
He looked down at his bride, her petite legs crossed at the ankles. There she was: smart-mouthed Janey Paxton with that lopsided grin on her narrow mug, the stunning little pepperpot from Westchester, NY, looking like she’d seen it all before, even this, even this.
“Well, I’m waiting. You riding with me, Big Bear?”
Martin laughed.
He climbed in beside his wife and pulled the lid down over them both.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to the hard-working editors, readers, and interns of the following magazines and journals where some of these stories first appeared: The Sun, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Catapult, Southern Review, Okey-Panky, Electric Literature, Unsaid, North American Review, failbetter.com, Open City, PANK, Fiction International, Post Road, and SmokeLong Quarterly. Thanks for believing that literary journals and small presses still matter to people, because they do.
Thank you to the bookstores I cherish most: Talking Leaves, Rust Belt Books, Housing Works, Mercer Street Books, The Strand, bookbook, Community Bookstore, Colgate Bookstore, Powell’s, RiverRun, Skylight, and Square Books.
Thank you to my colleagues, friends, and students at Colgate University, especially Peter Balakian, Jennifer Brice, Brian Casey, Georgia Frank, Lesleigh Cushing, David McCabe, Matt Leone, Brian Hall, Lenora Warren, Ben and Katie Child, Susan Cerasano, Tess Jones, Hailey Elder, and Brendan Finn, and Katie Rice.
Thank you to the gentlemen at 107 and in Greenpoint for your humor and courage.
This book wouldn’t exist without the enthusiasm of my fearless editor at Skyhorse/Arcade, Alexandra Hess, who laughs at the darkness.
I can’t say enough about Lacy Lalene Lynch and Jan Miller, two immensely talented and dynamic women. Thanks to both of you for supporting and inspiring me.
Thanks as well to Kathy Daneman, whose humor and hustle made it all easier.
I am deeply grateful for the lives of SueAnn Ames, Stephen Ames, Kevi Ames, Stuart and Simon Ames, John Ames, Tina Lewis, Margaret Wooster, Marv LaHood, Tom Chapin, Peter Jackson, Deirdre Coyle, Max Rayneard, Josh Radnor, Neal Feinberg, Steve Haweeli, Hal Strickland, Bridget O’Bernstein, Jim Hanas, Snorri Sturluson, Virginia Zech, Mark Seemueller, Jack Cohen, Robert Axel, Suzanne Gorey, Lara McDonnell, Jack Vernon, Brent Birnbaum, Ian Caskey, Dave McInnes, Ed Carson, Clara Campos, Mat Lynch, Josh Carrick, Bill Walker, Deirdre Hayes, Jeff Oliver, and Michele Melnick.
Finally, this book is dedicated to the memory of Gus Vlahavas, my friend who ran Tom’s Restaurant in Brooklyn with such grace and dignity. You are missed.
Greg Ames is the author of Buffalo Lockjaw, a novel that won a NAIBA Book of the Year Award. His work has appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney’s, Southern Review, Catapult, and The Sun. He splits his time between Brooklyn and Hamilton, New York, where he is an associate professor at Colgate University. He can be found at www.gregames.com.
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Greg Ames, Funeral Platter