Her words floated around me like the hairs our old orange cat used to shed—small enough on their own to be easily ignored, but incredibly annoying in large numbers. I wanted to swat them out of my face. I wanted to pretend Mom hadn’t just told me we were going to live in a house full of corpses. That was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard in my life. How could I eat dinner knowing someone was decomposing just below the kitchen floor? How could I invite friends over—if I could even find friends now? Who’d want to hang out with someone whose houseguests are in rigor mortis?
Mom ended her speech as we passed the Armadillo city limit sign and pulled up to the red brick pillar and lighted placard welcoming us to the Paramount Funeral Home. My father was there with a shovel and a wheelbarrow full of mulch, planting pansies at the base of the sign.
He was having the time of his life. No one seemed to care that this was the end of mine.
Chapter Three
Mom was right about one thing—the apartment on the top floor of the Paramount was nicer than our old home. The den and kitchen combined to make one large room, and the kitchen had all new appliances. A bay window overlooked the back parking area and the wooded lot just beyond, allowing plenty of morning sun into the den.
There were two bedrooms—one facing the front, and the other up two or three steps in what looked more like a large attic space. I got the attic room. It was twice the size of my small room back home, had a bay window facing the back—just like the den’s, but smaller—and an angled ceiling. I figured my parents would want that room, since it was the bigger of the two. But Mom said she hated the carpet. It was purple—a rotten, grape-juice purple. I thought it was great but Mom said it looked like the Kool-Aid man had thrown up in there. Ugly carpet seemed a lame reason for Mom to give up the best room, since all she had to do was replace it with a different color. She was obviously trying to ease her guilty conscience.
Each bedroom had its own bathroom. Mine wasn’t much bigger than a closet, but it had a shower stall, a sink just the right size for washing your hands, a lighted medicine cabinet with a mirror, and a set of small shelves above the toilet for towels and things. Mom said that since I had my own bathroom, it was my responsibility to clean it. I could leave toothpaste on the sink and dirty towels on the floor without getting yelled at—as long as it was clean by Wednesdays, Mom’s inspection day.
We spent the second week landscaping. Dad had started while waiting for us to move in, but the yard was still a mess. “First impressions are important,” he said, “and when people see how we care for the outside, they’ll think we take care of what’s inside, too.”
I figured the first impression people would get when they drove by was that we didn’t like to mow. By the time we finished all the mulching and planting out front, there was barely any grass left. Still, it did look nice. The boxwoods and holly bushes, pansies and marigolds, lawn edging and cypress mulch looked as good as any of the professional landscaping in town. Mom even created a sitting area in the back outside the guest kitchen. It had a couple of benches, a path of stepping stones set in river gravel, and a small pond that she stocked with three Japanese koi and some water lilies.
Behind the home a grassy patch stretched from the back parking area to the edge of the woods. The spot was popular with the local wildlife. In the early mornings and late afternoons, I could look out our big bay windows and watch the birds, squirrels, raccoons, and deer hunt for goodies in the grass. On our first trip to Walmart, I bought a twenty-five-pound bucket of wild animal feed. I sprinkled some around, and the next morning the lot was crawling with forest critters. Spying on real animals was more fun than watching staged documentaries on TV. Soon I was feeding the animals every night. I even talked Dad into a couple of birdbaths and some feeders to attract more birds to the backyard zoo.
Some of the animals preferred fresh bugs and worms to the dried corn in the feed. Clawed-out holes began to appear in our new landscaping, and Mom’s favorite plants were dying as a result. Mom mentioned this one day as she made small talk with the cashier who checked out our groceries at the Piggly-Wiggly.
“Armadillers. They’re lookin’ for grubs,” the clerk said. She scanned the cans of green beans one at a time. “Tough little boogers, ’cept they ain’t too good at crossin’ the road.”
“I haven’t seen any in our yard,” Mom said.
The clerk groaned as she hoisted the bucket of laundry detergent over the scanner.
“You probably won’t see ’em. They don’t come out ’til dark. But you’ll see the holes where they been diggin’. They got sharp feet.”
“How do I keep them out of the flowers?”
The clerk pointed to the far end of the store. “Aisle thirteen. Get yourself some mothballs. Armadillers hate the smell. Can’t say as I blame ’em. Would rather have moths than the mothballs. But don’t be surprised if mothballs don’t work. Most people, if they can’t get shed of ’em, have to get them electric fences to keep ’em out.”
When we got home, Mom set out new plants to replace the dead ones. Then she gave me a box of mothballs and told me to scatter them around in the mulch. The smell of the unopened box would have been enough to keep me away. Our armadillos, however, had developed an immunity to mothballs. When I went outside the next morning, our yard looked like the green for the Armadillo Open golf tournament. Mothballs were everywhere but in the mulch, and the armadillos had used Mom’s flowerbeds as concession stands.
Once again, Mom put me on mothball duty. This time I had to gather them all and put them in the dumpster. That evening during supper, I watched through the bay window as the guys from Swat Team Termite and Pest Control installed an ultrasonic pest barrier. The Swat Team crawled around in the bushes and across the mulch in their roach colored
uniforms. Their names glowed in bright yellow on their backs: Team Member Steve, Team Member Dave, Team Member Jim. We had just started dessert when Team Member Steve walked up the back steps and knocked on the kitchen door.
Mom opened the door. Team Member Steve held out a clipboard and pen. “If you’ll sign this, ma’am, we’ll be on our way.”
Mom signed the bill. Team Member Steve yanked it off the board with a flourish and handed it to her. “Thanks for calling the Swat Team, ma’am. You have a good night.”
Mom sat back down to finish her dessert. Dad picked up the bill. He stared at it, his face paler than usual. “Freda, didn’t you ask them how much this would cost before you agreed to it?”
Mom leaned over her cherry cheesecake so she wouldn’t have to look up at Dad. “We didn’t have a choice. We can’t have armadillos digging around, tearing up all our work. We’ve already spent too much money on the landscaping to let them ruin the rest of it.”
The air conditioner kicked in with a loud ha-wumph, but my parents didn’t need any help. There was already plenty of chill in the air. Dad left his half-eaten cheesecake on the table and walked out the back door. I heard each heavy step as he slumped down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, I saw him walk toward the road, hands in his pockets, chin to his chest.
Mom just sat there, leaning over her dessert, her fork stuck in the cake. A tear slid over her cheekbone and hit her plate with a soft splat.
I dumped the rest of my cake in the garbage disposal and went to my room.
Chapter Four
A few days later, Dad and I went to Bigelow’s Men’s Store in downtown Armadillo. He said if I was going to help them with visitations and funerals, I’d have to dress the part.
Dad picked out five suits for himself—two black, two dark blue, and one gray—plus several white oxford shirts. Then I followed him to the young men’s section. I tried on several combinations of coats and slacks before we found the right sizes. He told me to choose two suits that I liked—one black and one dark blue—and he grabbed three white shirts, made just like his, but in my size, off the rack.
We made our way over to the ties. Dad said he preferred paisley prints and stri
pes, but I could pick out my own. Since my parents had given me no choice but to move—and were now going to make me wear stiff, itchy suits—I decided this would be a good chance to make a statement. So I dug through the bargain bin until I found the five ugliest ties ever made: a dark green one with a painted-on, piranha-looking fish head; one in neon yellow; another in the same throw-up purple as my bedroom carpet; one with pinto beans printed over an orange background; and a black one with a white stripe down the center, like a skunk’s back.
Dad never said a word when I dumped the ties on the counter. He did look kind of sick, though, when he heard the total. Still, he pulled out his gold card, handed it to the clerk, and said if you’re going to be a funeral director, you’ve got to wear a nice suit.
On the way home, we stopped at the Cow Palace and ate lunch. Through the window beside our booth, we could see cows out in the field and, up the hill, a big gray barn with a metal roof. I ordered the quarter-pound Cow Pattie with Cheese and a small Herd of Fries; Dad got the Big Steer, through the garden, with the large Herd of Fries.
We ate in silence for a long time. Then after the server gave Dad a refill on his Big Trough Dr Pepper he took a big gulp, as if the drink would clear his throat and his thoughts.
“Kev, you’ve been a lot of help to us,” he said. He set the heavy glass down on the table. “Your mom and I appreciate it.”
I nodded, my mouth full of cheddar and Cow Pattie.
“When I was a kid, Dad—I mean your granddad—was in the army. We had to move all the time. I decided I’d never move my kids around like that. I hated moving.”
“Well, it’s been interesting.”
Dad put his elbows on the table, rested his chin in his hands, and looked down at his plate. For a second, I felt sorry for him. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to move. He was, after all, more worried about the family finances than Mom. Besides, Mom was the one who wanted to be a funeral director.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. His eyes were fixed on his last two fries. “I wish we’d let you in on everything from the beginning. I told your mother not to say anything to you about our plans to live in the funeral home.”
“Why?” I hadn’t expected Dad to be the one to keep a secret from me.
“I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you wouldn’t like it. That wasn’t fair. Even if you didn’t like it, at least we should have been honest with you.”
“Well, Dad, you’re right. I don’t like it. It wasn’t fair. And I wish you’d been honest.” There, I thought. I may have to live where you want to, but now you know I am old enough to express my opinion, whether you like it or not. I took another bite of my burger.
Dad stirred his drink with his straw. “If your mom and I don’t take a chance and make a change in our lives, we’ll both be stuck at dead-end jobs. We wanted to work together, and we decided running a funeral home would be our best option, since I already had my degree and some experience.”
My jaw dropped, exposing a mouthful of smushed beef. Dad was an undertaker too? I thought I knew everything about my parents. Dad motioned at me to close my mouth. I swallowed.
“When did that happen?”
“I met your mom during my last six months of school. I was already apprenticed.”
“Why’d you quit? If you spent all that time and money to go to school and be a mortician, why did you go to work at the factory instead?”
Dad gazed out at the cows. One of them, along with her calf, moved close to the window. The calf nuzzled her mother’s udder and began to drink.
“I changed jobs a few months after your mom and I married. Before you were born. But that’s in the past.” Dad sat back and turned his face up to the light fixture made of cowbells that hung over the booth. He exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath for years. “We have you, and we need to plan a future for ourselves now.”
Dad’s eyes were red, and he rubbed them with the heels of his palms like he does whenever he has a headache. I didn’t understand what he meant about changing jobs being in the past, but I felt awkward about asking for an explanation, so I didn’t.
“I don’t mind helping you or Mom,” I said. “I do like my room, and Mom was right about how nice the living area is. But how can I ever have friends over? Who would want to visit me in a funeral home? And I’ve never even seen anyone dead before. Living in a house with dead people sounds like something out of a creepy old movie.”
The longer I talked, the more edgy I felt—and the more droopy and tired Dad looked. I didn’t want to spoil his apology, especially since it seemed sincere. So I paused for a moment and calmed down before speaking again. “It’s going to be different, that’s all. I’m just not sure about it yet.”
Dad reached into his pocket, dug out some change for the tip, and placed it on the table beside the ketchup bottle. “Whether we like it or not, death is a part of life.” He looked out the window again at the cow. Her calf had finished drinking and was trotting up the hill on spindly legs. “We have to learn to deal with it. Now we’d better get back home. I’ve got to explain to your mother why I let you buy those wild ties and make her promise not to return them.” He slid out of the booth and walked over to the cashier to pay the bill.
“That’ll be $11.29,” the cashier said. She made eye contact with Dad and smiled. “Say, you’re the guy who just bought the Paramount, aren’t you? It’s the only funeral home in the county, you know. White County only has one, too—in Gleason, the county seat. The Paramount’s been here as long as I can remember. The old owners seemed to lose interest in it. I guess the jobs at the new power plant across the river were too tempting.”
“The advantage of working with the dearly departed, ma’am,” Dad answered with a straight face and a tip of an invisible hat, “is that I don’t worry about getting laid off. There’s always a job for an undertaker!”
As he and the cashier laughed over his lame joke, I stood by the gum-ball machines at the door and wondered if it was normal for morticians to kid around about their work.
Chapter Five
On July 31 at 3 P.M., the Paramount Funeral Home opened for business. The chairperson of the board of directors of the Armadillo Chamber of Commerce, armed with a pair of giant ceremonial scissors, cut the thick blue ribbon that stretched from one front porch column to the other. The ribbon hit the ground, and a small group of business people cheered. The local newspaper photographer took pictures for the Armadillo Courier. Mom and Dad exchanged hugs—and sighs of relief that the days of preparation were over.
The next morning Dad backed the hearse out of the garage and left to pick up our first customer—a man named Cletus McCulley, who had passed away at the Shady Grove Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center. After Mom and I got the apartment in order, ate a quick breakfast, and cleaned up the dishes, we went downstairs.
Mom’s fingers fumbled through the keys until she found the one that opened the front office. It was time to prepare the new desk for the first batch of paperwork, and Mom seemed excited and scared all at the same time. She sent me to the guest kitchen with orders to fill a cut-glass vase with some flowers from the yard and set it on the counter, stock the vending machines with sodas and bottled water, and start the coffeepot.
As I loaded the cans and bottles into the machines, I wondered why a funeral home would need a kitchen in the first place. Chowing down after viewing a dead relative didn’t sound appetizing. I could understand the drinks, since people do get thirsty. But why have an extra wide refrigerator, a stove, and a microwave? And enough tables in the room to make it look like a small restaurant?
I got my answer a couple of hours later as I centered the last flower-filled vase on the last table. (Mom said to fix one for the counter, but I got carried away.) Groups of women began marching in, bearing bags and boxes of food for Mr. McCulley’s family and friends to eat during the visitation and after the funeral. Soon the countertops were covered with cakes, pies, breads, bags of potato chips, and boxes of
cookies and doughnuts. Mom chatted with the women and helped them put the food away.
Dad beeped in on her two-way radio. “Freda, I need your help. Meet me at the service entrance.”
She excused herself and headed for the door. “Kevin, please help these women carry in the rest of their things. I’ll be back in a minute.”
One of the women approached me. She looked to be the same age as Mom, but I’d never seen anyone my mother’s age with hair so white. It was lighter than bleached cotton, and hung down the middle of her back and past her waist in a long, bulky braid.
“So your name is Kevin. Well, Kevin, could I get you to help me bring in a few things from my car?” she asked as she got her keys from her purse.
“Sure,” I said. I followed her to her car. She had two large flower arrangements crammed in the small backseat. I grabbed the one with the baseball-sized white chrysanthemums. A plastic pick with Grandfather in silver letters peeked out from the center of the plants.
She picked up the other arrangement, a spray of pink and yellow roses, and we walked back to the building. “So you’re new in town. Are you ready to start school next week?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“What grade will you be in?”
“Seventh.”
“I guess I’ll be seeing you, then,” she said. We put the flowers on the metal cart in the hall and she held out her hand. “I’m Nancy Goldwyn, the principal at Armadillo Middle. Come by before the first day, and I’ll show you around. After my grandfather’s funeral, of course.” Her eyes were bright and honest blue, and she had the kind of smile that could make you think she never said a bad word about anybody. “It’s been very nice to meet you.”
“Thanks. You too,” I said, and then because I felt like I should, added, “I’m, well, I’m sorry about your grandfather.” But it sounded awkward, and the words stumbled over one another.
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