Life After Genius

by M. Ann Jacoby

  MEAD RIPS OPEN A PACKAGE OF SALTED PEANUTS and eats them as he makes his way up one aisle and down the next in search of the items on his father’s list. His mother would have a conniption fit if she saw him right now. She hates it when people snack on food they have not yet bought. “It’s low class,” she has been known to say on more than one occasion, “like wearing red underwear under white pants.” Mead pops several more peanuts into his mouth, licking the salt off his fingers as he makes a right turn and heads down the frozen food aisle. And that’s when he sees her: a woman dressed in bedroom slippers and a bathrobe. She’s reaching into the ice-cream freezer, the top half of her body gone, hidden among half-gallon containers of fudge swirl, mint chocolate chip, and cherry vanilla; the lower half is surrounded by a foggy mist where the cold freezer air has mixed with the warmer air of the store. A grocery clerk sees her, too, and gives her the kind of look people usually reserve for the homeless and mentally disabled. “May I help you, ma’am?” the clerk says, but she cannot hear him, either because her head is in the freezer or another world. It’s hard to tell which. So he says it again, louder this time, as if perhaps she is deaf as well as crazy. When she still does not respond, the grocery clerk looks at Mead as if to say, what am I supposed to do now? And Mead answers back with a look that says, you got me.

  When she finally dislodges herself from the freezer, she looks at the clerk, neither surprised to see him nor aware that she is doing anything unusual, and says, “Why is it that the flavor I want is always way in the back, can you tell me that?” And she places the hard-to-find half-gallon of peppermint stick ice cream in her shopping cart.

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” the clerk says and closes the freezer door as if getting that door closed were the most important thing in the whole wide world.

  “Aunt Jewel?” Mead says.

  The grocery clerk and woman look up at the same time.

  “Teddy,” the woman in the bathrobe says. “What’re you doing here in High Grove?”

  “I got home a couple days ago, Aunt Jewel, didn’t Uncle Martin tell you?”

  She looks at the grocery clerk, as if he might know the answer, then says, “My nephew’s a genius. He graduated from high school when he was fifteen. Valedictorian of his class. And now he’s a college graduate at the age of only eighteen. Isn’t that wonderful? We’re all so very proud of him.”

  The clerk looks at them both, as if they are equally nuts then heads off down the aisle to guard other frozen foods from the hands of other mindless customers.

  “Why aren’t you dressed, Aunt Jewel?”

  She glances down in horror, as if expecting to discover that she is stark naked and looks reassured to discover that she isn’t, then smiles and says, “I just wanted to pick up some ice cream, Teddy; it hardly seemed worth getting all dolled up for.”

  Which sounds plausible enough, in its own crazy way, so Mead lets the subject drop. In addition to peppermint stick ice cream, there are six one-pound containers of iodized salt in his aunt’s cart. “Are you planning on baking something?” he asks.

  “What? Oh no, this salt’s for your uncle.”

  Mead looks at her. Waits.

  “For the backyard. To kill the poison ivy.”

  “Oh.” He walks her to the checkout counter, offering to put her items on his father’s credit card, in case it also did not cross her mind to bring along some money. Only it did cross her mind and she insists on paying for her items herself.

  It never dawned on Mead before just how much his aunt reminds him of Dr. Alexander. She with her bedroom slippers, he with his long ponytail. Neither of them very much concerned about what anyone else thinks. Mead imagines the two of them meeting by chance on a street corner, Dr. Alexander offering to give Jewel a ride home on his bicycle so she won’t get her pink slippers dirty, his aunt accepting, the two of them leaving a trail of gaping mouths and flapping tongues in their wake. Unaware and unconcerned. It must be wonderful to get to a point in your life where you don’t care anymore. Where you are so confident about who you are that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Mead can only hope that he gets there one day soon.

  Since his aunt walked to the store, he offers to escort her home and carries her groceries under the false pretense that he was heading in her direction anyway. This she does not object to. As a matter of fact, she seems pleased as punch to have his company and asks him to tell her about college life in the big city.

  “There really isn’t much to tell, Aunt Jewel. I went to class and studied in the library, is all. I didn’t get off campus very often. Except, you know, that one time I flew out east.” He stops talking. Shit. Why did he bring that up? The last thing he wants to do is remind his aunt that he missed her son’s funeral. But she doesn’t seem to make the connection, doesn’t seem to be really listening. Instead of getting upset, she says, “And how about girls? Have you met anyone special?”

  A brunette pops into Mead’s head. She is lying on his bed, sleeping. Mead wraps his arm around her and falls asleep too. When he wakes up, she’s gone.

  “No, Aunt Jewel,” he says. “No one special.”

  When they reach his aunt’s house, she takes her groceries from him. “Thanks for walking me home, Teddy. I enjoyed the company.” She walks up the driveway and lets herself in through the side door, waving goodbye before she disappears inside. Mead waits until the door shuts behind her then heads back over to the store.

  THE PARKING LOT BEHIND FEGLEY BROTHERS is now filled with cars, the wake having already begun. Shit. Mead didn’t realize how long it had taken him to walk his aunt home. He enters the chapel through the back door. The main room is filled with mourners who have gathered to socialize before paying their last respects to the dearly departed. The place is pretty crowded. Delia had a lot of friends, enough to keep Mead’s father occupied as Mead hurriedly sets out the Kleenex boxes, then rips open a package of foam cups. He is arranging them in towers on the refreshment table when he is suddenly struck by a terrible thirst. It’s those peanuts. He should have bought something to drink too, while he was at the store but he wasn’t thinking about himself at the time; he was too busy worrying about his aunt. He picks up one of the foam cups and fills it with half-and-half.

  “That’s for the coffee,” some woman says. “Not for drinking.”

  Like Mead doesn’t already know this. Why do people do that? Why do they go around stating the obvious all the time? So what if he wants to drink his half-and-half by the cupful. Is it a federal crime? So what if his aunt wants to wear her bedroom slippers to the grocery store. Is she breaking any laws? No. No laws broken. No federal crime. No end of the world.

  “It just so happens,” Mead says, “that I drank a whole pot of black coffee for breakfast this morning, now I’m drinking the cream that goes in it, and later on I’ll be helping myself to a large bowl of sugar.”

  The woman stares at him as if he were nuts. It is a very satisfying look. Perhaps now she has learned her lesson. Maybe next time she will think twice before walking up to some stranger and offering her unbidden advice.

  “I know who you are,” she says. “You’re Alayne Fegley’s son. The genius.”

  Oh shit. A classmate and now a friend of his mother’s. Both in one morning. Could this town be any smaller?

  “You wrote some kind of paper, didn’t you? Gave a big presentation in front of a bunch of important people. Your mother can’t stop talking about it. How proud she is of you. How much smarter you are than all the other bridge players’ sons.” The woman laughs as if she has just told a joke, then grasps hold of Mead’s wrist. “Do you mind?” she says. “I’ve never touched a genius before.”

  Mead wants to yank his hand free, to flee the room. What does she think he is, a circus sideshow freak? Step right up, folks. For one dollar you can see a two-headed woman, a human baby with a tail, and a mathematical genius. He knocks back the entire cup of half-and-half in one gulp and says, “Yeah, well, we pretty much feel lik
e regular human beings. I mean, all except for our body temperature. Did you know that geniuses have an average body temperature that’s a full degree cooler than that of the average man? That’s right, 97.6°F. And it’s this cooler body temperature that scientists are now linking to superior brainpower. Something to do with how our other vital organs function more efficiently, allowing more oxygen-filled blood to travel up to our brains. You can feel it, can’t you? That I’m cooler than average?”

  “I can,” the woman says. “You know, I really can.”

  Mead’s uncle is glaring at him from across the room. The man may not know what Mead is up to but he’s pretty damn sure it falls under the category of “no good.” Sliding his wrist free, Mead says, “Excuse me, but I’ve got to go.”

  “WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING A SUIT?” Uncle Martin says.

  “A suit? Why would I be wearing a suit?”

  “Didn’t your father tell you this morning? All our pallbearers are required to wear suits.” Martin glances at his watch. “My brother may be willing to put up with your childish crap, but I’m not. You’ve got thirty minutes to go home, get changed, and get back here before we head out to the cemetery.”

  Yeah, right. Like Mead is going to go home and risk being cornered by the six-legged creature. No way. No how.

  MEAD FLIPS A SWITCH and the circuit breaker thumps. That’s how much voltage is running through the wires that power the twenty-three klieg lights attached to the ceiling of the selection room. Enough to light a stage on Broadway. Enough to light two stages. All for the benefit of show. Each one directed at a different casket. The most expensive models are kept up front, the ones meant to catch your eye as you first walk through the door. The farther into the room you go, the cheaper they get, with the cheapest model sitting all the way in the back corner next to the fire exit. One step up from a pine box. It is the rare customer who makes it all the way to the back of the room, who dares to bury his dearly departed in the economy casket.

  Mead is not up here to look at caskets, however. He is more interested in the wardrobe department. AfterLife Men’s Wear is located on the third floor of Fegley Brothers in a walk-in closet off the selection room. That’s not its official name. That’s just what Mead called it when he was little. Clothes for the man who doesn’t own anything suitable in which to be buried, or has shrunk so much in the last six months of life that his own clothes no longer fit.

  Mead pulls a suit off the rack and holds it up to his chest. The jacket is too broad in the shoulder but it would probably fit Percy just right. He wouldn’t like it, though. If Percy could have had his say, he would have been buried in his baseball uniform, but he didn’t. Was it an open casket ceremony or closed? Questions like this Mead has not felt permitted to ask. Because he wasn’t there. It depends on whether or not his cousin’s face made contact with the windshield. Whether or not he was wearing a seat belt. Did he think about that as his car swerved off the road? Did he throw his hands up in front of his face to save his father from having to do a lot of arduous reconstruction? Or did he deliberately let it splinter the glass?

  Monday afternoon. That’s when it happened. Around one o’clock. Percy must have arrived at the dorm around noon, just in time for lunch. It would have been nearly empty. The dorm. Did he realize that it was spring break? But of course, he must have. He also would have known that Mead stays on campus during these breaks. Aunt Jewel would have told him. Or Uncle Martin. Somebody. How long did he wait before giving up? And what was so pressing that he had to come to Chicago anyway? Why couldn’t he have waited two more months for Mead to come home? What was so goddamned urgent?

  Pulling on the tailored black jacket, Mead suddenly remembers what distinguishes an AfterLife suit from a regular suit: the zipper down the back. Which makes it easier to dress a man with stiff arms. Shit. What is he going to do now? He doesn’t have time to run home and change anymore. It’s this or nothing. So he pulls on the jacket and hurries back down to the chapel.

  MEAD MAKES HIS WAY THROUGH the reception area, nodding politely to mourners, all the while keeping his back to the wall. Most of them have left already, returned to their cars for the ride out to the cemetery. Mead slips into the viewing room and waits for the other pallbearers, stands next to a wreath of lilies nearly as tall as he is. Delia is no more than an arm’s length away, lying in her open casket, but Mead refuses to look. Not after what he saw back at her house. He’ll just wait until his father comes and closes the lid before he gets any closer, thank you very much.

  But his father is not the one who comes through the door first. Samuel Winslow is: the son of the deceased. Shit. Last time Mead spoke to the man, he was handing the undertaker’s son a cold drink so he wouldn’t pass out. He nods at Mead as he makes his way toward the casket. Mead tries to slip out of the room, to give the man a little privacy, but before he can escape, Samuel says, “She looks so calm and peaceful, don’t you think?”

  “I wouldn’t know, I haven’t looked.”

  Samuel frowns. “Well then, you have to. My mother would be mortified if she thought someone was going to remember her as you last saw her.”

  Maybe she would be, if she were alive; but she isn’t, she’s dead. Mead glances toward the reception area. Where the hell is his father? What is taking him so long? Why doesn’t he get this show on the road?

  “Please,” Samuel says. “For me.”

  Shit and double shit. Looking at Delia is the last thing in the world Mead wants to do right now but he doesn’t seem to have much choice. He’ll just glance at her real fast. Quick and painless like a flu shot. Mead steps over to the casket and peeks down. And is shocked. Because this woman does not look the slightest bit like the one Mead and his dad picked up at the Winslow house yesterday; she looks a million times better. Dead, she still looks dead, but she no longer looks repugnant.

  “Wow. My Uncle Martin did an incredible job.”

  “Yes, he did,” Samuel says and smiles. “My mother hasn’t looked this great in years. She’d be pleased.”

  “Teddy!”

  Mead turns at the sound of his name. His uncle is standing in the doorway with a frown on his face. But what else is new. He motions for Mead to come over. “She looks great, Uncle Martin,” Mead says as he crosses the room. “You did an amazing job. Really, you’re a genius.”

  “A genius? You’re calling me a genius?”

  “I mean it as a compliment, Uncle Martin.”

  He crosses his arms over his chest. “This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it?”

  “What? No, why do you say that?”

  Martin spins Mead around, grabs the back of his jacket, and says, “What the hell is this? What are you, a fucking comedian?”

  The jacket. Mead forgot all about the stupid jacket, forgot to keep his back to the wall. He looks over at Samuel, who is looking back. Shit. Mead would give anything to switch places with Delia right now.

  “Is there a problem here?” It’s Mead’s father. Five minutes too late.

  “Look at what your son’s wearing, Lynn. He’s making a mockery of this dear woman’s funeral.”

  “I am not,” Mead says and yanks himself free of his uncle’s grip. Stands up straight. But he doesn’t sound convincing, even to himself.

  “Here,” Samuel says and steps forward to offer Mead the jacket off his own back. “Why don’t you wear mine.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Samuel,” Mead’s father says, “but not necessary.”

  “Please,” he says. “I insist. I’ll be fine in just a vest.”

  And so, under the gaze of his uncle and his father and the son of the deceased, Mead takes off the AfterLife jacket and puts on Samuel’s.

  “See?” Samuel says. “It fits perfectly. I knew it would.”

  FUNERAL PROCESSIONS ARE NOTORIOUS for moving slowly, but this one just might be the slowest on record. Or so it feels that way to Mead, sitting in the passenger seat next to his father. Several times he looks over to try and gauge
the man’s mood but his father’s face remains as impassive as ever. His eyes glued to the street. The only hint of how he might truly feel revealed through the white knuckles on his hands as they grip the steering wheel at two-and-ten.

  “I’m sorry,” Mead says. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. Really.”

  Nothing.

  The hearse passes under a stone arch and through a wrought-iron gate before beginning its uphill ascent along a paved road that bisects the cemetery. To the left and to the right are row upon row of headstones that face south like sunbathers on a beach trying to catch the best rays of light. Somewhere among them lies Mead’s cousin, doing the eternal sleep. Being here makes it real to Mead for the first time: the fact that Percy is dead and not just out of town or otherwise engaged.

  “Where is he?” Mead asks.

  His father nods off to the right. “Lying next to your grandfather.”

  “I thought you were saving that spot for yourself.”

  Nothing. Mead decides to try another approach.

  “Guess who I saw in the A & P this morning? Aunt Jewel. She was wearing bedroom slippers and a bathrobe.”

  “That’s not funny, Teddy.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  His father looks over. Finally.

  “She bought a half-gallon of ice cream and six cartons of salt. She said she hadn’t seen any reason to get dressed up for the occasion.”

  “You’re being serious.”

  “I walked her home; that’s why I was late getting back. I’m worried about her.”

  “Did you tell your uncle?”

  Mead looks over at his father. “Please. What do you think I am, crazy?”

  THE MINISTER DRONES ON AND ON about Delia Winslow — about what a great wife she was, about how devoted to family and church she was —but it is obvious that he did not really know her because not once does he mention her cherry pies. Mead stands as still as a soldier at attention and tries not to notice that his uncle is glaring at him from across the open grave, his eyes shooting poison darts that rarely miss. Afterward Mead hands the jacket back to Samuel. “I’m sorry,” he says, “for having put you out in this way.” But Samuel shrugs off the apology and says, “You remind me of myself at your age. So full of life. So distant from death. It was my pleasure.”