Going in Style

by Robert Grossbach

Joe and Al supplied the statistics as best they could. Willie was seventy-four years old. He lived with them. His only relative was a daughter who resided somewhere in Pennsylvania. They did not know his mother’s maiden name. His Medicare card was at home. As far as they were aware, he had no supplementary medical insurance. He had no family physician.

  “There’s a waiting room to your right,” said the nurse, when the forms were completed. “We’ll let you know how he is when his condition stabilizes.”

  They thanked her and headed down the corridor.

  The waiting room was small—six wooden benches, two vending machines, three ashtrays, a public phone. For the most part, Al and Joe sat in silence, watching the progression of injured people arrive and leave—boys with gashed arms; feverish, screaming infants; moaning old ladies; a man whose bone protruded through, the skin of his forearm. It was as if the city were providing a seminar; these are the signs of suffering—blood, bile, sputum, and pus. At 7 p.m., Joe bought a bag of peanuts from one of the machines. He gave half to Al.

  “We’ll have to bring Willie some pajamas,” said Al. “Maybe also a toothbrush and stuff like that.”

  “We have time,” said Joe. “We have time.”

  A moment later, an intern entered and came over to them. “Joseph Harris?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but your friend died a half hour ago.”

  Joe nodded slowly and swallowed. He had known, of course, that it would be so, but hearing the pronouncement, hearing somebody say it, seemed almost worse than the death itself.

  “There was nothin’, uh, could be done?” asked Al haltingly. “I mean, I know he was an old man… but maybe a transplant, somethin’ like that?”

  The intern shook his head. “No, it’s not really… Technically, he was dead on arrival. His heart still showed a faint beat, but his brain activity had completely ceased. We worked on him a while, standard procedure, but apparently he’d died even before he entered the ambulance. Sometimes the resuscitator will get a heart started again, but, uh…” He shook his head. “I am sorry. He was a close friend, I gather.”

  “Yes,” said Joe.

  “Would you like some coffee? I can get you some coffee.”

  “No, that’s all right,” said Joe. He turned to Al. “You?”

  Al motioned no.

  “Uh, as far as the remains…” said the intern hesitatingly, “uh, you can just notify the hospital within forty-eight hours as to their disposition. Right now, don’t worry about a thing.” He paused. “Sorry.”

  Joe nodded. He waited till the intern had gone, then headed for the phone. “I guess they done what they could,” he said.

  “I guess so,” agreed Al.

  Joe put a dime into the slot, dialed, waited, finally heard a voice.

  “Bender? This is Joe Harris.” The funeral home director was no stranger. When you reached a certain age, people in that line of work became sickeningly familiar.

  “How are you, Joe?” said Bender.

  “Okay,” said Joe. “Listen, uh, I’m down here at Elmhurst General with Al, and, uh… Willie just died.”

  Bender clicked his tongue. “Gee, Joe, sorry to hear it.” The ritual sympathy of the professional mourner.

  “Yeah, well…”

  “Was it a long term kind of thing? Something he had?”

  “No, just like that,” answered Joe. “Doctor said his heart just gave out.”

  “Shame,” said Bender.

  “Anyway… could you send somebody down here to pick him up?”

  “Sure,” said Bender. “No problem.”

  “Me and Al will come over there tonight or tomorrow and settle on all the arrangements with you. And let’s do it up nice this time, okay?” He paused. “Fuck the Social Security, we’re gonna be taking care of it.” He looked at Al, who nodded agreement.

  “Look,” said Bender, “if you want to work out financing, there’s no—”

  “This will be cash,” snapped Joe. “Dollar bills, American money.”

  “Please,” said Bender, “I didn’t mean to insult you. If I did, you have my apologies.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Joe. “Okay, so go ahead with the arrangements.” He hung up.

  They took a bus back to their apartment, where they sank heavily into kitchen chairs.

  “Rough day,” said Al.

  “Yes,” agreed Joe. He forced himself up and over to the refrigerator, where he took out a bottle of cold water. “Want some?” he asked Al.

  “Huh? Oh… yeah.”

  Joe poured two glasses, and they both drank. “Maybe Willie didn’t amount to much,” said Joe, “but he was a helluva stickup man.”

  Al, too spent and drained to manage even the faintest of smiles, could only nod.

  Later, after Al had called his nephew, the two men went out. Joe was carrying a large paper bag. They walked for several blocks through the residential neighborhood, until they came to a corner where the street light was broken.

  “Let me have the noses,” said Joe.

  Al dug into his pockets and handed him the three Groucho disguises. Joe bent down at the curb and threw them into the sewer. A few feet away, he spotted a garbage can. “Over there,” he said.

  While Joe held open the paper bag, Al removed the clothing and carefully stuffed it into the pail, being sure to cover each item with its own layer of garbage.

  Across the intersection, they paused before another pail. “Boy,” said Joe, as he crammed a pair of trousers beneath some watermelon rinds, “this is the longest day I ever lived.”

  The last item of clothing was a gaberdine jacket. “Dammit,” said Joe, “I was so excited this morning, I forgot to wear one that I didn’t want to keep.” He hesitated, then shoved it savagely into the can. “Aaaahhl” he moaned.

  A car honked at them just as they were returning to their building. It coasted to the curb.

  “I think it’s your nephew,” said Joe.

  A man got out and came toward them. The darkness still concealed his face.

  “Pete?” said Al uncertainly.

  “Al, are you okay?” came his nephew’s familiar voice.

  “Yeah.”

  The three of them walked into the dim light cast by the building’s lobby. “How are you, Joe?” said Pete.

  “Well… gettin’ by,” said Joe.

  “We felt terrible when we heard about Willie,” said Pete, returning his attention to Al.

  “Yeah, a shame,” said Al.

  Kathy got out of the car and came over to join them. “We called you back, Al,” she said. “We were worried. We were wondering why no one answered.”

  “Ah… me an’ Joe just felt like a walk,” said Al. “We didn’t wanna stay cooped up.”

  “Listen,” said Pete, “we want you to come over to the house for a couple of days, stay with us. Let us take care of you till this whole thing is over. Whaddaya say?”

  Before Al could answer, Joe cut in. “Sounds great to me, Al. You can relax and fool around with the kids. It’ll help take your mind off things.”

  Even with his fatigue-diminished perception, Al could appreciate his friend’s gesture. Joe always made things easy, he thought, always smoothed over the rough points in a relationship, even at the cost of personal pain. “You think so, Joe?” he said hoarsely.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Come on, stop bein’ a baby. Won’t hurt you to sleep away from the apartment. Pretend you’re going to summer camp.”

  Al patted Joe’s shoulder. “You’re a good man,” he said. “I’ll go up and get some clothes.”

  “We still have the things you left when you sat for the kids,” volunteered Kathy. “They’re all cleaned and ironed and waiting for you.”

  Al hesitated. “Well, maybe I should—”

  “Come on, Al,” urged Pete.

  Kathy led Al toward the car, but he stopped at the door and pivoted. “You gonna be all right?” he
asked Joe.

  Joe feigned irritation. “What, I need you to protect me? What are you talking? Get out of here already. Believe me, at this point, I’d welcome the privacy. Who needs you?”

  Al nodded. “See you, Joe,” he said. He squeezed awkwardly into the car, with Kathy following.

  “Joe,” said Pete, “we got plenty of room. You’re welcome to join us.”

  Joe recognized the formal politeness of the offer and was grateful even for its ritual courtesy. “Thanks, Pete, but I’d kinda like to be alone tonight.”

  “You’re sure? We have two kids, you know. An additional playmate would certainly be appreciated.”

  “No, no, really. You go ahead and take care of your uncle. I’ll be fine.”

  Pete nodded. “Okay. We’ll see you, uh—”

  “Day after tomorrow,” said Joe. “At the funeral.”

  Pete got into the car. “If you change your mind,” he said, leaning out the window, “just give us a call, okay?”

  “Right,” said Joe.

  “You have our number?”

  “Yeah, I got it upstairs.”

  “Good night,” said Pete.

  Joe saw Al twist in the seat, wave weakly, then slump back. “’Night,” said Joe softly. He lingered a moment in the darkness, then headed back toward the building.

  The apartment seemed stifling, unnaturally still, soundless. Joe walked slowly to the bedroom and sat down on the edge of his bed. After a while, he removed his shirt and shoes, and watched his toes wiggle through his white socks. Completing the cycle, he thought. An infant could occupy itself for hours, playing with and investigating its extremities. And now, here he was doing the same thing. He stood up, padded over to the closet, and pulled out an old cardboard box.

  The old photographs and documents came out in yellowed bunches. A tattered birth certificate: Joseph Harris, October 14, 1901. A photo, artificial color added, of himself at age nine. A sepia of young Joe in uniform, World War I. Army discharge papers. A faded plaque, J. Harris-C. Kaneel, Winners, Dance Marathon, Flatbush, J. C. Carla, Joe thought. Her name was Carla Kaneel. He could not remember what she looked like. He found another photo, himself at age thirty, hands on hips, hair slicked back, confident to the point of arrogance.

  Joe’s gaze drifted to the fingers holding the picture, to the dry and wrinkled skin, to the bulbous, arthritic knuckles with their sparse white hairs. He began to tremble, and soon his entire body was shaking. Presently he became aware that he was crying. Then, standing, he saw a dark wet stain spread over his trousers.

  “Damn!” he said aloud. “Damn!”

  He stuffed the memorabilia back in the carton and waddled down the hall to the bathroom. He removed his trousers and used a towel to clean himself off. Imagine, he thought, crying and pissing in my pants like a three-month-old baby. The cycle was literal, he understood now; the helplessness and dependency were real and inevitable. It would not be much longer before the circle of existence snapped shut forever.

  Bender was a small man, immaculately dressed and manicured, with a disturbingly soft voice. Joe did not trust people with voices like this; it was unnatural to have them, and people who did were clearly covering something up.

  They sat in Bender’s tastefully furnished office and went over the arrangements; in a morning phone call, Al had told Joe that anything decided on would be fine with him. Bender consulted a form as he noted the available options.

  “As far as the cemetery, we’ve got space in Woodridge, New Jersey, or Pine Lawn on Long Island. I’m surprised Willie never bought himself a plot.”

  “Maybe he never expected to die,” said Joe.

  Bender ignored him. “Unless you want the special section in New Montefiore.”

  “What’s the special section?”.

  “Concrete vaults only,” said Bender. “Concrete is very big this year, a lot of my customers are taking them. The cost is a little steep, I’ll grant you, but there’s a lot of dignity in stone.”

  “How much?”

  “For the vault? Two thousand. But that includes all cemetery fees and tips for the gravediggers.”

  “And a regular grave?”

  Bender shrugged. “I could get it for you for two-ninety, plus forty dollars to open it up.”

  “You mean dig it?

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll take the two-ninety on Long Island. What’s next?”

  Bender squinted at the paper. “Let’s see… Body preparation we went over, moving fees we went over.… Flowers. You want flowers in the hearse?”

  Joe nodded.

  “Okay, that’s a hundred. You want a separate limousine for yourself and family? Yes? Okay, that’s fifty.”

  “Fifty bucks just for a car?”

  “That includes driver gratuity,” Bender explained softly. “Your funeral director is another hundred, plus… Let’s see—you have your own priest?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “We’ll give you Father Scanlon, a very good man, takes only a fifty-dollar fee. Then, let’s see, you’ll need use of the chapel, use of the waiting room…” Bender’s voice trailed off as he checked the form and jotted down more numbers. “Obtaining of the necessary permits is another seventy-five, plus—how many death certificates will you be wanting?”

  “Gee, I dunno,” said Joe. “Do we need any? I mean, we know he’s dead, we don’t need proof.”

  “Well, but there is a death benefit from Social Security, and you’ll need a certificate for that. And maybe some other things’ll come up, insurance or something—I’ll put down three, okay? They’re only three-fifty apiece.”

  “Put ‘em down,” said Joe, disgusted.

  Bender rose, his face flushed with anticipated pleasure. “Well,” he said, “I think we’re finally ready to select a coffin.”

  The coffins, on waist-high pedestals, occupied two large rooms. “You know what’s coming in this year?” said Bender. “Plastic. Would you believe it? Yeah, yeah, I’m telling you, with the cost of wood, and workmanship what it is—” He stopped before a maroon casket and rapped it with his knuckles. “You hear? Fiberglass. Strong as hell, molded in one piece, this is a real—”

  “Forget it,” said Joe.

  Bender shrugged. “You know, the Jews—it’s in the religion—they have to be buried in wood. But the nice part of being Gentile, you got flexibility. This“—he indicated a shiny, light tan box—”is a metal model that’s very popular, a very nice buy. Welded seams, sides twenty mils thick, last for centuries.”

  Joe reached out and touched the coffin; it felt cold to his fingers. “I don’t like it.”

  “All right,” said Bender, ushering him into the next room. “I see you have a little better taste, fine. You can’t deny a man his due. Personally I happen to agree with you. My father passed away last year, he should rest in peace, I wanted to give him a fitting send-off. I came in here, made a selection. The man didn’t have much in his life—I figured, at least let him go out in style. Look around.”

  There were ten coffins, all wood, all with their covers open. Joe passed slowly by each of them, occasionally running his fingers over a surface to get a feel of the grain. Bender followed, softly quoting prices and supplying information. “Plain pine, six hundred even. Doweled construction, your religious Jews specify this one.

  “Walnut, hand rubbed. Nine fifty.

  “This one is mahogany, speaks for itself. You see the inside? Velvet. A beautiful, beautiful model. Almost makes you want to jump in and lie down. Fourteen hundred.”

  “This what you got for your father?” asked Joe.

  Bender smiled faintly, led him to an even more luxurious casket. “Dad was buried in cherrywood, ten separate coats of stain. You see that inside? Go ahead, look.”

  Joe peered in.

  “Satin shroud,” said Bender. “Best there is.”

  “How much is this one?” asked Joe.

  “This?” Bender grinned patronizingly. “This is two thousand bucks.�
�� He paused. “But come, let’s go back so you can make your selection.”

  Now it was Joe’s turn to smile. “No need to,” he said crisply. “Right here’s the one I want.”

  11

  Ten Coats of Stab

  It was a bright, chilly autumn day. On the small lawn in front of the funeral home, the morning dew sparkled in the oblique rays of sunlight. Al prodded the grass with his foot, watched the drops of water bead up on his polished shoes. He’d been there for nearly an hour; he was happy now to see Joe coming up the path to join him.

  “Are they open yet?” Joe was dressed in a brown suit. His sparse hair was neatly combed.

  “Yeah. No one’s here yet, though.”

  “How long you been waitin’?”

  “Half hour maybe.”

  “How come you didn’t go in?”

  Al shrugged. “Ah, you know, I didn’t feel like being there alone.”

  Joe nodded. “Come on, we might as well see what’s doin’.”

  They headed inside and found Bender in his office. “The coffin’s in the chapel,” he told them. “It’s closed, just like you specified.”

  “That’s the way Willie once told me he wanted it,” said Joe. “Can we see it?”

  “Sure,” said Bender. They walked into the small lobby, then down a carpeted corridor and into the rear of the chapel. Another man joined them, dark-suited, swarthy, curly-haired. “This is Dominick,” said Bender. “He’ll be your funeral director.” Dominick nodded.

  Joe and Al fell slightly behind. “I see we got the Mafia,” whispered Al.

  “Sure,” said Joe. “Who do you think owns this type of business? Times get rough, they supply their own customers.”

  At the front of the chapel was a pulpit and raised platform on which rested the flower-bedecked coffin. The polished wood glowed softly under a row of warm spotlights. Bender’s face nearly outshone the casket. “Is it everything I promised?”

  “Very nice,” said Joe reservedly.

  Al echoed the comment.

  “A matter of honor,” said Bender. “Just because you’re returning to dust doesn’t mean you have to go back cheap. This will make his people proud. He has family?”