2005-10-19 7:25 p.m. I arrive late to my own funeral, so I take a seat in the back next to my best friend, who is dressed in street clothes. He says he just came for the free food. I hope he's just trying to appear flippant. I would like to think he is truly moved. My wife is crying into Kleenex in the first row while my father, with shaking hands, reads from a piece of paper about his memories of us working in the basement woodshop. My best friend leans in to me and says "You remember how you said you wanted to hire a clown for your funeral? I always thought that would be a great idea. I guess no one else agreed. But it would be classic if there was some guy in face paint in the lobby as we came in, offering balloon animals and being ignored." I told him I remembered that plan. The mistake I made, I told him, was not to have the clown already paid for. Hoping someone else would handle it after my death was a good way to make sure it wouldn't happen. Finally, the speeches are over and the funeral home employee running the ceremony checks the event's program. "Ladies and gentlemen, at this point we ask you to look under your seats. You will find you have each been given hip flasks filled with Macallen 12 year single malt whiskey. According to the wishes of the deceased, the drinking and post-death celebration should begin now." Another funeral home employee, this one in his teens, his tie a little loose, wheels in a giant round cage full of white balls, a handle on the side for turning the apparatus. The service director continues, "I would like to ask you to line up single file. We're moving into the celebratory cremation segment of the evening." A loud whirring sound announces the opening of the roof, which slides apart revealing the night sky. The teenage employee runs into the back and comes back with several fire extinguishers. "As you reach the front of the line, please take a swig into your mouth but do not swallow. Edgar here will pull a ball at random from the bingo cage. On the ball will be written the portion of the deceased's anatomy upon which you have been requested to spit the whiskey. Thus we will, as a group, render him flammable. Once we have emptied the bingo cage, his wife will light him with a long-stem match." Everyone lines up, a few people sniffling, those who have been sipping already smiling a bit. I and my best friend are at the end of the line, so we wait patiently while we hear Edgar call out "Left shin!" and "Upper right arm!" and "Hair!" to the people ahead of us. My best friend gets "face" and he laughs out loud, taking a deep swallow from the hip flask, then spraying down at his target. He heads to the back, taking the next swallow from the flask for himself. I haven't touched mine yet and carefully unscrew it while Edgar rolls and rolls the cage, despite the fact that there's only one ball left. He stops the cage and reaches in. He has to reach for it, going up on tip-toes, and he makes a show of rotating the ball around so he can read what's written on it. "The internal organs!" he says. There's murmuring behind me. I look down at my own body in the casket. My dead face looks peaceful, but the make-up uses too much red. I never got much sun. The make-up makes me look like a mannequin that was modeled on me. To be fair, I suppose that I also never really saw how my features were changed by gravity as I lay on my back. My self-image was entirely based on how I look when upright, looking in a bathroom mirror.. Edgar raised an eyebrow at me, no doubt wondering how I was going to get the requisite spray of whiskey inside my dead body. He�s shooed off by the elder employee, taking the cage and white balls with him. The elder employee lays an empathetic hand on my shoulder. "I know it's difficult, sir," he whispers to me, "but it would have meant a lot to him for you to participate." "It would, yes," I say. "And there are only a few routes into the body. Surely sir can pick one. Should you require us to remove any of his clothing for access, we can put up a privacy curtain and assist you with disrobing him." "I appreciate that," I say. "It's nothing at all, sir. Shall I call Edgar back to assist?" I shake my head "no" and take the whiskey into my mouth. My nose starts to tingle at the alcohol fumes and I become afraid that I'm going to sneeze, that I'm going to spray the flower arrangements behind the coffin instead of the intended target. But I sniff hard, pinch the bridge of my nose, and it passes. Leaning down into my own stiff face, I purse my lips and blow whiskey up the nostrils, hoping enough gets in to drip down inside. Before my mouth is half empty, I can tell I made a mistake. The whiskey is diffused as it�s spit, spreading over the upper lip, the cheeks, some dotting the lids of the closed eyes. Nowhere near enough to render the insides of the body flammable has made it up the nose and down the throat. I should have opened the mouth. Who cares what it would have looked like, to put my mouth so close. There was no need to be reticent. It's a reverent occasion. I start to take another swallow to correct the errorr when the employee again lays his hand on my shoulder sympathetically, but with a strength that gently urges me away from the casket. My wife already has the match lit. I'm guided back several steps so that she can lower the matchhead to the suit that was bought just for this occasion. With a whoomp of ignition, the body is lit and smoke drifts up through the open roof. My wife stands there, letting the match burn down towards her fingers, not looking down at the match. I move to blow it out for her, but my friend catches me and steers me back into the adjacent room where sandwiches are still laid out. "It's done, it's done," he says, "let's eat, let's eat." I surprise myself by finding that I'm hungry. "And besides," he says, his arm rooting around in the melting ice of a cooler full of soda and beer, "I thought you were an organ donor." It's true. My body was supposed to go to science. I take a bite from half a ham sandwich. I shrug. It's the age we live in, I think. Not that much makes sense anymore. Others are starting to filter into the room after us, to polish off the catering. I get a few pats on the back. In the other room, the crackling of flames, interrupted by the sound of bursts from the fire extinguisher, to keep the fire in one place. Another sip from the hip flask. I feel like I'm supposed to be thinking big thoughts about things, but nothing's coming. I think about how everyone has a long ride home in the dark. I think about the expense of the whiskey and about the feeling of missing people. Maybe it'll all make more sense tomorrow. Maybe the big thoughts will come then. |
1. today is nice 3. happy yesterdays 8. thanks for hosting 4. doing other things |
(Proof that I am the only one reading.) |