The fathers would sit with their beer and their whiskey, their Camels or Luckies or Chesterfields, their crossword puzzles and sour jingo political columns and imbecile horoscopes and righteous editorials and think about the time when they were not expected to be anything but simply alive. Alive and waiting for the glittering future: of beautiful wives and happy children and perfect lakes and summers and long vacations and bright beaches. And the absurd, wholly impossible bliss that awaited them, a thing of beauty.
A Wake
HE IS PROPELLED SLOWLY AND SMOOTHLY ACROSS THE floor of one of the smaller viewing rooms in the Thomas DeRosa Funeral Home, and in a strange yet quite understandable way, he is touching and not touching the carpet. He has on black-and-gray Argyle socks, but no shoes, a dark gray suit, white shirt, and a navy blue tie with a small, dubious heraldic device on its apron. He is wearing shoes, gleaming black bluchers. These articles of apparel, as the newspapers called them, are not his, but they are familiar to him. He is at the casket, which sits on a small catafalque covered with a deep-red velveteen spread of some sort; at the head of the casket is a floral spray of white roses, and the satin band that graces the flowers reads REST AND RELAX. He smiles and looks into the casket, and there he lies, dressed in the same articles of apparel, as the newspapers called them, as he is dressed in. Or he is dressed in the same articles of apparel, as the newspapers called them, as he, the corpse, is. This is a cliché, such a cliché, the man in the casket says: “the man in the casket is the same man as the man at the casket, God!” He says this to his ex-wife, who is standing next to him, the man at the casket. She is still attractive, quite attractive. In my attractive articles of apparel, she says. Especially the black dress I’m wearing — I bought it for your mother’s funeral, remember? He looks her up and down. Her legs are as good as they ever were. Nice legs, right? you old fuck, yum-yum, some moron with a ponytail and a badly fitting suit says. Not for you any more, you old fuck. The young man slowly kneels in front of his ex-wife and pushes his face into her crotch. “So this is the boy genius who was fucking you while I was working eleven-hour days,” he says from the casket, without opening his eyes or mouth. He floats to the back of the room, and stops next to a woman who looks familiar, save for her clothes. My attractive articles of apparel, the woman says, and they both laugh. Especially my purple velvet dress. Who wears purple velvet dresses any more, he asks, you?
That bitch wears them, his ex-wife says from the casket, where she is lying on top of his corpse. Her boyfriend is on top of her, both of them pretending sexual intercourse, the boyfriend’s ponytail flopping, somewhat obscenely, back and forth on his thick neck. That’s the kind of sex she likes, the woman in the purple dress says, dead and fake. By the way, you don’t remember me, do you? I’m Anna. Anna? Anna is his ex-wife’s name, he’s pretty certain. Anna is my ex-wife’s name, he says, I’m pretty certain. You can hear her scream and sob, rather theatrically, I’m afraid, as the lunk of a boyfriend pretends to stick it in her. “Imagine pretending to fuck on a corpse, on me — or you,” he says from the casket. Anna? Anna? his ex — wife says, I’m Irene! That whore is wearing my old dress, the one that used to get you all hot and bothered when you could still give it to me every year or so! I had a massive heart attack, he says to Anna, a myocardial infection, just like the one I had when I was a young man at Budd Lake, my bad thumb was the cause. Myocardial events, as the newspapers called them, are very serious and few recover from them, despite elegant articles of apparel worn with panache. What of the intercession of skilled medical personnel, Anna says, in, of course, timely fashion? Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! ohhh! Irene screams, wow! This young fellow, an attractive and virile greengrocer, can ball that jack and make my jelly roll sing and sizzle, uhhh! Anna notes that he didn’t really have to die and that death might well have been prevented by following the advice tendered in certain wise columns on nutrition and exercise found in numerous newspapers and magazines. Old Glory, if wrapped around one’s genital area, is also of immense help, but few know how to employ the sacred banner properly — particularly in the rain or after dark. He, Anna remarks to the few mourners in the viewing room, he always liked the way I gave him head, or as the promiscuous Irene probably says, blew him. So few women take the time to learn this basic sexual skill properly! In California it’s called oral copulation, Irene says, climbing out of the casket. Whatever it’s called, I like it an awful lot, the boyfriend says, and if you don’t believe me, you can ask my mother. Speaking of mothers, you’re not bad, he says to Anna, even though you’re old enough to be my mother. It must be the dress. And so am I, Irene says, putting on fresh lipstick and smoothing her skirt, and that’s all part of the forbidden thrill! He is at the casket again, looking in at himself, still wondering about the articles of apparel that they wear in common. “Exactly alike,” he says. Exactly, he replies, but how come? Maybe you know, Anna? he says, and turns to ask her to share her sartorial expertise, which is considerable, he knows or remembers. Or he may ask Thomas DeRosa himself, for he is — What are you, sir? he asks. An official spokesman for the dead, Mr. DeRosa says, few of whom can speak for themselves. Yet of articles of apparel I know little or nothing — my wife, Rosa, always dresses me, from the skin out. Mr. DeRosa inches out of the room, herding the mourners before him. This little black dress is a knockout, isn’t it? he says. Rosa’s taste is impeccable! Note its simple lines and the perfect skirt length, ideal for concealing my bony knees. He looks around and sees that he is alone with himself in the casket. From behind a sofa come sighs, grunts, gasps, shouts, yells, laughter, and frantic obscenities, issuing from the idiot boyfriend, his ex-wife, Irene, and his pleasant friend, Anna — or from the idiot boyfriend, his ex — wife, Anna, and his pleasant friend, Irene. You women look so much alike! he says, give me a break! He is almost uncontrollably aroused. Like Moon Mullins or Dagwood in the dirty books, he says aloud. In my mind’s eye, he says, I can see, with poisonous clarity, the frenzied sexual perversions that the three flawed, yes, but essentially decent — like the President! — human beings are salaciously delighting in. He stands in the center of the room, longing to join them in their erotic play, along with, of course, his buddy in the casket. He wants, even more than he wants to be alive again, to be dead with them, but he is dead with himself alone.