I had no idea if it was okay for her to write the obituary. And I believed that the newspaper generally ran only the photographs of famous dead people. But then I looked at the desktop and noticed Lois’s neatly written notes trapped beneath the glass. I gave praise for her organizational skills.
“Okay, okay,” I said, scanning the notes. “Yes. Yes, it’s okay if you want to write the obituary yourself.”
I paused and then read aloud the official response to such a request.
“Because we understand, in your time of grieving, that you want your loved one to be honored with the perfect words—”
“Oh, that’s lovely.”
“—but, and we’re truly sorry about this, it will cost you extra,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, I didn’t know that. How much extra?”
“Fifty dollars.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of money.”
“Yes,” I said. It was one-fifth of my monthly rent.
“And how about running the photograph?” Mona asked. “How much extra does that cost?”
“It depends on the size of the photo.”
“How much is the smallest size?”
“Fifty dollars, as well.”
“So it will be one hundred dollars to do this for my husband?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if I can afford it. I’m a retired schoolteacher on a fixed income.”
“What did you teach?” I asked.
“I taught elementary school — mostly second grade — at Meadow Hills for forty-five years. I taught three generations.” She was proud, even boastful. “I’ll have you know that I taught the grandchildren of three of my original students.”
“Well, listen,” I said, making an immediate and inappropriate decision to fuck the duck in chief. “We have a special rate for — uh, retired public employees. So the rate for your own obituary and your husband’s photograph is — uh, let’s say twenty dollars. Does that sound okay?”
“Twenty dollars? Twenty dollars? I can do twenty dollars. Yes, that’s lovely. Oh, thank you, thank you.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am. So — uh, tell me, when do you want this to run?”
“Well, I told my daughters and sons that it would run tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, the funeral is tomorrow. I really want this to run on the same day. Is that okay? Will that be possible?”
I had no idea if it was possible. “Let me talk to the boys down in the print room,” I said, as if I knew them. “And I’ll call you back in a few minutes, okay?”
“Oh, yes, yes, I’ll be waiting by the phone.”
We said our good-byes and I slumped in my chair. In Lois’s chair. What had I done? I’d made a promise I could not keep. I counted to one hundred, trying to find a cool center, and walked over to the chief’s office.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I think I screwed up.”
“Well, isn’t that a surprise,” he said. I wanted to punch the sarcasm out of his throat.
“This woman — her husband died,” I said. “And she wanted to write the obituary and run his photo—”
“That costs extra.”
“I know. I read that on Lois’s desk. But I read incorrectly, I think.”
“How incorrectly?”
“Well, I think it’s supposed to cost, like, one hundred dollars to run the obit and the size photo she wants—”
“How much did you tell her it would cost?”
“Twenty.”
“So you gave her an eighty-percent discount?”
“I guess.”
He stared at me. Judged me. He’d once been a Pulitzer finalist for a story about a rural drug syndicate.
“And there’s more,” I said.
“Yes?” His anger was shrinking his vocabulary.
“I told her we’d run it tomorrow.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Damn it, kid.”
I think he wanted to fire me, to throw me out of his office, out of his building, out of his city and country. I suddenly realized that he was grieving for Lois, that he was angry about her death. Of course he was. They had worked together for two decades. They were friends. So I tried to forgive him for his short temper. And I did forgive him, a little.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Well, shit on a rooster,” he said, and leaned back in his chair. “Listen. I know this is a tough gig here. This is not your job. I know that. But this is a newspaper and we measure the world by column inches, okay? We have to make tough decisions about what can fit and what cannot fit. And by telling this woman — this poor woman — that she could have this space tomorrow, you have fucked with the shape of my world, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He ran his fingers through his hair (my father did the same thing when he was pissed), made a quick decision, picked up his phone, and made the call.
“Hey, Charlie, it’s me,” he said. “Do we have any room for another obituary? With a photo?”
I could hear the man screaming on the other end.
“I know, I know,” the chief said. “But this is an important one. It’s a family thing.”
The chief listened to more screaming, then hung up on the other guy.
“All right,” he said. “The woman gets one column inch for the obit.”
“That’s not much,” I said.
“She’s going to have to write a haiku, isn’t she?”
I wanted to tell him that haikus were not supposed to be elegies, but then I realized that I wasn’t too sure about that literary hypothesis.
“What do I do now?” I asked.
“We need the obit and the photo by three o’clock.”
It was almost one.
“How do I get them?” I asked.
“Well, you could do something crazy like get in a car, drive to this woman’s house, pick up the obit and the photo, and bring them back here.”
“I don’t have a car,” I said.
“Do you have a driver’s license?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, why don’t you go sign a vehicle out of the car pool and do your fucking job?”
I fled. Obtained the car. And while cursing Lois and her early death, and then apologizing to Lois for cursing her, I drove up Maple to the widow’s small house on Francis. A green house with a white fence that was maybe one foot tall. A useless fence. It couldn’t keep out anything.
I rang the doorbell and waited a long time for the woman — Mona, her name was Mona — to answer. She was scrawny, thin-haired, dark for a white woman. At least eighty years old. Maybe ninety. Maybe older than that. I did the math. Geronimo was still alive when this woman was born. An old raven, I thought. No, too small to be a raven. She was a starling.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi, Mona,” I said. “I’m from the Spokesman; we talked on the phone.”
“Oh, yes, oh, yes, please come in.”
I followed her inside into the living room. She slowly, painfully, sat on a wooden chair. She was too weak and frail to lower herself into a soft chair, I guess. I sat on her couch. I looked around the room and realized that every piece of furniture, every painting, every knickknack and candlestick, was older than me. Most of the stuff was probably older than my parents. I saw photographs of Mona, a man I assumed was her husband, and five or six children, and a few dozen grandchildren. Her children and grandchildren, I guess. Damn, her children were older than my parents. Her grandchildren were older than me.
“You have a nice house,” I said.
“My husband and I lived here for sixty years. We raised five children here.”
“Where are your children now?”
“Oh, they live all over the country. But they’re all flying in tonight and tomorrow for the funeral. They loved their father. Do you love your father?”
My father was a drunken liar.
“Yes,” I said. “I love him very much.”
“That’s good, you’re a good son. A very good son.”