I clock out and cut through the strip of forest behind FedEx. Very pretty. A raccoon scurries over a fallen oak and starts nibbling at a rusty bike. As I come out of the woods I hear a shot. At least I think it’s a shot. It could be a backfire. But no, it’s a shot, because then there’s another one, and some kids sprint across the courtyard yelling that Big Scary Dawgz rule.
I run home. Min and Jade and Aunt Bernie and the babies are huddled behind the couch. Apparently they had the babies outside when the shooting started. Troy’s walker got hit. Luckily he wasn’t in it. It’s supposed to look like a duck but now the beak’s missing.
“Man, fuck this shit!” Min shouts.
“Freak this crap you mean,” says Jade. “You want them growing up with shit-mouths like us? Crap-mouths I mean?”
“I just want them growing up, period,” says Min.
“Boo-hoo, Miss Dramatic,” says Jade.
“Fuck off, Miss Ho,” shouts Min.
“I mean it, jagoff, I’m not kidding,” shouts Jade, and punches Min in the arm.
“Girls, for crying out loud!” says Aunt Bernie. “We should be thankful. At least we got a home. And at least none of them bullets actually hit nobody.”
“No offense, Bernie?” says Min. “But you call this a freaking home?”
Sea Oak’s not safe. There’s an ad hoc crackhouse in the laundry room and last week Min found some brass knuckles in the kiddie pool. If I had my way I’d move everybody up to Canada. It’s nice there. Very polite. We went for a weekend last fall and got a flat tire and these two farmers with bright-red faces insisted on fixing it, then springing for dinner, then starting a college fund for the babies. They sent us the stock certificates a week later, along with a photo of all of us eating cobbler at a diner. But moving to Canada takes bucks. Dad’s dead and left us nada and Ma now lives with Freddie, who doesn’t like us, plus he’s not exactly rich himself. He does phone polls. This month he’s asking divorced women how often they backslide and sleep with their exes. He gets ten bucks for every completed poll.
So not lucrative, and Canada’s a moot point.
I go out and find the beak of Troy’s duck and fix it with Elmer’s.
“Actually you know what?” says Aunt Bernie. “I think that looks even more like a real duck now. Because sometimes their beaks are cracked? I seen one like that downtown.”
“Oh my God,” says Min. “The kid’s duck gets shot in the face and she says we’re lucky.”
“Well, we are lucky,” says Bernie.
“Somebody’s beak is cracked,” says Jade.
“You know what I do if something bad happens?” Bernie says. “I don’t think about it. Don’t take it so serious. It ain’t the end of the world. That’s what I do. That’s what I always done. That’s how I got where I am.”
My feeling is, Bernie, I love you, but where are you? You work at DrugTown for minimum. You’re sixty and own nothing. You were basically a slave to your father and never had a date in your life.
“I mean, complain if you want,” she says. “But I think we’re doing pretty darn good for ourselves.”
“Oh, we’re doing great,” says Min, and pulls Troy out from behind the couch and brushes some duck shards off his sleeper.
Joysticks reopens on friday. It’s a madhouse. They’ve got the fog on. A bridge club offers me fifteen bucks to oil-wrestle Mel Turner. So I oil-wrestle Mel Turner. They offer me twenty bucks to feed them chicken wings from my hand. So I feed them chicken wings from my hand. The afternoon flies by. Then the evening. At nine the bridge club leaves and I get a sorority. They sing intelligent nasty songs and grope my Simulator and say they’ll never be able to look their boyfriends’ meager genitalia in the eye again. Then Mr. Frendt comes over and says phone. It’s Min. She sounds crazy. Four times in a row she shrieks get home. When I tell her calm down, she hangs up. I call back and no one answers. No biggie. Min’s prone to panic. Probably one of the babies is puky. Luckily I’m on FlexTime.
“I’ll be back,” I say to Mr. Frendt.
“I look forward to it,” he says.
I jog across the marsh and through FedEx. Up on the hill there’s a light from the last remaining farm. Sometimes we take the boys to the adjacent car wash to look at the cow. Tonight however the cow is elsewhere.
At home Min and Jade are hopping up and down in front of Aunt Bernie, who’s sitting very very still at one end of the couch.
“Keep the babies out!” shrieks Min. “I don’t want them seeing something dead!”
“Shut up, man!” shrieks Jade. “Don’t call her something dead!”
She squats down and pinches Aunt Bernie’s cheek.
“Aunt Bernie?” she shrieks. “Fuck!”
“We already tried that like twice, chick!” shrieks Min. “Why are you doing that shit again? Touch her neck and see if you can feel that beating thing!”
“Shit shit shit!” shrieks Jade.
I call 911 and the paramedics come out and work hard for twenty minutes, then give up and say they’re sorry and it looks like she’s been dead most of the afternoon. The apartment’s a mess. Her money drawer’s empty and her family photos are in the bathtub.
“Not a mark on her,” says a cop.
“I suspect she died of fright,” says another. “Fright of the intruder?”
“My guess is yes,” says a paramedic.
“Oh God,” says Jade. “God, God, God.”
I sit down beside Bernie. I think: I am so sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when it happened and sorry you never had any fun in your life and sorry I wasn’t rich enough to move you somewhere safe. I remember when she was young and wore pink stretch pants and made us paper chains out of DrugTown receipts while singing “Froggie Went A-Courting.” All her life she worked hard. She never hurt anybody. And now this.
Scared to death in a crappy apartment.
Min puts the babies in the kitchen but they keep crawling out. Aunt Bernie’s in a shroud on this sort of dolly and on the couch are a bunch of forms to sign.
We call Ma and Freddie. We get their machine.
“Ma, pick up!” says Min. “Something bad happened! Ma, please freaking pick up!”
But nobody picks up.
So we leave a message.
…
Lobton’s funeral parlor is just a regular house on a regular street. Inside there’s a rack of brochures with titles like “Why Does My Loved One Appear Somewhat Larger?” Lobton looks healthy. Maybe too healthy. He’s wearing a yellow golf shirt and his biceps keep involuntarily flexing. Every now and then he touches his delts as if to confirm they’re still big as softballs.
“Such a sad thing,” he says.
“How much?” asks Jade. “I mean, like for basic. Not superfancy.”
“But not crappy either,” says Min. “Our aunt was the best.”
“What price range were you considering?” says Lobton, cracking his knuckles. We tell him and his eyebrows go up and he leads us to something that looks like a moving box.
“Prior to usage we’ll moisture-proof this with a spray lacquer,” he says. “Makes it look quite woodlike.”
“That’s all we can get?” says Jade. “Cardboard?”
“I’m actually offering you a slight break already,” he says, and does a kind of push-up against the wall. “On account of the tragic circumstances. This is Sierra Sunset. Not exactly cardboard. More of a fiberboard.”
“I don’t know,” says Min. “Seems pretty gyppy.”
“Can we think about it?” says Ma.
“Absolutely,” says Lobton. “Last time I checked this was still America.”
I step over and take a closer look. There are staples where Aunt Bernie’s spine would be. Down at the foot there’s some writing about Folding Tab A into Slot B.