Mark Rogers - The Dead

“He’s also President of the local Christian Businessman’s Roundtable,” Hersh said. “An Evangelical fanatic.”

Williams nudged him with an elbow. “Yeah, we fight all the time.”

“Sounds unpleasant,” said Aunt Lucy.

“We like to fight,” Williams said. “Arguing’s a lot of fun.”

“Not the way me and Buddy do it,” Lucy cackled.

The conversation wound down rapidly from there.

More people came in. Jack Guillietta, owner of a welding firm that had done business with Max Sr., fell into a long stretch of shop-talk with Buddy and Dennis, who had both been welders before they got into pre-fabs. Max and Gary got up and headed out to the lobby.

“What are we going to do if Buddy invites us out for a drink after the viewing?” Gary asked.

“I’m so tired of him I could puke,” Max answered.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Max gave him a hard look. “Yeah it does.”

“I see. You mean you’re going to leave me alone with him?”

“Uncle Dennis’ll be there. But if you want to beg off, say you’re worried about Mom, you want to sit up with the phone…”

“Won’t wash. Not with you and the women home too. How many people do you need to take a call?”

“Say you’re just not in the mood.”

“He won’t take no for an answer. Not from me.”

Max smiled wickedly. “Too bad you’re not more like me . I’ve been saying no and making it stick as long as I can remember.”

“Yeah, you’re a real bad ass.”

“You’re right.”

“I think you should come with us,” Gary said. “ Please. Do it for your kid brother.”

“Ahhhh…”

Gary decided on another tack. “Well then. How about for Uncle Dennis?”

“What?”

“I was talking to him in the men’s room at Gallardo’s. He really likes you, you know.”

“Hmm.”

“Says he’d like to know you better.”

“Never shows it.”

“Not when Buddy’s around, no. He doesn’t like to say much of anything then. He’s afraid Buddy’ll make fun of him.”

“Then he’ll just keep his mouth shut at the bar.”

“Yeah, but he just wants to listen. Says he’s had some second thoughts about religion. Wants to see how you’d handle Buddy on the subject.”

“I’d cut that oaf up four ways from Sunday.”

“That’s what Dennis thinks. So he’s going to start a conversation…”

Max seemed to warm to the idea. “How come you didn’t mention all this right off the bat?”

“I wanted to see if you’d come just as a favor to me.”

“Doing favors has never been one of my strong points…But the prospect of intellectual slaughter…” Max laughed fiendishly.

At that moment, a compactly-built blond man in a police uniform came in the front door, hat in hand.

“Jeff Purzycki,” Max said. “Haven’t seen you in years.”

“Bad news about your folks,” Jeff said. “They were talking about your mother down at the station.”

“Any developments?” Gary asked anxiously.

“Not that I heard.”

Gary looked floorward.

“I didn’t know you were a cop,” Max said.

“Just for the summer,” Jeff answered. “Boardwalk patrol, but they’ve got me on emergency duty tonight.”

“What kind?” Max asked.

“Guarding the high school.”

“The high school ?”

“So no one drops in on all those dead Italians in the body bags. There’s quite a bit of loot on them, I understand.”

“But why are they having a boardwalk cop watch them?”

“Manpower shortage. Haven’t you heard the sirens?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s been one car crash after another. Most of it’s been mechanical failure. But there’s been some wrecking, too. Oil on the roads. Booby-traps. A felled tree landed in front of a bus out in Pine Township an hour ago. Driver swerved into a lake. Thirty people dead…The meatwagons have been busy here too. Paramedics have been going bananas. This one guy put his head through a windshield, bounced back into his seat-off comes his whole face, rrripp! just like that. Was still on the outside of the glass.”

“Somebody’s face would just come off like that?” Gary asked.

“Sure,” Max said. “Your skin stays on your head because it’s like a bag over your skull. It’s loose. You can peel it right off.”

“Guy choked on his own blood,” Jeff said. “Medics didn’t reach him in time. Ambulance conked on ‘em-”

“About the wrecking,” Max said. “Is it just in this area?”

“Nope. It’s happening all over the state.” Jeff glanced at his watch. “Look, I’d love to stay here and talk with you guys, but I have to be over at the high school in a bit. Won’t be able to make the funeral, so I’d better pay my respects now.”

“No apology necessary,” Max said.

Jeff went inside.

Gary and Max eyed each other.

“You still think Linda’s wrong about all this shit being connected?” Gary asked.

“Let’s just say I’m less sure,” Max replied.

Father Ted arrived about a half hour before the viewing ended, accompanied by Father Chuck. He went up to the lectern near the catafalque; all eyes were on him.

He opened with two readings. The first was the story of Lazarus. The second was a passage on reincarnation from the Bhagavad-Gita, “One of the many Old Testaments,” as Father Ted put it.

All during the second reading, Gary heard Max muttering beside him; he was amazed his brother managed to control himself at all. But an even greater test of Max’s patience was to come.

“He is not dead,” Father Ted said, closing the Hindu holy book. “Max Holland has only passed on to a higher plane. He has merely been changed. He has gone back to that great World Soul-call it Brahma, call it Allah-”

“Mohammed would be going for his scimitar right now,” Max whispered to Gary.

“-Jesus, Buddha, or Diana of Ephesus. And being reunited with that Cosmic Oneness, the very ground of our being, he is reunited with us. When we speak to each other, we are speaking to him. When we pray, we are praying to him. When we make love, we are loving him-”

“Nothing like that old Pantheistic homosexual incest, huh?” Max asked Gary. “Don’t it make you want to rush right out and pick up a girl?”

Gary cracked a grin, almost against his will, then wiped it from his face.

“-His strength is in us even now. His zest is our thanksgiving, just as our oneness is his multiplicity-”

“No wonder we’re so confused,” Max said.

“He was a good man,” Father Ted went on. “Not in some moralistic sense, but in the sense that he was fully alive, trusting in himself and others, willing to listen to God, the voice of all of us in Him…”

“I can’t take this anymore,” Max said.

“Come on, Max,” Gary said. “Dad would’ve wanted it this way.”

“Gary, if I stay here a minute longer, I’m going to start yelling at that theological eunuch.” And with that, Max got up and walked out of the chapel.

Father Ted appeared to take no notice, and droned on for another fifteen minutes. When he was done, Gary heard Uncle Buddy say to his wife:

“Not a bad talker, for one of those Holy Joes. At least he’s open-minded.”

As it turned out, Mr. Van Nuys got word about the gravediggers before the viewing ended; there would be no wildcat strike Thursday, because it was almost certain the whole union would be going out on Friday. He gave this news to Gary as the chapel emptied out; Gary’s relief showed plainly on his face.

Once the mourners were gone, Van Nuys’s assistants closed the coffin, and left soon afterward. Van Nuys retreated to his office to pay some bills.