James Morrow: This Is the Way the World Ends

Robert Wengernook proved a far more persuasive scopas suit salesman than anyone at Eschatological Enterprises had anticipated. Seven seconds after the commercial was aired for the first time, John Frostig’s phone rang. It was the chairman of the Wildgrove Board of Selectmen; he wanted two adult units and three child-size ones. No sooner had John replaced the receiver when the phone jangled again. The principal of Wildgrove High School required seven suits.

By Thanksgiving, John had supplemented his panel truck with a factory showroom, the Civil Defense Stop, open every night till nine.

America was becoming a safe, white country. From sea to shining sea, citizens began wearing their civil defenses as a matter of daily routine. Cheerfully they mastered the arts of eating, sleeping, working, and playing in perpetual preparedness for warheads. Not only did the suits promise survival in times of nuclear exchange, they also discouraged muggings and rapes.

Spin-off industries flourished. Rare was the entrepreneur who could not turn a profit from dry-cleaning scopas suits or adorning them with sashes, plumes, jewels, and decorative inlays. Little girls placing orders with Santa Claus commonly requested scaleddown scopas suits for their dolls. Patches bloomed everywhere, woven from fireproof thread: TRACY LIVES HERE… WHICH WAY TO THE FRONT?… HAUTE PROTECTION CIVILE … DETERRENCE IN PROGRESS.

Fade-in on a village somewhere in medieval Europe. A gang of fat, bearded brigands is running amuck, setting the peasants’ huts on fire. Women and children flee in panic. Men are cut down by the brigands’ spears, axes, and swords .

NARRATOR (voice-over): The threat. It’s always been there. It always will be. Wherever you find freedom, you find forces seeking to destroy it.

A helmeted knight enters the village on a white charger. His armor catches the glow of the burning huts. He dismounts, draws his sword, and falls upon the brigands. Their weapons prove useless against breastplate and mail .

NARRATOR: But for every threat, there is a defense. In ancient times, body armor deflected swords. Today, scopas suits deflect blast, heat, and fallout.

As the victorious knight removes his helmet, his armor is magically transformed into a particularly svelte scopas suit. Surprise: the knight is a woman. She swirls her head, sending luscious blond hair in all directions. The background dissolves. A suburban living room emerges in its place. The woman’s husband rushes over, children trailing behind.

DAD: Marge, you did it! You saw our Eschatological representative!

MOM: Deterrence is only as good as the people it protects, Stan.

DAD: I’m so glad we had that talk.

Fade-out .

When Justine Paxton saw the thirty-second spot during the Army-Navy game, she concluded that she could have done a better Mom than the woman who played the part.

Her acting teacher agreed.

One bitter December morning, as George sat at his work table putting the final cuts in a stencil, he was enveloped by a sense of well-being. The feeling seemed to originate from outside his body. He turned.

The specter stood in the middle of the shop, veil up, smiling. A handbag dangled from her black-shrouded arm. She glanced longingly at Design No. 7034, rendered in South African granite. The granite was blacker than her eyes, the blackest of the black, as Arthur Crippen called it.

‘My name is Nadine Covington,’ she said. How smooth her voice, how young.

‘Why have you been spying on me?’

‘Not spying. Appreciating. You are a good man, George Paxton, a saint in a business swarming with ghouls.’ Although she had no trace of a foreign accent, she spoke as if English were an unfamiliar language. ‘I am honored to meet you.’

Sensations of peace and contentment continued to flow from the specter to George. ‘This is a service business,’ he said. ‘The product comes second. We must be as sensitive as any funeral parlor director – it’s amazing what people have on their minds when they come in here. The idea is to make the customer feel good about his choice, even if it’s the cheapest.’

‘You’re skillful at that.’ Nadine went to an electric heater and began massaging the winter out of her finger bones.

‘No memorial will take away grief, ma’am, but it can help.’ George had not drawn such pleasure from the sheer act of talking since he was three. ‘I’ll tell you what gets me upset, though. It’s when people buy, er, you know’ – what to call them? – ‘guilt stones.’ (That sounded right.) ‘I’m thinking of… well, I won’t say his name, but he treated that kid of his like junk. And then, after the boy drowns, what does this guy do? Has us order a four thousand dollar model of the Taj Mahal.’

‘I must give you your task,’ said Nadine. ‘An ordinary commission – not a guilt stone. I need an epitaph, and something to put it on.’

‘Is this a pre-need?’ he asked.

‘A what?’

‘Do you want the stone for yourself?’

‘No. Some people very close to me are dying… my parents.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Good God – how old were her parents?

‘The stone must endure,’ she said.

‘We carry the best bonded granites.’

‘I fancy this material.’ Nadine caressed the South African sample, which was polished to a mirror brilliance. ‘I can see my face in it.’

‘Our stones have extreme density – they can take the most detailed carving. Also low porosity – no moisture gets inside, ever. The guarantee is unconditional, valid to you, your heirs, and your assignees. If a crack appears, even a hairline, you get a new monument, free.’

‘I have no heirs or assignees. My real concern is the epitaph. I want… eloquence.’

‘Eloquence?’ said George lightly. ‘Really? But why, ma’am? I mean, it’s not like it’s going to be carved in stone or anything… That’s a little joke we have around here.’ He reached into the shelves above his work table and pulled out a plastic binder containing twenty sample epitaphs, typed, double spaced. It began with Number One, IN OUR HEARTS YOU LIVE FOREVER, followed by ASLEEP IN THE ARMS OF JESUS, then I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, all the way through Number Twenty, GOD IS LOVE. He handed the epitaphs to the old woman, who studied them with pursed lips.

‘No, no,’ she insisted, tapping the paper. ‘There’s no honesty here. I want you to write it.’

‘I don’t write epitaphs, ma’am, I inscribe them.’

‘Show me how,’ said Nadine, lifting the utility knife off the work table.

As George took the knife from her, her thumb strayed across the blade. At first he thought she was unharmed – but no, her ancient flesh had split. Violently he sucked in a mouthful of air, and then she expirated with equal vigor. For several seconds they continued to co-breathe in this manner, George neglecting to exhale, Nadine to inhale.

The old woman’s blood was black. Black as her eyes. Black as South African granite. It had a sulphurous smell.

‘Would you like a bandage?’ he asked.

‘Please.’ She sucked her thumb.

His nervous fingers returned to the shelves where the epitaphs were kept and procured a tin box. He punished himself by biting his inner cheeks. Way to go, George. Always be sure to draw blood – best way to firm up a sale.

Ripping the tabs from the bandage, Nadine wrapped it around her black, burning wound.

A rubber stencil spanned George’s work table. He sliced some final touches into the inscription. IN LOVING MEMORY OF GRACE LOQUATCH… THE HAMMER GROWS SILENT. Grace Loquatch’s birth and death dates followed. She had been a carpenter. The epitaph was her sister’s inspiration.