William Vollmann - The Royal Family

So how much pain did she feel? he asked.

Oh, not much. She was having her chest pains, and then about five minutes later she—

John began sobbing.

Tyler sat across the table gazing at him, wanting to put an arm around his shoulder, knowing that if he did then John would punch him. He inquired of himself what the Queen would do, and knew the answer: Comfort John. Slowly his head drooped down toward the floor.

Dan Smooth put him in touch with an undertaker named Mort Robinson who was willing to talk.

My brother wants an open casket funeral for our mother, he said. Is that reasonable? I’d like to save some—

Oh, they’re almost always open caskets. Just yesterday I did one closed casket. The family didn’t want to see her, because she was old. It was the first in a long time.

But just what is the point? I figure an hour after the funeral she’ll be in the ground anyway, so—

The point is art, Henry. A good embalming job is a pearl without price. When I first started thirty-two years ago, if somebody fell out of an airplane, you had to make ’em look pretty or they thought you were a lousy funeral director. When I started, they wouldn’t let you use gloves for the autopsy. They used to lock up the gloves to save money. Everything had to be done the hard way. And now they try to take shortcuts such as closed casket funerals where they don’t have to do anything except roll the corpse into the box. In my way of thinking, that’s not art. But lemme tell you something. It’s all a crock of shit. When my time comes, run me through the garbage disposal, man. Henry, you know how many times I’ve had a stiff sit up and thank me for a job well done? I’ll bet you can count the times.

I figure it’s going to be around twenty-five grand.

So you’re going lavish. Your brother has a reputation for that. I remember his high school graduation. Well, Henry, take it from one who knows: It’s all vanity. Let your brother throw his money down the hole. This industry is nothing but a guilt trip. Don’t swallow it. Don’t think you’re doing your mother any favors. Who are you using?

Lewis.

Oh, him. Little glitzy, but he does a good job. Listen, Henry, I can call him up and get him to switch that mahogany job for a plain pine box. He’s using mahogany, isn’t he?

Yeah, I—

See, I knew he was the type! Switch it, man. Nobody’ll ever know. It can be done after the viewing. The burial will look just the same. Save you at least three grand right there. And…

Let me think about it.

So you’re going to stick with the program. Hey, I respect that. Who am I to come between a guy and his mother?

For some time now Tyler’s debts had been rising, but this sudden new expense, for which he really should have prepared and for which he had laid away nothing whatsoever, in part on account of his unwillingness to acknowledge to himself the seriousness of his mother’s condition, in part simply because his obsession with the Queen requires him to neglect everything else, looked fair to trip him up. Last year he’d resigned from the Department of Motor Vehicles database in order to regain possession of his twenty thousand dollar bond, but somehow that money didn’t go as far as he’d expected. Now he couldn’t search the DMV records directly anymore, unless he wanted to take a chance and employ somebody else’s password. If they ever busted him when he did that, he’d be sunk. The previous August, in between desperate stabs at loving the false Irene, he’d taken a hot grim Sacramento freeway drive to the credit counselor’s office, weaving between long white trucks filled with tomatoes. As he watched, a tomato blew off and smashed on the asphalt, and then his right front wheel went over it — a bad omen. He felt nauseous. Broken glass sparkled loathsomely in the yellow grass. The American River was low and brown. (Decades ago, he and John had gone to the riverbank to see a meteor shower, but there was too much ambient light, so in disappointment Tyler had focused his binoculars upon the canted half-moon and actually saw a crater, as well as the tan continent of serenity which clung to that clean white sea of light which bled white beauty into the darkness, like a menstruating goddess.) Green lawns and long low offices with their grass lawns assaulted him. He turned in, and the shadow of a bird passed over the black parking lot.

It was lunchtime. The office, immense, air conditioned, bright and carpeted, lay almost empty. He had an appointment. The receptionist led him to his assigned place in front of the L-shaped desk with the two computers.

His credit counselor wore an eggshaped stone in her wedding ring. She was very well kept. She grimaced. She said: I’m not an attorney. I recommend you consult an attorney.

Dandy, said Tyler. Why didn’t I think of that?

And this is just a copy, the well kept woman said. You just sign right here. And here. And also here on page three.

Celia, suddenly anxious that she might not yet possess the perfectly appropriate dress to wear at Mrs. Tyler’s funeral, and encouraged in this nervousness by John, who believed it impossible for anybody to take too many pains at the impending ceremony, drove with the two brothers down to I Street in order after obtaining the appropriate parking validation to join the big-buttocked matrons at Macy’s stalking down bargains, lonely old ladies inspecting tag after tag, letting the fabric drift through their fingers; hearty old shopping women with two Macy’s bags already in each hand, still wandering and gathering, while from ceiling speakers so-called “easy listening” music fell like a mist of insecticide, not quite drowning out the real music of cash registers. A crisp indigo skirt hung in the PETITES section like a pinioned butterfly; that would have looked very pretty on Irene (who’d been fascinated by shoes and who knew every relative’s waist size). An Asian mother wheeled her little boy in a stroller, looking for something secret and specific. A saleswoman in high heels clattered rapidly back to PETITES, returning an escaped dress to prison. Women mulled through the sales racks in meditative pairs, slowly nodding and considering. Sometimes they looked up, gazing vaguely toward a nonexistent horizon. This was the kind of place in which, like an elf-queen’s cave, one spent a moment and lost a life. By some cheerfully hypocritical caprice, the addictions that it sold were all legal; thus they lacked the thrill of real need and predaciousness. Macy’s smelled better than the Tenderloin, and people didn’t hurt each other in its chrome-trunked forests of sweaters and checked pants-skirts; Tyler used to rebel against it all, as if he were some Communist, but now he was contented enough to sit in one of the overstuffed armchairs because he wasn’t struggling anymore; he had no hope of working free. This place had belonged to Irene’s world, so how could he have anything against it? Where could he go anyhow?

Two necktied men swung open the double glass doors as John, Celia and Tyler entered the funeral parlor. — Aw, horseshit, Tyler muttered.

They kept the lights burning all day in there, to mimic a vigil atmosphere.

John, is my tie on straight? Tyler whispered. I haven’t worn one in so long, I—

Let me adjust it for you, said Celia with a friendly smile. He felt her cool fingers on his neck.

It’s all right now, she said.

Thanks, Tyler said. Which room is it? I—

Hank, you were just in this room yesterday, John said. Are you going to screw up now and wander into the wrong room?