Stanley Elkin - George Mills

“You’re going back. These programs haven’t been broadcast yet. No one knows this in Mexico. Only the planners of the program. Only me. Only you.”

“Why are you tell—”

“I told Mrs. Glazer,” Father Merchant said. “I whispered in her ear before she died.”

“What are you talk—”

“A hundred dollars,” Merchant said contemptuously. “I just see that rich gringo bastard and know I won’t get more.”

“What do you—”

“A hundred dollars,” Merchant repeated. “I saved him seventy on the rate of exchange, on red tape even more. A hundred dollars!”

“ What do you want? ” Mills shouted. “ What do you want? ” He snapped on the bed lamp.

“How much would you say?” Father Merchant whispered. “You were here for a mont’. I kep’ you both alive that first week. I didn’t know there’d be a servant. There’s not usual a servant.”

“Do you want me to give you money? Is that what you want?”

“You? You? A go-between’s go-between?”

“What do you want?”

“How could I know there would be someone to do the errands? Someone so indifferent he could bathe her, wipe her nose, her ass, take her for treatments, out for a ride? Death is what I do, the errands of cancer. The tips, the advice, all that’s just sideline.”

“What do you want? ” Mills demanded.

“To give you your half,” Father Merchant said, “these fifty dollars,” and threw the money down on the bed.

In St. Louis, Louise still counted her breasts when she went to bed, taking inventory, too, since her husband’s employer had died, of her glands, pressing her stomach and kidneys, examining her cervix and rectum, obtaining skintight latex gloves which George frequently found on the rug when he stepped out of bed. She was purchasing as well home urinalysis kits, checking for diabetes, excessive leukocytes, early warning signs of a dozen diseases. She had bought a thermometer which registered temperature electronically, a gadget which noted blood pressure, a full-size doctor’s scale.

“Are we refurnishing?” George asked.

“Do you begrudge me a little security? It didn’t cost you a penny. All the money for this stuff came from what was left over from my father’s insurance policy. He even paid for the dress I bought for Mrs. Glazer’s funeral.”

They were going to the funeral, George as one of the pallbearers, Louise because she was a fan and because she had not forgotten the dying woman’s condolence phone call on the occasion of her father’s death.

Indeed, there was to be a small contingent from South St. Louis. Before she had left for Mexico, Mrs. Glazer had written to invite all the people on her Meals-on-Wheels route and had organized two limousines to pick up all those who were strong enough to attend and take them to the Church of St. Michael and St. George in west county and then on to Bellefontaine Cemetery. The limousines would return them to their homes in the city after a stop for lunch at Stouffer’s Riverfront Inn. All this had been detailed in Judith Glazer’s letters to the guests themselves, as well as to Crane, the funeral director.

Only George and Louise had not been invited, George learning he had been asked to be a pallbearer when Harry approached from behind the curtains of first class on the flight to St. Louis. “My sister,” he said, “wanted you to serve as one of the pallbearers. She asked me to give you this.” He handed him a sheet of folded hospital stationery. All it said was “ Please, Mills,” and had been written and signed with great effort. He examined the note closely. The signature would have been illegible had George not recognized it from some of the last traveler’s checks she had signed.

“Yes, well I know it probably wouldn’t stand up in court,” the brother said, “but you have my word it’s what she wanted. What do you say? They don’t like passengers to stand in the aisles.”

Mills’s mood ring blazed.

The funeral had been much on her mind. George himself had written down the names of specific ushers she wanted, nephews and nieces and the children of friends who she had determined would replace the regular lay functionaries of the church. It seemed she wanted as many people involved as possible. Even after she had been taken to the hospital she had had George place a call to the organist at St. Michael and St. George. When he handed her the telephone, she burst into tears.

“Oh, Matthew,” she said, “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can’t remember how Bach’s ‘St. Anne Fugue’ goes. It keeps getting mixed up in my head with Mozart’s ‘Ave Verum.’ ” She had him hum them.

“Yes. Oh yes,” she said. “I remember.” And had gone on to discuss and approve the names of various trumpeters they could get for the Purcell anthem she had decided on only the night before.

“Do you really think so, Matthew? Fred Turner? Do you trust his embouchure? Ask Willy Emerson for me, would you? And call me back. Mills will give you the number.”

In the hospital, even in the motel, she barely glanced at the dozens of letters and get well cards sent by her friends, but had Mills read the acceptance letters of her designated pallbearers over and over to her, listening for tone, searching out reluctancies. She would take them from Mills and make him listen as if for sour notes in music. When she was satisfied that they meant what they said she dictated formal acknowledgments of their receipt, as if she had formed some binding legal accommodation with them.

She had spoken to Bishop McKelvey long distance. She knew, she said, there could be no eulogy as such, only the authorized prayers, but since they’d already agreed that certain special friends and relatives would be permitted to read the responses, she thought, wondered really, if she mightn’t be granted one teeny dispensation. It was awfully important to her. Though it was the bishop’s decision. She would submit no matter what he decided. Well then, she said, could they set aside some time toward the end of the service, for Breel, her psychiatrist, to address the mourners? No, not a eulogy. Nothing like a eulogy. A clinical report on the state of her head, her symptomatology when she had been mad.

George had seen RSVP’s from all six pallbearers.

One was flying in from Europe, another had postponed his trip till after the funeral. “Friends,” she’d told George, “loyal friends.”

Had she indicated, Mills had asked the brother, which one was to be bumped? “Come on, Mills, she was dying. These were practically her last words, just before she called that Merchant chap to the bedside. Did you expect her to think of everything? I suppose we can do some things for ourselves.”

“She thought of everything,” George muttered.

“How’s that? Speak up. I can’t hear you over the jets.”

This was on Tuesday. The funeral was Thursday. It was too late for Mills to shop for a new suit, too late even to get the suit he had cleaned and pressed. But everyone, he thought, no matter his station, had a decent suit. She thought of everything. She even thought of that. She knew me, knew even I’d have one. She probably knew where it would be, anticipating the very closet, the yellowing plastic garment bag in which it would hang, protected from dust, moths, the wear and tear of poor men’s air. She thought of everything. How could he be her brother and not know that?

So he looked for their white gloves. (Knowing they would not come from the cut-down carton in the church vestibule, just as he knew that the Bibles and hymnals they brought would be their own, as he knew that some of them would somehow have managed beforehand to obtain printed copies of the order of the service — just as he knew they’d be printed rather than mimeographed — as he knew they would have anticipated, and in perfect accord with Mrs. Glazer’s wishes, the precise order of the seating arrangements, only himself and the contingent from the south side guided by the otherwise strictly ceremonial ushers.