Richard Lange - Dead Boys - Stories

We only took up the first two pews; the rest stretched out behind us like some kind of tricky maze. The mourners were all men except for Nita, the Cambodian lady from the doughnut shop. It was nice that she showed up. A thing like that needed a woman’s tears. I felt the pew vibrating beneath me and noticed that Bill was shaking like a car with its idle out of whack. Ray Ray was on one side of him, Dennis on the other. They each reached over and held one of his hands to calm him.

Bud’s ashes were in an urn on the altar. The cross suspended behind it was smooth and clean, without a nail hole or a drop of blood. The preacher did the best he could with his send-off, being a stranger. He told a few stories Whitey had fed him, like the time Bud took up a collection to buy José’s kids presents when José got laid off right before Christmas, and how he once gave a whore his only pair of shoes, then walked around barefoot for a week because he said he needed a lesson in humility.

Toward the end of the service a man slipped through the door and stood in the shadows at the rear of the church. He stayed only a few minutes, was gone before we’d raised our heads following the final prayer. Whitey insisted it was Bud’s brother, the only member of his family to make an appearance, but I don’t know about that. With a life like Bud’s, the possibilities were endlessly exotic.

WE ALL MET up at the doughnut shop later. Everyone was on the program except Bill and me, so the two of us kept stepping outside to guzzle bourbon between cups of coffee. Nita had made chicken and rice, and someone brought a couple of supermarket pies. The radio was on, and the urn containing Bud’s ashes had a table to itself. Pretty soon Ray Ray and Dennis set up their pieces for a game.

Whitey seemed old that night. His hand trembled when he lifted his coffee. Various people sat down across from him and tried to get him talking, but he just nodded or said, “Oh, really?” never picking up his end of it. Even when Bill and I played the video game, the noise of which Whitey always claimed gave him a migraine, he couldn’t muster the energy to cuss us out. My guy had iron fists, and Bill’s shot fire from an amulet on his chest. We fought in a ring in the middle of a desert.

Whitey followed me when I stepped outside for a smoke. A line of people waited to get into the nightclub across the street. We watched a couple of pretty girls jaywalk to join it. The door opened, and the music and laughter that spilled out were louder than the traffic. I wondered what the fuck was wrong with me.

“Youngblood,” Whitey said, pointing at my cigarette. “Those things will kill you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Give me one,” he demanded, and I handed him the pack.

“I’ve got a job for you,” he said.

“I have a job,” I replied, and it was true. I’d been working at U-Haul for six months.

“Someone’s got to deliver Bud’s ashes to his daughter. It’s what he wanted done.”

“His daughter?”

“She moved out here from Florida a while back. Her and Bud only met once, and it didn’t go so well, but it’s what he wanted done. She lives in Downey with her husband and kid. Won’t take you an hour.”

Family shit. I hadn’t spoken to my own mother in ages.

“You were his best friend,” I said. “I’ll drive you.”

“I’m not up to it.”

“One of the other guys, then.”

We turned to look in the window of the doughnut shop, at everyone hanging out. “Who?” Whitey said. “José? The man has a goddamned tear tattooed on his cheek. Ray Ray? You think I’m going to trust this to a dude who forgets to put his teeth in half the time? Or Bill?” At that moment Bill was standing in the corner, doing math problems in midair and laughing to himself. “Get up in the morning, shower, shave. I’ll spring for a haircut and gas,” Whitey said.

I turned back to the nightclub, thinking again that I should have been there instead of at the doughnut shop. I didn’t dance, but that wasn’t a problem. You could sit at the bar, buy a girl a drink. It worked that way, too. Whitey put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. The booze felt like it was chewing a hole in my stomach. When the traffic signal switched to green, everything started moving at once.

I LEFT BUD’s ashes in the trunk of my car that night. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but after splitting another pint with Bill, I got a little squeamish. My grandma used to tell me ghost stories when I was a kid. Then, after I was asleep, she’d sneak into my room with a sheet over her head and scream bloody murder. I peed my pants once, she scared me so bad, and everybody died laughing. She was trying to teach me something, I think, but the dark still gets to me.

When I went down to go to work the next morning, the trunk was wide open. Some asshole had punched out the lock. My spare was gone, my jack, and the urn containing the ashes. The sun can seem so cruel in a moment like that. And the trees, the way they just stand there, and every dog in the neighborhood snickering at you. Your own skin feels like a punishment.

ALL KINDS OF people came into the U-Haul place. Happy people, sad people. We entered their names into the computer, checked their credit cards, and led them out to their vehicles. You were entitled to a bonus if you could talk them into extra insurance. The boss was always on us about it. “Push the cheese,” he’d say. “Push the cheese.” He was a young black guy. Cedrick. Very ambitious. But all I could think about that morning was Bud’s ashes and what an idiot I’d been for leaving them in the trunk. I wanted to hurt the person who’d taken them. I wanted to hurt myself.

The man with the funny teeth had a million questions, but his grin made it obvious that he already knew the answers and was just fucking with me. Certain types get a kick out of doing that to people who work behind counters. All my life I’ve had to deal with them.

“How much gas is in the truck now?”

“It’s full, sir.”

“And what if it’s not full when I return it?”

“We’ll fill it up and charge it to your card.”

“How much a gallon?”

“Five dollars.”

“Do you really think that’s fair?”

My hands began to sweat so much I could hardly hold the pen, and the neck of my T-shirt tightened across my windpipe. The man with the funny teeth grinned even wider, so that his mouth cut his face in half. I excused myself and stepped into the back room. My tongue wouldn’t lie still, and I was terrified that I’d swallow it. Someone out front said “refrigerator,” and someone else said “who.” The floor seemed about a million miles away. It was Denver all over again. I didn’t want to cry, but that’s usually how it went.

Cedrick found me with my arms wrapped around the watercooler, my head resting on top of it. There was such kindness in his voice when he told me to take a break. On my way out I dropped my nametag onto his desk, because I knew I wouldn’t, couldn’t, come back.

THERE WAS QUITE a selection of urns at the mortuary. They were displayed on shelves in a room full of caskets. An old woman with hair like a puff of smoke tried to steer me toward the high-end models, but I stood my ground. The basic copper container cost me sixty dollars.

I borrowed my neighbor’s hibachi and dumped in half a bag of charcoal. After it had flamed and crumbled and cooled, I scooped the ashes into the urn. It was the only way I could think of to make things right. Bud would have approved, I’m sure. He always enjoyed a good fake-out. I took the urn up to my apartment and opened a can of chili. It was the first food I’d eaten all day. Sleep didn’t come any easier, but I wasn’t expecting miracles.