J. Lennon - The Funnies

The backyard studio is now a studio and office, home to Susan’s upstart comics syndicate, which is called Cal-Mix Enterprises (her title; I think it sounds like a cat food). So far its cartoonists’ stable echoes with the snorting of a single stud: Tyro proved easy to draw away from Fake Comix, and he is overhauling “The Emerald Forest” for its new run in an expanded number of urban free weeklies. Sometimes I visit galleries with him in New York, or he comes down to Mixville for dinner, which Pierce makes for everybody when he’s in the right mood, which is not very often but more often than before.

We have not met Bobby and Nancy’s new daughter, and it seems increasingly unlikely that Mike will be around for the birth of his son (I went to the doctor’s with Bitty and saw him on the video monitor — pinioning his monochrome arms, his little heart winking like a firefly). Also Rose hasn’t spoken to us since we told her about the warehouse, and I doubt she’ll go down to see it. But that’s to be expected. If there’s anything I’ve learned from my new involvement with my family, it’s that voluntary change in anyone is exceptional indeed, myself included. I am loath to imagine what I’d be doing now if none of this had happened to me; then again, I feel awful viewing my parents’ demise as a great opportunity, even if that’s what it turned out, in part, to be.

And I remembered a weird experience. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it on the trip to the warehouse, and in retrospect I can’t understand why I ever forgot it at all, so singular is it in my life: it makes me wonder what else I’ve forgotten.

This happened during my sophomore year in college. The art supply section of the college bookstore was open late because it was finals time, and I was buying a bunch of pencils and newsprint for a drawing project I was working on. It was almost dark outside, and there was nobody else in the store save for the clerks. I was thinking about ringing up my purchases and leaving when I looked up at the counter, which stood about fifty feet from where I was standing, and saw somebody waiting in line who looked exactly like me.

Now, what was odd was that I knew everybody in the art department, and in fact had been keeping my eyes open for friends of mine, so if somebody had come in — especially somebody who was dressed in the same T-shirt and jeans I was, and from behind, anyway, had my precise haircut, posture, etc. — I figure I would have noticed. But I hadn’t noticed anyone. And this guy seemed to have a newsprint pad and pencils, too, which he had to have gotten from the very section of the store I was shopping in.

As I watched, this person walked out the door, onto the sidewalk, and — I swear I saw this clearly through the bookstore window — climbed into my car and drove off.

I remember feeling agitated and more than a little embarrassed, because my car had been stolen before my eyes and I had done nothing to prevent it. At the same time, it didn’t register as a terribly big deal to me: watching a doppelganger steal my car was weirdly like lending it to my own brother. I walked to the counter and paid for my supplies. Outside, the car really was gone and I walked home.

The police found the car abandoned and, miraculously, unharmed on the shoulder of Route 90, and it was returned to me the following day. But the more I thought about them, the more the circumstances of the theft seemed incredible at best, and at worst invented. That, at least, was what the police appeared to think. I began to wonder if I had done this myself, in some sort of stress-induced daze, and if in fact I did similar things all the time, then obscured them in my mind. I wondered if I was beginning to get sick the way Pierce had. In the end I gave up thinking about it entirely, and my life went on as planned, which plan actually turned out to be no plan at all.

But now I wonder if that person really was me, and if he spent ten years wandering around, gathering the raw materials that a real life could be made from, in order to return them to the original me at some later date and make me whole. I wonder what that later date might be, or if perhaps it already passed without my notice, meaning that what I was for all those years was never very far from what I was supposed to be.

At any rate, I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for him to show up. Anna Praegel, who is recovered, divorced, and full of pithy advice, is fond of telling us what a great life she would have had if she hadn’t sat around waiting for things to happen to her, because when they did they were invariably the wrong things. Nevertheless, it does make a good story, and I’m working on a way to fit it into the strip, which any day now should be reaching a college rag near you.

* * *

Not long ago I was cleaning out the cabinets under the sink when I came across a cardboard box addressed to my father. It was postmarked a few weeks after he died and had a Riverbank P.O. Box for a return address. It hadn’t been opened.

I turned it over a few times and gave it a good shake. Something was loose in there, making a muffled, metallic sort of rattle. The box looked familiar, and I closed my eyes, remembering: it had sat on the kitchen counter, pushed back next to the broken radio, for several months, then was moved to the living room floor, just inside the sliding doors, when Pierce and Susan made pancakes together. A few weeks later it vanished, and now here it was again. I called out to Pierce, who was smoking cigarettes in his bedroom.

He walked out looking stricken, as if he’d been watching television for days on end. I held up the box to him and he frowned.

“Whassat?”

“You tell me.”

He took the box and gave it a cursory look. “It came for Dad. I don’t know what it is.”

I opened a drawer and pulled out a dull paring knife with a green plastic handle. “Give it here,” I said. He did, and I set it on the counter and sliced through the packing tape. Pierce came up beside me and watched. I folded back the flaps and picked up a piece of cream-colored linen paper with a letterhead printed on it. The letterhead read RIVERBANK FUNERAL SERVICES, INC.

“Uh-oh,” said Pierce.

Dear Customer:

Enclosed are the remains of your loved one, and product #34195, Oriental Brass Urn, which you requested and paid for in full. You have our unconditional guarantee that this urn will meet with your complete satisfaction, or your money back.

The remains of your loved one are packed in a UV-protected plastic pouch which has been double-sealed and inspected to ensure that no remains are lost. To remove remains, shake to the bottom of the pouch, then remove the sealed end using a pair of scissors or sharp knife. Slowly pour remains into your urn and affix the lid. Store urn and remains in a dry place, to prevent sticking. Do not place urn on a surface where it may be jostled or knocked over. Keep away from pets.

We sincerely hope our services will help you to remember your loved one with pleasure and respect. Thank you for choosing Riverbank Funeral Services, Inc.

“Why was it addressed to him?” Pierce was saying.

“Got me,” I said, and then, unnecessarily, “ That’s him in there.” We stared at the open package for a few minutes, lost in our private worlds of horror. Beside me, Pierce breathed his labored cigarettey breaths.

“So what do we do with it?” I said.

“We can’t keep it in the house. We have to scatter it or something.” The remains of our father had become “it,” which made things easier.

“But then we have to take it out of the bag.”

We could easily have stood there all day. I took the urn out of the box. It was ornate and artificially aged, with foreign writing and pictograms all over it, and a small curved handle. The lid had a rubber lining, to ensure a tight fit. The bag of ashes was inside the urn, so I stuck my hand in there and worked it through the opening. The ashes were barely visible through the ultraviolet-proof coating, coarse and multicolored, with large black hunks of what pretty much had to be bone.