Final Arrangements (8 page)

"Oh!" Shannon felt like she'd been punched in
the stomach. She held up the cell phone. "You hit Minda. That's why
I told her to leave. And I'm not going to stand here and let you
threaten me. I'm calling the cops. If you leave now, I won't call
them. Don't forget you're on parole."

"You're not calling anybody." Phil talked
through his teeth, jaw clenched, veins in forehead bulging. And
then a look of total and complete surprise. "What is that? On the
table? Is that the box with Mom's ashes? What are you doing! You're
not supposed to touch those!"

"Shannon," Stretch said, in a low, calm
voice. "Go outside."

She hesitated.

"Go," Stretch said.

Something about the way he said it, said one
word.
Go.
She decided to follow the order, but before she
could, Phil lunged forward towards her. At which point the most
amazing thing happened. Her eyes were treated to the incredible
sight of Stretch Murphy wrapping his thick, powerful fingers over
Phil's wrists before twisting Phil around like a dance partner and
forcing him to the floor.

It was over almost before it started. Phil,
his features showing great surprise, as yet unable to quite believe
just how easily he had been taken, lying face down, twisted into
something of a human pretzel, with Stretch kneeling over him, a
size 13 work boot planted squarely in the middle of Phil's
back.

"Hey, man, lemme up," Phil whined. "Let me go
before you break my arms off."

"Hold him, Stretch. I'm calling 911," Shannon
said.

"So they can come out here and do what?"
Stretch replied. "Throw your brother in the slammer?"

"It's a start."

"Shannon, this is a difficult time for Phil.
He lost his father, his wife and kids, and his sobriety all in the
past 24 hours. He needs help, not incarceration. I think we can
work all this out without involving the cops, don't you?"

"Yeh, this has been very hard on me," Phil
agreed. "But maybe you better call the cops, Sister, because when
he lets me loose, I won't fall for your boyfriend's lucky judo
moves again."

Stretch smiled. "Oh, it wasn't luck."

"What, then?"

"Twenty-seven years of judo training."

"Twenty-seven years?"

"That's right. I won my first regional
tournament at age six. I teach street combat classes on Thursday
nights at the Police Academy. You should come up some time for a
free lesson. Or I can give you another lesson right now. But I
can't promise to be nice, like before."

"In other words, I never had a chance," Phil
said.

"Nope. Not even a small one."

Phil sighed. "Okay, Mr. vice grip. I give up.
You gonna let me go, or what?"

"Are you ready to get back on the sobriety
wagon and rejoin the human race? Do the right thing and start the
process to get your wife and kids back?"

"Yes."

"First apologize to your sister," Stretch
commanded.

"Sorry. Sister."

"Say it again. Without the sarcasm."

"Ouch. Okay, okay. Sorry, Shannon."

Stretch let him go and the two men got up
warily, Phil rubbing his wrists carefully. Suddenly his face
scrunched up and the tears squirted from his tightly shut lids.

"If I hadn't been so drunk, you never
could've took me. And you shouldn't have touched Mom's ashes."

When nobody spoke, he headed for the stairs.
"If anybody needs me, not that they should, I'll be in a cold
shower. And maybe some coffee would be nice when I come back down.
I want to be sober when I call Minda in the Philippines and beg her
forgiveness." In a moment they could hear the sound of water
running.

"Dear Lord," Shannon said. "And I thought you
played basketball. Judo was the last thing I would have
suspected."

"I did play basketball," Stretch said. "For
Birmingham. I had a couple of 100 point games."

"We went to high school about the same time,"
Shannon said. "Of course, I went to Van Nuys. Can you believe I was
one of the cheerleaders? But I don't remember you at any of the
games we played at Birmingham. Are you sure you aren't a couple of
years younger than I am?"

She studied his face, which had changed from
jubilant to shades of dark introspection.

"Stretch? What are you thinking? Your face
just clouded up."

"I shouldn't have treated Phil the way I just
did. I could have used more restraint. I wanted to impress
you."

The doorbell rang.

"Oh! It's the company car!" She'd forgotten
all about it. The car to take her to the Burbank Airport. Through
the kitchen window, they could see it, a white Lincoln limousine.
Parked behind Stretch's Mercedes, blocking the driveway.

"I'll tell the driver to leave," Stretch
said. "And then I think we'd better catch some lunch. We don't want
to do Forest Lawn on an empty stomach."

"No! Go out back by the pool and wait for
me."

"Out back? You're putting me out back? Like a
dog?"

"Stretch, please. I need a minute. I need
some space."

"Okay. I'll be under the arbor."

Shannon went to the door. A uniformed
attendant in starched white ruffled shirt with black bossa nova
tie. Shiny black shoes. Black trousers with silk piping down the
sides. A woman, not a man.

"Ms. Ireland? I'm here to take you to the
airport."

"Can you wait a minute? I ... I'm not exactly
ready."

She shut the door and stood there, unable to
find a meaningful sequence to any of the events which had recently
transpired. Was the next step to simply walk out the door and get
into the car? Leave behind everything?
What on earth am I going
to do?
she thought.
Hop in the limo and leave my mother
sitting in a box on the kitchen table? Leave my dear father lying
wherever it is the people at UCLA put the patients who've died on
their tables? The morgue. That's where he is. I can't leave him
lying there. But I wouldn't be. Not really. Because Dad isn't even
there. He's gone to Heaven. Only his body is in the morgue. Like
leftovers in the fridge. Does it really matter if I don't
immediately attend to his final arrangements? The whole thing about
the burial ritual is so archaic. Do I have to be involved? Must I
personally supervise the burying of my dead? In this, the age of
the internet and the supercomputer? By who's order must I stand
beside a hole in the ground and contemplate the remains of my
father?

She sucked in a deep breath. Because there
stood before her not only the matter of her father's funeral, but
the matter of General Kremsky's closing. And a commission of
somewhere in the neighborhood of two and a half million dollars.
Dear Lord
, she prayed,
surely you must have known about
this moment. Or at least you for certain know of it now, since
you're right here beside me. I don't know what to do. I don't know
how to decide such a thing. Help me, please
.

She waited. And waited some more. Upstairs
she could hear Phil turning off the shower. She'd forgotten to make
fresh coffee. Soon he'd be downstairs and no telling in what kind
of mood. There was no answer from God. "Oh Lord," she said aloud,
this time not shutting her eyes or bowing her head. "I'm not
getting through. I feel like I'm all alone here."

"Shannon?" Phil called from somewhere
upstairs. "Did you call me?"

"No!"

"I heard you say something. Did you make the
coffee yet?"

"No!"

Follow me. And let the dead bury their own
dead
. There. The thought popped into her head. A thought from
God, she supposed. From some dimly remembered bible story about a
would-be follower of Jesus who had to go bury his father. Who took
off and left Jesus standing there. Somebody Jesus failed to
convince. But why would God put the image in her mind? She hadn't
left Jesus to bury her father. And would it be considered the
equivalent of leaving Jesus if she returned to San Francisco to
complete the business deal? Were General Kremsky and the folks at
Brunstetter and Griffen the dead she was returning home to
bury?

Stay or go? Not an easy decision. There was
the very significant matter of two and a half million dollars. A
sum nobody in their right mind could ignore. In the first place,
she wasn't hurting anybody by going back to work, by attending to
her business affairs. After all, she had to continue living her
life, had her entire future to think about. And in the second
place, burying the dead was only a ritual for those left behind, to
comfort them and give them closure. Or was it something more?

She wasn't sure if, strictly speaking, it was
a religious commandment, or on the level of a pious duty to bury
the dead. People were first souls, then spirits and then physical
matter. The burial thing dealt with the physical matter portion of
the triad. It was only the physical body of her father. Just a few
pounds of assorted minerals, if the scientists were to be believed,
the rest mostly water. He was no longer living in it. Of course,
one day, according to scripture, the body would be reassembled and
restored to better than mint condition, but that was later.

And Dad himself never buried Mother! Well,
there it was, then. The answer, if not from God, at least from the
example set previously by the parent in question. Like father, like
daughter. The burial ritual could wait a few days. Or perhaps even
longer. The burial of her mother had already waited two years.

But why do I feel so guilty about leaving?
I won't be gone forever. Just a few days. Until Sunday.
She
felt as if she was in a dream. She walked back to the kitchen and
grabbed her straw purse and floppy hat and went out front, to where
the lady driver was stubbing out a cigarette out by the curb,
taking advantage of Shannon's indecision to enjoy a small moment
for herself.

"Are you ready, Ms. Ireland?"

"Yes."

"I'll get your luggage. Is it inside the
door?"

"Never mind. There is no luggage. No wait. I
have to grab my laptop." She ran into the bedroom grabbed the bag
holding her ultra-light, super thin model, slipping the entire
thing into her straw purse before running back to the front. "Let's
just go. And quickly."

"Yes, ma'am. By the way, nice hat. Where did
you get it?"

"From my mother. It's an antique."

"Great flower. Is it plastic or silk?"

"I have no idea."

As the car pulled away from the curb, Shannon
looked back to the side yard gate, where she thought Stretch,
having heard the limo start up, might come to see what was going
on. But he wasn't there. He was still sitting under the arbor. Or
maybe he was back to fiddling with the hose, adding some more water
to her dad's pool. Waiting for her to come out and talk about it.
Talk about the Christian thing to do. Of which he had strong
opinions.

She should have told him she was leaving. But
somehow, she couldn't. She was running away from him, unable to
face his strong convictions. Later, she'd see him again. In a few
days, in fact. They'd pick up where they left off. Continue with
the final arrangements. Get Dad out of the morgue and into a nice
sunny side plot on the hill overlooking Riverside Drive and Warner
Studios. With Mother beside him.

No. She and Stretch wouldn't be doing those
things together. Because she realized now if she left, she probably
wouldn't be back. Things would be different immediately after the
signing of General Kremsky. The world would be a different place.
An expanding universe, one in which guys like Stretch Murphy, who
fiddled with hoses and tried to learn to play chess from lonely old
men, and who helped the daughters of those old men with funeral
arrangements, wouldn't feel comfortable.

Their destinies were entirely different, she
could see that now. Even if he was genuine, if he was for real, he
would be making his vocational decision soon, probably selling his
pool cleaning business and starting seminary, living in a one-room
dormitory on some campus in a State where they grew corn 100,000
acres at a time. While the corn was growing, they watched their
many tow-headed children parade prized sheep of assorted qualities
at 4-H contests.

If Stretch was for real, where he was going,
God, the Bible, and the weather report, not necessarily in that
order, were all anybody was really interested in. She, on the other
hand, would probably be off to New York. The financial capital of
the entire world. A place where anything one imagined and many
things one could not possibly imagine, would, and regularly did,
happen. Where the term "laid back" simply did not apply.

She wondered what Stretch thought of the New
York scene. Tried to picture the two of them, attending a large
closing dinner someplace, maybe at one of the smaller but important
boutique galleries. A gourmet feast for a couple of dozen world
beaters.

They'd all be staring at him. Wondering if he
played basketball. Wondering what other things he did they might
find intriguing or useful. And then, during the soup course, he'd
start praying out loud without bowing his head or closing his eyes
and embarrass everyone. Totally insensitive to the fact none of
them believed in God, or if they did, kept their God at home with
the rest of the antiques. Later that evening, on the steps in front
of the gallery, there would be a mugging attempt. Stretch would
perform his lucky judo move and wrap the mugger into a pretzel and
hold him face down in the gutter until the cops came. That night
she'd hear him out on the balcony of their Bronxville condo. Angry
because he'd bumped his head on the hanging plant. Wishing he were
someplace where corn was growing. Fiddling with the hose. Wondering
what life would have been like if he had been better at
basketball.

If Stretch were for real. If he wasn't, he'd
continue cleaning pools, continue to believe that all the things he
dreamed of were just on the cusp of coming true. And even if she
had started to believe that she could make a life with him, even if
he were somehow different from everyone else, even if she thought
she could bring him into her life, she understood that she could
not. Her attraction had been just that--an attraction. But without
real world substance.