Funeral with a View
Read Funeral with a View Online
Authors: Matt Schiariti
Funeral with
a View
By
Matt Schiariti
Funeral with a View
By Matt Schiariti
This is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, events and organizations depicted are either the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. [Any resemblance
to any persons, living or dead, events or organizations is purely
coincidental.] The use of any company or product names are for literary effect
only and used without permission.
Copyright © 2014 by Matt Schiariti. All rights reserved.
This story may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, except for selected
passages for the purpose of critical reviews, without the written permission of
the author.
Kindle Edition published September 2014
ISBN-13: 978-1502506566
ISBN-10: 1502506564
Novels
Ghosts of Demons Past
(Seth Gabriel #1)
Short Stories
Words With Fiends: A Short Story
Hollow (Be Careful What You Wish For)
, as part of the Apocalypse 13
anthology
Chapter 7 of The Carnival 13 anthology
A Dollar and a $cream
, as part of the Lucky 13 anthology
Heavy gun-metal gray
clouds look like a rough ceiling made out of dirty cotton. Wind plays with an
array of multi-colored umbrellas pedestrians have opened up to fend off fat
rain drops which have begun to fall, landing on the sidewalk and street with
large splats.
“Hello? Cat?” I have to
shout. Rush hour is in full swing, the traffic so loud I can barely hear myself
think.
“R-i-c-k-y?” Her voice is
still full of static. I check out the screen and see only one bar of reception.
A new carrier is definitely in order. Better call quality, my ass. That little
talking hamster who sounded eerily like Andrew Dice Clay was full of crap.
Since the finger in the
ear trick didn’t work, I try my palm instead. The cacophony dulls, but only
just.
“Cat? You’re breaking up,
baby. The service here sucks.”
“ –at? *ssss* … ear … you
… *ssssssss*”
“I can’t make out what
you’re saying,” I yell into my phone, lips pressed against it. “I think I’m in
a dead zone.”
I am paying more
attention to my phone than the traffic, surely looking like an idiot to the
passersby as I scream into the evil device that is the cellular phone. In an
effort to get one more cursed bar of reception, I sidle closer to the curb.
“—ood news …”
“What? You’re still
breaking up, Catherine.”
“… ant … *ssss* … by …”
“Huh? Aunt Bea? Dammit.”
Almost on top of the
street now, I check the phone again. Two bars.
“I think we’re in
business now, Cat. What’s this about …”
The sentence goes
unfinished. A shout of “Buddy! Look out!” turns my attention from my
conversation. Startled, I spin around to see what the commotion is, but it’s
already too late.
“What the shit?”
Two massive halos of
light become my entire world within a split second. They follow on the sound of
a loud pop that turns into a screech of tires. There is a scream. Could be
mine, could be someone else’s. My life doesn’t pass before my eyes, but a
telephone pole does as I fly through the air after the brutal impact. Pain, short-lived
but intense, shoots through me.
When I come to a stop, so
numb it almost hurts, all I see are those dark gray clouds. They swirl and
undulate, and I realize my face is wet. Is it from the tears or the dollops of
rain the clouds shed?
Over the ringing and
pulsing of blood rushing through my head, I hear Cat’s voice loud and clear. I can’t
help but think how typical that is.
“Rick? Ricky! What’s that
noise? What happened? You there?”
No
.
I don’t
think I am.
Funerals.
Nobody likes a
funeral.
For most people they’re
unavoidable, like taxes, waiting in lines at the DMV, and birthday parties at
Chuck
E. Cheese
.
If you ever stop to think
about it, it doesn’t take long to realize how brutal the ritual is.
For your consideration:
On the worst day of their
life, the bereaved, whether they are husband or wife, mother or father, son or
daughter, are on display more than the deceased, forced to endure a barrage of
uncomfortable, stammering condolences from friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances;
their naked sorrow front and center. Perhaps the last thing anybody wants to do
in aftermath of such loss is shake dozens of hands and hear the words ‘I’m so
sorry’ over and over again.
They’re brutal.
They’re expected.
They’re also necessary.
Even cleansing.
While emotionally
draining and difficult, they provide a certain degree of closure, and act as an
arena in which survivors, in a unifying display of support, can say that one
final goodbye.
That being said, when you
put all the pros aside, it doesn’t change the fact that nobody likes a funeral.
Nobody
living,
at
least.
As for me? I’m not sure
what to think.
I hated them like every
other living person hated them, while I was alive.
Being dead has skewed my
perspective.
Admittedly, it’s amazing
bearing witness to this procession of people. People I haven’t seen in years,
people I’ve forgotten about, people whose lives I’d touched in the limited
amount of time I had. Believe me, it’s no small thing seeing someone who fell
off the precipice of your life’s path years ago come to pay their respects.
It’s awesome in the strictest definition of the word, not the eighties surfer
way.
And that’s how I see it, so
far. I’m sure everyone has their own feelings about it. (Yes, even dead I have
feelings … sort of). Then again, I’ve nothing to compare it to, do I? I’ve yet
to meet another dead person. Something tells me that once I’m finished viewing
my viewing (wink wink, nudge nudge) I’ll move along on to that next plane of
existence. Heaven? Hell? Who knows? Death doesn’t come with a guidebook, even
if that’s what
Beetlejuice
would have you believe.
I have no death liaison.
Maybe I’ll get one later?
Time will tell. For right now, I’m stuck in this funeral parlor with no way
out.
In life I’d been what
could be defined as a social drinker. By no means an alcoholic, I wasn’t a teetotaler
either. Work hard, play hard … in moderation. It was a running joke between my
wife Catherine and me. Knowing my idea of tying on a good one involved three,
maybe four beers over the course of a night out, she’d say, ‘One of these days
that booze is going to kill you, Ricky,’ her face alight with mischief. For my
part, I’d play the role of the subservient husband, and reply with the
ubiquitous, ‘Yes, dear, I won’t drink and drive, dear.’ I meant it, and she
knew I did. I never drove drunk in thirty-plus years.
Irony is a Budweiser
truck hopping a curb and splattering you like a bug on a windshield before you
even have your first beer.
Looking down on myself, laid
out in my ornate casket, I have to admit the mortician did a bang-up job.
Everything on my face is where it should be. Open casket? That’s a win in my
book.
Details are gossamer at
this point, a side effect of being newly dead I imagine, but the way I
understand it, the Bud delivery guy was trying to make a yellow light, hit a
pothole, blew a tire, and bam! I’m a human pancake, tenderized into the
afterlife. Do I plan to haunt the driver? No. Taking a man of my youngish vintage
away from his family is something he’ll have to live with for the rest of his
days, however many of them he’s lucky enough to get. And it’s not as if he’d
planned on turning me into a crepe. It was an accident. They do happen.
I do blame that pothole,
though. Damn that pothole.
Now that I think about
it, my wife was right. Booze did kill me, if indirectly. If I weren’t dead I’d
be embarrassed. But since I am, I don’t much care. Dead is dead, regardless of
how you get there.
In any event, the
mortician has done a fantastic job of putting my face back to rights. Now all
in attendance can gaze upon my devastatingly handsome visage one last time as
they usher me off into the great unknown.
Catherine’s picked out
one of my favorite suits for the occasion, a charcoal gray affair with a white
shirt and gray tie. These colors compliment my olive complexion rather nicely I
think, and in combination with the hints of gray at my temples, I look stately.
Also nice to see the mortician took it upon himself to split my unibrow in two.
You can’t look stately with a unibrow.
On the topic of
appearance, my wife is as attractive as ever. Even in death, I can’t help drinking
her in. She’s seated in a chair at the front of the parlor, her blond hair radiant
in contrast to the funeral black she’s wearing. Dark circles stand out beneath
her hazel eyes, eyes that are red and puffy, and she seems a bit thinner. Not
abnormal given the circumstances.
Despite the sad set to
her shoulders, the misty eyes, and the suffering she exudes, I’m thankful that
such a beautiful creature had decided to spend her life with me.
I’d met Catherine Maddox
(now the widow Catherine Frachitti) through a friend of mine. My best friend,
in point of fact. Bill Henly.
While they were dating.
That tidbit must sound
inherently evil. There are rules, especially among guys. The Man Code, to be
more specific. Every male on the planet is born with these rules branded into
his DNA. Don’t date a friend’s ex, don’t have sex with a friend’s girlfriend,
so on and so forth.
Let the record show that
I am no home wrecker! Bill and Catherine had been seeing each other when I met
her. Nothing serious, and for reasons only known to them, their relationship
didn’t last. After Bill did the requisite guy thing (read: talked post-breakup
smack about her), I did the right thing and asked him if he’d be okay with me
asking her out.
The conversation went
something like this:
Me: So, you’re not dating
Cat anymore, huh?
Bill: Nope.
Me: Um, would it be cool
if I asked her out?
Bill: Yeah, sure.
It was a conversation for
the ages. A manly conversation of epic proportions. It may seem flimsy to an
outsider, but to guys it was volumes’ worth.
I let the breakup embers fade,
and a few weeks later, when I’d mustered up the testicular fortitude, I asked Catherine
out. After a moment’s thought, she said yes. And the rest, as they say, is
history.
Dating Catherine put no
apparent stress on my relationship with Bill. Good looking in an All-American
way, he never lacked for female companionship. At six-foot-five and almost as
broad, he towered over my meager five-foot-eight. He’d played football in high
school and college, earning an athletic scholarship to Princeton University,
but blew out his knee in his second year. His spare time no longer filled with
practices and games, he hunkered down and focused on his studies which paved
the way to his future career as a financial advisor. Still, he remained an ever
faithful workout freak. The combination of good looks, muscular build, and his
large salary lured many a willing woman into his bed. Catherine was no
exception, but that wasn’t entirely Bill’s doing.
The story is a simple
one. Back in the day the three of us were nigh inseparable. Catherine and I
were always double-dating with Bill and his love du jour. Even if he wasn’t
seeing anybody (the exception to the rule), the three of us would go out to
eat, see movies, hang out on lawn chairs in the summer drinking concoctions
with little umbrellas in them.
It was on one such
occasion when things took a change for the pornographic. I’ll never forget that
day as long as I live. Or as long as I’m dead.
That day is where this
story truly starts.