My grandpa's dead and he's laying in a box that coulda paid my grandma's rent for four months. I mean, I can't lie. It's a pretty nice looking box. Nice mahogany—looks like Jesus carpentered it himself. But I know Gramps doesn't give a shit what kinda box he's gonna rot away in.
I'm looking at my grandpa laying there in that box, and he doesn't even look like himself, all done up in some tuxedo shit and wearing dead people makeup. His tumor still shows though. It's popping right outta the side of his neck. That's how I identify his body from some other person's grandpa laying in an expensive box. He looks like a mannequin. Like some impostor piece of plastic laying there instead of my gramps.
"Dylan, aren't ya gonna go up to the casket and pray?" my brother asks me. What's the use in praying next to the casket? I don't pray. But if I did pray, I could pray from over here, in the back of this funeral home. Feeney Funeral Home. With a last name like Feeney, you're almost bound to open a funeral home. It's got that dead sorta ring to it.
"Nah, I'm gonna stay over here. Something about," I hush my voice cause my relatives are easily offended, "dead people that's just creepy. No disrespect to Gramps. Love him. But he's not in that done up body of his laying there. So I'll just stay back here."
Frankie looks offended. Personally offended. Probably cause he got Gramps's name. He’s feeling offended for Frankie and namesake.
"Dylan, you gotta go up to the casket," he says sternly. I'm not about to fight my own brother in a goddamn funeral home. I pull myself up off of the ugly, funeral-home-standard couch and walk my way over to the shell that used to be my grandpa. I sit my knee on the velvet stool propped right next to the box. I take a deep look at my grandpa and peer into the casket, looking the detailing of the velvet interior and the pillow underneath his dead head. His body looks stiff and empty and cold and I'm confused cause I'm kneeling right in front of my grandpa but it just...isn't my grandpa. I mean, obviously he's dead and all, so there's that missing piece, but what the hell is that piece? I'm looking at the shell right now. Right here, here's what's left. Where does the other part go? What the hell is the other part? Is there another part or am I just making shit up?
I realize that Frankie sent me here to pray and I haven't had an exchange with God or anybody yet. I'm not sure how to approach Him. Never been good with this praying stuff before.
Hello, God. Also, Jesus. Hello. Uh, I pray that if there's a missing piece of my grandpa anywhere near you guys, if you could just help that piece do whatever that piece's supposed to do. Gramps wasn't good with directions so if you could help him out with finding the place he's supposed to go, that'd be appreciated. I mean, that's if uh, there's anywhere to go. Or if he has a piece missing like I've been saying. Also, um, if you serve drinks, I'm sure you know Gramps never drank out of a glass. Beer, out of a can. But that's the details, and I guess we can work on that later.
I sure hope God doesn't knock off points for rambling when you pray. I just don't know how to pray. I don't even know about God or Jesus too much, and I haven't really given it too much thought until now. I'm sorta hoping for them to exist now that somebody I know needs them.
My dad comes up behind me and pats my back in support. I am slightly glad cause I didn't know how to end my prayer.
Amen. Thanks. Amen.
I get up off the velvet stool and I feel like I'm making direct eye contact with my dead grandpa, even though his eyes are closed. I hear some people die with their eyes open. I wonder if Gramps did that and they had to force his eyelids down. I break the eye contact cause I don't like dead bodies. Creepier than death itself, when you think about it. Dead bodies are creepy. Like a cicada shell. Nothing's in it. Just a gross, weird shell of a thing that used to hold life. Death's just, death. Your heart stops beating, your lungs stop breathing, you die. But a body's left over, and people gotta come up to it and pray and look at you looking all different and made up and smelling like death.
"Ya can step outside if ya want, Dylan," Dad tells me. "Ya look a little overwhelmed, and that's alright. Just go get some air or something." I feel alright, but maybe the exchange with my dead grandpa's closed eyes made me look a little dead-looking myself. I walk outside and sit on this metal bench in front of the funeral home. People are walking by and giving me this look cause they know I'm at a funeral cause I'm all dressed up and sitting outside of Feeney's Funeral Home. Nobody's just gonna sit outside a funeral home for no reason. Nobody wants to be at a funeral home, but sometimes you gotta be at a funeral home. This damn metal bench's digging into my bones and I'm uncomfortable but I'm damn glad I can feel the digging in my flesh and that I'm not cold and dead laying in a fancy box.
It's just a weird thing, that somebody can be one day and then not be the next. Flash in and out of being somebody just cause the body gave up. I'm looking around and feeling the air and it's scary cause nothing’s changed at all. Nothing. The universe doesn't give two shits that my gramps is dead and the world keeps turning like nothing ever happened. And here I am, alive, spinning on this world that one day, I will die on, and the world will continue to spin without me.
They say somebody dies every seven seconds or something. Every seven seconds somebody's life stops existing and I feel nothing: I can't feel the missing pieces, I can't feel them leaving, and I can't feel when they are no longer here. Cause this goddamn insensitive earth keeps spinning like nobody's dying or crying or anything. The universe isn't giving anybody a moment of silence.
Aunt Jessie's stepping out for a minute now too. She sits on the bench next to me. She doesn't say anything to me at first, which is good. Our little universe is giving Gramps his moment of silence.
"How ya feeling, kid?" she asks. It's not a very good question. My grandpa's dead.
"I'm okay. I don't know. It's weird. And sad. And strange." I am quiet for a little and realize my insensitivity cause I didn't ask her that same dumb question. "How are you handling things?" I add.
"I'm alright. I mean, hell, I'm sad, but that's just a part of the process. I'm kinda relieved though, I can't lie to ya, kid." She doesn't make direct eye contact with me. She's too busy pondering.
"What do you mean, relieved? That he's dead? Why?"
"Dylan, Gramps wanted to die," she says bluntly. I'm sorta taken back by this. Who the hell wants to die? Nobody should be wishing their life away. I'm sitting here on this bench digging into my ribs and I'm enjoying every second of realizing I'm alive and not missing pieces and trapped in some box for the rest of eternity. I like the way the air's running across my face and the way this dumb collared shirt is cutting into my neck a little cause I tied my tie too tight. I like the way people are walking by and I can see them and feel their stares as they’re walking and I can hear their footsteps tapping the ground and adding to the little song going on of the cicadas and the birds and the traffic going by. I don't wanna die. Who the hell wants to die?
"Gramps was in a lot of pain cause the tumor, Dylan. A shit ton of pain. The thing was breaking his jaw just by growing. Can ya imagine sitting on a bed for months having your own body just tear ya apart like that? He wanted out. And he got out. He's happier now," she finishes.
I think about this for a while cause I know she's right about him not suffering anymore and all, but I can't say I'm sure about him being happier dead. Cause what if being dead is nothing? I would rather be feeling something than feeling nothing. We don't say anything more. We just sit there watching all the life passing by the funeral home.
I walk back into the building and sit back down on that ugly flowery couch in the back of the room. I don’t wanna look at Gramps anymore, I don’t wanna pray anymore, and I don’t wanna think about any more death or dead people or heaven or hell or nothing. I’m not gonna think about it. I’m just gonna sit on this goddamn couch. It’s been hours and hours at this goddamn wake, which is a stupid thing to call it cause that person isn’t waking up anytime soon. It’s just a morbid ceremony looking at some empty body, and you gotta sit there and confront your humanity and grief all at once, when it’s hard enough already to confront them one at a time. Maybe it’s called a wake cause the people confronting the deadness are finally waking up. I wish it didn’t have to take someone kicking the bucket for people to realize that they don’t have forever.
Published in Milvia Street Literary Journal in December 2015 (for the 2016 issue).