1 post tagged “death”

Somethings are just too painful to talk about, at least right away.  So rather than do what I usually do and lie, I'll just talk about some other people's relationship.

Let me tell you about my friends Freddie and Sherlyn.  They weren't really my friends, just the kind of people you call your friends, run into them at parties, chit-chat.  In fact, I despised them and Sherlyn, at least, returned the sentiment.  Her husband Freddie however always wanted to talk to me.  He would buttonhole me at parties and tell me stuff I didn't want to hear.

He was a weasel and she was a castrating bitch, so no one was surprised when they got divorced.  After the breakup, she was bitter and at the slightest mention of her ex, would launch into a venomous tirade about Freddie and his shortcomings, both physical and moral.

I never got his side of the story.  He would still buttonhole me, but would never take the bait when I tried to lure him into trashing his ex-wife.  He would just change the subject, talk about his latest conquests, in the most distaste terms.  "See that piece over there?"  he asked me at one party, pointing out a hollow-eyed blonde across the crowded room.  "Sweet ass, but talked too much.  Soon as I finished, I gave her her walking papers.  She pretended to be all upset.  Hard to cry and wipe come off your face at the same time."  He laughed, loudly enough that people around us looked over.

And no one was surprised, or particularly saddened, when Freddie was killed.  He was drunk and slammed his Camaro into a bridge abutment.  Most people were just relieved he didn't take anyone with him, although only a few people went so far as to say it out loud.

I went to the funeral mostly for black amusement value, to see what the bereaved would think up to say to try to praise the dear departed.  The service was at a columbarium, which is to say, a building where they store the ashes of cremated bodies.  The small auditorium was half-full and every cough and shuffle echoed.  Several people stood up to talk about Freddie, mostly war buddies.  He had worked at the PX during Desert Storm and never fired a shot in anger, but he had worn the uniform, you can't take that from him.

I considered standing up and telling some of my stories about him.  Like the creepy afternoon he came over to my apartment to show me an old VHS of a porn movie he had "starred" in before he got married.  He wasn't even the star, just one of the guys getting blown in the background.  Even in the blurred copy, I could see that at least one of his ex-wife's complaints about him was fully justified.  The creepiest part was he was so proud of himself, so eager that I be impressed. I would have told that story, except that his two teen-aged nieces were sitting in the front row.  I decided to keep my mouth shut.

His second wife, a little mouse of a girl named Mary, gave a brief, stilted eulogy.  Freddie used to tell me that he liked to have anal sex with her, solely because she didn't like it.

Finally, Sherlyn came to the podium.  The betting was that Sherlyn would just give some semi-sincere crap about "the good part" of her relationship with Freddie.  Usual happy-horseshit, like Mary's speech.  But there was a chance that she would let loose with her usual profanity-laced rant about her cheating, lazy, short-dicked ex-husband.  Perhaps half the guys in attendance, including to be perfectly honest, me, only showed up for that.  If she did do it, if she did take this last opportunity to bitch out feckless, faithless, friendless Freddy, it would be, we were sure, the Best Funeral Ever.

She stood at the podium and looked out blankly.  Come on, I willed her, come on.  You know you want to belittle that worthless piece of crap just one last time.  You cussed him out at his birthday party, you threw a drink at him over an anniversary dinner, don't hold back at his funeral.  We all came for the show.  This is your last chance to mock his stupid gun-fighter mustache, his sexual inadequacy, his overpowering cologne.

Sherlyn took a deep breath and then burst into tears.  She sobbed uncontrollably until Mary and Freddie's sister came over and helped her away from the podium.