Jacob Fortino

Only a few hours. It would only be a few hours until this funeral would be scheduled to take place. So far, I have everything set up. The coffin in its newly varnished case ready for an open casket, the tables, chairs, etc. are all ready for the arriving guests. Now, what do I need for me? Funerals have been becoming tougher and tougher to attend and manage. Not because of the dealings with the dead, that part is always certain, you sort of just must go along with it. Nothing really to it however. It’s my own family. When one moves along from their past, life has a way of sending status updates by way of people. Your people. Especially currently, we just can’t escape our blood. Probably for the best.

I say this because, for the last couple weeks, my father has been dealing with a sickness behind the scenes. Usually, I would hear maybe a phone call or a text just the usual hellos and what’s ups, but that phone call was different. Things don’t look good, and I don’t really know what I should do or what place of thought I am at right now to even come close to a decision with this. Sure, it could be good to see my family again. But I don’t what kind of weight with me their continuing to carry. Especially with me. I figured with about an hour and a half before people are scheduled to get out, I figured I would indulge myself in some top shelf brandy I had got from one of my bosses a while back. Good a time as any for some drinkable therapy, right? Turns out the bottle was older than I thought and needed a something to pop the top off. Damn thing was stuck. Leaving the bottle on a table, I make my way towards the kitchen hoping to find a tool to open this bottle. In a cabinet by the first refrigerator on my right, I happen to find a corkscrew multitool for opening wine. “Perfect!” I said to myself.

Making my way back to the table, I had noticed another presence. An older gentleman in a burgundy suit with a black tie and black shoes had beaten me to the bottle and was helping himself to a couple pulls. “Uh sir? The service does not start for another four hours. May I ask what you are doing here?” I questioned with kind of a bummer inflection of not being able to enjoy my brandy alone.

“Well, sport, ya mind reminding me who this service is for? I was going to look in the casket, but it seems it has fallen and opened! Shoddy service here will do you no favors, son.” The old man said with snobbery.

“Uh yes, the service is for a Mr. Glen Duckie. Whom passed I believe a day or two ago. Why? Are you family or a friend of his?” I asked him.

“Two days ago? Nope! Couldn’t be. Not when I look this good! Now are you gonna come over here or not, this brandy ain’t gonna drink itself!” He exclaimed.

Freezing was really all I could do in moment like this. I glanced at the casket, and he was right. It was knocked over and empty.

“Sir, can you kindly explain what happened to the body?” I asked.

“You’re lookin’ at em! Don’t look too bad now for being dead, huh?!”

This might as well be happening today of all days. A conversation with the recently deceased and all he wants to do to my knowledge is talk and drink brandy. What a guy.

“So, wait you don’t want to go visit family or anything like that? You just want to drink brandy and talk to some stranger? I’m confused more by that than your resurrection.” I explained frankly.

“Mister, I’m at a point in my life where I think I have laughed all the laughter out of me. No more tears to drip from these peepers, no more lovers for my heart to beat for. Well, that isn’t the only reason it doesn’t beat!”

“You got family of your own, son? Any group of people that give you warmth? Anyone that makes four walls and a roof into a home?” He asked me.

At this point, I might as well have a therapy session with the corpse while we are both drunk on brandy. Dollars to donuts, if I’m lucky he’ll forget.

“Well yeah I got family, but I have to admit sometimes it does just feel like I’m with people sitting in four walls and a roof. A feeling of thereness but no presence. I don’t really understand my place yet in the family. Where I’m going or what I’m doing. My little cousins hate talking with the “scary guy who stands around crying families and dead people all the time” I just wish I felt more there. I feel more enrolled into the family than related blood. What do you think I should do?”

By the time I got done unloading all my emotional weight onto the cadaver, I noticed he was shaking out the remaining drops of brandy in the bottle. Must have been talking longer than usual.

“Sonny, corpses don’t make the best therapists, sure we listen, but we can’t give advice. That was the worst part about being dead. I’d hear my grandkids approach my stone and sure I love hearing about their days, but their questions hurt me. I couldn’t say anything back. I hate questions without answers. If I was in your position, I think, now I know its generic, but often, seeing you, watching you, just knowing you’re alive and living, that is enough for them. People love you in all sorts of a ways, son. Talk to them, I’m sure they’d agree.” He explained.

I didn’t know what to say. Silence plummeted the conversation.

“Now where’s the liquor cabin-OH SHIT! IT’S ALMOST TIME!” I said with shock.

“Wh-where are you going to go, are you going to leave or-or what…” I said attempting to think rationally.

“Don’t you worry. All talk like this was all I needed. As well as brandy as good as that. I don’t want to make this day harder for you than it was.” He said as he stood up, straightening his tie.

“Mind helping me with this?” He asked pointing at the casket.

I rushed over to help him and got the thing back on the table. For a corpse, the man was built damn near like an Olympian,

He made his way back into the coffin and got comfortable.

“You mind handing me that empty bottle of brandy?” he asked.

I obliged him and gave it to him, to which he stuck it down by his feet in the coffin.

“I enjoyed our chat, son. By the way, know any good jokes? It would be nice to leave on a high note.”

I remembered a cheesy one my dad told me a few years ago.

“Did you hear about the new restaurant called ‘Karma’?” I asked him.

“Uhhhh, no!” he responded.

“There’s no menu. You get what you deserve!” I spoke.

The eruption was slow but as the seconds went on, he laughed so hard his full body laughing shook the coffin, I had to keep it from falling. It felt nice to see him laugh that hard.

“Oh, before you go, any message you want to relay to your family? From beyond the, um, funeral home?”

“Nothing big, I said everything in life they would have wanted to hear in death. But for you, because you gave me a good time. Do you know where I lived, my house I mean?”

“Yes, I have your address recorded, why?” I asked.

“Here’s my gift to you, under the oak tree in my back yard, there’s a safe to my entire family fortune! It requires a combination; however, the code is 54-32—ghuh”

His eyes closed as he drew his last breath. I would shake him to try and wake him up to get those last two numbers. Coy bastard. I chuckled to myself.

As I got myself more presentable, a woman arrived at the funeral home. The first of many guests.

“Hello, I’m Glen’s daughter. Is everything set up and ready?” She spoke.

“Yes, it is. Will the rest of your family be arriving soon?”

“Sure will, although knowing them, they might be late. I’m happy he lived a full life though. We should all hope to live to the age of 95, shouldn’t we?” She asked.

Just then, my eyes widened, with that I looked back at the body, to which the old man gave a sly wink. “Yes ma’am.” I replied. “95 is a very good number” I said. Smiling to myself.