The Hearse You Came in On Read Free Page A

pair of people as my parents and send their car hurtling into the path of a beer truck on their way to, of all places, the hospital. My mother was pregnant with my little sister. When her labor pains had begun in earnest, I was dropped off with my ugly Uncle Stu and Aunt Billie, at the funeral home. The driver of the beer truck said it happened in an instant. They swerved. It was over. Ugly Uncle Stu took the phone call. His end of the conversation was minimal, and when he set the phone back down on the receiver all he said was “They’re all dead” and then he dropped into a chair and began to sob. The only time I ever saw him cry. I stayed in the room and watched him for several minutes, then went upstairs and kicked a hole in the wall.
    As I think I’ve mentioned, the turnout for their funeral was huge. The mayor himself showed. Even with the plastic curtain drawn back between Parlors One and Two, the crowd spilled into the entrance hall and out onto the street. I was a handsome devil in my little dark suit. Twelve years old. People touched me lightly as if I were a saint. I remember thinking that there were enough flowers to clog a sewer system andthat if Bing Crosby dared to show his face I’d make him eat every single one of them. I also remember thinking, later that night as I stared out the window of my new bedroom, that if nothing else I sure as hell had just gotten over and done with what would certainly be the very worst day of my life. There couldn’t be any doubt about that. Nothing but blue skies from then on.
    At his funeral the next day, Mr. Weatherby didn’t give us any trouble. None of his pallbearers were too tall or too short—which sometimes results in a weight distribution crisis—and none of his mourners flew into show-stopping paroxysms of grief. The widow sobbed politely and was gently tended to by her chums. The weather cooperated. Barometer held steady. Temperatures ran a comfortable seventy-three. We were coming off a mild winter, so the spring bloomings had come early; the burgeoning buds by the cemetery’s front gate provided an appropriately poignant counterpoint to the frank task of planting the depleted Mr. Weatherby deep deep below the topsoil. The canopy over the grave site itself carved a brilliant white triangle against the blue sky and offered a cooling shade to the half-dozen plastic folding chairs beneath it. Mr. Weatherby’s casket (the Embassy model; have I mentioned that?) really showed its stuff there out under the sun. Mahogany is a beautiful wood even in its natural state. Lacquer it up and it practically hums.
    Though this was Aunt Billie’s funeral, she had been hit with a nasty cold, so I had taken it. I was standing silently off to the side, hands cupped at my crotch, my eye on the bagpiper who was planted some twenty feet off, getting ready to squeeze his cow bladder. Despitethe kilts and feathers and all the rest of it, our bagpiper is no more Scottish than the ayatollah. He is an Italian electrician named Tony Marino. Tony’s sad tale runs as follows: A Highlands lassie on a church choir trip to Rome stole and then broke his teenage heart outside the Colosseum (“… the ruins, the ruins …”) and Tony subsequently took up the bagpipes so as to further torment his forlorn soul. He even traveled to Scotland the following year on an odyssey to track down his lost lassie love, failing to locate her but fully saturating himself in all things Scottish. To this day he starts his morning with kippers and a shot of Macallans. To his credit, Tony Marino is a dynamite bagpiper. Although it is mostly “Amazing Grace” and “Danny Boy” that the bereaved tend to request, Tony includes Verdi and Puccini in his repertoire. He can also bleat out an “Ave Maria” that’ll do you in.
    The Widow Weatherby had chosen “Amazing Grace.” At my discreet signal Tony puffed up his bag and launched into the dirge. How sweet the sound. When Tony finished his tune, he lowered