No Blain for Unclaimed Bodies

GET UP

Alexa is set to ‘prison security voice’ and the second alarm blares out the bridge to Ouija Board by Morrisey, it’s time for Jillian to rouse, smell her pits, and decide if there is enough time to take a shower including the hair because she does not enjoy the elastic pain of shower caps. Her watch rings “ring zip ring” (like that) and she barely remembers it’s the day to put Ms. Lice in the ground. 

FUNERAL at 8. 

Quaking, because her adult kids left the package to Jimmy Dean Croissants open when she was defrosting and not ready to commit to the sausage satisfaction of beginning the day. The sun was ready to push through the Venetian full-sized blinds, the K-cup brewed compostable ground, how much time did she have? Funeral lengths depend on the pastor, and sometimes the number of participants but Ms Lice (or was it Price?) shouldn’t take much ceremony. The woman talked about orgies for every year she taught English and she would wait till the non-tenured staff was away until she just snuck it in: orgy orgy orgy. 

There were 27 participants in AP English, probably half wouldn’t have performed well in Ms. Lice’s orgy but she kept insisting it was a very useful metaphor for higher life forms and she put this on the wall (in code, of course) right in the middle of Bloom’s Taxonomy. There was Knowledge/Wisdom/Orgy/Experience. There was something about curiosity and examination, there were rules of grammar and the reason people should learn quips to mock non-native speakers. Come to think of it, Ms. Lice was a bit of a racist. 

Jill put on her wedding gown which was dusty and hurriedly started her engine, ran back for another sip of coffee because the manufacturer of her convertible didn’t believe that hands should leave the steering wheel and gear shift. She put on the blinker, checked the clock in the middle of the dash and rushed off into traffic to bury Ms. Lice in the ground forever. 

Along the way, she had to stop at Home Depot and hire a man who would build her dream house out of sand along the Nesotaumo Ridge where land is pretty much less cost than a Greek vacation to Santorini. Jill hoped by providing a shovel, this man could build an entire palace just like in the YouTube videos. So long as the palace was far under the ground from satellite photos there was no reason to pull a California building permit. This idea was very clever and she asked the man to hurry into the store and buy himself a 5-gallon cooler of water. “You know, in case you want to mix Roman concrete.”  

Once the worker had come back with his work, Jill lept the car into over-gear, she had to get up to the funeral scene near Bradenrock. Something about Green Garden Forever Memorial House? She had never visited but understood that perpetual weed-eating around statues was very expensive and so there would only be flat plaques on a lawn but first she had to get into the Memorial Hall and see who showed up, see who remembered that Ms. Price stopped in the middle of Brave New World to talk about Orgy Orgy-Porgy. 

The worker’s name was “Heather” not “Hay-Seus” and wanted Jill to know her/their pronouns while she waited. She paid a waiting fee and promised there would be much more once the construction began. “How long do I have to stay here?” 

Jill didn’t know but she didn’t want to sit through it either. “Just go over to Bayone and buy some tea if it gets too hot.” She only brought a hundred dollars in twenties for her bra because there wasn’t a handbag to match. She picked up her train and the gown floated over the grass, she tiptoed over the areas she thought were set for the caskets, rounded about in a little dance, why wasn’t there any formal parking? 

Now in an industrial complex location like Green Garden Forever there is still an architectural concern that every visiting car (9’x19’) should not cover the space needed by over twenty dead souls, factored for inflation, one car could cost the Funeral Corporation more than a hundred thousand dollars. So they made people park in the swirling roundabouts between the actual graves and their neutered church. It would have made a grand shot for the photographer because the grass is naturally fertilized and the soil subsidizes such brilliant dandelions and clovers between mows. To see Jillian Denver laughingly jog in her twenty-year-old wedding gown, slightly browned by mispacking and age, the delight on her face is a girl racing to prom, how the photographer might have captured the human spirit. Ansel Adams would have focused on the majesty of the motion and not the death of the flowers she flattened. 

The doors were still propped open by rubber mourners, a guest book indicated that the state needed witnesses to prove they actually buried the woman (half price for unclaimed bodies if their Will requires a ground burial instead of the burning). Jillian was just delighted that the first page was full, then the second, then she was shocked that the third page had scribbles of more. Maybe the woman had been part of a great cult? Some cults have a natural obligation to show up for their members while others find it very inconvenient because they are always running from the law.

Jill saw mention of her old nemesis Katherine Cleaver who didn’t belong in AP English but had spent the useful time filing her nails, preparing to get to Stanford as a slutty cheerleader while most of the honest kids would have checked into Berkeley by learning the French Horn. There’s always a major university missing players of the French Horn or the Glockenspiel, the wooden Xylophone is reduced to the trauma of children strikes because some of the instruments lose their popularity with time. This slut had not even struck a cord to get her law degree and this so inflamed the anger in Jill surpassingly that she wanted to have a second funeral without rites, right there.

“Jillie! Is that you?” 

The women looked over each other, how one had dropped her bust while the other was obviously dating a surgeon. It didn’t help that Jillian’s playful attire missed the natural refinement that comes from the essential replenishment of body oils in the shower, Jill being a chalky sort of complexion positively looked sun-washed next to Katherine who had a tan of deep-fried chicken legs. 

“How’s the molar problem?” 

That’s all she had. Katherine had a molar kicked out while dating a soccer player trying to learn to kick footballs from her balanced toe. The man had slipped without cleats in the slushy grass, kicked Katherine in the face right before student picture day, and actually dislodged a molar and this girl bled all over the school until someone stopped to call an ambulance. Ambulances are very important when they show up at schools because many students see that they are a legal escape. It is now a criminal offense not to stay in school and parents can be charged for the lack of funding the school expected when their child was cutting class. 

“I can still suck off your husband. How’s your Bird Flu?”

Une Pointe. 

Katherine was disgusting and had started the rumor that Jill had gotten the bird flu by sleeping with Big Bird, the school mascot. Everybody knew that the mascot was really Peter Sentini who became a singer of some high-pitched talents and there was no way that her bendo-streppo-chlocis-tuber-clarclitoris (which got the eyes of the CDC and made the school send home a note of contagion for every student) had anything to do with birds or the flu. She had obviously used the wrong stall in the girl’s locker room after Katherine vomited out her first abortion. The splash-back from the flush did the rest. 

These women stared at each other with all the hate in their arms, aged and restless. 

“I came to pay my respects,” Jill obfuscated at last. She swerved right past her nemesis and went into the pews and took a seat. Not even recognizing at first that most of the pews were missing. 

“Oh shit.” 

She had forgotten that Ms. Lice was probably going to have an Irish Sending, that is a raunchy keg of drinking and Drunk Twister, the pastor was a roving DJ from Oakland with a black dog collar around his neck and spikes. They were playing the New York Dolls as a benediction, the song “TRAAAASh, don’t pick it up, don’t put it in the ground. (Oh) Traaaaaaasssshh.” 

Holy hell, Batman. Katherine came in, sat beside her, and held her hand. She leaned over and whispered, ‘I’m sorry, I never loved your father.” 

Jill kept her head forward and the dimples on her face gave the impression that she was really wrestling with the memory of Kath as her legal step-mother for two years. That’s how long the state wanted a woman to be married before they could sue her father for divorce and leave her penniless in the dorm. Jill actually missed Katherine picking up the phone to yell that they were going to rescind her maintenance money. Her own mother would have let the calls go to voicemail. 

“Thanks. I’m sorry I accidentally got you jailed for murder.” 

Mental spit on the finger and add the point. 

Jill’s father had taken his life by asphyxiation but the authorities were convinced that a man wouldn’t have been playing with his own ecstasy by necktie and since his young wife was obviously young and reckless…

Katherine didn’t get to go to Stanford because she was fixated on being Jill’s legal guardian and ruining her life. The three years in Borchenstadt Detention for Women gave her ample time to complete a law degree under the mail order course of McGraw in Sacramento. Katherine had to file her own appeal because her new daughter wouldn’t feel clemency nor rescind her previous testimony that her 'parents' were fighting over Katherine’s positive test for venereal disease.  

“You’re right. “ Katherine cocked her head, mentally took her licks, and responded, “I always wanted to raise you better but there wasn’t time.” 

Jill threw her hand down harshly and said, “Are you serious?” What kind of asshole marries a father and asks if he’ll hit his kid with a belt? You suck.” Jill got up and ran quickly down the hall to get some fresh air. The company Ms. Lice was keeping was almost too much.

Heather was standing near a tree, drinking some Lipton’s lemon iced tea out of a bottle, completely content while a small war was waging in the funeral parlor. 

“Hey!” She waved for her day worker to come over and Jill met Heather halfway from the graveyard to the church. “What are you doing right now?” 

Heather shrugged and said she was waiting to be brought to the work site. Jill fumed because she knew her dress was ruffled. She waited for the sun to adjust so she could watch Heather’s face as she gave him/her new instructions. 

It took extra promises of more than the eighty dollars Jill had left in her brassier but Heather was magnanimous and quickly ran to the convertible, popped open the trunk, and shot a triple dose of horse tranquilizers between the toes. The women exchanged clothing. 

Now the next part of Jill's on-the-fly plan of massive corruption had both “women” run into the funeral chapel together while the crowd of mourners was just finishing the second verse to Danny Boy and preparing to pick up the casket and inter the dearly departed (with the plot marker stamped: Miss Price, not Lice). 

Jillian went right up to Katherine, knocked the handbag off her arm, and slapped her face, which created enough time for the shock to freeze her and then Jill (dressed in Heather’s working clothes) used all her strength to grab the fabric at Katherine’s center. She dropped to her knees and most of the black blouse followed with the long sound of a Riiiiip that caused everyone to stop and stare. In the meantime, Heather had taken her pose resting over the casket in an obvious attempt to look mournful, pounding the coffin and yelling, “Why? por qué? Why???”

Katherine’s shock defrosted out of disbelief and she knew the feeling of public exposure before she even felt the brief wind at her breast. The muscle memory of the cheerleader was gone and Katherine could not let her parts be exposed anymore without a tremendous sense of shame and too many eyes. This woman -- Katherine -- crossed her arms over her chest and ran out of the makeshift church as fast as her heels would allow.

Point. 

Meanwhile, someone noticed that the woman in the wedding dress had fallen and wasn’t getting up. It was very scary because the next funeral family Mendoza was already getting ready in the eves and no one was sure what would happen if they went past their specified period. Jill rushed over to Heather in her gown, and gently placed the strap around Heather’s foot so they would stay together no matter who moved the body. 

Due to the massive time crunch and the instructions for each family to abide by their designated times, the Chief Mortician was called out and he quickly checked Heather’s vitals and complained, “My god we have another.” 

This mortician said he could not officially sign a release from the scene but required the County Coroner to come out and check for any out-of-the-ordinary occurrences. “Does anyone know this … woman?” 

Set.

Heather forgot to shave off her moustache but Jillian quickly pointed to the purse at her feet. The mortician took the black tote bag and walked back to his office with the ID. 

Now in the western states, Equifax, the FBI and all the other authorities have what are called Ghost Files. These are people who have purchased state identifications on the streets and may even have mortgages, Law Degrees, or several bank accounts which are not a concern so long as the ‘borrower’ does not share a birthday/address or three points of similarity. It is a very familiar problem in the Californias due to the constant movements of people. Social Security numbers are not exactly vital to uniquely identify people. 

In this case, Mr. Schideil, the corporate mortician, understood immediately that he should terminate the placeholders by a Certificate of Death because migrants often recycle the same identity over and over. He needed to call this person 'Katherine Denver' because that is how the deceased self-identified. DNA has the same challenges because a person must be completely Irish for the genetic samples to compare them to a probability of being derived from Ireland, or Mongolia, and the Swedes still want to take home their soldiers from a battle in the Danube 400 years ago. The genetic markers are simply not always working. 

For these reasons, Jillian was able to erase her former stepmother, it was sad. Match. The funeral party for Miss Lice/Price eventually realized that they must put the body into the earth. Heather was draped by a sheet while the coroner brought ambulatory services. The Mendoza family asked if anyone was going to clean the chapel before they began their prayers? 

Mr. Schideil, the acting head of the facility, had to explain that additional cleaning required a deposit in advance, and that Waste Removal workers for the funeral industry must drive all the way from San Jose. BUT... he could make arrangements for a graveside service since It was such a beautiful day. 

Jill checked her watch and realized that her wedding at noon might require additional planning. It was fine for the bride to show up in coveralls and a plaid shirt but people might get the wrong opinion if she didn't have a purse.