Obits

(CONTENT WARNING: Death and Language)

Obits

“Nary a one?”

           My editor didn’t rise from his battered, faux-leather seat. He didn’t even bother taking his feet off his desk. Hell, he didn’t even raise his voice. Didn’t yell or scream the way my old Army sergeants would.

           He sat there, leaning back in his baby-shit green chair, his feet clad in a pair of knock-off penny loafers he’d obviously picked up at Wally World or Temu or some other, equally depraved such place.

           He looked like that mustachioed asshole that pays Peter Parker for pictures of Spiderman.

           I ain’t kidding.

           From that AJ-Squared-Away, salt and pepper buzzcut to the boxy jaw clamped tightly around the end of a soggy, gas station cigar, he had the look down.

           Woulda been fucking funny in other circumstances.

           But these weren’t other circumstances.

           This was my job.

           And Lord knows I need it.

           “Nary a one?” he repeated.

           I hated that. Him using a word like that.

           Nary.

           Nary a one?

           Fuck me. It sounded so goddamned phony. And not like some scammy email phishing phony. No. His use of words like that were on another level. Like some Holden Caulfield-level gourmet shit.

           Fucking nary.

           Nary a fucking one, sir.

           One foot, two foot, sir.

           Red foot, blue foot, sir.

           Bout to kick the shit out of you, sir.

           Nary.

           What a douchebag.

           I didn’t say any of that, though. Couldn’t. Not that there was anything he could do physically. Not even close. I figured I could probably kill him by sheer accident in a fist fight, if it came to that. He was a scrawny little bastard. The kind of guy that always seems to acquire undeserved authority. Short. Skinny.

           And in charge simply because he was the only one who’d applied for the job.

           Senior managing editor.

           A guy who couldn’t tell me the difference between a noun and a verb.

           But he was my boss.

           And I really needed the job.

           So, I didn’t tell him what really went through my head.

           “No, sir.”

           “Not a single, solitary one?”

           “No, sir,” I said. Nary a fucking one, you gasbag.

           He dragged his feet off his desk, which was something of a relief. Mostly because I was tired of seeing the pile of dogshit that was smooshed between the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth treads on the bottom of his right heel.

           He leaned forward, the cigar still firmly in place and his chapped lips moving around it. He jabbed at one of the yellow notepads littering his desk with his right index finger.

           “Not Barnes?”

           I shook my head. His finger jabbed again.

           “Miller?”

           Another shake of my head. More jabs of his finger.

           “Franklin? Rosenbaum? Akers?”

           The prick almost sounded hopeful, using that one boss voice. The one that just begs you to say something positive so they don’t have to fire you.

           Except that thought wasn’t in him. Firing me—or any of the other Joes on the Burdock Intelligencer’s staff—would delight the shit out of him.

           Well, almost.

           He’d never fire Angie Truscott.

           Never.

           Not in a million years.

           He liked ogling her goodies too much.

           But me?

           Shit.

           He’d fire me in an instant. Probably, I thought, in the next few instances. And he wouldn’t complain about it.

           Nope.

           Matter of fact, the fucker would probably fire me, chew on his moldy ass cigar, and do the necessary termination paperwork while whistling Bobby Mc-fucking-Ferrin’s Don’t Worry, Be Happy tune out of his asshole.

           And when it was all said and done, he’d ogle Angie Truscott’s goodies.

           Just a little ogle.

           You know. As a treat.

           Stupid fucker.

           “No, sir,” I said.

           “No, sir,” he repeated. “To which one?”

           “All of them, sir.”

           He paused, slobbered some more on the cigar he was fellating, and leaned back. His dogshit covered shoes, thank God, stayed on the floor.

           “I suppose it’s a waste of time for me to ask about the Kozlowski family?”

           I didn’t answer him.

           Mostly because I couldn’t lie.

           Not because of some moral or ethical high ground, mind you. Nothing like that. I couldn’t lie to my boss because I sucked at lying. I suck at lying in the same way America’s self-proclaimed ‘alpha-males’ suck at life.

           I’ve always been that way.

           I couldn’t even lie to the fucking mall Santa properly. I believe I was the only kid in Maryland in the 1980s to actually tell Santa that no, I’ve not been a good boy this year. Over the years, I ratted myself out to a good dozen of those fat, whisky-sweat soaked sonsabitches.

           I only had the truth.

           And that just wouldn’t work. Not with a small-minded jackass like my boss. Hell, a month earlier, the truth of my situation wouldn’t have worked on me, if I were in his shoes.

           The way I saw it, there were only three possible results to be derived from my telling the Gods-honest truth.

           First, he would assume that I was lying. He would also assume that my telling of such an outlandish lie was some sort of statement about his own intelligence. That would piss him off. Because the one thing you can’t do with a complete moron is tell them that they are, in fact, complete morons.

           In that instance, he’d fire me.

           Happily. Gleefully. And while whistling and ogling Angie Truscott’s dump truck.

           Option two?

           Hardly bears thinking about.

           Let’s pretend I tell him the truth and maybe, just possibly, the goofy bastard believes me. Or, at least, believes that I believe I am telling the truth. What would he do?

           Well, that’s easy.

           He puts that nasty-ass cigar down, picks up his phone, and makes a call to the nice folks out on County Road 250 North who pile into their van, drive on down here to the offices of the Burdock Intelligencer—Maryland’s Oldest Independent Town Journal—and give me one of those white, custom-fitted ‘I Love Me’ jackets before making me the newest resident at the Eastern Pines Funny Farm.

           Third?

           Well, that’s a combination of the first two options. My boss fires me for insulting his ego with such a wild-ass, cock-and-bull story, but calls the nice folks at Eastern Pines. Just in case.

           I didn’t have an answer that the dumb bastard would consider reasonable.

           What I did have, however, was an itch. One of those hot, sweaty ones. Right there on the backside of my right thigh, in that soft skin just above my knee. What I also had was sweat. Not a whole lot, mind you. That would have been almost bearable. Profuse sweating would have meant a wet shirt and some degree of body odor. Let’s face it. No anti-perspirant is that good.

           But I didn’t have profuse sweating.

           I had beads.

           Tiny, individual, goddamned beads of sweat forming in that hollow between my shoulder blades and trickling down my spine. One by one. Plinking their way down like the world’s most insufferable pinball machine.

           Why, I thought, was it so fucking hot in here? Didn’t this man believe in air conditioning? Or a fan?

           “Mike,” my editor was saying, “it is Mike, isn’t it?”

           It wasn’t.

           My name is Jack, I thought. Jack Fucking Weller.

           But this didn’t seem like the best time to tell him that.

           So, Mike it was.

           “How much am I paying you, Mike?”

           “Thirty-two,” I said.

           “Thirty-two,” he repeated. His eyes wavered without actually leaving me. He rolled the cigar around. First, in his mouth. Then, after unwedging it from his teeth, between his thumb and forefinger.

           “As in thirty-two-thousand?”

           “Yes, sir,” I said, resisting the urge to wriggle as another bead of sweat began its journey down my spine.

           “Per year?” he asked.

           Well, I thought, sure as shit wasn’t thirty-two-thousand per month.

           I nodded.

           He mirrored the nod. “Thirty-two grand a year. To do what, exactly?”

           I swallowed. Hard. “To write obituaries, sir.”

           “To write obituaries,” he repeated the words softly, almost crooning. As if he was hearing them for the first time. He kept repeating the words. Changing the emphasis around.

           “To write obituaries. To write obituaries. To write obituaries.”

           He stopped talking, put his feet back up on the desk, the shit-covered heel pointed in my general direction.

           “And how long have you been here, Mike?”

           The itch at the back of my thigh was becoming unbearable. And it was spreading, as such things do.

           “A month, sir.”

           “A month?”

           “Yes, sir.”

           “And how many assignments have you accumulated? In that month, I mean.”

           I wanted to scratch that spot on the back of my thigh. Needed to. And damn, was it getting hotter in here?

           “Thirteen, sir.”

           “Thirteen,” he said. His voice trailed off in that way that asshole parents and bastard bosses have perfected over the centuries. That ‘I’m trying to refresh my memory’ kind of tone. “Ah yes. Thirteen. Twelve individuals and…”

           “And the Kozlowski’s, sir.”

           “I see,” he nodded. “And how many obits have you finished in the past month?”

           I looked down at my feet.

           “None.”

           He looked confused, as if he could not possibly have heard me correctly. “None?”

           “No, sir. Nary a one.”

           My remark was as daring as I thought I could be at the moment and I kind of regretted it as I was saying it. My boss didn’t seem to hear it. Or, if he did, he chose to ignore it.

           Instead, he put the cigar down on an ashtray so filthy that it really did defy proper description. He leaned forward again. He planted his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. He glared.

           “None. Why?”

           I said nothing. He let me have the awkward silence. Let it hang between the two of us. Let it sag and weigh and drag the room down. Let it accumulate moisture. Let it saturate.

Then, just before it would have let go with a thunderous roar and a torrential rain, he wafted it out of the room.

           “This job, Mike, it isn’t hard. Not hard at all. Not your part, anyways.”

           Jack, I thought. Jack. My name is Jack, you asshole.

           He pointed over my shoulder, to the window behind me and the bullpen of frenzied journalists residing there.

           “It’s not like I’m asking you to do their jobs. Not Mark’s. Not Ellen’s. Certainly not Angie’s.” He paused, frowned. “It’s not investigative reporting you’re being asked to do. None of that five-double-u stuff…”

           Jesus Christ, the man actually pronounced it ‘double U’. Double U. It sounded so pompous to my ears.

           Dubya, my man.

           Dubya.

           “…and I’m certainly not sending you out to find out how something was done,” he was still rambling when I returned from my little internal rant. “Nothing beyond your capabilities.” He paused again, the frown gone. “Or am I wrong?”

           He grinned, just a little and only around the eyes.

           I could have punched him for that.

           “How about it, Mike? Am I wrong? Am I?”

           I actually opened my mouth to say something. The truth, probably. Just say it and be done with this. And hell, crazy as it sounded, maybe the dumb bastard would buy it. Something about having trouble at home. That wouldn’t be a lie.

           From a very limited point of view, it was the whole truth.

           I was having trouble at home.

           Just not the kind he’d guess.

           I was single—my wife left me when the Army yeeted me from its ranks—and I’m the only name on my lease. I was up to date on my bills. I didn’t have jack shit in my bank account, but I didn’t owe anyone anything I couldn’t pay. I was living—even if only barely—within my means. I don’t own a dog. Or a cat. I do have a goldfish, a fat, orange, sashaying bastard I named RuPaul.

           But goddamn if I didn’t have some trouble at home.

           A whole shitpot full.

           “Am I wrong?” my editor repeated.

           I realized my mouth was still hanging open and snapped it shut. I offered my editor one of those wimpy, half-shrugs that is better known in the Army as the ‘Second Lieutenant Salute’. You know the kind. The one that makes you look like the most adoptable fucking puppy in a kill shelter.

           “I didn’t think so,” he said. “So, what’s the problem here, son? What’s the hold up?” He snatched the yellow pad of paper from his desk with a free hand and waved it around. “It’s not like any of these folks are out makings news or doing new things. They’re all dead, Mike. Dead. D-e-a-d. Dead as doornails. That’s their most recent development. Hell, Mike, given that they're dead, it’s their final development.” He shuffled through his notes, seized on a single page, and tore it from the pad with a little rasping pfffffft noise. “Jesus, Mike, Mrs. Rosenbaum has been deceased for three weeks and in the ground for two. Beat her husband, God rest his poor soul, out by thirty years.”

           He tossed the paper on the desk. “I came in here today thinking that today would be the day that I look in my inbox and see her obit. That I could read it and approve it and publish it. But noooooo…” He jabbed a finger at me. “No obit. Not even something distastefully done. Not ‘the bitch is dead’. Not even ‘Ding dong, the witch is dead. There’s just nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. What the heck, Mike? What are you waiting for? The second coming of Hazel Rosenbaum?”

           Well, I thought, that’s not far off.

           Only the whole second coming thing wasn’t quite right. Because that meant that Mrs. Hazel Rosenbaum, Holocaust survivor, survived by her twelve great grandchildren, would have to have left. To have crossed over or whatever the term is.

           But she hadn’t.

           None of them had.

           Each and every person on that list was dead and buried. Dead as hell. But they weren’t gone. They hadn’t crossed over. They didn’t move on up to heaven. They hadn’t boogied on down to hell. They weren’t relegated to one of the levels of purgatory.

           They were still here. And not in that stupid-ass, sappy, Hallmark Channel way.

           They were, as a matter of fact, hanging out at my house.

           All of them.

           Every single one of my assignments.

           Including Mr. Barnaby Akers, whose body was probably still on the slab at the morgue a few blocks away on Twelfth Street.

           Yes, I know how that sounds.

           And yes, I’m serious. As serious as the heart attack that finally killed old Eddie Miller.

           I have the ghosts of the recently deceased staying at my house.

           Don’t ask me why.

           I didn’t invite them.

           They just showed up.

           Akers. Miller. Rosenbaum. The whole Kozlowski family.

           And everyone else on the list my boss had tossed to the side.

           And that is exactly why I wasn’t getting a damned thing done.

           Because the folks I was supposed to be eulogizing in two column inches wouldn’t leave me the hell alone. Because they’re so damned needy.

           “You be sure to tell them about my time in the service,” Mr. Miller reminds me twenty times a day.

           “Hey, mister, look what I can do with my head,” says little Bobby Kozlowski.

           “Do you think you can use this photo of us in the paper?” asks Mrs. Alice Kozlowski. “It’s from last Christmas.”

           “Is my tie on straight?”

           “Did the mortician cover that little scar on my chin?”

           “Did they find my left arm?”

           “Did the grandbabies make it to the funeral?”

           “The driver of that tractor-trailer was drunk as hell, wasn’t he?”

           “Did the gosh darned Orioles win?”

           All day. Every day.

           Non-fucking-stop.

           Every single one of them.

           Except Mrs. Rosenbaum. She’s nice.

           They’re stuck here until I do my job. Until I have written the final words on their lives.

           Why?

           How the hell should I know?

           Maybe they’re scared. Maybe they’re worried about whatever is waiting for them on the other side. Hell, maybe they’re just stupid.

           The point is, they won’t let me write. They won’t let me escort them to forever with a few swipes of my pen or some strokes of the keyboard.

           And I can’t tell my boss any of that.

           Or could I?

*****

I pressed the key into the lock on my front door, turned it, and stepped into my house.

           And there they were.

           All of them.

           Walking and running and jumping.

           All pale and translucent and shimmering.

           Just like in the movies.

           The Kozlowski kids jumping on the couch. Mrs. Kozlowski arguing with Mrs. Franklin about the best way to degrease my stovetop. Mr. Kozlowski holding court on the best way to fix the broken lawnmower in my shed.

           And Mrs. Rosenbaum, walking my way. Coming from the kitchen with a tray of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies and eyeing the box balanced under my left arm.

           “Is that what I think it is?” she asked, her sweet, grandmotherly voice calming and peaceful.

           I nodded. “The stuff from my desk…”

           “Oh dear,” she said. “Did you tell them…” Her voice trailed off.

           Yeah, I thought. I’d told my boss. I’d finally just opened my mouth and let the truth fall out.

           And he’d gone straight for option number one.

           “That nasty man,” Hazel was saying. “I never did like that man. Never trusted him.”

           I smiled.

           She smiled back.

           She turned to observe the chaos around her, clearly worried about how I was going to deal with it. She looked back at me.

           “Because of them? Us, I mean. Because of us…this?” She gestured with the cookie tray. “Why would you tell him? What will you do now, you poor thing?”

           I shrugged.

           She smiled.

           And offered me a cookie.