Heeellllooo

 

     

Aftermath (a.k.a. Tooth)

It was pretty crazy. That’s what it was. How had it come to this? I was a widow without a pocketbook (since it had been stolen as he took his dying breath) and I was concerned about a gold tooth; of all things. Henceforth, I was a widow with no insurance cards or social security cards for all the kids and my self. I dreaded making all those appointments in the days to come! Never mind the personal keepsakes that had been stolen along with my photos like that fabulous coin with the hole through the center and the magnificent giant bolt. I loved that bolt. I would mourn that bolt. I would.

Money was money. I would not worry my self a hole in my gut over the fifty dollars someone got away with. Along with my checkbook and various credit cards. I had a tooth to worry about. I did worry. I did what my husband told me to do. This was the first real day he wasn’t telling me what to do. There was no freedom in that because his voice bellowed from behind a pulpit in the back of my head. He was a madcap auctioneer: "Will ya’ fulfill my wishes? Will ya’ do it? Will ya’ do it? Do I hear a yes? Do ah hear a yes from the woman in the canary yellow big shirt?"

The funeral director was predictably somber. Thorough too. I noted he was out of breath for some reason. Though he sat still. With pants too short; his tall socks stretched up very high. An impeccable suit. I liked it! He took me by surprise every time he spoke in a careful measured tone. One low key on an organ. I was beyond tears. But whenever he said something strange and unexpected, I would raise an eyebrow; I would startle a bit. I mean physically, I would jump in my seat. Oh, overall, my mood state was flat. I fancied my self quite composed. Maybe its called being comfortably numb. My best friend Sheri sat beside me. My mother in law sat across from me. She kept falling apart. It was her son; after all.

The funeral guy told us he stored an actual fingerprint from "the body’s thumb" in case we wanted to make fun crafts with it later! I jumped in my seat and no one else did. They nodded accordingly. We could make all kinds of jewelry with the body’s thumbprint. It was like kindergarten all over again like when I put my hand in the plaster. Only not.

After discussing such trivial matters as obituary column facts and payment information (I was so glad my mother in law came along!) it was time to retreat home to the sanctuary of my backyard where I planned on finding a four leaf clover. (I found seven) Oh yeah- that tooth thing. His voice was still in my head but now it was a nagging sports fan; maybe because we’d mentioned sports for his obits column: "I’m madder madder madder"!

The funeral guy asked if there was anything else; any questions. Anything at all. He asked if anyone minded if he removed his coat. We didn't. My mother in law’s face exploded. There were tissues in a box for just such an occasion. "Excuse me." She apologized. Really, she didn’t have to. I was the one who was going to have to apologize to her; after the words that were about to come out of my mouth; and I knew it-but they had to be said. I had to silence the voice. The dead had rights too!

I had been staring at the nondescript carpet the whole time but now I looked in

Sheri's direction. "Well", I started, swallowing down any hint of a smile "there's this funny thing. Sheri, remember how he always said that he wanted me to have his gold tooth?" I cleared my throat. I clasped my hands. Somewhere classical music played.

"I do remember that, yeah", she said. She nodded. She was a frequent visitor at the end of Howie’s life; treating us to her good cheer and sunshine aura.

My mother in law sat up straight and plunked the tissue box down on its side table. "I didn't know my son had a gold tooth," She said, searching my face; then Sheri’s face. Then she searched the carpet with her wet eyes. "It must've been in the back of his mouth".

"It was", I said. "A souvenir of when our finances were a little better" Hooray for me Hooray for me! I made a giant intelligent sentence! Now for the point where I get to look very crazy. His voice cheered me in my head: "Spit it out, already. Good thing you aren’t paying him for his time."

I spit it out: "Anyway he wanted me to have it. Is there any chance you could"-

My mother in law instinctively made a swipe for her box of tissues. At first I thought she was making a swipe for me and I almost ducked. Actually I did duck; just a little. The funeral guy swiveled his chair toward me, nearly spilling the paperwork in his plump well dressed lap. "I do not feel comfortable with that, no. I can't do-that", he said, running quickly chosen words together.

Sheri spoke up. Of course. With her usual conviction. "I think if it's something he really wanted her to have and it means something to the family then there has to be someone who'll get the tooth for them for a keepsake before he's cremated."

 

Well you could just pat that silence on the back. Offer it some paperwork to fill out and watch silence pick up the pen. That’s how palpable it was. But I felt calm. The voice in my head was just- gone. My mother in law was a shade lighter than milk. (I didn’t think silence to be an uncomfortable presence at all).

I was sitting there, hands still clasped and wondering if the funeral guy was going to reply to my friend when he did. "I- I'm just not comfortable with that. Sounds like he just wanted something to represent his memory, something for the family to cherish of him, and I strongly recommend our fingerprint jewelry. That's an alternative."

"But", I asked, experimenting with new ways to cross my legs, uncross them and swing my feet around, what happens after cremation? Will his gold tooth be left in the ashes? He worried about that. That someone might steal it. Will it be in the ashes that you give me so I can see it and get it out later myself?"

My mother in law leaned forward like she had a stomach ache. One thing about her, she bit her tongue a lot. (Not literally.) I mean she had a real big family so she chose her words carefully around people. I was her opposite.

The funeral guy explained that the heat from the cremation process was so great that it would obliterate the tooth completely. He perked up and regained his professional voice when he had a chance to explain a technical process to us fruits; Sheri and I.

"I'll get it", Sheri said pointblank. She shrugged.

And then my mother in law’s words had to come out. Her dam was only so strong. The words gushed. "What do you mean, you'll get it?" It was cute. And admirable. Because I saw that behind her wet eyes she was still trying to have on her smiling public face. (But she was a mess!)

Yes, yes I was sorry for the frightened look across her features. I could not imagine losing a child. In fact I'd looked through the funeral guy's sample binder and picked out

religious hand-out cards with her in mind. They had The Serenity Prayer on one side (for me-my favorite) and a mother holding a child on the other to symbolize herself and her son.

Sheri had a plan. She had the voice of a conspirator. "After the wake I'll go in and get it out", she said.

"And just how you do you propose to get the tooth out of my son's head?" my mother in law asked, eyes widening.

"I got some tools in the trunk", Sheri said. We knew her very well. Of course she was serious. She would do it. She once got my dropped dollar bill back from a mean kid at the movies when I was seven. She would face down a pit bull if need be and I had no doubt it would back off whimpering. She was also truly and genuinely funny. But no, she wasn’t kidding. Her childhood nickname was Gutsy. No one was smiling. Except me. She had that effect on me. Diagnosed with Dysthymia, (flat mood state) that was a good thing for me.

…

It was finally over. His body was in the casket because they couldn’t arrange a cremation till the Monday or some such snafu. I don’t know; I wasn’t listening to that part. I let my mother in law handle that. All I know is I wanted it closed, thank you and now I found myself standing alone in the room in front of the closed casket with Sheri, my mother in law, and some others. I wondered if he was wearing the hospital johnny coat.

We were looking at the flowers lined up on the floor and hung on the walls. Some had cursive words in gold script across the fronts of the flower sprays: Loving Brother, Father, Beloved Son, Son-In-Law. At a diagonal, to the left behind the casket hung a heart shaped wreath of flowers in white and red, upon the stark white wall. Across the front was the word: Husband. So this was the one my mother in law ordered for me. With my financial affairs still not in order, since my pocketbook had been stolen right out of the hospital; my mother in law had paid for this wreath for me.

She announced solemnly I needed to decide ‘now that it was over’ what flowers to take home. I didn’t tell her there were no voices today. I didn’t answer her right away. She said we could donate them to a nursing home or the hospital. The funeral guy said he'd take care of all of it! Howie's sister loaded the "Brother arrangement" into her car. Everyone, save for us, was already en-route to her house for the after-funeral get-together. Since he was to be cremated later, there would be no gathering at a cemetery because there would be no burial, no headstone.

 

Maybe I'd pluck one rose to press in a book next to my four-leafed clovers but No, I shook my head. Maybe I didn’t want any at all. After over twenty years of having a man make every decision for you it was damned hard to decide if you wanted something or didn’t! The way it was before I had to ask permission to purchase barrettes!

It happened so fast, landed on the smiling portrait of him and me. It went over face-forward onto the casket. The Husband flowers had a life of their own. What’s more, they were like a drunk driver at the wheel that scarily made its way diagonally across the lanes. That’s not supposed to happen. Its against the rules. The red and white heart had surged forward.

It landed on the casket right in front of me. I inspected the nail later. It would’ve had to lift UP from its wire hanger to do it. Must’ve been a strong gust of upward wind going on in there. (ha-ha) If that sort of thing happened a lot in the old black shuttered funeral home, no wonder the funeral guy always looked like a snail in a weasel hole. There was about five feet of distance between the wall where the arrangement hung behind the casket.

I stood there, frozen to the spot, reading HUSBAND for a moment. We were all alabaster statues; fixated on the picture that the flowers had crashed into-and working out in all our minds the impossible route in our heads the flowers had taken-nothing falls off a wall sideways and lands on a casket!

I broke the silence. "I'll take those home!" I announced to everyone. At least I finally got to answer my mother in law’s question. I suspected someone was still trying to make decisions for me. Eh, maybe more likely he was just saying he was around. Right!

In the parking lot, after I'd loaded my stuff into someone's car, Sheri came up to me, her limp as pronounced as ever but not any worse. She would never let M.S. get an upper hand. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder conspiratorially, toward the white funeral home with the foreboding black shutters we just exited, the one I passed whenever I walked downtown to get prescriptions. I waited for her to speak. She was going to tell a creepy joke or something. I expected she might hum the twilight zone theme close to my ear.

Her eyebrows were up. Uh-oh. A ‘partner in crime’ look. She said, "Should I go back in there and get that tooth? No one needs to know."

I looked at my new Payless shoes; new for the occasion- already greened on the edges from all the four leaf clover hunting. Then I smiled; still at a loss for my true want. I knew his want. He wanted me to have his precious gold tooth. That want was recorded on his talking machine at home. The sky was cloudless. It matched my ugly blue shirt with the fake blue rose attached; chosen because it was his favorite color. I knew I would throw it away as it’d be tainted with having the honor of being the funeral shirt. I smiled at her devotion, avoiding her eyes. "No, I think we'll let it go." I said, surprising myself.

"Are you sure? I'll do it, if it's important", she said, "I remember him saying it. Got the tools. Not a big deal. When everyone’s gone"- She made a hand gesture like operating pliers.

He would’ve approved. You better believe it. Excuse me, funeral guy. We’d like

alone time with the body. Please grant us privacy here. Oh yes if he were still here long

enough to concoct the plan himself he would’ve approved right down to making me be the

one who clamped the monkey wrench down on his gleaming three hundred dollar dental

atrocity of a molar. Or whatever it cost. I wasn’t allowed to touch the checkbook. Really, I

wasn’t allowed to even touch it.

 

When Sheri asked if I was sure- you better believe I considered it. I looked to the

heavens that fine June day and imagined every detail of the caper right down to the Mission

Impossible theme music as we lifted the lid of the casket. As we ran out into the parking lot,

the gleaming dental prize held high in the air- (well Sheri wouldn’t be running, to be fair)

and then the Laverne and Shirley song would have to play…

Schlemiel, schlimazel!

Yep. In that instant I wanted the caper more than the tooth. I wanted to please him too. But I knew the answer. "I'm sure", I said, still smiling.

"Okay kiddo", she said. She pivoted on her good leg and paused to look at me over her shoulder as she headed toward her car. It was as if she thought or hoped I’d change my mind. Maybe she wanted a caper too. I shrugged and she turned and kept walking.

 

 

 

                                                                           

                       My daughter

 

 

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