Mighty, Mighty by Wally Rudolph

Author:Wally Rudolph
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619026780
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2018-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

Stefy was late. Amanda had been at the funeral home since it opened, waiting at the front door for her sister to arrive. The whole building was unbearably hot. Over the past hour, she’d slowly removed two layers—her jacket and her hat, and then her red hoodie. She thought she might be crazy—just imagining the stifling heat—but then she noticed the wallpaper falling off the walls and the bottom of all the windows fogged with steam. The only bit of relief she’d found was a finger-wide slat of cold air rushing through the gap between the front doors. She stood right in front of it, the tip of her nose brushing the cold metal.

The funeral director, an older Jewish man with curly hair, had come out of his office twice. The first time he was dressed in his regular clothes—pressed navy-blue slacks and a starched white shirt with a matching blue tie. He had offered Amanda a chair, told her she was welcome to wait in one of the viewing rooms, but when Amanda pulled open one of the heavy oak doors her stomach turned. She ran to the bathroom and dry-heaved over the toilet. She cupped her hand and drank from the tap, trying in vain to rinse the stench of formaldehyde and Lysol from the back of her throat. The second time, he had changed. He wore a wrinkled black suit with a thin red silk tie. His little bit of hair was slicked back; he appeared taller, like a butler from a movie, but all of his courtesy had disappeared.

“If your sister’s not here soon, then we’ll have to reschedule,” he said dryly. “I’m sorry, but I have other clients.”

On cue, Stefy’s Toyota swerved into the parking lot. She jumped out of the car, jogged to the door, holding her jacket closed with her backpack slung over one shoulder.

“What happened?” asked Amanda.

“What do you mean?”

“Our appointment was at eleven. It’s almost twelve-thirty.”

Stefy took off her huge sunglasses. Her puffy bloodshot eyes matched her reek of hangover and cigarettes. When she dropped her hand from her coat, Amanda could see she was wearing a tattered black T-shirt and red Adidas track pants—her pajamas.

“I have everything ready,” said the owner. “We just need to settle up, and you can be on your way.”

The man turned around, led them quickly past the viewing rooms and down a short dark hallway to his small office near the back entrance of the building. Inside, framed celebrity headshots covered the white-painted brick walls. Black-and-white photographs of Jack Palance and Michael Douglas smiled next to color glossies of Stockard Channing and Carrie-Anne Moss.

“Have all these people been here?” asked Amanda.

“No, no, of course not,” the owner replied, laughing. “I wish—I collect the autographs, like stamps.”

A white file box sat on the center of his desk next to an open laptop computer. He lifted the top and waved inside as if he’d just executed an illusion.

“You’ll see everything is here: your grandfather’s ashes, of course, and his personal belongings—his clothes, etcetera, from the hospital.

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