Funeral with a View Read online

  Funeral with a View

  By

  Matt Schiariti

  Funeral with a View

  By Matt Schiariti

  This is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, events and organizations depicted are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. [Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events or organizations is purely coincidental.] The use of any company or product names are for literary effect only and used without permission.

  Copyright © 2014 by Matt Schiariti. All rights reserved.

  This story may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, except for selected passages for the purpose of critical reviews, without the written permission of the author.

  Kindle Edition published September 2014

  ISBN-13: 978-1502506566

  ISBN-10: 1502506564

  DEDICATION

  For Marsha, Manda Boo, and Babyface Vinster.

  Love you guys.

  Really really.

  ALSO BY MATT SCHIARITI

  Novels

  Ghosts of Demons Past (Seth Gabriel #1)

  Short Stories

  Words With Fiends: A Short Story

  Hollow (Be Careful What You Wish For), as part of the Apocalypse 13 anthology

  Chapter 7 of The Carnival 13 anthology

  A Dollar and a $cream, as part of the Lucky 13 anthology

  Table of Contents

  DEDICATION

  ALSO BY MATT SCHIARITI

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  EPITAPH

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Heavy gun-metal gray clouds look like a rough ceiling made out of dirty cotton. Wind plays with an array of multi-colored umbrellas pedestrians have opened up to fend off fat rain drops which have begun to fall, landing on the sidewalk and street with large splats.

  “Hello? Cat?” I have to shout. Rush hour is in full swing, the traffic so loud I can barely hear myself think.

  “R-i-c-k-y?” Her voice is still full of static. I check out the screen and see only one bar of reception. A new carrier is definitely in order. Better call quality, my ass. That little talking hamster who sounded eerily like Andrew Dice Clay was full of crap.

  Since the finger in the ear trick didn’t work, I try my palm instead. The cacophony dulls, but only just.

  “Cat? You’re breaking up, baby. The service here sucks.”

  “ –at? *ssss* … ear … you … *ssssssss*”

  “I can’t make out what you’re saying,” I yell into my phone, lips pressed against it. “I think I’m in a dead zone.”

  I am paying more attention to my phone than the traffic, surely looking like an idiot to the passersby as I scream into the evil device that is the cellular phone. In an effort to get one more cursed bar of reception, I sidle closer to the curb.

  “—ood news …”

  “What? You’re still breaking up, Catherine.”

  “… ant … *ssss* … by …”

  “Huh? Aunt Bea? Dammit.”

  Almost on top of the street now, I check the phone again. Two bars.

  “I think we’re in business now, Cat. What’s this about …”

  The sentence goes unfinished. A shout of “Buddy! Look out!” turns my attention from my conversation. Startled, I spin around to see what the commotion is, but it’s already too late.

  “What the shit?”

  Two massive halos of light become my entire world within a split second. They follow on the sound of a loud pop that turns into a screech of tires. There is a scream. Could be mine, could be someone else’s. My life doesn’t pass before my eyes, but a telephone pole does as I fly through the air after the brutal impact. Pain, short-lived but intense, shoots through me.

  When I come to a stop, so numb it almost hurts, all I see are those dark gray clouds. They swirl and undulate, and I realize my face is wet. Is it from the tears or the dollops of rain the clouds shed?

  Over the ringing and pulsing of blood rushing through my head, I hear Cat’s voice loud and clear. I can’t help but think how typical that is.

  “Rick? Ricky! What’s that noise? What happened? You there?”

  No. I don’t think I am.

  CHAPTER 1

  Funerals.

  Nobody likes a funeral.

  For most people they’re unavoidable, like taxes, waiting in lines at the DMV, and birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese.

  If you ever stop to think about it, it doesn’t take long to realize how brutal the ritual is.

  For your consideration:

  On the worst day of their life, the bereaved, whether they are husband or wife, mother or father, son or daughter, are on display more than the deceased, forced to endure a barrage of uncomfortable, stammering condolences from friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances; their naked sorrow front and center. Perhaps the last thing anybody wants to do in aftermath of such loss is shake dozens of hands and hear the words ‘I’m so sorry’ over and over again.

  They’re brutal.

  They’re expected.

  They’re also necessary. Even cleansing.

  While emotionally draining and difficult, they provide a certain degree of closure, and act as an arena in which survivors, in a unifying display of support, can say that one final goodbye.

  That being said, when you put all the pros aside, it doesn’t change the fact that nobody likes a funeral.

  Nobody living, at least.

  As for me? I’m not sure what to think.

  I hated them like every other living person hated them, while I was alive.

  Being dead has skewed my perspective.

  Admitt
edly, it’s amazing bearing witness to this procession of people. People I haven’t seen in years, people I’ve forgotten about, people whose lives I’d touched in the limited amount of time I had. Believe me, it’s no small thing seeing someone who fell off the precipice of your life’s path years ago come to pay their respects. It’s awesome in the strictest definition of the word, not the eighties surfer way.

  And that’s how I see it, so far. I’m sure everyone has their own feelings about it. (Yes, even dead I have feelings … sort of). Then again, I’ve nothing to compare it to, do I? I’ve yet to meet another dead person. Something tells me that once I’m finished viewing my viewing (wink wink, nudge nudge) I’ll move along on to that next plane of existence. Heaven? Hell? Who knows? Death doesn’t come with a guidebook, even if that’s what Beetlejuice would have you believe.

  I have no death liaison.

  Maybe I’ll get one later? Time will tell. For right now, I’m stuck in this funeral parlor with no way out.

  In life I’d been what could be defined as a social drinker. By no means an alcoholic, I wasn’t a teetotaler either. Work hard, play hard … in moderation. It was a running joke between my wife Catherine and me. Knowing my idea of tying on a good one involved three, maybe four beers over the course of a night out, she’d say, ‘One of these days that booze is going to kill you, Ricky,’ her face alight with mischief. For my part, I’d play the role of the subservient husband, and reply with the ubiquitous, ‘Yes, dear, I won’t drink and drive, dear.’ I meant it, and she knew I did. I never drove drunk in thirty-plus years.

  Irony is a Budweiser truck hopping a curb and splattering you like a bug on a windshield before you even have your first beer.

  Looking down on myself, laid out in my ornate casket, I have to admit the mortician did a bang-up job. Everything on my face is where it should be. Open casket? That’s a win in my book.

  Details are gossamer at this point, a side effect of being newly dead I imagine, but the way I understand it, the Bud delivery guy was trying to make a yellow light, hit a pothole, blew a tire, and bam! I’m a human pancake, tenderized into the afterlife. Do I plan to haunt the driver? No. Taking a man of my youngish vintage away from his family is something he’ll have to live with for the rest of his days, however many of them he’s lucky enough to get. And it’s not as if he’d planned on turning me into a crepe. It was an accident. They do happen.

  I do blame that pothole, though. Damn that pothole.

  Now that I think about it, my wife was right. Booze did kill me, if indirectly. If I weren’t dead I’d be embarrassed. But since I am, I don’t much care. Dead is dead, regardless of how you get there.

  In any event, the mortician has done a fantastic job of putting my face back to rights. Now all in attendance can gaze upon my devastatingly handsome visage one last time as they usher me off into the great unknown.

  Catherine’s picked out one of my favorite suits for the occasion, a charcoal gray affair with a white shirt and gray tie. These colors compliment my olive complexion rather nicely I think, and in combination with the hints of gray at my temples, I look stately. Also nice to see the mortician took it upon himself to split my unibrow in two. You can’t look stately with a unibrow.

  On the topic of appearance, my wife is as attractive as ever. Even in death, I can’t help drinking her in. She’s seated in a chair at the front of the parlor, her blond hair radiant in contrast to the funeral black she’s wearing. Dark circles stand out beneath her hazel eyes, eyes that are red and puffy, and she seems a bit thinner. Not abnormal given the circumstances.

  Despite the sad set to her shoulders, the misty eyes, and the suffering she exudes, I’m thankful that such a beautiful creature had decided to spend her life with me.

  I’d met Catherine Maddox (now the widow Catherine Frachitti) through a friend of mine. My best friend, in point of fact. Bill Henly.

  While they were dating.

  That tidbit must sound inherently evil. There are rules, especially among guys. The Man Code, to be more specific. Every male on the planet is born with these rules branded into his DNA. Don’t date a friend’s ex, don’t have sex with a friend’s girlfriend, so on and so forth.

  Let the record show that I am no home wrecker! Bill and Catherine had been seeing each other when I met her. Nothing serious, and for reasons only known to them, their relationship didn’t last. After Bill did the requisite guy thing (read: talked post-breakup smack about her), I did the right thing and asked him if he’d be okay with me asking her out.

  The conversation went something like this:

  Me: So, you’re not dating Cat anymore, huh?

  Bill: Nope.

  Me: Um, would it be cool if I asked her out?

  Bill: Yeah, sure.

  It was a conversation for the ages. A manly conversation of epic proportions. It may seem flimsy to an outsider, but to guys it was volumes’ worth.

  I let the breakup embers fade, and a few weeks later, when I’d mustered up the testicular fortitude, I asked Catherine out. After a moment’s thought, she said yes. And the rest, as they say, is history.

  Dating Catherine put no apparent stress on my relationship with Bill. Good looking in an All-American way, he never lacked for female companionship. At six-foot-five and almost as broad, he towered over my meager five-foot-eight. He’d played football in high school and college, earning an athletic scholarship to Princeton University, but blew out his knee in his second year. His spare time no longer filled with practices and games, he hunkered down and focused on his studies which paved the way to his future career as a financial advisor. Still, he remained an ever faithful workout freak. The combination of good looks, muscular build, and his large salary lured many a willing woman into his bed. Catherine was no exception, but that wasn’t entirely Bill’s doing.

  The story is a simple one. Back in the day the three of us were nigh inseparable. Catherine and I were always double-dating with Bill and his love du jour. Even if he wasn’t seeing anybody (the exception to the rule), the three of us would go out to eat, see movies, hang out on lawn chairs in the summer drinking concoctions with little umbrellas in them.

  It was on one such occasion when things took a change for the pornographic. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. Or as long as I’m dead.

  That day is where this story truly starts.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was a normal early Saturday evening during a typical New Jersey summer.

  Hot and humid.

  Shortly after six, Bill had showed up at Cat’s apartment. He’d called earlier, lamenting a failed lunch date with a woman he’d met somewhere or other. We were lounging on her patio, sipping umbrella drinks when she took the call. Me, drinking alcohol garnished with miniature umbrellas. The things you do for love.

  We were already half in the bag when Bill sauntered up.

  “Hey guys. What’s going on?” he said as he strolled around back. The only thing slicker than his hair was his tan. He took off his sunglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, a massive bicep threatening to rip the seams of his polo shirt.

  Catherine wore a dark red bikini top and tight-fitting cutoff jean shorts, a sheen of sweat just beginning to form around her cleavage, a product of drinking and sunbathing. She wore her strawberry blond hair long back then, and the sun illuminated it like a sexy crown.

  “Just being lazy, having a few drinks in the sun. How’ve you been, honey? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  The term of endearment didn’t bother me. She’d always been affectionate.

  Catherine flip-flopped over to him in her sandals and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Date was that bad, huh?” she said, one hand on the small of his back.

  He gave a half-grunt, half-laugh. “You could say that. What a nut job. Two dates in and she starts in with talk about kids. ‘I want kids. Do you want kids? I so totally would love kids. The more the better. The sooner the better.’ Seriously? Kids? I’m twenty-t
hree. I don’t want kids. Ever.”

  Catherine laughed, a soft and contagious sound.

  I held up my glass. “Want one? Don’t cost nothin’.”

  “Yeah. I could use a drink. Thanks, man.”

  I came back with Bill’s drink and handed it to him, the glass already sweating in the summer heat.

  “There you go, Bill. Drink up. The night’s young and we have plenty more booze where that came from.” I punctuated my alcoholic offering with a series of hiccups.

  Bill waved his hand in front of his nose. “Smells like you two’ve been at this a while. You bathe in the shit?”

  Catherine swatted his shoulder. “All the easier for you to take advantage of us, big sexy.”

  The drinks went down easier and easier as the day wore on. Dusk approached, and the sky turned an amazing tapestry of pinks, golds, and purples. Crickets and cicadas were in full song.

  We fell into a buzzed silence, one which Catherine was the first to break.

  “Soooo. Anybody up for some strip poker?”

  The summer bugs’ chorus stopped on a dime. Maybe they were as surprised by her question as I was. Could have been the sound of me coughing on my drink that shut them up. Who knows?

  Bill, the most sober of our merry group, answered first.

  “I’m game if you guys are.”

  I blew out a long breath and put my hand on the railing to steady myself. Yep. Hammered.

  “Sure, why the hell not?”

  Catherine moseyed over to me, a little wobbly, and gave me a wet kiss on the lips. “That’s what I like about you, Ricky. You’re not afraid of a good time.”

  “Mr. Fun.” Hiccup. “That’s me. Let’s head in. I’ll get the cards.”

  Bill and Catherine chatted in the living room while I searched the kitchen drawers.

  “Hon, what’s taking so long? If you’re seeing triple, reach for the cards in the middle.” Catherine giggled.

  “S’okay,” I slurred, and looked over my shoulder. They sat across from one another, she on the secondhand love seat, Bill on the matching recliner. Those two items, a glass-top wicker table, and a smallish color television atop a build-it-yourself stand comprised the entire ‘living’ area. “Jussst be a second.”