Death Perception

by Lee Allen Howard

  Grinold stared at her icily. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Don’t bet on it, Cecil!” Delores whirled around and disappeared down the hall.

  Quaking, he slammed the door and then headed for his car in the afternoon drizzle.

  • • •

  Kennet passed the handheld electric magnet over the mound of ashes, still warm in the catchtray. He was searching for the screw that Grinold said was in the old lady’s hip. All foreign elements must be removed before loading the material in the cremains processor, a machine like a blender that pulverized the ashes and bone fragments into a consistent gray meal.

  Kennet had spent a few minutes after the memorial service scanning apartment ads in the McKeesport Daily News. He discovered he couldn’t afford a one-bedroom apartment. Even the efficiency units and basement pads were either too expensive after utilities, or too far away to walk to work.

  The door from the driveway flew open. Grinold stepped into the annex, shed his coat, and thrashed rain from it as he crossed the concrete floor.

  “Hi, Mr. Grinold. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Grinold peered at him from beneath his weasely eyebrows. “What is it?”

  “Now that my mother’s gone, I’d like to find a new place to live.”

  “I should hope so. Why are you telling me this?” Grinold seemed preoccupied, disturbed even. Maybe now wasn’t such a good time to talk to him.

  “Well, I’ve checked the paper, and even the smallest places cost too much.”

  “That’s the way it is for many people in this world.” Grinold started for the door to the funeral home.

  Kennet mustered his courage. “What I really wanted to ask was, could you increase my schedule, you know, to forty hours a week?”

  Grinold huffed and stopped. “I hardly think so. There aren’t enough cremations to keep you busy another fifteen hours.”

  Kennet set down the magnet. “If you get that other funeral home, you’ll have more business, won’t you?”

  “I certainly plan to. But we’re not there yet. You’ll have to make do with the hours I give you.” Thunder rumbled outside as he reached for the doorknob.

  “I could do other things.”

  Grinold scowled. “Like what?”

  “Like taking care of the grounds.”

  “I’ve already got an arrangement with a professional service to do the yard work. They have their own equipment.” Grinold had passed over Nathan to do the work because he wasn’t insured.

  “I could do some fixing up, some painting. Lots of things. Anything.”

  Grinold said, “Out of the question. This place is in good shape. When all this ‘fixing up,’ as you call it is done, then what would you do? I couldn’t keep you busy full-time for long.”

  Kennet had made minimum wage since he’d first taken the job as creamer. Even a small increase would help him toward his goal. He wanted badly to drop the subject and avoid Grinold’s foul mood. Yet that would get him nowhere.

  “Since I’m such a loyal employee—you said so the other day—I’ve worked here for three years and never got a raise.”

  “Absolutely not!” Grinold’s nostrils flared. “I can’t afford it, and there’s not enough for you to do. Let’s make this the end of it.” He wrenched open the funeral home door. “And one last thing: I want you to finish and lock up by nine tonight!” Grinold marched through the door and slammed it behind him.

  Kennet sighed and returned to combing the ashes.

  Chapter 6

  Alex Keckler descended the side steps of the care home to the concrete pad that facilitated getting wheelchair residents in and out of vehicles. The sun was setting, and the birds were complaining about it. He was glad to be done with work. Saturday nights were made for partying, not wiping wrinkled old asses for ten bucks an hour.

  He stopped to check his pager, which had buzzed just a minute ago. It displayed the same number that paged him half an hour earlier, a number he didn’t recognize. This made him uneasy. Alex never brought his cell phone to work because he’d be tempted to talk where others might overhear. Not that the old farts would know what was going on. But Flavia would.

  Gravel crunched down the lane. He looked up. It was that loser whose mother, Single-Eye Singleton, had croaked the other day. Kennet was another one who shouldn’t overhear his business. Do-gooder’d probably turn me in.

  Alex called out, “Ms. C wants to see you.”

  Kennet quickened his pace. “What about?” His gray eyes were curious. The rest of him looked like a wrung-out dishrag. Mommy’s dead, poor schmuck.

  Alex shrugged. “I’m not the frickin’ secretary, dude. Ask her.” Then he turned to go.

  In the twilight, Alex headed down the path that snaked from the back of Flavia’s garage toward his property near Good Shepherd Cemetery, only set farther back, next to the woods. Sometimes he walked to work; sometimes he drove. He should have driven today because of the rain, although the drizzle had quit that afternoon.

  The path was muddy. He’d worn the trail over the past five years, starting when Flavia first hired him. Two years out of community college then, he was still unable to land a job as an LPN at McKeesport, Braddock, or any other area hospitals. He made a less than favorable impression, he figured, because of his grades. Hospitals hired A students, not C earners. His poor academics kept him from pursuing the career he really wanted. He couldn’t hack the higher math and science of the pharmacy program at Pitt. Or any other school, for that matter. Yet he had, in a sense, settled into his dream job, which was anything reputable to record at the bottom of IRS Form 1040.

  When the painted “Personal Care Home” sign went up in front of the Victorian on Smithfield, he immediately applied, and Torpedo Tits, his favorite moniker for Flavia, hired him the following week to help care for her quota of five residents. If you could call it care. Her concern was as phony as her eyelashes.

  Alex moved into the open under a sky of spilled ink. A quarter mile to his left, he spied gravestones like broken teeth scattered across the old section of Good Shepherd cemetery. Spired junipers ringed the newer section like sentinels. Polished granite winked moonlight between the trees. The cemetery freaked him out. Alex didn’t like death. He wasn’t afraid of much, but his own demise was something he would never be ready for.

  He crossed the field that stretched toward his house, a two-story clapboard structure with a one-story addition sprawling off one side. He always checked the windows after dark, and felt relieved when they looked like nothing more than black holes. But appearances were deceiving. As he approached, the woods behind the house loomed ominously, as if about to swallow him along with the structure. He hated that effect. His pickup blocked his view of the underbrush beyond the driveway. The old GMC exuded the scent of burnt motor oil.

  Alex groped for his keys in the pocket of his hoodie. Fumbling, he dropped them in the wet grass. He stooped to pick them up. The glistening toes of a pair of enormous black boots stepped into the light, wet jeans piled atop them.

  Alex immediately straightened, trying to control the lurch of his bowels. At eye level, he made out a massive torso and a man’s black face above it, eyes glinting in the moonlight.

  Shit. “Tito. What are you doing here?” Alex hoped he sounded angry and tough, not scared to death.

  Tito’s voice was deep as a cave. “Just dropped by to see how my little investment’s doin’.”

  “Well as can be expected this early in the season. Told you how long it takes. Shit has to grow, you know.”

  “Need some. Now.”

  Alex slid a key between each finger in his fist, planning to jam them in Tito’s face, if need be. “I told you the crop’s not ready.”

  Tito seized him by his hoodie. Alex dropped the keys and grabbed Tito’s wrists. They were as thick and sinewy as his own ankles.

  “Look,” Tito said, exhaling cigarette stink. “I got guys breathin’ down my neck to supply some tough customers. Supply you
said you’d have no problem fillin’.”

  Alex squirmed in Tito’s grip, his sweatshirt and the scrub top underneath cutting his armpits. His toes stirred the weeds.

  “Come up with somethin’, anythin’—now—or I’ll help myself when you’re away.”

  Not that. Anything but that. “All right, already. Lemme down.”

  Tito threw him against the side of the house. Alex saved himself from collapsing and straightened, smoothing his hoodie. He stopped because his hands were shaking. He snatched his keys from the ground, watching Tito’s feet in case the thug tried to boot him. He jangled through the set and crunched the key in the deadbolt.

  “Hang on.”

  Tito made to follow him in the house.

  Alex planted a hand on Tito’s massive chest, then snatched it back. “Stay . . . out here.”

  Tito clapped a hand on Alex’s neck. “You better come back, or I’ll be makin’ you a new doorway. And a new asshole.” Tito squeezed painfully and then released.

  Alex let himself in, locked the door behind him, then scrambled to the alarm pad and punched in the deactivation code. He pressed himself against the wall to catch his breath and calm the shaking.

  He couldn’t call the cops. God, no. Operating outside the law exempted you from their protection, but not from their investigation. That’s why the alarm system blew an inside siren but didn’t dial the authorities. The last thing he needed was cops on the scene.

  He flipped on the overhead light and then crossed the living room, littered with muscle magazines and empty Gatorade bottles. He stepped into his workout room. His silhouette in the mirrored wall startled him. He flattened a hand over his hammering heart.

  He shifted a stack of iron weight plates a few at a time, lifted a pine floorboard, and then reached in the hole. He started back to the living room with the rolled paper sack, but doubled back to his bedroom instead. It reeked of sweat and unwashed sheets.

  From the top drawer of his nightstand, he drew out his Rossi revolver, cold and heavy. He stuffed it into his sweatshirt pocket.

  At the front door, he fastened the safety chain before he unlocked and cracked the door. A ribbon of light fell on Tito’s bulk, the shadow of the chain underscoring a cold yellow eye.

  Tito asked, “How much?”

  “Sixteen hundred.”

  “What?” Tito grabbed the door, but Alex planted his foot against it. He slipped a hand into his hoodie pocket, grasping the gun.

  “Four hundred an ounce, no discount. The last of my own private stash.” Alex felt like crying. He smoked every day, before and after work. He needed that stash.

  “But sixteen hundred, shit!”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  Tito’s features twisted with irritation. Alex started to shut the door.

  Tito thrust a boot in. “Wait.” He rummaged in his jacket pocket.

  Behind the door, Alex tightened his grip on the .38.

  Tito withdrew a roll of bills. He counted, grousing under his breath.

  “Sixteen hundred. Firm.”

  Tito peeled off the bills, leaving himself only a few fifties. Scowling, he thrust the money through the door crack.

  Alex snatched the money and tossed the rumpled bag of weed at Tito. “Don’t ever come here again. Don’t call. I’ll find you when the crop’s ready. Now get lost.” He shut the door and bolted it. Rearmed the security system.

  As Tito’s motorcycle growled toward Smithfield, Alex leaned against the wall, gripping the gun in a clammy, white hand.

  • • •

  “Alex said you wanted to see me?”

  “Yes,” Flavia said, folding the wet dishrag. “Sit down, Kennet, and I’ll make you a nice cup of cocoa.”

  Flavia Costa was short and thick-set, but far from fat. She had a strong face with a triangular jaw and high, round cheekbones. A wisp of hair, dyed blue-black, lay plastered to her forehead. She busied herself preparing the cocoa.

  Kennet draped his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair and sat down. When the cocoa was ready, he accepted the hot mug from Flavia. She sat down across from him, dunking a Red Rose teabag in her cup of steaming water.

  “How have you been holding up, Kennet?”

  He studied the foam on his cocoa and shrugged.

  “It must be hard,” she said, “being so young. My own father left my mother and me when I was eight. Not the same as dying, but he was just as gone.”

  “I didn’t know that, Ms. Costa. I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “He was a garbage collector who thought he was a playboy. Drank a lot and ran around with other women.”

  “Kind of like my dad. Except for the other women.” His father had drunk way too much to be personable, let alone randy. That he managed to get Ma pregnant the night they met was a stroke of luck. Or misfortune, according to Sir.

  Flavia dabbed her forehead with a dinner napkin. She always seemed to be sweating or fanning herself. “Anyway, scoundrel though he was, his absence made life difficult.”

  Kennet sipped his cocoa. It tasted more like sugar than chocolate. The cheap stuff usually did. “Is this what you wanted to tell me?”

  “No, no.” She waved her manicured hand as if chasing off a fly. “I don’t want to make things harder for you, but I need you to do something for me.”

  He didn’t know why, but he didn’t like the sound of this. “What is it?”

  “I know how soon it is, but I need you to clean out your mother’s room.”

  Kennet straightened and gripped his cup. He wasn’t quite prepared for this. “Can’t it wait until next week?”

  “I’m afraid not. We have a new resident coming in.”

  Already? That was quick. “I . . . I’m not ready.”

  “I didn’t want to move her things for you.”

  Kennet wasn’t sure how to take this. Should he be grateful or offended? He drove the thought away. She was just trying to run her business.

  His mother wasn’t the first resident who had died in Flavia’s care, and she wouldn’t be the last. In fact, they all came here to die. Flavia took care of them until they did, and he took care of them afterward.

  “What should I do with her stuff?” he asked.

  Flavia appeared pensive as she tapped her polished nails on the cup. “You can move some of it to your room for the time being. The things you want, of course.” She glanced up at him. “The rest we can store in the basement.”

  It wouldn’t take many boxes. His mother didn’t have much. None of the residents did, unless they left their possessions with their families or rented storage offsite. He suddenly feared that if he packed his mother’s things away, he would start to forget her, and he didn’t want to forget her. He didn’t want to forget her clapping for him in the church Christmas pageant, when he played one of the three Wise Men. Or their only summer picnic at Kennywood park, where the Thunderbolt roller coaster made her scream like a schoolgirl. He didn’t want to forget her praying for residents—and for him. It was simply too soon.

  The lather on his cocoa had disappeared. “Can’t it wait, just a few more days?”

  Flavia looked genuinely pained. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get the room cleaned. I’ve already brought up a box for you. It’s on your mother’s bed.”

  He didn’t bother to answer.

  “You’ll need to set aside some time tomorrow to do the job. The room has to be ready by Monday noon.”

  Kennet forced himself to swallow some of the cocoa. It had grown lukewarm and tasted chalky.

  Flavia approached his end of the table and rested a hand on his shoulder. It was warm from the tea. “I’m truly sorry, Kennet. If you want me to help, I’ll be glad to. Just let me know.”

  “Thanks, Ms. Costa. I’ll get it done.”

  She set her cup on the counter and left him there at the table. Alone.

  Chapter 7

  Flavia Costa returned the cleaning supplies underneath the kitchen sink and stopped to mop her face with
a dishtowel. Menopause was turning out to be everything the women’s magazines promised, what with the hot flashes, sweating bouts, mood swings, and night terrors. Especially the night terrors.

  She washed her hands at the sink with dish liquid and then started lunch preparations for beef stew and biscuits.

  She had just finished scrubbing Virginia Singleton’s old room from top to bottom, finally disinfecting the plastic mattress cover with Heptagon. She’d smoothed on crisp bedding and tied the spray of welcome balloons to the chrome siderail. Charles Osgood, eighty-two, would arrive that afternoon, delivered from his dilapidated home in nearby White Oak by a distant relative. Other than an elderly sister, he had no descendants and could no longer take care of his property. These were the residents Flavia coveted. No close family, no attachments. Her home would be his final living quarters.

  She dumped lumps of biscuit mix into a Melmac bowl, sloshed in some skim milk, and then stirred the batter.

  Thankfully, Kennet had cleaned out his mother’s room as she asked. It had to be tough on the poor kid, but he was probably better off for it. Kennet seemed to have no plans for building a life of his own, but this turn of events would help him make decisions he needed to make. It was time for the young man to grow up and move on.

  Flavia spooned globs of sticky dough onto cookie sheets and then slipped them into the hot oven. More heat, all she needed. She swabbed her face again. Then she took down a bright copper-bottomed pot from the ceiling rack and set it on the stove. She paused to gaze out the window at the oaks overhanging the path that led to Alex’s property. It was a pretty day, bright sun and clouds, twittering birds.

  Originally, she’d doubted that Kennet’s staying at the home would work out, questioned whether the cramped laundry room they’d converted into his bedroom would be big enough for anyone to stay in, especially someone mobile. Yet it had turned out to be a good thing and had worked out just fine—while it lasted.

  Now that she knew the room was viable to house a resident, she wished Kennet was gone. He paid a pittance in rent, nowhere near what an actual resident brought in. Some would be appalled at her pecuniary slant on her profession, but having been abandoned by her father and left penniless by her husband, she was forced to fend for herself. Business was business, and all that.