Death Perception

by Lee Allen Howard

  Years ago she determined to take charge of her own future, and she wasn’t about to die a pauper like half the sojourners in her home. She must forge her own destiny, create her own retirement plan, and to do that she needed to stay on course, make steady progress, reach every financial milestone.

  If you want to retire comfortably, she reminded herself, nothing can keep you from reaching your goals.

  Flavia poured two cans of stew into the pot and then flattened the cans with her fist. She threw the cans away and switched on the heat under the pot.

  Kennet should form such a plan of his own. Poor thing. All alone in the world. Just like me. He would have to learn to be independent, fend for himself. Just like me.

  Yet she knew, especially where people like Kennet were concerned, that some decisions had to be made for you. She would give him a few weeks, but sometime, sometime soon, he would learn Lesson One about how to survive on his own, whether he liked it or not.

  Just like me.

  With that decision made, she began to set the table.

  • • •

  At noon, Kennet left the funeral parlor to head home for lunch. Before he made it halfway down the annex driveway, a showy blonde lady pulled her car onto the gravel and cranked down her window.

  “’Scuse me,” she called.

  Kennet approached the car, a ten-year-old red Impala with rusted fenders. “Yes, ma’am, can I help you?”

  “Could you see that Cecil gets this?” Smirking, she held out her hand, and he accepted a silver cufflink from her. It was engraved with the initials CFG. The item inexplicably made him feel . . . what? Dirty. Along with his dreams and death perceptions, he often discerned people’s thoughts and picked up impressions from personal objects.

  “Would you deliver it to him personally?” She asked so sweetly, but inside, Kennet felt she was anything but.

  “Sure thing, ma’am.”

  “Tell him his friend Delores found it.” She crinkled her nose at him in a cute little bunny smile that cracked her makeup. Then she lowered her gaze to his crotch.

  Kennet stepped back from the car, blushing. “Delores, you said?”

  “Yes, honey.” She looked up and coughed. “Delores Swann. I’m sure it’s valuable, and he’ll be pleased to know I found it.”

  “Delores Swann.”

  “Yes, honey. Thank you so much. Bye now.” She waggled her fingers at him and drove off.

  • • •

  Kennet thrust the steel skewer with the marshmallows into the open crematory. The revelation surged over him like a wave, and he rocked back on his heels. He reached for the side of the oven to steady himself. His gift seemed to be growing stronger these past few weeks, but he’d never felt it this intensely.

  After dinner Kennet had returned to the annex to process the afternoon’s cremation. Grinold was gone for the day, so he’d pulled out the marshmallows because he felt like having dessert. He wasn’t so sure now. When he realized the marshmallows were aflame, he yanked them from the heat and blew on them. At the twinge of pain deep within his skull, the usual dizziness turned to nausea. This was also new.

  “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  Kennet jerked and dropped the skewer. Grinold stood in the doorway to the funeral home, fists on hips. He marched into the annex and snatched the skewer from the floor.

  “Marshmallows.” His nostrils quivered, and his face grew livid. Even his ears turned red. “This is sacrilege!”

  “I, I’m sorry, Mr. Grinold.”

  “Sorry?” The look in his eyes made the crematory seem like a refrigerator. “What would this woman’s family think if they knew you toasted marshmallows over the cremains of their loved one?” His eyes opened even wider. “Why, they, they’d sue me. Me! I can’t believe you’d do such a thing. What were you thinking, Kennet?”

  He was thinking, Why did you have to come back? Grinold left forty-five minutes ago, at 8:45 p.m., when Kennet stepped outside to check if flames were shooting from the stack. The funeral director had pulled away in his Lincoln Town Car, obviously done for the evening. But now he was back, and Kennet was in deep trouble.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. Grinold.”

  “Sorry isn’t good enough, Kennet. Don’t you realize this is grounds for termination?”

  Kennet’s nausea turned to panic. “Please, Mr. Grinold, please. Don’t fire me.”

  “Give me one good reason not to.”

  What could he say? There was no good reason for the man not to fire him. But he could not lose his job. Yet, what to say? He felt so dizzy and confused. Ma always said, honesty’s the best policy. . . .

  Kennet pointed at the skewer in Grinold’s fist. “It’s a gift,” Kennet said.

  “A gift? What are you talking about?”

  “Look, I’ll show you.” Kennet took the skewer, discarded the burnt marshmallows, and speared two fresh ones. He inserted them in the oven. When they turned golden, he pulled them from the heat, lifted his face mask, pulled the morsels off the rod, and stuffed them in his mouth.

  Grinold’s expression turned to disgust. He groaned.

  Kennet knew what the cause of death was even before he’d yanked the first batch of marshmallows from the heat. But tying his gift to consuming the marshmallows seemed the only way to explain why he would do such a silly, dangerous thing. Now that he was into it, his explanation seemed even stupider, but he plunged ahead, wondering if he would be able to finish before he passed out. Kennet didn’t need to feign vertigo. “This one . . . died of a brain tumor.”

  Grinold snorted. “So?”

  “That’s my gift.” Kennet was sure his face was as red as Grinold’s, but he strived to project absolute sincerity.

  “Whatever are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”

  “I can tell how they died. That’s my gift.”

  “Preposterous!”

  “No, it’s true. It’s a special ability I have. Check the paperwork.” Kennet indicated the sealed kraft envelope on the work table.

  The man snatched the envelope, tore it open, and pulled out the papers. “Yes, complications from a brain tumor.”

  “See, Mr. Grinold, it’s a gift.”

  “Hogwash. You’ve already looked at the death certificate and are fabricating this cockamamie story just to save your skin.”

  “No! I never look at the paperwork until I label the bag of cremains with the deceased’s name. The envelope was still sealed.”

  Grinold crossed his arms and studied Kennet for a moment. “You expect me to believe this foolishness?”

  “I know it sounds strange, but it’s the truth. You tell me about any special precautions before I cremate them, but I never look at the paperwork till I’m done, honest.”

  The funeral director put one hand to his forehead. “And you think you have some, some psychic power that tells you how someone died?”

  “It’s worked every time.”

  “Kennet! How long have you been doing this?”

  Kennet cringed. He hadn’t meant to incriminate himself further. “Not every time, Mr. Grinold, but whenever I have, I’ve always been right.”

  Shaking his head, Grinold tossed the envelope on the work table. “Kennet, you may think you have some kind of . . . gift, as you call it, but you cannot treat the departed with such careless disrespect. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to let you go.”

  “Please, don’t, Mr. Grinold. I said I was sorry.”

  Grinold sighed heavily. “I realize you’ve had a hard life, but if I’d known how disturbed you really are, I never would have given you the chance. Whether you think your power is real, whether you think you’re telling me the truth, you’re doing something you absolutely should not be doing, and I can’t excuse it no matter how sincere you are.”

  “But can’t you see that if I’m telling the truth, then I really do have a gift, and I’m not just trying to fool you?” He was losing the battle. His demonstration, his explanation, were ridicu
lous and lame. He wasn’t thinking clearly because of the dizziness and nausea. He really felt like vomiting now.

  “Even so, what good is a gift like that? They’re already dead, for God’s sake. I’m sorry, Kennet, but—”

  “Mr. Grinold, I’ll prove it to you.”

  “Now Kennet, that’s quite enough. Unfortunately, I have to let you go.”

  Kennet stepped closer and put a hand on his boss’s forearm. The man’s mouth turned hard, and his gaze leaped from Kennet’s hand to his face.

  “I need my job.”

  Grinold tore his arm from Kennet’s grip. “And I need my reputation to remain unstained. You said you wanted forty hours a week. Now’s your chance to find a full-time job. Elsewhere.”

  “I don’t drive.”

  “That’s not my concern. You should have thought about that before you entertained such foolishness. Now, please, gather any belongings you have, give me your key, and leave. I’ll finish this job.” Grinold started to turn away, but Kennet stepped in front of him.

  “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”

  Grinold’s face reddened again. “Nothing more, I assure you. You’ve said quite enough already. I absolutely cannot permit carelessness with something that’s so important to my business. I’m considered a professional in this community, and my success depends on a sterling reputation. Now stand aside!”

  Realizing it was no use, Kennet stepped away. But at the mention of sterling, he remembered what happened earlier that day. Along with his key to the crematory annex, Kennet pulled from his jeans pocket the engraved silver cufflink the blonde woman gave to him.

  Grinold stared at the cufflink as if it were the missing link. He fingered the end of his shirt sleeve. “Where did you find it?”

  “I didn’t. A woman dropped by to give it to you. You were out.”

  “Who. Who gave it to you?”

  “She said her name was Delores Swann.”

  Panic flashed over Grinold’s features. Then his mouth curved downward. Kennet held out the cufflink and key in his open hand. Grinold snatched them, glaring.

  Kennet shed his tight coat and hung it on the hook by the work table. “Again, Mr. Grinold, I’m real sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

  He gathered his things, crossed the concrete, and let himself out the driveway door. As it shut behind him, Grinold was still staring at the cufflink in his fat, pink hand.

  Chapter 8

  “Hey, dude, what’re you doing here?” A tanned and sweaty Nathan Springer trudged up the back path of Good Shepherd Cemetery.

  Kennet was resting against the trunk of the ancient tulip tree that towered over the forgotten graves in the old section of the cemetery. “You found my hiding place.”

  Good Shepherd Cemetery had been Kennet’s hideout ever since his mother started attending the Holy Ghost and Fire Pentecostal Church years ago. When prayer meeting went on too long, he slipped out to explore the headstones or lounge beneath the massive branches of the tulip tree. After he and his mother moved into Costa’s Personal Care Home, he was close enough to walk the mile when he needed space to brood or think or just to be alone in a peaceful setting. That’s what he needed today.

  Nathan flopped down in the grass in front of Kennet and stretched his long legs. The hair on his shins was flecked with lawn clippings. “What are you hiding from?”

  “Life.”

  Nathan didn’t respond to this. He knew when to press and when to hold his tongue. He shouldered sweat off his forehead and squinted across the back expanse of field, awash in afternoon sun, looking toward the Tenleytown party spot at the edge of the woods, or perhaps Alex’s place, farther back.

  Kennet plucked a blade of grass and destroyed it a pinch at a time.

  The church had burned to the ground seven years ago, leaving behind the old graveyard outside the arc of mausoleums that crowned the new section of the cemetery. The old graveyard wasn’t well kept like the new section. Even the children of most the people buried here were probably long dead.

  Nathan reclined against an eroded headstone from 1889, covering the inscription, “Beloved Father & Son.”

  “No bodies to burn today, Doc?”

  “Not today or tomorrow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got canned.”

  “What?” Nathan sat up. “Why?”

  “Grinold caught me toasting marshmallows.”

  Nathan took a breath but then held back. He probably wanted to spout off about what a dick Grinold was, but felt conflicted about the wrongness of browning Jet-Puffeds in the crematory. “Well, damn. Didn’t you offer him one?”

  Kennet didn’t laugh.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  Kennet had tossed and turned all night, asking himself that same question. Whenever he thought about what had happened, he felt sick to his stomach. Like now. And he had no answer yet.

  “It’s got to be something local since I don’t have any transportation.” In a rural area like Tenleytown, bus service was limited. There were few businesses within walking distance of Costa’s, but not many. “Maybe I’ll apply at the Foodland.” Almost three miles in the other direction. “Or at Grant’s Texaco.” Next door to the supermarket. Kennet ripped out a handful of grass, realizing that if he didn’t find full-time work, he would never save enough money to move out on his own. “Maybe I should beg for my old job back.”

  Nathan screwed up his face in disgust. “Hell no, don’t do that. Collect unemployment before you go crawling back to that jackass.”

  Kennet had to agree. But what would he do? He let the ripped grass tumble from his fingers. Then he got an idea.

  “Say, Lawnboy. Could you use some help cutting grass this summer?”

  Nathan pondered this a moment, but his expression didn’t inspire hope in Kennet.

  Kennet said, “You’ve got plenty of customers. There’s only so many lawns you can cut by yourself in a week.”

  Nathan’s screwed up his mouth. “I don’t know, man.”

  “Or I could go with you, do the trimming while you mow. Or vice versa.”

  Nathan shook his head.

  “You can even give me the shit jobs.” As long as they’re close by . . . and don’t require my own mower.

  Nathan’s features brightened. “Maybe. And hey”—he snapped his fingers—“you won’t even need a mower.” Nathan got to his feet. “And it’s within walking distance. In fact, you’re already here.”

  “What, the cemetery?”

  “Sure. It’s not my best-paying client because they want me to use their equipment. But it’s perfect for you.”

  Kennet watched him pace between the headstones. “You sure you want to give it up?” Please say yes, please say yes . . .

  “Yeah, I can get more work. I’d rather have residential, anyway.”

  Inwardly, Kennet sighed in relief. “What’s involved?”

  Nathan began to point. “Cut, bag, and haul the grass. Trim around the stones and the roadway. Keep the shrubs in check, blow the pavement when you’re done.”

  Kennet had cut the grass at home before Ma was forced to move into Flavia’s place, so he wasn’t a total newbie. He supposed Nathan could show him the rest. “You think it’ll be all right with Old Man Wilkes?” Orrville Wilkes was the superintendent and sexton. Had been for as long as Kennet could remember.

  “Long as the place looks nice for the same price, I don’t think he’ll care. Ever met him?”

  “Met him, yes. Never spent any time with him, though.”

  “Eccentric but harmless. You game?”

  It had to work. He needed a job. “Sure.” Kennet clambered to his feet, his worries fading.

  “I’ll recommend you, pass the baton, et cetera. Let’s see if he’s in the office.”

  Kennet followed Nathan to the stone-and-timber structure at the three o’clock south position outside the circle of ghost-green junipers. It lay nestled in a stand of
fragrant Austrian pines. Yellow-tinged cypress and green fountains of hostas bordered the front of the building.

  Nathan held the door open for him, and Kennet stepped inside. It smelled like burnt coffee and old funeral flowers. In the outer office a desk with a computer and printer sat unattended on the other side of the front counter. Beside a small copier table stood three file cabinets. On the wall above the large safe hung a map of burial plots, half of which were filled with neatly written names.

  Nathan led him down a narrow, paneled hall to another room. He rapped on the door jamb. “Mr. Wilkes?”

  A man of about seventy, Orrville Wilkes sat hunched behind a tank of a desk cluttered with forms and newspapers. He possessed a wild, mad scientist look, with roving eyes and wisps of white hair floating around his head.

  “Do you have a minute?”

  Wilkes chanted a dirge, gazing at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes. “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all his sons away; they fly, forgotten, as a dream, dies at the op’ning day.”

  Kennet shot Nathan a look, but Nathan took it in stride and waited for Wilkes to finish.

  “Yes, Master Springer?”

  “Mr. Wilkes, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

  Kennet stepped up. “Hi, Mr. Wilkes. Kennet Singleton.” He shook the man’s rough hand. Then Nathan explained the details about Kennet taking his place for lawn maintenance.

  Kennet looked around. The paneling was plastered with faded photos of a woman in various stages of her life, alone, and in affectionate postures with a younger looking Orrville. She had creamy skin and flame-red hair. In one photo, she stood before a fighter plane, dressed in a crisp military uniform. Among the pictures, curling copies of printed material were pinned. They looked like poems.

  “I’ll get Kennet started, show him the equipment shed.”

  Wilkes held up a finger. “One thing, young man.”

  “Yes, Mr. Wilkes?” Kennet replied.