The Bill from My Father

by Bernard Cooper

  Not until Brian pulled up to the information booth did I begin to see the flaw in my logic. My father was already as entrenched in my memory as he would ever get, and what I perhaps should have done was arrange for the observance to take place nearer the thirty-day mark instead of the eleventh month. The eleventh hour, really, for I’d waited so long to call the mortuary and plan my visit that the cutoff date for this preliminary period of mourning, measured from the time entered on his death certificate, was an hour away.

  The Jewish laws of mourning are less prescriptions than suggestions, and I knew that no spiritual punishment awaited me if the unveiling didn’t take place precisely within the given time frame. No burning bush would lecture me on punctuality. Rabbis wouldn’t cart me off in handcuffs. My grave wouldn’t be turned into a planter or be repossessed. The problem was, I still feared disappointing my father, providing him with definitive proof of my irresponsibility. He may not have been sentient in a strictly physiological sense, but he was alive enough to speak his mind: Eleven months and you’re too busy to throw on some decent clothes and honor your old man? Guilt and superstition are a volatile mix. I was really in a rush to get this done.

  I gave the guard my father’s name. He disappeared inside the information booth and emerged a minute later, arms folded across his chest, taking his time. “Turn right and park in front of the administration building,” he said. “A receptionist in the lobby will give you a map with directions to the grave site.”

  As we drove off, I told Brian I thought the guard knew about my father’s unusual epitaph.

  “What makes you think he knew?”

  “It wasn’t anything he said or did, exactly, but we’re dealing with a group of people who probably go through a training program where they learn to stay poker-faced in any situation.” Although I’d searched their faces for signs of amusement, pity, or reproach, I hadn’t been able to tell what, if anything, the employees of Mount Sinai thought of the two sentences my father had asked to have chisled on his grave marker. Had his epitaph become a part of mortuary folklore, or were strange last wishes par for the course?

  The day my father died, a woman named Traci Hirsch had called to introduce herself and tell me that before he’d moved to Oxnard, the two of them had met to discuss his “funerary welfare.”

  “Funerary welfare?” This was the first I’d heard of Ms. Hirsch, or of my father’s posthumous plans. The conclusion I jumped to proved I was my mother’s son as well as my father’s: I wondered if their discussion took place in a hotel room over watery highballs. My suspicion was dispelled when Ms. Hirsch identified herself as a “pre-need counselor” on staff at Mount Sinai Memorial Park, where the hospital had sent his body. With her silky phone persona, she explained the nature of her work: helping clients “customize a burial service to suit their budgets and personalities.” The plans are kept on record so a client can rest assured that, when the time comes, their wishes will be met to the letter. “Your father knew what he wanted and spoke his mind,” she told me. I recalled Dad’s brio at the Toyota dealership and pictured him slamming a coffin lid to see if it was well constructed. Ms. Hirsch added, a little ominously I thought, that the men and women of her profession considered it the height of kindness for people such as my father to make difficult decisions in advance so that others wouldn’t have to. I agreed with her in theory—it was considerate—but I couldn’t get past, for starters, the fact that her phone call came as a total surprise. Out of the blue was the last place from which I wanted information about my father, and the first from which it usually came. Mr. Delaney at Pacific Bell, Mr. Gomez at Adult Protective Services, Dr. Montrose and Lucinda at Saint Joseph’s Hospital had all contacted me—in the sense that lightning contacts a tree—out of the blue. And like Ms. Hirsch, each of them implied that my father was irascible while at the same time commending in him a certain charm they had a hard time putting their fingers on. I was sure that Ms. Hirsch’s comment about Dad’s kindness was offered to counterbalance whatever flabbergasting revelation she had in store for me. When I asked for the details, she said it was her policy to speak with relatives in person whenever such a meeting was “geographically feasible.”

  In the hours between the call from Ms. Hirsch and going to meet with her at Mount Sinai, I tried to second-guess what kind of rites Dad would have taken the time and trouble to prearrange. By a quirk of metaphysics, second-guessing him effectively assured that my various guesses would be wrong because I’d thought of them, which didn’t stop me from trying. By midnight my mantra was, How bad can it be? I’d heard of people in New Guinea who paid to have coffins built in the shape of sports cars, a red Porsche with racing stripes the most requested model. In Atlanta, a traveling salesman’s last wish was to have an exact replica of his battered valise carved in granite and used as his headstone, too heavy to tote through the afterlife. The world’s most lugubrious jewelry may have been crafted by the Victorians, who wove locks of the loved one’s hair into pendants and brooches to go with their mourning garments, memento mori worn close to the heart. I had no idea what state of mind my father had been in when planning his funeral. For all I knew, I might find myself standing at his grave site while a portable tape recorder (the one I’d used to interview him for the book I’d never written) blared “The Trolley Song” across the park, a few bereaved and clinging families turning from their services to shoot me angry looks.

  The next morning, in the lobby of Mount Sinai’s administration building, Traci Hirsch greeted Brian and me with her firm, unhurried handshake. She led us from the lobby into her office, a place made dour by velvet curtains and Federal furniture. She smartly folded herself into one of several chairs at a circular table and nodded for us to follow suit. Ms. Hirsch produced a black leather-bound ledger, and once she set it before us, she laid her hands guardedly over the cover. Her every gesture had about it a cautious grace, as if clumsiness or haste might wake the dead. She was all ceremony, the air oppressive with impending disclosures. Compared to her formality, an unscheduled sniffle or hiccup would rip through the room with the force of an explosion, and I started tamping down my reaction to Dad’s last wishes before I’d even found out what they were. “Please accept my condolences,” said Ms. Hirsch, opening her ledger. The binding cracked like cartilage. She turned to Brian. “Were you the deceased’s physician, Dr. Miller?”

  “I’m Mr. Cooper’s partner.”

  “I see,” she said, jotting a note. “Deceased’s business partner.”

  “No,” corrected Brian. “I’m Bernard’s partner.”

  “We live together,” I explained to Traci. “We’re a couple.”

  “And Dr. Miller is here to offer moral support? Isn’t that wonderful. You know,” she said confidentially, “these things are just a part of life, aren’t they? You needn’t feel at all self-conscious about it in front of me.”

  Brian and I looked at each other. By “these things” did she mean homosexuality, or death? Was she telling us it was okay to kiss, or to drop dead in front of her?

  “Let me begin by saying that we at Mount Sinai want our pre-need clients to feel that any sentiment they choose to express on their bronze marker is entirely up to them. Our job is to honor the client’s wishes. We do whatever we can to help him or her find that special phrase or inspirational quote that will best represent who they are and will continue to touch the hearts of their loved ones for years to come. You may be surprised to learn that many people find it an enormous responsibility to choose just one memorable sentence …”

  “I wouldn’t find it surprising at all,” I interjected. “You’re asking them to compress an entire lifetime into a few words.”

  Stiff to begin with, Traci stiffened further.

  “He’s a writer,” explained Brian.

  I said, “It’s quite a challenge, is all I meant.”

  “A challenge we here at Mount Sinai are more than prepared to meet.”

  “Oh, I’m sure …”

&
nbsp; “You might perhaps be pleased to know that ours is one of the first mortuaries in the country to develop a photo brochure featuring examples of the kinds of plaques people have created over the years. We also offer a wide variety of visual symbols one can add for emphasis, such as a menorah or Star of David. I can assure you that the majority of our clients leave their pre-need session with no complaints whatsoever about the statement they’ve decided upon. And of course, it can be revised at any time before the client dies. I can assure you I’d be the last person to underestimate the importance of one’s final words. Certainly, as a writer, you must know that the Greeks had a name for composing commemorative remarks, epitaphion, from which we derive the word epitaph?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t? How interesting. They considered it one of mankind’s most noble and demanding arts. You see, Bernard—may I call you that, rather than Mr. Cooper? It cuts down on the confusion—as I was saying, pre-need may sound like a very up-to-the-minute development in the funerary profession, but in fact it dates back to ancient civilizations, who, judging from the hieroglyphs they left on cenotaphs and inside tombs, were quite meticulous in their preparations for the hereafter. The memorial parks of today, however, are limited in space and regulated according to strict local zoning codes and industry-wide regulations, one of which calls for the standardization of grave markers. And that’s as it should be. We wouldn’t want to play favorites. Why should we require one client to keep it short while we permit another to inscribe a lengthy farewell address? Brevity plus quality. That’s our approach.” She waited, unsmilingly, for us to nod. “Your father, as I’m sure you’d agree, was … he was … an individual.”

  The room grew smaller.

  “May I cut to the chase, Mr. Cooper?”

  “Please,” I begged.

  She consulted the ledger. “‘They finally got me.’ ”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “‘They finally got me.’ ”

  “Are you saying that, or are you telling me what he said?”

  “I’m telling you that’s what your father asked to have inscribed on his marker. Unless you have any objections. And I should tell you now to prevent any future misunderstandings that seeking amendments to his pre-need contract would require you to obtain full power of attorney and to assume, in writing, responsibility for any additional fees incurred beyond the one thousand dollars your father entrusted to us.”

  I assured Ms. Hirsch that I wanted him to have whatever he wanted, and that whatever he wanted done should be done in exactly the way he’d wanted it done, no deviations. “Excellent,” she said, briskly closing the ledger. “I’m sure he’d be pleased to hear you say this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll make sure the viewing room is ready. The county coroner requires verification on the part of a relative or friend, but you’re free to spend as much time with your father’s body as you feel necessary.”

  Your father’s body.

  “In the meantime, let me leave you with some material to peruse. Your father left funds toward a casket but he hadn’t decided on a particular model at the time of his death.” She handed me a casket price list and paused to look fawningly at Brian and me. Such bright piety glistened in her eyes that I nearly felt jilted when, instead of saying, “I respect your lifestyle,” she let go of the list and disappeared.

  My head was reeling. Brian and I scooted our chairs together and flipped through the numbingly long list. I picked the first casket that sounded decent. “What about the Bedford?” I suggested. This model was described as “Eighteen-gauge steel. Blue finish. Blue sand pebble crepe interior with matching overlay and sunburst in head panel.”

  “That’s a woman’s casket.”

  “There are men’s and women’s?”

  “You’ll see what I mean when she takes us to the showroom.”

  I ran my finger down the page. “What about this one, the Majestic? ‘Brush natural smoky gray shading with pinstripe. Gray cloud velvet interior. Solid bronze.’ That sounds manly.” The thought of velvet and gray clouds made me sleepy, plus the room was overheated and nodding off would have been better than waiting to see my father’s body.

  “The Majestic is over six grand,” said Brian.

  I turned to another page. “Look. This one’s a lot less expensive. The lamb’s wool sounds nice.”

  “That’s a children’s casket.” He pointed to a parenthesis that read, “Twenty-one-inch stillborn.”

  I rubbed my temples. “Well, you choose one.”

  “Here’s a perfectly good one made of fiberboard. The Kent.”

  I wrenched the list out of his hands. “Fiberboard!”

  “It has silver ventura fabric and the interior is madrid crepe,” he said defensively.

  “You don’t know what ventura fabric and madrid crepe are any more than I do! The Kent is just a step up from”—I squinted at the small print—“a metal-gasketed transfer case.”

  “It says the transfer case is for shipping only.”

  “Oh.”

  Brian gripped my hand and held it. “She’s going to try to sell you the most expensive coffin,” he said. “Take it from me, it’s a business. They’re out to make a dollar like any other business. The money he left won’t go very far, and you’ll end up owing the rest. This may sound crass now, but you’ll be relieved when the bill comes.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” I said in the voice of my father, “and your people think our people are cheap.”

  I was laughing when Ms. Hirsch opened the door, but it was hilarity under pressure, heavy on the bobbing shoulders and shortness of breath, and maybe, just maybe, it passed as grief.

  Which it shifted into as soon I stepped across the hallway and into the viewing room. “Do you want me to …?” asked Brian, and then he and Ms. Hirsch were waiting on the other side of the closed door. The room, a dim ivory cube, was empty except for a gurney positioned in one corner. Directly behind it, another door led to the chamber where bodies were cleansed, injected with preservatives, and arranged for presentation. I smelled a medicinal odor tinged with rotting fruit: perfumed embalming fluid. A sheet had been draped over the gurney, leaving his shoulders and head exposed. I quickly glanced at the floor, focusing on the black wheels, the silver axles. Any minute I would lift my eyes and look. But first I had to renounce my faith in reconciliation. First I had to tell myself that souls are better spent than saved.

  His eyes were closed. Slack flesh hung from the armature of his bones. Succumbing to its own weight, the bulk of him was caving in. Once I’d looked, I couldn’t turn away, couldn’t sever the gaze that held us together. As I approached, I could have sworn the freezing air wasn’t a condition intended to preserve his body, but a force emanating from it. In death he radiated cold just as surely as, alive, he’d radiated heat. Cold issued from him like a warning, and it was impossible not to take heed. Gooseflesh tightened my skin, muscles contracting against the drop in temperature. I drew close enough to see the back of his neck sagging toward the metal table, his earlobes stretched and pendulous. Blood was settling like silt in my father’s body, turning it an otherworldly blue. Not the human blue of eyes or veins or bruises. Cobalt? Sapphire? My throat constricted and names escaped me. When I’d stood beside his hospital bed, there’d been things I’d wanted to say, and I’d said them in the hope that he might somehow hear and understand. Now language couldn’t bridge the distance. Language was a vacuum, unspoken, recanted. Silence interceded for us both.

  Brian and I pulled into a parking space in front of the administration building. “Keep the motor running,” I told him. “I’ll get a map of the grounds.” I raced across the parking lot and into the building’s recessed entry, the glass doors parting biblically before me. Arrangements of carnations and roses lined the display window of the on-site florist’s shop. Moisture beaded at the corners of the plate glass, spilling cool, leafy light into the lobby. The whole place was as still as a terrarium, impervious to the world. No re
ceptionist sat at the desk. I peered around corners and investigated hallways, searching for someone in charge. I considered asking one of the occasional passersby if they knew where I might find a map, but it wasn’t easy to wrest their attention. Men and women alike might as well have been wearing veils, so remote were their expressions, so inward their submission to grief.

  Everyone I saw wore black and gray and navy. At least I’d dressed appropriately. Sort of. My jeans were the saturated blue of new denim, and with them I’d worn a relatively unwrinkled white shirt. While I wasn’t exactly a fashion ad, neither was I slovenly. After all, does it really honor the departed to get so done up that, from their vantage in the afterlife, they couldn’t pick you out in a crowd of mourners?

  “Sir?” The receptionist had returned to her desk. “How may I help you?”

  She typed Edward Cooper into her keyboard and scanned the screen, which lit her pretty, noncommittal face. Whir of micro-circuitry. “Goodness,” she said. “That must be one of our most common names. I show a total of six Ed or Edward Coopers. Shall I go through them one by one?”

  I startled us both with my No! Opening the files of deceased strangers seemed as ghoulish as exhuming graves, all that musty information brought to light, plundered as though from a cyber-tomb. My father’s death was complicated enough without having to learn the identities of his half a dozen graveyard namesakes. Besides, I was running out of time to pay proper homage.

  “When did he pass?” she asked.

  “Two thousand.”

  She hit Return and scavenged the database. Hanging on the wall behind her was a framed photograph of an astronaut wearing a space suit and holding his helmet under one arm. A placard identified him as Ilan Ramon, the Israeli crew member who died in the explosion aboard the space shuttle Columbia. Ramon possessed the vigilant, unchanging gaze one sees on the faces of stone lions and wary caryatids—an ideal sentry for this outpost of mortality.