by Todd Harra
The tube had been removed from Grace’s throat, and when she woke she tried talking. Some of the swelling on her face had subsided, but she would definitely need an oral surgeon sometime in the very near future. Her voice came out in raspy whispers. “Did Ant take care of Jim and little Jimmy?” she asked, tears rolling down her face.
I nodded, tears running down my face, too. I couldn’t speak.
Grace tried speaking again, but I interrupted her, “Grace, don’t talk. Please. Just rest.” I squeezed her hand.
“You know, Marie,” she said, ignoring my protest. I had to strain to make out the words. “I sometimes think life is like a tapestry. And—” She stopped and winced as her tongue traced over broken teeth. “And… we’re looking at the back. We’re looking at the mess of tangled threads—knots and threads going every which way. It’s seemingly meaningless.”
Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, and I held my friend’s hand tightly as she continued, “Walk around that same tangled mess and on the other side is a breathtaking piece of art. I think—I think we only get to look at the back of the tapestry most of the time. Right now, I’m only seeing chaos and knots and loose threads. I know though, I know, that one day I’ll get to look at the front and it’ll all make sense. It’ll all make so much sense… I’ll get to see the beauty of God’s work.
“Thank Ant for me. He bore his cross.”
CHAPTER 46
The Gay Man in the Wine Bottle
Contributed by a vintner
My partner and I met Charles and Jacques when we were touring the Bordeaux wine region for the first time. We ran into these Americans at an outdoor café, started talking, and found out that not only were they from the same state, but they lived about ten minutes from Wes’s and my house. They live in Concord and we live just north of Manchester. We exchanged numbers and have since become good friends and travel buddies.
I am a funeral director and Wes is a general surgeon at one of the local hospitals. In between our hectic schedules we don’t have as much time together as we’d like, but we make time for our shared hobby, making wine. We’ve been making wines for over twenty years now and have gotten to a point where we can turn out a pretty good bottle of vin. We make all sorts of whites and reds, depending on what’s in season when we’re making a batch. Our friends rave that our wines are better than store-bought, but mostly I think they’re blowing smoke.
Since Wes and I are wine freaks, we naturally like to tour wine regions when we go on vacation. After we became friends with Charles and Jacques, they started tagging along on our wine touring extravaganzas, not necessarily for the winery tours, but for the destinations. Wes and I would go and do our wine thing and they’d go off on their own sightseeing thing. We’d been traveling together for fifteen years with destinations including Melbourne, Napa, Sonoma, Bilbaon Rioja, and Mendoza, to name a few.
Charles came to me one day and asked me to handle his funeral arrangements. He had HIV. This was before the antiretroviral drug cocktails; the disease had progressed to such a point that the available drugs could only prolong his life. He lasted four years, six months, and nine days.
Charles had moved from his home state of Louisiana the day he turned eighteen. He needed to be somewhere a little more liberal than the Deep South, and he ended up in Massachusetts. As soon as Charles’s family found out about his “affliction,” they disowned him. Charles hadn’t spoken to his family since. When his father died in the mid ’80s, Charles received a letter in the mail, months after the fact, from an aunt telling him what had happened. She told him not to send his sympathies to his mother.
The day Charles came into the funeral home to make arrangements for himself, he told me, “I want to be cremated and my ashes to go to Jacques,” who, at the time, had been his companion for seventeen years. “I am going to extend the same courtesy to my family that they extended to me when daddy died.”
He handed me a sealed envelope addressed to his aunt.
“Promise me you’ll mail it after—” He choked off the rest of the sentence.
I nodded and patted him on the back.
“She’ll tell my mother and even though I haven’t spoken to that woman in twenty-nine years, I know she is going to come north, playing the mother card, and demand my ashes,” he cautioned me. “Curt, under no circumstances are you to give them to her. I have made Jacques the executor of my estate; the beneficiary of every earthly possession I have, and have had my lawyer draw up an affidavit that says Jacques gets my remains. Promise me you’ll give them to him.”
I promised him.
With a twinkle in his eye, he added, “I’ve also done a lot of thinking—this disease makes you do that—about my urn. Will you bottle me?”
“Huh?” I replied, shocked.
“You know, put me in one of your wine bottles and cork me. I figured since I like to drink wine, and I like to drink your wine, it’ll be perfect. Besides, it looks less threatening than,” he did air quotes with his fingers, “an urn.” He rolled his eyes in the fashion that only women and gays can.
I laughed, but Charles assured me he was serious.
“All right,” I acquiesced. “I’ll bottle you. You want a label?”
“Nah, just cork me.”
That conversation was the beginning of the end.
Wes did all he could for him over the four years, but at the time our knowledge of HIV wasn’t what it is now, and Charles withered and died.
On the day of his death, Wes’s care stopped and mine started.
I fulfilled Charles’s wish and cremated his earthly remains. I also dropped the letter to his aunt in the mail.
Two weeks passed. I finally found it within me to take one of the empty glass wine bottles and the corker to the funeral home. Human cremains can range in color from white to gray to even a pinkish color. Charles’s were gray. I ran a magnet over the cremains to pick up any metal fragments and then ran them through the processor that crushes any big bone chips and turns them into the type of “ashes” the general public would be familiar with, fireplace-looking ashes.
I put the bottle under the funnel of the transfer machine and poured the ash from the transfer can until the wine bottle was full, setting aside the small amount left over for myself. I was going to scatter them next time I was in Napa, Charles’s favorite wine region. I corked the green glass bottle and set it on a shelf in my office.
Charles sat on my shelf for at least another week while Jacques summoned the courage to come pick up his former partner. It was during this time that I was sitting at the reception desk in the lobby, breaking the receptionist for lunch, when a pleasant-looking elderly woman walked in. The woman, who was quite plump, was dressed neatly in a light pink, old-lady-type pantsuit. She strolled up to the reception desk.
“Hello,” she said in a Southern drawl.
I curiously stared at her big hair, but only for a moment. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Constance de Baptiste.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Okay.”
“I’m here to take my Charles back to the family plot in L’isiana.”
I paused, stunned, and my heart stopped beating as Jacques walked in the front door behind her, but I recovered enough to say to Charles’s mother, “Okay, ma’am. Why don’t you take a seat over there and I can help you in five minutes. A gentleman who has an appointment to pick something up has just arrived. It shouldn’t take long.”
“That will be just fine, young man,” she said.
Charles’s words echoed through my head, Curt, under no circumstances are you to give them to her, as Jacques walked up to the counter, and for a moment Mrs. de Baptiste and her son’s lover were side by side, though neither knew it. Charles didn’t keep any pictures of his family around, so Jacques couldn’t know what she looked like, and Mrs. de Baptiste had no idea what her son’s lover of almost twenty-two years looked like. They glanced at each other the way strangers do, then Mrs. de Baptiste walked across the lobby a
nd plunked all of herself down in one of our couches and opened a magazine.
I held my hand in such a way that my pointing finger was shielded from Mrs. de Baptiste as I pointed to her and mouthed Charles’s mother. Jacques’s eyes got real wide and his mouth dropped open in an “Oh, my gosh” expression.
“Could I get you something to drink while you wait, ma’am?” I called over Jacques’ shoulder.
“Dear no,” she replied. “I won’t even be that long. But thank you.”
She went back to her magazine and I hunched over the counter so Jacques and I could talk in conspiratorial tones.
“That’s really her?” he asked. “No joke?”
“Seriously. It’s Charles’s mom.”
“I expected some hillbilly with no teeth wearing overalls!” Jacques exclaimed.
“Shhh! She’ll hear you, but yes, she is quite unlike what I pictured. And she speaks like she’s very well educated.”
“I never would have thought it,” Jacques said, shaking his head. “Charles always made them sound like they were backwoods type people.”
“Just backwards thinking people,” I said.
Jaques repeated, “I never would have thought it.”
“Me neither,” I said, putting my hand on top of his in a friendly way. “That aside. How are you doing?”
“Hanging in there… I guess. I miss him a lot, especially at night when I’m alone. He was such a large presence. There’s nothing now.”
“Wes and I are here for you. You know that.”
“I know.”
“Let me go get him. I’ve got him all bottled up for you.” I disappeared into the back and returned with the bottle, which I handed to Jacques with great fanfare, and said loudly enough that Mrs. de Baptiste could hear, “Here’s a bottle of the finest. The finest I’ve ever known for sure.”
“Thank you, Curt,” he said with tears in his eyes that he quickly dashed.
“Bye,” I said quietly.
“Now ma’am,” I called to Mrs. de Baptiste. “What did you say I could do for you? I got sidetracked with that gentleman who came to pick up a wine bottle.”
Mrs. de Baptiste got up, and as she did, her estranged son came within mere feet of her as Jacques passed her on his way out the door. She looked curiously at the bottle cradled in the man’s arms; its contents hidden by opaque green glass.
She trundled over to the counter. “A bottle of wine?” Her Southern drawl made her sound as though she was talking with a mouth full of syrup.
“Yes. A little unusual, but I make wine in my spare time, and sometimes my patrons will ask for a bottle.”
“Isn’t that marvelous,” she said as if she wasn’t sure if it was or not. “But I have no time to be drinking wine at a funeral parlor.” Parlor sounded like par-luh. “I have come for my Charles and then I have a flight to catch back to L’isiana.”
“Your Charles? I’m sorry, ma’am, but his cremains are no longer here,” I said truthfully. The door closed behind Jacques. “His partner came to pick him up already. That’s what Charles wanted; I have a signed affidavit allowing me to release his cremains to his partner if you would like to see that document.”
The Southern belle façade cracked.
She spluttered. She threatened. She menaced.
I stood staunch and collected.
In the end, she flew back to Louisiana without her dear Charles, but what matters is that Charles is where he should be, where he wanted to be.
CHAPTER 47
The First Date
Contributed by a writer
My parents had been away on vacation to the Cajun capital—New Orleans—and I was meeting them to eat when their flight landed. It was summertime, and, as usual, thunderstorms had delayed their flight. I was already at the restaurant when they called me from the tarmac. It was a nice night so I got myself a drink from the bar and decided to wait outside. I ran into an old friend and his girlfriend outside. We reminisced for a few minutes before they went in to eat, and I gave him my phone number. We’d catch up, I told him.
I ordered another drink, my parents arrived soon, and I promptly forgot about the encounter.
A couple of weeks later I was at my parents’ beach house and received a call from the old friend. His girlfriend’s parents had rented a house the next town over, and would I be interested in going out to the bar? Would I? Does the Pontiff live in Rome? Of course I would! I spent the night out at the bar with him, his girlfriend, her sister, and a couple of other people. We had a great time. The next morning I had a raging headache, but I had the sister’s phone number and thus ended my weekend at the beach.
That Monday began my week on call—the week when I had to take night calls and go out on death removals. I generally don’t like to get involved in things I can’t be readily torn away from when I’m on call, but I didn’t want to wait another week before I could take the sister out on a date. I decided to set up a date. What are the chances I’ll get a death call during a two-hour dinner? I rationalized.
So, I called Melissa and asked her out to dinner.
She accepted.
At the time of our proposed first date, Melissa happened to be working at a pharmacy right across the highway from the funeral home. Naturally, I suggested a restaurant that shared the same parking lot with the pharmacy for convenience’s sake. I also made the verbal disclaimer that I would be on call that night, and might have to leave. She seemed fine with that. We agreed to meet when she got off work at eight o’clock.
I met Melissa at the restaurant and we were seated immediately. Due to the lateness of the hour, the place was fairly empty and the service was fast. The waiter came up and asked for our drink orders.
“I’ll have a margarita,” she said.
“Club soda with lemon,” I said. The waiter left. Melissa looked at me strangely, as if to ask, Why didn’t you order a drink also? “I don’t drink,” I said, deadpan.
“But you were drinking last weekend—” she said, obviously confused.
I laughed. “I know. Just kidding. I don’t drink when I’m working.”
“Oh.” She nodded like she understood, but still had a puzzled look on her face.
We sipped our drinks, talked, and ordered our food. I was really enjoying her company. It’s quite different to talk to someone one-on-one in a quiet setting, sober, than yelling over the din of a packed beach bar at each other, totally smashed. I was glad I had gotten her number. Our food came and about five seconds later my pager buzzed.
“Excuse me,” I said and whipped out my phone.
I called the familiar number. Someone was dead. I had to go on the removal.
“Listen,” I said, signaling to the waiter, “I have to go.”
The waiter trotted over. “I need the check please. ASAP,” I said to him, handing him my credit card. He scurried off.
“I need to go on a removal. Sorry to cut the date short—” I signed the check that the waiter thrust in my face. “But I’ll call you later when I get home.”
I hopped up, leaving Melissa sitting alone in the booth with two piping hot entrees and a baffled look on her face.
She later told me that when she arrived home at eight thirty, looking confused, her father said to her, “You know, there are services out there that a guy can hire to call him so that he can abort the date if it’s going bad.”
Apparently, when I had told her I had to “work” that night she didn’t know what I was talking about because she didn’t know my profession. But since then she’s gotten used to my having to drop everything and go to work. For some reason, the first date wasn’t bad enough not to say “yes” fifteen months later. We’re now happily married and love recounting the tale of our inglorious first date.
In fact, we ran the story of our first date along with the announcement of our wedding in our local paper.
CHAPTER 48
Ironic Injustice
Contributed by a woodworker
Building a busin
ess from the ground up is hard work. Ask anyone who’s done it; they’ll tell you.
I liken a business to a newborn. At first you have to do everything for it. Everything. But as it grows and matures you have to do less and less, until, if you’re real smart, you set up a business system where you can just sit back and reap what you’ve sown.
At the time of this story I hadn’t gotten to the reaping point yet; my business was still an infant.
My shingle had only been out for about thirteen months when I had the opportunity to go on my first vacation as business owner. I started with a phone call from Dani. It was a Wednesday. The call went something like this:
“Hey Topher, how’s the old swordsman? I haven’t talked to you in, like, six months,” Dani said.
“Nice to talk to you too, Dani.” I tried to put on an air of indignation. “You know that hurts. Really hurts. Just because I like to see what’s out there on the dating scene you automatically tag me with those hurtful labels.”
“How long did Rachel last?”
“I—”
“How long?” she interrupted.
“Six weeks… but that’s not the point!” I huffed.
Dani laughed, airily, the way she always did. “So, seriously, what’s going on with you?”
“I’m so stressed!” I groaned.
She laughed again. Dani laughs a lot. “Why’s that? No squeeze?”
“No, thank you very much,” I replied with mock anger. “I haven’t had a day off in thirteen months is why I’m stressed!”
“Stop being so dramatic. I’m sure you’re just fine.”
“You know that grandfather clock I promised to build for Rob? Just like the one I built for your wedding present?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“I built the frame thirteen months ago but haven’t had the time to do any of the inlay.” I paused. “What I’m saying, Dani, is that I haven’t done anything but work with dead people for the past year and I need a break.”
