Too Late to Say Goodbye, page 12
“Promise me, Tony,” Clyde demanded.
NOW, STANDING OVER CLYDE, Tony knows what he has to do. Clyde had his wishes. It’s time to carry them out.
Tony reaches in his jacket pocket and pulls out the postcard he bought yesterday. He unfolds the postcard and carefully removes the pushpin from his pocket. He slips his arm out of the sling and throws the sling in the casket. Then, using both arms, he pins the postcard to the bottom side of the open casket, pushing the pin through the hardwood surface, just above Clyde’s face, to give him something to look at in his afterlife.
Thomas Moran’s Grand Canyon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
IRIS KING
IRIS APPROACHES THE BACK DOOR, long before they open, when almost no one’s around except whatever cop’s taking the night shift of the watch over her husband, so she can have a moment with her late husband without anyone getting on to her about what’s she going to do or how’s she going about doing it. She figures she’ll tell the cop, who’s standing guard over Clyde, to get out of here for a few, go get a drink or something down the road. Say she’ll take the watch.
But the watch seems kind of silly to her, watching over a dead body because whoever it was isn’t anymore. They’re gone. Gone on to the great beyond or something like that. Iris doesn’t believe in an afterlife, not that she believes in much other than herself. She sure as hell doesn’t believe in trusting others because she’s always been on her own and thinks this while closing the doors and walking down the hall.
That, and this wasn’t what Clyde wanted: a burial.
He made her promise not to do this to him, years ago, when they first met, but she told him, “What do you care what the living people do when you’re gone? You’re gone. Isn’t the funeral a celebration for you so that people left behind can process their grief? Who’re you to tell people how to grieve? You’re dead.”
Clyde never saw it her way. He said, “We’ll agree to disagree.”
And disagree they did, pretty much on everything, which at times had her wondering what she saw in him, but then she’d get to thinking about how they met. It’d make her smile, remembering how smooth he was and how polite, how caring. Remembering a time they did like each other—couldn’t get enough of each other—but times change.
Looks and personality wise, Clyde always reminded her of Paul Newman, specifically Newman in The Color of Money, which was one of the first movies Clyde made her watch because he was a Scorsese fan, but not just a Scorsese fan, a movie fan. He said it was Scorsese’s most commercial movie and even came in under time and budget. He asked what artist doesn’t want to bloat their egos and budgets? When he made her watch it, they had a marathon. They watched all of Scorsese’s movies over a week. In the movie, Newman’s a lady’s man, older, weathered, good-looking, and dashing—Clyde was the embodiment of Fast Eddie Felson, with the same damn mustache too. And funnily, she’s like Tom Cruise: younger, a flake, but incredibly good at what she does, playing a game—in her case poker. It’s how they met and the only time Clyde’s ever played her. But their story didn’t end on a freeze-frame.
Though, what was wrong with their marriage had nothing to do with them not liking each other; it had everything to do with her. So, being the reasonable rational person she is, she proposed a solution—an open marriage. That’s the phrase she introduced him to. She explained that there’s a whole lifestyle built around it, being this is the modern age. Clyde told her being his age there was another way to put it—cuckold: an old word but appropriate to the situation. He yelled at her his situation. He said that’s what she’s doing to him. She contended that, no, what she’s done is fuck him whenever he wants, not like he hasn’t enjoyed that bit about her being younger, and it’s not her fault that he only wants it every other week or so. She said that she’s there on his arm anytime he wants and argued that what she does with the rest of her time should be up to her. He said he never wanted to feel that way, cuckold, and never wanted to see evidence of it either.
So, agree to disagree—the motto of their union.
His body is in the room just beyond where she’s standing now. The ADA convinced her to go against Clyde’s wishes. Clyde never wanted the burial with honors. Eli did and does. It’s why he had her come to his office the other day, so they could discuss it. He explained that Clyde had put Eli in charge of his will. He was an attorney and friend. Explaining to her, he said the estate would be left to her; there were some limitations and issues, but as far as the burial went, he felt it was good for morale, a show of force is how he put it, to do the honorable thing and go against Clyde’s wishes. It was okay after all; he was dead. Eli said it was up to her; she could make the decision, but he’d support her in whatever decision she made.
Iris decided to follow his advice. She hasn’t done this before, bury someone, although not only did it feel like Eli was getting his way about Clyde’s funeral, but it also felt like Eli had her come to his office for something different.
Iris steps into the back room, lights on low, and finds Tony—Antonio—standing on the opposite side of the room looking down at Clyde with his back to her, wearing a jacket, sipping on some coffee. No sling this time. The last time she saw him, in passing, at Eli’s office, Tony was wearing the sling.
Iris checks her outfit and runs a hand down her body, making sure her black blouse is down and tucked right into the waistband of her black slacks, slim fit, no belt, doesn’t need it with her frame and black shoes, flats because the heels come later.
Iris clears her throat so not to startle him. “The house is so quiet with him gone. I never thought I’d miss the noise. He could be quite loud when he wanted to be. Talked loud. Played that music loud—Led Zeppelin—yelling at me from his shop about how it’s the blues but not the blues. I never really knew what that meant. Do you know what that means? Know what I mean?”
Not surprised to find her, Tony turns. “He did like to talk loud,” he says, acknowledging her. “Couldn’t whisper very well either. One time, we were in a bad situation, and he tried to tell me something, but the guy across the room heard him.”
Tony glances over his shoulder, which acts as an invitation, and she forgets her plan of telling the cop on the watch to go get something to eat. She wants him to stay. She steps forward. “What’d he try to tell you?”
She crosses the room, stopping next to Clyde’s casket, next to Tony, and her eyes notice the postcard pinned to the lid.
“He was trying to tell me the recording device strapped to his body was malfunctioning,” Tony says. “Because of a budget crisis, we pulled this old-school thing out of the back closet. Neither of us knew when the last time anyone used it was. He was trying to tell me it was shocking him—electrocuting him.”
Iris snorts, laughing loudly. She fills the entire room with genuine laughter and realizes it’s the first time she’s laughed since the Cortez lady came to the house.
Tony says, “So this guy, who was about to sell us a couple of pounds, turns around and asks us, ‘What was that?’ Reaching his hand in his waist band. And Clyde’s dancing a jig, right there in his living room, grabbing at the device at the small of his back, hands trying to get at it, but he couldn’t reach it.”
“What happened after that?” Iris asks.
But Tony doesn’t say and collapses into silence. He turns his attention back to Clyde. “What are you doing here so late?”
Iris strokes the hair out of her eyes. “I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about him. Thinking about what’s going to happen in the morning. I never thought—”
“He’d die like this—me either.”
“He told me he wanted to retire soon. Told me the whole world was losing their minds when it came to drugs. He said he didn’t know what he was fighting for anymore. Things seemed topsy turvy. We liked to watch Fargo on TV; you know it? Well, in the third season, there was a line where this guy comes home after everything very Fargo-ish happened, and he tells his wife he doesn’t recognize the world anymore like it’s not his world or something like that, and Clyde turned to me on the couch and said, ‘I feel just like that, especially here in Oklahoma, passing laws where basically everything’s a slap on the wrist and always going to be a slap on the wrist.’ He said, the Feds aren’t like that, yet, but he was sure by the time his ticket came up for mandatory retirement, he’d be without a job, saying, ‘What’s the Drug Enforcement Agency going to do when there’s no drugs to go about enforcing?’”
Tony listens to her. “He told me he wanted to go to Arizona for retirement.” Then says, “I was just thinking about him telling me that—said he wanted to do health shakes?”
“Oh yeah, the health shakes,” Iris says embarrassed now, admitting it was her idea. “A dumb one, but not as dumb as Clyde’s other ideas like the one where he wanted to go out to Florida, of all places. That’s as cliché as it comes: an old cop retiring to the sun to get salt-pickled by the ocean. He wanted to go out there and open snow cone shacks because apparently, he had a buddy who worked in some sales field, who had a mid-life crisis, and quit his life here to go out there and do that. Buddy told Clyde there was an open market out there; snow cones weren’t a thing. How’s that not a thing? It’s just shaved ice with sugar water.”
“Colored sugar water,” Tony adds.
She smiles. “Clyde said his buddy wanted him to come out and help, but I think the guy just wanted some other sucker to come out there and pour his retirement down the drain working for somebody else, him.”
Tony sips his coffee. “That’s worse than Clyde’s wanting to open a movie theater idea. Used to bitch up a storm that all the dollar movie places were closed. Said he loved them. Grew up going to the theaters, basically was his afterschool specials—the dollar theater being special.” Tony shrugs. “His joke. Not a good one. Though, the theaters were probably cheaper back then for him. I’d ask him how he thought he’d turn a profit if he’s only charging a dollar, and he said he’d figure it out.”
“I don’t think he ever did because that idea came and went,” Iris says. “You know what was better than that one was when he thought about opening a breakfast bar at that old oil-lube place. You remember that one? The half-circle joint with the garage doors, used to be called the G-spot? Which by the way, is interesting in its own right, calling itself that and being a lube place.”
“Very Freudian.”
“Shouldn’t that be a name for a strip club or something? The G-Spot. I feel like that would work.”
“Or a porno,” Tony says. “Although I don’t think the city would take too kindly to a strip place being right off Main Street of a sleepy suburb calling itself the G-Spot.”
“But a lube place calling itself that was okay,” Iris says, giggling. “Anyways, he’d tell me he wanted to serve breakfast in the morning, and then after say, eight in the evening, open it up as a bar. Have a full bar. Said he’d even serve it in the morning.”
“I liked that idea though,” Tony says. “It made more sense to me than say the health shake one. You know alcoholics need a place to go when the sun comes up. Like cockroaches, it drives them indoors. What better place than somewhere where there’s food and booze?”
“I’ll get to the health shake one,” she says. “But he was always looking for something to turn a quick buck in retirement. You’d think, working for the government, especially the Feds, he’d want to relax or something—not work again. But not him.”
“He detested not working. Always complained that’s the one difference between his parents and him.”
“There were a lot of differences between his parents and him.”
“You know he never smoked grass,” Tony says. “You’d think being in the DEA he’d at least know something about drugs, maybe tried it out. I’ve smoked grass. Did it in high school, not heavily, but enough to get an idea for it. Never anything else though, at least not off the clock,” he winks at her, “but he never abused drugs or drank to get drunk. Kind of amazing when you think about it.”
Iris says, “He said with his parents walking around naked at the commune drinking and smoking sort of took the appeal out of it for him. He said people would just start fucking right there.”
“That was a different time.”
“More like a different place,” Iris says. “I still wonder—and have since I met him—why he decided to work for the federal government, especially the DEA. You would think with parents like that he’d be a little more against working for The Man, as he put it.”
“That’s easy: the retirement.”
“But he never wanted to actually retire from working.”
“No, everything transferred over from his military time,” Tony says. “He used to complain about being a marine, sitting in the desert doing nothing.”
“Probably bragged he could breathe better there.”
“No kidding. That’s why he said he wanted to go out to Arizona,” Tony says. “Said the desert air helped him breathe better. I don’t know about that. He said Arizona because of the Grand Canyon.”
Iris’s eyes flick to the postcard. “I’ve not slept well since they gave me the notification.” Tony shifts his weight, and Iris catches the shift and wants to ask about the notification, why he wasn’t there, but continues, “So I’ve been thinking a lot about what he wanted and wanted to do. Dying, death, I guess it makes you think about things like that. Think about life.”
Almost as if he read her thoughts, Tony says, “About the notification.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Iris says.
“No, it should have been me. I wanted it to be me. I wanted to come to you.”
Iris processes what Tony’s telling her. He’s right it should have been him. Clyde would have expected it to be him. It would have been easier had it been him and not that bitch. But maybe it wouldn’t have been. Just because someone she’s attracted to comes to break the bad news doesn’t make the news not bad news. And he was where he needed to be, here beside her husband, so she says, “You were with Clyde.”
Tony relaxes.
Iris looks down at her husband for the first time. “Is that your sling?”
“I didn’t need it any longer, figured he could use it. Being he’s dead weight and all. I guess that’s dark humor. Goes with the job.”
“Not appropriate, but Clyde could be that way too,” Iris says. “I think the real reason he wanted to go to Arizona was—I think he wanted to get back to his roots. To live out where there’s some kooky people, living way out there like his parents did, because you know, he’s getting older, wanted to remember his parents. He left home at seventeen, went to sign up for the military, lied about his age, got turned away, worked for a year, living on the streets, and flipping burgers, went back to the recruiting office, and shipped out a week later. He said anything was better than living on the commune.”
“Not everything,” Tony says. “He always said tanning was better. Even. No lines.”
Iris chuckles. She slicks her tongue over her bottom lip. “Well, you don’t have to live in a commune to walk around naked.”
Tony gives her a look, almost a double take. And then there’s Clyde looking back at her, all that life and the Newman-ness gone from his face.
“He wanted to be cremated.”
“Spread out over the Grand Canyon,” Tony says, waving his hand forward like he’s staring out at the horizon.
“He told you?”
Tony nods. “I’m not really surprised to find him laying here after dying on the job. Kind of comes with everything. The bagpipes, drums, guns, and salutes.”
“Think they’re going to do the flag draped over his coffin or is that just in the movies?” Iris asks. “Who do you think will give me the flag?”
“You were in his office yesterday, and he’s probably the reason Clyde’s right here.” And with that, Tony excuses himself, telling Iris he needs to go to the restroom and asks if she needs coffee or anything from down the way. He’s going to get out of there for a few, clear his head. “I’ll let you be alone with your husband.”
CHAPTER TWELVE:
ELIZA CORTEZ
ELIZA FINDS TONY AT A SPORTS BAR around the corner from the funeral home, sitting at the bar, alone, sipping a beer, staring down at the bar top, his fingers digging a quarter into the coaster, a stack of split coasters discarded to the side.
From the doorway, letting in the fresh light into the already well-lit place, Eliza prepares herself, takes a breath, and marches inside. Inside, everything’s golf-themed, clean, and gleaming. The bar is freshly polished, and several TVs line the walls showing SportsCenter. A couple of patrons are scattered throughout, and a couple of waiters are talking in the back. They glance at her, but she points to Tony at the bar. She walks over to the bar and passes a molded golf putter striking an overly large ball on the wall, and from the kitchen, the smell of hamburger meat on the grill drifts her way. The bartender fills a sink with water, preparing to wash glasses. Tony, sensing her presence, pauses what he’s doing to glance her way and then goes back to digging the quarter into the coaster. The bartender opens his mouth to offer her a drink but scans her body and stays silent. Still, he does smile at Eliza as she takes a seat next to Tony, straddling the stool, which is more difficult than it looks with her belly getting in the way, hopping up and throwing her upper body on the bar top to pull herself up. It’s uncomfortable and takes considerable effort. She says, “What are you doing here?”
Tony shrugs and returns his focus to the edge of the quarter indenting the coaster, nearly through to the bar. “Didn’t know where else to go.”
The bartender, a dark-headed male wearing tight jeans, comes over and drops a napkin on the bar top in front of her. Eliza tells the bartender that she’ll take a tea. Pointing to Tony, she asks, “How long has he been here?”
NOW, STANDING OVER CLYDE, Tony knows what he has to do. Clyde had his wishes. It’s time to carry them out.
Tony reaches in his jacket pocket and pulls out the postcard he bought yesterday. He unfolds the postcard and carefully removes the pushpin from his pocket. He slips his arm out of the sling and throws the sling in the casket. Then, using both arms, he pins the postcard to the bottom side of the open casket, pushing the pin through the hardwood surface, just above Clyde’s face, to give him something to look at in his afterlife.
Thomas Moran’s Grand Canyon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
IRIS KING
IRIS APPROACHES THE BACK DOOR, long before they open, when almost no one’s around except whatever cop’s taking the night shift of the watch over her husband, so she can have a moment with her late husband without anyone getting on to her about what’s she going to do or how’s she going about doing it. She figures she’ll tell the cop, who’s standing guard over Clyde, to get out of here for a few, go get a drink or something down the road. Say she’ll take the watch.
But the watch seems kind of silly to her, watching over a dead body because whoever it was isn’t anymore. They’re gone. Gone on to the great beyond or something like that. Iris doesn’t believe in an afterlife, not that she believes in much other than herself. She sure as hell doesn’t believe in trusting others because she’s always been on her own and thinks this while closing the doors and walking down the hall.
That, and this wasn’t what Clyde wanted: a burial.
He made her promise not to do this to him, years ago, when they first met, but she told him, “What do you care what the living people do when you’re gone? You’re gone. Isn’t the funeral a celebration for you so that people left behind can process their grief? Who’re you to tell people how to grieve? You’re dead.”
Clyde never saw it her way. He said, “We’ll agree to disagree.”
And disagree they did, pretty much on everything, which at times had her wondering what she saw in him, but then she’d get to thinking about how they met. It’d make her smile, remembering how smooth he was and how polite, how caring. Remembering a time they did like each other—couldn’t get enough of each other—but times change.
Looks and personality wise, Clyde always reminded her of Paul Newman, specifically Newman in The Color of Money, which was one of the first movies Clyde made her watch because he was a Scorsese fan, but not just a Scorsese fan, a movie fan. He said it was Scorsese’s most commercial movie and even came in under time and budget. He asked what artist doesn’t want to bloat their egos and budgets? When he made her watch it, they had a marathon. They watched all of Scorsese’s movies over a week. In the movie, Newman’s a lady’s man, older, weathered, good-looking, and dashing—Clyde was the embodiment of Fast Eddie Felson, with the same damn mustache too. And funnily, she’s like Tom Cruise: younger, a flake, but incredibly good at what she does, playing a game—in her case poker. It’s how they met and the only time Clyde’s ever played her. But their story didn’t end on a freeze-frame.
Though, what was wrong with their marriage had nothing to do with them not liking each other; it had everything to do with her. So, being the reasonable rational person she is, she proposed a solution—an open marriage. That’s the phrase she introduced him to. She explained that there’s a whole lifestyle built around it, being this is the modern age. Clyde told her being his age there was another way to put it—cuckold: an old word but appropriate to the situation. He yelled at her his situation. He said that’s what she’s doing to him. She contended that, no, what she’s done is fuck him whenever he wants, not like he hasn’t enjoyed that bit about her being younger, and it’s not her fault that he only wants it every other week or so. She said that she’s there on his arm anytime he wants and argued that what she does with the rest of her time should be up to her. He said he never wanted to feel that way, cuckold, and never wanted to see evidence of it either.
So, agree to disagree—the motto of their union.
His body is in the room just beyond where she’s standing now. The ADA convinced her to go against Clyde’s wishes. Clyde never wanted the burial with honors. Eli did and does. It’s why he had her come to his office the other day, so they could discuss it. He explained that Clyde had put Eli in charge of his will. He was an attorney and friend. Explaining to her, he said the estate would be left to her; there were some limitations and issues, but as far as the burial went, he felt it was good for morale, a show of force is how he put it, to do the honorable thing and go against Clyde’s wishes. It was okay after all; he was dead. Eli said it was up to her; she could make the decision, but he’d support her in whatever decision she made.
Iris decided to follow his advice. She hasn’t done this before, bury someone, although not only did it feel like Eli was getting his way about Clyde’s funeral, but it also felt like Eli had her come to his office for something different.
Iris steps into the back room, lights on low, and finds Tony—Antonio—standing on the opposite side of the room looking down at Clyde with his back to her, wearing a jacket, sipping on some coffee. No sling this time. The last time she saw him, in passing, at Eli’s office, Tony was wearing the sling.
Iris checks her outfit and runs a hand down her body, making sure her black blouse is down and tucked right into the waistband of her black slacks, slim fit, no belt, doesn’t need it with her frame and black shoes, flats because the heels come later.
Iris clears her throat so not to startle him. “The house is so quiet with him gone. I never thought I’d miss the noise. He could be quite loud when he wanted to be. Talked loud. Played that music loud—Led Zeppelin—yelling at me from his shop about how it’s the blues but not the blues. I never really knew what that meant. Do you know what that means? Know what I mean?”
Not surprised to find her, Tony turns. “He did like to talk loud,” he says, acknowledging her. “Couldn’t whisper very well either. One time, we were in a bad situation, and he tried to tell me something, but the guy across the room heard him.”
Tony glances over his shoulder, which acts as an invitation, and she forgets her plan of telling the cop on the watch to go get something to eat. She wants him to stay. She steps forward. “What’d he try to tell you?”
She crosses the room, stopping next to Clyde’s casket, next to Tony, and her eyes notice the postcard pinned to the lid.
“He was trying to tell me the recording device strapped to his body was malfunctioning,” Tony says. “Because of a budget crisis, we pulled this old-school thing out of the back closet. Neither of us knew when the last time anyone used it was. He was trying to tell me it was shocking him—electrocuting him.”
Iris snorts, laughing loudly. She fills the entire room with genuine laughter and realizes it’s the first time she’s laughed since the Cortez lady came to the house.
Tony says, “So this guy, who was about to sell us a couple of pounds, turns around and asks us, ‘What was that?’ Reaching his hand in his waist band. And Clyde’s dancing a jig, right there in his living room, grabbing at the device at the small of his back, hands trying to get at it, but he couldn’t reach it.”
“What happened after that?” Iris asks.
But Tony doesn’t say and collapses into silence. He turns his attention back to Clyde. “What are you doing here so late?”
Iris strokes the hair out of her eyes. “I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about him. Thinking about what’s going to happen in the morning. I never thought—”
“He’d die like this—me either.”
“He told me he wanted to retire soon. Told me the whole world was losing their minds when it came to drugs. He said he didn’t know what he was fighting for anymore. Things seemed topsy turvy. We liked to watch Fargo on TV; you know it? Well, in the third season, there was a line where this guy comes home after everything very Fargo-ish happened, and he tells his wife he doesn’t recognize the world anymore like it’s not his world or something like that, and Clyde turned to me on the couch and said, ‘I feel just like that, especially here in Oklahoma, passing laws where basically everything’s a slap on the wrist and always going to be a slap on the wrist.’ He said, the Feds aren’t like that, yet, but he was sure by the time his ticket came up for mandatory retirement, he’d be without a job, saying, ‘What’s the Drug Enforcement Agency going to do when there’s no drugs to go about enforcing?’”
Tony listens to her. “He told me he wanted to go to Arizona for retirement.” Then says, “I was just thinking about him telling me that—said he wanted to do health shakes?”
“Oh yeah, the health shakes,” Iris says embarrassed now, admitting it was her idea. “A dumb one, but not as dumb as Clyde’s other ideas like the one where he wanted to go out to Florida, of all places. That’s as cliché as it comes: an old cop retiring to the sun to get salt-pickled by the ocean. He wanted to go out there and open snow cone shacks because apparently, he had a buddy who worked in some sales field, who had a mid-life crisis, and quit his life here to go out there and do that. Buddy told Clyde there was an open market out there; snow cones weren’t a thing. How’s that not a thing? It’s just shaved ice with sugar water.”
“Colored sugar water,” Tony adds.
She smiles. “Clyde said his buddy wanted him to come out and help, but I think the guy just wanted some other sucker to come out there and pour his retirement down the drain working for somebody else, him.”
Tony sips his coffee. “That’s worse than Clyde’s wanting to open a movie theater idea. Used to bitch up a storm that all the dollar movie places were closed. Said he loved them. Grew up going to the theaters, basically was his afterschool specials—the dollar theater being special.” Tony shrugs. “His joke. Not a good one. Though, the theaters were probably cheaper back then for him. I’d ask him how he thought he’d turn a profit if he’s only charging a dollar, and he said he’d figure it out.”
“I don’t think he ever did because that idea came and went,” Iris says. “You know what was better than that one was when he thought about opening a breakfast bar at that old oil-lube place. You remember that one? The half-circle joint with the garage doors, used to be called the G-spot? Which by the way, is interesting in its own right, calling itself that and being a lube place.”
“Very Freudian.”
“Shouldn’t that be a name for a strip club or something? The G-Spot. I feel like that would work.”
“Or a porno,” Tony says. “Although I don’t think the city would take too kindly to a strip place being right off Main Street of a sleepy suburb calling itself the G-Spot.”
“But a lube place calling itself that was okay,” Iris says, giggling. “Anyways, he’d tell me he wanted to serve breakfast in the morning, and then after say, eight in the evening, open it up as a bar. Have a full bar. Said he’d even serve it in the morning.”
“I liked that idea though,” Tony says. “It made more sense to me than say the health shake one. You know alcoholics need a place to go when the sun comes up. Like cockroaches, it drives them indoors. What better place than somewhere where there’s food and booze?”
“I’ll get to the health shake one,” she says. “But he was always looking for something to turn a quick buck in retirement. You’d think, working for the government, especially the Feds, he’d want to relax or something—not work again. But not him.”
“He detested not working. Always complained that’s the one difference between his parents and him.”
“There were a lot of differences between his parents and him.”
“You know he never smoked grass,” Tony says. “You’d think being in the DEA he’d at least know something about drugs, maybe tried it out. I’ve smoked grass. Did it in high school, not heavily, but enough to get an idea for it. Never anything else though, at least not off the clock,” he winks at her, “but he never abused drugs or drank to get drunk. Kind of amazing when you think about it.”
Iris says, “He said with his parents walking around naked at the commune drinking and smoking sort of took the appeal out of it for him. He said people would just start fucking right there.”
“That was a different time.”
“More like a different place,” Iris says. “I still wonder—and have since I met him—why he decided to work for the federal government, especially the DEA. You would think with parents like that he’d be a little more against working for The Man, as he put it.”
“That’s easy: the retirement.”
“But he never wanted to actually retire from working.”
“No, everything transferred over from his military time,” Tony says. “He used to complain about being a marine, sitting in the desert doing nothing.”
“Probably bragged he could breathe better there.”
“No kidding. That’s why he said he wanted to go out to Arizona,” Tony says. “Said the desert air helped him breathe better. I don’t know about that. He said Arizona because of the Grand Canyon.”
Iris’s eyes flick to the postcard. “I’ve not slept well since they gave me the notification.” Tony shifts his weight, and Iris catches the shift and wants to ask about the notification, why he wasn’t there, but continues, “So I’ve been thinking a lot about what he wanted and wanted to do. Dying, death, I guess it makes you think about things like that. Think about life.”
Almost as if he read her thoughts, Tony says, “About the notification.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Iris says.
“No, it should have been me. I wanted it to be me. I wanted to come to you.”
Iris processes what Tony’s telling her. He’s right it should have been him. Clyde would have expected it to be him. It would have been easier had it been him and not that bitch. But maybe it wouldn’t have been. Just because someone she’s attracted to comes to break the bad news doesn’t make the news not bad news. And he was where he needed to be, here beside her husband, so she says, “You were with Clyde.”
Tony relaxes.
Iris looks down at her husband for the first time. “Is that your sling?”
“I didn’t need it any longer, figured he could use it. Being he’s dead weight and all. I guess that’s dark humor. Goes with the job.”
“Not appropriate, but Clyde could be that way too,” Iris says. “I think the real reason he wanted to go to Arizona was—I think he wanted to get back to his roots. To live out where there’s some kooky people, living way out there like his parents did, because you know, he’s getting older, wanted to remember his parents. He left home at seventeen, went to sign up for the military, lied about his age, got turned away, worked for a year, living on the streets, and flipping burgers, went back to the recruiting office, and shipped out a week later. He said anything was better than living on the commune.”
“Not everything,” Tony says. “He always said tanning was better. Even. No lines.”
Iris chuckles. She slicks her tongue over her bottom lip. “Well, you don’t have to live in a commune to walk around naked.”
Tony gives her a look, almost a double take. And then there’s Clyde looking back at her, all that life and the Newman-ness gone from his face.
“He wanted to be cremated.”
“Spread out over the Grand Canyon,” Tony says, waving his hand forward like he’s staring out at the horizon.
“He told you?”
Tony nods. “I’m not really surprised to find him laying here after dying on the job. Kind of comes with everything. The bagpipes, drums, guns, and salutes.”
“Think they’re going to do the flag draped over his coffin or is that just in the movies?” Iris asks. “Who do you think will give me the flag?”
“You were in his office yesterday, and he’s probably the reason Clyde’s right here.” And with that, Tony excuses himself, telling Iris he needs to go to the restroom and asks if she needs coffee or anything from down the way. He’s going to get out of there for a few, clear his head. “I’ll let you be alone with your husband.”
CHAPTER TWELVE:
ELIZA CORTEZ
ELIZA FINDS TONY AT A SPORTS BAR around the corner from the funeral home, sitting at the bar, alone, sipping a beer, staring down at the bar top, his fingers digging a quarter into the coaster, a stack of split coasters discarded to the side.
From the doorway, letting in the fresh light into the already well-lit place, Eliza prepares herself, takes a breath, and marches inside. Inside, everything’s golf-themed, clean, and gleaming. The bar is freshly polished, and several TVs line the walls showing SportsCenter. A couple of patrons are scattered throughout, and a couple of waiters are talking in the back. They glance at her, but she points to Tony at the bar. She walks over to the bar and passes a molded golf putter striking an overly large ball on the wall, and from the kitchen, the smell of hamburger meat on the grill drifts her way. The bartender fills a sink with water, preparing to wash glasses. Tony, sensing her presence, pauses what he’s doing to glance her way and then goes back to digging the quarter into the coaster. The bartender opens his mouth to offer her a drink but scans her body and stays silent. Still, he does smile at Eliza as she takes a seat next to Tony, straddling the stool, which is more difficult than it looks with her belly getting in the way, hopping up and throwing her upper body on the bar top to pull herself up. It’s uncomfortable and takes considerable effort. She says, “What are you doing here?”
Tony shrugs and returns his focus to the edge of the quarter indenting the coaster, nearly through to the bar. “Didn’t know where else to go.”
The bartender, a dark-headed male wearing tight jeans, comes over and drops a napkin on the bar top in front of her. Eliza tells the bartender that she’ll take a tea. Pointing to Tony, she asks, “How long has he been here?”
