The Obituary by Phillip Roberts

I.

      Nothing remains but a small stale room Jakey rented. Two dormant televisions staring blankly, one on top the other as if cold, cataract eyes. Fading layers of Mama's hand stitched quilts act as half ass curtains. Dim days press through the corners and wispy edges of the shredded, fading fabric. My bearded face looks back confusedly if I get close enough to the burned out screens. A disheveled outline--a discontinued Sunday night drama.

     The older model is an out dated deluxe black and white that plays starchy fuzz. (The piss poor image reminds me of those instant potatoes that come in a blinding bright red box. Particle white contents like snow or dandruff). It's a sturdy set encased in worn wood memorably marked with miscellaneous soda pop stains. Before we replaced it Jake and me played Go Fish and Old Maid on the wide varnished top but Jakey eventually lost interest in these games too.

     Jake inherited the old set from Pops. It was the old man's baseball box. Papa would sip canned beer in stained wife beaters. Lighting a cigarette he started talking crap while the autumn drifted in mildly through the screens.

     Sometime during the mid-70's the picture went on the fritz. Every scene suddenly developed a hazy or wintry forecast. The day every show became indiscernible, Jakey started crying--big salty tears streaming down his pudgy sad boy cheeks.

2.

     For Jakey's funeral the local paper asked me to write something personal. I got the call inside the disquieting confines of my brother's stale room. The newspaper man's words felt violent--incisionary with every intrusive question. I leaned back into the familiar creaks and aches of Jake's mattress. The spongy softness hadn't forgotten the man's tremendous shape--still clinging, refusing to let him pass away.

     I saw Jake in the icy, late night gleam of his favorite television shows. Stewing in solitude and solemn stench. When the newspaper man mentioned his name or associated my dead brother with a common, derisive nickname I'd envision the extensive protrusion of Jake's pork belly. A man of constipation, time and human erosion. The impossible confessional baths, trying to ignore his tired, unenthused voice. Weeks when his depression bloated to extensive and regrettable lows. The bedpan bedlam I retain with grave secrecy.

     "Hey, Franky... you there? I gotta dead line or what? Talk to me... Frank?"

     He kept repeating my name with foolish, irritable emphasis. As if I were someone with importance or notoriety. Coughing or conceivably a little tearful the man realized I was still available and continued his bullshit.

     "Your brother is something of a celebrity around these parts--it'd be a great piece for our readers, maybe give you some closure? Possibly bring some fame? Huh? Hell, I'm cleared to swing a hundred for the whole shebang... what about: 'Immovable Man and Kid Brother' in a real sorta Hallmar--"

3.

     Originally booked a few nights at the Motor Lodge--one of the town's three dumpy, run down establishments. This hotel is strictly for provincial business and is, despite appearances, decent. Generic hotels two and three rent by the hour if you have the gall to ask. During the snowy doldrums you pass the time secretly in the company of your friend's girl and a cheap fifth. Sometimes you simply show up with a bottle and boredom. All that's in you is the will to watch cable in peace until dozing off in the peculiar feeling of clean sheets.

     Anyhow, canceling reservations became an ordeal. Chitty-chatty talk because the hotel clerk knew me and was concerned. She kept repeating: "Frank, sure you wouldn't be more comfortable at the lodge?"

     After several more drinks--my breath swamp like and foul--I began conversationally undressing her. Loosening my sweat stained leather belt, Jakey's pallid surroundings stirred with odors like someone digging around in refuse.

4.

     Charlene's cigarette woke me or that's the first thing I smelled. So used to her cow stepping and pasture like hovering ways that I stopped minding or caring about her presence. Only when she let's me know in those weird, womanly ways that her body needs lovin do I notice her.

     "Have fun last night hero?" She asks with her unique, Charlene accent.

     Approaching my sleepy, saggy face an exhaust of gray smoke engulfs my tired senses. Laughing, she continues jaw jabbering, "thought you was home for a funeral? Don't look a touch sad none to me--more like you was have'n a party by your lonesome... whose you talking to anyhow? Betcha' I know her--"

     "Got a cigarette?" I Manage to ask through the resilient slime that adhesively slows my tongue in morass.

     Walking I notice the annoyingly loud phone laying unhooked in the bed. Setting it back in the cradle, Charlene says something sarcastic about pants. Except she pronounces it: paints. She's the kind of woman you've known long enough and have done animal things with enough times to no longer worry how much of your body shows.

     Tapping a clean cotton filter to the rim of the mint green box of smokes I instinctively reach. "Take ya' one son--"

     "Charlene, Damit--whatn hells name you doin over--"

     "Your key hon... remember? You're the one called last night all strung out, hotn' bothered--you said some furly nasty things," she swaggered, shaking her piñata rump near my face.

     Slapping the copper key on the broken night stand sounded especially loud. Her perfume during the a.m. was awful.

     A chintzy smoke trail followed her as she continued the seductive attempts. Charlene is a montage of Americana: scenes from cheap summer drive in romances, teenage glamour magazines taken too seriously and high school spent in claustrophobic spaces groping obscenely and clumsily. Because she knew all the unspoken details about my life and because she had that special pinch of dirty, I couldn't refuse or resist Charlene's salty, honest charm.

     Resting her black bottom feet on my thighs she balanced a plaid pouch ash try along the cotton inseam of her panties. Charlene never much cared for foreplay but after play and lazy-bed-lollygagging was her specialty.

     "So," smiling contentedly, "yer britches too big for small town trash or what?"

     Reduced to childish face making and quiet, smoky gazing I made up inadequate saying to suit Charlene's large and brash personality. Charlene is akin to your own shadow: nearby and inescapable. Meet her directly and you're swallowed into the depths of night. She's a mammoth of depravity.

5.

     Empty beer cans embroider the typewriter supplied by the town's shameless paper. Peeling back the must quilts sharp winter sunlight cuts my eyes. Fresh snow fell like busted pillows and dandruff.

     Took a steamy piss in the drifts fulfilling some boyish, angry urge.

     While out and about I followed my old newspaper delivery route or some made up portion of it. Seemed an exceptional idea. The air tasted deliciously cold and clean in my boozy throat. The snow embanked streets were desolate. Dogs barking in the muffled distance, eliciting further responses from mutts in caged back yards or wild wandering packs. I'm waiting for poetry or the woebegone whistle from a lumbering train to carry the cargo of my memories.

     Funeral is tomorrow. Doubt I'll show my ugly, bearded mug.

     Stuck in a room filled with rot. Haven't the balls to write about anything or anyone--most of all, Jakey.

     When the parlor director or who ever'n hell runs these wax museums called... he wanted to assure me that the "piano case receptacle" has been used appropriately. Though well intended I'm pretty sure I threatened to shoot the bastard.

6.

     Can't stand all that shit and shinola pretext for talking like you're the greatest old friends. Despite sitting far in the back everyone spotted me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate friendly but with my dead brother's puffy face is jutting out of a gutted, uninspired grand piano it's all rather surreal.

     Maybe if it'd been summer my plan would've worked. Almost everyone who came through the rear doors instinctively removed their jacket, usually with a dutiful husband doling out his arms for the gentlemanly service. As townsfolk pivoted and unwrapped their winter attire in tight quarters they invariably noticed me. One of the older church going ladies had the humorous gumption to remind me point blank, thankfully with a whisper: "Frank child... if ya gonna go--the outside ain't no place for a grown man to take bathroom breaks, honey."

     Honestly tried listening to the minister and all the pretty, made up things people had to say about Jakey. My saggy lids kept clasping shut under the weight of warmth and dull, steamy voices. I imagined a Venus fly trap closing on insects, devouring them with insatiable appetites. (Word associations is what head shrinkers call it). A slew of bug images followed--grasshoppers, preying mantis and bunches of rice size maggots. At one point I thought they were crawling up my arms and legs. I jumped, waking myself in time to see Charlene standing for the congregation's chuckling delight. She said in her best twang that a song was in order. Playing a few keys Charlene politely asked if a doctor was available and then corrected herself--"I mean piano tuner?" Opening the innards she messed with the strings, tightening Jake's misaligned umbilical cord. "Everyone wants to be reborn," she said, sitting down to play a waltz.

7.

     Town of embers and raw vermilion sunsets. It's all getting to me, crawling steadily up my spinal column like a poisonous spider. Each pesky nuance adds up cruelly: fatigued memories, Jake's malingering odors and the feeling of limited possibilities.

     Rent expires this week though I've been informed kindly that I may stay as long as necessary. The owner's are an old married couple that remind me of a shabby rug you rub your feet cleanly across.

     Jake ate, shat and became inert in this solitary hole. Imprisoned for a decade due to his slothful mass. Living on disability and donations he became an ornament, the butt of grotesque jokes--a thing ogled insensitively.

     As a child Jake was pudgy but happy. Spoiled is what Papa called him because Mama smothered him with nurturing. Sometimes when I'd finish my delivery routes early I'd find him greedily suckling her fat milky breast. Mama'd act natural as you'd please, brush Jake's hair casually to the side and announce our dinner plans. I suppose Papa ignored it, worked long hours to avoid it or emptied beer into his gut to forget it.

8.

     The nursing home isn't that big. Several short wings extending across pristine winters lawns. Inside the pissy warmth is stuffy, practically overbearing but I know that's how elderly people like their thermostat.

     Several stoics sit like griffins in wheelchairs greeting me with gawking, unaware expressions. A wrinkled lady carries a colostomy bag like a purse. Pop's room is clean--bleach scented. His cinder block walls are absent of sentiment or memorabilia. A single religious icon hangs adjacent to his bed. One of the nurses informed me that a priest had "made the gesture" and that I could remove the image if I wished. I told her it wasn't my place to judge and besides, it's kinda hopeful.

     He watches VHS recording of classic baseball games. When I sit next to him there is no longer any recognition. Gray, milky eyes staring endlessly into an electronic image.

     "Need to let her go boy--time to grow up, Jakey," he says dryly. His face has hardened into pale stone. I comment with a firm and tearful, "Yes sir."

     Asking him who is going to win I presume that a prolonged silence will follow, a telltale sign of forgetfulness. His comments are so rare and few. This time however, he states seriously that no one will. On my way out I place funeral clipping in his rough, sandpaper hands.

9.

     An outsider would think I look ridiculous or absurd.

     When Jake was alive it was tiresome driving to different convenience stores and all night grocer's. Eventually I'd go to nearby bigger cities so as to remain anonymous. At some point lies naturally fell from my mouth. I made up the name of my child, lending beautiful and exceptional features like any proud parent would.

     As evening routines dictate I stack sundry snacks beside the bed. Various, colorful icing cakes, crinkly bagged chips and several liters of carbonated beverages to wash down the spicy-sweet mouthfuls. The bottle of milk warms on the stove and a variety of favorite baby foods sits in small, garish containers.

     Laying in bed my diaper crinkles, sounding exactly like those starchy napkins on a doctor's examination tables. I keep the static image on mute and debate whether or not I should call Charlene. If she fed Jakey she'd certainly do the same for me.

     While waiting in the checkout line tonight I glanced at the tabloids. One of the headings read: 'Space Boy Abandoned in Back of Buick.' The black and white glossy showed a bug-eyed child with bat ears. I found the entire thing really damn funny--to ever think we must make the bizarre so foreign, so far away from our ordinary, awful lives.