"You Know Where She's Buried"

Matty

"Mom said you wanted to see me?"

The old man is sitting in his wing chair by the window, holding the respirator in his lap, not over his face. Every time he breathes you hear things move in his throat, maybe even deeper.

"Yes, yes," he says, almost cheerful, "yes I do, step into my office." 

The room smells so much like a hospital that you can't even believe it's your own house. You can't believe this was once your brother's room. Your grandfather's essence has taken it over, and somehow it seems that the room is dying, not him. His hair has lasted him longer than most men, staying dark and thick long after other men his age were considering toupees, accepting baldness and exposed, spotting scalps. Now it's all gone, after only a few sessions of chemotherapy, which are no obsolete, pointless. He wouldn't accept them anyway. Even when the doctor said he could make it for another six months, maybe a year, Mathis sat up straight and said he would rather go out naturally, with some dignity. You immediately admired him for this and you still do, even though he looks like an infant born prematurely, shrunken and hairless and wrong, his teeth all gone and dentures long ago rendered as pointless as the heroic measures your parents have tried to push on him. Somehow, he still looks dignified. He looks like death is supposed to look. 

there's just the one issue. it will have to come up sooner or later. you sit on the edge of the bed and feel even stranger here, since you and he both know he will die here, in this bed.

"So what's up?" you ask, "how are you feeling?" 

"Right as rain, son, right as rain."

He puts the mask over his face, breathes deeply, takes it away again.

"I was hoping you could fill me in on my funeral arrangements," he says.

This almost sounds like another language, a language you have not heard or dared to speak. Then you realize what he has just said and all you can come up with, all the response your clever, smart-ass little brain can muster is, "what?" 

"I know that father of yours," he points with the oxygen mask between two fingers, the same two fingers that used to hold his cuban cigars, "I know he's gonna try and pull some move to have me buried in that damn church graveyard."

"It's a beautiful piece of land, Grandpa," you say, then you choke on what you're about to say because you're about to say that hardly anyone's been buried there, that it's brand-new and he has his choice of plots. He could be buried right next to the live oak tree if he liked.

"I wrote it in my will--"

"Please Grandpa..."

"I wrote it in my will," he says again, louder this time, "I wrote it down that I wanted to be buried next to your grandmother. I want to be buried next to my wife."

"Oh yeah, Grandpa? And where exactly is she buried?"

You immediately regret your tone, though you have been through this before, all of you have. Stubborn old man, refusing to see reason. Your mother and father have long ago thrown up their hands. Now the old man looks at you, squinting his myopic eyes and pointing again with that damn oxygen mask.

"You know where she's buried," he says, his voice low, conspiratorial.

"Grandpa, come on. You have to stop saying stuff like that--"

"You know where she's buried! You've seen it!" 

"See, Grandpa? That's why your will isn't worth anything, because it's full of crazy talk! Your lawyer said so!"

"So they're not going to bury me next to my Nina, then?"

"No, Grandpa. There is no grave. There is only an urn. She was cremated, remember? She's been on a freaking shelf in the living room for years!"

"Cremated my ass," he mutters.

He replaces the mask, coughs a horrible wet cough and lets the mask drop to his lap.

"Your grandmother was never cremated. She's buried next to our house in the woods. I don't even know why we're having this conversation. You've seen it. You've been there; you've seen the house you said so yourself."

"Grandpa, no. I'm not doing this with you, okay? It's a waste of time and there isn't any time left to be wasted."

He looks at you with those eyes of his, watery and soft like raw oysters in his withered skin. He doesn't blink.

"So you're letting them win, huh? You're letting them tell you what's real and what's not? You're letting them tell you you're crazy?" 

"Maybe I was crazy, Grandpa. I don't know. I just know that I can't go back to thinking like that anymore. No good ever came out of it for me and it won't for you either. They're going to let mom and dad decide where you go if you keep this up and then not only will you not be buried next to your make-believe house but you'll be buried wherever dad wants you to be buried. If there's another place you'd prefer, you'd better say it now."

The old man cusses under his breath and coughs again. 

"They can let me rot for all I care. I have one request and if they're not going to let me have it, then fuck them all."

"Grandpa!"

"And fuck you too. I'm not going to sit here and be called crazy, least of all by you."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You get locked up in a looney bin for six months and you come out all filled up with Jesus like you're a totally different person? Just like your father, you're both crazy."

"We've found the Truth, Grandpa. You're about to die and you're laughing at the people trying to ensure the salvation of your soul. That's what's crazy."

"I'm not letting you anywhere near my soul. You'll just toss it in a drawer like all the others in your collection."

"Here we go again..."

"You think you're so special because you fall on your face and apologize for all the bad things you've done? Guess what. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't change who you are on the inside and it doesn't change your father. He's still the same man he was he just can't live with himself and the things he's done." 

"And what's he done that's so bad, Grandpa? What's he done that God can't forgive?" 

He glares, seeing right through you, hie eyes lighting up every ounce of doubt you've got until it's all you can feel, all you can believe and he says, "see what I mean? Crazy."