river rat: Edgedweller, a preview, part II. We last saw our hero passed out under a shrub, snoring, dreaming the soft pine straw nest where he lay was the supple bosom of a woman...
One last section (possibly finished this week) will complete this chapter. Thank you for indulging me so.
Edgedweller, Chapter 10, Bury Me, continued.
By the time he'd become settled, a small crowd of classmates, ten to twelve, had gathered and were sneaking beers outside the gate, sitting with us on the stoop. An hour passed, then another, and soon it was closing time and all the drunks began the unwilling parade down the narrow walk past us, out to fill the streets. A herd, hungry and rowdy. When the throng was at its thickest, a ruckus started near Franklin Street and moved back towards the gate to the bar, a whirl of cuss words and flailing limbs. The ruckus was Garth fighting his way against the stream, headed back for round two with the bouncers. I stood up to see, to signal him that such a thing, so late, so drunk, was a bad idea-the worst he'd ever had. As he bumped and pushed his way near our perch, facing him from the bottom step of the concrete stairs, I didn't recognize much of my brother. His hair, often perfect to the last strand, stood forty five degrees to the left side of his head, a thick black thatch helmet sitting crooked above his face. The muss his hair had started earlier had fluffed out while he slept and a measure of alcohol induced insanity took over his brain, reverting most of what he was to a wild animal. He'd lost his hoodie, leaving him in a tee shirt stained with green shrubbery, red blood and a mauve vomit trail down to its torn tail. He'd lost a shoe, in the bushes, I suppose. If he weren't my brother I would've laughed. I couldn't, though. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to at least remove the clump of pine straw trailing out of the elastic band of his pants. He stood five feet from me, our group of merry makers sitting silent behind me, also incapable of action or words. "Bury me!" Garth shrieked the command. Veins stood out in thick cords on his neck, connecting to a web that spread up and across his forehead, ending under the silly hair helmet. The blood and vomit dried at the corners of his mouth looked fake, like bad Halloween make-up poorly applied. He reached into his sweatpants pocket, pulled out his car keys and threw them at my feet. Garth turned back into the sea of drunks, a perfect heel-to-toe about face followed by goose stepping, more like a drunken toy soldier than a Nazi. He continued fighting his way back up stream--an adult, homesick determined salmon; his arms flailed, his body caromed off others, a human pinball, as he was pushed two steps back for every four surged forward. Near the gate, when he saw the bouncers, Garth scaled the wall and jumped over the treated timber cap, disappearing into the courtyard, perhaps thinking he could attack their flanks. As soon as the crowd thinned to a navigable level I walked up to the gate, figuring some fast talking would be necessary to keep the bouncers from pummeling him. He was no where in sight.
Bury me. At the time it was a dramatic sentiment at the end of a hard night of drinking. I dismissed it for the bluster and bravado it represented, even thought we waited a full day for Garth to show up at our condo, barefoot and haggard. I worried that whole morning and early afternoon. When he stumbled in, battered and bruised, he smiled a thousand suns bright when I gave him his wallet-something I found in the nest of pine straw where he slept prior to disappearing over the wall.
By the time I gathered myself and pulled back onto the road the sun had fallen below the tree line. My truck righted itself up over the berm into gray evening light, darkness added to my sense of dread at having to tell the rest of my family the news. I fretted over the thought until I decided I would never tell them unless forced to do so. If we ever performed a bona fide memorial service the opportunity might present itself, otherwise, I'd swallow the report in the great tradition of denial that worked so well all of Garth's life regarding his manic depressive state.
The next morning, phone calls were made to the morgue in Chapel Hill. Cheerful music played on every level of hold while I waited to speak with someone who could answer my questions. A Muzak version of Cher's "Halfbreed" played over the line where I waited longest. Finally, the assistant to the assistant to the assistant's assistant to the coroner came on the line. I badgered the young woman, asking five questions in a breathless string-pushy-not at all sensitive to the sad sounding girl working in the darkest of places, delivering the worst of news-details about the dead surrounding her, the dead themselves at arm's length-every day of her career, for little more than minimum wage. Yes, I could have the body transferred to a funeral home-sign and fax, or hand deliver the authorization the police should have given me to the crematorium of my choosing. No, they wouldn't make recommendations or know anything about costs of cremation. Yes, there will be a formal, final coroner's report issued. No, it will be mailed to you. No, we don't give out any information contained in the report over the telephone unless you are with law enforcement and assigned to the case. Are you with law enforcement? "No, I'm the decedent's brother." Garth was a decedent, he finally had a title.
The first three funeral homes quoted me prices I couldn't imagine for incinerating a mostly burned up body. They also hung up on me after my second question. Was I being practical or cheap?
"Why's it cost twelve hundred dollars?" I asked them, wondering if I could build my own pyre out on the river.
"A body must be reduced completely to ash according to health code," I was told. "For an adult, complete and legal cremation can take up to four hours in the crematorium."
"What about an adult body that's more than halfway burned already?" I asked. "Is there a discount for a burn victim? I mean, the job's more than half done."
Earlier in the day, sitting in the police department wondering if my world would ever right itself, I remember Detective Richards letting me know that the pictures of the scene could be especially upsetting because, according to his copy of the coroner's report, Garth's weight was less than half the two hundred pounds he averaged the last few years, before pouring gasoline on himself and striking a match, or flicking his Zippo, or however he started the fire. He was already mostly ash, I thought. The fourth home agreed to take a hundred and fifty dollars off their price, the self-starter incineration discount, I called it. From the time they received the authorization necessary they guaranteed next day deliver of a bag full of my brother.
I faxed them the information given to me by the coroner's office and called my friend Mark.
"Hey, Mark, it's me, Nate."
"Hey, Nate. How are you doing?"
"Ummm. Not so well," I told him, stuttering. "I need an urn."
Mark is one of a handful of potters in the country using a Japanese salt glaze technique. He lived a few miles from me on the west side of the river. His pots are coveted the world over and stepping into his kiln is like a trip back in time. Its baked glassy interior, shaped like an upturned sail boat hull, cooks the clay he's thrown into permanent vessels that look as though they've been around since before forever. He fires it with chopped cordwood, working a team of helpers around the clock for days. I always wanted one of his pieces about the size I figured would hold my brother once he was reduced to cinders, an urn with a lid. Something so permanent for such a temporary purpose. I told Mark my story, the words gushing out, tearless and sterile.
"I keep a few that size around, just in case." He gave me condolences and invited me over to pick one and to have a drink. I bought a fine urn, one deep green with azure squares stamped around its perimeter near the top. Their bright blue glaze, pulled by gravity, blurred their shapes, set on the bias, causing them to appear as blue diamond comets racing to the rim of the vessel.
Stars, it's full of stars, I thought. Garth would approve.
