I See You've Called in Dead

by John Kenney

“Would you come to my funeral?” “It would depend on what else I had going on. Also maybe don’t die.”

“I love you,” I said. It was out too fast. It was a thought in my head and it slipped out. “That’s what I’d say. If this was the last time.”

But it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t tired enough. So I started running, if you can call what I did running.

I ran welcoming the pain, the searing in my lungs, the lactic acid buildup in my thighs, the ache in my knees. I ran hoping to escape the noise in my head, missing my friend. But it ran right along with me.

I read Ulysses. Fine, that last one is a lie. I tried. I didn’t make it far. I doubt Mrs. Joyce even read it.

At night sometimes I would call his phone. I would wait for the answering machine message, listen to his voice. After a while I stopped calling. The bastard didn’t answer. I kept running.

Later, I followed as they walked to the beach and built a bonfire, watched these men who had been bullied as children, taunted as teenagers, had to hide their true selves, but who were, now, here, tanned and laughing, fully themselves, inviting me, daring me, to join them. Everything is waiting for you, they seemed to say, in the moonlight, in the firelight, in the joy and beauty of being alive.

“I know,” he said, his voice quieter. “But I’m lonely.” “I know. But make sure they deserve you.”

“If this were a buddy movie,” I said, “I would put my arm around your shoulders.” “Please don’t touch me.”

I asked her how much she could afford to pay each month, and she said $1,000. I gave it to her for $300. I told her about Tim. We’re having our first salon soon. Mariel has promised to come.

“I make eight cups. The night before. I’ve always made eight cups. In the Mr. Coffee. The night before. I always have too much now.”

“Leo has a school thing. A kind of show-and-tell. It’s usually a parent but … he’d like to ask you. If you don’t mind.”

He had insisted on wearing a sports coat and tie and asked me to do the same, as he felt this was what serious people did during presentations. As always, he held his notebook.

I chose for my show-and-tell my friend Bud who is also my neighbor from five houses away but the houses are connected, so if you think about it except for the bricks it’s kind of the same house.”

But isn’t that sad? you might ask me. No, it isn’t, because to do a good job you have to write about their life and the good things because that’s what life is. When someone writes your obituary, you will like it because you will have laughed a lot during your life and you had friends and a dog and went to birthday parties with balloons and to the beach and so many things that at night, each night, when you go to bed, you will think, Wasn’t that a great day.”

see a red cardinal from time to time, out the back window, on the old ash tree, occasionally hopping onto the back deck. They are hard not to notice. Their color, their particular beauty. I did a search online and came across an interesting story. Apparently red cardinals can be spiritual messengers.

i believe very few things but i do believe this

There is an obituary to write. I want to do it in a way that reminds anyone who reads it that that person’s life mattered, that we won’t forget. It is so easy to forget.

Tim said we are all obituary writers because we get to write our life every day. Write it. Please. It’s your life. Also, it will certainly make my job easier.

He had walked into burning buildings. He had saved lives. He was the man.

He daily keeps the art of obituary writing alive, taking care to honor the lives of the dead. Adam said he looks forward to writing about me one day soon.