The Pallbearers Club

by Paul Tremblay

I say I want to work on my book a little and then get to bed because I have to wake up hearse-early tomorrow, and yeah, that’s a term in the funeral biz, and whoa, my back and everything else is really sore and stiff and I know part of that is my fault because of how self-inflictedly hurt I was this morning after the all-night rock-out and beer binge that left me toadstooling on the floor next to the amp, and without any segue I offer an estimate of how many despair-filled steps we walked within the Dantean hell of the furniture store and then I added 25 percent to my steps total because of the trips in and out of the house I made transporting couch debris, and oh, the neighbor two doors down, the one with the dog, a hound mix that barks at leaves twitching in the wind and roams the streets until the sun goes down, unburdened by place or duty, that frigging dog already marked and re-marked the pile of couch, and I talk on and on and on and I can’t stop talking because I’m the kind of bad excuse-maker-liar who makes it so obvious by saying everything else in the world possible except the truth or what it is I really want to say.