I remember feeling agitated and more than a little embarrassed, because my car had been stolen before my eyes and I had done nothing to prevent it. At the same time, it didn’t register as a terribly big deal to me: watching a doppelganger steal my car was weirdly like lending it to my own brother. I walked to the counter and paid for my supplies. Outside, the car really was gone and I walked home.
The police found the car abandoned and, miraculously, unharmed on the shoulder of Route 90, and it was returned to me the following day. But the more I thought about them, the more the circumstances of the theft seemed incredible at best, and at worst invented. That, at least, was what the police appeared to think. I began to wonder if I had done this myself, in some sort of stress-induced daze, and if in fact I did similar things all the time, then obscured them in my mind. I wondered if I was beginning to get sick the way Pierce had. In the end I gave up thinking about it entirely, and my life went on as planned, which plan actually turned out to be no plan at all.
But now I wonder if that person really was me, and if he spent ten years wandering around, gathering the raw materials that a real life could be made from, in order to return them to the original me at some later date and make me whole. I wonder what that later date might be, or if perhaps it already passed without my notice, meaning that what I was for all those years was never very far from what I was supposed to be.
At any rate, I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for him to show up. Anna Praegel, who is recovered, divorced, and full of pithy advice, is fond of telling us what a great life she would have had if she hadn’t sat around waiting for things to happen to her, because when they did they were invariably the wrong things. Nevertheless, it does make a good story, and I’m working on a way to fit it into the strip, which any day now should be reaching a college rag near you.
* * *
Not long ago I was cleaning out the cabinets under the sink when I came across a cardboard box addressed to my father. It was postmarked a few weeks after he died and had a Riverbank P.O. Box for a return address. It hadn’t been opened.
I turned it over a few times and gave it a good shake. Something was loose in there, making a muffled, metallic sort of rattle. The box looked familiar, and I closed my eyes, remembering: it had sat on the kitchen counter, pushed back next to the broken radio, for several months, then was moved to the living room floor, just inside the sliding doors, when Pierce and Susan made pancakes together. A few weeks later it vanished, and now here it was again. I called out to Pierce, who was smoking cigarettes in his bedroom.
He walked out looking stricken, as if he’d been watching television for days on end. I held up the box to him and he frowned.
“Whassat?”
“You tell me.”
He took the box and gave it a cursory look. “It came for Dad. I don’t know what it is.”
I opened a drawer and pulled out a dull paring knife with a green plastic handle. “Give it here,” I said. He did, and I set it on the counter and sliced through the packing tape. Pierce came up beside me and watched. I folded back the flaps and picked up a piece of cream-colored linen paper with a letterhead printed on it. The letterhead read RIVERBANK FUNERAL SERVICES, INC.
“Uh-oh,” said Pierce.
Dear Customer:
Enclosed are the remains of your loved one, and product #34195, Oriental Brass Urn, which you requested and paid for in full. You have our unconditional guarantee that this urn will meet with your complete satisfaction, or your money back.
The remains of your loved one are packed in a UV-protected plastic pouch which has been double-sealed and inspected to ensure that no remains are lost. To remove remains, shake to the bottom of the pouch, then remove the sealed end using a pair of scissors or sharp knife. Slowly pour remains into your urn and affix the lid. Store urn and remains in a dry place, to prevent sticking. Do not place urn on a surface where it may be jostled or knocked over. Keep away from pets.
We sincerely hope our services will help you to remember your loved one with pleasure and respect. Thank you for choosing Riverbank Funeral Services, Inc.
“Why was it addressed to him?” Pierce was saying.
“Got me,” I said, and then, unnecessarily, “That’s him in there.” We stared at the open package for a few minutes, lost in our private worlds of horror. Beside me, Pierce breathed his labored cigarettey breaths.
“So what do we do with it?” I said.
“We can’t keep it in the house. We have to scatter it or something.” The remains of our father had become “it,” which made things easier.
“But then we have to take it out of the bag.”
We could easily have stood there all day. I took the urn out of the box. It was ornate and artificially aged, with foreign writing and pictograms all over it, and a small curved handle. The lid had a rubber lining, to ensure a tight fit. The bag of ashes was inside the urn, so I stuck my hand in there and worked it through the opening. The ashes were barely visible through the ultraviolet-proof coating, coarse and multicolored, with large black hunks of what pretty much had to be bone.
“Oh my God,” said Pierce.
I dropped the knife back into the drawer and clattered around until I found a scissors, then followed the instructions in the letter. A fine gray dust rose as our father cascaded into the urn.
“Oh, yuck, yuck!” Pierce was saying. We backed away, terrified of inhaling him. From across the kitchen we watched the dust settle. After a safe interval, I clamped the lid on, threw the box into the trash and wiped up the counter with a rag.
“How about the river?” I said to Pierce in the car. He drove while I kept the urn on the floor, clamped between my ankles.
“What if it floats? It’ll float, and then it’ll just get tangled up in some old branches and mud on the bank.”
“We could go down the shore.”
“No way,” he said. We were tooling around on some narrow county road. “We’ll throw it in and it’ll come crashing right back on us. And then it’ll be all over our clothes.” He bit his lip. “I was thinking of renting a plane or a helicopter or something and dropping it out.”
“What if it blows back in?”
“Ew, ew,” he said.
“We could just bring the urn to the Salvation Army in some little town. Somebody would buy it and put it on the mantel.”
“We could leave it by the side of the road.”
“We could leave it on a golf course.”
“We could dump it in the Pine Barrens.”
We didn’t talk for a long time. Somewhere, Pierce pulled over at a gas station. We sat silent and still while the attendant pumped. Super Unleaded, our father’s grade. While Pierce was paying I got out and put the urn in the trunk, wedged between a plastic milk crate full of motor oil and a busted starter motor in a greasy cardboard box. That’s where it is today.
~ ~ ~
While writing this I consulted excellent books on cartooning by Morts Walker and Gerberg. Judy Moffett, thank goodness, made me attend a science fiction conference. For crossing t’s and dotting i’s, thanks to Rhian, Ed, Jill, Andy G and Julie; for their ongoing dirty work thanks to Lisa and Jeff. Thank you Ruben Bolling for your fine photography, and boosters Ruden, Prose, Bukiet, Spencer and the Art Museum of Missoula. I am grateful to all Riverheadbangers and to dispersed West Phunnydelphians Lee Ann, Andy C, Host, Kevin, Shauna, Luggage, Biscuit, Kristen, R.C. Thanks to every card, clown, ham, wag and cutup I’ve ever known, who ought to have the good humor to forgive me for not naming them. And finally I must thank my family, who provided me with God’s gift to comedy, New Jersey.