It was the same tacky funeral parlor that had performed the ceremonies for Tank. The same impatient morticians ushered the mourners into the parlor, checking their watches nervously for fear that our funeral would overlap the one they’d scheduled after us, and throwing out words of sympathy with practiced sincerity. The casket was once again placed behind the podium amid the flower arrangements. This time I had to say something. I pulled the head mortician aside.
“Look, bro, I want you to put that podium back behind the casket somewhere.”
The slender old man lowered his wire-framed glasses and looked me up and down as if he were fitting me for my own pine box. He smiled and patted my shoulder lightly the way one would comfort a disgruntled child.
“And why would you have me do that young man?”
“Because it’s disrespectful to have my Grandmother tucked back there like a prop at her own funeral. Like she’s just part of the fuckin’ background.”
“I understand what you are going through right now young man, but I can’t disrupt the whole program—“
“Fuck the program! This ain’t some damn performance. This is my Grandmom!” Realizing that my voice was getting loud, I paused to collect myself. “Now either you get somebody to move that damned casket or I’m going to do it myself,” I lowered my voice to a rumbling growl and leaned in close to his ear, “And then I’ll be looking for a casket to put you into. You feel me?”
The old man looked at me like I was crazy. He was about to protest when something in my eyes changed his mind. He was familiar with how grief could violently ignite tempers and recognized that he was standing in the path of a possible explosion.
“I’ll have it moved right away.”
He shuffled away quickly and a few minutes later the other funeral workers assisted him in relocating the podium on a hastily erected platform behind the casket.
The services went on like a carbon copy of the previous one. The reverend read from the Bible and talked of Grandma’s love and kindness, how much she loved God, and how dearly she would be missed. My great uncle Milton, Grandma’s little brother, got up and told stories about growing up back in the ’50’s with Grandma. I laughed, imagining her in a poodle skirt and Bobby socks doing the twist. The soloist sang and the church ladies cried. We walked up in single file to view the remains. Grandma was laid out in one of her finest church dresses; pink with a white bow on the shoulder and a white sash around the waist and a white pillbox hat with a veil. She was wearing her favorite wig, the one that made her look like a Supreme. I kissed her forehead and told her that I loved her. My tears were dripping down her face when I turned away and walked back to my seat.
After the funeral, I helped carry the casket out to the waiting hearse with the other pallbearers. Huey was across the street in the Monte Carlo nervously checking up and down the street. My left hand was inside my jacket wrapped around the cocked and loaded Beretta while my other arm strained under Grandma’s weight. We made it to the hearse without incident.
The drive to the cemetery, traveling in that long procession of vehicles like sitting ducks, was the longest drive of my life. Were I planning a hit, that would have been the time I would have executed it, while the mark was sandwiched between a row of cars. I’d have had a car pull up right next to the one I was in and ventilate it with gunfire. I was so worried about being attacked that I couldn’t fully concentrate on my own grief. That bastard was even interfering with my mourning.
We left the mortuary behind, and my anxiety increased with every passing block. I couldn’t believe it when we finally passed through the gates of the cemetery.
Had Scratch given up on us? Perhaps that bullet he took during our skirmish in the basement was more serious than it looked? Maybe I had killed him during the car chase when I shot the BMW full of holes? Perhaps Yellow Dog had come after us on his own and now that they were both dead we were safe?
I wanted to believe it all so much, but I knew it was wishful thinking. It was more likely that Scratch just wasn’t smart enough to make the easy hit and was still waiting to make his move, waiting to try something more dramatic.
The burial was a long tedious affair. I kept staring at the road, unable to concentrate on a word the reverend was saying. Just as Grandmom’s casket was being lowered into the ground, a brown Chevy Tahoe followed by a gold Lexus and a black Range Rover came creeping up the road with brothers hanging out the windows carrying assault rifles. One grinning white face with his arm in a sling was among them. Huey slid up beside me.
“Tell your family to get down.” He waved to someone and it was then that I noticed the Twins along with Fat Greg and little Drew hiding behind trees down by the road.
“How did you know he was gonna do it here?”
“You shot him and killed his boy Yellow Dog. He needs to set an example. He wants to wipe out your entire family and here they are all grouped up out in the open. This is where I would have done it. Now tell them to get down!”
“Everybody down! Get down!” I yelled, pulling my Beretta out of the holster in the back of my pants and Huey’s Sig Sauer from my jacket pocket.
They all looked at me as if I had gone mad until Huey whipped Tank’s old AK 47 out from under his trench coat and it began belching death in a stuttering staccato. He was running towards the oncoming cars in a full gallop. I saw my mother’s mortified expression as she dropped to her knees and rage blinded me. I chased after Huey firing both pistols into the advancing vehicles.
“Duck!” I heard Huey yell as return fire came from the three cars, ripping up the sod at our feet. I jumped behind a tombstone, narrowly avoiding being cut in half by nine millimeter slugs.
We crouched behind the tombstones and trees as the hail storm of bullets shredded the manicured lawns and sent chunks of sod and chips of gravestone flying. We returned fire with our own torrent of flaming alloy. Bullets rained through the air like we were in the middle of a war. The sounds of gunfire continued without a break for almost a full minute then it just stopped. Scratch’s cars continued up the road while Drew, and Fat Greg chased after it popping off a few desperate rounds. None of our guys had been hit and despite several hundred rounds sent into the three vehicles, it didn’t appear that any of their guys had been hit either. I popped the clips out of the two pistols and reloaded them.
“Come on, Huey. Let’s finish this shit right now.”
We jumped into the Monte Carlo and sped off after Scratch, leaving my family behind, rising from the grass terrified and confused.
“They’re splitting up.”
The cars reached the exit to the cemetery and took off in different directions.
“Scratch is in the Lexus. There it is up ahead.”
The gold Lexus cleared the cemetery gates and kept going straight toward West Oak Lane. The Range Rover and the Tahoe both turned right and headed towards Cheltenham. It was midday and the streets were too crowded for a high-speed chase, still we were doing more than seventy miles per hour in pursuit of the Lexus, stopping for most of the red lights, but blowing through stop signs. Scratch was driving conservatively as if he were unaware that he was being chased or else he wanted us to catch him.
We knew he had to get rid of the Lexus. No way they would drive their own vehicles to a hit and driving stolen vehicles filled with guns around in the middle of the day was too dangerous. As soon as the cops arrived at the cemetery and questioned my family, every squad car in the vicinity would be looking for that Lexus. Sure enough the Lexus stopped in a parking lot behind the First Black Pentecostal Church of Christ where a black Mercedes covered in more gold than the BMW had ever had, sat idling. The license plate said, “Scratch”. The man was definitely in love with himself.