The next three days passed in a technicolor dreamlike state where I only surfaced from insanity to take another dose. Simone called her dealer again, and he hooked me up with an impressive array of all things chemical. Molly, dabs, benzos, oxy, he had it all and I bought him out. The three guilt-fueled trips to the ATM with Simone dissolved immediately into a chemical haze. Slivers of time that used to be painful were now easy to fill with music and color. The anxiety and tension that had found a permanent home in me for decades now dissipated into the numbness of pharmaceutical bliss.
Luckily, in a moment of clarity, I set multiple alarms and reminders on my phone for Ma’s funeral. That morning, a blaring alarm shot me straight up in bed. I woke up alone, shaking and puking. Wanting to take the edge off with another dose of oxy, but knowing it was too risky, I settled for a breakfast screwdriver. I couldn’t bliss out at Ma’s funeral and become a slobbering, staggering pile. As much as it was going to hurt, I owed it to her to at least attempt some form of sobriety today.
After dressing in my only pair of dress pants and a wrinkled button-down shirt I had stuffed into the back of the closet, I walked down the front steps. It took a second to register the Camaro in the driveway was mine. It took another thirty minutes to find the keys.
I stopped to feed Alvin and then, feeling guilty, cut up an apple and the broccoli that was in the fridge from Ma’s last grocery run. Seeing the little trees and knowing they were the last ones she touched made me teary-eyed. Shaking it off, I opened the cage. With a flap of his wings, he landed on my arm, picking up a piece of broccoli from his dish with his beak. He edged his head toward me, ducking it, and I reached out to trace my hand down his soft feathers, smoothing them as he pressed his head more firmly into my finger.
“Who’s a good boy?”
He stopped eating and rewarded me with a whistle.
“I can’t do this alone, buddy. I think you should come.”
He bobbed up and down on my forearm, squeezing it with his talons in agreement. I walked us out to the car, and he crawled up my arm, squawking and bobbing. Shifting the car into drive, a wave of paranoia flooded me, and I scanned and scanned the roads for police cars. When I finally pulled into the funeral home, it was a blessed relief. To soften the knot in my belly, I took half of a Molly, tucking the rest into my pocket. Alvin and I walked into the funeral home, and immediately, the string quartet cued up. He began rocking and bobbing up my arm, landing firmly on my shoulder and dancing to the music.
Ellen raced toward me, a pinched look on her face.
“Mr. Angel, you can’t bring a parrot in here. This is a place of mourning.”
“Ellen, he’s my emotional support animal,” I argued.
“You’re an asshole,” Alvin shouted out at her, and I burst into loud peals of laughter, a joyous sound completely inappropriate and out of place at a funeral home. I didn’t care. If I could have high-fived Alvin’s little birdy claws, I would have.
“Nailed it,” I said and stroked his head, ignoring the obvious displeasure blooming on Ellen’s face. I walked into the viewing room where circles of murmuring people stood stiffly in their darkest formal dress clothes. All eyes swung to me in one perfectly choreographed moment.
I caught glimpses of people that I recognized. Paulie and a few of the regulars at The Punch Line. My eyes darted and connected with Darlene’s, and the pity I saw there gutted me. A cluster of the women from the shelter stood in a circle, not as bright and shiny as they were the day of the makeovers now that they had to style their own hair.
I scanned and scanned the room for the only pair of eyes I wanted to see. Walking to the center of it like some kind of pathetic pirate with Alvin on my shoulder, I searched for her, and then the crowd parted. In my mind, it was more dramatic, like Moses parting the Red Sea, a biblical story we had dissected at youth group that I always found fascinating.
In my fertile and dramatic imagination, a spotlight kicked on and illuminated Cora. I blinked and blinked again, afraid she was a mirage. A thrill of hope sprung deep in my belly as a cascade of rainbows and prisms wavered down from floor to ceiling. I could see colors shifting and playing and briefly wondered if these were the auras weirdos at the metaphysical stores couldn’t stop yammering about. Tangoing with Cora was the most beautiful pale pink wash of light, concentrating into magenta. It swirled and danced, wrapping around her body that was clad in a black dress and long black boots with a heel. I stumbled toward her with both my arms open, tripping on the carpet as Alvin flapped away to safety. The first tears of relief moistened my cheeks.
“Freddie?” she said as she caught me when I pitched forward. “What have you done to yourself?” The concern twinged her words softly. “Are you high?”
I pulled her thin frame to me, clinging to her. My face nuzzled into her neck, and she was so soft and smelled like peaches and clean laundry. “I missed you so much. I’m so sorry, Cora.”
“Oh, Freddie,” she whispered into my ear as her hand rubbed my back. The soothing gesture was faintly reminiscent of the way Ma used to comfort me when I was a little child, which just made more tears rush to the surface.
“Do you forgive me?” I pulled back and beseeched her with my eyes while my forearms clung to hers, refusing to let go. “I need you to forgive me,” I pleaded. “Please, Cora.”
She studied me for a long moment, taking in my panicked and darting eyes, the sadness that had taken up residence in my body, weighing me down with such force I felt like I was drowning.
“I forgive you,” she finally said, and her words broke me. Like a dam with a crack, the guttural wails broke free, and I fell to my knees. Clinging to her calves, the scent of leather tingled my nostrils. I didn’t dare let go. I didn’t care that I was a mess. I didn’t give a shit I was making a scene. Everyone else in the room disappeared in that one moment, and Cora forgave me. She struggled to pull me to my feet again as her cheeks pinked.
I wiped at my nose with the corner of my sleeve, and the funeral director appeared at my elbow with a box of tissues. “We need you to take your seat so we can start the service.” Ellen pulled me gently away from Cora and led me between the chairs and to the front row. There was an urn in the front of the room set on a white decorative column next to several easels, and there were so many floral displays it looked like a flower shop had exploded. A sea of yellow roses covered every flat surface, and I sobbed, shaking and trembling.
Ma. I miss you, Ma, so much I can barely breathe.
A somber white-haired priest appeared in front of the solid oak podium and began the service. I sat stiffly in a cushioned chair, feeling alone in the crowd of people. With Cora sitting in the seat beside me, it was surreal. The funeral became a scene played out for my entertainment like a Broadway show. Twenty minutes into the service, the priest asked for people to come to the podium to share memories. I walked up, shaky and unsteady.
I pulled the microphone off the stand and held it to my face.
“Cremation. It’s weird. Am I right?” I blurted into the microphone. “I mean, you are condensed into nearly nothing. Your entire body can fit into that.” I waved at the urn as the audience shifted uncomfortably in their seats. “Talk about downsizing.” Alvin punctuated it with a whistle from his perch at the top of the bookcase.
“It’s pretty ironic that most people, Ma included, fear going to Hell, but then sign up to be cremated. Actually planning to be burned at the stake, if you really think about it. It’s kind of like a trial run of Hell.” I chuckled at my own joke. “It’s like trying Prime for seven days. No, thank you, I do not want to renew my membership.”
I tapped the microphone. “Is this thing on?” I looked down at my feet. “Tough crowd.” Murmurs began to rise. “My whole life, I wanted to make my mom proud of me. When everything exploded with the Funologist, Ma was so happy for me. I finally figured things out. I finally was going to be somebody—someone she could be proud of. It felt good. Better than good, it was amazing.” I paused and looked over at the urn. “As I am sure you all know, it didn’t last. Good things never seem to stick around for me. You can call it self-sabotage or failure to thrive or just bad decision making, and on some level, I guess all of those assessments are true.” I stopped suddenly, the words I needed to say choking me. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry for disappointing you again.” A stray tear slid down my cheek, and I brushed it away with a tight smile. “She’s the only woman who ever truly loved me, and now she’s gone.” More tears coursed down my cheeks. I surveyed the audience. I was losing them.
“Enough of that,” I dismissed, stuffing down my despair and shame. “Who’s ready to put the FUN back in this funeral?!” I shouted into the microphone. The words jolted the mourners, and they jumped in their chairs. My heartbeat pulsed in my ears, and I plunged back into my impromptu set.
“Make them laugh, asshole. This is your final performance. Go out on top.”
“People do some weird things with ashes nowadays. Have you heard about this? I could shoot her into the sky by preloading Ma into some memorial fireworks. I could have a tattoo artist add some of her ashes to the ink and give me a tattoo, or I could take pieces of her and compress her into a diamond.” I paused to let that sink in.
“Show of hands, ladies, who would be happy with an engagement ring made from your grandmother?” I paced to the other side of the room. “C’mon. No takers? What if Mee-Maw was a big woman, and we could squeeze a four-carat stone out of her? I have a feeling a few of you would be interested then.”
I looked into the crowd of widened eyes and heard a few groans, which only added fuel to the fire. “Seems to me like you have two choices, and they both suck. You can either take the fire and brimstone free trial, or you can opt for claustrophobia in a casket and be buried in the ground. Not sure which is worse. Seems like we could have a better recycling program than that. There are almost eight billion people on earth. I mean, eventually, we’re gonna run out of room.”
I paced to the other side of the room. I was getting heated, so I pulled off my shirt, and the room gasped. I had forgotten the stupid temporary tattoos Simone and I had scored at the gas station on one of our drug runs. They were fading and peeling away, giant ugly cartoons sprawled across my torso and arms. “Don’t act so offended. It’s the human body, a beautiful thing.” I paced back across to the other side of the room, spreading my attention out. You couldn’t let one side of the crowd feel more love. “This isn’t a striptease, Paulie. Don’t get aroused.” I picked up the shirt and swung it in circles above my head. “Or is it?” I leered into the microphone and savored the one weird laugh coming from the back of the room. Continuing to swing the shirt in a circle, I launched it into the first aisle, where it landed on an elderly woman who yanked it off and threw it on the floor with disgust.
“Mr. Angel.” Ellen, the controlling funeral director, appeared at my side, her hand outstretched, her fingers pinching for the microphone. “I think you should take your seat.”
“I’m not done.”
“I think you’ve done quite enough,” she scolded, and two larger men appeared at my sides as she pulled the microphone from my hand. Alvin squeaked in solidarity, becoming louder and more agitated as the men dragged me down the aisle.
“Alvin, my man. You’re the only one who understands me.” He flapped his wings faster and louder, whistling into the tension-filled air.
“Getting thrown out of your own mother’s funeral!” I shouted into the crowd. “Gotta be pretty messed up to pull that one off.” They shoved me down the aisle. “You have been amazing. I’m Freddie Angel, and remember to give your servers…” I paused then bellowed, “Just… the… tip!” Laughing hysterically, they yanked me toward the door and promptly handed me my shirt.
“Just the tip,” Alvin parroted back, making me laugh hysterically. “Just the tip,” he repeated.
“Do we need to call someone for you?” Ellen asked with what looked like genuine concern in her eyes. “You don’t seem stable.”
“Sweetheart, I ain’t ever been stable, and I’m not about to start now.” I pulled on the shirt and then the coat I was handed and walked out to the parking lot, sucking in the cold air while laughing hysterically, then I doubled over in pain. I ran to the car and slammed the door shut and sobbed, beating my head on the steering wheel. Gripping the rubber between my hands, I wailed in the car. Steaming up the windows, keening that sounded like a wounded animal came from my gut. Ugly tears mixed with snot and slobber mingled and descended down my face. I swiped at them with the sleeve of my coat.
“Go home. Finish it.”
“It’s over.”
“You’re washed up.”
“You’re done.”
I turned the key in the ignition, shifted into gear, and slammed down the gas pedal. Driving home as fast as possible, I had things to do.