The Eulogy

“Good afternoon to you all, and bienvenidos.”

His voice reverberated slightly through the amplifiers. He held the mike a bit farther from his mouth to correct the problem.

“It is indeed heartwarming to see so many faces here. As you all know, we are gathered today to commemorate the life and acknowledge the passing of our beloved friend and mayor, Alfredo Hightower.”

He paused and glanced over at Isabel to confirm that the volume was right. She nodded.

“I originally wanted this eulogy to be a testament to Freddy’s many noble attributes. But, unfortunately, I was told that I had to speak for at least three to five minutes, soo…”

He held up his wrist to his face, as if checking his watch, and glanced over at Isabel. She was grinning widely.

“Those of you who knew him well remember what a joker he was, even when the joke was directed at himself and his own shortcomings. Come to think of it, most of his jokes were self-deprecating, because he was his own best source for material—a veritable treasure trove of vulnerabilities just waiting to be mocked and ridiculed.”

Faint laughter rippled through the group.

“Okay, for instance, everybody here knows what a penny-pincher Freddy was. He made Jack Benny look like Andrew Carnegie. You know, I said this would be a heartwarming experience, and I think you’ll agree. Do you feel it—that warmth inside? Or maybe that’s because we actually put a full shot of tequila in your margaritas.”

Subdued laughter continued.

“Now, I don’t believe the vicious rumor that Freddy watered down his drinks, but, if you ask Manny, he’ll tell you that when Freddy was training him to tend bar, he suggested that an eyedropper is a bartender’s most valuable instrument.”

Hearty laughter rippled through the crowd.

“I find it supremely ironic that Freddy’s claim to fame was that this bar served Tom Mix the Bloody Maria that killed him. I do believe that Tom Mix did stop by here for a morning libation. But consensus opinion has it that he died racing his way up to Florence, where he knew he could find one that actually contained some alcohol.”

Pada-dop, chunk! Ray’s impulsive imitation of a vaudevillian snare-drum rim shot executed with finger pops on the guitar top was spot-on. Jay Pee turned toward Ray and bowed slightly.

“Thank you, maestro, for the punctuation. Ladies and gentlemen, Ray Cienfuegos has been gracing us with the musical backdrop for this somber occasion.”

Thunderous applause ensued as Isabel rolled her eyes. The eulogy was becoming too much a performance—too reminiscent of a celebrity roast for her liking. Aycock leaned back on his stool to join in the applause and barely recovered from tipping completely over.

“Ray,” Jay Pee continued as the applause fell off, “I don’t have to tell you that Freddy was pleased that you’ve become such a local success—pleased in the pocketbook, that is. But you realize he didn’t hire you just for your talent, don’t you?” Ray’s perplexed expression was in earnest. “He told me he just couldn’t resist hiring an entertainer who couldn’t keep an eye on his own tip jar.”

The crowd groaned their disapproval at the cruel joke at Ray’s expense and a smear on the deceased’s character. But Ray, grinning like a cat eating hair out of a brush, waved to the crowd, signifying his good-natured acceptance of the humor. And so Jay Pee finished mining the vein.

“C’mon, we’re talking about the real Freddy here, people—not some folk hero. Oh, he quite candidly told me that managing a blind musician was an agent’s dream. Of course, I’m not suggesting that Freddy was doing a little extra skimming in Ray’s case.” He paused. “But then, he did tell me that ‘the kid couldn’t tell a sawbuck from a C-note if it was printed in braille.’”

Pada-dop, chunk! Ray’s vaudeville knock-off absolved the crowd of their uneasiness with Jay Pee’s edgy humor, and they laughed long and hard.

“I see that most of his devoted staff is here, wearing that shared look of disbelief on their shocked faces. Shocked at their patrón’s untimely death? Umm, I really think it’s because I just informed them that, yes, with Freddy’s passing there will, no doubt, be a substantial wage increase.”

Pada-dop, chunk! The audience was laughing almost nonstop.

“Let’s not overlook Freddy’s better attributes. His entrepreneurial spirit was legendary and an inspiration to us all. He once told me that there is a fine line between a brilliant salesman and a weasel in the henhouse. Which brings to mind the time just last October—it was during that anxious month we now call the Cuban missile crisis—that he angled the most marvelous con…er, conversion of his entire career. It seems that the purchasing agent for his construction business had made a procurement error which rendered Freddy the owner of an excess of some half dozen concrete septic tanks. But Freddy—always on the prowl to change misfortune into opportunity—seized upon the prevailing angst of the hour by pawning off…er, characterizing, the giant concrete vessels as atomic bomb shelters. You remember this? He easily unloaded…I mean, conveyed, the surplus poop tanks—pardon me, sewage receptacles—for twice their market value to hungry consumers whose neighbors were clamoring for more.” The group erupted with laughter. “Okay, most of you are laughing, but some of you—I think six of you at least—are cringing, because you’re still trying to find the door to the damn things.”

The mirth that was resounding so loudly throughout the room at the questionably accurate tale made Isabel frown her disapproval at Jay Pee. Sure, a couple of jokes to lighten the mood was a good approach, but he was really getting carried away with it. It was supposed to be a memorial service, not the debut of Shecky Morton’s stand-up lounge-lizard routine, and, for her, his extended caper was no longer amusing. With one eye constantly trained on her every facial nuance, he sensed her displeasure and tacitly agreed that it was time to change the tone.

“I’ve had a bit of fun at our old friend’s expense, but I know he’s looking down and laughing along. Looking down? Freddy? You may wonder about that. Speaking of which, if you missed Freddy’s funeral Mass earlier, don’t worry. He missed it too—mostly because there wasn’t one. Okay, it’s no secret that our friend and mayor was never a familiar face down at Saint Jerome’s. In fact, when he showed up at Mass just last week, I had to prescribe a double dose of heart medication for Father Miguel as a consequence.”

He shot a look at Isabel that he hoped said, Look, I can’t pull an instant U-turn when I’m going ninety miles an hour. People will get whiplash.

“As his closest friend and confidante, I can tell you unequivocally that he was a believer. I know that not by his not-so-regular attendance in church, but by his anonymous acts of kindness and self-sacrifice. Yes, that’s right. Freddy contributed generously to several worthy charities. You wouldn’t know that because he always kept his generosity a secret—didn’t want to spoil the Scrooge myth, I suppose. And, as mayor, he worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help improve our town and our lives. Where do you think our favorite gathering place, Pioneer Park, came from? Freddy donated that land and obtained a federal grant to create that much-loved sanctuary. I urged him to name it after himself, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Again, I think he was protecting the Jack Benny image because the irony brought him a chuckle.”

Or maybe it was something else, Isabel wondered to herself. Wasn’t it our Lord who told us that when we give not to let the right hand know what the left is doing?

“By now,” Jay Pee continued, “you may be wondering how it is that I was allowed these glimpses of his inner life that I’ve been describing. Many of you know that Freddy and I were boyhood friends. But I’m going to tell a short story concerning my friend and me—an event that explains the depth of our friendship. Of course, there were plenty of those cliché occasions where we stuck up for each other in the midst of some threat or other—a bullying classmate or a particularly oppressive nun or brother. But there was one defining event that cemented us together for life.”

Jay Pee was concerned that he was on the edge of going too long, but a quick scan of the room made it clear that every pair of eyes and ears were keenly fixed upon him, particularly those of Isabel Cienfuegos Hightower.

“We were thirteen, buddies and classmates at St. Mary’s School. It was mid-May, as I recall. We were riding our bicycles home from school. Freddy had a sleek new bicycle—fire-engine red with streamers coming out of the handlegrips—a real dream bike that put my rusty old two-wheeler to shame. We always took the shortcut along the canal-bank road up by the Vasquez orange grove—that stretch of canal near the diversion gates. Being late spring, the canal was really full, and the sluices at the diversion were running full force. As typical thirteen-year-old boys, we would dare each other to skirt the edge of the canal bank as we rode along. As you can guess, on this particular day, we pushed the envelope a bit too far. The dirt under my rear wheel crumbled, and I was pitched into the drink, bike and all. Man, I shiver to this day when I think about how cold that water was!”

An empathetic murmur from the crowd rose and fell.

“Well, I was wearing this pair of big clunky desert boots as a defense against snakes and scorpions. Needless to say, when I hit the water, I sank like a stone. I may as well have been wearing cement overshoes. Now, the undertow immediately began moving me toward the diversion gates at a very alarming rate. You see, we all knew that both of those two big sluice gates were raised only about a foot at bottom—just enough to allocate the proper amount of water to each of the two secondary canals they fed, but too narrow to allow the passage of a body, even that of a skinny kid like myself. That’s why that particular stretch of canal was avoided even by the most foolhardy of swimmers. I was backpedaling along the bottom, but that was pretty useless. My feet were slipping over the slimy rocks on the canal bed. I soon lost hope, prayed a silent Hail Mary, and resigned myself to my fate as I was pulled ever faster toward those sucking sluices.”

The room held its collective breath in suspense as Jay Pee paused.

“When I didn’t surface right away, Freddy instantly grasped the desperate nature of my predicament. He immediately kicked off his shoes and jumped into the middle of the shrinking distance between me and the gates. He dove down, somehow finding me in that muddy swirl and, just few feet short of the sluice, pushed me upward above the force of the undertow. My head broke the surface, and I took a life-saving breath of air. Freddy’s upward heaving of my body, of course, pushed his own down into the bottom-hugging rush of water. Just as the gentler downstream current at the surface delivered me to the salvation of the gatehead, Freddy’s legs were sucked into the narrow opening of the sluice and, predictably, he became stuck at the hips. Now, ironically, I was saved, but I was sure my friend was a goner.”

At that point, a glass hit the floor and shattered, breaking the silence that ensued as Jay Pee again paused to take a breath and gather his emotions. Annoyed pairs of eyes were cast in Aycock’s direction as he stooped to pick up the pieces, then the audience focused once again on the eulogist.

“Then,” Jay Pee continued, “as I scrambled up onto the concrete gangway, certain that Freddy was drowning and powerless to do anything about it, a true miracle caught my attention. Apparently, the ditch boss who maintained the gates had absentmindedly left the chain on the control wheel unlocked. I dashed over and struggled to turn the wheel. The big iron screw that raises and lowers the gate was pretty rusty, and it took all the might that a scrawny kid could muster, but I got it to move. I guessed that turning it clockwise would raise the gate, and my guess turned out to be right. I saw a lump of flesh and torn clothing bob up in the white water on the downstream side of the sluice. Freddy, or at least his body, had shot through. I can’t express right now the overwhelming sense of relief that seized me when I saw him clawing his way up the near-side canal bank. I raced over to him. He was pretty scraped up, but still in one piece. He was still huffing to get his breath back, but he spoke up nevertheless, and I strained to hear over the roar of the rushing water the profound utterance of one who had just experienced a near-death experience: ‘Helluva backhanded way to rig yourself for a new bike, wasn’t it?’ he gasped between breaths. We laughed until we cried, both of us overcome with the joy of just being alive.

“We made a pact that afternoon never to tell this story, but, given the circumstances, I think Freddy would approve of what I just divulged. You see, it tells a lot about the value and the nature of our friendship. But, more to the point, it’s a testimony to Freddy’s true character. Despite of all his flaws, I’ll always remember him as the kid who risked—no, for all intents, sacrificed—his life to save mine. I’ll always love Freddy as my brother, and, behind all the joking, my heart grieves that he has been taken from us…from me…too soon.”

My God, what have I done? Isabel’s mind suddenly cried out in silent self-reproach, as the words of Christ in John’s Gospel came crashing in: Greater love has no one than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends.

“I’ll wrap this up with one last quick thing—the icing on the cake of this remembrance,” Jay Pee choked out, fighting back the tears. “Lest anyone here take Freddy’s Ebenezer Scrooge persona too seriously—I should mention that his widow and his nearest blood relative approve—his last request regarding the disbursement of his estate will be honored. All holdings will be divided between his two favorite charities: Saint Vincent DePaul Society and Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital. All holdings, that is, with the exception of the cantina, which will be conveyed to his faithful servant, Manny de la Torre.”

A surge of applause arose as the entire throng stood for an extended ovation. It was hard to tell if they were cheering Freddy’s memory or Jay Pee’s eloquence, they were both so intertwined. The good doctor modestly bowed his head and waited for the acclaim to die away.

“I now relinquish the microphone to any of you to say a few words about Freddy.”

Thunderous applause sounded again as he strode toward the bar where Isabel was waiting, tears streaming down her blushing cheeks. Aycock rose from his stool as Jay Pee drew near.

“That was wonderful!” Isabel cried over the commotion.

Aycock opened his mouth, but turned toward the bar and vomited into his upturned Stetson.

Jay Pee placed a hand on the deputy’s shoulder as he retched once more into the hat.

“So, was it my speech or the vermouth?”