The Joy of Funerals, page 3
People start crying and gasping while awkwardly trying to follow the robber’s command. Bodies drop to the floor, jewelry and belts clink on the hard linoleum as a food domino effect takes place on the conveyor belts. Water bottles, containers of milk and orange juice, cans of soda topple onto packages of sliced turkey and bologna which in turn fall on chips and pretzels, all of which make a crunching, gurgling noise.
I, too, get down on the ground but I can’t help looking up, trying to sneak a peek at my newest beau. I close my eyes and see pools of blue as I wonder if he’d be good in bed.
“He’s kind of cute, don’t you think?” I ask my shopping pal, whose body is sprawled out on the floor like a dog, arms and legs extended in all directions.
“Are you crazy?” she whispers back. Then, craning her neck, “Which one?”
“The one on the right,” I whisper, sticking an M&M in my mouth. “Can you see him?”
“The one with the blue eyes?”
I nod and offer her some candy. She declines.
“It’s his fault. He should be wearing some kind of mask or stocking.”
She nods, agreeing.
I hear a few sniffles and lots of heavy breathing. In another aisle someone has the hiccups. The sound of moving feet, of cash being stuffed in a bag, and a shadow or two reflecting off the window are the only evidence that the men are still here.
“Maybe this is just one of those things that happen in life-or-death situations,” I suggest to my comrade. “Like those people who suddenly gain enormous strength and lift cars and other heavy machinery in order to save themselves and their loved ones.”
Someone shushes me, someone else clears their throat. I lower my voice a little. “Of course, I’d have to get his number, maybe contact the police, see if—”
“Do you mind?” she snaps.
“Oh, sure. Sorry.” I glance back and she’s assumed a praying position, hands pressed together, forming a thin teepee, her lips touching the tips of her fingers and her knees tucked into her body. She’s probably thinking of a relative or her cat who’s waiting for her to come home with cans of Fancy Feast in lemon salmon, or liver with onions.
I hear the sound of heavy footsteps. Then all goes quiet.
I look up and find Blue-Eyes leaning over my lane, staring at me. I wonder how long he’s been standing there. Our eyes meet. I stop breathing.
His dark hair, parted in the middle, falls gracefully to the sides. His two-day-old beard growth, perhaps a small attempt at covering himself, outlines his angular jaw. I give him my best flirtatious grin as a loud bang comes from the left. Not a gunshot, the sound of something falling. I jerk my head involuntarily but see nothing. When I look back up, Blue-Eyes is gone. Confused, I turn to see what my shopping friend is doing. She’s still in prayer formation.
The next thing I know, he’s huddled over me. Chills race up my spine as he bends down.
“What you got there, little lady?”
His breath is hot on my hand, his hair smells of almond.
I open my fist and reveal the crushed package of half-eaten M&M’s and my sweaty check.
“I’ll take that,” he says, squatting down next to me. His hand touches mine as he removes the contents from my fingers. His black ribbed turtleneck lies just over his waist. It’s tight enough to tell he has a washboard stomach. His jeans, a perfect length, hit the front of his black boot just so.
I think about writing my number down on a dirty napkin I spot on the floor, but before I have a chance to look for a pen, the front man yells, breaking our moment.
“You people did good. Today, everyone lives.” His anger is gone. In its place is a sadistic kind of joy.
As if hearing a dog whistle, Blue-Eyes stands up, grabs a canvas bag stuffed with cash, and follows his friends out the door without firing a shot.
“Are you in the book?” I scream, pulling myself up off the floor.
By now, everyone in the store has turned their attention to me, staring in bewilderment. “Sorry, aftershock flow of emotion,” I say, trying to defend myself, still high on adrenaline, heart pounding, lungs gulping for air.
Minutes later, four police officers arrive. Two get statements and speak with eyewitnesses, while the other pair calm people down, assuring them they’re safe. Excitement hovers in the air, mixing with the smell of shoppers’ perfumed sweat and freshly baked bread. I pass hysterical customers, women clutching their handbags and jewelry, holding onto them for dear life; others are trying to collect themselves. I see one woman reapply her lipstick, fingers still shaking so that she looks like she’s been struck by lightning.
“Officer McDermott,” I say in my most professional voice, hand extended, looking up from his nametag and into his face, ‘’I’m with The Grocery Store Tribune. We’re a small newspaper catering to the major supermarkets and the mom-and-pop stores. I was wondering if you knew anything about the men who did this. A local? Maybe their crib? Any leads would be helpful.”
He half smiles at me, then breaks into a hearty laugh, revealing a space between his front teeth. Without further discussion, he walks away.
That night I turn on the news, anxious to hear an updated report on my new man. To my disappointment, there’s no mention at all. The whole world, except for a handful of hungry mid morning shoppers, has no idea the holdup ever took place. Some of the glow dissipates and all I’m left with is the memory of an event I can’t actually prove happened, a dream you’re not sure you’ve had.
I look out my window, cigarette in hand, favorite flannel shirt on, and stare into the cool darkness, wishing there was someone to call. Gwen is at a lawyers’ convention in Chicago and if I called Jed, he’d just say I was looking for a reason to phone, a poor attempt to get back together, and dismiss the robbery story as fiction. I’m tempted to dial up my mother. I picture her sitting in her plush living room, engrossed in one of her magazines, Spectacular Quilts, calculating what thread she needs to buy at the store, half listening to me as I relay today’s incident. The one person I want to talk to is my father. I resurrect his face, his bushy eyebrows and kind smile; then I think about Blue-Eyes. I picture him counting his loot at some dirty hole-in-the-wall bar, sitting in the back, toasting today’s successful score with his partners. Maybe he’s sitting in a rocking chair, feeling waves of guilt as he waits in a paranoid funk, gun already cocked in shooting position, thinking that someone is watching. Or perhaps he’s standing by a window, staring out into the city, cigarette in hand, flannel shirt on, anticipating his next heist.
The phone rings. Startled, I answer it, thinking maybe it’s in the news after all. Maybe they just got a late start. You can’t cover all of New York at once.
“Hello?” I say, trying to sound upbeat.
“Hello.” The voice is raspy, full, and somehow familiar.
There’s a long pause and a buzzing.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“You ate all the red ones,” he says.
My heart stops as I search for my voice. I practically drop the phone in my excitement. “Yes, well, I didn’t know I’d be sharing.”
‘’I’d like to return them to you. I felt a little bad for taking the whole bag.”
He suggested we meet at Café Fiorello’s in Soho. I dress in all black. Black turtleneck, black corduroys, black belt. My hope is to make Blue-Eyes feel at ease. I was going to wear a girlie dress, but he seemed like the type to be attracted to a tomboy and not some squeamish tart who’s afraid of a little blood. I’m not sure he’ll actually show—a man with a schedule as busy as his can change in a second. Especially when you’re wanted by the law.
A tingly, nervous sensation fills my body as I wait for him. I haven’t been this excited since I met Jed, a thirty-eight-year-old bartender, on a skydiving excursion. We sat together during orientation. He had the unshaven masculinity thing going on that I found terribly attractive. Every time he’d help me with my pack and click the safety clips together, I’d get weak in the knees and my throat would go dry. We shared our first kiss before he dove. I tasted his saliva as I watched him twirling down, a white petal, free-falling through the air.
Jed was always testing the boundaries of his mortality. He drove racing cars without a helmet, went on experimental carnival rides that were still being tested for kinks, drank and ate dairy products way past their expiration date. That was until two weeks ago, when I came home and found him packing his belongings. This wasn’t the kind of life he wanted anymore, and I wasn’t the type of person he wanted to be around. He’d lost his flair for adventure once he joined AA. Those damn steps and all that coffee quelled his invincible inner child.
Before Jed, I dated Bruce, a deep-sea diver who moonlighted as a part-time hitman. I don’t think he ever killed anyone. Mostly he spied on people, followed them around and took an abundance of notes. He used to let me tag along. We’d have special names. I was Quick Silver, he, Crude Dude. He earned the name because he was always cursing and yelling obscenities. The smallest inconveniences would set him off: dry cleaning that wasn’t ready on time, coffee at Starbucks was too expensive, people who were too stupid. It was very exciting to watch his face turn red and his nostrils flare, as if at any minute he’d have a heart attack.
My sister Gwen and I met him while vacationing at Club Med in Cancun. He was our snorkeling instructor, and he and I would kiss underwater amongst the coral reefs, exotic fish swimming past us. He had short, blond hair, wore navy blue shirts that always appeared as though he’d accidentally shrunk them in the dryer, and had the most muscular arms and beautifully built body I had ever seen. His best feature by far was his tattoo of a speared shark with blood spurting out. When he flexed his arm, it danced.
Suddenly, I feel someone standing behind me. I spin around to find Blue-Eyes staring at me. He smiles and his eyes seem to spin, like marbles swirling across a linoleum floor. He sits and reaches into the pocket of his leather bomber jacket. For a second, I think he’s going to take out his gun and place it on the table. Instead, he reveals a two-pound bag of M&M’s.
“Just wanted to replace what I took,” he says, sliding it to me. We stare at each other. I’m intoxicated.
“So, is this how you meet all of your girlfriends?” I ask, fingering the edge of the candy bag.
“Sort of, since we don’t take any hostages.” His face is stone serious.
“I was kidding.”
“Oh.” His expression falls back into a mellow look, face open. “I’m afraid I’m a little nervous.” I watch his hands play with the sugar packets on the table. They look soft, his nails clean and buffed. I even see some clear polish. There’s a softness in his eyes, too. A relaxed feel about his body. Even the skin on his face looks smooth and freshly shaven. “I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t scared of us.”
A warmth runs through me, and I feel as if I’ve won an award.
The waitress appears. I order a double espresso, Blue-Eyes asks for decaf.
“Coffee makes me jumpy,” he says apologetically, once our drinks are set in front of us. I nod understandingly. Sure, maybe he wants to be fresh and alert for his big night. Too shaky and that gun will fall right out of his hand. Or worse, he could become trigger-happy.
“It’s actually a relief. I have to lie about what I do to most girls, and when I finally tell the truth, they disapprove of my career path.”
I bat my eyes. “I’m not most girls.”
We stand outside the coffee shop. People going in, coming out, all look like a blur as I stare into his face, wondering if I will ever see him again.
“What’s your name?” I ask. I tilt my head, and somewhere in the back of my brain I can hear the theme to Mission Impossible.
He’s quiet for a second, probably not sure whether he can trust me with such personal information, information I might be forced to give in order to help incriminate him later on.
“It’s Mark,” he finally spits out.
“Mark?’’
“Yeah.”
“Your birth name is Mark?”
The tingling and music stop. I must look disappointed because he lifts up my chin with his thumb and index finger. Standing in the sunlight, he looks like a superhero.
“You were expecting me to say Three-Finger-Lou?”
“No. Well,” I look at the ground, then back into his eyes. “Yeah.”
“It’s not like my parents prepared ahead of time for my line of work.”
I nod, knowing he’s right. “Mind if I call you Blue-Eyes?”
He smiles, bends his head toward me, and kisses me on the lips. During the subway ride home, I say his name over and over. Mark. Mark. Mark. I want to get comfortable with it, like someone’s last name you try out while you’re dating. Fisher, my first serious boyfriend before the deep-sea diver—his last name was Listenstein. Gail Listenstein. Gail Marshal Listenstein. I’d repeated it endlessly till it stopped sounding like a mouthwash.
My mother blames my flair for abnormal adventure on my father, a tall Danny DeVito type who’d truly mastered the art of living. I was hooked the minute he and I played spy versus spy. We’d roll around on the floor; he’d pin me down and dare me to fight back. I’d stare into his eyes and wish I were stronger.
This roughhousing irritated my mother greatly. She’d come out from the kitchen, hands wet, dishtowel attached to her apron, to see what all the screaming was about. “Stop it, Al,” she’d say. “You’re going to turn her into a boy.” Or, “I had girls, Albert. I’m sorry, but that’s what they are.” Then she’d turn away, muttering under her breath, “I should have divorced him a long time ago.”
He loved playing elaborate games of hide-and-seek which covered a one-mile radius and lasted for hours. Once he stayed hidden for almost two days. For thirty hours straight I combed the neighborhood, knocked on doors, and called out his name, begging him to come out of his hiding spot. I refused to go home, fearful that something terrible had happened—maybe he broke his leg running, perhaps he was stuck and passed out from lack of oxygen or blood circulation and when we would find him, he’d be brain-damaged and drooling. For a moment, I thought he’d left us, that he’d finally had enough of my mother and decided to have the adventure he’d always wanted but couldn’t since he had children who only held him back.
Our neighbor finally found him when a Frisbee slid under their house. There he was, curled up in the leaves, reading Lord of the Flies. I tried not to cry when he emerged. “It’s all right, Gail,” he said, holding me tightly, “I was here the whole time.” For the next two weeks, I followed him around the house, never letting him out of my sight.
My father would tell us ghost stories late at night, Gwen and me in our beds, his face illuminated by a single flashlight, the bulb painted red to give a bloody effect. Other times he’d read from the local paper, explaining the disaster of the day, or share biographies about people who had committed heinous crimes like Charles Manson, the Boston Strangler, Jack the Ripper. Very often he’d pass out on the floor in the space between our beds. My mother would find him in the morning, covered by our blankets I’d thrown over him.
For most men, my lust for action is a temporary turn-on, a kind of viral infection that lasts one-to-three months and eventually goes away. Fisher holds the endurance record—half a year. We met in my civil justice class at NYU. He reminded me of my father—same love of gore, same mischievous smirk. He was studying criminology and we’d watch old Law & Order reruns while we studied, kissing during commercials or when someone would make a huge discovery. We’d go camping and fishing. At night, curled up in our sleeping bags we’d zipped together, tent illuminated by the dull light of the lantern, we’d tell ghost stories, just like my father and I had done. Fisher’s father was a war hero, and he’d describe amazing tales about life in the trenches, men with body parts that got blown off, skin that hung off bloody limbs.
“What do you tell people you do for a living?” I ask Blue-Eyes during our second date, as we sip drinks in a crowded bar on the Upper West Side.
“I’m in customer relations.”
We both smile. This is our first shared moment. It feels wonderful, like receiving a lavish box of Valentine’s Day chocolates.
“How often do you and your co-workers—”
‘’I’m not allowed to say.”
“Oh, of course. For my own protection, right?”
“No, that’s not it.” He plays with his pink umbrella and swirls his daiquiri around with the straw before taking another sip. “That time in the Food Emporium was only my second job.”
I look at the bar.
“But we’re planning something really big,” he adds quickly. “It’s very dangerous.”
I squeal with delight. “Tell me more,” I beg.
“I’m afraid that’s all I can say at the moment.” He holds up his hands, making him look like a scale with floating blue eyes.
“You don’t trust me?”
“No, that’s not it. That’s just all I know.”
We wait for our table, wait for something to say. When I see two women get up from their stools, I make a beeline for them. As I do, a guy practically knocks me over and slides onto the leather seat with his date.
“Excuse me,” I say, looking him in the eyes. He’s a stubby man with a thick mustache, dressed in a jean jacket and matching pants. His shirt is unbuttoned to his navel and he has a gold chain which reads: I’m still # 1. His date looks similar, except she’s taller. “I think these were ours.”
“Not anymore.” He and his date laugh, their backs swiveling to my face.
“Boy, you have no class. What kind of guy is so desperate that he has to take a seat from a woman?” I say in a loud voice, looking for Blue-Eyes, knowing he’ll handle this. “Honey?”
Blue-Eyes walks over to us. “That’s okay, no problem,” he says, squeezing my arm and leading me off to the side. “Sorry for the bother.”
“Those were our seats,” I point out, martini glass in my extended hand. “You didn’t have to take that from him. You’re a man of power, a don’t fuck-with-me kind of guy.”
