Yesterday's News

first at Liz, then at what had drawn her attention. Coming across the grounds, perhaps forty yards away, was Gail Fearey, carrying her diapered son curled in a skinny arm. Fearey was running, a desperate, knock-kneed caricature of a punt-returner whose team is losing in the fourth quarter.
    Liz immediately hunched closer to Ida, getting a better grip. I moved around the grave as Almeida turned to see what the now-audible running was all about.
    Before I could get between Fearey and the grave, she started screaming, “Biiiiiitch! Murdering fuckin biiiiitch!”
    Tiger, who had been quiet till now, began to wail. I said, “Gail, please...“ and took her free arm gently.
    She wrestled away from me with surprising strength. Tearing off the child’s soiled diaper, Fearey flung the cloth onto the coffin itself.
    “You biiiitch! You fuckin biiiitch! The only fuckin thing I had, and you killed him! You fuckin biiiitch!”
    Almeida’s people moved with calm precision toward Gail. She felt the human net closing and whirled around, running back the way she came. When we didn’t pursue her, she stopped. Bending over at the ground, Fearey screamed, “biiiitch!” The baby’s weight nearly toppled her as she seemed to throw up. It was then run/stop/scream/heave at roughly ten-yard intervals until she ascended a low hill and disappeared from sight.
    I heard Peete’s voice say, “Christ, I need a drink.”

“The real shame of it all is the absence of creativity, don’t you think?”
    “How do you mean?” I said.
    “Well, consider it, good sir. ‘The Almeida Funeral Home.’ It’s flat, unappealing. Would you want to be buried from there?”
    I’d had enough vodka to think about it. Malcolm Peete used the gap to pour another triple into his glass. We’d both wanted a postmortem after Gail Fearey’s scene at the grave, and Peete even asked Liz Rendall and Arbuckle to join us. Liz begged off on the ground that she thought she should look after Ida. Arbuckle just begged off.
    “No.”
    Peete looked up from the bottle. “What’s that?”
    “I said no, I wouldn’t want to be buried from there.”
    “Of course you wouldn’t. Nobody would. Then again, by the time you have need of such services, the option is no longer yours. That’s why Madison Avenue has to step in. A niche needs filling.”
    “Don’t get you.”
    He set down his glass, spreading his hands. “Look, currently the choice of home is made by the survivors, correct?”
    “Correct.”
    “Well, that’s the problem. The survivors can’t very well be clever and buoyant about it. They have to show some respect for the deceased, as a result of which the mourners feel the same way, only more so. Everyone attends under this leaden shroud.”
    “And?”
    “And that’s where the advertising gurus are missing a bet. Don’t you see? Sell the services to the deceased before the demise! Reserve the package in advance, requiring a reasonable deposit so the home doesn’t get stuck for the buffet.”
    “Buffet.”
    “Right. Or the cocktails, the band, any of those touches. You plan it, you publicize it, and obviously you attend it, though your dance card will probably remain open.”
    “You plan your own funeral.”
    “And draw a list for invitations. Who knows better which people should be there than you do? Now it’s a free-for-all, gate-crashers galore. Restrict and refine, that’s the ticket. Only those you really want to enjoy themselves will benefit.”
    “Peete, that’s sick.”
    “Sicker than catering christenings and bar mitzvahs, weddings and anniversaries? All those events are benchmarks, my lad, benchmarks in a life. Why not a similarly anticipated blowout for the last benchmark of all?”
    “The funeral homes would never go along.”
    “Go along? They’d jump at it! The only markups they can take now are on containers and liners. Think of champagne, pate, and caviar. Plus the zing it would put into their commercials. No more somber dirges in the background. Instead, you’d hear some celebrity endorser announce, ‘And now, for Dead to the World, a subsidiary of Out Like a Light, Inc., the largest chain of funeral spas in the East, the hard-rocking sounds of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful—’ ”
    “Could we try something else for a while?”
    Peete’s features, till now theatrical, drooped back to normal. “Sorry. Always thought it was better to treat the passing of a loved one as an absurdity. Muffles it, somehow.”
    I