finally I said,

“I can’t stand this

anymore, I’m going in

for a drink.”

Danny and Harry

followed me

in.

soon a few others

followed.

“lot of guys out there,”

said the bartender.

“yeah,” said Harry, “but

where are the

women?”

“the women don’t

want anything to do

with bums like us,”

said Danny.

we each had a couple

of drinks.

it took maybe 15 or

20 minutes.

then I went to the

door and looked

out.

everybody was

gone.

I came back and

sat down.

“wonder where they

went?”

“strangest morning of

my life,” said

Danny.

“yeah,” said

Harry.

we sat there thinking

about it.

then Danny started

talking about how his

parents were going to

throw him out for

too much

drinking.

Jim the bartender

stood there polishing

glasses

and things were back

to normal,

even to wondering

who was going to

buy the next

round.

a $15 boy and a $1500 casket

We can get you a nice boy with

soprano voice to sing behind a purple

curtain for just

$15, and I say

all right

all right, and my uncle says,

men like mahogany, you ought to get him the

mahogany, and I think,

doesn’t he realize that this man is dead?

all right, I say.

the mahogany is $1500.

a day or so later

outside the parlor

getting a coffee

I meet my father’s best friend

who tells me all his

troubles, and I say,

look, Bert, hate to interrupt you, but

I think I’m late, and

I run across the street

with Bert behind me,

and sure, they were waiting for me,

and I sat down and they

began.

they had the lid open on the coffin

and my $ 15 boy began to

sing, but I’d always hated my father,

still did, and then they lined up

to walk past his

coffin. I was the last, being the

son.

I should spit on his phoney face,

I thought, but then his girlfriend

who was right ahead of me

started weeping, moaning and

lifted that dead head up out of the coffin

and started kissing that dead head,

those dead lips.

well, the old boy had finally turned out to be

a lady’s man.

I really didn’t care

but I reached over and pulled the heads apart,

the dead one and the living one,

pushed her off, watched the old man’s head

flop back into the casket,

not so nice now,

the rouge and powder smeared,

the cotton in the jaws pushed around,

lines and age showing, I knew I’d soon be dead too

but what a hell of a way to do it,

a $15 boy and a $1500 casket

when everybody knew what a son-of-a-bitch he

had been,

and when I walked down the steps

there she was

after kissing the dead head of that son-of-a-bitch,

she grabbed me, kissed me, sobbing

she tongued me

managing to say,

you look just like him, and

that made me mad