A Kansas City Funeral

Skip this is portion of the blog if you're easily bored, or if you haven't made comments on previous posts. Ok, thanks to those of you who have dutifully left comments and lifted my spirits. I appreciate the hell out of it.

To the meat: Ray says my blog is boring. I'm not disagreeing, however I offer the following story in an effort to liven up the content of this page. If you are easily offended by swear words or other explicit language, skip this post and read the ones about recess or Bambi.

* Author's note: The following tale is based on true events. Not the sort of "true events" they base 9/11 movies on... rather, events that actually happened, for the most part. Names may have been changed to protect the drunk and irresponsible. - GG


I can't say I was surprised when I walked into the living room and saw a woman being gagged with an 8-ball as two men ejaculated onto her face. Sure, it was just an old porno tape, and not the sort of thing you'd expect to find somebody watching approximately two hours before his dad's funeral, but I was back in Kansas City, and I more or less suspend my expectations when I come home.
My friend Brian was on the couch to my left, and though a sheet was tucked up almost under his chin, I knew he hadn't been to sleep yet. He stared at the TV contemplatively, with his arms folded behind his head. My friend Jimmy was passed out in a chair to Brian's left, still wearing the nice clothes he wore to the wake last night. Four kittens and three cats darted in and out of the corners, behind the furniture, under the table.
"'What's up, man?" Brian asked me, making no move to pause the show, or turn the volume down for that matter.
I shrugged.
"Nothing, just wanted to make sure you were up and dressed. I've got your shirt and coat out in my car."
We had attended the wake for Brian's dad a little more than 12 hours ago. His father, Kirk, had killed himself early Monday morning, when he accidently smashed into a guard rail on the highway. Police said he was on his way home from the bar, driving too fast, too drunk, etc.
To say Kirk had a drinking problem would be like telling a six year-old that the universe is "really big." A child's mind is grossly unequipped for handling the comparative distances, in much the same way a person who's never witnessed true alcoholism can't fully grasp the breadth and depth a to which a person in it throes can sink to.
Kirk was a blackhole, capable of engulfing all forms of booze. The true tragedy of it all was that, in his day, he had been among the best and the brightest, a decorated veteran of Vietnam, well-read, kind.
Although I hadn't known him too well – in the four years I'd been friends with Brian, Kirk was only out of jail for maybe five months, and spent the rest of that time locked up for DUIs – it was obvious the disease took an incredible toll on him.
He'd only been out for about six months before he careened into that guard rail and got ejected from his pickup.
I read about the accident on the Kansas City Star's web page. I called my friend Lee to make sure it was true.
"Yup," he told me, as he and other members of our old clique sat trying to console Brian. "Things are fucked up here."
Things were fucked up when I got to the wake too, but in a strange and familiar sort of way.
We'd spent a good portion of our high school days drinking and raising hell together, and though it's been almost five years since the last of us graduated, things haven't changed as much as you'd think they would have.
While I moved away to college, my friends seem stuck in a perpetual three-day bender, an unbroken string of 30-packs of Natty Light, whiskey rages, which usually broke into pointless violence and weirdness.
The wake was no different.
By the end of the two-hour visitation, we'd all taken turns escorting Brian to Kirk's casket in packs, shielding him from the other elderly visitors, who were too polite to protest as he fitted his father with his favorite hat, his aviator sunglasses. He tucked in a fifth of Jim Bean, a pack of smokes, a lighter, some pot, and a Stephen King paperback.
When somebody pointed out that we'd left nothing for Kirk to smoke out of, Jimmy did his best to reassure us all that another trip to the gas station wouldn't be necessary.
"Don't sweat it man," he said earnestly. "God will have some papers."
We left the funeral home and headed for the pool hall. The pounding of beers and the crack of tightly racked 9-ball game provided comfort and stability after those awkward hours in the chapel.
We split into groups, and I elected to go back to Lee's place, rather than follow Brian, Jimmy and the others to Westport and the bars. Lee screamed at some girls walking into the poolhall as we drove out of the parking lot, howling about the "lemony-freshness" of white people in general. I could only shake my head and laugh. Typical Kansas City.
I promised to pick him up in the morning, and to keep his shirt and jacket clean, unwrinkled.
I got a phone call at 8 a.m. from Brian. I could tell by his voice he was strung out on something.
"Hey man, come by at 9 a.m. and make sure I'm up."
No problem.


TO BE CONTINUED...