The Complete Collection. William Wharton

it doesn’t faze Joan; she smiles and nods.

      ‘All right, we’ll take this one just as it is, paint and all.’

      She grabs my arm and we follow him to the office again. As we go along the narrow corridor, I fall back and take a closer look into one of those rooms. There’s a casket on a little platform, surrounded by vases of flowers. There are indirect lights and baby spots on the casket and it’s open. An old lady, dressed in orchid, is sleeping in the casket. There’s a smell of beeswax and floor polish. I run back out and catch up.

      We sit down. He opens his pad and writes in the price of the casket.

      ‘And where shall the services be held? We have lovely chambers for private services here in our own chapel.’

      I’m completely boggled again. That little smiling lady did me in; but Joan sticks with it.

      ‘We’ll have a funeral mass at Saint Augustine’s and then the burial will be at Holy Cross.’

      He looks at her. What kind of a Jewish funeral is this? I half expect him to start talking embalming again. But he’s given up; we could ask about hiring a five-piece band and he’d go along. There’s more talk concerning the hearse, the number of limousines and a police escort. I’m not fighting anymore. It’s going to be a funeral like any other funeral and Joan’s right, that’s the way Dad would like it.

      The total bill comes to something over a thousand dollars. That was the maximum we’d set when we talked with Mother. We plunk down a two-hundred-dollar deposit and say we’ll notify him when Dad dies. He also wants us to let him know soon as possible the exact location of the burial plot at Holy Cross.

      We walk out, through the glare, to our car. The parking meter is almost run down. We climb in and I sit there watching the meter.

      ‘What in heaven’s name are you doing, Jack? What are we waiting for?’

      ‘I’m getting the rest of my money’s worth from this meter. Spending a thousand dollars – bam, like that, throwing it into a hole, shakes me up.

      ‘You know, Joan, what I can’t understand is why I’m not crying. Inside I’m like soft water flowing, going nowhere, but I can’t seem to cry.’

      Joan turns and looks at me, a glint in her eye.

      ‘Do you really want to cry? I can make you cry.’

      She folds her hands in her lap, clears her throat and starts singing:

      ‘Where is my Mommy, where can she be?

      I’m so awfully lonesome, lonesome as can be.

      Papa is brokenhearted, Mother left us alone,

      So if you see my Mommy, tell her to come home.’

      She hasn’t gotten into the second line before my sobs start, softly, openly. I’m crying, scared, and ashamed as I always was. I stare through my tears at Joan. She stops. I get back some control.

      ‘Did Mom really hide from us when we were little? Sometimes I think I made it all up; it’s so hard to believe.’

      ‘Yep, she really hid. She even recommended the idea to me for my kids. She’d hide behind the hedge or sometimes go over to Mrs Reynolds, for a cup of coffee.

      ‘She thought it was funny how she could make you do anything she wanted by threatening to sing that song. You really were a “simp” when I think about it.’

      ‘Well, why weren’t you scared?’

      ‘There is a song that makes me cry, too, you know, Jack. I never let Mother know about it and don’t you snitch. I only hope I can sing it without crying now.

      ‘I don’t know why I love you like I do;

      I don’t know why I just do.

      I don’t know why you thrill me like you do;

      I don’t know why you just do.

      You never seem to like my romancing;

      The only time you hold me is when we’re dancing …’

      I pick up the melody and we sing together. There on Culver Boulevard, under clear California sunshine, we cry our way through the rest of my quarter.

      I pull out and we head toward Jefferson Boulevard. This part of town is cemeteryville. There are three cemeteries within three square miles: a Protestant one, a Jewish one and a Catholic one. I don’t know what you do if you’re an atheist or a Moslem. I wonder if there are still black cemeteries in America? There were when I was a kid. We called them colored cemeteries.

      The Catholic one we’re going to is built over what used to be a riding stable.

      It has an entrance gate like Mount Vernon. The main administration building is a studio-set blend of a Howard Johnson’s and a Bavarian chapel. Californians come up with the weirdest combinations in architecture. Except for Spanish-adobe style, there’s no indigenous form, and they have no fear.

      Inside, it’s a more practical setup. On the wall is Pope Paul VI staring down at us. I wonder if they’ll ask for our baptismal and confirmation certificates. Who’s to know if Dad’s Catholic?

      We’re ushered into a cubicle in a row of cubicles. A woman comes with a sheath of folders under her arm. We explain what we want. Again, we’re going for the cheapy but it doesn’t bother her. She puts aside two leather-bound folders and opens the folders in cardboard.

      This cemetery is laid out like a golf course. There are no gravestones except flat plaques set in the ground. She shows us some plots which are still available. It’s like working with a real-estate agent, choosing a lot in a development. In a sense, that’s what it is, only the lots are tiny, the habitation subterranean, the neighbors very quiet.

      Each part of the cemetery has a name. There’s the Immaculate Conception Section, the Communion of Saints Section, the Resurrection Section, the Crucifixion Section, and so forth. Joan speaks up.

      ‘We’d like a view in the direction of Palms.’

      The lady takes this in her stride. A view from your cemetery plot? It must have been asked before, because she’s got her geography in hand. She turns the folders and points to several uncrossed-out plots.

      ‘This is the Resurrection Section here. Palms is in this direction.’ She points on her map. ‘You could look around in here.’

      She makes a circle with her pencil without touching the map.

      ‘I think you’ll find what you want. It’s on a little rise and has excellent drainage. There are some in the middle, here, in your price range because they are relatively inaccessible.’

      She indicates a wiggly circle with a dot in the center.

      ‘This is a tree. The four graves around it are slightly more expensive.’

      She refers to a chart.

      ‘There’s one left under the tree and it’s six fifty instead of five fifty; you see, the tree makes it easier to find.’

      We get the numbers and go out to look. There are winding, turning roads going all over the cemetery and she’s given us a small map to find our way. It reminds me of driving toy cars in an amusement park. There are white arrow signs pointing to the different sections and we find Resurrection with no trouble. I park, we get out and locate the cross-section markings on the edge of the road. We work our way down across graves.

      When we were kids, we had a big thing about not walking on the graves in the graveyard but here you’re more or less encouraged to. Actually, the graves are so close together, and without gravestones, you can’t tell whether you’re walking on a grave or not.

      We find the plots she pointed out to us, including one under the tree. This tree is a young jacaranda and that does it. Dad has always loved the jacaranda trees in California. We’ll blow the extra hundred bucks and not tell Mother.