Tracking Packy

Two cops found Grandpa Packy lying face up off State Route 532, near the tracks. Broke free from life support and made his getaway sometime in the middle of the night. I overheard one of the officers tell mama that he must have been wrestling to free himself from his hospital gown because it lie shredded as if the cotton had put up a pretty good fight. It was not the way I wanted to remember Grandpa, the shriveled root of his manhood exposed to passing trains.

 When Grandma Iris heard, she said, “I don’t blame him one bit.  All them nurses monitoring his crap count and charting his vital signs like they was keeping a Kennedy alive.”  Illness, particularly the terminal kind, has never been one of Grandma Iris’s strong suits, so when she found out Packy wasn’t long for this world, she moved him into the Cedar Park nursing home, a windowless institution with nary a twig of cedar, no park, and the gag of PineSol.  When Grandma got him settled, or at least introduced to the man drooling in the bed beside him, she kissed Packy goodbye, loaded up the El Dorado and headed for the desert.

The day of the funeral, the wind came cold and angry out of a winter sky.  A group of mourners moved quietly in dark colors and entered Light of the Cross chapel.  Mama guided me down the aisle to our designated pew, pulling my shoulders back till they bowed. Centered at the altar between two carnation bouquets and some candles dripping hot wax onto a white sheet, was Reverend Perry.

A loud raspy voice came from the back of the room. I turned, just as Grandma attached herself to an usher and started walking up the aisle, hips first, followed by the rest of her.  Her suntanned skin, the color of a worn saddle, accented the fuchsia suit she was wearing.  Her hair piled up like the blue flame on the Natural Gas billboard. Draped across her shoulders lay a fox stole, the head of the animal bouncing across her chest.

Folks began filing past the open casket, drawing crosses on their chests and wiping their worn faces on hankies. When it came time for family, I walked alongside Mama and Grandma Iris, stopping in front of Grandpa Packy to take a last look.  With the tubes unplugged, he looked relieved, only some fool had taken the liberty of parting his hair the wrong way sending what was left of it into a state of shock. 

“What the hell have they done to his hair?”  Grandma moved closer and stared at her deceased husband, blinking behind her winged spectacles.  “And what’s that they smeared on his face? This is a funeral, not a makeover.” Grandma wet her fingers and wiped Packy’s stained cheeks making it look like some old Grizzly had gotten to him first.

“People are staring,” Mama whispered.  I turned, just in time to see a fat woman swing a jowl in our direction.

“Let ‘em stare!  This here’s your father looking like a hooker.”  She took hold of Grandpa’s jaw and worked it.  “Mary Jo, must I remind you? Who cared for this man when he came home falling down drunk? Who took him back when he was cheating? All I’m doing is giving Packy a little dignity in his final hour.”

“Why can’t you just leave the poor man alone?” Mama’s voice was rising.

“I’m leaving him alone throughout eternity, but I’m gonna damn well clean him up first.”

Reverend Perry appeared, his hands pressed in permanent prayer.  “Shall we begin the service and let Packard have some peace?”

“Sound like a fine idea.”  Grandma Iris spun around and headed back to the pew. 

When the service was over, Rev. Perry stepped down from the pulpit and walked slowly to the chapel entrance.  We followed his black robe out the front doors toward the open grave just as the first raindrops fell. Didn’t take long before it seemed like the whole sky took to falling on us.  Grandma was cussing something fierce. The rain bouncing off her backcombed hair like fleas in woven carpet. She turned toward the limousine.

“Mother, where are you going?”

“Rain makes my hair frizz.”  Grandma finished tying a plastic bonnet under her chin and began walking.

“Can’t you wait till they bury him?”

“The hell I’m standing out here!  Got no intention of tampering with what it took two beauticians all morning to get right. Besides, smells like dead bodies out here.”

“It’s mothballs, coming from that thing around your neck,” mama snapped.

“That thing, as you call it, was an anniversary present from your father.  It came from The Bergdorf Goodman’s department store and set us back four paychecks.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna get myself down to that car.”

The limo driver stepped up, looking eager to oblige.  “Need some assistance?” Grandma’s small frame hugged the driver.

I huddled against Mama beside the open grave.  She tucked her arm around me, shielding me from the downpour best she could. A handful of wrinkled folks waited patiently by the earth’s incision like old dogs at suppertime.  All around us the leaves tossed about in the wind, darting in between the rows of tilted tombstones as the minister’s voice drifted along the grassy knolls of pain.  The rain sang upon the white box as the four pallbearers struggled to lift it onto the pulley.  It rocked back and forth as they lowered Grandpa Packy into the ground.  When it came to rest on the earth below, the men peered down into the dark shaft as if it were a mirror.  Three of them picked up shovels and a pickax while the fourth lifted a large tarp covering a mound of loose soil.  They made quick work of the task, tossing heaps of fresh dirt and gravel back to whence it came.