Shane, knowing that Jim hadn’t a clue how to conduct himself righteously in the eyes of God, that he was, spiritually speaking, a directionless person in need of guidance, said, “I have a better idea. We’ll talk it over in the shower. I can get you a great price on a site right now. You like the Humboldt Overview Cemetery? Who doesn’t, right? Imagine a place on the hill there, overlooking the bay, in a gorgeous casket made of beautifully contrasting white pine and mahogany, and with a crisp gold satin lining. Think solid mahogany swing-bar handles and sliding lid supports. Jim, I could take you down to the store after we shower and show you the displays and we could settle this today. Can you imagine how good you’d feel?”
Shane was really in the zone now, was in one of his total empathic mind melds, for despite his religious advantage over his erstwhile friend, he was Jim Sturges at that moment, seeing what he saw, anticipating the relief of putting the whole burial question to rest and maybe opening himself up to a higher power.
“Thanks,” Jim said, “but I really don’t have time.”
“It isn’t for me that I’m asking this. It’s for you.”
“I’m sure it is, but seriously. I’m not interested.”
Shane closed the gap between them by six inches and spoke quietly, confidentially, importantly, as sports commentators droned in the background, “Jim, death isn’t one of those things you can afford not to think about. You may want to, and you may get away with it in the short term, but it’s there waiting for you. I don’t know if you know this but I’ve become a Mormon, and that’s because I had a big realization a few years ago that we’re not here forever. I know what you’re thinking, news flash, right?” Brief chuckle and then po-face. “But it had never really come home to me before I was in my car driving along and I heard on the radio about a guy down in Matole who ran out into the street to get his son’s basketball and was hit by a car. Died on the spot. And I got to thinking, I don’t know why, it was just pressing on my mind, but I began to think about what it meant to run into the street to get a basketball, a reflex motion, your mind on what’s for dinner and how it’s time to mow the lawn again and a new soreness in your left knee, when wham! you’re dead. You don’t see it coming even though you know it has to eventually. Death is an invisible speeding train and you’re standing on the track somewhere, you don’t know where exactly, could be far down by the river or could be two feet away. It comes back to we all have to go sometime. And where we go depends on what we choose to do while we’re on this planet. You need to ask yourself. The soul and the body. Have you planned for them? You can either take out insurance—and we’re talking a tiny premium, month by month you won’t even feel it except as a feeling of comfort and security—so that you know you’re covered, or you can be a miser and end up rotting in the ground in some anonymous city with your soul burning forever.”
Shane had never expressed it so eloquently. He’d linked—pull the metal chain, feel its strength—his own personal epiphany with burial services and the afterlife. This matter of supreme importance—this primary undergirding—made him both vulnerable to scorn—people always sneered at the truth tellers, for guilty consciences are drowned out by nothing so well as jeers and ridicule—and strangely confident. After all, Shane was only human, he was an insignificant mortal, but the magnitude of God and of his duty to Him were commensurate. Shane was conjuring the infinite, evoking the ineffable. He felt measurable in joules. To decorate His crown.
Jim draped the towel around his neck and crossed his arms—what a tell! what a giveaway that he took this seriously and felt implicated!—and said, “I don’t want to offend you, and I’m sure your death episode was the real thing, but monotheism doesn’t resonate for me. When I die I’m going to donate all my organs and be cremated. But I appreciate what you’ve said and I’m going to leave now. Good to see you again.”
Jim walked away and Shane stared after him. How can anyone be so tone deaf? Obstinacy is what it is. Denial. People’s hearts get hard. They refuse to see anything but their own version of things. Sad, really. Sad.
So sad that the more Shane stood there thinking about it, as bruised racquetball players filed past him to get towels and chat with the counterwoman and buy a compensatory light beer, the angrier he got, like who the fuck do these people think they are? They’re handed truth on a platter and do they accept it graciously, maybe even appreciatively because after all it is their immortal soul that’s in question, I mean excuse me for trying to save you from the eternal fire, or do they refuse the platter and say, No thanks, I’m not in the mood? Not in the mood? I don’t want to offend you blah blah blah, but monotheism doesn’t resonate for me. Doesn’t resonate? Like faith is some kind of bell that you ring and if it doesn’t produce the right echo, you put cotton in your ears and head for the hills? I’m going to leave now. And did you see Jim’s face when he said that, with that left-lip sneer that was part disrespect and part you’re-a-nutcase-who-has-to-be-handled-delicately-or-you’ll-detonate? It was so condescending, and who was Jim anyway but some nowhere man living in LA and thinking that he was cool enough to dismiss what was most fundamental as pure hokum? Like, Save your fairy tale for the local rubes who don’t know better.
Shane’s fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms and he felt heavy and congested. He hadn’t had an alcoholic drink in four years. He turned to the counter and ordered a Budweiser. His wife, Lenora, was walking around Old Town in Eureka with her parents, who were visiting from Salt Lake City for a week, getting ice cream at Bon Boniere and trying on Celtic outfits at the Irish Shoppe that he would be angry if she bought. They pooled their finances now, which basically meant that Shane paid for everything since he was the only one with a job. He finished his beer and, an old habit rising from the murk of memory, squashed it into a thin disk on his right leg. I appreciate what you’ve said and I’m going to leave now. What a patronizing son of a bitch.
“Hey,” he said, addressing the counterwoman, “I need another one, on my tab.”
“You know we send an itemized bill, don’t you?”
“You think my wife pays the bills?”
“Just thought I’d mention it.”
It was like he’d never been away. After four more beers Shane was feeling the old body carbonation, like there were air pockets in him rising, making him a light and humming creature, clearing his brain and his vision and the space between him and any challengers out there. I’m sure your death episode was the real thing, but monotheism doesn’t resonate for me. Shane laughed and ran a hand through his short black hair, exposing its advanced widow’s peak. He rubbed his beak-shaped nose. Did Jim think he could treat Shane like a fool and then no hard feelings? Whoops, didn’t mean to shit all over your most sacredly held beliefs, see you around. Shane stacked the five aluminum disks on the counter and walked toward the showers. Pushed through the swing doors and into the steam of the locker room. A bunch of bald fat fucks sitting astride padded benches talking about you should have heard what counsel for the defense wanted to plea bargain with, and I was netting sixty a year on property speculation in Tahoe until the county increased regulations on undeveloped land that was more than thirty percent forested. Shane passed them by and stepped on the bare foot of a lobster-faced man resting his elbows on his knees, and when the man yelped in pain Shane told him to shut the fuck up. He was six foot four and his muscles were so toned and there was so much strength in his every sinew every atom and he was so light he could just fly up to some obstacle and overpower it yes because he was energy he was forward momentum and woe unto him who denies the truth and that’s what that fucker Jim was he was a truth denier and it was people like him who kept the whole world from achieving peace and brotherly love and the fruits promised the human race by a benevolent God. One bad apple. Past the sinks and the weigh scales and the towel closet, through more swinging doors and Shane was unswervingly determined,
