Night Freight

But that is not the real reason I'm so scared. No, not even that. Last night I worked late and walked home by way of Oak Street. Couldn't help myself, any more than I could help glancing through Abe Bedford's show window. And there she was in a fresh-trimmed coffin, the silk and satin draped just so around her, face all pale and waxy and dead. But the face wasn't hers; I looked at it close to make sure.

It was mine. A shadow vision of my own fresh corpse waiting to be put into the ground.

I'm next.

This little tale of psychosexual obsession brought yelps of protest from more than one faithful reader when it first appeared. The story seems to push some people's buttons, and not because of the act referred to in the final sentence; the phrase containing reference to said act was left out of the originally published version. The yelps pleased me. I hope there'll be more from readers who catch "Funeral Day" here for the first time. Pushing buttons, after all, is what fiction is all about—from the writer's point of view, anyway.

Funeral Day

It was a nice funeral. And easier to get through than he'd imagined it would be, thanks to Margo and Reverend Baxter. They had kept it small, just a few friends; Katy had had no siblings others than Margo, no other living relatives. And the casket had been closed, of course. A fall from a two-hundred-foot cliff . . . it made him shudder to think what poor Katy must have looked like when they found her. He hadn't had to view the body, thank God. Margo had attended to the formal identification.

The flowers were the worst part of the service. Gardenias, Katy's favorite. Dozens and dozens of gardenias, their petals like dead white flesh, their cloyingly sweet perfume filling the chapel and making him a little dizzy after a while, so that he couldn't concentrate on Reverend Baxter's mercifully brief eulogy.

At least he hadn't been pressed to stand up next to the bier and speak. He couldn't have done it. And besides, what could he have said about a woman he had been married to for six years and stopped loving—if he had ever really loved her—after two? It wasn't that he'd grown to hate or even dislike her. No, it was just that he had stopped caring, that she had become a stranger. Because she was so weak . . . that was the crux of it. A weak, helpless stranger.

Afterward, he couldn't remember much of the ride to the cemetery. Tearful words of comfort from Jane Riley, who had been Katy's closest friend; someone patting his hand—Margo?—and urging him to bear up. And later, at the gravesite . . . "We therefore commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . ." and Reverend Baxter sprinkling a handful of dirt onto the coffin while intoning something about subduing all things unto Himself, amen. He had cried then, not for the first time, surely not for the last.

The ride home, to the small, two-story house he had shared with Katy a half mile from the college, was a complete blank to him. One moment he was at the gravesite, crying; the next, it seemed, he was in his living room, surrounded by his books and the specimen cases full of the insects he had collected during his entomological researches. Odd, he realized then, how little of Katy had gone into this room, into any of the rooms in the house. Even the furniture was to his taste. The only contributions of hers that he could remember were frilly bits of lace and a bright seascape she had bought at a crafts fair. And those were gone now, along with her clothing and personal effects; Margo had already boxed them up so that he wouldn't have to suffer the task, and had had them taken away for charity.

Nine or ten people were there, Katy's and his friends, mostly from the college. Mourners who had attended the funeral and also been to the cemetery. Jane Riley and Evelyn Something—Dawson? Rawson? a woman he didn't know well that Katy had met at some benefit or other—had provided food, and there were liquor and wine and hot beverages. Margo and the Reverend had referred to the gathering as a "final tribute"; he called it a wake. But Katy wouldn't have minded. Knowing that, he hadn't objected.

Katy. Poor, weak, sentimental Katy . . .

The mourners ate and drank, they talked, they comforted and consoled. He ate and drank nothing; his stomach would have disgorged it immediately. And he talked little, and listened only when it seemed an answer was required.

"You are taking a few more days off, aren't you, George?" Alvin Corliss, another professor at the college. English Lit.

"Yes."

"Take a couple of weeks. Longer, if you need it. Go on a trip, someplace you've always wanted to visit. It'll do you a world of good."

"Yes. I think I might . . ."

"Is Margo staying on awhile longer, George?" Helen Vernon, another of Katy's friends. They had gone walking together often, along the cliffs and elsewhere. But she hadn't been with Katy on the day of her fall. No, not on that day.

"Yes, Helen, she is."

"Good. You shouldn't be alone at a time like this."

"I don't mind being alone."

"A man needs a woman to do for him in his time of grief. Believe me, I know . . ."

 On and on, on and on. Why didn't they leave? Couldn't they see how much he wanted them to go? He felt that if they stayed much longer he would break down—but of course he didn't break down. He endured. When his legs grew weak and his head began to throb, he sank into a chair and stared out through a window at his garden. And waited. And endured.

Dusk came, then full dark. And finally—but slowly, so damned slowly—they began to leave by ones and twos. It was necessary that he stand by the door and see them out. Somehow, he managed it.

"You've held up so well, George . . ."

"You're so brave, George . . ."

"If you need anything, George, don't hesitate to call . . ."

An interminable time later, the door closed behind the last of them. Not a moment too soon; he was quite literally on the verge of collapse.

Margo sensed it. She said, "Why don't you go upstairs and get into bed? I'll clean up here."

"Are you sure? I can help—"

"No, I don't need any help. Go on upstairs."

He obeyed, holding onto the banister for support. He and Katy had not shared a bedroom for the past three years; there had been no physical side to their marriage in almost four, and he had liked to read at night, and she had liked to listen to her radio. He was grateful, now that she was gone, that he did not have to occupy a bed he had shared with her. That would have been intolerable.

He undressed, avoided looking at himself in the mirror while he brushed his teeth, and crawled into bed in the dark. His heart was pounding. Downstairs in the kitchen, Margo made small sounds as she cleaned up after the mourners.

You're so brave, George . . .

No, he thought, I'm not. I'm weak—much weaker than poor Katy. Much, much weaker.

He forced himself to stop thinking, willed his mind blank.

Time passed; he had no idea how many minutes. The house was still now. Margo had finished her chores.

He lay rigidly, listening. Waiting.

A long while later, he heard Margo's steps in the hall. They approached, grew louder . . . and went on past. The door of her room opened, shut again with a soft click.

He released the breath he had been holding in a ragged sigh. Not tonight, then. He hadn't expected it to be tonight, not this night. Tomorrow? The need in him was so strong it was an exquisite torture. How he yearned to feel her arms around him, to be drawn fiercely, possessively against the hard nakedness of her body, to succumb to the strength of her, the overpowering dominant strength of her! She had killed Katy for him; he had no doubt of it. When would she come to claim her prize?