UNCLE KEN'S LAST STAND
My Aunt Dolores is a querulous woman, much given to lamenting the many Woes she has dragooned into service over the years. Listening to her, one would think Woe, the capital letter is audible, a close friend of the family or an aged retainer whose loyalty is rewarded with honorary kinship and proprietary jealousy. The funeral would not be easy in the best of circumstances. Enter Joy and The Boys into the equation, and you had the makings of a biblical calamity.
     It had been known for sometime that Uncle Ken had a weak heart (he couldn't resist a woman, not even Aunt Dolores), but how weak none of us had realized till the day he got up, announced he was going to walk the dog, and promptly expired. As a valediction, it did not aspire to Captain Oates' display of noblesse oblige, but Santa Margarita y Los Monjes is a warm island, not inclined to the convulsions of sang-froid said to underwhelm the last of our many colonial masters. Needless to say, the dog went without his walk.
    Having graduated from Good God Donald's mission school to a modest clerical post in the civil service, I am regarded by my family as an adept at all matters administrative, and it fell to me to organize the funeral. Mr. Bagwell, the funeral director, was most understanding when I voiced my concerns.
    "I think you'll find, Mr. Herrera," he reassured me, "that the service we offer has an admirably calming influence -- even on unusually excitable natures."
    "Have you met my Aunt Dolores?" I asked.
    "A most vigorous lady," he observed.
    "And The Boys?"
    "A credit to their mother, I don't doubt. But I assure you, the soothing music, the solemnity of the occasion, the proprieties, all have their effect. And the new crematorium is done in the best possible taste. It’s a gift from Sweden. A very pacific people, the Swedes."
     I had my doubts. Not about the Swedes, but about the soothing music and so forth. If Joy rolled up in the garden of remembrance, Aunt Dolores would inevitably display a large reluctance to remember, and might express her disinclination via the hideous medium of The Boys.
    Joy is a buxom woman of an amplitude much admired on an island where flesh is honored exponentially, and Aunt Dolores reacts to her with an antagonism that is nigh on chemical in its spontaneity. As it happens, Aunt Dolores is no lightweight herself, but there is in her bulk none of that buoyant celebration of life so bountifully flaunted by Joy's copious meat, which seems to move with a vivacity uninhibited by the burdens that encumber the rest of humanity. Aunt Dolores might better be described as a celebration of gravity than vivacity, for she has been swollen by Woe, and has about her the look of a woman who never quite overcame the shock of Newtonian physics. But with her clean chocolate complexion, her slabs of shapely muscle, and a bosom as big as a whale, Joy resembles a mountain of pleasure, one upon which Aunt Dolores had determined Uncle Ken would not be practicing his alpinism. Uncle Ken’s motto was ‘take love where you find it’ and, if the tales he used to tell his palm-wine cronies are to be believed, he had found it pretty much everywhere. Admittedly, there was never any proof of a liaison with Joy, but Aunt Dolores isn't fussy about verifying Woe. If Uncle Ken so much as blinked at the grand defile of Joy's chest or the ample foothills of her buttocks, it was evidence enough for his wife.
     Joy, she would announce, with grim satisfaction, was a public menace. Joy was poisoning her life. Joy was making her marriage a misery. Joy was taking her husband from her. Joy would leave The Boys fatherless and adrift in a cruel world, to be preyed upon by the vicious and perverted -- mind you, you'd have to be vicious and perverted to prey upon The Boys. There should, she would declare, be a law against Joy. I think she took more pleasure in the putative affair than did Uncle Ken himself. Joy was her favorite Woe. If that Woe were to personify itself at the incinerating of Uncle Ken and his unreliable heart, the recollection would blight every family gathering for the next forty years. So when Joy turned up at my bungalow and told me she would be coming to the funeral, I did my best to discourage her.  
   "It'll be very upsetting for you," I said, trying to maintain a level gaze. “Aunt Dolores is not a shy woman. The welcome will not be friendly. And then there's The Boys to consider."
     I felt a quiver at the pit of my stomach. I always do when compelled to consider my cousins. The Boys are not like other people. Indeed, I'm perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that they're not people at all. There's something altogether questionable about the slope of the brow and the deep-set eyes, while their gait is undeniably shambling. And they're very fond of fruit.
     "But this is in honor of your uncle," said Joy, employing a preposterously small handkerchief to mop the perspiration collecting below her collarbone. I stared hard at the bridge of her nose, anxious not to picture the effect proximity of such a chest would have on The Boys. "Nobody's going to worry about these small things in the face of death." Observing the progress of her handkerchief, I could not help thinking these were not such small things, even in the face of death, but I kept the observation to myself. "We must come together, in honor of a kindly man. Your aunt will understand."
     This I doubted. Kindliness and understanding are not virtues cultivated by Aunt Dolores. It's not that she lacks any trace of natural affection. She is, for instance, absolutely daffy about The Boys. But despite assiduous attendance at Good God Donald's mission church, that part of the Christian ethic dealing with brotherly love and neighborliness, the whole Good Samaritan kick, has never really got a grip on Aunt Dolores' soul. She views any incarnation of love with deep suspicion and looks upon neighborliness as that quality manifesting itself most providentially in sharing the joys of Woe -- or perhaps I should say the Woes of Joy. As for the Good Samaritan, she deems him a most presumptuous man, precipitating himself on one whom, for all he knew, was some hapless beggar resting on his pitch.
    Unable to dissuade Joy from attending and not wishing to gratify Aunt Dolores with news of another Woe to add to her collection, my last resort was to neutralize The Boys. Frankly, I'd have been glad had they been neutralized at birth. It would have saved me much grief in my youth, when I was obliged to entertain my younger cousins, entertainment that usually entailed my being bound hand and foot and subjected to interesting experiments involving exposure to the elements. Even nowadays, I try to avoid the barracks where they're stationed, but with no other recourse, I threw caution to the wind and, in the wild hope that they had a better side to which I might appeal, I appealed to The Boys' better side. Maybe they could use their influence to calm Aunt Dolores should Joy attend the funeral?
    The Boys conferred. They were clearly troubled by my proposal. For them, 'calm' is a substantive to be disrupted, not a verb to be enacted. They pawed at one another's epaulettes and tugged at the buttons on their tunics, communing in some mysterious way that was beyond me. At length, caution came back with the wind and slapped me in the face like a wet towel -- another of their favorite witticisms when we were children.
    "Push her in the grave?" they suggested.
     The syntax looks simple, but it was quite a complicated sentence for The Boys.
    "You can't push your mother in a grave just to stop her making a scene!" I exclaimed, knowing full well they would do it without a second thought, always presuming there’s ever a first thought motivating their actions. Actually, the scheme was not without its merits. For a woman so attached to Woe, Aunt Dolores has a mind-boggling ability to ignore the simple truth, a truth The Boys have taken great pains to advertise, that here are two young men destined to end their days apotheosized on page three of the Margamonjan Record. Even she could not ascribe premature interment to 'high-spirits'.
    "No, no," they protested. "No . . . No . . . ." The Boys often repeat things. I’m not sure if it's a sort of cerebral echo as the response they've hit upon bounces about in the recesses of their skulls, or a tool like recitation to help them understand what they're saying.
    "Well thank goodness. For a moment there . . . ."

     Perhaps I had misjudged them.
    "Push Joy in the grave."
    "Guuur!"
    "That's not precisely what I had in mind," I said, uncertain what 'guuur' meant, but fairly sure it wasn't a sentiment I wanted elaborated.   

    "Besides, there won't be a grave. Your father's being cremated." From the looks they exchanged, I could tell they were disappointed. The thought of pawing Joy, evidently recommended itself. "She wants to pay her respects," I explained. "Uncle Ken's going to be in his box and she wants to say goodbye."
   "What you want then?" they demanded. "You want her boobies? Boobies! Boobies!"
    "No, I do not!"
    "Big boobies. Like that. Big! Big!"
    "I do not want her boobies, I tell you."
    "Guuur!" they jeered, miming Joy's boobies as if they were carrying a couple of sacks of footballs. "Big! B-i-g!"
    "I simply thought it would be nice if we could avoid unpleasantness. If either of you had an ounce of decency, you might help handle your mother."
But The Boys did not take to the idea of handling their mother, for which I could not wholly blame them.
    Come the day of the funeral, Aunt Dolores had recovered from the want of a husband as a source of Woe and was getting into her stride with the widowhood business, while The Boys (freshly deloused and done up in their dress uniforms) were spoiling for a fight -- mind you, there are precious few situations from which Aunt Dolores cannot mine some nugget of Woe and The Boys are always spoiling for a fight, so I tried to persuade myself my anxieties were unjustified, the occasion unexceptional.
    That said, it was a pretty unique occasion for Uncle Ken, whom Mr. Bagwell had laid out in all his embalmed splendor, swaddled from the neck down in a white sheet. He seemed a bit slack about the mouth, as I suppose one tends to in mortality, but on the whole, he looked rather better turned out in death than he had in life, and he was a good deal calmer than the rest of the family, who were decidedly worried about what would happen if Joy appeared. For once, I wished I was at work. Only my cousins were having a good time, consoled by some murky hooch they'd been sipping all morning and, no doubt, by the prospect of sniggering at Joy's enormous breasts.
    Yet by the time Good God Donald climbed into the pulpit, there was still no sign of Joy. Hoping my fears had been groundless, I settled back to listen to the eulogy. It was an understandably vague performance on Good God's part, since the only time Uncle Ken had been in church in the last twenty years was when he fell through the roof 'borrowing' a length of corrugated iron. But I was so relieved, I rather enjoyed the soporific banalities, and had begun to sink into what promised to be a pleasant trance, when the door opened and Aunt Dolores spun round to glare at the late arrival. From the sharp clicking of the widowed tongue, I guessed Joy was among us. Aunt Dolores mastered herself sufficiently to turn back to the altar, at which point Good God called upon the mourners to come forward and take a last look at Uncle Ken's remains before the casket was closed. As was customary, the immediate family lined up to receive condolences at the head of the corpse, where I joined them with a bottle of ammonium carbonate, ready to administer the smelling salts should, as Aunt Dolores insisted was more than likely, her stock of Woe prove too much for -I quote- her 'fragile frame' to bear.
    In contrast to Uncle Ken, her lips were as tight as a carpenter's vice. Her eyes were fixed on Joy like death-rays and a miasma of ill-will so dense it looked like it might cause a cloudburst had gathered about her ears. The Boys meanwhile were glowing with distilled palm-wine and gazing with artless affection at Joy's bosom, which hovered above the rear pew like an organ loft. The congregation grew restless, aware that if Joy did not leave now, they would never hear the end of it. All in all, there was not a lot of encouragement coffinwards, but Joy is a robust woman and, after several of Uncle Ken's old friends had filed by, she rose, like a river-boat bringing a cargo of melons to market, and sailed up the aisle.
     These new crematoriums are small places and Joy looked particularly large and well-hewn in such a confined space. I could appreciate why Uncle Ken might have admired her. I felt quite moved myself. Like a great vessel emerging from the mist, she loomed towards us. Aunt Dolores began to blink and fizzle, a guttering lighthouse vainly warning of imminent calamity. But Joy glided on unperturbed, her prow ploughing up the aisle like an enormous icebreaker proudly launched upon chilly waters. I was getting quite emotional about it all when The Boys stepped forward. I don't know what they had in mind -it's debatable whether they can muster a mind between them in which to have anything- but I don't doubt it was not nice, and was inspired more by mischief and an urge to manhandle Joy than loyalty to their woe-filled mother. At which point, Uncle Ken moved.
     Joy had just hove to beside the coffin when the sheet covering his corpse stirred. I thought for a moment he was reviving, readying himself to clamber out of his box with a few strong words about being so precipitately consigned to the flames. But as it happened, it was only one part of him that had come to life. At the precise moment Joy reached his side, something awoke in the region of his loins, raising its head like a cobra charmed by the tune of its master's pipe. There was no mistaking it. A rigidity had arisen mid-sheet, pointing up the cotton covering like a circus tent. Mr. Bagwell was at my side in an instant. Aunt Dolores was beside herself.
"I do apologize," he said. "It's the embalming fluid. The muscles, you see. They constrict with rigor mortis and the tightening forces pockets of fluid into otherwise . . . flaccid portions of flesh. The cheeks, the tongue, and, well . . . as you see."
     That was his story. Aunt Dolores knew better, though, and I'm inclined to agree with her. It was too great a coincidence. The very instant Joy drew alongside, Uncle Ken's cadaver had become engrossed. Who did Bagwell think he was kidding? Certainly not The Boys, who were beaming at Joy's boobies, bug-eyed and trembling with undisguised admiration for her resurrective powers. I could appreciate their perturbation. I was all of a flutter myself. Good God, appalled by Uncle Ken's imperishable mundanity, could do no more than stare at the quivering tent. As for Aunt Dolores, she had just been granted the Mother-of-all-Woes and was in two minds whether to assault Joy or get right down to a really gratifying bout of bewailing fate. It was a moment of some tension, not least for Fate, who must quail before the unremitting demands of my Aunt Dolores and her like. Joy however took it all coolly. I presume even she is not accustomed to her abundant carnality inspiring such a miraculous reaction, and must have been as taken aback as any of us, but she didn't falter. She even managed a smile. I think it was that smile that did for Aunt Dolores. It certainly did for The Boys. While they gazed on, stupefied (if that's not a tautology) by the unexpected turn of events, their hands churning in their trouser pockets, Aunt Dolores got out her bag of Woes and began scattering them about the chapel, like handfuls of confetti.
     She was screaming, screaming that Joy was the bane of her life, that Joy was a plague and a pestilence, that Joy was the curse of womankind, that Joy had no place in religion, that Joy was defiling the house of God, that Joy had to be stopped before she poisoned the whole world, that Joy was nothing but a shameless hussy, that Joy had taken her husband away from her in life and was taking him away from her in death . . . . And she raised her hands, which had contracted into claws, and was advancing on Joy, evidently intent on strangling something vital, when the so-called 'embalming-fluid' erection beneath the sheet shuddered and faded away as a new muscular spasm released the congested liquid back into the system. Joy smiled again, winked at me, patted the sheet and sailed down the aisle. I nearly fainted. Only an urgent desire not miss a final glimpse of Joy as she rolled out of chapel kept me on my feet. That and a snort of the ammonium carbonate. Aunt Dolores was less well sustained.
     She seemed even more appalled by Uncle Ken's detumescence than she had been by that impious erection and, after contemplating the thing, or the absence of the thing, for a few heart-rending seconds, concluded the best she could do by her Woes was to make a graceful exit. She passed out, keeling over to crush The Boys beneath her, neither of the offspring having been alert enough to spot the menace of the impending parent, paralyzed as they were by the sight of Joy's great hips swinging their way down the aisle. It was for just such an eventuality as this that I was meant to be in readiness. I had only to uncork my smelling salts and revive Aunt Dolores. But seeing The Boys floundering about beneath her formidable bulk and knowing full well the intensity of Woe to which we would be subjected when she came round, I concluded it would be better for all concerned, with the possible exception of The Boys, if matters were left as they were for the present. Indicating to Mr. Bagwell that he was not to blame himself and that Uncle Ken might be sent on his way, I pocketed the smelling salts and followed Joy out of the chapel.
     It was a beautiful morning -- sun, sky, birds, the whole poetic caboodle. Indeed, the morning was full of joy.  Perhaps, I thought, I might walk the dog.