Burial of the Dead

SERENITY - VII.

VII.

Levon leans against the van, takes a hit from Sammy’s joint, looks over his shoulder and hands it back .

It’s Friday afternoon, bright and hot, and from across the parking lot of pressed gravel Levon watches as Dr. Ley leads a group of women from the building they call the Second House down the macadam trail to the vans parked side by side.

The women are young except for Virginia from Mooseup who’s over sixty and Caroline from Bedford who’s over fifty. The others are in their twenties or thirties. All have problems. Most are addicts, two or three have eating disorders, and some are just nuts. But they look good and keep themselves better than most. All of them come from money and their families’ money has been the floor, the back-up, the net, the sense of something ever found as they lose themselves from time to time.

At the bottom of the trail Dr. Ley meets his assistant, Claude, and the girls are a football field away as Sammy sucks the last little bit from the brown paper dissolving between his fingers.

“Motherfucker,” Sammy Raymond says, “that shit’s good as Ganja.”

“It’s good,” Levon says. “Don’t know if it’s that good.”

“Fuck me, it’s not that good.”

“Fuck you, then,” Levon says, and the two of them do that shoulder-shiver laugh people do at wakes and funerals when the minister lies about the dead.

“We better scrub this,” Sammy says, and he drops the roach and twists the heel of his boot. The breeze off the lake blows the smoke away, but the aroma hangs in the air and a couple of the women recognize it and start to laugh behind their hands. Dr. Ley smells it too, but he doesn’t let on. He figures it’s Sammy. It’s always Sammy, but the place needs Sammy so Dr. Ley let’s many things go until things build up when he’ll throw a fit over a pot with a crust of dried tomato sauce about the rim, screaming that he spent too much money on a dishwasher to stack dirty crockery in his kitchen.

“Are we ready, Sammy?” Dr. Ley calls from the far end of the lot.

“I’m ready if you are?” Sammy shouts.

“Are the ladies ready?” Dr. Ley asks, and the women don’t answer but look at one another and whisper.

“I guess we’re ready,” Dr. Ley says.

Sammy talks to Levon without looking at him so Dr. Ley won’t pick up on it. He says: “You know, Levon, I’ve seen more bullshit than most, but I see him marchin’ those ladies down the hill, and I know the world’s upside down, like a negative of the real picture, and the sin of it is he’s the only one making money because of it.”

“You’re right,” Levon says, because it’s the easiest thing to say.

“Oh, please don’t say that, Levon. Please don’t say I’m right.”

“Why not?”

“Cuz you tell a person he’s right and same time you best be measuring him for a box and a grave.”

“You’re right again, Sammy.”

“So now I’m dead two times. What’s up, Levon, you got it in for me or what?” And they laugh again and the women board the vans for the musical at the camp on the other side of the lake.

“Coming with us, Matthew?” Dr. Ley asks, and Levon ignores him.

“Matthew?” Dr. Ley asks. And then, “Levon?”

“I’m right here, Dr. Ley. No need to shout. I’m crazy, not deaf.”

“Joining us tonight?”