The Funeral Bill

Chapter 9

When he reached the bedroom, he was surprised by the vision of RD seized in a blade of dust-speckled sunlight—shirtless, his bones seemingly lifted to just under his skin. It was as if Famine itself stood before Jeffers in a swirl of ash and red-brown light. RD smiled at him.

As if heat lightning passed through the little house, he glimpsed a future and past. He re-imagined the death-rictus of his Ashcross renter long ago. His first wife's closed coffin. He saw his own death—the paralysis, the absolute loss of modesty. His son, robed, offering up thanks to heaven for his Father and for land. Jeffers removed the pistol from his pocket, pointed it at RD and pulled the trigger. The little man snapped up in the dusty air and landed on his back.

He looked down upon the little man gasping, observed his twitching, witnessed a tiny spring of blood bubble up and then flow. RD grasped at his chest, his breath already shortening.

"What do you see?" Jeffers demanded

"What?" RD spat.

Jeffers crouched over RD and moved in close enough to feel the other's moist breath: "What do you see?"

A half-smile, half-grimace palsied RD's face, "I see you." He rolled over and tried to stand.

Jeffers shoved RD back to the floor. He stepped to the window and drew the copper-colored curtains.

"You goin to get me some help?"

Jeffers turned from the window and in the cheap light raised the pistol and shot RD again. A shallow splatter of blood leapt from RD's chest, a near-inaudible grunt left his mouth. Jeffers resumed his position over RD's face.

"And now, do you see anything?"

RD squinted. "You got to help me."

"What do you see?" Jeffers roared.

"You don't have to pay that bill."

Jeffers stepped away from the spread of blood. He pointed the pistol at RD again, but then didn't shoot. He thought he saw some change in the little man: "What do you see?"

"You," RD gasped. "I see you. Help me."

Jeffers asked him again and again what he was seeing, but it didn't change. Jeffers was in disbelief that he was awaiting a man so given to lies as RD to tell him the truth. RD tried to crawl. Jeffers struck him, and then again, thrashing like a man at labor. The little man curled tighter and clutched his head after each blow.

Finally both men were still. Jeffers leaned in. He turned RD's head and held his crumpled cheek tenderly as a nurse might do. "What's there? What do you see?"

There was no answer. RD was dead.

Jeffers sat for a spell in the recliner. With his index finger he pushed at the pile of dry chicken bones and withered fries. He could no longer smell the stench of the dog rotting in the chimney. He could feel his legs and feet, but knew it wouldn't last long. He could sense the numbness creeping in again and he removed his shoes and socks so he could rub his toes. We are perched atop nothingness, Jeffers thought, we make up heavens, but we are atop nothing. He didn't want to go home. He called his son.

They took his pistol, his belt, and the laces of his shoes, and put in the back of the patrol car. His son was running his mouth to the police. He couldn't hear what was being said. He wanted his pipe, which still rested on the porch railing where he'd left it.

He was numb up to his waist.

As Jeffers began to close his eyes, the glimpse of a specter stopped him. In the distance, crouched between pine trees he saw something beautiful. She was unmistakable with an ornate flourish of hair, her round pregnant belly. She had come to his house, had come to see him, to help him. Jeffers stared at her, hoping that she would turn and look his way, see him behind the glass, give some forgiveness. He needed that gift. But she looked past him, watching James and the police. He wept dryly, knowing that he had earned nothing today. She turned to walk back into the pines. Jeffers watched the disappearing carnival of hair and the bubble of a cry burst from his lips.

The End