This is a fiction response to two prompts given by Yeah Write for their Week 159 challenge. One prompt was to make a reference to a picture of a fox and the other prompt was to somewhere in the piece use the complete sentence, "It fluttered for a moment, magnificent in its struggle, then wilted and lay still.”.
The
Reverend Les Brown did not look himself laid out in the coffin. The
dark skin tone make-up evened his normal red face and blended all the
freckles on his scalp and face into an unnatural smoothness. He died
of cardiac arrest on a bright sunny day after his daughter had
retrieved his two grandchildren from a visit . He had sat down in his
lounge chair, leaned back and passed
from this world to the next.
Dean
Rankin was cruising the Brown's wake. At weddings, there is a chance
of a picture of the lone male eating and drinking lingering on
someone's camera. He originally dropped by people's homes on the day
of the funeral, watched them leave, stepped in and took what he could
use from their homes. He was careful not to put anything askew and
often people did not know he had found their little nest egg or what
had happened to grocery money. Word had gotten out about the funeral
thief nonetheless.
The
first time he came to a wake, it was awkward. A small group of
family, no friends attended. It was hard to ad lib to such a sparse
crowd. The deceased had been sick and bedridden for many years before going
to the great beyond.
This
was a large crowd and a tough lot, car doors were locked. He casually
checked rear right side passenger doors to see if an errant child
left the door unlocked. He went straight to the restroom and then
strolled back out again so as to appear to be retrieving something or
locking his car. Briefly lifting door handles as he walked by. He
paused in front of one unlocked door, opened the door, sat down
opened the glove compartment, stood up and looked under the seat,
lifted the car mats, ten bucks in the ashtray.
He
walked back to the wake. an elderly woman who seemed to be present in
body only greeted him." How did you know Leslie?"
He
remembered the age in the obituary to be about his at 53 and that the
deceased attended Montrose High. “Oh we were friends in school. I
always had a crush on her.”
The
crows feet deepened around her widened eyes. She seemed to see
something far off or just plain did not know what to do next. She
gestured for Dean to walk along with her then motioned for him to sit
beside her. Dean's eye scanned the people and the floor looking at
where people had stowed their purses. It looked like this night would
be a waste.
He
watched the people shuffling around in small groups that gathered,
broke apart, regrouped. People would step up to the casket usually
joined by another before acquiring that face of resignation he
recognized. One woman stood looking at the casket and the crowd as if
she was on guard.
"Are
you going to Roberto’s?" The older woman's voice was old and deep
but it struck like a sharp chord.
“I
don't know.”
“Oh
come on,” she leads,”I have put my mad money in this purse to
cover the bill. It is the Brown family way as my late husband would
say, God rest his soul. Let's go see Les one more time.”
“Oh
no, I want to remember her the way she was. I remember all that hair
blowing in the breeze one day at Montrose. It was a sight glistening
in the sun.”
“Didn't
she use hairspray?”
“Oh
tons of it, For a moment I thought her hair was a live creature one
day in the wind, “it fluttered for a moment, magnificent in its
struggle, then wilted and lay still from all that hairspray.”
“My
you do have a memory.” Leaning on her cane, she smiled and gingerly
walked away.
Lo
and behold, her purse on the settee. Dean had the patent leather
clutch under his left armpit and left. He debated emptying
the contents in the men's room and returning the clutch. She was such
a sweet old lady.
Driving
home, Dean chuckles at his story about the hair, and pats the purse.
Thank God she was senile. He notices blue lights behind him, not
another speeding ticket.
“Sir
can you step out of the car and walk to the back and face the patrol car.
The
older woman from the wake nods. The funeral bandit was caught by a silver fox.