Chop Shop Read online

  She ignored the color-coordinated schedule filled with highlighter and colorful Post-its denoting funerals. At her elbow, there was a pile of screaming-pink envelopes, each marked OVERDUE or FINAL NOTICE. All they could do was keep putting dead people in the ground and do the best they could to stay afloat, turn out good work with makeup and dressing them properly and doing their hair up nice. One day at a time.

  * * *

  ‘Ave Maria’ was sung at the funeral, not very well.

  At its conclusion, Jolene tapped her high-heeled shoe on the little lever and Ethan Petrosky was lowered into the ground. People cried. Missus Petrosky, as tan and fit as the eighties-idea-of-fit Mister Petrosky was, didn’t jump onto the casket to ride into the void with her betrothed. She kept her composure.

  Everyone else cried more than her, actually. Maybe it was a relief. Maybe they’d been having trouble. Maybe Ethan Petrosky was a handsome prick, as that is sometimes (okay, often) the case. Either way, Jolene watched from the back with Amber, both of them in their undertaker outfits – black on black and black on black. The family was now gathering around to toss flowers down onto their lost loved one.

  Amber, in sunglasses, leaned over to whisper to Jolene. “You got this? I need a smoke.”

  “Can it wait? We’re nearly done here.”

  “I didn’t have time before getting in the shower. I haven’t even had coffee yet.”

  “Coffee’s typically a morning thing.”

  “I reject your dietary programming,” Amber said.

  “Well, if you wanted coffee maybe you should’ve thought about that before getting apocalyptically trashed last night,” Jolene whispered back.

  They were inches behind the funeral-goers. Though she’d raised her voice slightly above a whisper, apparently no one had heard.

  Jolene cleared her throat. “Just wait. We’re almost done. Could use one myself. And what’s with the miniskirt? I thought you were going to borrow my leggings.”

  “I couldn’t find them.”

  “They were in my dresser where they always are, second-to-bottom drawer.”

  “They were too small, okay? There. I said it.”

  “Maybe you should lay off the beer awhile?”

  “And maybe you should try to not be such a bitch, huh?”

  “You look like the Halloween costume version of a funeral director in that thing. Slutty Undertaker. Is that leather?”

  “No, it’s not. I love the animals. And for the record, I prefer Promiscuous Mortician. Nothing? Come on, that was good. Are you still mad? I said I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t, for the record, but forget it.”

  “Well, thirdly for the record: I’m sorry I look like a slutty undertaker, okay? Now I actually said it. This is where you say you forgive me and you love me and you’re not mad at me anymore. I forgave you for calling me fat in that quietly cutting way you did.”

  “Be quiet.”

  The family was still tossing in flowers. The priest was coming over with the shovel for Missus Petrosky to drop in the first clump of dirt on her croaked beau.

  Amber leaned over to Jolene again. “Is there spaghetti in the fridge at home still?”

  “That depends. Did you see any of it in the toilet this morning?”

  “Why’re you being so pissy?”

  “If someone has to ask that, then it should be pretty fucking obvious.”

  “Don’t treat me like we’re a couple. You know I hate that. Almost as much as I hate it when people are fucking vague. If you got something to fucking say, don’t be a cunt and just fucking say it.”

  They weren’t whispering anymore.

  An old man turned over his shoulder to scowl at the undertakers.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  Grunt.

  Amber: “Solid save.”

  “Shut up,” Jolene said. “Here comes Missus Petrosky. Pull your skirt down.”

  “Ladies,” Missus Petrosky said, walking up, “could I maybe steal you away for a minute to have a word?”

  “Certainly,” Jolene said. The three of them stepped to one side as the other funeral-goers filed off to their cars, some still dabbing at their eyes.

  Missus Petrosky glanced around. They were alone, just headstones. “Why did he look that way?”

  “I’m sorry?” Jolene said.

  “My husband. He looked like George Hamilton. Like you put him into the cremator a minute before remembering he was to be buried, not burnt.”

  Jolene turned to Amber. It felt bad to throw her under the bus, but sometimes, Jolene felt, Amber needed to be put on the spot for her to learn anything.

  “I used powder that didn’t match his skin tone,” Amber said, pausing to swallow, “because I remember when you came in for the consultation you mentioned your husband enjoyed sailing. And I thought maybe giving him a light bronzed look might be nice.”

  “He looked irradiated,” Missus Petrosky said.

  “Missus Petrosky,” Jolene said, “we’re very sorry our services were not to your satisfaction. If there’s any way we could—”

  “I’ll let you girls in on a little secret,” Missus Petrosky cut in. “My husband and I have a lot of friends. Or, now that it’s just me, I should say I have a lot of friends. And word gets around. A lot of us are getting up there in the years and are starting to make preparations in advance, since not many of us trust such an important thing to our children. I will not hesitate on giving them my full, honest opinion should any of them ask what I thought of how my husband was treated by the girls at the Hawthorne Funeral Home. But I won’t go out of my way to tell them, either, because that feels somewhat tactless. I would – and this is just my two cents – if I were you, lean in a little closer and pay attention to what you are doing. This is your livelihood, isn’t it? You two don’t do anything else but this?”

  Jolene and Amber shook their heads.

  “So there’s no excuse. This is what you do, so do it as well as you can. I admire your fib – Amber, was it? – about putting a darker shade on my husband. That fib took quick thinking. But, in the future, honesty is the best policy. Especially when dealing with senior citizens – in your line, I can’t imagine many young people being brought to your door. Because old people may be slow, we may smell weird, we may drive slow and eat slow and bitch a lot, but we have experience with people. We lived in a time before all human contact and communication was done through texts and tweets and bleeps and clicks and what the fuck ever else. And I’m sure it’s easy to lie using those means, but when it comes to eye-to-eye talk, real talk, between two people, us old farts know that and we can sniff out a lie a mile away. My point, and I have to get going here, my daughter’s waiting for me, is this: if I hear about this mistreatment happening to any of my friends who come into your care or any of my friends’ husbands, I will burn your establishment to the ground. Understand?”

  Jolene’s throat had dried to the point of cracking. She couldn’t speak, so she only nodded.

  Amber nodded too. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Good. See you around.” Missus Petrosky moved off, got into her daughter’s waiting SUV, and left with several other attendees. When it was only Jolene and Amber, they both swore under their breath, collected the wreaths and flowers and the chairs, loaded up the hearse, and headed out, both of their minds buzzing from the old woman’s threat that neither of them doubted she would make good on.

  * * *

  In Uptown, Frank parked his Lexus at the curb in front of Ted Beaumont’s two-story house. Frank could’ve very well still been in his own neighborhood; the burbs look so similar, everywhere.

  He stepped out into the clinging humidity – sweat pushing through across his brow immediately – and went up to the front door. It wasn’t even ten yet and already it was likely pushing eighty.

  Frank
knocked.

  Ted, six-four, black, and clean-cut, pulled open the door. “Well good morning, sunshine!”

  “Hey.”

  “You all right, brother? You look like hammered shit.”

  “I feel like hammered shit.”

  “Well, come on in, I got the eggs in the pan. You’re just in time.”

  Frank followed Ted through the living room, side-stepping action figures and Barbie dolls – all lying down and naked, like the aftermath of some gender war had left no survivors. The TV was on, morning talk bullshit at a low volume. The smell of breakfast hooked Frank under the nose and drew him along. His sour guts, for the moment, settled. He took off his sunglasses and sat at the kitchen table.

  Ted set a full coffee mug in front of Frank. my dad is the best!

  “Mind if I smoke in here, world’s greatest dad?” Frank said.

  “Rather you not, brother man,” Ted said, back at the stove, scraping almost-burned eggs from the pan. “Nadine’s on my ass to quit and if she smells it in the house, hooboy, watch out. You’ll be finding yourself with a new roommate.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “With the smoking? Down to three a day. One after breakfast, one after lunch, and one after dinner.”

  “Good for you.” Frank looked around the kitchen. It was spotless and everything was painted in warm colors and there were pictures, professionally taken, of Ted and Nadine’s kids in classy black and white. On the living room wall Ted had hung paintings of the African savannah. Lions lounging in the tall, golden grass and rhinoceroses standing unmovable. Wooden masks, empty eyed and staring. At home, Frank’s walls were bare.

  “What’s a stay-at-home dad do when the kids are school aged?” Frank asked. He took his cup of coffee, went to the back door and stood halfway out, blowing his smoke across the backyard. There was a sandbox and more colorful toys all over – that red Playskool car with the yellow roof that seemed, to Frank, was assigned to your backyard when you had a kid, like it was a mandatory thing your little one required. Frank recalled putting together his kid’s red car was a real pain in the ass. The wheel never turned right and Jessica kept getting stuck on things.

  “Clean mostly,” Ted said, scraping at the eggs like he was chipping ice from a windshield. “But I don’t just keep the house and shuttle the kids back and forth. I work. You know I work.”

  “I know you do,” Frank said.

  “Amazing thing, the internet. Ten years back if I wanted to do what I do, I’d be sitting in a car, parked downtown, all fucking day long waiting on customers to come strolling by. Not no more. I sit my ass on my couch now, feet up, and just let the magic happen, one click-click of the mouse at a time.” Ted turned with the two steaming plates of eggs. “Well, it’s burnt to shit, but come and get it.”

  Frank stuck his cigarette butt in one of Ted’s wife’s potted plants and stepped back inside. The windows were open and someone in the neighborhood was mowing their lawn. Frank always hated that smell; the blood of plants.

  “Simone Pescatelli rang my doorbell this morning,” Frank said around a mouthful of egg.

  “Simone Pescatelli,” Ted echoed, picking a fleck of eggshell out of his teeth. “Remind me?”

  “She’s Big Robbie’s niece.”

  “Shit. Somebody pop her?” Ted asked, daubing his triangle of toast around his plate.

  Frank sipped his coffee. “No. I gave her an abortion.”

  Ted paused bringing the toast to his mouth. “Say that again?”

  “I gave Simone Pescatelli an abortion this morning.”

  “Hold on. Run that by one more time.”

  “I gave Simone Pescatelli an abortion this morning.” Frank didn’t care for the internal rhyme in that.

  “Good one. Hilarious, Frank.” Ted’s grin wilted. “Wait. You’re serious.”

  Frank shrugged. “Yeah, I am. Why?”

  “I hope you know that’s playing with fire, friend of mine. Especially if the would-be-baby was sporting a dick.”

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that you assisted in fucking with Big Robbie’s lineage.”

  “Simone’s his niece.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That’s blood. Think how often the word family is said in gangster movies. That isn’t by mistake. That isn’t stereotyping. They care about that shit, capital C.”

  “I’d say it was her decision.”

  “How progressive. Did you tumble out of the one percent and land with a bleeding heart?”

  Frank shrugged. “Wouldn’t matter. Can’t legally vote for another three years.”

  “Any money change hands?” Ted said.

  “With Simone? Some, sure. I do run a business.”

  Ted was still holding his toast. “You gotta get your shit straight, Frank.”

  Frank counted in his head. Three, two, one.

  “You shouldn’t have done that for her,” Ted said. “Even if she put a gun on you. You should’ve let her go squeal to Big Robbie and have him ask what she was trying to have done and then he’d straighten her out without you ever coming into it. But now that you’ve done what you did, you’re right there in the fucking sauce pot with her, as an accomplice.”

  “I’m not going to lose sleep over it. Neither should you.”

  Ted finally bit his toast. “You suicidal or something, Frank?”

  “Drop it. I’m sorry I even mentioned it now.”

  “Well, when Big Robbie sends his boys over to your place looking to put your dick in the business end of some bolt cutters, do me a favor: lose my number.”

  They were quiet a minute. Just the sound of a neighbor mowing his lawn drifting in through the window.

  Ted sat back from his empty plate, folding his hands behind his head. “Noticed you’re still driving the Lexus.”

  Frank swallowed his last forkful of eggs. Nothing tasted right with a hangover, but he was glad to have something in his belly to sop up the warzone going on down there. “No takers.”

  “You ain’t gonna get the price you want for it.” Ted picked something out of his teeth, eggshell maybe. “You should just sell it for whatever someone will take it for.”

  “I paid sixty-five thousand dollars for that car.”

  “And if you sell it, the thirty-five you might get for it will be thirty-five you don’t have in your pocket currently. That fucker with the fat wallet is gone. Climb off him, Clooney, he’s gone.”

  Frank said nothing. It was too bright in here. He put on his sunglasses again and pushed his plate back. “Thanks for breakfast. And sorry for insisting we meet this early.”

  “It’s cool,” Ted said. “Kids don’t get home till one, Nadine’s away on business. We couldn’t have planned this better. Plus, who doesn’t like doing their business over breakfast?”

  “I would’ve preferred to do it over the phone, but that’s just me.”

  “I know it sounds nutty, Frank, but sometimes paranoia, just sometimes, can keep your ass alive.”

  “Or turn you into a nervous wreck.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Ted said, clipped. “You might consider finding yourself some paranoia, especially since you could be in hot water soon, killing unborn Pescatelli boys.”

  Frank ignored that. “I always hated morning meetings,” he said. “I can’t think straight until at least eleven.”

  “Oh, poor white boy. I bet you ain’t never had to work first shift in your life.”

  “We’re going to get into all that again?”

  “No,” Ted said with a chuckle. “We won’t. I just mean you gotta learn to be adaptable is all. Working for yourself means living every single facet of that entrepreneurial lifestyle. There ain’t part-time when you’re your own boss – if you wanna keep the lights on.”

  “I’m aware,” Frank said.
His stomach, though full, started to sour again. He got up and got a glass of water for himself, knowing which cupboard to open.

  Among Ted and Nadine’s grown-up glasses were colorful plastic sippy cups – Frank remembered late nights scrubbing those with a special kind of dish soap and a brush wand, listening to the radio, while everyone else was upstairs asleep. It felt like someone else’s memory. He filled the glass from the tap, sat again, and looked across the table and empty plates at Ted, who continued to wear this know-it-all smirk, hands clasped behind his head.

  With his arms lifted, Frank noticed both armpits of Ted’s thin cotton shirt had a dark dot of sweat.

  “Something wrong with your AC?” Frank said.

  “No. We started only using it at night. Bill was getting out of hand.”

  “Meaning you only get to be comfortable in your own house in the summer when your wife is home?”

  Ted looked at him. “Why do you hate my wife, man?”

  “I don’t hate your wife,” Frank said.

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “I just think it’s kind of fucked up that you have to sit in this hot house all day without AC – then she gets home and that’s when it’s allowed to come on, after you’ve spent all day burning to death in here.” Frank pulled on the collar of his shirt a few times to push a breeze down his chest. It didn’t help much. The eggs and coffee, hot in his stomach, made him feel like he’d swallowed a smoldering coal.

  “It was my idea to only have it on at night,” Ted said. “I do the budgeting and I don’t mind the heat. I’m a Texas boy, remember. And it’s not my house – it’s Nadine’s house as much as it is mine. That ‘a man’s house is his castle’ bullshit doesn’t fly here.” Ted paused. “And if you was saying shit like that to Rachel, no small fucking wonder you two’s divorced.”