Sialia
First Post
Sweet Remembrances, Inc.
[Image#2]
Fourteen hours in the workshop with the airbrush and spatula building a gilded masterpiece of bittersweet in the shape of a Harley, and it took both the paramedic and the police officer to extract the mangled corpse of that cake out of the minivan.
From the look on Valerie’s face, it should have been me, and she’d have been just as happy if the actors had dropped the body if it had been mine.
I wouldn’t have hit that pothole either, if John hadn’t been screwing around with his rubber gloves in the van, but you can’t tell Valerie stuff like that. He may be the moron in the passenger seat, but I was the idiot behind the wheel. Anyway, the costumes bought us a reprieve, ‘cause the bikers appreciated the irony. Sometimes life hands you a lucky break, or at least a patch of forgiveness. Life’s a bitch with a sense of humor like yours, Sal.
Once we got the remains out of the van, we set up the candles, and there were so many of ‘em my fireman outfit seemed like a decent idea after all. I was kinds hoping they were gonna ask me to blow out the candles with my extinguisher, but life’s sense of humor apparently isn’t as forgiving as all that. Either that or the bikers really like their devil’s food, even if it is kinda squashed and melty. I did get to spray down some of the dancing girls with a garden hose after they got sticky, so the day wasn’t a complete loss.
The biker crowd, they’re all right, and November’s not so bad in San Diego. You’d have liked it.
Tomorrow’s gig is druids, or monks. I forget which. Druids would be more fun, I’ll bet. You always kept track of this stuff, Sal, I’m not the details guy. Heavy lifting, hazardous driving, I’m your guy. Don’t ask me to bake or sew or keep track of where we’re supposed to be when dressed up as what. For these things, we have business partners.
When I get home, I smoke a few. The last one I stub out in your urn, because I still feel guilty smoking in front of you and not sharing. I set your little gilt peacock back on the mantle. [Image #4]
Night Sal. Jaws of life today, shaking of the sheets tomorrow.
. . .
The morning’s rig fits the client’s orders: “mask of clay, and pipe of clay also
for we are all made of clay and unto clay must go.” The saving grace is that no one can see my face in this outfit. Toot toot, blow my flute. John looks like a leper with bells on, so I figure I got off easy. [Image #6]
I always used to wonder whether I’d go on doing these stupid memorials after you were gone. But it turns out the living still need to make a living, so go fig. Here I am, blowing it out my pipe.
Cake’s in the standard mini-casket this time. Fits snug in the old van. We’re still saving up to buy that refrigerated hearse, Sal. They did a 30-second spot about us on one of the cable shows last month, so I think word’s getting around. Business has been good, but the expenses keep going up
Not so many candles today—this corpse still too fresh in the ground. I don’t reckon the widow’s gotten the sprit of the thing yet anyhow. Sure she’s called his old pals out to spend the night, but every time they mention the deceased, she busts out bawling. I still can’t tell whether they’re religious or medievalists or LARPers or what. We’re the only ones in drag, and the guests are all walking around like they’re afraid to say or do anything, ‘cause the widow’s still busy being widowed instead of celebrating the spirit.
Personally, I liked the biker dudes better. Less concern about life eternal, pretty firm grip on living fast and brief.
Maybe it’s just a better grip on denial.
Anyway, guessing from the biker’s candle count, it’d been a while. Grandkids and fans are always less soppy than widows. Life’s too short, know what I mean, Sal?
Well, obviously. Stupid question.Withdrawn.
Today’s been either one precious day I won’t get back again in a hurry or one less humiliating experience left to endure.
Now that’s the sort of tempting fate that really makes me look forward to tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I’m flying to Chicago to wear tights. And just for the record, in case it gets easy to lose track of the time in your eternal rest there, it’s still November.
You’re laughing. Think you’re flying baggage or coach, bright eyes? Here’s a hint: security check.
Think about it.
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Chicago is not the place where I’d plan a street festival midwinter. I’m just saying, it’s no San Diego.
The tribute to the famous street tumbling troupe founder turned out a decent crowd after all, wind chill and everything. Turns out we didn’t have to wear the tights—just deliver and the giant cake , and set up the decorations all over the park. The troupe took care of the actual tumbling, thanks much.
I kept hoping one of them would blow the vault and land in the cake, but they never did. 20 minutes of tooth rattling cold, and those kids went up over and everything but through that logo-covered monster. Handsprings, backsprings, whathaveyou. Sun even tried to come out for bit in the late afternoon before giving it up as a bad job. [Image #1]
Turns out this guy had a lot of friends. About 10,000 tumbling alumnae showed up to remember a good man well. It was actually a pretty good memorial, as these things go. They even brought in some guys to do pyrotechnics. In my next life, I’m getting a real job blowing things up.
But we shoulda brought a chainsaw to slice the cake, because it was frozen stiff as my fingers by the time the celebration got to dessert. I never want to serve 10,000 slices of anything again, even if it does buy us a hearse.
Oh—and there was a newspaper reporter there wanted to know about how we got into the memorial business. I told her about our old office party delivery service, and that day you handed an engineer his “over the hill” balloons and cake and he said “Beats the alternative.”
And you said “Right. With the alternative, you don’t get balloons. Flowers maybe.”
And he said “Who says? My funeral, we’re having balloons. And cake. Gimme your business card—I’ll put it in my will.”
And how one thing kind of led to another. Funeral festivals didn’t work out so good, but we did alright with the memorial services, and how you were a genius at Hallmarking the whole thing into an annual affair. Doesn’t seem decent not to light a candle for grandpa these days. One knock off vendor after another showing up to get a slice of the cake, but nobody who does it like you, Sal.
Ah, hell with the security check this time. Stow yourself in my shaving kit, lady. I’ll carry you home.
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I don’t even get back to my nice warm house in my nice warm neighborhood a whole day before Valerie calls with the next assignment.
Which is good, right? Because work beats the alternative. But it’s hell on the laundry and packing. I don’t know when Valerie finds time to bake or book these things.
Rest your sweet remains up there on the dash, Sal. We’ve got a long haul uphill to tomorrow. Had your peacock’s butt magnetized for the occasion.
Skiiers.
You ever transport a cake on a snowmobile? Don’t ask. Six layers of frosted hell.
I hate to leave you in the van, but lady, there was just too much stuff to get up there.
Hella view from up there in Heavenly: trees all standing around in snow covered silence, looking like the middle digits of the mountain upraised in salute to the memory of the dearly departed. [Image #3]
The crash site was as cold as the day the ski patrol flipped their Bombardier over the lump of the departed in the snow. The wind wouldn’t let us get the damn candles lit for more than half sec. On the plus side, nobody expected fancy dress for the occasion.
You’d have liked the procession of skiers with flashlights afterwards, and especially the part where you have called me a damned idiot for not bringing electrics for the cake. Tell you what—we find a salute to a deceased pyrotechnician, I’ll rig the cake with anything you want. You want a teaspoon of you to go up for a ride, I’ll grind a few extra smokes under your bejeweled tail to make up the balance.
Anyway this corpse wasn’t into pyrotechnics or electrics—just some snowbunny scientist on holiday. Colleagues planned the memorial bash with the laureate’s PhD thesis doodled over the cake: “the trees are trying to kill us.” Only it was in scientific, with little ball and stick diagrams for the molecules of isoprene and other crap the Amazon rainforest is spewing in the air. [Image #5]
No really—I thought that too—that the rainforest was supposed to be saving our sorry ozone butthole. Turns out the trees are each sweating buckets of “smog precursors” trying to save themselves from the heat. It’s same as us cranking up the AC. Cool me down, and screw you and your little dog, too.
Kind of ironic about snowbunny hitting that juniper, when you think about it.
My mustache iced up on the screaming salute to eternity that was the ride back down the lodge. Ride sort of got me to wondering who’s throwing parties for me when I’m gone. We shoulda had kids, Sal.
Nah, you’re right. Scratch that.
Ecosystem’s halfway to the grave as it is. 100 years is about all we got left, from what I overheard today. Polar caps melting down, state of Florida going underwater, hurricanes up the yinyang, fossil fuels running out, countries going to war over the scraps, whole planet heating up or going down in nuclear winter.
No point in bringing a kid into all that.
But I ain’t using that stupid matching peacock urn you had made for me, Sal. Man dies a man whether there’s anybody left to celebrate him or not. I’m leaving instructions. I’ve got a plan, assuming there’s someone left to find the corpse.
Although.
Seems likely, if we’ve only got a couple decades to go, I’ve got a reasonable shot at being the last man left alive on Earth.
I mean, why not?
Somebody’s got to plan that last bash. Who better than you and me?
We’re the original party planners, babe.
And yeah, no worries. I’ll take out the trash and turn the lights down ‘fore I come up.
