“Dearly departed, we are gathered over you this day not to say goodbye, because you’re already dead, but to mark your conspicuous absence among the living. We contemplate your term on Earth with due consideration of its consequence. We celebrate your one-way journey into perpetuity. We duly recognize the ultimate frailty of mortal existence and ephemeral nature of its afterglow, burning in the memory of human bonds, on the coal bed of sweet sentiment, only to be snuffed out by grim necessity. Make way for the living, ye marked for another world. All will be forgotten in good time.”
“He was a liar and self-serving sneak,” remarks a man in a gray suit standing under a tree.
“You are gone and gone for good, but badness remains among men. For what is life without evil, the stain of the ages, the reincarnation of original sin,” continues the pastor.
“He got me fired, three times… then my wife left and took the kids,” says another in a fedora, dripping wet from the rain.
“If life is a lie, then where lies the truth? In death, I do submit to you and all the ages. Your eyes have been opened in the afterlife, your being reborn, friend of fortune, husband of hope…”
“Son of a bitch,” says the man under the tree, then he spits.
The mourners raise their voice in chorus:
May the road rise to meet you in the morning,
May the wind be at your back during the day,
May the sun shine warm upon your face at dusk,
May the rain wash your body into the night,
The Devil hold you in the hollow of his hand forever…
Publowsky, paper-white wings on his naked back, holds a hand-embroidered kerchief under his nose with a single thumb, and the tail of a dead rat between two fingers, approaches the hole in the ground that all are standing around and releases his load therein.
“He wasn’t really a rat, I tell you, but better than most men I’ve known,” cries a hard-faced woman in a pink flamingo rain cape. She’s comforted by a gentleman with an Eastern air.
The pastor, under a white wig, black biretta and purple cassock, shuffles past swinging a smoking thurible. A procession of attendees closes behind. He pauses near the grieving woman, touching her cheek with a large knowing hand, while the other one clutches her buttock greedily beneath a rumpled skirt.
The man under the tree spits again. “The Ferret is dead, long live The Ferret,” he smirks to himself. “A fitting end for a rodent, that’s for sure… particularly given that he always seemed partial to holes. How many others of his ilk are still at large in this town, the Devil himself only knows… I never gave any credence to those rumors of a reward for his capture. How could one be sure he had the right one? Boss Lard could wiggle out of any deal – fat ass first. He’s always known how to cover that ass… till recently, that is. Anyway, it’s all just as well… over and done with to all intents and purposes.” He spits again. “This town is going to the pigeons.”
The rain maintains its assault on the pet cemetery, and the man’s voice is drowned out in the shower.
In the cluttered back room of a customs clearance office on the Left Bank, two men conduct business…
“Will that be all, Mr. Christian?”
The swarthy South Asian lifts his chin in assent, stroking the wispy gray goatee that decorates it only as an afterthought.
“The tortoise shell will fetch a fine price in Malaysia. You might not have spared the wax job while you were at it. The retractable claws are simply inimitable. Where on earth did you dig them up? As for the – how did you call them? – monkey wings, I’m frankly at a loss for words: truly a rare exhibit in these days when all are out to shock and surprise. In short, I think your expectations can be safely met, possibly with a premium on top, especially if there’s more where this stuff comes from, Mr. Christian.”
The coffee-brown eyes have grown silent. The thin purple lips say nothing either, for they have been called to bear witness to a lavish and sacred ceremony taking place somewhere on the sub-continent of Harry Christian’s subconscious.
Mamba, his grandfather’s elephant, is in musk. But the trumpets blow louder, and the drums beat the jungle into a trance. There’s orange and red, yellow and green among the whirling dancers’ dress. The people have been preparing the festival for over a month, and grandfather must command their respect. He would whip any of them to within an inch of death for less insolence on an ordinary work day. Even the thin cobra pipes offer no respite, teasing and taunting both man and beast who surely have less patience than a snake. Dotted foreheads and thick eyelashes observe the pandemonium with the reserve of a lunatic restricted to moon-watching from his window. Children run naked and squeal. Old men stand stiff in the din. Grandfather smooths the sleeve of his priestly robes, maintaining a distant gaze.
Suddenly, the elephant falters, then rears up as if blaming its master and any living thing at its feet. Then countless big dark eyes bulge in horror, as the aged Hindu, a Brahmin no less, is tugged off the back of the beast he rides and ripped in half under its weight.
“Mr. Christian, are you still with me? Mr. Christian?”
But by now he, Harry Christian, is out on the street in pursuit of himself. There he goes, around a corner, laces untied and hands in his pockets, then again at a traffic light, losing himself in the crowd. Are those his footprints in the freshly fallen snow? Is that his beard in a beer in that basement bar?
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, for The Jungle Book Times, Eastern Standard Edition, December 9, 2013