Coffins Caskets and Mourn. A Novel by Kenneth Sinclair

Coffins, Caskets, & Mourn Kenneth Sinclair

To everyone who endured my ramblings and helped me through this endeavor: I will pass on something my father says to me— Don’t let anyone steal your joy.

Chapter 1 Harold walked down the sidewalk, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, while he watched the sky’s color change. Lightning streaked the sky leaving scratch marks in his eyes. Above him dark blues faded to violent grays. Even though it had not started to rain, the clouds bulged at their seams.

It was a thirty-minute walk home from work, a walk Harold made every night except for Sunday. That was Harold’s day to rest.

He spent all his other days dressing up corpses for their dates with the Lord. He was the mortician at a funeral home on the east side of town. Each new body was a different life story. Like every life story, it ended in death.

Harold gripped his stomach and doubled over in pain. He clenched his teeth and fell to his knees. The sound of bone slapping concrete echoed through the empty street. He let out a small moan.

“Fuck,” he said to himself.

He tried to stand back up, but his knees buckled under the weight of his body. He felt sick. Each step he took a knot would grind in his stomach. He was four blocks from home. He took two more and passed out from the pain.

The train barreled down the tracks. The penny Andrew had just placed on the flat steel rail slid off. He got up from the rock he watched from and put the penny back. Lightning streaked the sky

leaving scratch marks in his eyes. Even though it had not started to rain, the clouds bulged at their seams.

Andrew’s older brother, Caleb, had come home with his friends the day before, as they bragged about their flattened coins.

“Hey check out my elongated Lincoln, Andrew!” one of them said, and returned to his previous conversation with the older boys.

“I couldn’t believe it. That shit happened so fast.”

“Let’s put a rat on there, see how far his guts fly!”

They laughed and continued to joke about all the things they were going to crush.

“I want to come!” Andrew shouted.

Caleb looked at him. “You’ve got to be out of your mind.

Mom would kill me if she knew I took you to the tracks.”

Andrew’s knees bent as he pleaded, “Oh, come on! I won’t tell her.”

“You’re damn right you won’t, because you aren’t going.”

Caleb laughed as he went out the back door with his friends.

Harold woke up on a couch. It was green. He thought as he blinked and shook his head, who do I know with a green couch?

He owned a green couch. It was his couch. It was his house. How the fuck did I get home? He sat up, looked around, and saw a note folded on his end table. It was positioned for display. So far everything seemed to be his and he assumed the note was his as well. On the front, it read, Dr. Sparks. Harold unfolded the note and began to read: Dear Harold, I found you unconscious last night while I was out running some errands. I did what checkup I could. You weren’t quite cooperating. Everything checked out, but I’d like to do a follow-up.

Give your pal a call and save yourself the hospital bill, eh!

Harold was confused. How is everything fine if I passed out from pain last night, he thought. He felt better in the morning as he rolled off the couch, stretching his arms and legs across the floor.

His body seemed to be in working order. He did, however, feel as if he had swallowed a live fish. No worries, probably just an unsettled stomach, he thought, figuring he needed to eat.

For someone who spent a good amount of time with dead bodies, Harold’s home still had a welcoming tone. There were no shrunken heads hidden in the closet. Most of his furniture was wooden. A family quilt, passed down to him from his father, was draped over his green sofa. He went into his kitchen to make a sandwich: turkey, lettuce, tomato, mustard, and a slice of Swiss cheese. He chewed and swallowed. Lunch at its finest, he thought.

Harold wondered if Dr. Sparks would bill him for his check-up. He hoped doctors were not that tricky, and that we stopped calling them witch doctors for a reason. The thought of Dr. Sparks, dancing around his body, shaking a stick in the air while Harold lay facedown on the pavement, sent a chill down his neck.

The chill, he assumed, must have scared the fish in his stomach.

He felt like it was trying to gnaw its way out of him. He felt the fish was doing a damn good job. In fact, it felt like the little bastard had made it through his stomach, and had swum down to chew on his intestines.

Harold felt the spins come on strong and dropped the sandwich on the floor. He tried to maintain awareness and slowly recovered while he stepped over his sandwich. His cat, Critter, decided to finish it for him. He made his way to the phone and dialed Dr. Sparks’ number. The phone rang once. Then, as if in retaliation, his stomach contracted.

Andrew had gone to bed that night to the sound of the radiator humming. Caleb was not home yet. He could not help but think of that train: the engine racing along the tracks as it carried the steel-cars behind it. The snout pumping smoke in the air as a thick black cloud followed in its wake. A steel giant—metal stampede—that roared by to crush anything in its path. He fell asleep, waiting for his brother to return, and dreamt of the tracks.

The sun had risen the same way it does any other day, but that day Andrew got to watch it. He awoke in the middle of the night and could not go back to sleep. He walked out into the living

room and dragged his feet across the carpet on his way. He sat himself down in front of the pair of doublewide windows in the living room.

He looked through the glass into the night and saw a crow fly down and perch on one of the branches of a large oak tree in his front yard. He watched it settle on the branch, still swinging, as it sharply surveyed its surroundings. It stretched its feathers and picked at a couple with its beak, closing them again. Andrew ran to the window in excitement. As the bird flew off, Andrew’s hand gently fell against the window, wanting to follow.

Andrew’s father had been killed three years ago. The last time he looked Andrew in the eyes was six months before that. It was just two days before Andrew’s sixth birthday. His father had patted his head and said, “You’ll be a man before you know it, Champ.” Those were the last words they had spoken.

The Army sent a letter that told the family how sorry they were, but not to worry. They said that Andrew’s dad would be back up and fighting again in no time. He was not, and his leg became diseased, then was amputated. He spent the last six months of his life in the hospital. A month before he was scheduled to get out of the hospital, it was bombed. The large block of concrete was turned into several small pieces of concrete. The people inside were turned into several small pieces of people. The Army sent another letter. Two men in black uniforms gave his mother an envelope. All Andrew knew was that people told his family that his father died for the war. That dying in a war made you a patriot.

Before Andrew could even see the sun, its light started to push back against the cold black of the night. He sat in a dark blue onesie as he watched this change of the guards, from night to day, wash over him. His brown short-fit-of-hair was lit with sparks of yellow that came through the window. His mother had just woken up. She was halfway through the living room, to the kitchen, before her eyes opened wide enough to notice her son in the den.

“Andrew, what are you doing up so early? Go back to bed.”

Andrew turned his head, and asked, “Can we go somewhere today? Can we go do something?”

“I’m busy today, sweetie, Susan and I are going to breakfast. We’ll be shopping all day. You’d be miserable.” It was

not clear if she needed to convince him or herself of this.

“Mom, come on, pleeeease.” He had been desperate to leave the house that day.

His mom pushed the conversation aside and said, “No, dear.”

Andrew felt the walls of the house inch towards him. He felt the ceiling drop a couple of feet, the fan blades spun closer to his head.

Short of breath, he ran to his room. He grabbed his door handle and electricity jolted into his fingers. The house had turned hostile.

He flung the door open, ran through, and slammed it shut finding refuge underneath the familiar sheets of his bed.

His mother started a pot of coffee. Then went back into her room to get dressed. She turned on the shower. Pipes rattled by Andrew’s head. He thought of the train tracks. She got out of the shower, dried off, and fired up the hairdryer. He could hear the steam whistle, from the top of its engine, wailing as it chased the horizon. He could see the embers of the coals burn as flames twisted with black and red. If his mother had looked close enough into Andrew’s eyes, she would have seen that fire. He heard his mother’s heels on the kitchen floor, before the carpet outside his room silenced her steps. The front door creaked open and shut with out a word.

“Hello?” Dr. Sparks spoke into the phone.

“Sparks, man, you’ve got to get over here. I’ve eaten something funny, food poisoning, something like that, or else I’ve eaten a fish.”

“A fish? What kind?” Dr. Sparks asked.

“A fucking mean one.” Harold winced.

“How was it?”

“A bit under-cooked. It’s chewing on me from the inside.”

“Sounds fishy,” Dr. Sparks laughed, and hung up the phone.

Harold was fighting back a grin. He liked Sparks. He was always straight with Harold, a good guy, but for a doctor he was a bit under-cooked. He was a great doctor, just hard to understand at times. Harold was sure that Sparks was on his way over. He looked

for a stable surface to wait on until Dr. Sparks arrived. He lay back down on the same green couch that he had started the day on.

For the next twenty minutes, pin drops sounded like jackhammers, lamps looked like people, and his living room had become, to him, a foreign land. His stomach did no t hurt as much anymore, but his couch rocked like it was in the Atlantic. He felt a wave of nausea and the people floating in the ocean around him were not there a minute ago. He was impressed to see that Critter could walk on water. Critter paced around the couch, while Harold wailed around on it mumbling under his breath.

His eyes would roll from one side of his socket to the other.

He watched Critter circle the couch. “This can’t be happening….

There’s no place like home,” his voice shook as the waves rocked him, “There’s no place like home.”

Critter prowled around the couch staying close to Harold.

The cat’s wild green eyes were suspended in front of fur that was the color of coal before it was burnt. There was a knock at Harold’s door. Critter did not purr. He tried, but made noises queer for a cat, “Garrrlfffff.”

“Come in!” Harold blurted between uneven moans. Sparks is here, things are going to be okay. Was it Sparks, Harold thought, I didn’t even ask. The doorknob turned. It was too late now.

Whoever it is, he’s coming in with a knife in hand, some cold steel to finish the job and put me out of my misery. Will he make it fast?

Will he let me bleed out? Harold closed his eyes to accept his fate.

He was in no state to fight as he heard the door close. He felt the intruder over him and felt his hands reach out. Cold steel pressed against his chest as he heard, “Relax, Harold… give me a deep breath.”

Harold opened his eyes to see Dr. Sparks, standing over him, holding a stethoscope to his chest.

“Your heart rate is a little abnormal, Harold. I want you to try and calm down.” Dr. Sparks was not laughing anymore. He wiped Harold’s brown matted hair from his forehead, and then said, “Let’s take your temperature.”

Harold did not respond, but his eyes followed the doctor’s hands with dazed acceptance. Dr. Sparks stuck a thermometer in Harold’s mouth. Harold tried to grasp reality long enough for the doctor to do his work. Harold thought that to warn Dr. Sparks of

the water he was standing in, or the savages that drifted by, would only complicate the situation.

“98.6, perfectly, normal,” Dr. Sparks said as he examined Harold, and then checked the thermometer again. He lifted Harold’s shirt up and started to press on his stomach. He was looking for a reaction.

Harold shoved the doctor off the couch in a jolt of pain, throwing them both onto the floor. Harold got to his hands and knees and started to crawl towards the bathroom. His insides burned like napalm as he felt cold steel cut his stomach. Harold vomited the unwanted out like a disease. His throat singed from stomach acid, but relief fell over him.

Dr. Sparks tapped Harold on the shoulder, pointed to the floor in front of them, and said, “I think we’ve found the problem.”

Harold looked down. In the midst of what looked like thick salsa mix lay a single, silver, skeleton key.

Andrew had been in his bed stuck in an opaque gaze that transcended objects. The rules were always final. It was not clear why they were rules, but it was clear that they were to be obeyed.

He remembered one afternoon, after his mom had unloaded the groceries and said, “Don’t go sneakin in the cabinet above the refrigerator.” I can’t even reach the cabinet, unless I climbed onto the counter, he thought The week after the cabinet was banned, his mom had come home from work and gone straight to the kitchen. He heard her come in, and he went to say hello. She was struggling to open a container, when Andrew came up and tugged on her shirt. She let out a shriek and the container shot out of her hands. It landed on the kitchen floor, the cap busting open, and spilling pills all over the tile. She scrambled to the floor shoving the pills back into the bottle. She looked up at Andrew and screamed at him.

“Get the hell out of the kitchen, Andrew!”

Andrew stood, while he watched his mom scurry around the floor. She gathered the pills, sliding the ones she could quickly into the bottle and reaching for a couple that went behind the refrigerator. He watched his mother become unwoven and frantic.

It terrified him. It took a moment for his mom to realize he was still there.

“Room, now!” she yelled, her voice hoarse from the effort.

He could not run. He was far too scared to do that. He turned on his heels and walked to his room. For the rest of the day, he did not talk to his mom. She tucked herself away in her own bedroom and made trips to the kitchen, refilling whatever it was she was drinking, only to return to her room. The next night she called Andrew into the living room. His brother was out. His brother was always out. She told Andrew the kitchen was off-limits from now on. She told him that she would leave lunch in the living room for him when she left for work and that he was no longer allowed to go into her room.

“Privacy is important, Andrew,” she said, “and people need space, so you need to respect mommy’s space.”

Andrew listened to his mother talk to him in short sentences.

One day, Andrew had been out in the rain and had run through the mud. He panted as he waded through grassy slush. He seemed further away from his home, his mother, and his brother with each raindrop that had hit him. Each drop revived him from his continual numbness. He felt the cool water run from his hair and down his face. He felt the mud seep into his shoes and soak into his socks. He felt the push of the wind from the storm, and the world churn underneath his feet. He ran until his heart leapt out of his chest, throwing him off balance, and onto the ground. He lay there panting, cheeks flushed, and trying to catch his breath. Once he recovered, he raced inside.

That day, his mother came home from work the same time she did every day. She walked to the front door and opened it.

Unlike every other day, the first thing she saw was a pair of dark brown shoe prints crusted into the carpet. Her eyes followed the set of footprints. One by one she walked over them to Andrew’s bedroom door. Outside was now off-limits too.

Now Andrew sat in his room and lusted for the world, and all he had was half of a house. Mom’s not home, he thought. Not home, can’t go outside, stuck, stuck, stuck. Moms not home… if only she was home…but…mom’s...not home, and then it became clear. Mom’s not home!

Andrew looked at the kitchen. He hesitated for a moment, looked back over his shoulder, and saw that his mother had not even bothered to leave him lunch. Like that, the moment passed.

He walked across the living room, passing the rocking chair his mother spent countless hours in. It was perfectly still, as he smiled at the empty chair and walked into the kitchen. He was hungry, and started making his own lunch. He tore through the refrigerator and ate whatever he got his hands on.

He slowed down as he filled his stomach. As he tired, his eyes wandered upward. He sat Staring at the forbidden cabinet above the refrigerator. He got up and climbed onto the counter, slipped his finger into the handle, and flung it open. Three glass bottles rattled against each other. The labels on one of them read “Jack Daniels,” the other two “Blue Sapphire gin.” He took all three bottles from the cabinet and dumped them down the drain.

From the kitchen, he bolted into his mother’s bedroom. The door was locked. Andrew went and got a hammer from the garage.

He hammered the doorknob off the door with several swings. It fell to the floor. The metal pieces thumped into the carpet. Andrew dropped the hammer and pushed the door open. He searched the room high and low, not sure what to look for. At first he found nothing, but in the middle of her dresser, between all her clutter, sat a penny.

Harold held the key in his hand, and without taking his eyes off it, he asked, “Doc, I just threw up a fucking key. What’s your diagnosis?”

Sparks shrugged. “I’d say you’re all better, Champ.”

“I don’t exactly remember eating a key.”

“I don’t remember feeding you one either.” They shrugged at each other.

“Then, where the hell did it come from? This doesn’t just happen!”

“Obviously this does just happen, Harold.”

“But how?”

“I’ve got no clue.”

“You’re the doctor!”

“You’re the one who just threw up a key. Look, let’s not start name calling. I’ll talk to some people we have at LN images to get you in for an M.R.I. We’ll get you figured, Harold. You feeling okay now?”

Harold’s thoughts wandered off through the approaching scans and charts. He realized Sparks was awaiting his reply. “Yeah, yeah all good.”

Tension lingered in the room. It was not between Sparks and Harold, but between the two of them and the key.

Dr. Sparks felt it be best to just throw it out. “Just toss it, it’s—” Harold pulled the key closer to his chest. “Don’t you think it’s a sign?”

Dr. Sparks sighed. “No, I think it is a key, and it’s covered in vomit. It belongs in the trash, and you belong in the shower.”

“Exactly!” Harold yelled, as he held the key out towards Dr. Sparks. “It is a key, and it goes to something.”

Dr. Sparks new that belief was a dangerous thing, because no matter what, it is a gamble. But you are not putting twenty bucks down on the table. You are not putting anything on the table, because you have stepped up on it. If you lose, you have not lost the groceries for the week, you have lost yourself. Harold had never been a thrill seeker. He worked. He came home, then ate, slept, and tossed back a beer or two on a Saturday night.

“You probably ate it. Where did you eat out last?”

“You don’t exactly miss a two-inch piece of metal in your mouth.”

“I’ll give you that, Harold. Listen, I’ve got to get home for dinner. Let me know how you feel tomorrow. We can take it from there.”

Harold had not noticed that Dr. Sparks had packed up his things while they were talking, and by the time he did, he was already out the door.

Why a key? His mind cranked into fourth gear. What made me throw it up, or who? “Who?” he said out loud, “that’s ridiculous.” I must have eaten it. I had lasagna for takeout from the place down the street. The key probably got dropped in it. Who has their keys out in the kitchen though, just shakin’ around? How do you swallow two inches of metal and not notice it? I felt that

key come out. I would’ve felt it go in. But if I didn’t eat it, how… who…no what, put it there, here. Where? Where does it go? A house? No, that’s not a house key. It’s a skeleton key. It could be to an older house, or some specific closet. What would be in the closet? Money, lots of money, whose money? What if it’s blood money… “Bad voodoo,” Harold said.

Harold took a deep breath and smelled the crusted vomit he still needed to clean. He gagged, but Critter did not seem to mind.

The cat treated it as leftovers. Harold scared Critter off and got up to clean his mess and shower. He felt better, except his knees were a bit sore from the night before from falling on them. He worked the next day. Hell of a way to spend the day off, He thought.

The penny was clenched in Andrew’s right hand. He ran in the summer heat as beads of sweat formed on his forehead. His bare feet slapped the dirt road as he blazed his way to the tracks.

He had only been there once before when his mother had bought him a train ticket to go visit his grandfather in South Carolina two years ago. She normally sent him off for the summer, but this year it turned out to be cheaper to just keep him home.

He sat on a half-buried rock, feet from the tracks, and waited for the train to come. He waited for life. Andrew had done his part and met it halfway. He brought the penny out and put it on the tracks. All the train had to do was come.

The railroad track shook and tossed the penny off. Andrew got up from the rock he sat on and put the penny back. He saw smoke rising from the trees—harsh blacks mixing with the soft blue sky. He closed his eyes and listened to the steam whistle as it blazed through the air. The cool touch of the wind and hot summer day enveloped Andrew. He was part of this event. It was swallowing him whole, and he was letting it. He felt the earth beneath him groan and the winds howl. The clouds opened up and he felt the warmth of sunlight on his cheeks. He opened his eyes.

The penny lay on the ground, heads up, staring back at Andrew.

He raced to it again and picked it up out of the dirt. He blew it off so the copper gleamed in the sun. This penny had a date with destiny, and it was going to look nice. He put the penny back

on the track as the train hurled towards him, now only 100 yards away. He stepped back, hunched to the ground, and looked over his knees with anticipation. The train pulled closer and the penny began to rattle. Andrew bit at his knee. Just a little longer, just hold on. His eyes toggled between the penny and the train. It was here.

The penny let out a ring as it seesawed off once again. Andrew’s eyes went wide. I can make it, he thought, and lunged for the penny. The train, oblivious to it all, hit them both.

Harold stood in the shower, holding the key, letting the water do most of the work. Shifting his body from side to side, he turned the key around in his hand. Both the key and Harold were clean now, but neither left the shower. If he had the key, maybe someone had lost it. He decided it be best to hold on to it.

He got out of the shower and started to get ready for the day. He glanced at the clock and saw it was already 4:30 in the afternoon. Time flies when you’re hallucinating. He needed to unwind and catch some fresh air. After he got dressed, he found some twine to loop through the key. He hung it around his neck and tucked it underneath his shirt. Out of sight, but still close enough to get his hands on.

Harold took Critter to the park. Critter was an odd cat, but knew where home was. He never wandered too far from Harold.

Harold sat on the bench, under the surrounding oak trees, as he watched Critter chase shadows. Harold could not help but feel sorry for Critter because he could never catch them. He watched as Critter pounced on shadows of butterflies through the thick grass.

Suddenly, Critter froze and stared past Harold.

Harold stared at Critter. He thought they were having a moment until he noticed the fur on Critter’s back had started to rise and his tail had puffed up. Harold glanced behind himself to see a man staggering toward him with a cane: a solid, wooden, ebonystock that acted as a third leg. It had a figure on the top of it, which Harold could not make out from the distance. He wore an ill-fitted suit and had a hat that kept his face in shadow. The man staggered closer. Critter ran up to Harold and rubbed against his leg to signal he was ready to leave.

Harold got up and started to walk home in hopes of leaving the old man behind. He passed through the grass of the park onto the sidewalk. His footsteps made dull thuds on the concrete. Then Harold heard heel, toe, thud… heel, toe, thud. He started to walk faster, but as the sounds of Harold’s shoes against the concrete quickened, so did the following heel, toe, thud. He walked on and looked back. The old man was following, with increasing difficulty.

The next block Harold made a left, and he ducked into a shop where he watched the street through the window. The old man approached, staggering closer. A woman in the shop looked at Harold suspiciously. Harold felt the key under his shirt, suddenly more aware of it now that he noticed the woman’s gaze. He thought maybe this man had come for it, but as the old man went past the shop window, Harold’s paranoia went away. Harold attempted to leave, but the old man had stopped and stared at Harold through the glass.

Harold froze. Surely this old man was not going to mug him. Even if he did, Harold felt confident he could take on a man with a limp. Then he noticed that the old man was not looking at his eyes, but at his chest. The old man lifted his cane and pointed it at Harold, and then placed the end of it flat against the glass of the storefront window. Harold leaned his head forward. He saw markings on the bottom of the cane and squinted so they came into focus. It was an eye engraved into the silver. The old man pulled the cane back from the glass and shoved it through the storefront window, shattering it.

The woman in the store screamed and ran out. The alarm went off. People on the street stared. Mothers with children hurried away.

Harold grabbed Critter and hauled him out the backdoor.

He sprinted a couple blocks left, then right, before he headed home. Critter’s claws latched into Harold’s shoulder and chest as he ran.

Harold panted as he pried Critter off and checked to make sure there was no glass in his eyes. He locked the door to his apartment, and then slumped down onto the carpet. An odd day called for an early night, and sleep would come fast to his willing mind. Harold appreciated that.

In the morning, he got dressed for work and poured Critter some water and food before he left. On his way to work he debated whether throwing up a key was something he would talk about at work. It was hard sometimes to determine what’s considered crude conversation in a funeral home.

“You’re late!”

Harold looked at the clock. He was not late.

“Ha! Made you look!” The owner’s nephew, a high-spirited kid, worked the front desk at the funeral home.

“Great joke,” Harold said as he passed through the front lobby into his office. He did not really have time to settle in before the kid came in with the schedule for the day.

“We’ve got an appointment at 10:30. This hysterical woman called, crying over the phone about her son. She wants an open casket, but the kid was hit by a train…good luck with that man.”

Harold sighed, “What’s the name?”

“Margaret.”

“No, the boy’s name?”

The kid looked at his clipboard again. “Andrew.”