Jelly Bombs and Funerals

Another one from Spickles. Thanks for taking a look at it.

Jelly Bombs and Funerals

Spickles Barkman woke up at one-thirty in the afternoon. In twenty-two and a half hours, he was going to celebrate his mom’s birthday. His goal for today was to get her a present, but in the back of his mind he knew he could go to the florists or something before noon tomorrow. In the front of his mind he knew there was no way he was getting up that early. He heard the water running in the kitchen on the way downstairs.

“Hey, you’re up early today,” his dad said, scrubbing a pot.

“Yeah.” His dad was being sarcastic, but not lying.

“Did you get your mom anything yet?”

“C’mon, dad. You think I’d forget?”

“What did you get her?”

“You’ll see tomorrow.” Spickles poured pulp free orange juice into a coffee mug, spread strawberry jelly onto a piece of toast, some grape jelly onto a piece of bread, sprinkled salt on each, and put them together with a handful of raisins and two tomato slices in between. His dad went upstairs. While eating his jelly bomb, Spickles read his two favorite sections of the newspaper - the classifieds and obituaries. He tore out one of the obituaries and on the other side of the paper wrote the address of a garage sale that had baby clothes, antiques, and furniture. He made and ate another jelly bomb, and as he put his plate in the sink, he saw his dad come back down in a suit an untied tie.

“What?” Spickles said.

“I’m leaving for a job interview in a few minutes. Are you going to be here when I get back?” his dad asked.

“Where at?”

“Madison and Associates. It’s right off Union Street.

Spickles smiled. “Actually, if you can wait five minutes, I’ll drive you.”

“Why?”

“Can’t a kid want to take a ride with his dad once in awhile?”

“Just hurry up” Spickles ran upstairs, showered, put on a shirt and a bowtie, and flossed. When he came back down he saw his dad still struggling with the tie.

“Take these books back to the library sometime today,” his dad told him on their way out. He handed him The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Common Household Disasters and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Quick Dinner Cooking.

“Sure thing, idiot. And I’ll drive.” Spickles said.

On the way to his dad’s interview, Spickles saw Roy shooting hoops in his driveway. He told his dad not to say anything and rolled down the window.

“Hey, Roy.” Roy banked in a jumper then went to the window.

“Hey, Spickles. Hey, Mr. Barkman. You guys going on a double date or something? Why you so dressed up?”

“You remember my dad’s uncle, Albert, the one who took us to the Sox game when we were little and got us those signed balls? The one in the hospital ever since his stroke?”

“Yeah.” Roy let the ball roll into the street.

“His funeral is today. My dad wanted me to see if you’d be willing to go with us.” Roy crossed his arms and looked down at the street. “You got time to run in and change if you want.”

“I dunno, man.”

“It’s cool. We just thought you might want to.” Roy tried making eye contact with Mr. Barkman, but he was still fiddling with the tie. Roy leaned in close to Spickles.

“Spickles. I’m not trying to be an ass but just tell me if this is one of your little amusements.”

“Amusements?”

“Paying a nickel for a single gummy bear when they’re 3.99 a pound, buying a ticket to a bad movies so you can sit directly next to one of the few people in there, heckling bingo caller, trying to get me to go to random funerals with you.”

“First of all, I’m still pretty sure there was no fucking B14 in that case of balls, second, hey dad, am I tricking Roy into going to some random person’s funeral right now?” His dad didn’t flinch. Spickles leaned closer to Roy. “He was pretty close with Albert.” Roy rubbed his hand over his forehead slowly.

“All right. I’ll be right back,” he said, and went inside to change. When he came back out Spickles told him to drive separately in case he didn’t want to stay there all day. Spickles led Roy to Madison and Associates, and when he got there, he parked and handed his dad the keys.

“I’ll go with Roy, now.” Spickles got into Roy’s car.

“Fuck no, man. You’re an asshole. I’m not going with you,” Roy punched Spickles in the arm twice. Spickles couldn’t stop laughing.

“C’mon, man. Just come to one funeral with me. It’s not until later tonight. It’ll be funny.”

“Funerals aren’t funny, ass.”

“Anything can be funny.”

“Whatever, dude. I’m going home.” Spickles laughed the most of the ride home while Roy didn’t say anything.

After Roy dropped him off, Spickles got the keys to his own car and went to the garage sale. He wasn’t going for his mom’s present. He’d been to plenty of garage sales recently, and couldn’t remember seeing anything he thought would make a good gift. He was going for the baby clothes.

There was no furniture lining the driveway of the garage sale, just a few folding chairs and some lamps. An elderly man sitting on a barstool in the garage was the only person there.

“The ad said you had furniture,” Spickles said, walking into the garage.

“We did. We had a futon and one of those reclining chairs, and two end tables. A man and a woman, looked like my granddaughter, but older, took them all.”

“Were they newlyweds?”

“Uh, uh I suppose.”

“Damn it. All right, here’s the deal. I’ll give you a dollar for any ten of those baby clothes.”

“My daughter is in charge of them. Hold on.” The man limped inside and returned with his daughter. She had the same short and fluffy hairstyle that Spickles’ mom used to have.

“Sorry honey, those are fifty cents a piece, but I’ll let you have ten for four bucks.”

“A dollar and I’ll mow your lawn.” She laughed and shook her head. “A dollar and I’ll wash your car.”

“No thanks, dear.”

“You drive a hard bargain. Let me look around some more, and I’ll be back with my next offer.” Spickles scanned the table of baby clothes. He was looking for anything Disney related. Thanks to garage sales, he had more Snow White pajamas and Goofy T-shirts than he knew what to do with. He figured that as soon as they turned from old to vintage, he’d be rich. The first thing he saw was a baby blue pair of knitted socks. He remembered having a pair just like them. He has a video at his house of his mom putting the socks on his baby feet and singing him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star before laying him down in his crib. Next to the socks was a black and white sweater vest. In all of his baby pictures up until he was nine years old, Spickles wore a sweater vest. This is weird, he thought. They've stolen my childhood closet. He took the socks and sweater vest back to the lady.

“You don’t have anything Disney related, do you?”

“My son used to really like the Animaniacs. They’re not Disney, are they?”

“No. They’re the poor man’s Huey, Dewey, and Louie.”

“Then no, sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll rock, paper, scissors you for these socks and sweater. If I win, I get them for a quarter. If you win, I’ll give you two dollars.”

“Since things have been pretty slow lately, and you did make me laugh, I’ll accept. But you have to beat my dad.” Spickles didn’t like that. The old man had an major advantage in the experience category. He’d probably been rock paper scissoring since it was called rock, paper. To win, Spickles knew he had have to resort to a maneuver he hadn’t pulled off in months.

“Two out of three?” the old man asked.

“No other way.” Spickles rolled up his right sleeve slowly. The old man flicked his suspenders against his chest. They pumped their fists in unison.

Snip. Snip.

Spickles smiled and flipped a quarter toward the old man.

“This game’s passed you by, old-timer.” On the way to his car, Spickles slipped a five-dollar bill into an old beer stein they were selling for three dollars. He knew no one would buy it.

Before going to the library, and the wake, which lasted until five, Spickles stopped at McCormick’s for lunch. The jelly bombs were tasty, but they didn’t pack enough substance to suppress his hunger more than an hour. He went to the cereal aisle looking for any box that had the word “sugar” in the title. The neon orange box of Cracklin’ Douple-Dipped Sugar Sidewinders caught his attention first. On his way to the checkout aisle, he stopped in the greeting card aisle. Never a bad move to get a card, he thought. In the aisle was a female employee with gray hair and big glasses attached to a chain hanging past her shoulders

“Excuse me, ma'am.”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Do you have any children?”

“Why yes, a son and a daughter. In fact, I have two grandsons, too.”

“What’s the best birthday present one of your children ever gave you?”

“Oh dear. That’s so hard.” The old lady stopped organizing the cards.

“My mom’s birthday is tomorrow, and I’m searching for something special.”

“Well, the best gifts were never for my birthday. Of course the jewelry, or flowers, or clothes, or whatever were nice, but when my son would come to my house instead of playing cards with the boys to play rummy with me, or when my daughter asked me if she could wear my wedding dress for her wedding, those moments don’t have a price.” The lady rocked back and forth slowly while she talked. It reminded Spickles of the way his mom softly tapped her left foot up and down whenever she was nervous.

“Was there anything you ever wanted that they never gave you?”

“The minute they were born was everything I ever needed.”

“This isn’t in your job description, is it?” Spickles selected a simple card. It said Happy Birthday Mom on the front, and was blank on the inside. Spickles didn’t need anyone else to decide what he wanted to say to his mom.

“I’m expected to help the customer in any way possible.”

“Thanks,” Spickles said, and walked to the checkout. While waiting for an open register, he surveyed the store. It had twenty-two aisles. They rearrange them almost every year, but aisle twenty-two, the toy aisle, never changes. When Spickles was small enough to fit inside the shopping cart, his mom would push him up and down every aisle as she shopped. If he was being good she’d let him pick out what kind of Kool-Aid he wanted, or what kind of fruit snacks, or if he was being especially good, a whole tub of ice cream. No matter what though, she always let him pick a toy from aisle twenty-two. Even on the day he refused to get up off the floor in the middle of the candy aisle because he couldn’t have any gummy bears. Even on the day he hid inside the freezer and an employee called his name over the store loudspeakers.

One of the cashiers said she could help the next person. Spickles handed her his box of cereal and card, then asked her to hold on one second. He ran over to aisle twenty-two, picked out a bouncy ball, and ran back to pay.

“Your total is four dollars and ninety-seven cents,” the cashier said. Spickles handed her a five-dollar bill and dug into his pocket.

“Hold on, I think I got the ninety-seven.” A clump of change landed on the counter. After losing count once and having to start over, Spickles saw that he only had eight-seven cents. “Guess I don’t have it.” She opened the register and gave him three pennies. He slowly placed the ninety cents back into his pocket and left.

At 3:20, Spickles pulled into the library parking lot. He didn’t drop the books in the drop off on the side of the building because he didn’t trust it. When he was in fourth grade, he accidentally dropped one of his Power Rangers action figures down there while he was returning a book. Then he went in and asked one of the librarians if it was in the bin that the books fall into, but she said no. It was the special edition figure that transformed into a mastodon. He figured the lady had a son, but unlike Spickles’ mom, she was too cheap to buy him the special edition and, instead, waited all day for one to fall down the book return chute. He got her back though. The next book he returned had all the characters names crossed out with a black sharpie.

A few days later the library sent a letter to his house asking that he pay $12.99 to replace the book. His dad made him come up with money by himself. After four lemonade stands, three dog walks, two car washes, a lawn mowing, Spickles had ten dollars. For the last three he had to sell his Scottie Pippen rookie card to his friend Walter. It was a good lesson in the value of a dollar, but those come at a dime a dozen. What Spickles really learned, thanks to his mom, was that crossing out character’s names didn’t affect the librarian, it affected the people who wanted to read the book, and Spickles wasn’t mad at them. If you wanted to get back at the librarian, his mom told him, you should have toilet-papered her house.

Barbara, his favorite librarian because she always gave him a bookmark when he checked books out, was working when he walked in. He handed her the two books.

“My dad is an idiot.” She laughed very quietly. Spickles wondered if librarians’ voices were stuck in library mode forever. He imagined calling Barbara’s house but hanging up after she answered because he never heard her say hello.

“I haven’t seen you around here much since that reading club you and your mom were in.” During Spickles’ first year of high school his mom convinced him to join the group with her. They met every Monday night from 6:30 to 8:30 for three months. They discussed a book a month. First was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which Spickles hated and his mom loved, then The Lord of the Flies, which they both were indifferent to, and last, Winesburg, Ohio, which Spickles loved and his mom hated.

“Yeah. Maybe I should join another one of those.”

“Definitely. You and your mom always had some of the best comments of the group.” Spickles knew his mom had the most insight. She was the Michael Jordan of book groups – entertaining and superior while still making everyone around her better.

“I think I’ll go grab a few books. Maybe get back in the swing of things.” Spickles found the one he hated, and the one he loved.

“You’ve already read these,” Barbara said when Spickles returned.

“I know, but I had so much fun doing it.”

Spickles left the library and drove to funeral home. On the way there he left two different cars enough room to sneak past him on the right side and make a turn at a red light. He was convinced that no one did that as well as he did.

The sign in the lobby of the funeral home greeted Spickles when he walked in.

Welcome to Richmond Funeral Home

Laurence I. Nighte: Room A

Douglass Anderson: Room B

He took a detour to the funeral director’s office before going into room A.

“Do you have to pay extra to have this building to yourself when you die?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand you,” the director said. He was sitting behind his desk, wearing a black suit.

“I mean, tonight you got room A and room B going. Say I didn’t want another dead person in the room next to me for my funeral. Would that cost extra?”

“Well there is a fee for the room where the deceased is shown. If the family requested to occupy more than one room, we would be willing to work to meet their needs. Of course, we may only have one showing at a particular time, in which case, they would have the place to themselves, as you say.” The director’s voice was angelic. Spickles guessed that after so many years of comforting others, everything he said sounded genuine and supportive. Even if he said, ‘I’ll have the chicken Caesar salad,’ it would have sounded as if the chicken had nothing to worry about and the Caesar would be treated like a king.

“Do you want share your funeral with someone?” Spickles asked.

“I’ll admit I’ve never reflected on that issue.”

“I didn’t either until tonight. If my family wouldn’t mind the extra money, then I think I’d lean toward going at it solo.”

“Well, sir, I hope that decision can be delayed for many, many years.” Spickles couldn’t top that line, so he tipped the cap he wasn’t wearing, and waved goodbye as he left the office.

He strolled inside room A and sunk to the back to listen to his CD player. All he knew about Laurence was that he was twenty, had two younger sisters, and played soccer. Obituaries don’t leave a lot of room for details. Except for a group of kids Spickles’ age, and the immediate family, the room was empty. No one saw him come in. It wasn’t like last time at Clementine Heaton’s funeral, when he stood out like a pineapple in a bag of grapes. She was ninety-four; even her great grandkids were older than Spickles. When someone asked him how he knew Clementine, he said he met her one time after church. She told him she was lighting a candle for all her children, and Spickles said he would light one for her. The family all thanked him for that, and said they were glad he came. The truth was, hearing the priests talk at funerals was the closest Spickles has ever come to going to church.

Sitting on one of the couches, Spickles remembered that he still didn’t have a present for his mom. He started getting an allowance when he was in fifth grade, and ever since then he’s tried to buy something more expensive with each passing year. Last year he bought her a wooden lighthouse to put near her garden. It cost over a hundred dollars, but judging by the paint chips that kept appearing, it was overpriced. She loved lighthouses, and he thought of buying her another to go in her new garden, but never got around to it. He decided that the macaroni necklace he made in fourth grade was the best gift he ever gave her. The whole class made them for an art project, but he asked his teacher if he could stay in during recess to make another one for his mom. It took three recesses to finish. She wore it out to dinner the night after he gave it to her and made sure everyone saw it. Before he could think of anything worth giving her this year, Spickles noticed that the there was no line to the casket. He made his way toward it. Kneeling down, he turned the music coming from his headphones off, and said a prayer for Laurence’s family. As soon as finished he turned around and looked right into the mom’s eyes. Whoops, he thought. He’s always wanted to talk to the mom, but never has. He never knew what to say, but now, if he didn’t stop starring at her, he’d have to come up with something quick. He thought about asking this one what a good birthday present would be, or how she felt that her son was sharing the funeral home with someone else. He couldn’t look away.

“Your eyes,” he said.

“Excuse me?” she said, dabbing them with a tissue.

“They’re indigo. My mom’s the only other person I’ve ever seen with indigo eyes.” Spickles plucked a flower from one of the bouquets on Laurence’s casket and sat down next to the mother. He handed her the flower.

“You don’t know me, but I just wanted to tell you that Laurence was a good kid.” She nodded her head without looking at him. Good kid, Spickles thought. “That’s comforting, huh? I’m next to the mom at a funeral and I tell her that her son was a good kid. What I mean is - you’re a great mom. My dad told me that my mom always used to say her biggest fear was failing as a mother. Did you ever fear that?”

“The only thing I ever feared was having to bury my son.”

I’m sorry was the only thing Spickles could say before leaving. He wanted to say thank you, but he knew she wouldn’t understand. Spickles went home and spent the rest of the night reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. He went to bed relieved that he didn’t have to wake up early to get his mom a present, since he already had everything he wanted to give her.

The next morning Spickles woke up at eleven-thirty. He showered, flossed, and went downstairs. His dad was in the kitchen eating a jelly bomb, Larry style – black olives instead of raisins.

“Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Spickles said.

They drove in silence for twenty minutes, then walked through the grassy field, passing numerous statues and crosses. All Spickles could smell were flowers, and there was no sound except the wind. Nearing the miniature lighthouse that helped mark his mom’s grave, Spickles’ dad asked him what he got for her.

“Just a few memories,” he said. Spickles placed the knit socks, sweater vest, bouncy ball, and the two books he borrowed from the library on top of her tombstone. He rested a card against the miniature lighthouse.

Dear Mom,

Ever since you died, I’ve been going to random funerals. They’re mostly kids my age. I know it’s weird and I didn’t know why I did it until yesterday. Something inside of me wanted to be all those kids, and wanted you to be all those moms. Now I know that if it were up to you, it’d never work out that way. Dad told me that you used to fear you’d fail as a mother. Happy birthday, Mom. I promise you that you didn’t, and you never will. Love, your son, Spickles

P.S. I hope you can read quickly, because I have to take these books back in two weeks.