CHAPTER SIX
Age Thirty-Three
Robert Martin had been a Walmart security guard for thirty years before his death at sixty-three.
A widow-maker heart attack had taken him out in less than thirty seconds, but Robert hadn't left behind a wife to make a widow.
No spouse. No partner. No family to speak of.
The guy hadn't even left behind a cat to feast upon his rotting corpse before the superintendent at his apartment complex finally called the cops after multiple complaints from neighbors about a nauseating smell.
Hell, preparing his body now almost seemed like a waste of my time when there would be nobody around to attend the service. But a part of this job was to show everyone the same amount of respect and dignity, no matter how ridiculous it might seem, so that was what I did.
There was no viewing, so there'd be no point in getting poor old Robert all cosmetically dolled up, but his superintendent had dug out a halfway-decent-looking button-down and pants to bury him in.
And flip-flops.
Apart from the loafers he’d been wearing—and ruined with an assortment of bodily fluids—at the time of his death, flip-flops were all he owned in terms of footwear, which seemed like an interesting choice, considering how brutal Massachusetts winters often were.
But then again, I wasn’t sure Robert had been the type of guy to go out much at all, let alone in the dead of winter.
Looking down at his corpse now, decked out in a wrinkled shirt and pants and busted-up flip-flops, I felt guilty for not providing him with something a little …
nicer. But from what I knew about the man, which wasn’t much, Robert hadn’t seemed like the kind of guy to care about his looks, whether to a party or the afterlife, but I dressed him all the same.
"I'm more of a suit guy myself," I muttered to him, as I did with all the clients who ended up on my table. "Funny, because about twenty years ago, you wouldn't have caught me dead in one."
I pressed my lips shut and glanced toward his expressionless face. "Sorry. Phrasing."
I looked down at his collar, in desperate need of an iron, and thought it needed a little extra something.
So, without a second thought, I undid my own tie, and as I did, I spoke.
"Leonard had to convince me to try wearing a suit.
I protested, of course. I was not going down without a fight.
But, man, the moment I had that jacket and tie on …
" I shook my head as I sat back in my rolling stool, sighing wistfully toward the basement ceiling and every one of the bright fluorescent lights.
"Something changed in me that day, I think.
It was like … a piece of who I was always meant to be just slipped into place. "
With a glance toward his face again, I said, "You know what I'm saying?"
The dead never answered, and Robert wasn't about to be an exception to the rule. But that was what I liked most about the clientele I dealt with around here. I could talk to them. I could be honest. I could spill my guts to them under strict confidence—and who the hell were they going to tell?
"Maybe," I continued, slipping the black tie around Robert’s cold, stiff neck, "it simply came down to the fact that I never had nice things before Leonard took us in.
Wearing these suits draws a line in the sand, dividing who I was from who I am today …
hmm …" I was just about to make the first loop when I paused and glanced toward his closed eyelids, stitched in place.
"You know, I’ve never thought of it like that before, but it makes a lot of sense actually.
When I dress like this, I can be someone I was never allowed to be before.
Here, I'm Abraham Llewellyn, nephew of Leonard.
Successful. Smart. Worth something. But when I'm not …
" My gaze narrowed as Robert’s sunken, gray face faded from view to clear the path for the dismal places I'd once called home.
"I'm just Abraham Crowley, and we both know there's nothing good about that guy. "
But Robert Martin had no idea about Abraham Crowley.
He never would.
With the tie on, I pushed off the preparation table to roll backward, across the room and toward the sink.
I pulled my black latex gloves off, dropped them in the trash, and scrubbed my hands until they were sufficiently clean.
Then I stood, rolled my black sleeves down from my elbows, and buttoned my cuffs as I looked down at Robert's lifeless, clothed form, looking just a bit nicer than before in a tie that had once belonged to me.
"It's lunchtime," I announced. "I'll be back to finish up in a bit."
Without another word, I grabbed my jacket from the hook beside the door, draped it over my arm, and left the room, closing it off behind me before heading up the stairs to the funeral home's main floor.
Ike, Shawn, and Leonard were already seated at our table, in the apartment we'd shared for just shy of twenty years, with ham, turkey, and American cheese sandwiches laid out before them.
A sandwich was left on the table in front of my empty chair, and with a grateful nod toward Leonard—who rarely left the chore of making food up to us—I took my seat.
"Looks good," I complimented, tucking a napkin into the collar of my button-down and smoothing it over the crisp black shirt and the vest I wore over it.
“The fuck happened to your tie?” Ike asked, mouth full of food.
I glanced at him, not wanting to get into it—he’d never understand—but luckily, I didn’t have to as Leonard nodded while lifting a half of his sandwich to his mouth.
"The bread was about to go bad. I figured I might as well use it up. After we eat, I'm going to head out to grab some groceries, so if there's anything the three of you want—"
"You don't have to buy our food," Shawn protested, as he always did.
We all did.
As it turned out, the old man we'd met nearly two decades ago hadn’t been all that old back then, but he certainly was now—seventy-eight and looking every bit of it.
Yet his eyes sparkled with life, and his smile held more youth than I'd ever felt in a single moment of my thirty-three years on this planet.
"Oh, you knock it off," he said with a wave of his hand. "As long as I'm able to, I'm here for you boys. You know that."
He looked up at me and added, "I'll grab you a pack of cigarettes too. How are you on lighters?"
I wanted to laugh and brush the offer away. I wanted to tell him that I was more than capable of funding my own bad habits, considering the amount of money we each made from working full-time at the funeral home.
But I understood, possibly more than my brothers, that Leonard was playing a role in order to feel like his life was worth living. It was no different from the role I played while wearing this suit and the tie that now belonged to Robert Martin.
He needed to believe he was still a father just as much as I needed to believe I was a respectful, decent person and a son to this man who’d given me a second chance at life.
“I still have a few,” I told him.
Leonard nodded. “All right. Well, I’ll grab you a couple anyway.”
I lifted one side of my mouth with a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. And just so you all know, I might be meeting with a friend tonight,” Leonard continued, lifting his glass of water to his lips. “You boys will be around to hand out candy?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Nobody comes trick-or-treating here.”
“Excuse me, Abraham,” he said in jest, “but every year, we get one or two brave little stragglers looking to get spooked.”
Continuing to laugh, I shook my head.
He wasn’t wrong.
“Fair enough.”
“I’m going out with Shelby tonight,” Shawn said. “Her friends are throwing a costume party.”
Ike smirked salaciously. “And I’m gonna tag along and see what Rhonda is up to.”
Rhonda was Shelby’s perpetually single friend who Ike hooked up with every so often.
And every single time, Shawn would ask why they didn’t just date, and Ike would say, “Because we like to fuck,” as if that was enough to justify their occasional no-strings-attached arrangement.
For Shawn, who enjoyed the comforts and security of monogamy, it wasn’t.
But if you cut a brick of clay into three separate pieces, life and trauma would shape each one into something entirely different.
And despite everything, Shawn had turned out to be a good man with good intentions. A man who desired—and deserved—a wife and a family.
Ike, on the other hand, was smart enough to know exactly what type of man he’d be to any woman who chose to remain in his life for more than a night.
And me …
Trauma still had its hot, unforgiving hands on me.
Gripping and squeezing, flattening me out and balling me up, over and over and over again.
All I knew of sex was the power it gave to those who used it against others, and although I wanted to believe it could be as beautiful and pleasurable as fiction portrayed, I hadn’t yet found the courage or desire to find out.
I doubted I ever would.
“I’ll be around,” I told Leonard, who was watching me expectantly. “I’ll hand out candy to whoever shows up.”
He offered a grateful nod and finished his lunch in silence while I thought about Robert Martin in the basement and if he’d ever wished for more than casual encounters, if he’d had any casual encounters at all.
I wondered what kind of trauma he’d suffered to shape him into the man he’d turned out to be.
And I wondered if, at the end of it all, he had been happy.
But life wasn’t about being happy, was it?
For some of us, it was about simply staying on this side of the dirt for as long as possible.
Sometimes, I didn’t even understand the point in that.
***
At eight o’clock on Halloween night, Shawn and Ike walked down the hall, tuxedos on and masks in hand.
The party was a masquerade ball, from the looks of the masks they held, and a twinge of jealousy came to life as I watched them tighten their bow ties and check themselves in the mirror in the foyer.