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ENTRY 1: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 11:06 P.M.
(CLICK.)
Is this thing on? Yeah? Okay, let's give it a shot....
Joseph Way, self-made millionaire, community icon, and mayor of Cleveland, is the older, deader one in the tastefully trimmed wooden box. I'm the eagerly anticipated sequel, the thirtyish, ruggedly handsome, more upright one at the microphone in front of the box.
I'm Joseph Way, Junior. They call me Joe and, frankly, if you're Joe Anybody Else in this town, you might consider a catchy nickname. And having said that out loud,I'mconsidering kicking my ass.
Anyway, the box filled with my dead father is perched regally before a poster-sized photo of the deceased looking like Clint Eastwood and Brian Dennehy blended.
Me and him. Father and son. Block and Chip. Best friends and confidants. We're a smash hit here in the First Episcopal Church, centerpiece of historic St. James Square, centerpiece of postcard-perfect Benton Heights, the most affluent suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The venue is standing room only, with some three hundred well-heeled admirers anxious for assistant district attorney and local hero Joe Way -- that's me -- to eulogize his superfantastic father.
It's fervently hoped that I'll also weave in that I'm running for mayor in my namesake's place. The plan was congress in 2006, at least last I heard, but all that changed when Dad hauled back his Big Bertha driver and dropped dead on the first tee last Saturday.
No, the faces before me aren't ashen with grief and loss; they're lit with conviction for their way of life and the God- and Reagan-given right to it, with the hope that the broad-shouldered, ruddy-cheeked young man in front of them will fortify that right as their next mayor.
"Ruggedly handsome?" "Broad-shouldered?""Ruddy-cheeked?"Jesus, I never realized how absurdly pleased with myself I am. Have others noticed?
Know this: It's not the number of people in the church that matters, it's the tons of lead they swing. And they're ready and willing to wield it over the hundreds of thousands of employees they commandeer if only I ask.
Even my mom, the Sturdy Widow Rita Way, holds her chin up, a proud smile creasing her taut face.
I clear my throat and hold the room in the steady grip of my steely stare. To them, I radiate a calm, confident resolve. I know this because I practiced in the mirror.
"My...father," I begin. It's a statement in full, and many of the assembled nod, basking in the eloquence of those two small words as wielded by yours truly. I go on in due time: "Where the hell do I begin with a guy like Joseph Way?" This is good, the nods and chuckles say. This isperfect.
Emboldened, I say, "Holyshit,"and then chortle. From somebody else it might be off-putting.
In the front row next to my mom, Jacob Moore, the seventy-year-old retired chairman of OhioBanc, tilts his head, one jowl swinging lower than the other. Men like me are always watched by men like Jacob. It's the way of the tribe.
On my mom's other side, my fiancée, highbred whiplash blond Beth Pruitt, twenty-eight. She fingers her pearls, recrosses a toned, black-stockinged calf, and mouths, "What are youdoing?"
"You said it, Joe," a voice yells from the back, breaking the silence. Why, it's unimaginably successful realtor Mark Stranad! At just thirty-two, he's chairman of the ultraprestigious Western Reserve Academy's school board and, more impressively,my best friend!Of course, it's an honorary position, since everybody knows my father was my real best friend, a notion so cute it got me laid more times than I can count.
Mark smiles and his cheek twitches, breaking through the drugs to betray his lifelong anxiety disorder. He successfully compensates for ordinary looks with pinpoint grooming and that "good listener" thing I could never nail down.
So now a chuckle oozes smugly across the room. "Holy shit" is inappropriate, yes, but now it'swonderfullyinappropriate, right? It'sboardroom icebreakerinappropriate.
So I nod appreciatively at the support and scan the room once more. Then I say, "So here's the thing: My father was a lying, manipulative, adulterousfuckwho betrayed everyone who loved him."
For a couple of heartbeats, nothing. Silence. Beyond silence -- negative noise. Antinoise.
On perfect cue, with the earth's rotation paused, enter stunning cocoa-and-cream hippie Mara Pinkett, the liberal mestiza Juliet to my right-wing Romeo back at Wittenberg University.
Mara's not just a liberal, she's a liberaljournalist,so her I-knew-it-all-along expression is permanent as opposed to a reaction to something I've said. But for that sliver of time, the only thing that matters is that she and her self-involved dreadlocks are here. In the room. In my life again.
Only then does it occur to me that in a mind-boggling display of faith, the assembledhave not freaked out!Believe it or not, they're actually waiting for a punch line they can really get behind.
You've heard of The Jordan Rules, right? A few years back, if Michael Jordan traveled four steps and bricked a lay-up, they called a foul on some poor guy sitting on the opposing bench. Lebron James gets the same treatment, now. That's sort of what my life is like.
So I wallow in the anticipation. I smile and nod, taking in each and every one of them. "Yeah," I say like a stoned teenager. "You heard me."
Even coming from me, this isnota punch line they can get behind. So a gasping, choking sound echoes off the chapel walls. An older tree trunk of a man staggers from a pew, takes a few wobbly steps down the aisle toward the heavy wooden doors, and falls to all fours. A panicked huddle forms around him, frantically doing precisely nothing.
His daughter-in-law, 1989 Western Reserve Academy prom queen Cammie McCalister, looks back at me with the high-grade hatred often accessorized with a burning torch or pitchfork. You'd assume she's pissed because I just caused her wealthy father-in-law's heart attack at a funeral for a man who had a heart attack, but honestly I think it has more to do with my never calling after our postprom boffing, for which she insisted we both keep the crowns on.
Considering that maybe it's a little of both, I continue: "It took me a while to get the words just right, so I just wanna make sure I didn't leave anything out." I review notes I scrawled on a cocktail napkin, the first clue that my steely stare is more shitfaced than confident.
"He's drunk," hisses a stern soccer mom from one of the newer developments just outside town as she covers her computer-designed son's eyes.
At this point, I turn to address my father's casket and say, "Hope you packed linen, shithead, because the forecast for hell is hot, with occasional flesh-searing flames." Then I point at the casket with both hands and yell, "Yeah! Burn, Daddy, burn!Whooo-hooo!"
When I turn back, literally every mouth is agape with silent horror. Undaunted, I hold my hands high, forefingers and pinkies extended. "Hello, Benton Heights," I barely manage through my wheezy, drunken laugh. "Are you ready toparty?"
My mom does her thing where she sucks in her cheeks and exhales through her nose, fluttering her eyes in disapproval. She turns to cry into Jacob Moore's shoulder, but never actually does, of course. Jacob exhales in resignation and calmly retrieves a pistol from his breast pocket as he stands.
"You're decidedly unelectable, Joe," he says, shrugging apologetically. I nod back because, you know, it's tough to argue with.
Jacob takes aim at my forehead to remove me from consideration with one clean kill shot. But he's really not much of a marksman, so he shoots me in the shoulder.
"Ow!" I yell indignantly, staggering out from behind the lectern. Jacob cringes in faux embarrassment and the mourners laugh a little. He takes aim again and the shot takes me in the thigh. Jacob rolls his eyes and an artificial sitcom laugh track bursts from the gathered. He steps forward and fires over and over again until finally, at last...
I drop to my knees amid the howling laughter. For some reason, I try to find Mara at the back of the chapel, but she's gone. Beth screws up her face and looks that way and somehow she knows. "Shoot him again," she stage-whispers to Jacob. He shrugs amiably -- if you say so -- and finally puts one directly into my heart.
And at last, I fall. And you know what? It feels good. I should've tried it a long, long time ago.
Well,thatwas queer. What is this, therapy?
Oh, right. Of course. You wanna know what "this" is? It's two scotches, two Valiums, and about three fingers of good cabernet. God, that explains so much.
I'm gonna sleep a little and try this again later.
(CLICK.)
Copyright © 2004 by John Scott Shepherd
Excerpted from The Dead Father's Guide to Sex and Marriage by John Scott Shepherd
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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