The Hearse

Part 1—Life

The first bad thing that happened that day was that the hearse didn’t start. “Jake!” I called into the house. My twin brother came running out, sandals slapping the ground.

“What, what, Bridget?” he asked. He had that slightly frantic look in his eyes that made me think I had just interrupted something very important.

“Need your help with the hearse.”

“Okay,” he said, sighing in a somewhat goofy way. He walked over to the garage and drove the pickup truck out so it was diagonal to the hearse. I reached into the hearse’s tailgate and grabbed the jumper cables, connected them to both vehicles, and got into the truck. I stepped on the gas and…nothing.

“Fuck,” I said. I got out and disconnected the cables. “I think she finally needs a new battery.”

“Does that mean we have to pull him all the way to main street?”

“Yeah,” I said, “and Jake, all vehicles are ‘her’s.”

“Not the hearse. I named him Mortimer.”

I stared at him. “Mortimer, Jake? Like people don’t give me enough shit for driving around in a…boat…that used to haul dead bodies, but you go and give it a name like Mortimer?”

“Mort,” he said, “means dead. “Therefore, Mortimer is the ideal name for a hearse.”

“So what did you name the truck?” I asked, exasperated.

“Lancelot.”

“Why?”

“Because. He’s a Chevrolet. ‘Chevrolet’ comes from the French word chevalier, which is also the root word for ‘cavalier’ which means knight. Lancelot, as you know, awas one of the knights of the round table, and interestingly enough, was in a book called L’Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory, which connects the truck very nicely with the hearse.”

I unconnected the jumper cables, gave Jake a dirty look, and said: “Push.”

“But I wanted to take Jose for a walk.”

“Bring Jose with you, I really don’t give a shit, but when we get there you have to keep him away from Mr. Obelsen’s wood pile.”

“No problem,” Jake said, smiling. “That last storm knocked down so many branches off of trees he’s had plenty to chew this past week.” He ran back into the house.

Three minutes later, he was back, holding his pet beaver. Yes, beaver. Jake and I live in northern Minnesota. A year and a half ago, Jake was walking around in the woods watching the autumn leaves fall, when he ran across Mr. Henderson trying to kill a young beaver. Apparently he wanted to mount the beaver on his wall. Jake convinced him otherwise. This was typical Jake. He read somewhere that nature meditation could control his seizures, and took to walking around the woods for a few hours every week. Somewhere along the line he became a pretty hard-line environmentalist vegetarian. Anyway, Jake named the beaver Jose after a Mexican thug in some old song from the sixties, and he now lives in an old hot tub we bought at a garage sale for fifty bucks. We were going to buy an above-ground pool for Jose’s habitat, but dad says the hot tub looks classier. Though I honestly don’t know how you could get less classy then our hot tub, what with a beaver building a dam in it and all.

Other than the dam thing, though, Jose essentially acts like a dog. He eats from a dish and wears a collar, and Jake takes him for walks. Like this one.

“Isn’t it kind of a long distance for Jose to walk?” I asked Jake. Our town’s small, but we’re still about a half-mile away from main street.

“If he gets tired I’ll just put him in the back of Mortimer,” he explained.

Fuck, I thought. I am gonna have beaver crap all over my car.

So we started off, pushing the hearse with every bit of strength we had, Jose’s leash tied around Jake’s wrist. Things were fine until we reached the halfway point—the Church of Her Most Precious Blood, which was where the second bad thing happened. The church’s lawn was literally filled with people who had apparently just been to a funeral. One old lady (obviously an out-of-towner) noticed us and exclaimed: “Those kids are trying to steal the hearse!”

“Holy crap,” I said. I raised my hands up to my face as the lady ran over. “This isn’t what it looks like,” I said.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “The cemetary’s right across the street, you don’t even need a hearse.”

“That still doesn’t mean you can steal it!” she scolded. “And on Easter Saturday, too!”

Well, thank you, Jake, I thought. You helped so much. “Ma’am,” I said, “this isn’t your hearse. This is my hearse. It’s my car. My dad bought it from a funeral home five years ago and fixed it up so I could have a car when I turned sixteen.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding slowly. “So…why’re you pushing it?”

“He needs a new battery. We’re taking him to the auto repair shop,” Jake explained.

“And you are?” the lady asked disdainfully.

“Her twin brother.”

“Do you also have a hearse?”

“No. I have Lancelot. He’s a pickup truck. And this beaver.” He tugged on Jose’s leash. The lady shook her head and walked away. Stupid out-of-towners. Anyone from around here knows about my hearse and Jake’s beaver.

We continued on our way to the auto repair shop, where Mr. Obelsen sneered at Jose and gave me half-off the new battery if I installed it myself, which was why I think he was glad to see me rather than some girl like Gina Shaikh who doesn’t know a thing about cars.

Gina Shaikh, who was chatting up some guy in a suit just across the street. “Who’s he?” Jake asked me.

“No idea,” I said, lifting my head out from under the hearse’s hood. “Looks like a lawyer.”

“No, he looks too young to be a lawyer, Bridget. He can’t be more than twenty-five. Besides, why would Gina need a lawyer?”

“Maybe she killed someone.”

“No!” Jake exclaimed. “Not Gina!”

I shook my head and went back under the hood—Jake had been completely obsessed with Gina Shaikh for the past three years yet had never asked her out. I was sick of hearing about how pretty she was. “Look, if you want to know who the guy is, just go talk to him. And her,” I said.

He shook his head.

“Well, you shouldn’t stay around here. You know how Mr. Obelsen is about his woodpile.”

“Yeah, José’s acting hungry. I was gonna go over to the grocery store to get him some greenery.”

“Okay,” I grunted as he walked away.

Which was when the third bad thing happened.

As I was just finishing the battery installation, I felt a tap on my shoulder, which surprised me as Jake knows to never touch me when I’m working on a car, and I’ve tried to teach the rule to Mr. Obelsen. So when I lifted my head out, I made sure to glare at whoever had done the tapping.

And I realized I was glaring straight at Gina Shaikh’s potential lawyer. “Yeah?” I asked, attempting to sound as pissed as I was.

“Hello, miss. Have you ever considered--”

“No,” I interrupted. “And I don’t want to.”

“You didn’t let me finish--”

“Didn’t have to. Around here, only insufferable jerks start conversations with ‘Hello, miss.’” I went back to the car.

I felt the tapping again. I lifted my head out. “What?” I asked.

“So what should I have said?” he asked.

“You could have asked me my name.”

“Okay, what’s your name?”

“Now you’re just being condescending because you think I’m just some dumb Minnesota girl.”

“No, I’m not. What’s your name?”

“Bridget.”

“Bridget what?”

I sighed. I really hated telling people my last name, just because of its obvious ethnic weirdness. “Hanrahan-Weissman,” I sighed again.

He stared. “So that means you’re--”

“Half-Irish, half-Jewish.” I hate saying my last name, but Jake loves it. He’ll say the ‘half-Irish half-Jewish’ part too, and then continue on with: “I’m an ‘I wish.’” I will never introduce myself as an ‘I wish.’

“Wow. Interesting.”

“Mm-hm,” I said, not particularly interested in what I’ve known my entire life.

“Well, miss--” I glared. “—Ms. Hanrahan-Weissman--”

“Call me Bridget,” I growled.

“Bridget, are you still in high school?”

“I graduated two years ago.”

“Did you not want to go to college?”

I threw my screwdriver at his chest. “‘Did you not want to go to college?’” I mocked. “Excuse me, whoever you are, but does it look like I can afford ‘higher education?’ I drive a used hearse from 1984. I wear clothes I found at a thrift store for three dollars. My dad’s a traveling magazine salesman who doesn’t get paid shit, and my mom left him to be a Playboy model when I was seven. So yes, assface, I wanted to go, but guess what? I can’t.”

He nodded, slowly. “So you’re what, twenty?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I snarled. “Why do you give a shit?”

“I’m a talent scout,” he said, “and I was wondering if you’d ever considered becoming a model.”

“A model?” I asked. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because you look like a model.”

“No,” I said. “I look like an auto mechanic who for reasons I won’t enumerate actually works as a cashier in a grocery store. Because that’s what I am.”

“I thought this was your car,” he said.

“Yeah, numbskull, it is. But the point is, if Mr. Obelsen was hiring, I’d take the job and fix other peoples’ cars, too. That’s what I want to do with my life—whatever-your-name-is.”

“But you’re what, five-ten? And thin. Your bone structure’s amazing. And I love your eyes--”

“Can the flattery. I don’t give a crap.”

“But don’t you want more to your life? You said you wanted to go to college.”

I slammed the hood down. “Oh, you fucking bastard!” I said, opening the driver’s side door. “Yes, I wanted to go to college! When I was fifteen and people were talking about it as if it were actually possible! But I learned soon enough. And even f I had gone, if I could have, it wouldn’t’ve been that far away! I like Minnesota. So go find someone like that Gina Shaikh if you want a model!”

I put my key into the ignition. Like magic, the hearse’s engine started. I stepped on the clutch, then the gas, and set the engine in gear. Damn, I love this car, I thought as I pulled away.

As I drove off toward home I heard the man’s voice calling out: “Gina’s vapid!” to me.

About a half hour after I got home, Jake and José walked through the door. “Thanks for picking us up,” Jake said.

“Fuck,” I said. “Sorry. But there was this—jerk—talking to me, and I had to leave.”

“What was he saying?”

“He was asking me if I wanted to be a model.”

“A model? Bridget, that’s wonderful! Models make way more money than auto mechanics!”

“I’d still rather be an auto mechanic. Besides, if I decide to model, I’m turning into mom.”

“No you’re not! This guy’s from Revlon, not Playboy!”

“How do you what company he’s from?”

“I talked to Gina Shaikh. She was pissed at you, Bridget. Apparently the agent’s name is Tom Raven, and apparently he represents a lot of models. She wanted him to consider her, but then he saw you.”

I snorted. “And was overcome by my beauty while repairing an old hearse?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Well, that’s fucking ridiculous. I’m checking the mail.”

“Don’t bother, I got it. We got a Lillian Vernon catalogue and a rent notice.”

“Trash the catalogue, I’ll take care of the rent check.”

“I’m not trashing the catalogue, I plan on using it in my collage,” he said. Jake loves collages. They’re his ‘thing.’ “And Bridget, just wait on the rent. Dad’ll be back soon. Your money is your money.”

“Actually, Jake, we have no idea when Dad’ll be back. And my money isn’t my money, it’s family money. Dad doesn’t make nearly enough to support us. I didn’t get the grocery store job to save for myself. I got it to help us.” I grabbed the rent notice out of his hand and fished around in my backpack—I hate purses—for my checkbook, made the check out to Simon Rosenthal, our landlord, one of the few other Jews in town. We don’t have a synagogue. We have a rabbi, but he’s very old and mainly only performs weddings, circumcisions, baby namings—important things.

Simon Rosenthal’s a good man, though. A good sort of landlord. Which was why I didn’t mind driving to his house to drop the check off personally. But when the door opened was when the fourth bad thing happened.

Because it wasn’t Simon Rosenthal who answered the door. It was his twenty-four-year-old son, Nate, who had been living in Minneapolis for the past five years and studying engineering. Nate towered over me, and when I looked up into his blue-green eyes, I knew there was no way this would be a simply visit to drop off the rent check. “Bridget Hanrahan-Weissman?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Hi, Nate.” I wanted to reach up and touch his hair—when he was in high school I remember it used to come down to his shoulders, so long that my dad would call him a crazy hippie and blame him whenever anyone was busted for smoking pot. But it was a lot shorter now—more typically ‘manly.’ It still looked so soft, though, and so, so dark.

“You’re still driving the hearse?”

“‘Still?’” I asked. He had been away at college when I had gotten it.

“Yeah. My dad told me about it.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well…he’s still in pretty good condition.”

“Cool. Um…well, it’s nice to see you, Bridget.”

“Yeah…oh, um, here--” I handed him the rent check and turned to go, but as I did, he caught my hand and stopped me, pulled me closer to him, up to his lips as they parted and we kissed.

It was beautiful, he was good. He pulled me through the door into his house then and we began shedding our clothing, piece by piece as we made our way up the stairs into what I could only assume was his bedroom.

As he slid inside me he asked: “Are you sure?”, his voice raw and sensual. I reached my hand down, felt the length of him.

“Yes,” I said. He went in the rest of the way and we began.

This was not the first time that I had done this. But it was the first time I had done this with someone I believed I could love. After he finished, after we finished, I rolled over onto my side, his arms still around me, and asked: “Nate, why are you here?”

“To ensure that this town gets WiFi,” he said sleepily. I turned, stared at him.

“‘WiFi?’” I asked. “You’re here to help with something that half the people in this town don’t know a thing about?”

“I’d say it’s more like three-quarters of them, but imagine if they did know.”

“Mr. Obelsen’s sons would have easier access to porn that doesn’t involve my mother?”

He laughed. “Yeah, that might be the main result. Anyway, though, I work for this company in St. Paul that provides wireless Internet service, and when I told them I was from this town where hardly anyone had any sort of Internet access, they decided to send me here. Plus, I needed to come anyway.”

“Why?” I asked.

“My grandmother’s dying, Bridget.”

I sat up. Nate’s grandmother was Violet Rosenthal, one of the most beloved women in Superiorwood. The mayor had awarded her the ‘keys to the city’ ten years ago, she had a swimming pool named after her, anyone would recognize her name. She was also the kindest woman I had ever met.

How did I not know she was dying? Violet Rosenthal’s illness should have been the talk of the town—our collective sadness. When ordinary people are sick, other people go over to their houses with casseroles and Jell-o. If it was Violet Rosenthal, you’d’ve expected the town to be pooling their money to buy her a limousine in order to ride to the hospital in comfort. But Nate was telling me this news as if it were being kept a secret from everyone except his family.

“What…why?” I asked.

“It’s ovarian cancer. It’s terminal. She’s got maybe six weeks to live, but it could be far less.”

“Nate, why does no one in town seem to know about this?”

“She didn’t want them to.”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn’t want to advertise her death! I assumed you’d understand, Bridget.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your mother. When she left. Your father told everyone sick-relative-in-Ireland stories for weeks until her first issue came out.”

I thought back to those awful weeks. “He told us the same stories,” I said. “And then…he drank a lot.”

“So do you see what it’s like to have your personal shit spread around town?”

I nodded. “I’m sorry, Nate,” I said. I wrapped my arms around his chest. “Later…” I said, “later, I remember Violet coming to my house a lot. She’d have food, usually—and she’d read to me. To me and Jake.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s when I started hearing about you guys, when my dad and grandma started telling me to be kind to you.”

“You were.”

He nodded. “Am I still?”

“Yeah.” I gazed at his long naked body, ran my hands through soft, short hair. “You’re also the sexiest guy I’ve ever met.”

He laughed, kissed me again. “I’m the tiredest guy you’ve ever met, too, I’m sure.” He yawned. I looked at the clock. It was only nine.

“Why?”

“I was up at six am visiting her at the hospice.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” He rolled over, and I wrapped my arms around him again.