Day 338 - Postmortem

Postmortem

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

I was saddened to see Jeffrey’s face staring back at me in the obituaries. It was a terrible photo that looked nothing like him. He hadn’t worn sideburns like that in at least fifteen years. His hair had thinned and his cheeks were chubby and it looked like he had been drinking. Not the photo I would have chosen. Shame on Abigail for letting him be immortalized in such a manner. She should have called me the day of. I would have been there. I would have supported her and helped in any way she wanted. And I would have found a better photo to send to the newspaper. I’d be damned if I was going to let him be buried so poorly represented. That is, if he hadn’t already been, and I’d missed the ceremony. I would be quite miffed if I hadn’t been invited.

Jeffrey had been one of my better friends, and I knew we were all getting older, but still it was quite a shock. I scanned the text looking for information about an accident or a secret disease he had kept from me. Damn him and damn her if they were keeping things from me. We may not have seen each other as often as we used to, but I would have wanted to know. I would have wanted to say some final words and share a pint and a laugh. There was no indication I had missed any important events. No unforeseen accident. No long and painful decline. It seemed as if it were just one of those things.

I wondered what I would say at his funeral. I hoped she would pick out a good grave. He deserved that. I’d see to that. I’d be the one talking it, after all.

Who would I complain to when the NFL made new and incomprehensibly stupid rules? Who would I go to the deli with to get coffee and sandwiches and end up trading half my corned beef for half their pastrami?  

Damn him for going first. What a mess.

I nearly gave Abbey a heart attack when I called to offer my condolences.

She screamed and cried and spoke in half fragmented ideas and it took me more than a few moments to understand her.

Then her voice disappeared and I heard Jeffrey excited and angry and wondering what I had done to piss his wife off so much.

Then it was my turn to almost have a heart attack.

Someone at the paper needed to be held to account. Someone who wrote it or who sent it in or paid for it to be published. But there seemed to be no one to blame and no explanation came. Jeffrey swore up and down it was no joke and no one we knew would be so cruel.

I wonder what happened, and I hate to admit to him that I have a sad growing fear that the worst is yet to come and that somehow the only mistake made was going to print just a little too soon.