Obituary

1

It hurt like hell. The light came in through the open window, following the cold wind that came in strong gusts after the storm last night. It managed to wriggle in through the space between Dean Gray’s eyelids, bright enough to snap him out of a disjointed dream, and it hurt like hell.2

“Time.” Dean said plainly, his head throbbing with the effort. He was used to the thick taste of liquor in his breath, and it no longer bothered him a bit. His clock—one his successful inventor of a brother had created—began to speak in a voice that was uninteresting, but not quite monotone.3

“Seven-thirty.” 4

Dean groaned and moved his head from side to side. There were piles of blue jeans and collared shirts littering the floor, accompanied by empty beer cans from last night, and the countless others like it.5

He stopped moving his head when the throbbing became worse, but managed to keep his eyes open as he waited for his pupils to dilate. It only took a few seconds, but the light in the room was unbearable. Sliding out of bed, Dean decided that this was his most violent hangover ever, and he prayed to God that it had something better to do than annoy him all day long.6

And the number-one most painful hangover award goes to: December Second, Two Thousand Eight, he thought. Closely followed by The Weekend Spent in Las Vegas and The Month After the Divorce.7

There was no time for Dean to think about this, though—he was supposed to be at work twenty minutes ago, and he could not afford to rate his hangovers; it would be like playing favorites with his children. He stumbled into the bathroom, wretched into the toilet bowl, and brushed his teeth. He had already begun to put on a pair of khaki pants as he spit the last bit of toothpaste into the sink, and he was out the door and into the living room.8

There was a copy of last week’s paper on the kitchen table. (In his cramped apartment, he was able to read the headline, ‘Government to Cut Income Tax’, from the couch, where he was sliding into a pair of brown boots.) 9

Dean had nothing against wearing the long-sleeved shirt he wore to bed, (showing the ‘M’ symbol for the University of Michigan, which he had flunked out of after a single semester), so he literally ran out of the apartment building and into the parking lot. He struggled with the jangling of his keys, (luckily, the hangover was a sprinter—it had started out strong, but was clearly not in it for the long haul), and opened the door of his white pickup truck.10

Just as he was about to slide in the driver’s seat, a shrill voice came from behind. 11

“Mr. Gray, do you even own an ironing board?”12

It was the woman from across the hall, Kathryn Monroe, just getting into her white Lexus. The truth was, Dean sold the ironing board to a college kid for twenty bucks, but he didn’t want Kathryn to know that.13

“Yes, I do. But the truth is, I do this just to piss off people like you.”14

“People like me?”15

“Yes” he replied. “people who apparently own the entire world, but still live in the tenements, right by peasants like myself.”16

Sufficiently satisfied with this comeback, and the look on his neighbors face, Dean Drove away. He imagined her wide form standing before his truck as he pulled out of the driveway, and smiled as the imaginary pink blouse was knocked back from the hood and all two hundred pounds of Marie went sliding down underneath the tires.17

Sighing, Dean knew that the only thing that would pass below his wheels today was sixty miles of highway pavement. As he turned on the radio, he saw that his gas tank was nearly empty. He had enough to make it to work, though, assuming he stayed below sixty-five miles an hour the whole way.18

He turned onto the freeway, leaving the Ann Arbor streets, crowded with artists and musicians with no strict hours to keep, for the highway, where every car was filled by one or two unhappy people, each wishing that the distance between their car and their cubicle was much, much greater. For the next forty minutes, Dean could do nothing but listen to The Who and try to rid himself of the thought that his life must be just as miserable as those of every single person he passed, whether in junkyard pickup truck like his or a brand new Corvette.19

Just when the monotony of the freeway became too much for Dean, his exit sprung up out of nowhere and he turned the wheel, cutting off a red sedan and riding uphill into a small town. It was called Hyatt, and it was safe to assume that no other cars would follow the trail his exhaust pipe made on the exit ramp all day. The town was mostly self-sufficient—it had perhaps one thousand citizens, all working within the city limits. The only non-residents that found the town interesting enough to visit were Dean Gray and a truck driver that would bring a shipment to the grocery store every month or so.20

Downtown Hyatt consisted of two blocks of storefronts, half of them with ‘for lease’ signs in the windows. Dean stopped before one with a sign that read ‘Hyatt Gazette’. It was small enough to have been built in the alley between two buildings, and his car, parked parallel to the entrance, was nearly as wide as the windowless brick face.21

Two quarters seemed like a lot of money to Dean, but he slid them into the parking meter and pressed the ‘start time’ button. He imagined that the city earned most of its money through the parking meters; there certainly were not enough people to make much from taxes, and its police officers were religious about doling out tickets.22

He walked up three steps, feeling his arms being bit by the cold, and opened the door. A bell chimed to mark his entrance, and so did the secretary’s voice. She at her desk, not nearly big enough to block out the row of computers and desks behind her, or the people who sat before them, sipping coffee and squinting through reading glasses.23

“Hello, Dean.” She said. “Mr. Paige is, well, livid. I think you should stay out of his way for a little while.”24

“Thank you, Liza.” He replied, rapping his knuckles on her desk as he walked past it and took a seat at his own. The reporters, photographers, and editors that sat all around him were denied offices or even cubicles, not because they were poor workers but because or the building’s width. The coffee-stained floor that Dean stared at for most of the day was only thirty feet wide, so space was very limited.25

The one man who did get his own office was named Jack Paige, and most of Dean’s coworkers were terrified of him. His three-hundred pound body was blocked from view by a door at the end of the rectangular room. Whenever this opened—as it was now—every person within earshot usually wished it hadn’t.26

“GOD DAMN IT, GRAY!” he yelled, walking towards Dean. “WHY THE HELL WERE YOU LATE TODAY?”27

“I was up too late, sobbing because Jack-o-lope yelled at me yesterday.” Dean responded sarcastically. The nicknames he had for his boss—Jack-knife, Jack-o-lantern, Jack-Rabbit, and several more profane ones never failed to amuse. Paige’s cheeks expanded for a moment, then he exhaled and grabbed Dean’s shoulder/28

“If you come in late just one more time, you’re fired.” He stated. 29

“You’ve said that before. Quite a few times, actually.”30

“JESUS CHRIST! Gray, don’t—“31

“—You know you won’t fire me. You can’t.”32

Mr. Paige thought about this for a moment, and sighed.33

“If you didn’t have your—“34

“If I didn’t have my ‘special talent’ I’d be fired. We do this every week, Jackrabbit, why do you even bother leaving your office?”35

Coming up with nothing to say, Mr. Paige shook a finger and lumbered back to his office. Dean smiled and turned back to his desk. He would get fired if he didn’t meet his one-thirty deadline, though; that was a hard and fast company policy.36

Instead of logging into his computer, Dean opened up the telephone book to a random spot. About one-fifteenth of the entries on the page were crossed out with ink, and he closed his eyes and picked one at random.37

Merrie Barrow was the name. 810—974-3041. He wrote this information on a pad of paper and dialed the number on his cell phone.38

“Hello?” answered a voice on the other end. 39

“Hello, is this Mrs. Barrow?”40

“Yes, who is this?”41

“My name is Seymour Ellis, and I’m calling from Phillips and Howard Incorporated. Would you be willing to sacrifice a few minutes of you time to help us with a survey?”42

“Sure thing, sir.” 43

“First of all, I need to know your age.” He said.44

“I’m thirty-five years old.” She replied. “But young for my age.” Dean wrote this down on the pad, just below the phone number.45

“Where are you currently employed.”46

“Oh, I’m just a housewife right now. I’ll be going back to school soon enough, though.” Dean recorded this as well. Then he really began to fire off the questions, still writing down her responses. 47

“Where exactly do you live? How many people are in your family? Are you involved in a church? Any other activities? What do you like to do with your spare time? Where did you go to high school? College?”48

Almost two minutes later, Dean assured Merrie Barrow that she had been very helpful, and hung up on her. He began to type away on his computer, trying to meet his deadline.49

Very soon, her pursed his lips and stared at the desk. He would call Kathryn Monroe, his beloved across-the-hall neighbor. He had been wanting to call her for ages, but never found the courage. Now, though, he would hold a nice long interview with the woman.50

Merrie Barrow woke up that morning, put a turkey in the oven, (for the luncheon at the synagogue at non), and fried three eggs. She ate them slowly, glancing only the front page of the paper, wondering how the construction of the new library was coming along.51

She walked slowly into her bathroom, brown hair resting gently in her the hood of her blue bathrobe. She turned on the shower and let it run hot for a while. When it was nice and steamy, she dropped the robe to the floor and stepped in, closing the door behind her.52

The rush of water kept Merrie from hearing the phone ring eight times. It clicked and went to the answering machine.53

“Hello, Merrie, It’s me, Rick. Listen, sweetie, I just looked at the paper on the internet, and the obituary said you died in a house fire today at ten! Is it a joke or what? I know it might be hard for them to reach me in Paris, but I know you can’t be dead; they’d still tell me. Anyways, I just wanted you to call the newspaper and correct them, before I get flooded with pity calls. Pick up a copy if you want—It’s your picture, name, everything.”54

The man on the other line hung up. Of course, Merrie did not know he ever called. Nor did she know that there was a thick black plume of smoke billowing out of her oven, and a group of flames that was spreading from the turkey inside to the cabinets all around.55