The Funeral March

She had once been beautiful. Tall and slender with long golden hair and blue eyes that shone with a light of their own.1

She had once been beautiful. She wasn’t anymore. Her perfect size three figure had disappeared with the birth of her only daughter, her golden hair hung in limp, mousy brown strands to just below her shoulders. The shining light had been driven out of here eyes years ago by the years of abuse and neglect. 2

At twenty-seven, the former homecoming queen was a sad pathetic figure with an even sadder and more pathetic life. 3

Her husband Ray, a former homecoming king six years her senior was a college drop out who pumped gas for a living. His own sad and pathetic tales of woe drove him to drink. And drink he did. He didn’t care what, so long as it had alcohol, he didn’t care when, to him it was always five o’clock somewhere, and he didn’t care with whom he drank so long as they were buying. 4

He drank every night until he couldn’t see straight and then he beat her. Laura wasn’t a perfect size three anymore, but the six foot seven, 268 pound former football player still dwarfed her. She was nowhere near strong enough to defend herself from him. So every night that Ray managed to find his way home she whimpered in a corner as he worked his anger out on her.5

Every morning was the same. She woke up made Ray’s breakfast and poured his coffee. She waited silently as he scarfed down his breakfast and swallowed his daily Tylenol dosage and kissed his cheek and watched him leave without a backwards glance. 6

She then woke her twelve-year-old daughter up and set out her breakfast. 7

Lacy was the spitting image of her mother. Her eyes were the same sparkling blue and her hair fell in long golden waves to her waist. Her bones were small and she was already classically beautiful. Her nose was small and delicate, her cheekbones high, her mouth was small and red, even her pale skin was flawless and freckle free. At twelve years old she was already the envy of her female schoolmates. 8

The only thing was unlike her mother, Lacy already knew how beautiful she was and she used it to her advantage. She was the queen of the junior high and a very ruthless and intolerant sovereign.9

Laura, who had once been very beautiful herself, was heartbroken to see that her little bundle of joy had inherited Ray’s sadistic sense of pleasure. She was even more heartbroken to realize that despite their shared genes and nearly identical personalities they would never get to know each other. Lacy was already too high strung to spend time with her parents and Ray was simply too drunk to acknowledge the existence of a daughter. 10

Laura held back tears as her little girl left for school without so much as a wave good-bye. She watched silently as little Lacy walked disdainfully away, her perfect little nose in the air.11

It was then that the funeral march began to play. 12

She shut the door on her daughter’s retreating form. In the kitchen there were dishes to be done and dinners to be made before she left for the noon shift at the local dinner. 13

Laura washed the dishes with soap and water and salty tears as she mourned the lives of her family. She baked a tuna casserole and zapped a container of green beans distractedly not even noticing or caring when green bean juiced stained her shirt or when she burned her finger on the oven rack.14

Laura was already dead, but her funeral march played on.15

She walked slowly and silently across their tiny home and into their tiny master bedroom. She sat on her bed and stared into her mirror. Ten years ago she had loved her mirror and the beautiful, smiling reflection it had produced. Every time she had looked into her mirror her eyes had sparkled with joy and her heart had leapt with a true happiness that had long since been forgotten in a dark corner somewhere. Now when she gazed into the mirror her dull eyes filled with tears and her reflection cried the silent tears of a broken woman.16

At exactly eleven o’clock she stopped her sobbing and stood to get ready. She pulled on her plain black pants and her plain white tennis shoes. She slipped into her white Old Town Diner polo shirt and pulled her dull brown hair into a loose ponytail.17

Make up was another story entirely. It took her nearly an hour to apply enough make up to hide Ray’s bruises and cuts, but after her hard work her reflection was no longer quite as depressing as it had been only an hour ago, she looked tired, old, worn out and dumpy, but she no longer appeared broken, she looked like she might still have a reason for living.18

At twelve o’clock she pulled into her usual parking place at the diner and went into work. She tied on an apron and took an order booklet from the counter. Laura smiled silently and waved to the pregnant seventeen year old who had the morning shift. 19

Laura knew what it was like to be seventeen and pregnant.20

Laura spent the next four hours pouring coffee, serving pie, and trying not to cry. With every glass she poured her heart got a little heavier and with every slice she served her mind drifted further and further away.21

By the time her shift ended she was more dead than alive, but she still managed to smile at the young man who took the next shift and even have a short, but friendly conversation with Shirley the head waitress before leaving. 22

She climbed into the rusty old tin wagon Ray had brought home for her three years ago when she landed in the hospital after one of his beatings. 23

The door handle stuck and the passenger side window was broken, she needed new tires and the paint had long since come off, but it was one of Ray’s pitiful attempts at apologizing to her. She would have rather he offer to pay for her hospital bills or announce that he was going to leave them for good, but instead he gave her this tin deathtrap and told her that she had better not wreck it or else.24

Laura often wondered what the “or else” was. 25

She sighed and turned the key four or five times before the car started. Laura pulled carefully into the street and waved her thanks to another driver.26

A mile and a half later she pulled on to the interstate and wished her radio played more than just these sad and pathetic country songs, but she guessed they were a fitting accompaniment to her sad and pathetic life.27

After four or five sound alike country songs she turned her radio off, hand cranked her window down, and lit a cigarette. Ray had got her hooked on them back in high school.28

She took exit 99 and heard the funeral music playing louder in her head as she pulled into her driveway. Even in the dark her house looked shabby and her yard was unkempt. She sighed and contemplated a Sunday of yard work and cleaning while Ray slept off his Saturday night hangover. Some day of rest that would be.29

Laura fumbled tiredly for her key and unlocked the doorway to her nightmares. 30

Lacy sat on their tired old couch a Seventeen magazine on her lap and the phone to her ear.  31

Laura started to say hello to her only child, but was cut of by and angry glare and haughty toss of her daughter’s head.32

Laura sighed and wondered if she used to do the same thing to her parents. May God rest their souls. 33

She warmed up the casserole and nuked the canned green beans again. She dished out two servings of each and laid them on the table, for her husband and her daughter, neither of whom she loved. 34

Upstairs in her darkened room, when she was all alone she hated the two of them. 35

Upstairs in her darkened room she tried to ignore her daughter’s shrill voice and her husband’s harsh words.36

Upstairs in her darkened room she cried for them, for all three of them.37

Upstairs in her darkened room she contemplated knives and pills and guns38

Upstairs in her darkened room she contemplated suicide.39

Upstairs in her room she contemplated murder.40

Laura had never been a criminal; she had never had so much as a parking ticket. She had always been a good girl, but hard times change people and the last ten years sure have been hard.41

Laura sat and cried and dreamed and screamed silently to herself. She dreamed of what should have been and cried for who she could have been and screamed for the prince charming who would never come to her rescue.42

Laura listened for hope on the wind or the whistle of her imagined savior on the stair but all she heard was Ray’s gruff voice calling for her to do the dishes. 43

She wiped away her tears and swore to whatever gods there were that she would have the last laugh that Ray would pay for what he did to her. 44

Oh what hell she would put him through if only she had the chance. She would make him cry and she would make him bleed and when he begged for mercy she would kill him. Him and his daughter only God knew how badly she would make them pay if only He would give her the chance.45

Laura walked slowly downstairs. She walked past her giggling daughter’s room and past her slobbering husband on the couch. She walked into her kitchen, the same funeral march playing in her head.46

She rinsed and washed the dishes and put them on their shelves and sat in a chair and thought some more.47

What ever happened to Laura she wondered, what happened to that pretty girl with the bright smile and even brighter smile? What ever happened to the girl who could have been Miss America, the girl who would have gone to Sarah Lawrence?48

“Ray happened” she thought bitterly, “Ray and his daughter Lacy. They happened Lacy with her beautiful face and black heart and her father the drunkard.” 49

Laura almost broke down. She almost sobbed aloud. She almost grabbed a kitchen knife. But instead she stood strong and refused to sob and refused to give in. 50

That night after his ten or eleven beers Ray called Laura into the living room. She went willingly, like one condemned. Her head was high and her eyes were alive with their old light again. Ray lurched at her and knocked her hard to the ground. He punched her slapped her, hit her, and damn near killed her, but for once she did not call out. 51

She lay silently accepting every blow he had to offer. After a while he tired himself out and after spitting on his wife for good measure Ray wandered upstairs where he fell promptly asleep still wearing his work clothes, still wearing the clothes he would die in.  52

Only then, when Ray was out of sight did she break down. She sobbed lying alone on the dirty carpet floor. She sobbed choking for air begging for a release. She stumbled into the kitchen and climbed up onto a chair. There on top of their ancient refrigerator was Ray’s stash of hard liquor. She grabbed two bottles of vodka and climbed back down. The funeral music was playing full force in her head now and she knew she couldn’t escape it.53

She poured a large glass of straight vodka and drank it in one gulp. Her head started to buzz and she knew she couldn’t live with Ray anymore.54

She took another glassful and drank that in one gulp. She couldn’t escape, there wasn’t anywhere for her to go.55

She abandoned the glass and drank straight from the bottle sloshing and spilling clear liquid down her old, torn nightshirt. Her desperate sobs grew louder and louder, but no one heard her, no one cared.56

She stumbled into the living room, running into and smashing the single beautiful piece of furniture in the house, her great-grandmother’s vase. 57

The crash must have woken Lacy because the twelve year old wondered into the living room complaining about lost beauty sleep. Her lovely sapphire eyes filled with fear when she saw her bloody, bruised, drunk mother stumbling towards her.58

Laura glared at her daughter and swung the bottle at the child’s perfect head. She missed. There were Lacys everywhere. She swung again and again and again and then contact, the bottle connected with the child’s perfect head and her perfect form crumpled to the ground, dead.59

It seemed that his daughter’s fear filled and anguish-ridden cry had awoken her father because the large and still drunk man stumbled downstairs and went straight towards his wife, his empty eyes full of hatred and rage.60

Laura stumbled backwards, using the walls to fling herself into the kitchen. She grabbed onto the counter and felt around. Her small hands alight on a kitchen knife. 61

Ray came at her, hands stretched before him, a strangled cry erupted from his throat and he reached for her. She ducked and tripped and was propelled forward into her husband’s arms.62

Her knife embedded itself deep within Ray’s dark heart. And Laura cried as her funeral violens picked up their pace. She picked herself up off the floor and ran into the living room trying to escape the screeching violens. 63

She runs into her daughter’s perfect form lying broken on the floor in front of the stairs. The violens now match her heartbeat and grow louder and louder still.64

Laura pulls at her hair and staggers back into the kitchen where her nightmare lies dead on the floor, her knife in his heart.65

She sits down hard and slumps onto the table making a deal with the violen players from hell. They will stop playing her funeral march when she dies.66

Laura tips the last of the vodka onto her mouth and mutters a silent prayer. She takes a knife and with shaking hands plunges it deep inside her own black heart. The funeral march slows, keeping time with her heartbeat slowly stopping as she dies.67

Laura had once been beautiful. Tall and slender with long golden hair and blue eyes that shone with a light of their own. Now she was dead and her funeral march still played, slowly keeping time with the once beautiful woman and her once beautiful dreams as they die hand in hand68