To the Artist's Page     To our home page

To Walt Craig's next piece

The Ultimate Desecration

Oliver Mace approached his wife's coffin with as much dignity as his drunken stupor would allow. It was 5 P.M., visitation wouldn't begin for another hour so there was plenty of time: time to think, time to remember, and time to tell Belle how he really felt. Oliver ran his eyes over his wife's face. They settled on her massive jaw. Even death couldn't soften the lines created by her enormous jowls. Oliver winced, he pulled a silver flask from the inside pocket of his jacket. "Look here Darlin'." He sloshed the contents of the flask six inches above the corpse's face. "Blackberry brandy...Remember how you wouldn't let me have any when you were alive? Well, I've got news for you, you old buffalo. I had a bottle in my old pickup truck nearly all the time. I'd stop at the cemetery every night on the way home and have a sip or two and you were never any the wiser." Oliver unscrewed the cap and had a swig. "Said you'd knock hell out of me if you ever caught me drinkin'. You could do it too. Then again, you're nearly twice my size. What do you weigh now anyway? 250? 260?" He took another pull from the flask. "Well, I'm drinkin' right in front of you now...so why don't you get up and do something about it?" He grinned. "Fat old cow. No, no, fat old bulldog. You know how much you look like a bulldog in the face? Geese! You're ugly and you had an ugly disposition to match. Remember when you caught me and Harold Koutz smokin' out in the garage? It was embarrassin' the way you slapped me around, and it scared hell out of poor Harold. He was my best friend and I haven't seen him from that day to this. But the worst of it was you lockin' me in the bathroom all night for punishment like I was a puppy that couldn't be trusted to be loose in the house.

"Well, I suppose I'll have the run of the house now. Yup, it's all mine and I won't have to take my shoes off to go into it neither. And best of all, you bitin' old sow, you won't be lumberin' from room to room screechin' your threats and insults at me."

Oliver took another drink from his flask and belched. He scanned the coffin. "Excuse me for starin' Dearest, it's just that I want to remember you just the way you are."

Oliver chuckled. "How do you like the casket piece? They're the most beautiful roses I could get. Of course, you hated roses because they made you sneeze, but I like 'em and now I'll have a whole yard full of 'em. You know what else? I am going to plant a rosebush on both sides of your headstone so you'll have to look at 'em forever."

Again Oliver tipped the flask. When he brought it down his eyes dropped to her face. For an instant, just a fleeting instant before his reasoning processes had regained full control, he thought he saw the corners of Belle's mouth curve downward in a cold, hateful grimace. Oliver gasped, stared hard at the massive body, then decided he had had too much brandy. Anyway, he thought, you always imagine you see a corpse breathe or something.

"Go ahead and scowl you old she-bear, you can't hurt me now."

Oliver stumbled a few steps to one of the folding chairs that had been set in neat rows to accommodate the friends and relatives who would be along later to offer their condolences. He sat leaning forward, elbows propped on spread knees, head resting on open palms. "Hounding and threatening was all you knew. You was screamin' obscenities at me when you had the heart attack. You even died makin' threats." A mischievous spark lit Oliver's glazed eyes. "Of course, I suppose I brought some of that on by tellin' you about the roses I was goin' to put on your grave when you died. Remember what you said? You said you'd pull me down into that hole with you and scratch my eyes out...Ha!...Well Sweetheart, there's roses on your casket and I can still see. There'll be roses on your grave too, but somehow that doesn't seem like enough to repay you for all those years of misery you put me through." Oliver brightened. "Oh well, I'll think of something."

Visitation and the funeral were attended by appropriately dressed people who said appropriate things. Oliver didn't remember much of either. For him both passed in a strange, drunken blur. When next he became aware of his own actions, he was sitting at the foot of Belle's grave. A cool spring rain stirred the fragrance of new mown grass and the fresh earth that covered his wife's coffin. He scanned the area. He was alone. Except for the patter of raindrops, all was silent. He felt for the familiar form of his flask. It wasn't in its usual place. A frenzied search proved it to be in his hip pocket. After a quick twist of the cap, Oliver rolled back his head anticipating a gut-warming surge of blackberry brandy. There was barely half a swallow. Bitter with disappointment, he slammed the empty container against a neighboring headstone.

"Miserable! That's what I am Belle, I'm miserable. You know why? Because for 25 years you made me that way. For 25 years you snarled and complained. You were never happy unless I was miserable. I'll bet you're happy now because I'm cold, wet and out of brandy. If the dead can smile, I'll bet you're smiling right now."

Oliver had trouble gaining his feet. At last he stood on wobbly legs. "Well, I'll be back tomorrow to wipe that smile off your ugly face with a pair of rosebushes. What do you think of that you fat old toad?"

He had turned from Belle's final resting place when it occurred to him...the ultimate desecration! A crooked grin swept Oliver's face. He staggered back to his wife's grave. Lowering his voice to a coarse stage whisper he said, "I changed my mind...I'm not going to wipe the smile off your face...I'm going to wash it off." He surveyed the mound of flowers that covered the rectangle of fresh earth, calculated the location of her stomach (the point from which he wished to launch the ultimate desecration), stepped up then reached for his fly. Careful aim at the head of the grave had been taken and the desecration in full, gleeful progress when Oliver realized he was sinking...No! He was being pulled down! Unable to keep his balance, he fell to his hands and knees. Belle's final threat surged through his brain. 'I'll pull you down and scratch your eyes out' she had said. Oliver's heart throbbed with frantic, terror-filled constrictions. Alternately he begged for mercy and whimpered apologies, but it was too late. A pair of fat, muddy hands burst from the grave and seized his throat. The little man squeezed his eyes shut. In a vain effort to break her grip Oliver grabbed his wife's cold dead wrists and pulled. She dug her thumbs in and shook him like a terrier killing a rat.

"Open your eyes," she screamed.

Oliver was unwilling.

"I said open your eyes you bed-wetting little worm."

Oliver opened his eyes. He was on his knees and Belle had him by the throat, but he wasn't in the cemetery.

"That's the second time this month you wet the bed," she screeched. "Look what you've done to my nightgown."

Oliver was still fighting to draw breath through his compressed neck when Belle rolled on top of him. She released his throat and dropped her mass astraddle of his pelvis. Oliver's pain shifted from Adam's apple to groin. Belle drew her meaty fists into hard knots. Each word she spat was punctuated with a blow to her husband's face.

"I'll-teach-you-not-to-piss-on-me-agai--"

Oliver flinched in time with the vicious punches, but the rhythm was broken when Belle didn't finish her sentence. He waited a moment before risking a peek from his already swollen right eye. The brute that loomed over him had gone pale. With both hands, she clutched her flabby chest. Oliver had seen the expression before. He knew that fiery pangs racked her chest, left arm and jaw. Her collapse was slow enough for him to guide her bulk to the side. If she falls on me, he thought, I'll suffocate.

"Get my pills," she commanded.

Obediently, Oliver started for the door but stopped. Gently, he touched his own puffy face then turned to examine his wife's. Her eyes would no longer focus. He knew she was dying.

"Get your own damned pills. I've carried all the nitro to you I'm going to."

Belle clinched her teeth. She struggled to rise, but was unable.

"You're going to die Belle, and you know what? When you do...I'm going to plant roses on your grave."

To the top of this page