Funeral For A Friend Read online



  Funeral For A Friend

  By James Hold

  Copyright 2014 James Roy Hold

  FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND

  The doctor frowned gravely as he put the stethoscope to my chest.

  "Whut is it?" I asked, seeing the look on his face.

  "It's a device for listening to internal sounds of the body," he replied, "most commonly the heart and lungs."

  "I know that," I countered irritably. "I mean whut's wrong with me?"

  "Well," he shot back, "other than being extremely grouchy..."

  I grabbed my hat and walked out. "Quack!" I muttered, flagging a passing jeepney.

  It wasn't until I was several miles down the road that I remembered I hadn't worn a hat into the doctor's office. My hat, a wide-brimmed safari model, was in the truck parked across the street. My truck. Said vehicle fading in the distance as the jeepney gathered speed.

  Oh, well, I sulked, no point turning back now anymore.

  Except, maybe, rather than grabbing the doctor's hat, I should have taken the shirt I had removed for the examination.

  As it was, I found myself sitting on a foam-covered bench in a crowded jeepney, wearing khaki shorts and work boots while shirtless with an ill-fitting Derby perched atop my head.

  Filipinos are by nature polite, so my fellow passengers pretended not to notice, although mothers with small children held their maraming bata close and whispered to them to keep away from the putikano loco.

  Hello. Buck Stardust here. You may remember me from such adventures as "Paralyzed in Bakersfield" and "Double or Mutton," where I bagged a bogus butcher trying to sell counterfeit lamb chops. And no, I'm not usually this grouchy. Actually, I'm a nice guy. Only if you had the kind of day I did then you would be irritable as well. I tried explaining this to the other riders only they kept averting their eyes and covering their faces until I eventually wound up sitting next to the driver. He at least listened to my story. Not that he had a choice we were on a mountain road and there was no safe way he could jump out.

  Anyway it all began earlier that morning when I was driving my truck—my truck, mind you—along a dirt road outside Panabo City. It was a scenic route of hills and valleys, trees and streams, with farmhouses set back from the road. Rounding a curve, I saw a family gathered around a hole in the ground. The family consisted of a man and two small children. All were crying. As such, it didn't take a genius to understand the harsh reality facing them.

  I stopped my vehicle and got out to pay my respects.

  "Ah, my Rose. She was good, so good," the farmer was saying. "She meant so much to all of us."

  I was touched.

  "Every day," he went on, "in the hottest weather, she would pull the plow and haul water up the hill. All with a minimal amount of beating."

  I was shocked.

  "Yer tellin' me ya beat her?"

  "Only enough to keep her moving."

  I decided not to pursue the subject. Poor Rose was dead and arguing wouldn't do any good now. I was curious though why they were standing around waiting. If the farmer's earlier remarks left me shocked, his next statement left me appalled.

  "We're waiting for a rope so we can drag her up from the valley."

  "Drag her up! From th' valley!" I stammered. "Ya mean ya left her down there?"

  "But sir, what can we do?" He beseeched me with tear-filled eyes. "She's quite large."

  All right, so some Filipino women get bigger in their later years. Dambohala as they call it. Still, the idea of dragging the mother of one's children up a hill is reprehensible.

  "Have ya no respect? No sense of decency?" I cried as I made for the path leading down to the valley. "I'll carry her up!"

  "But sir," the farmer reiterated. "She is very large."

  "I don't care if she's big as an elephant; I'll not stand by an' allow..."

  Well, it turned out she wasn't quite as big as an elephant.

  She was as big as a carabao.

  In fact, that's what she was—a carabao. All 500 kilos of her.

  "Ya didn't tell me Rose wuz yer work animal," I quietly pointed out.

  "You didn't ask," the farmer calmly replied.

  Looking back, I shouldn't have been surprised at the situation I'd stumbled into. After all, I had waxed eloquent about the Filipino farmer's respect for the carabao in an earlier story, "See You Later Alligator." That had been one of my more altruistic adventures—by which I mean it involved a pretty girl. Which wasn't the case here. The farmer had two kids, both under ten, both in need of a bath.

  Well, to get on with it, about this time a woman showed up. She had a rope slung over her shoulder.

  "That be my wife," said the farmer. "I'll tell her to take the rope back since we won't need it anymore."

  "Not so fast," said I, taking the rope from her.

  A swift introduction followed.

  "Buck Stardust?" The woman appraised me critically. "Aren't you the guy who introduced Pete Townshend to an elephant?"

  "Yes," I admitted. "That was in my story 'Horton, Here's a Who' if I remember correctly."

  Which I should since I still had the bump where the elephant smashed a guitar over my head.

  #

  Descending the slope with Grace and Aplomb (that being the names of the two farm kids), I set about my labors. I brought along the rope and a spade, which I placed beside the stump where the brats parked themselves.

  The brats watched and blinked, but said nothing.

  To preserve the dignity of the fallen farm animal, I folded her limbs as best I could, wrapped her in a roll of burlap, and tied it with some heavy twine. As I finished the last knot, I noticed how the rounded shape of the body rocked back and forth. This gave me an idea. If that Greek fellow Sissyface could push a rock up a hill, why couldn't I do the same thing with Rose?

  It was hard work. Very hard. I had to bend my knees, grip the bottom strand of knotted twine, then straighten my back and push all it one motion. The burlap-bagged body would move a little and I would repeat the process. Sweat poured down my face and soaked my body, while my back and thighs screamed for mercy. But I didn't give up. While I couldn't see straight ahead I knew I was making progress by quick glances to the left and right of me.

  It seemed I'd been at it forever when one of the farmer's brats called out to me. "Hey, mister!"

  "Huh? Whut?" I straightened and turned around .

  Which was all Gravity needed to send Rose barreling back down the hill. And as I was directly in her path we went down together, Rose serving as the wheel and me as the tire. We reached the bottom of the hill much quicker than we had gone up, although from my position it was an eternity.

  As I gazed dizzily from the spot where I had started, the farmer called down.

  "You bring carabao up yet?"

  "I'm working on it, okay!" I yelled back. "I'm working on it!"

  Then I turned my attention to the farm brat.

  "Whut th' hell wuz so important ya had to yell an' make me look back?"

  "I wanted to let you know you were almost at the top," he replied in a most innocent voice. "Oh, and by the way, Sisyphus never did succeed in getting that rock to the top of the hill. The gods placed a curse on him so it would always roll back on him."

  "Now ya tell me," I said as I staggered to the stream to splash water on my face.

  Meanwhile, the kids blinked and looked on.

  #

  Now a smart man might know when he's licked, but I wasn't admitting to being either. Still, if I learned anything from that episode, it was that I was in no physical shape to roll a carcass up a hill.

  Hmm. Physical. Physics? That's it. Physics.

  I remembered a freshman science course where they said some
thing about basic tools, which included the fulcrum and the lever. Or in plainer words, a seesaw. A seesaw that could also work as a catapult.

  It was simplicity itself. Get a long, strong plank of wood from the farmer, wedge one end under the carcass, assemble a pile of rocks for a fulcrum, then climb one of the coconut trees and jump down on the other end of the board, sending Rose flying to the top of the hill.

  In no time the mechanism was assembled and I had scaled the nearest coconut tree. The kids on the log seemed indifferent as I waved to them. Oh, well, just wait till they see this!

  And see it they did. They saw me land feet first on my side of the board. They saw the board pushed to the ground as the side supporting Rose went up. They saw Rose's body fly high into the air, straight up, then make a beautiful arc and come down...SPLAT...directly where I was standing.

  "You bring carabao up yet?" the farmer called from top of the hill.

  "I'm working on it!" was my muffled reply from beneath the carcass.

  Some minutes later, with no help from the brats, I squeezed myself out from under Rose's bulk.

  I was thirsty.

  "Can I get a can of soda?" I called to the top.

  The farmer tossed one down. I popped it open and got a shower spray of sticky cola in my face.

  Oh, well, I sighed, why not?

  Meanwhile, the kids sitting at the bottom of the hill blinked and looked on.

  #

  Okay. I see my error now. I had arranged my catapult with Rose at the upper end of the incline so naturally she would fly up and over in my downward direction and land on me. All I needed to do was switch places, putting Rose at the lower end with me jumping down from the uphill side. A painful lesson, but a valuable one.

  I rearranged our positions at the ends of the seesaw, climbed the coconut tree, and jumped down. Rose's body flew high into the air, higher than the last time. Only it never did arc in the direction of the hilltop. It just went straight up, and came straight down. It landed on its end of the catapult with me still standing on mine.

  My body shot upward like a cannonball. Not straight up though. Physics and Gravity decided to work together this time so my body made a beautiful arc toward the valley stream. The pebbles at the bottom of it did nothing to cushion my fall, although you will be happy to know the enormous splash washed the sticky soda from my body.

  The farmer called from the top of the hill.

  I yelled back up at him.

  Meanwhile, the kids blinked and looked on.

  #

  Many blinks and bruises later, as I listened to one of the brats mutter, "This is getting monotonous," it finally hit me. Not an idea but the handle of the spade I had brought along. I was pacing and grumbling when I stepped on the blade and it smacked me in the face.

  "You bring carabao up yet?"

  "I'm workin' on it, okay? I'm workin' on it!"

  Let's face it, I told myself. The day you get that carcass up the hill will be the day pigs fly.

  Then—BOING—the idea flew into my head, so obvious I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it earlier.

  Maybe pigs couldn't fly, but if a cow could jump over the moon...

  The family watched wordlessly as I paced the distance from where Rose lay to the top of the hill and from there to the grave they had dug for her. I held a hand edgewise between my eyes sighting my trajectory. To them it probably looked like I was going to karate chop my face but I didn't care. I scratched some calculations in the dirt, rubbed them out, made some, and then I was ready. I nodded to the farmer, "This time fer sure!" and went back down.

  Coconut trees are strong but they are also extremely flexible. I took the rope the farmer's wife had brought and tied it tight about the top of a tree. Then with all my strength I pulled it down to where it bent into a U shape. I then tied the free end of the rope to the lower trunk of a neighboring tree.

  I sighted my trajectory once more. Everything lined up to my satisfaction.

  It was necessary then to cut open the burlap cover and expose Rose's hooves. It wasn't something I wanted to do but I had no choice. For my plan to work I had to tie Rose's hooves to the top of the bent coconut tree, using a short piece of rope cut from the longer one. It had to be a special knot, one that would loosen on impact. Fortunately, I knew such a knot. I bent down and tied it hastily, not wishing to look long upon Rose's dark brown hooves. "I'm sorry I have to do this, girl," I apologized, "but it's th' only way."

  My slingshot was ready. I would cut the rope holding the bent coconut tree in place. The trunk would whip itself upright, taking Rose's body with it. As Rose's airborne body shifted from one side of the trunk to the other the impact would undo the knot that held her and she would sail through the air until she landed comfortably as possible in her hilltop grave.

  I had even gone so far as to pad the bottom of the hole to cushion her fall.

  I felt so sure of myself that I called the two farm kids over.

  "Okay, kid," I handed the boy my knife. "Watch fer my signal an' when I nod my head, ya cut th' rope."

  I then stepped away from the carabao to be in the clear when he did so.

  That's when I felt a tug at my boot. "Whut th' heck?" I looked down and saw my mistake. Because I had not wanted to look at the dead carabao's hooves, I had mistaken my own dark brown work boot for them and had tied the rope about my own foot. And, of course, when I looked down, the kid mistook it for my nodded signal and immediately cut the rope.

  The less said about it the better. It turned out my calculations were correct, and, after burning out my fuse up there alone, I landed KER-PLOP in the hilltop grave.

  #

  Sometimes you reach a point where pain doesn't matter. The only thing that counts is pride. Stubborn pride, at that. I didn't care if one leg was now several inches longer than the other. Or that my body was one vast bruise. What mattered as I popped out that grave and bolted down the hill was that I was going to bury that g--d----- animal if it was the last thing I do.

  I snatched the farmer by his collar and dragged him with me.

  "Ya see that stream? I'll git rocks an' dam it up! I'll build a stone wall from one end of th' valley to th' other! I'll flood th' entire basin and float th' carcass to th' top on a bed of coconut shells! Then I'll dig a trench from there to her grave. I'll build a barque of bamboo to carry her. I'll..."

  The farmer's wife came down and quietly picked up a spade.

  "You know, dear," she told her husband, "we should bury Rose at the bottom the hill. She always liked resting in the shade of the trees down here."

  And as the farmer set about digging in the soft earth, the wife gave me a look as if to say, "You can go now." And so I did as the two brats blinked and looked on.

  #

  "Can triplets have a tutor?"

  It was the first time the jeepney driver had spoken since I began my tale. We had come full circle, the other passengers jumping out where they could, and were back where we had started.

  "Whut did ya say?"

  "I said... Oh, never mind. My mind just goes to wandering when I take these long drives."

  "Ya mean to tell me ya haven't listened to a word I said?"

  "Sorry sir. We drivers learn to block out most of the chatter that goes on around us. Will there be anything else?"

  "Yeah," I grumbled. "Here's one fer ya: do doctors ask hypodermic questions?"

  I admit it wasn't very good, but then his tutor question wasn't that great either.

  I had an extra shirt in the truck. My truck. I put it on. Then I took the doctor's derby hat and left it by the door of his office. I couldn't see any point going inside and answering a bunch of questions. Besides, as I learned from the jeepney driver, you can have the most reasonable explanation for anything but it doesn't do you any good if no one's going to listen to you.

  14187

  In Loving Memory of Rose Lafuente Hold,

  seen here with her mother, Donna,

  who died May 1
3, 2014 from bird flu.

  With the assurance that her care and treatment

  in both life and death in no way resembled that

  of the unfortunate creature in this story.

  James Hold

  Thank you for reading my book.

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