Camptown Ladies (23 page)

Aunt Aggie explained Mom wanted to keep all the tents together and not sort them into boy and girl colors the way she wanted.

Lisa said to Mom, “As much as it kills me to agree with her, Aunt Aggie is right. Red, purple, and orange tents here, and all the army green, brown, and beige tents over here. Here is the deal: My way or the highway. Any questions?”

Mom had a question. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to, young lady?”

Like a smart sibling, I slipped out the back door, walking backward. It was every man for himself now, and I knew Lisa and Vince would have left me to fend for myself if they had been the fortunate ones to be near a viable escape route.

I heard Aunt Aggie say to Mom, “And who do you think you are talking to my niece like that? I told my brother you were rude and you had a potty mouth the day he met you—”

“Drop dead!” Mom screamed at her.

Nineteen

A Farewell To (Doughy) Arms

“Do you really think Mom believes Aunt Aggie kicked it because of her?” I asked Lisa.

Lisa answered, “You know Mom has always been weird about death. Remember after we were punished and sent to bed without supper, she would sneak in cookies because she was convinced we’d starve to death overnight?”

She was also convinced the song “Wake Up Little Susie” is about trying to wake a dead girl. “Poor Mom,” I said, watching her as she moved guiltily through the crowd, pretending to be straightening the chairs that already looked like the military had aligned them.

Aunt Aggie’s funeral was planned, as enthusiastically as these things can be planned, by Eddie, who fancied himself a budding party planner and thought this might be a way to break into the biz. Several of his friends attended to give moral support to his floral arrangements and helped artfully arrange the tiny mesh bags of black and purple jellybeans (the morbid equivalent of Jordan almond wedding favors), which he labeled: “Parting Gifts.” Although several people muttered about the inappropriateness of it all, not one mesh baggie was left on the table by the middle of the funeral, with several people still left in line, growing anxious as the pile dwindled while they waited for a viewing.

Eddie’s new boy toy had made the ride down from The Cape Cod, and gasped like a girl when he saw the massive laid-out body of Aunt Aggie. It was probably the shock of seeing the heavily applied eyeliner, bright blue eye shadow (perfectly replicated from a recent photo), and black helmet hair against the white satin coffin
pillow. Or maybe it was just the way she appeared wedged into a coffin that was a wee bit too small for her. When questioned about this, Uncle Freddie said he had not seen the point of upgrading when Aunt Aggie preferred sleeping in a twin-size bed. Uncle Freddie had pulled the death equivalent of shopping at Gap Kids when you don’t have a child: instead of shopping at a regular Gap store, you buy your clothes in X-Large sizes in the kids side of the store, where the clothes are a lot cheaper, but the arms are a just a bit short.

When my sister heard one of the boy toy’s friends coo, “Mmmmmm, that is one big
girl,
” Lisa leaned over to Eddie and said, “Make sure your boy toy’s friend knows she’s actually a woman and not a tranny.” Eddie did, and the boy toy’s friend raised a well-plucked eyebrow, accusing him of joking. I smiled as the boy toy self-consciously touched his trim abs to assure himself that being around a group of people who frequently abused calorie intake had not made him fat by proximity.

There is nothing like the funeral of a fairly unlikable woman to bring out the crowds of elderly Italians. Going to a funeral that is guaranteed to not be sad was basically an exercise of paying your respects for the free buffet. The buffet, in this case, would be held after the service, at our condo. Erica had volunteered to take care of the food arrangements so we could focus on the funeral service and whatever else Uncle Freddie needed, but Lisa wouldn’t hear of it. She had laid out a spread of homemade lasagna, stuffed artichokes, and two vats of simmering meatballs, and had put together three trays of stunningly arranged antipasto that could have fed twice the people attending. Vince and I had already carefully raided the sharp provolone chunks and rearranged as needed.

The flowers were amazing, and Eddie was able to fill an entire row of guests with his overdressed friends, their ultra-conservative suits and ties contrasting with tastefully applied makeup—if you can ever consider makeup on men tasteful. I walked through a crowd of people who were marveling at how Eddie managed to make floral arrangements with birds of paradise somehow work with the somber décor of the funeral home, but Lisa and I knew that making the unexpected thing work was one of Eddie’s many
gifts. Vince and I both glanced at Uncle Freddie, who was having a conversation with Dad.

Vince whispered in my ear, “I shouldn’t say it, but it’s not at all like when Uncle Tony lost Auntie Celia.”

I had just been thinking the same thing. “Don’t forget that while Uncle Freddie lived under her iron fist for all of his adult life, it’s still going to be a big adjustment for him.”

Vince agreed, “Yeah, like how some lifers don’t want to leave jail when their time comes up.”

“They get attached to the beatings,” I whispered back, as we both stifled a soft chuckle. “Could have been the great Italian food that kept him.”

“Gotta give Aunt Aggie credit there,” I agreed.

“Remember at Grandma’s funeral, when Aunt Aggie tried to throw herself in the grave?”

I sighed. “Good times.”

Vince said, “Well, if it happens again, there’ll be no waiting.”

We were unable to get Uncle Freddie’s favorite priest, so the eulogy was so benign it sounded like the priest was working off
Mad Libs: The Eulogy Edition.
It was shaping up to be a very uneventful wake and funeral, a rare thing in our family. I had been so busy with the camp that the droning of the priest got to me and I nodded off to sleep a few times, waking up when Vince elbowed me as Uncle Freddie stepped in front of the gathering to say a few words.

Mom was still wincing with her I-killed-someone-with-my-evil-powers face, and I watched it twist it up a notch as Uncle Freddie began to speak. “Thank you all for coming,” he said with his Italian accent and sweet smile. “My wife and I were together for over fifty-seven years, and there was not a single day where we didn’t look into each other’s eyes . . . and have an argument.” The crowd let out a relieved chuckle, hoping they’d dodged a tear-jerking speech.

Uncle Freddie continued, “I had no idea all I had to say was ‘drop dead’ and I could have lived my whole life in peace!” Everyone chuckled again, as Mom shook her head and covered her face in embarrassment.

“But seriously, my wife and I argued, but we had a lot of laughs,
too. Nobody could energize a room like my Aggie, you could never deny her that. I used to tell her she was a tough lady to love . . . but she was my tough lady.”

The room took on a tense silence, noted by shifting bodies and creaking chairs and a few uncomfortable coughs. “When we were first dating, Aggie used to tell me I was the only man strong enough to love her. But I don’t feel very strong today . . . Maybe this is what I will be—a little less strong without her.”

I caught the eyes of my sister and brother, who both looked like I must have looked: We were all hit by the realization that, despite all the yelling she did and complaining he did, Uncle Freddie had lost his best friend.

“We didn’t expect her to leave us this suddenly, and she sure would have wanted to stretch it out a bit. Aggie loved to be the center of attention, so she had talked about what she wanted for her funeral. I was surprised when she asked me to do only two things. The first was to ask a favor of all of you, and I promise you, she really asked this. She asked that you all forgive her for the way she was sometimes. She loved you all, but she couldn’t help it. She said it was too much fun to be a bitch.”

There were a few small laughs, but now people were tearing up, and the row of stout female cousins and Eddie and his friends began sniffing into Kleenex’s. One of our cousins, the one that Lisa called “Buff,” was putting on the best show of grief I had seen since Grandma’s funeral when Aunt Aggie eclipsed the competition, even though Aunt Aggie had not spoken to Grandma in years. Like Aunt Aggie, Buff was quite the character, equal parts sweet and bitchy, and she was equally wide as she was tall, which this was the reason Lisa called her Buff. (Her real name was Faye—as in, Buff-Faye.)

Uncle Freddie continued, “The second thing she asked me to do is a little harder . . . but I have to do what she wanted since it is her last request.” His voice cracked and I could feel my eyes burning with the threat of tears. “So now, I am going to ask that my Lisa, Marie, and Vince and my brother-in-law Sal come with me into a private room.” There was a hush to the crowd again, but Uncle Freddie lightened his voice and said, “Please join us back at the house to
enjoy the lovely buffet Lisa has prepared, and thank you so much for coming. See you back out here in a few moments.”

We followed Uncle Freddie into a back room of the funeral home, where a man had been standing at the doorway. The man nodded at him as we passed and opened the door for him and before he closed it behind us, I could see Mom’s face scrunched with concern for what was happening without her, the assassin of Uncle Freddie’s wife.

When the door was closed, Uncle Freddie walked silently around to the other side of a long table in the middle of the odd-looking room lined with plastic on the floor (for the hard-core criers?). He leaned on the table with both of his hands. The table was covered with a bland tablecloth that reached to the floor and had a floral arrangement on it that was attractive but not offensively pretty for the occasion of death. He paused and didn’t say a word for a long time while we stared at him, not knowing what to do.

Dad finally asked, “Freddie, are you alright?”

Uncle Freddie took a deep and serious breath. “Aggie asked me to do is this, because she said keeping the kids’ traditions are important, and, you know, she knew you kids always did this at funerals . . . and she couldn’t leave this earth without getting in one last shot . . .”

Just then, Uncle Freddie dipped under the table and whipped out two large, bright fluorescent plastic objects, and pointed them at us: “She said none of you would dare shoot back at the bereaved!”

Even as it was happening I knew later the scene would be remembered and retold in slow motion in classic war-movie style like a scene from
Full Metal Jacket
and
Saving Private Ryan,
only we would be laughing our asses off.

Vince, Lisa, and I all mouthed in slow motion the word “Noooooooooo!” as Uncle Freddie blasted us with two giant water pistols, outfitted with automatic trigger-action, light, and blaster sound effects. Uncle Freddie had skimped on the coffin, but had gotten the deluxe Super Soakers. Good choice, I thought, as I dove for the floor, despite my tight black skirt.

My siblings and I all hit the deck at once, and I knew my brother and sister would be thinking what I was, that for years we’d thought
our discreet shooting of each other with water pistols at family death-related events had gone unnoticed by the older folks. I realized now as I shamefully crouched down behind the table Uncle Freddie was shooting us from, that I would have used a row of elderly relatives as human shields.

Sprawled out on the floor, I looked to Vince in desperation and hope. “Do you?” I asked. He nodded, then I turned to Lisa, “Do you?” and she nodded back with a sinister grin.

While Dad was getting nailed by the water pistols for not reacting quickly enough, I called out, “On three! One . . . two . . . THREE!”

The three of us jumped up, pulling out our own water pistols (sadly, not the type to do battle, just the tiny, easy to hide, snub-nosed variety, the twin bed of the water pistol industry—perfect for drive-bys, but not for a battle like this) and we laughed our asses off as we fired back our pathetic weapons at Uncle Freddie in our perfect policeman stances, legs far apart, eyes on the barrel of our yellow, pink, and purple guns with bright orange safety plugs at the end of the barrels. The thought struck me, What does this sound like from the other side of the doorway, but there was a battle going on, and a guard at the door, and I couldn’t concern myself with that.

Then, in a stunning act of betrayal, Dad finally got his act together and pulled out his water pistol and chose to jump to the side with the heavy artillery. He sidled up to Uncle Freddie and helped him soak us as he and Dad laughed like hyenas. Collectively, we turned our guns on Dad, but even the three of us were no match for the Super Soakers, especially since Dad yelled to Uncle Freddie to play dirty and aim for the eyes and ears.

Uncle Freddie was heading closer, in slow motion (his usual speed), and my one thought was if my shirt got much wetter it would be completely see-through, so I backed out of the room, laughing and shooting, like the last action hero left on an alien-infested starship. When Lisa and Vince realized I was leaving, they turned their guns on me, Lisa’s last stream—tiny, but a direct hit to the eye—made my vision blurry when I emerged from the room soggy and stupid, unfocused on my Uncle Tony and his new wife Katherine who had entered the funeral home.