If you missed the first chapters here is where it begins... CHAPTER 01
Without further ado here’s...
Inside his dingy fifth floor cave, Morris changed from his construction gear. Another shit day on the lawless site, but he knew he'd be back in the morning, for Mom's sake.
He pulled off his sweat drenched t-shirt and jeans. A crumbling plastic suit bag lay on the kitchen table. Reaching inside, he jerked out a wrinkled shirt that at one time in history had been a bleached white. He quickly buttoned the shirt, hoping she wouldn’t notice the wrinkles then pushed his arms into the badly worn suit jacket.
He nearly felt like a real person.
Slogging down Avenue A in his scuffed dress shoes, Morris was a wholly different species than the rest on the busting sidewalk. An invertebrate in a sea of creatures joint of spine. A porous sponge, lacking the complexity of every other being he saw.
Passing a corner bodega, Morris was drawn to a cellophane wrapped bouquet of purple daisies. He tried to stop his hand but couldn’t halt the inevitable. His fingers gripped crinkly plastic squishing the petals. They were weightless, and free, the stems dripping a line of telltale circles on the concrete. Shuffling faster, he weaved through pedestrians before the bodega clerk reemerged.
“Get back here you motherfuck!”
Morris sped with his pilfered cone of discount blossoms.
Shame. Fear. Hope.
Hope that she wouldn’t be able to guess at how he’d gotten them… but mom always said never to arrive anywhere empty-handed.
Reaching Demetrakas, Morris shoved open the funeral home doors.
There he waited.
He scraped at his shoulder pad.
Then waited some more.
After too many minutes being ignored, standing in the wood-paneled front vestibule, Morris's anxiety level was starting to spike. He paid these bastard’s salaries; you'd think they'd show a little respect.
A funeral service assistant finally stalled out in the hall, pretending to notice Morris for the first time. The overt recognition and false grin he could have done without.
"Right this way, sir."
Morris followed down a corridor and into The Chapel of Rest.
Morris felt his shoulders relax; the large brightly colored viewing room was the closest he came to that feeling.
Home.
Despite the hideous chandelier above the pulpit.
"Have a seat, Mr. Hacking."
The assistant disappeared into a side door.
Morris occupied his usual hover by the front row.
In the rear prepping area, the service assistant found his trainee staring stupefied at the contents of an open casket. Inside was an ancient corpse; little more than a skeleton with stretched leathery skin.
"I finished cleaning the drainage tubes and aspirators, but couldn't find the mouth formers for the blue haired lady with the missing teeth," the trainee said, thoroughly distracted by the ancient corpse. He looked to his supervisor, "What's the deal here?"
"Geraldine Hacking," the service assistant said. "Every Tuesday for almost a decade. Forty dollars a week in fees, three replacement coffins, and only the good Lord knows how much he's spent on makeup."
The trainee looked seriously disturbed.
"Well... it's perfectly legal. And a faithful repeat client is a rarity in this business…" he said, hoping he’d closed the book on the unpleasant subject of Geraldine Hacking.
They wheeled the casket out. The trainee nodded, another bullshit grin added to the tally as the service assistant brought over a folding chair.
Morris stepped forward. The assistants stepped away.
He opened his plastic bag of ladies cosmetics. Lifting the lid on some powder, he leaned in and began to paint the face of the remains inside.
"That's better isn't it?" Morris asked.
The trainee stood at the back of the viewing room, transfixed by the unwholesome display.
Morris moved on to the lipstick as he began to quietly confide in the withered corpse.
"I can't stand the guys anymore, Mom. Last week they hooked a crane to a port-a-potty with Alvarez inside, pretending they didn't know, and lifted it thirty feet into the air. Bunch of damn jerks. It's not safe there. Horsing around like that. Screwing tools together and pissing in the cement. At least they fired Steinlicht’s ass on the spot. It screwed with the PH levels, so the cement didn't harden properly."
Morris knew he had to get this stuff off his chest, but he hated burdening her with all the nasty details. Why couldn't he ever come prepared with something nice to say? He made a mental note to come up with a few pieces of pleasant news for his next visit. Maybe he'd call aunt Riana and find out how she was doing. But then he'd have to hear about her hip, the old scags at her home, the staff that never let up with their socialize this and do crafts that.
Not necessarily much positivity to be mined there.
Reaching back into her makeup bag a thought occurred: he could go see a movie before his next visit. A comedy. That way he could tell her something funny, since nothing funny ever happened in his own life.
"You'd like that wouldn't you?" he said. "You used to love the pictures. Next time I'll bring a picture for you in my head, something to laugh about."
Morris finished with the lipstick, placing it back inside its crystal Things Remembered case, the engraved letters spelling out Geraldine above the polished silver heart and cubic zirconias.
Morris clicked shut last year’s mother’s day gift. He rolled the cellophane flower cone closer with his shoe.
Was he such a bad son after all?
CHAPTER 02
CHAPTER 03
CHAPTER 04
UPDATE - LOOKING FORWARD: CHAPTER 05
Thanks so much for reading & Steem on!
Yours In The Chain,
Doug
SPECIAL THANKS to my wife @zenmommas for years of support during the writing process, @ericvancewalton for his trailblazing, inspired collaboration and incredible guidance, @andrarchy for his mind blowing insight and friendship, @bakerchristopher for being an inspiration as a human artist and bro, @complexring for his brilliance and enthusiasm, Masie Cochran, Taylor Rankin and @elenamoore for their skillful help in editing the manuscript, and to @opheliafu for the fantastic illustrations she created exclusively for the novel's launch on Steemit and to Elena Megalos for her wonderful character illustrations. I’d also like to thank Eddie Boyce, Jamie Proctor, Katie Mustard, Alan Cumming, Danai Gurira, Stephan Nowecki, Ron Simons, Dave Scott, Alden Karr, Missy Chimovitz, my dad Andy Karr and late mother Wendy , and everyone else who helped lead me to this moment.
I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347
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