An funereal interlude, inspired somewhat by Johnny Cash's haunting version of Danny Boy, an episode of Frasier, and Bugs Bunny.
No, really.
What?
Carlton looked down again at the coffee can, inside of which were the mortal remains of his father.
It was like some kind of ghoulish maraca.
He had arrived at the crematorium at nine in the morning, running a full hour late, all due to a flat tire on the freeway, an obnoxious little man with a big cigar, and his mother calling him at six in the morning (interrupting 'comfort sex', as Marlowe had called it) with very, very specific instructions on exactly where to go, what to say, what to wear, and how to comb his freaking hair. All of that had accumulated his lateness from only five minutes to twenty minutes to thirty minutes and finally, when he had limped wearily into the funeral director's office, an hour. He knew his mother would hear about it and would call and he would be in for an hour's worth of berating.
The funeral director looked like Lurch, from The Addams Family, and was named Pfeiffer, with the 'P' not being silent. It was thundering outside, and flashes of lightning had lit up the little room where he had stood, staring at the container holding his father's remains. One loud clap of thunder, a flash of light and it had been all he could do to not try and climb Lurch, Bugs Bunny-style, and call Marlowe to beg her to forget about parole violations and high-tail it up here now, because some more comfort sex would definitely come in handy.
A flat tire, a near-nervous breakdown, a scary-looking funeral director and seven hundred dollars out of his bank account to pay for the cremation (which his mother had flatly refused to pony up for). All to collect a coffee can.
Maxwell House. How appropriate. His father had always preferred Maxwell House. He had been disdainful of Folger's, from what Carlton could recall, calling it a 'damned English coffee product', though Carlton wasn't sure if Folger was in fact an English name, and didn't most coffee come from Africa?
Lassiter was actually a distantly English name, tracing back to Leicestershire, which was not famous for its sauce (like Worcestershire) but was well known for its sheep. Further back into the mists of time, it was Norman and further back, the Lassiter forebears had been living in trees and throwing rocks at Roman garrisons marching through Gaul.
They had, from the start, been rebellious, cantankerous and high-strung, with a tendency toward high metabolism, dark hair, blue eyes and remarkable fighting skills. From the research one of his maiden aunts had done, they had started out somewhere in Chester, England and from there had gone to Ireland, spent several generations in Connemara, fighting with themselves, neighbors and probably even sheep, before eventually becoming thieves, smugglers, and pirates (with a foray into Scotland to fight against Edward I with William Wallace, because they enjoyed killing Englishmen) while marrying (if forced to) O'Connells, O'Learys, Dunnes, O'Sheas, McTiernans, Feahys, McKewens, Daughterys and O'Riordans until the English was thoroughly bred out. In 1735, a thin, starving, dirt-poor Seamus Lassiter had boarded a cattle ship from Cill Chiaráinand landed in North Carolina, and the rest was history. His grandsons had fought against the Englishmen they despised so much in the Revolutionary War, then went back to Tennessee to continue making moonshine. A streak of larceny still ran strong through his family. He had in fact arrested three cousins in the past five years.
Something in the can kept rattling, and he wondered if it was a tooth. Maybe a piece of jewelry. His mother, obviously, would have done her best Alice Perrers and would have snatched up whatever had been left on the body when it had arrived at LAX from Boston. She probably would have even snatched up any gold teeth as well.
He was now on his way to the local airport, to pick up his brother Seamus, who was due to arrive from several connecting flights from Buenos Aires. His sister Colleen and her brood of lanky, good-looking offspring would already be at the house, all of them wishing they were back in Calabasas. Lauren and Raul would be there with Peter, probably already feeling worn down by Mother. Althea would be trying to keep everyone from killing each other, because she was a peacemaker by nature. Other Lassiters would be wandering around, giving each other cold looks and dreading his arrival.
He flashed his badge at the security guard at the gate and rolled through, the coffee can rattling as he went over the speed bump, and he glared at his father's remains. "Shut up already. As if you've had anything to say for the past thirty years." He turned on the radio and was surprised to hear Johnny Cash singing Danny Boy. "There. That ought to keep you quiet."
He had obeyed his mother's command, however, and was wearing a green tie.
"Carlton! Carlton!"
He looked up from a People magazine article about Sarah Jessica Parker (and wondering how a woman that looked so much like a horse could have achieved such fame and shampoo commercials) and sighed. His brother was coming up the ramp, grinning from ear to ear. The younger man – by five years – dropped his bags and started jumping up and down. "I got my parole! I got my parole!"
Seamus Lassiter had dark hair that would probably never go gray (what did he have to worry about?), blue eyes that never turned black with rage (he never got angry about anything), and a much more relaxed posture (no sprigs of holly under his chin during meals, because Mother had adored him). In fact, he slouched. His mouth never twisted into a grimace of disgust or disdain, and he never did or said anything to indicate even the mildest degree of aggression. He was lazy, fun-loving, irreverent and charming. He was, thus, Carlton's total opposite. Aside from the Lassiter hairline, an inability to gain weight and abnormally strong biceps, the two brothers had nothing in common. Seamus had also not been plagued with dyslexia, a stammer (brought on by nuns tying his left hand behind his back and already enough stress to kill any insurance salesman) and a badly twisted knee that had gone untreated for three days because Mother had told him to shake it off. Seamus had been blessed with all the (very few) best traits of the Lassiter family.
Having failed to make Carlton even stand up, Seamus sighed and picked up his bags, strolling over and flopping down in the seat beside his big brother. "Well, howdy-do!"
"Seamus." Carlton put the magazine down. "Your flight was uneventful?"
"Well, aside from the shifty-eyed Mediterranean-lookin' fellow with the box cutter and the nun transporting cocaine, it was very smooth. How've ya been?"
"Fine." He stood up, grabbing one of his brother's bags, and started toward the gates.
"Still a cop?" Seamus paced alongside him, matching his long-legged stride fairly easily, staggering a little under the weight of his own bag.
"Yep."
"Still divorced?"
"Yep."
"Still got that tattoo?"
"Yep."
"Can I see it?"
"Nope." Stepping outside into the sunlight, he put on his shades and started toward his Fusion, not caring if Seamus kept up or not.
Colleen Lassiter Gray straightened her skirt and stood up, looking at her husband Daniel and their four tall, lanky sons before turning her attention to the front door. Any moment, and Carlton and Seamus would be coming in, and she needed to be prepared. Carlton was fairly easy to get along with, at least to her, but Seamus could cause trouble. He loved to cause trouble, and usually for Carlton.
Lauren, Raul and Peter were seated on the couch, with Raul drinking strong black coffee and looking wary. Mother was upstairs, having been begged to go up and just wait by Althea, who was seated at the end of the sofa, wringing her hands. She had spent all morning making lunch – turkey and dressing – and was extremely nervous. Everybody was on edge. This was the first time the family had actually gathered since Lauren's wedding and that had ended with the police needing to be called and a write-up in the local paper…
Finally, the door opened and in bounced Seamus, grinning from ear to ear, having apparently forgotten he was home to put the final touches on his father's death. Carlton came in behind him, his gait more measured, his expression wary. Colleen went to her eldest brother first, and hugged him warmly, surprised when he actually hugged her back. She looked at him for a moment, noting that he didn't look as tired as she had expected. In fact, he looked…healthy?
"How are you?" he asked her.
"I'm okay."
"Where's Mother?"
"Upstairs. Being impossible. She flounced up there after Lauren said something 'inappropriate'. I think it was something along the lines of 'Hello, Mother, how are you?'"
Althea came over and pulled Carlton into a suffocating hug, which he accepted with far better grace than Colleen would ever have expected. Lauren also made her way over, grimly accepting Seamus's effusive greeting before making her way to the eldest of her brothers. She was just as surprised when Carlton smiled at her. "Hey, Lulu."
"What…are you okay?" she asked him, surprised by his friendliness.
"Yeah. Why do you ask?"
"Well, you're…different."
"Life isn't kicking me in the teeth so much lately," he shrugged. "Seamus, let go of Colleen before you kill her," he said sharply, barely even turning his head but knowing his younger brother was hugging the poor woman far too tightly.
"Have you…met somebody?" Lauren asked, raising one auburn eyebrow.
"Uh…is that sage I smell, Althea?"
"Yes. Full turkey dinner. I hope you're hungry!"
Lauren looked amused.
"Famished, actually. Haven't eaten since I collected…this." He held up the Maxwell House coffee can and waggled it. It rattled cheerfully. "Who wants to try and get this to help keep the beat for the opening bit to 'Low Rider'?"
A memorial service wasn't supposed to involve gunplay, but Carlton nonetheless was on the alert. Lassiters never did have a knack for really getting along very well. The room was full of tall, lean, touchy men with dark hair and numerous fair-skinned, red-headed beauties, all of varying ages and genealogical connections. It was like a photograph one would take of 'This Is What Irish People Ought to Look Like', except that an hour ago Uncle Padraic (Pat) had popped open a beer can during the priest's brief homily and Aunt Cairistiona (Carrie) had uttered a curse word not generally heard or expected during a Catholic service. The Lassiters were not what Irish people were supposed to behave like. Needless to say, he was not looking forward to the wake.
No, he thought grimly, seated on the front row of the chapel, clenching and unclenching the paper in his hand, to the point that some of the words were now smudged and almost illegible. No, the Lassiters never did behave quite like Irishmen. There was very little joviality, almost no good cheer, zero élan, and a definite deficiency of warmth. Only Seamus had inherited any of their father's charm, and he was sitting at the end of the row, looking bored and a little sleepy.
Lunch had been good. Althea had cornered him briefly and quizzed him on how things were going in his life, and he had felt comfortable enough with her to tell that he was finally in a good relationship. Althea had been delighted and then had asked him if he was going to marry Marlowe, which he had answered with an 'I don't know yet' gesture that she had answered with a grin. "Oh, boy, you're a goner!"
He could have used Marlowe's encouragement right now. She had told him to stay calm and leave his gun at home. He had left the gun at home, but he wasn't sure if he could find his calm now.
"…now Seamus Lassiter's eldest son Carlton has a few words…" Father Francis said, smiling warmly and nodding to Carlton.
Carlton stood, buttoned his jacket and straightened his tie before making his way up to the podium. The wiggling herd of Lassiter and half-Lassiter children (they reminded him of rabbits, for some reason) became still, either of their volition or due to some major shushage from their parents. The older herd of turtles (the elder Lassiters) stared stonily at him. He swallowed and let fly.
"My father was, apparently, a remarkable man."
Wow. An echo. He looked around the chapel, swallowing.
"He was born on September the seventh, nineteen-forty-four, just as World War Two was winding down on all the carnage. He was the elder son of Sean and Emily Lassiter, of Ervine, California. He is survived by two sons, Carlton – that would be me – and Seamus the fourth, who is currently asleep, and two daughters, Colleen Gray and Lauren Maldonado, and five grandsons. He is also survived by his brother Padraic and two sisters, Cairistiona and Sionnan, and numerous nieces and nephews, grandnieces and nephews, and great-nieces and nephews, the number of which I cannot remember right now because they all run so fast. He was married to Marlena McLeod on November the tenth, nineteen-sixty-eight, and they became the parents of the healthiest premature baby ever born in the state of California, just four months later. That baby weighed nine pounds, four ounces and is currently head detective of the Santa Barbara Police Department and is still divorced but is currently…uh…involved."
He glanced down and saw Lauren cover her mouth to hide her giggle.
"Shortly after the birth of his youngest child, Seamus Lassiter the third left his family and moved to Boston, where he apparently married again, thus becoming a bigamist."
Father Francis cleared his throat. No one had told him about that.
"He and his second wife, a woman named Starflower, who was twenty-two and claimed to frequently see music notes floating up to the ceiling whenever she listened to the Beatles White Album, fortunately never had children that they could screw up. Starflower Lassiter is, last we knew, on Mars. Or maybe Venus. Either way, Seamus Lassiter left Starflower in late nineteen-seventy-eight and married a third time, to a woman named Agnes Frobisher, who was clearly just glad to get a different last name, albeit illegally, as he was still married to both Marlena Lassiter and Starflower Lassiter. They also never had any children."
Raul guffawed and went into a coughing spasm. Lauren handed her husband a handkerchief.
"Seamus left Agnes some time during the summer of nineteen-eighty-three and went to Ireland, where he picked up an Irish accent and became a smuggler of French wines and a horse trader, the latter being the only semi-honest enterprise into which he ever entered. He ran this operation successfully, married twice more to women whose names are not verifiable, and moved to the village of…" He peered down at the name of the Welsh village. "Well, it's spelled 'Y-s-t-r-a-d-g-y-n-l-a-i-s', pronunciation: 'Huh?' - until nineteen-ninety, and in the meantime he married two more women, and then he returned to the United States and settled again in Boston, unbeknownst to Agnes Frobisher Lassiter, who might still be quite eager to have a discussion with him about that whole 'commitment' thing. He remained in Boston for the remainder of his life, skirting the law with great deftness and vigor and making no effort to contact his first wife and children in California. We are not aware of any further children he may have had with his numerous wives, and if they exist, they are not aware of us."
Colleen was rubbing her forehead. Marlena Lassiter was seated beside Althea, fuming. Althea was trying to keep herself contained, being uncertain if she should laugh or cry. Laughter had a definite edge. Carlton had always been her favorite among Marlena's children, mainly because he was exactly who and what he said he was, no fannying about, with no effort whatsoever at concealing the truth, however painful and often tactless it might be. It was, frankly, a wonder he hadn't started a homily on the importance of taking care of your heart, the lack thereof being what had finally killed Seamus Lassiter III.
"I suppose it's good to try and speak well of the dead. To find something good to say about them. I can't think of anything, right now, that was particularly good about him. He taught me how to shoot straight, I suppose, and he taught me how not to behave toward my family – as in, don't walk out on them. Oh, and he gave me blue eyes, which may or may not be a blessing, depending on your point of view. His kids are all okay, anyway. I'm doing better. His daughters turned out quite well and are happily married to fairly decent guys, but his second son is still asleep and lives in Buenos Aires, taking photographs of models, some of whom are occasionally nude or semi-nude. Me, I am still sometimes required to burst into rooms full of fat, naked old men. Such is the unfairness of life." He folded his paper and stepped down and sat back down beside Lauren, the entire chapel settling once again into stiff silence.
The wake went a little better than Carlton had expected.
Corned beef, of course, was featured on the buffet. Along with various other Irish fare that had failed to place Ireland on anybody's list of places to get a good meal (it was, however, a wonderful place to go to lose weight, since from what Carlton could recall of his visit to the British Isles after graduating from high school, all British food was based on a dare). There was plenty of Guinness, of course, and on the wall were photographs of two racehorses his father had 'owned' (in the sense of having some smart ownership part thereof), one having won a few semi-major races at The Curragh. A band was playing Irish music, and everybody was singing gloomy Irish songs about dead nuns, unsuccessful highwaymen, drowned smugglers, murdered lovers and all those things that made starving to death in Western Ireland so bloody cheery.
Marlena was holding forth at the immediate family's table, Althea seated beside her. Her inability to edit her language while under the influence meant that the children had been scattered to other tables in the pub. Carlton had sat at the end of the table, next to Daniel, who was as quiet and reserved as himself and thus little conversation was deemed necessary beyond polite honorifics. Carlton eschewed the Guinness, knowing he would have to drive home tonight, and did his best to avoid his mother's verbal barrage. That was not to be, however. She finally spotted him and narrowed her eyes.
"Carlton! Why are you down there?"
To avoid the verbal abuse?
"Uh…the placecard put me here," he finally said, taking a sip of his Coke.
Marlena glared at her eldest son. She was a hard-looking woman who had lived a tough-as-nails life. Her tales of harrowing childhood poverty, abandonment by her father at age nine, wearing potato sack dresses to school, 'early' marriage (due to having been knocked up) to an unreliable man, and of how grateful her children should be to her for working two jobs to make ends meet, had left all her children wary of her all-too-fast open hand and volatile temper. She had never been warm or sympathetic toward any of her offspring, save possibly Seamus.
"You've not had one word of sympathy for me, your own mother!"
Carlton couldn't think of anything sympathetic to say. He finally just stood up, went over to give his sisters hugs, briefly tousled his nephews' hair, hoping they would have vaguely pleasant memories of their uncle Carlton, and executed a polite, even somewhat graceful bow to his mother and Althea before turning on his heel and leaving the pub. There was no point in staying. The coffee can was in his car and he had a long drive back home.
He was reluctant to get anybody else involved. Even Marlowe, who surely wouldn't want to stand on a cliff overlooking the sea and pour ashes down into the white water below, seemed best left back at his condo, putting the finishing touches on the guest bedroom walls while singing Put Yourself in My Place.
He pondered calling O'Hara, but opted against it just before he hit 'call' on his cell phone. She might bring Spencer along, who would likely produce a little hand vacuum and suck up his father's remains and take them back to his office as 'souvenir'. Finally, when he got to the spot, he called Colleen, Lauren and tracked down Seamus (who had gone barhopping after the wake) and the four offspring of Seamus Muscum Lassiter III stood at the cliff's edge, looking down at the water. They each held four leaf clovers in their hands, all found by Colleen's boys back at the house.
"It's getting late," he finally said, nodding toward the sun, which was melting into the cold spring sea.
"Yeah. Can you open it?" Lauren asked. Carlton removed the lid, caught a vague whiff of coffee and his father's ever-present Pall Malls, and waited for the wind to die down – he didn't wish to be 'in touch' with his father again. Finally, when it was still enough, he shook the can a little and finally found what was making the rattling sound – a tiny fragment of bone. Wincing, he removed it and held it in his hand a moment before dropping it into his pocket.
"Carly," Lauren said, resting her head against his arm. "Was there anything good to say about Da? I don't remember him at all."
"He cut a fine figure on a horse," Carlton finally nodded. "He knew all the words to Danny Boy. He picked Shergar to win the Irish Derby and told me he wept like a Protestant when the IRA murdered him. He spoke fluent Gaelic, and I'm glad he left."
"Glad?" Colleen looked surprised.
"Can you imagine how much worse we'd all be if he had stayed?"
Seamus nodded. "Yeah. But I hear you have a fine blonde lass back home now, Carlton. Could there be a happy lilt to yer accent there now, laddie?"
"I'll be as happy as I want to be, and then some, thank you. And I've got to track down, what was it, four more wives?" Carlton said, almost laughing. "Tell them the news. I did contact Starflower."
"Oh, God, talk about your moonbats!" Colleen giggled.
"Dingbat, more like. She teaches jazzercise to housewives in Denver," Carlton informed her, and his sister laughed heartily. "She got the marriage annulled, once the drugs wore off, and married an accountant. An accountant. The others…I found Agnes this morning and talked to her on the phone, right at the service. She just laughed and hung up. The other four, in Ireland and Wales…they've still got me beat. Maybe Interpol will help. The last thing I want is for Mom to do the searching. For all we know, she'd put out contracts on them all."
Carlton shook the ashes in the can, and finally turned it upside down, watching the grayish stuff float down toward the sea.
"I hate the sea," Colleen said softly, shuddering a little as the waves crashed and roared below.
"So do I," Seamus said. "I never go to the beach. Not even to chase the models."
"I'm shocked to hear that," Carlton said. "I hate the sea, too. Hate the boiling of it, and…" He cleared his throat. Ah hell, he was Irish. He had a line or two of poetry in his DNA. "I hate its thunders and rages." Lauren nodded in agreement, still holding on to her oldest, favorite, brother's arm. He and his brother exchanged brief looks. They had never been enemies. They had just never been able to be friends, and they knew they never could be. They were, however, brothers, and Seamus came around Lauren and hugged Carlton tightly. Colleen and Lauren joined them, and Seamus started singing – which alarmed the seagulls and left a pair of tourists from Kinosha, Wisconsin somewhat bewildered – and the others joined in, poking each other when they flubbed the words, and remembering what it meant to be brothers and sisters, knowing they had come out all right in the end, in spite of it all.
O Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news that's goin' round?
The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground!
No more Saint Patrick's Day we'll keep, his color can't be seen
For there's a cruel law ag'in the Wearin' o' the Green."
I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand
And he said, "How's poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?"
"She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen
For they're hanging men and women there for the Wearin' o' the Green."
"So if the color we must wear be England's cruel red
Let it remind us of the blood that Irishmen have shed
And pull the shamrock from your hat, and throw it on the sod
But never fear, 'twill take root there, though underfoot 'tis trod.
When laws can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow
And when the leaves in summer-time their color dare not show
Then I will change the color too I wear in my caubeen
But till that day, please God, I'll stick to the Wearin' o' the Green.
As one, they threw their four-leafed clovers to the wind before taking off for their cars, shivering in the wind, all knowing they wouldn't see each other again for a while. Lauren had her husband and son to take care of. Colleen had four boys to train to be men and third grade math tests to grade. Seamus had models to photograph. Carlton had a murderer to catch.
They would never be too far away from each other.
TBC
(Hopefully, the real action will start up again soon and we've got some major surprises in store for Lassiter, and I've finally got a good conclusion in my head for this whole thingamabob)