Warren Adler Fall 2008 Short Story Contest Finalists

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The day we buried my Aunt Angelina was the worst day of my life. Leave it to that old, sour-breath hag to screw up the rest of my life. If she hadn't picked the coldest week in the last five years to drop dead, my mother and her five other sisters wouldn't all hate me today. Aunt Angelina is lying nice and peaceful in her grave while I'm limping around with a shredded groin and with six hard-hearted Italian widows hurling curses as old as the Etruscans at my immortal soul.

Certainly I can understand why they might be upset. But it really wasn't my fault my mother did a swan dive into Aunt Angelina's grave. Why do I have to take the heat because she ended up lying on her back on top of Angelina's coffin, like some ancient, black turtle?

In my family second and third cousins are as close to us as brothers and sisters are in most other families. A lot of them are old and they die with a metronomic regularity. Wakes and funerals and the ensuing get-togethers are almost a weekly event. Naturally, they've come to take on a certain ritualized pattern. That can be comforting. You shuffle into the funeral home with head down. Lips drawn tight in a manly effort to control your unbounded grief. You kneel at the coffin. Make a quick sign-of-the-Cross. You express your condolences: kiss the females, hug and back-slap the males, nod your head, shake your head, sigh remorsefully, chuckle knowingly, and shrug your shoulders resignedly. You give up some of your time and everybody calls you a good boy. Your mother hears that, she's happy. She's happy so she stays off your back for a couple of days.

The only tricky part comes at the cemetery. I don't know what your people do at the grave site but we have to follow a pretty tight script. It's an old script and everyone knows his part; everyone has his lines down pat; everyone enjoys the show.

Our soon-to-be-sainted mother has inherited the role of "The Leaper." It's a job formerly held by her mother and her mother's mother and so on for countless generations stretching back, once again, to the Etruscans. If the corpse is the star of the show, the Leaper gets to be the co-star.

The Leaper wails, "Why, God, why? Why did You have to take (insert name of deceased here)? Why not me?! Take me, God. Take me, too!

Good lines, eh? The Leaper delivers them as the coffin is being lowered into the grave. And the really good Leapers mix in some gut-wrenching wails, some heart-rending sobs and a fair amount of ear-piercing screams. Then comes the moment everybody has been waiting for. As soon as the Leaper finishes her lines she makes a mad dash for the grave. Or at least as mad-a-dash as an eighty year-old woman can make while wearing shoes that weigh about 10 pounds each. Grief has driven her to this point, you see. The thought of life without (again, insert name of deceased here) is so unbearable that the Leaper wants to join her/him in the grave. Which is where she is attempting to leap. Hence the title, "The Leaper."

This is where the family "Catcher" comes in. Always a male. Always the oldest son. That would be me. If you know that the Leaper leaps, you can figure out what the Catcher does. He catches the Leaper. And he does this before she actually does any real leaping. He grabs her. Holds her tightly. Says something like, "Come on, Mama. Don't do this, Mama. Please." Mama struggles to complete the leap. The son holds on until the nearest able-bodied sister comes over and herds the Leaper away from the grave. At that point the assembled crowd agrees that the poor woman has been driven nearly mad with grief and, oh, how she must have loved (once more, insert name of deceased here).

This script must be followed exactly or the funeral will be a disappointment, a failure and a lasting shame for the deceased's family. Now, as any Leaper will tell you, she couldn't do it without a strong supporting cast. Again, that would be mainly me.

With this background vividly in mind, let me take you to Aunt Angelina's grave site that cold, cold January day.

I was in a particularly foul mood. Neither of my kids wanted to come to the funeral. They didn't like Aunt Angelina any more than I did. It took screaming, threatening, cajoling and, finally, bribing to get them up, dressed and to the church that morning. All the while I was doing my "parenting" my wife was moping and mumbling her way into her usual black funeral gear. She wasn't a big Aunt Angelina fan either.

My, weren't we a happy bunch as we headed off that morning.

God, it was cold. I know I've mentioned the cold several times. But it was cold. And windy. The cemetery was right on the river, giving the wind an unhindered shot at our cluster of mourners that day. My toes, in addition to freezing, were being severely pinched inside the new too-small, too-fancy black shoes that I was wearing. (Bought by my wife. Without me in attendance. She picked the style and the size and I had no vote in the matter.)

The attending priest was unashamedly chewing up the scenery. Not being one of us, Italian, I mean, he thought he was the star of this show. Father Mick said so many nice things about Aunt Angelina that it was apparent to all of us that he was very new to the parish of Our Holy Suffering Mother of Unbearable Sorrow and didn't really know her that well. Otherwise he would have been in a much greater hurry to get this woman and her coffin under as much dirt as possible and as quickly as possible.

So. I was in no mood for this. Still, the moment was approaching. I caught my brother's eye and caught the self-satisfied smirk on his face, as well. I knew he was reveling, for a change, in being the younger brother. He got to watch, not catch.

The priest was finally winding down. All heads began turning to my mother. Those closest to her discreetly inched away, leaving her alone in the spotlight. The moment I saw her chest expand I knew she was filling her lungs for her big speech.

Boom.

She hit the first notes hard. She sent an operatic wail out over the crowd. It echoed off the far river bank and came back as a ghost's howl to which she added a basso profundo sob. Quickly she let out a series of staccato whimpers. She was layering sound like a jazz quartet. Moans and cries and whispers. She was using that river echo the way Clapton uses reverb. The crowd had fallen back, awe-struck, slack-jawed, wide-eyed. I was proud. Aunt Angelina's immediate family puffed up with pride. What an honor to have their kin laid in the ground with a performance that would be spoken of with reverence for years to come.

I was mesmerized by my mother's virtuosity. I closed my eyes and lost myself in her performance.

Which was why I missed my cue. When Mama throws her arms out wide and holds them there for a few seconds, it means she's about to make her move. My eyes were closed so I couldn't see my cue. But even with my eyes closed I knew I screwed up. Usually there's no more than a quarter of second between her moans, wails, shrieks and shouts. When a half of a second had passed since my mother's last screech I knew that she had stopped the audio part of the performance and was moving quickly into the visual portion. I opened my eyes in time to see my mother start to take her second stride toward the grave. She knew I missed my cue. I could tell because half way through that stride she turned her head to me with a look of such withering contempt that my Uncle Freddie, standing a full five feet to my right, instinctively covered his crotch with both hands. I, being used to that look, didn't let it bother me. I knew I had a one or two stride cushion. At my mother's age it would take her the better part of a minute to cover the 5 or so feet between where she performed her aria and the grave. I'd catch her with time to spare. It would be a closer call than usual but that would just add to the whole show. Between my mother's vocal pyrotechnics and my last second catch, this one would be an Epic.

Remember, I said it was cold. So what happens to the ground when it's really cold? It turns to ice. Now, I'm a pretty athletic guy. I've got good balance, good quickness. None of that did me any good that day. When I made my move it was a strong one. I planted my right foot. All my weight was transferred down through my right leg, into my right foot, down through my shoes, into the ground. And there's where the problem was. New shoes, new soles. New soles, slippery soles. Slippery soles on even more slippery ice. Disaster. My right foot slipped back about 5 feet. My left leg was already in motion the opposite way. The distance between my feet was now about 8 feet. I was doing a split and I'm no James Brown. That 8 feet was enough to rip my groin nearly in half. I screamed like a banshee. Only I don't think anyone heard me.

How could they? At the same time I was screaming, Uncle Freddy was screaming. My right foot had slid back into his feet, knocking him on his butt and sending his toupee flying. For a 78 year old man he's got some set of lungs! But probably no one heard him, either.

How could they? The entire audience gathered around the grave realized, at the same instant, that the Leaper was airborne with no Catcher in sight. The outcome, they all knew, was inevitable. They all started shouting and screaming. But I'm sure nobody heard them either.

How could they? Who could have heard anything except my mother's bellow? You'd have thought she just came face to face with Lucifer, himself, and he was in the process of reaching down her throat and ripping her soul right out of her body.

As my mother floated down into her sister's grave, time stood still. All around me were looks and sounds of shock, horror and chagrin. As the gathered crowd held its collective breath only two sounds could be heard. My mother's roar, as it got fainter and fainter as she fell farther and farther into the grave and my wife's laugh. It was only one note. One "Ha!" It came out of her with such an explosion of breath that it may still be echoing up that river. Just one "Ha!" Even she didn't dare follow it up with another "Ha!" But the tears rolling down her cheeks told you she was dying to just break down and laugh till her stomach ached.

The next sound we all heard was the dull, hollow-melon thump of my mother hitting Aunt Angelina's coffin. It froze everyone in place. Except me. Even with my groin hanging together by a thread, I was the first one to get to the edge of the grave. When I looked down I saw that my mother was okay. She was lying flat on her back on top of the coffin and she was looking up to the top of the hole. When she saw me, she reloaded that look of contempt. This time it hit a new level. This one had the effect of nuclear winter. It froze me. It froze my soul, actually. (I haven't been really warm since I caught that look. I'm always a little chilly now.) Fortunately for me, my Uncle Tom-Tom got to the grave's edge pretty soon after I did. When my mother saw him she showed us all why she would always be the Leaper di tutti Leapers. Without missing a beat that woman turned back to the coffin and started improvising like Coltrane, Monk and Zappa combined. This was breakthrough stuff. No Leaper had ever actually leapt before. There was no script for this, no score, no blueprint. This was out of the box, baby.

Mama laid down some stuff that day that will be discussed by Leapers everywhere for all time. It was like the first time one of those figure skaters nailed a quadruple sow-cow thing. Triple sow-cow things suddenly were deemed pedestrian, rudimentary, run-of-the-mill. So it would become with Leapers. No longer would a mere attempt at a Leap be enough. An actual Leap had to be made for the funeral to be considered even a minor success.

As you might imagine, not many eighty year-old Italian women were in good enough shape to perform an actual Leap. Nevertheless, in the months that followed my mother's legendary leap, some tried. They all got busted up. Badly. Some even died, thus getting their professed wish of joining (one more time, insert name of deceased here) in the hereafter. "Take me, too, God," they wailed? God did, in fact, take them, too; proving he's either a kind, attentive God willing to grant a bereaved old lady's request or he's got one hell of a nasty sense of humor.

A whole new generation of Leapers had to be called up to duty. 50 year olds, mainly and they were all in great shape. They went to the Club, did yoga, Pilates, played tennis or something like that. As a group, they were much, much nicer to look at. All those black dresses and black stockings and high-heeled shoes. Attendance at burials skyrocketed in the male, 45-65 year old demographic. Suddenly they all could get out of work that day, after all!

All thanks to my mother. She got all the credit. She was the first Real Leaper, right? You know better! She had no more intention of really leaping than Columbus had of discovering America. And not only do I not get any credit but my soul has been condemned and cursed and committed (by my own flesh and blood, mind you!) to the lowest circle in hell, a circle so low not even Dante and Virgil got to see it. Everyone said it was my fault my mother now walked with a cane and a limp. (But come on, it's not like she was out there ballroom dancing before The Leap.) At every family gathering since then I am the recipient of more evil eyes than even an army of the Vatican's most accomplished exorcists could repel.

All the males in the family secretly loved all this. Why, you might wonder, would they revel in my predicament? Because I now drew all the female fire to me. Those other guys were all saints compared to me. None enjoyed my fall from grace more than my little brother. Primogeniture was put aside. I was dethroned. He was now the crown prince of the family.

Actually there was someone who enjoyed my predicament more than my brother. That place of honor belongs to my dear, sweet wife. She is no longer referred to by my mother as "her" or "that one" or "the wife." She has been promoted to "his poor wife." Every time the family gets together and she sees that I'm still getting the business, my wife never fails to deliver one clear, clean, loud, giddy, triumphant, "HA!"