Perfect Weather for a Baby's Funeral

By Emile Bienert

Twelve stories with varying levels of subtlety in comedic darkness.

1) Class Dismissed - In a world where people's highest aspirations involve being revered for dinner parties, hubris takes on a whole new meaning.
2) Let's Talk About Sharks - The pre-frontal cortex, the decision making portion of our brains, is not fully developed until adulthood. Unfortunately, our adult lives are resultant from decisions made before we ought to have been making them.
3) A Drive to the Ocean - The American left is being dragged more and more to the right. What does our future look like if the trend continues?
4) Death Metal - A nod to John Darnielle: When you punish a person for dreaming his dreams, don't expect him to thank or forgive you.
5) Thinking Bigger - Acromegaly means that people are born physically larger than normal. The expectations that come with being born a giant cannot but influence a person's self.
6) Bor Pen Nyang - Is it better to search for meaning, create your own, or to believe that you have found it?
7) Mercy - The Chien Brothers' jury deliberates.
8) Dac Kien - This is a Vietnamese name that means "acquired wisdom." When a suburban American with a Bachelor's Degree attempts to interface with a world that has been created completely outside of his realm of practical knowledge, what happens will happen.
9) The Ones We Killed - Chickens will, apparently, peck their own kind to death when a wound is exposed. People will do the same. The only difference is that people seem to feel the need to justify themselves.
10) Importance - How many times do we wonder what influence we could have had on the lives of the people we meet? What butterfly effects have we started? What ones could we have started?
11) Fis(c)her - There have been some patently absurd coincidences throughout history. With the number of people who are alive and who have lived on Earth, it would be almost impossible for this to be untrue. What happens though, when one of those coincidences touches a person's life?
12) Punchline - Existentialists once posed the idea that the universe could be one atom in a comedian's mustache. If that were the case, what kind of person would that comedian be? What kind of jokes would he tell?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emile Bienert
• Release date: Nov 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301070824

Emile Bienert

I am probably not a wizard.

Book preview

Perfect Weather for a Baby’s Funeral

Published by Guy Geaux at Smashwords

Cover art courtesy of David Daneman

Copyright 2012 Guy Geaux

ISBN: 9781301070824

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents:

Class Dismissed

Let’s Talk About Sharks

A Drive to the Ocean

Death Metal: A Revenge Story

Thinking Bigger

Bor Pen Nyang

Mercy

Dac Kien

The Ones We Killed

Importance

Fis(c)her

Killing Granny

The Diary of a Henchman

Punch-line

Class Dismissed

Man is the only animal that ever blushes, or needs to.

- Mark Twain

Unfortunately, Roger's birthday had been exactly what she had hoped it wouldn't: a show of the variety that rhymes with hit. By about two am, despite her pleading with him to come home, he began to babble about how much he loved her - his usual topic when he was this inebriated. And never mind that the supposed object of this affection was sitting there, dressed to the absolute nines, surrounded by his Paleolithic friends, and asking repeatedly to go home.

Oh it wasn't that. Never that. Not when he was drunk. What was it in Macbeth, adds to the desire, but takes away the means? It goes something like that. Anyway, try as he might – never that when he was drunk.

It was just that Roger was now twenty-four years old. Two years out of college and still getting this drunk on his birthday? Really? Behaving like that, it was a wonder and a miracle that she hadn't left his drunken self at the bar. She was an adult, a lady, and was going to celebrate her birthday without all of entanglements and shenanigans that were better talk of a sorority house than a woman of her character.

So after graciously giving Roger breakfast, she garnished his hangover with a break up. It wasn't that she thought him bad or beneath her - only different. They could stay friends. But really, what good would it do either of them to pretend that they were things they weren't for people with whom they didn't fit?

There was a scene that bordered on tawdry when he tried to kiss her. Then he cried when he was leaving, always emotional the morning after a binge. Well, it just reaffirmed her suspicions that Roger was and always would only ever be a great big boy.

The break up couldn't really have come at a better time. A few weeks before her birthday, all her friends adjacent, as she called them - others might call them acquaintances, but these were people, some of whom, she had met several times - they would still feel bad enough for her to join the party and make it a sizable outing. They, of course, wouldn't be invited to the dinner, but rather to the party afterwards. The dinner would be a more classy and formal affair.

She sent out print invitations for the dinner portion of the evening, via post, a full two weeks before the party. Her friends were duly impressed at the time and effort she had put into the invitations and all eight of the invitees responded in the affirmative.

Planning – the real planning – began in earnest a full week beforehand. First, there would be a banquet, of her making, for her closest friends, then there would be a few drinks with a bigger crowd at the Heaven bar on ninth street as the sun went down, and then they would go dancing at the Rotterdam until whenever she felt like going home. And her very closest friends, her entourage, would take a limousine for the entire night. No beer, no puking, no shots, no heavy-breathing red-faced drunken boyfriend to bring the whole scene to bedlam - classy people, dressed in classy clothes, drinking classy drinks, and having sophisticated conversations. No frat boys need apply, thank you very much.

She actually called off of work on the Friday of the party. It would be good to have it nestled against a weekend – in case they stayed at the Rotterdam until the sun came up. NOT because she'd be drunk; only hooligans and thugs got so drunk on their birthdays that they couldn't operate the day after. The decorations and preparation for the meal could take all day realistically. She would have a big roast - the kind her mother made as an homage to her family, stuffed peppers, homemade bread, shrimp cocktail, mashed potatoes, ravioli, and a huge red velvet cake for dessert – her favorite.

The day of the party, she woke at six thirty am – a full thirty minutes earlier than for work - put the roast into an herb marinade that she she'd made. She was having a cup of coffee and looking at a furniture website when the phone rang. There was only one person who would call her before eight am. And her mother had to know that she was a little too old for birthday calls. Send a card. Something tasteful. As a grown up, she didn't have time to hear her mother crooning – and that is exactly what it would be, crooning – at her over the phone about remembering the day of her birth.

Predictably, when the house phone - she was one of her few friends who still had a land line - stopped ringing, her cell phone began. Her mother, again.

She went out to buy champagne flutes. Target had them on sale, and she had finally gotten a reason to get them. When she was dating Roger, he never would have had reason for champagne flutes. Frivolous, he'd have said. Any event where Roger would have been drinking champagne, he'd have either been at someone else's house, or it would have been one of those cheap champagne parties he had with his friends, where they would all stand around holding their own individual bottles. Ugh. She couldn't believe she'd put up with that sort of thing for so long.

After getting the champagne flutes, she stopped at the liquor store to get some red wine, which would go well with the roast. There were some high schoolers outside who looked at her imploringly, but she made a point of not even glancing at them. At least they recognized her as an adult and above anything like buying alcohol for minors. The wine and champagne set her back over a hundred dollars, but you only turn twenty-four once, right?

On her way home, the oil light came on in her Honda. Perhaps her father could look at that the next time she came home. When she looked up from the oil light, an old vagrant with a gray beard was washing her window. His smell practically permeated through the window and if anyone had asked, she'd have sworn she could smell him. As she honked at him and shook her head, he continued washing. This forced her to honk more and make angry waving motions with her hands.

Jus' tryina make a livin' s'all! shouted the man as he walked to the car behind her.

She was almost certain that she detected slurring in his speech, which was no surprise in a man like that. Ugh. The nerve of some people, what did he think that she was going to do? Allow him to shame her into giving him money? Did he think that she didn't know that he was going to blow it all on booze anyway? Really, it was hard to feel bad for anyone who spent money on drink and didn't even have a job. The thought of it made her angrier. She concentrated on the party, no homeless wino was going to ruin her day.

Once home, she turned down the heat in the apartment and put the roast in the oven at a low temperature and set the oven alarm. As she busied herself with preparing more food and sparse, tasteful decorations, her mother called again. Like clockwork, her cell phone began ringing again.

It was eleven when she was getting a little hungry, and she had a small snack of vegetables and dip. After that, her cell phone rang, but this time it was Sarah, one of her workmates and closest friends.

Sarah explained that she, and her husband, David, would indeed be attending, but would it be alright if they brought David's cousin Alex with them? Alex was in town for the weekend and had had plans to meet up with his girlfriend that night, but they had broken up a few days earlier, leaving him with nowhere to go.

She sighed when Sarah was coming to the point. Having sensed this early in their conversation, she had started to try to figure out how to adjust the plans. Who was this person? There would be enough food, surely, but she had been so careful to plan the event as perfectly as possible. Ugh. There were always wrenches to be thrown into the works.

Of course, she said to Sarah, I'll just add another place setting. One more isn't a huge deal or anything.

I knew you'd understand, said Sarah. "You're awesome. I am so excited for tonight."

Ugh. She could just strangle Sarah. The more she thought about it, the less okay it was. Now she wouldn't have enough matching plates, champagne flutes, or chairs. People could be so inconsiderate at times. What was supposed to happen, serve this cousin champagne out of a water glass? It wasn't Sarah's fault, she was sure, but did it really have to be this weekend?

When she got off of the phone with Sarah, she went back to cutting vegetables, slamming the knife onto the cutting board. Why did people have to be like that? Couldn't David's cousin just go somewhere else? She sighed. It was going to be fine. People would remember her poise and grace in the situation, how good the dinner was, whether a crasher showed up or not.

After the cake prep, her mother called again, this time she answered. As she spoke in a conciliatory way to her mother, all yes mom, no mom, and inserting I remember that, and that was fun, at appropriate times. She kept trying to communicate that she was very busy, to which her mother would always say, I know honey, I won't take up all your time, and then go on to another nauseatingly saccharine anecdote about one of her other birthdays.

In the midst of all this, the alarm went off indicating that she needed to raise the temperature on the oven. She walked over to the stove and shut off the timer.

I really do have to go, mom.

I know honey, I know, what was the timer for?

A roast, there's a roast that I have to turn up the temperature on.

Oh wow, look at that, my little girl cooking a roast. Did you marinade it?

Yes, all morning, which is why-

What did you marinade it in?

And on and on they went.

She was very flustered by the time she had gotten off of the phone with her mother. The woman kept going on and on about the different birthday dinners that she had prepared and asking if she remembered this birthday or that one. She wasn't five years old anymore, when was her mother going to realize that?

By the time she had gotten off of the phone, it seemed that she was behind schedule and couldn't remember what she had and hadn't done. Just to get off the phone, it seemed, risked provoking an argument. And there would be none of that on her birthday - she'd have to soldier on. Everything was going to be perfect.

She set out the place settings and plates, perhaps a bit too early, which crowded her as she had to keep moving pots and pans around for the cooking. Her hands always seemed to be full and in awkward positions, but there simply wasn't time anymore. Finally, everything came to a head when she was moving the setting for the shrimp and cocktail sauce into the fridge. She had underestimated how heavy it was and how wet with sweat her fingers were. Well, Murphy's Law took care of the rest. The matte black bowl hit the kitchen floor on its side, didn't break, but rather rolled, as she watched in icy horror, as if it were steering for the carpet. On the tiny brass lip separating the carpet from the kitchen tile, it got the boost it needed to fall, upside-down on the carpet.

Shrieking, she grabbed the bowl and thrust it into the sink. Furiously, she dabbed at it with a cloth and threw most of it into the sink. Wait. She had heard that some stains would get spread or pushed down into fabric if not cleaned with the correct agent. Oh internet, she thought she could almost hear herself saying, what is the best way to get cocktail sauce out of a carpet? In a flurry of bleach - what was oxygen bleach? She set to work on the carpet, trying very hard not to cry - the stupid bowl just had to fall over on the wrong side, didn't it?

Ugh. And she didn't ask for much - one day, for everything to come out right. Now it seemed like all of her hard work was going to be marred - ruined really, because perfection is perfection and nothing else is that - by the stupid cocktail sauce that didn't seem to want to come out of the carpet.

She saw herself addressing guests - how would she cover for it if it didn't come out? Would she make a joke of it, as if it were no big deal? Would she try to hide it and try to focus their attention elsewhere? For one fraction of an absurd second, she thought about dyeing the whole carpet one color. The cleaner that the internet had told her to put together was mostly working, and it looked as if that one spot might appear wet - but for how long? Also, what was to be done about the cocktail sauce? No one would have regular old shrimp, just sitting there, with no cocktail sauce.

She was almost finished with everything else except herself - she needed to be dressed in an appropriately stylish ensemble to go with everything else, after all, it was her party. After spending probably too much time cleaning up the cocktail sauce, she decided she would shower. She could relax for a moment, and put her thoughts together about the evening. What there was left for her to do, she could do in the dress that she had picked out for the evening - it wasn't much.

Oh but the shower was so relaxing. She was washing her hair when suddenly, she remembered the roast. She had turned off the timer, but had she adjusted the temperature? She felt like she could remember doing it, but was that just imagination?

Towel-laden and dripping, she ran out and checked. She nearly slipped and fell on the kitchen floor tile but caught the counter top. In a near amazing feat of agility, she switched hands to avoid falling more and nearly brought down some pans that were sitting on pot holders and cooling racks on the counter. The roast looked pretty well done, but when she got up to where the oven's various dials were, the temperature was at the same low setting. She turned it up, and thought about putting it at a higher temperature to balance it out. Not a good idea. That would burn it, and it might not even get up to that temperature anyway. Ugh. It seemed like something sinister was out to ruin her dinner plans. She called it the Spirit of Roger.

The rest of the preparation passed very quickly. One moment she was putting on her dress, the next make up, the next making final adjustments to food, the next getting the roast out of the oven - which looked very done - she cut it open to see that it was still a bit more pink than she would have liked to have seen on the inside, but restaurants often do scalded beef, don't they? It would be fine. Go away Spirit of Roger.

With the roast out, the cake was in. Her friends arrived in time to smell the wonderfulness that was her cooking. First were Denise and Mary, who were car pooling. They were well-dressed and appropriately amazed at her kitchen work. They had brought wine, which she figured would go well with everything anyway, even though they probably wouldn't need it. Then came Bill, her coworker whom everyone suspected had had a thing for her, but she suspected was probably gay - which was fine. He brought a silver cake carving knife, which was perfect because she didn't have a fancy knife with which to cut the cake and showed that he knew her quite well.

Sarah, David, and David's cousin Alex arrived. Sarah and David were appropriately well-dressed: she wore a nice dress and David was wearing a sport coat. Alex, however, was wearing a somewhat ratty-looking sweater and cargo pants. Worst of all, he had on a baseball cap. She wasn't sure, but from his face, he looked like he could practically have been David's son. When he adjusted his hat, she saw why he was wearing it. Despite Alex's young-looking face, he was prematurely balding - probably, she reasoned - from wearing too many baseball caps to the college parties that he still no doubt went to. Ugh. He and Roger would probably have had a lot to talk about.

The three remaining guests, Todd, Elise, and Kelly all came together. They had been her friends from relatively recently - ever since she had moved out here with Sarah - before Sarah and David had gotten their own place and gotten married. They had never known her in college and though were polite to Roger, she never thought of any of them as having any real friendship with him.

All dressed appropriately, except for Elise, she looked to be about to go out clubbing. Halter top, a skirt she looked to have painted on, and high heels that took her five minutes and five inches to get out of. Todd, though jacket-less, was at least wearing a tie. Even Elise, in her slutty get up, appeared to have put a lot of effort into her appearance. That much was satisfactory.

Kelly smiled warmly and handed over another bottle of wine. It looked middle grade, though she was no connoisseur of expensive wine. The label was in French, so she could at least affect a knowledge of what it was.

Oh! You got Le Chien Jaune, she read aloud. Thank you Kelly!

Immediately, she was unsure if it was too much emphasis to put on the point because if it really was only middle grade wine, it would betray her as a novice in the field. So, she just put the same amount of emphasis on her thank yous to her other guests.

Napkin holders with matching place settings for four. Probably from a Target clearance.

A gift card for a local yoga studio because they had heard her talking about it at work.

A wrapped copy of Pride and Prejudice, her favorite book, Todd knew, but for some reason thought that she didn't already have it.

As she looked around the room, her eyes caught Kelly, who was wearing a very nice dress that she had seen at H & M. It was black and fit her very, very well. It looked almost tailored. She figured that some people have a body for certain sizes at certain stores. She was however a little peeved that Kelly looked as good as she did.

It was alright, of course, but who wants to be upstaged on their own birthday? Kelly smiled at her. Caught looking.

I really like your dress, Kelly. Is it H & M?

Yeah, I got it there a couple of weeks ago. Do you really like it? Kelly said, blushing a little.

Yes.

Thanks!

Well, she said, Shall we eat?

Everyone began slowly moving toward the dining room table, which was a bit cramped, as it was made for probably six, but was now having to accommodate nine. Alex was going to have to eat off of her second nicest place setting which was an analogous color scheme to the others but wasn't the same set.

Is this one yours? asked David. It's different from all the rest.

No, she replied, I have place settings for eight, but not nine; it's for Alex.

They all turned to Alex, who reddened a little before saying, Oh, I thought Sarah told you?

She turned to Sarah, who also blushed and said, Oh, I didn't? Oh god, you're right, I didn't?

Tell me what? she giggled awkwardly.

I ate before coming, said Alex. I'm a vegetarian - I didn't want to put you to anything weird, so I figured I'd grab a veggie burger or something like that beforehand.

Oh, that's, that's fine, she said, still smiling.

Meanwhile, her brain was pumping bile instead of blood, wrath barely controllable. You're going to come to my house, put me to the trouble of getting a place setting out for you, and then not eat my food - that I worked so hard on today? You, sir, are the Spirit of Roger. UGH.

First were appetizers