A Happy Funeral

Tuesday, 29 August 2006, Finn McCool's on Banks Street. Jonathan, Lauren, Emma, Keith, Marina, Marie, and I'm in there somewhere, at our usual table by the wall under the Killian's mirror, next to the cigarette machine. A time capsule is circulating the bar, a three-foot length of PVC pipe, everyone signs their name in blue Sharpie and writes down their toxic thoughts of the past year on little scraps of paper to be sealed inside forever.

I am still reacting to the past year every single morning.

We all shuffle outside, this queer family. The owner of the pub, a heavy-set, raven-haired Irish woman, she delivers a little eulogy and a message of hope and courage and it has the potential to be sappier than pinebark but she keeps it short and it somehow resonates. She lays the capsule down inside the hole dug next to the pub beside the side door.

I ask Lauren and Jonathan, "When are they going to dig it up?"

"Never," Jonathan begins.

"That's the whole point, to just give it all up," Lauren continues.

"Oh, so it's not really a time capsule," I say, half-inquiringly, "It's a grave."

The Irish woman, who has a shining, gorgeous accent when she speaks, throws the first handful of dirt into the hole and, silently, with a wave of her hands, invites all of us to do likewise. The guy in the kilt starts up "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes, and the drone of the pipes and the buzz of the pints put me in a trance.

Flashback, also a year ago this week, my grandmother's funeral. Of course they played "Amazing Grace" and of course we all lost it. Funny about certain songs, no matter how many times you've heard them.

I watch eveyone throw in their handfuls. They each proceed solemnly to cover their fears and nightmares, encapsulated in a whitewashed, plastic sepulchre, with a mixture of topsoil and broken asphalt.

The old couple in blue jean shorts, the man in a Hawaiian shirt, his ponytail tumbling out of the back of his denim baseball cap, the woman's hair cut short, old-lady style. The corners of their mouths are quivering.

A girl in a pink tanktop, crying hard. I cynically assume she is being maudlin, but after really paying attention to her face, I perceive she is genuine. Then I am ashamed and wonder what she might have lived through, too.

Old, young, women, men, one infant, and a couple of mongrels.

When the burial is done, and "Amazing Grace" ended, the bagpipes break into "When the Saints Go Marching In" and a wide grin breaks across every face. All of these people begin to dance and sing and drink and toast outside the pub, a drunken, Irish, bagpipe, jazz funeral. One man toasts the pub.

"To Finn McCool's, which kept our heads above water and our minds in the air. Hip, hip, hooray!"

Mexican workmen walk by on the street with their cervezas in hand, puzzled looks on their faces.

We eventually wander back into the pub, and I light up a cigarette. I put a twenty in Jonathan's hand and say, "Go get us a couple pints. We need one after all that."

I see new lines carved in her face
every time I open the kitchen door.
Her face is somber as the Grand Canyon.

I feel new pains every time I hug her,
her arms wrapped 'round my back like chains.
She is still a scared girl, alone on the sofa.

I hear new worries every time she breathes,
her breath slips and tumbles, thudding, down the stairway.
She holds the fallen dead inside of her lungs.

I was fed by her joy and blood,
cleansed by her tears and hair,
taught by her everloving tongue.

Black-haired Mary (in my mind)

Stout-legged woman, you are the trunk of an eternal tree!
Teeth like brilliant race horses and shimmering skyscrapers for eyes!
Your lips confine me, they were twisted from barbed wire, blackberry vines.
Honeydew, skin pale white, soft sugar burns my tongue.

You dance like sheets on a clothesline in spring under the passing azalea.
You dance as I lie in the hammock reflecting the sky and the dirt.

I have drunk your shoulders often like cool milk.
I have recalled you in the dark blue bedroom.
Oh Mary, such a simple woman for my simple mind!
Oh Baby! You could drink me in a draft!

Black Gold, Slick Money

This morning I read the news that BP has shut down the Alaskan Pipeline out of Prudhoe Bay, which supplies approximately 8% of U.S. oil -- 400,000 barrels a day. Of course oil and gas futures shot up and gasoline prices are expected to rise again. BP attributes the shutdown to unexpected corrosion in its 30-year-old pipeline. Thirty. This comes at a time when BP is already under scrutiny for lax safety and maintenance following a deadly explosion at a Texas City refinery last summer.
ExxonMobil recently reported second quarter profits of $10.4 billion, up 86% from second quarter profits last year. Last year, Exxon invested less than one third of one percent of its net profits in alternative fuel research. The oil titans are logging record profits while fuel prices are exploding like a geyser of oil. "We've struck black gold!"
If we traveled back in time a hundred years or so, back to when Teddy Roosevelt was president, would this have ever occurred? Never. One has then to ask, "What is the federal government doing to protect consumers and to ensure that oil companies aren't pulling the pitch-soaked wool over our eyes?" And the answer would be, "Absolutely nothing."
Sure, Bush has agreed to release some of the oil held in the federal petroleum reserve, a few drops in a leaky bucket. And Congress invites the oil company execs to testify on Capitol Hill that nothing is awry, taking them at their word. They watch as gas prices soar and they refuse to raise the minimum wage. They pat each other on the back and have a pleasant lunch.
A list of questions to consider:
1) Why should a decrease in crude oil production today affect gasoline prices at the pump when gasoline at the pumps was refined months ago at lower costs?
2) Why not appoint an independent counsel to seriously investigate price gouging at the major oil companies instead of holding a televised charade on C-SPAN?
3) Why not impose an excess profits tax on the majors, or better yet, place an emergency price cap on gasoline prices?
4) Why not enforce more stringent safety and maintenance regulations on refineries, and drop heavy penalties on those that lag behind.
5) Why not require the majors to invest more in alternative fuel research, or be taxed?
These are only questions, suggestions. The implementation of only a few of these tactics would save consumers a bundle and guarantee that oil companies aren't ripping us off. Of course, it's tough for senators to smell the foul odor in the air when they're coated in oil.

Two things I remember clearly about you:
slow, sudden sex and roaring water.