Lost in the Flood

Zachary’s mother spent all morning on Mrs. Crawford’s hair and that evening they laid her out in the viewing room for the mourners to pass by. People complemented his father on the fabricated vitality in her cheeks, the shine of life painted on the cold skin. Zachary stood by listening as long as he was able, then sat outside on the deck watching the news vans parked across the street. The men from the city leaned against the door panels sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups. Their suits looked too tight, the fabric’s sheen glistening in the setting sun as they unpacked their equipment in hopes of getting a photo of Brother Crawford and his snakes.

Days before, Zachary’s father had explained the service would bring attention. Zachary almost asked if he still had to work the funeral, but knew it would only make the old man angry, like the time he opened the morgue door and had nightmares for a month after seeing Rachel Marcum on the slab. That gapping Y incision, the deflated balloons of her lungs.

A few of the bereaved came outside to smoke and chat. They smiled at Zachary with their false teeth, wrinkled hands trying to get matches struck in the hard wind that blew the dying fibers of their hair. Some touched his padded shoulder and told him he looked very dignified in his suit and tie. Old ladies thanked him for escorting them to their seats. Still, conversation was more forced than at other wakes. Zachary worked enough to know that most people treated funerals as a social event. Mourning was really for the immediate family and a brief moment of sorrow in front of the casket. The rest of the time was for backslapping and hellos, jokes told outside the parlor while men sipped white lightning from flasks. His father told him this was normal, it was the way men dealt with knowing one day they’d too be laid out up front, but these men couldn’t seem to shake that feeling. After a moment of camaraderie, the smiles slipped away and they stood solemn. When they finally spoke, the men only managed hollow things like “Undertaker sure did a good job.”

Zachary knew his father’s labor hadn’t been easy. The night they brought the body, his father had gone downstairs to look at the damage. Zachary was supposed to be in bed, but he slipped out and listened to his parents talking hushed in the kitchen’s darkness. His mother’s voice rattled with the husk of sleep and his father’s words carried their Saturday night beer burden, as if his tongue needed to whittle each phrase down into something he could spit out.

“Hands are the worst. Swollen twice the size,” he said. “Skin burst in some places.”

“Is that where…”

“I’d say so. Got her on the neck once, too. Michael said it was like a frog, but the church type will want her in something high collared anyhow.”

“How many times?” His mother seemed afraid of the question. Asked it the way she asked about bills.

“At least three.”

“Jesus,” his mother said.

“You need to be prepared,” he told her. “The kind of crowd that’s coming will draw the media.” His father said media with the same tone reserved for other hated parties likes politicians, poachers, and scabs.

The mourners on the porch looked ready to fight the camera wielding outsiders. Bill Payne, one of Lynch’s oldest residents who seemed to be kept aloft only by his cane, pointed a crooked finger toward their vans as he pontificated on the wickedness of such a profession.

“Man makes his money taking pictures of someone’s grief ought to be shot,” he said. “If the world’s going this way, I believe I’d rather be lying up there beside Jenny.” He turned to Zachary and offered him a cigarette.

“Please,” Zachary said. He took the man’s Zippo and lit it. One of the men across the street raised his camera and snapped a...