PROMISES TO KEEP
Michael Glassman

Stanley sat on the living room couch shivering. It was a hundred degrees outside, but he was inside and cold as an ice cube. They had the air conditioning turned up as high as it possibly could go, sputtering and wheezing with the effort. They never had the air conditioner running like this before; never put the temperature down below eighty degrees no matter how much they sweated in the night. Stanley's father would never allow it to go any lower. He claimed it was bad for the environment, but Stanley's father never gave a rat's ass for any part of the environment not affected by turning the air conditioner down below eighty. But now his father was dead, wrapped in a newly laundered white, silk sheet, and lying on the floor of the living room. And if they didn't keep the temperature as low as they possibly could, Stanley's father was going to start to stink. His father had left very specific instructions about this; they were to keep his dead body in the living room for forty-eight hours after death, in good condition, with the television on ESPN at a very low volume. Most of all they were to make sure he didn't start to stink. His father was as consistent in death as in life; he was a man who obsessed about his own odor. As a matter of fact he had bought a large bottle of expensive cologne for the very purpose of maintaining the aromatic integrity of his own dead body. God knows when or why or how a man goes out and shops for the cologne for his own corpse.

Stanley had things to say to his father that he couldn't get out of his mouth while the man was still alive. "You see, Dad, it's just that you were just a shit; a real shit." Stanley wasn t getting much satisfaction out of expressing his feelings to a dead man, but it was better than nothing. And it was probably at least a little less crazy than buying grooming products for your own corpse. "You never cared about any of us. That's how I always felt, that's how we all always felt. So now I'm having a little trouble carrying out some of these insane instructions you left. I didn t trust you in life, why should I trust you in death?" He pulled out the small piece of paper that had been plaguing him since his father drew his last breath twelve hours ago.

"Stop talking to your dead father," Stanley's mother said as she bustled into the room carrying an armload of dinner dishes. "It's not healthy."

A wave of frustration washed over Stanley. Why was he the one in the family always being labeled as unhealthy, or weird? "Mom, we have Dad's dead body here in the middle of our living room slash dining room and we're sprinkling it every hour with cheap cologne."

"How do you know it's cheap?"

"You're always doing this," Stanley shot back, "always changing the subject to protect him."

"You're attacking him Stanley. He's my husband."

"He's dead!" Stanley couldn't believe he was getting drawn into an argument with his mother. His father was always finding ways to create animosities. Why should life be any different just because his father was currently lying stiff as a board at his feet?

"All the worse. He can't protect himself. He's dead, and his own son is attacking him." Stanley's mother was beginning to work herself into a rage.

"I just said his cologne smelled cheap, for Chrissakes."

"He's got nothing; nothing in this world."

Stanley knew there was only one thing that could stop this tirade. "I'm sorry."

"Say it louder so he can hear you."

It was easier just to give in. "I'm sorry, Dad."

"Good." She was satisfied. "What do you think he's up to with all this?" She asked, gingerly approaching the body, a stack of dishes leaned against her body.

"He's not up to anything, Mom. He is dead you know. We're the ones that are up to something because you have to be alive to be up to something. Only we haven't got the slightest idea what it is we're up to. Why are we doing this? Why are we following his instructions like this?"

Stanley's mother looked perplexed by such a question. "We always do what your father says. It's how we operate as a family." Stanley's mother and father had actually gone to counseling once. It lasted exactly one half of one session before his father walked out. Apparently the only thing the therapist got to say that made any impact was, "This is how you operate as a family." His mother had been using the phrase as an explanation for almost everything ever since.

Stanley crumbled the small piece of paper in his hand and then shoved it back in his pocket. "Sure mom, it's what we do." Stanley wondered how his mother was going to operate in thirty-six hours when the body was gone and there were no more instructions.

A short, balding man in a sweat-stained muscleman T-shirt came through the front door carrying a large bag of ice under each arm. Small pellets were dripping off of his glowing forehead and freckle stained shoulders. "This is fucking crazy, Mom."

The mother's face turned angry again. "Don't talk that way, Barry, not now, not with your father in the condition that he's in."

"Condition?" Barry whined. "It's the longest fucking lasting condition in history. He's dead, Mom."

"All right then, I've had it with the two of you. I don't want to hear that word around your father again." Stanley had seen that look in his mother's eyes before only not when her husband was in the room. She was taking a stand.

"What word?" Barry was confused, which Stanley considered the only normal thing about the evening. "I can't say fuck when I have to lug this fucking ice from the 7-Eleven I don't know how many times over the next two days. Why can't we have an automatic ice maker like all the other families?"

"It's not fucking ice." Their mother's face scrunched up. "It's keeping your father fresh. Personal hygiene was always very important to him."

"I think she means dead," Stanley said, wanting to add that they probably didn't have a personal icemaker because it was bad for the environment.

Barry dropped the ice on the wood floor. It landed with an uncomfortable, cracking thud. "Why the fuck can't we say dead?"

"The man I lived with and loved for more than thirty-five years left me today. Can you boys just give me a little compassion tonight? Is that so much to ask?"

"Mom," Stanley said, "he's lying on the floor of the living room wrapped in your best silk bed sheet."

"We conceived you on that bed sheet."

"How come you didn't wrap him in the bed sheet you conceived me on?" Barry asked in a whine.

"We threw it out a long time ago," the mother said dismissively.

"I'm just saying you're going to have to accept that..." Stanley held back the word. All things considered, he listened to his mother, "that this night is going to be different from all other nights."

Stanley's mother smiled. "You're such a good boy, Stanley."

Barry started flailing his arms. "What? Because he didn't say dead? You throw out my sheet, you wrap dad in his sheet, and then you say he's a good boy because he doesn't say that his dead father is dead. Because he used a fucking line from Passover?" He turned and pointed at Stanley. "Don't think I didn't notice."

"Barry, you're overwrought. It's a bad night for all of us." She shoved the stack of dishes into Barry's belly. "Set the table. We've got to eat. I'm cooking liver and onions."

"Dad's favorite?" Stanley asked.

"Only the best." His mother returned to her work in the kitchen.

"I fucking hate liver and onions," Barry muttered as he started placing dishes around the table.

Stanley debated whether he should tell his brother about his father's instructions—the other instructions. He didn t want to make the decision on what to do by himself, but he didn't want to make it with Barry either. They had never been close; his father had seen to that. Morty Steichlitz was a man who maintained control in his family, in his life, and now his death, by setting people against each other, and making sure they occupied warring camps, so that the only place you could go for redemption was Morty Steichlitz. Only that really never got you redemption either. It just got you another rendition of the world according to Morty Steichlitz. Stanley looked over at his brother, staring down at the plates he had just laid out as if it was a major accomplishment. Thirty-five and still living at home, it was pathetic. The only thing that saved him from Stanley's complete antipathy was that Stanley was thirty-one and occupying the bedroom next to him.

An alarm went off, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" in electronic beeps. "We've got to do it again," Stanley said to his brother.

"I really hate this." Barry was still looking at the plates.

When Beethoven ended, Stanley retrieved a large green bottle from the mantle over the fake fireplace. Barry grabbed one of the bags of ice he had brought home and started distributing it around the outside of the body. Stanley began to splash the sweet smelling cologne across the torso.

"Go easy with that stuff," Barry said, eyeing his brother.

"It's not like it's got to last. He's only going to be around another day and a half."

Barry shrugged. "I'm thinking it's not that bad. Maybe I can use some of what's left over."

"You planning on dying soon?" Stanley asked, purposefully spreading the cologne a little thicker.

"No, no, for going out and stuff."

Stanley took in a deep, dramatic breath. "Maybe you and Mom are right. I guess it's not half bad."

"Hey, I got dibs."

Stanley started spreading again. "A thirty-five year old man does not use the term dibs."

"Hey, fuck you, it's mine." Barry took a menacing pose even though he was a good four inches shorter than Stanley.

"Fine you can have the corpse cologne."

Barry gave Stanley a little push. "What would you want it for anyway? Your right hand doesn't care how you smell."

Stanley gave Barry a push back, but somehow he couldn't make it nearly as threatening. And then Barry pushed again. The two latched on to each other, and took a standing wrestler's pose over the corpse. They would have pushed each other to the ground and turned into a pair of writhing, clawing, scratching squirrels battling for the last acorn of winter, just as they had done for the last three decades, except they would have fallen directly on their father's body. Stanley realized they could have stayed in that pose for the rest of the night. He had to do something to break the logjam. "Barry, I got a problem."

"You got a lot of problems."

"Dad left me some instructions; extra instructions, that Mom doesn't know about. That nobody knows about."

Barry let go of his brother and took a step back. "Dad left you instructions?"

Stanley took out the crumpled slip of paper from his pocket. "I'm supposed to call this number and say just like this: Morty is ready."

"He left you instructions?" Barry was incredulous. "But I'm the oldest."

"Forget about that for now. What do you think I should do?"

Barry walked over to the couch and dropped into it so he was overlooking his father. "Dad would never trust me with anything."

Stanley did not have time for his brother's existential despair at being passed over to call a strange number and tell whoever was at the other end that a dead man was ready. "So this whole thing is kind of crazy, right?"

Barry put his head in his hands. "I think you better make the phone call."

"But don't you think it's crazy? I mean ready for what, right?"

"It's incredibly fucked up."

Stanley focused on his father. "More, you think, than buying cologne for your own dead body?"

"You need to make the call." Barry retreated a little bit into the couch.

"Mom doesn't know, so nobody is going to make us do it."

"Dad will know."

"Dad is dead."

"That's why this is so fucked up. Still, I think you better do it."

Stanley stared at the seven numbers written in pencil on the crinkled paper. At least it was a local call. He shared some of Barry's anxiety. They always did what Morty Steichlitz wanted; the whole family; for his entire life. Except a dog they once had. And Morty Steichlitz killed the dog. He claimed it was an accident, backing over the mixed breed Sheltie pulling out of the driveway. But there were no more revolts in the Steichlitz household. And there were no more dogs. "I guess I better make the call."

Barry took a look towards the kitchen, where their mother was deep frying onion. "It's your decision."

Stanley was furious. Barry was always doing this; always backing out of any decision they made at the last minute, leaving him holding the bag. He would never take responsibility for anything. Maybe they could have stood up to their father if Stanley could have trusted his brother to present a united front. "Fine, I'm making the call."

"Fine, go ahead, make the call. He wanted you to make the fucking call anyway," Barry said softy, in a pained voice.

There it was, the final segment of the eternal cycle of Barry, a tragedy in four acts. Act one, the conflict over what the father might want. Act two, the decision; act co-conspirator in whatever treason they might plan. Act three was betrayal; Barry abandons the plan at the last minute, leaving others to face the consequences or abandon the cause. Stanley always chose abandoning the cause. And at last the final act, the denouement, and Barry's ultimate and inevitable descent into the role of victim. Shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, Barry was left alone to wonder why God left him to such a fate.

"Fine," Stanley said walking over to the phone. He picked it up and began to dial with purpose. By the time he heard ringing on the other end Barry had joined him, standing inches behind his left shoulder, breathing on Stanley's neck, straining to hear any sounds that might come through the receiver. "What?" Stanley asked, shifting his eyes back to his brother.

"I'm interested." He was already over the cycle of Barry and preparing for the next opportunity. It was a vocation.

"Like you said, it's my decision to make the call. Dad left it to me." Stanley was never above using Barry's own cycle against him.

So I'm not supposed to be a concerned son? I m not supposed to be interested in who my dead father is calling?

Stanley was trying to think of another shot he could take at his brother when the other side picked up. "Hello?" It was a woman's voice. Stanley had not been expecting a woman. The sound of her voice pushed all other thoughts out of his head. He couldn't remember what he was supposed to say to her. The three words that had been burned into his mind for the last twelve hours escaped him. He fumbled with the paper, looked at the letters under the numbers, but they all seemed to dissolve together into gibberish. He mumbled incoherently into the phone.

"Is this you Morty? Are you all right?" the voice asked.

"What s going on?" Barry pushed in to him, straining his neck so his ear could be closer to the receiver.

Stanley covered the mouthpiece. "She knows that it's Dad calling her."

They both looked over at the body in the sheet. Barry shook his head. "I guess you're never really completely gone when there's caller ID."

Stanley relaxed; caller ID—that made sense. He put the phone back to his ear and took another long look at the paper.

"What is going on there?" the voice demanded. "Is this Morty or not?" Stanley was struck by how attractive the voice was. It was low and throaty, but still you could hear vulnerability behind the words, and even a little innocence.

"What are you doing? Tell her!" Barry said, putting even more pressure on his brother.

Stanley felt guilty for having blatantly sexual thoughts about the woman who his dead father wanted him to call. "Morty is dead," he said quickly.

Barry pushed him. "Schmuck."

"What?" Oh, how Stanley wanted the woman behind that voice.

"I mean Morty is ready."

"Morty is?" There was a choked sob. That tinge of vulnerability made his penis tingle. "I'll be right over." The call ended with a click.

Stanley stared into the phone. "She's coming over."

"Who's coming over?" This new complication seemed to upset Barry.

"The woman on the phone."

"Who is she?"

Stanley put the phone down slowly. He felt in a daze. "Her voice was sort of getting me a little bit hard."

"Who is she?" Barry repeated.

"The person who answered the phone," Stanley said speaking slowly, elongating the vowels, "at the number that dad gave me."

"I'm not an idiot." It was one of Barry's favorite refrains.

"That's all I know."

"And she gave you an erection?"

"Well, if we talked a little longer, maybe. Definitely there was something going on there."

"This isn't good." Barry walked over to the dining room table. "There are four dishes here," he said, as if just realizing it.

"There are always four dishes."

"But Dad is dead." This time it was Barry's turn to elongate the vowels.

Stanley scratched his cheek even though it didn't itch. "Shit."

"You think we should tell Mom about this?"

"She's the one who gave you four dishes," Stanley reminded his brother.

"What? So a woman who gives you an erection over the phone can come over and eat liver and onions with us?"

It was rare that Barry was able to make an intelligent point. Usually his thoughts had rounded rubber edges and bounced off whatever they were aimed at without doing much damage. Stanley walked over and sat on the couch. Barry followed closely. "You think we should tell Mom?" Stanley asked.

"You made the phone call."

Stanley could not deal with another cycle of Barry right now. He had to get a grasp of exactly what was happening to his family. "Why do you think Dad wants her to come over?"

"A woman who can give a man an erection over the phone, even you, that's a dangerous woman."

"I told you, it's not an erection. Just sort of the beginning of one, you know; it was like the thought process got started." Stanley felt it was important that he establish this fact as concrete.

"I got such a bad feeling about this." That was pretty much the extent of Barry's analytical capabilities. He had one good thought, and he was going to keep thinking about it until he got another one.

"Let's talk about this a little bit; maybe we can figure something out. Just before Dad dies he gives me this number to call. He tells me it's the most important thing in his death that I follow his instructions on this. So I call this number he gives me and on the other end is a woman with an incredibly sexy voice. As soon as she gets the message that dad is ready which I assume she knows means dad is dead..."

"You told her he was dead," Barry reminded him. "Schmuck."

"All right, fine. Still, she says she's coming over right away. Meanwhile we're keeping Dad here fresh on our living room floor, obviously for her. Stanley pretended to ponder the situation for a few moments, but he knew exactly what it was he wanted to think about all this. "I think what we have here is pretty obvious."

"Obvious? What the fuck are you talking about?"

Stanley remembered that very little in life was obvious to his brother. "What did Dad say to me every Saturday night since puberty? He said he could die happy if he could see me get laid, right here on the living room floor if necessary."

Barry stared at his brother wide eyed. "You think Dad arranged for some woman to come over here and screw the shit out of you on the living room floor while he's lying there dead, and Mom and me are eating liver and onions?"

"I know, if you say it like that it sounds kind of sick. But Dad was kind of a sick guy. This could also be a beautiful thing that Dad was doing in his own sick way. It's a way for him to make amends. And it's a way for me to complete."

"No, no, no, it wouldn't be for you. If he's having a whore come over here, it's not for you."

Stanley became defensive about the voice. "Who says she's a whore?"

"What? A librarian? Whatever, when it came to affairs of the penis I was Dad's boy."

"But that's just it," Stanley said, "it wouldn't be special for you, it wouldn't help you complete."

"I can complete this type of thing better than you. Dad doesn't want a disaster with him lying there on the floor like that."

"He gave me the phone number," Stanley screamed, frustrated that his brother wasn't getting the obvious logic of all this.

"Affairs of the penis. Affairs of the penis!" Barry answered, slapping his open hand against his thigh.

"You two boys shouldn't be arguing like that in front of your father." They both turned to see their mother holding a large casserole dish, which presumably held liver and onions. "What is this about a phone number anyway?"

Stanley and Barry leaned away from their mother as if in a single movement. "There's no phone number," Stanley said sheepishly.

"I heard you screaming about it in the kitchen." She put the dish in the middle of the table. "It doesn't matter. Go wash up."

Stanley felt he needed more information, or at least know what information his mother had that he didn't. "Mom, why are there four dishes on the table?"

"That's what your father wanted, Stanley. Four dishes and liver and onions."

"I really hate liver and onions, Mom," Barry complained. "Did you make anything else?"

"You'll eat what your father wants." She surveyed the sparsely equipped table, a single casserole surrounded by four lonely dishes. "What your father had the most trouble with was transitions. That's why we lived in this same disgusting condominium for thirty years. That's why your father wouldn't buy a new car unless the old one couldn't move another inch. I guess that's why he stayed married to me all these years. Now, your father is making his last big transition. And we re all going to help him as much as we can."

"Fine, I'll eat the fucking liver and onions," Barry said, jumping up from the couch, but I got transitions too you know." He stalked from the room.

Stanley watched his mother circle the dining room table, as if stalking some invisible prey scampering along its surface. "Mom, I have to ask you. Why did you stay with him all these years?"

"What?" She seemed lost in thought.

"I mean you knew Dad was a prick to all of us."

"Don't talk about your father like that while he's lying there helpless. I don't want to have to tell you again." She looked at her youngest son and her defensive posture melted a bit. "It's easy to tear a man down when he's lying stone cold on his own living room floor, Stanley."

"Are you going to tell us he was a good father to me and Barry? That he was a good husband to you?"

Stanley's mother stared at him glassy eyed. He knew she was a woman who had a difficult time dealing with truths outside of the limited world she had created for herself over the past three and a half decades. She wanted to follow her husband out of that therapist session as quickly as possible and never return. "It wasn't that your dad was a prick, as you call him." She turned to the body. "I'm sorry Morty, but I think our son is reaching out to me."

"There you go; you re always explaining yourself to him. What is it with you? You know he didn't treat us good." Stanley could feel his own words pushing his fantasy about the phone voice further and further into darkness.

"I don't know Stanley." There was a forlorn quality humming through her words. "Maybe it's that I'm not so good at transitions, too. Maybe that's how we found each other and why we stayed with each other."

"That's it? You were scared and he was scared, so you stayed where you were even though you were miserable?"

"Not always miserable." Her tone took on some body as the corners of her mouth began to turn up. "Your father was also a prick in the good sense of the word; he knew how to please a woman pretty good."

Realizing his mother was in the state of mind where she could say anything, Stanley rushed to intercept the thoughts he was sure his mother was ready to let loose in his direction. "I don t want to hear this, I think."

"You're thirty years old Stanley. I think maybe it will help you understand if you know what you father was capable of giving a woman."

Stanley put his hands over his ears. "Don't say it. Don't say it. You can tell Barry if you have to unburden yourself tonight. He likes this stuff."

"What do I like? And why does Stanley have his hands over his ears?" Barry asked, drying his hands on a small towel.

There was a knock at the door. Stanley froze. "She's here," Barry said, also completely still, except for his eyes, which kept darting around the room.

"Who's here?" Stanley's mother asked.

Barry seemed to recognize his mistake quickly. "Yeah, who's here?" His tone was almost an exact imitation of his mother.

Stanley needed to think fast. He didn't want his mother to know he was responsible for the woman behind the voice, no matter what she was here for. "We don't know."

There was a second, louder knock. "Then how do you know it's a she?" his mother asked.

This time Barry decided to imitate Stanley. "We don't know." Then he seemed to decide this did not offer enough exoneration for whoever stood behind the door. "And I'm not even a part of Stanley's we, because I don't even know what Stanley's we is thinking about; what they don't know including, I might add, that it's a she." He pulled his shoulders in and turned his palms up to emphasize his point.

This was too much for Stanley. "You are too part of the we because without you there couldn't be a we, there could only be an I. You were right there when we did exactly what you don't know about including knowing that she's a she." He turned to his mother with an embarrassed grin. "Which we really don't know about."

Barry was thinking how to respond when they heard a third pounding knock. "This is ridiculous. I'm getting the door," their mother said exasperated.

Barry and Stanley rushed in front of their mother, a near collision that would have sent all three tumbling. Stanley was the first to recover his balance and reach the door, flinging it open and then grabbing on to the doorframe to catch himself a second time. He found himself staring into a pair of cloudy, gray eyes. Her rinsed hair was in a tight bun. Stanley forgot about any greetings as he let his eyes wander over the rest of her body. It was a body that more than matched the voice, with sultry curves in all the right places, but an overall aura of vulnerability. She was a little old for Stanley, but attractive all the same. Perhaps a mature woman was just what he needed. Who was he to argue with what his father wanted. She was dressed in a tan trench coat tied tight around her small waist. While it went well with the black, stiletto heels, it was a strange outfit for a hundred degree summer evening. The more Stanley stared at the belt that cinched her waist, the more sure he became that there was nothing on underneath, which started his erection rumbling all over again.

"I'm here for Morty." The voice sounded even more alluring in person. Stanley almost cried when he thought of the yelps the voice box would create in the throes of passion.

After a few gurgles, Stanley stumbled backwards into his brother, who had once again come up right behind him. "What are you always on top of me for?"

Barry pushed his brother out of the way. He was in the presence of an attractive woman, and he had entered a different emotional and cognitive zone. "Please come in. I'm Barry, the one who talked to you on the phone," he said raising his eyebrows up and down as part of his idiosyncratic mating ritual, "you know, before."

"Really? Dad wouldn t even trust you with the phone number." Stanley stopped. At least that part now made sense.

The woman stepped through the door, shivering as the heavy air-conditioning mixed with the layers of perspiration building up on her skin. Stanley's erection rumbled forward. "Where is he?" Stanley pointed towards the living room.

"Is this person a friend of yours?" Stanley's mother asked.

Barry's face dropped. He never did well with women when his mother was around. "I don't know."

"You just told her you were the one who called her," Stanley said quickly.

"You just said I didn't even have the phone number," Barry hissed.

The woman walked towards Stanley's mother, hands extended out front, as if inviting her to dance. "You must be Doris, Morty's wife."

Doris face twisted into a defensive grimace. "Who are you and what do you know about my Morty?"

"Well, Doris, you could say I'm your rival." She glanced over at the body on the floor. "I guess you could say I'm your ex-rival now. In a funny way I've been looking forward to this meeting for years. I'm Rita." She said her name as if it should have been obvious to all present.

Doris took a step back. "You were Morty's little whore?"

"Mom!" Stanley was feeling protective of this woman who gave him sexual pleasure just by talking on the phone and stepping into air-conditioning.

Rita held up her hand. "Your mother is going through a lot, right now. We all are, and we all need to support each other as we mourn for Morty. I understand this. I've had many years of therapy and I TiVo every episode of Dr. Phil." She turned her attention back to Doris. "I understand, Doris. This is a shock, meeting the woman your husband loved, and I am here for you, because my love for Morty is big enough to include you. But I am also here for Morty."

"What about me?" Stanley was shocked when he realized the words actually came out of his mouth.

"I am here for the whole family. But mostly I am here for Morty."

Doris turned her back to Rita. "This whore doesn't seem to understand that she is not welcome in my house—not tonight, not ever. You tell the whore that, Stanley."

Stanley wanted Rita to feel welcome until he found out what was under the trench coat. "Maybe Dad had a plan, Mom. Maybe this woman..."

"Rita," she interrupted, "my name is Rita."

"Hello, Rita," Barry said with a large, stupid smile on his face.

"Maybe Rita is here for a very good reason," Stanley said, keeping a wary eye on Barry.

"Yes," Rita said triumphantly, "Morty did have a plan; we have a plan for all of us, that will bring healing. As I'm sure you all know, Morty was a man who thought of his penis first, last and always."

"But it was my penis," Doris said.

Rita smiled condescendingly. "It was our penis, Doris. I came to terms with that a long time ago. And I truly believe you will live a fuller, healthier life if you do the same."

"I don't want to live a fuller, healthier life. I want to know that my husband's penis is my sole property. Now my boys are going to make their mother happy and remove you from our house. Get rid of her, boys.

Stanley could hear the tears behind his mother's voice. He did not want her to feel this pain. She was his mother. But Rita had her own pull, and right now it was a little bit stronger. "Who are you now, Ma Barker?" Stanley cringed at his own words. This was not the time for sarcasm. At the same time, Stanley wondered if the protective comment might have scored a few points with Rita.

"It was a penis that was very important to me as well." Rita said these words with surprising sincerity. "When I met Morty—our Morty, I was a sexually repressed woman. It wasn't only that I couldn't have an orgasm, I..." She lost her words in a series of high-pitched sobs.

"I'm good with sexual repression, too."

"Shut up, Barry." Rita's increased vulnerability was sending a charge through Stanley. The good type of dull ache that can only be salved by holding a soft body against you as hard as you could.

Rita regained a semblance of control. "A few months ago, when Morty knew he wasn't going to be around too much longer, he came to me and said there was one thing he wanted more than anything else." For a moment Stanley had the thrilling thought he had guessed right about Rita's purpose in coming to the house. "He read somewhere that a man has one last ejaculation in him after he dies. He thought this would be the best possible send off he could get from this odd and trying world of ours. He said that I was the one that he wanted to give him this grand send off, this final pleasure. So I am here to give our Morty his final pleasure in life and in death.

"How are you going to do that?" Doris asked in a monotone of disbelief.

"Naked," Rita said. "Morty always wanted me to be completely naked. He hated lingerie."

"This is good," Barry said, leering at Rita, "I'm not disappointed in this at all."

"But what's going to be beautiful about this is that there is so much more," Rita said with a radiant smile. "I, we, Morty and I, want this to be a ceremony of healing. A way for Morty to bring his family together in death with what was most important to him in life. We want you all to be a part of this final pleasure. She held out her hands like an evangelist to her flock. And we will rejoice as a family in the spirit that was Morty."

"We should listen, Mom, Barry said, nodding. "Something like this would definitely make the liver and onions go down easier."

"Yes, certainly." Rita seemed confused by Barry. "This is the picture that Morty and I painted together those months ago. Me giving Morty his final pleasure, a cosmic release of the ties of passion that bound him to this earth and its pain, while his family looked on from his dining room. A sort of last supper if you will."

Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" interrupted what Stanley was sure was a rehearsed speech. Barry immediately went for the ice and Stanley got the cologne. "It's all right," Stanley said sprinkling the cologne while looking at Rita, "it's part of Dad's instructions."

"So he could smell good for his whore." Doris rushed over to Stanley, grabbed the bottle of cologne from him and smashed it against the floor.

Barry was flabbergasted. "Mom, what are you doing? That's good stuff."

The smell filled the entire room, like a creeping fog of death from an old Twilight Zone episode. It gave Stanley a sour headache. The erection was going into hiatus. "Maybe we should sit down and talk about this." He felt he needed time to strategize a way to get Rita's trench coat off without the final pleasure actually being consummated.

Rita looked a little overwhelmed by the cologne fumes. But she also had the posture of a woman who would not be deterred by violence to men's toiletries. "I made a promise to a man that I love, and I intend to fulfill that promise. You can work with me, Doris, and help to heal your wounds and the wounds of your family, or you can work against me and take your regrets to your grave."

Doris was staring down at the small puddle of cologne on the floor with a wild look in her eyes. There was a low, guttural, primal scream that had the quality of being either pre- or post-human. Stanley was stunned when he realized it was coming from his mother. Doris turned around to face Rita, bending slowly at the knees like a defensive lineman setting up for a goal line stand. Rita stared back in defiance. Neither moved. It was like that ancient Japanese parable Stanley kept hearing on television shows about yuppie business people: two samurai circling each other in the rain, each waiting for the other to strike first.

"Maybe Stanley is right," Barry said in a choked voice, obviously as shaken by the mother/whore samurai scene as Stanley. "We could sit, eat some liver and onions, discuss the whole thing, go from there."

There was a long silence as the metaphorical circling continued. Stanley knew there was no way to penetrate this stand off. Then a quick exchange, a small whimper from Rita, a grunt from Doris, then a small, seemingly simultaneous step in Morty's direction by both of them. Stanley could hear himself muttering the words, "Oh, my God" as his mother exploded towards Rita, jumping on top of her so that they both landed on the floor with a thud. They pulled at each other; clawed and scratched. Stanley thought he could have enjoyed this a lot more if his mother wasn't one of the women.

Doris had a good fifty pounds on Rita, but she also had twenty years and she wasn't in good shape. It didn t take long before Doris tired and rolled off a mostly flattened Rita. She lay for a few moments wheezing and coughing. "Barry, go get your mother a Diet Coke." Barry ran into the kitchen and quickly emerged with a silver and red can.

Rita, for her part, was left as a quivering bag of flesh. There were some tears in her trench coat, and a few buttons undone, but not so that Stanley could really see anything. Doris raised herself to her elbows and took a sip from the can Barry had given her. "There's not going to be any final pleasure tonight, not under my roof. Help me up sweetheart." Barry reached out and helped pull his mother up. "The food is getting cold. Let s eat."

Mostly because he didn t know what else to do Stanley went over to Rita and helped her to her feet. She leaned on him as they made their way to the dining room table. Stanley put his hands around her waist, as much to check if she was wearing panties as to support her.

The four of them sat around the table, a clean plate in front of each of them, the untouched casserole dish in the center of the table slowly losing its heat. If there was anything Stanley hated more than liver and onions it was cold liver and onions. But it just didn t seem like the right time to start eating. They were all staring at Morty's corpse, lying just a few feet away. Stanley wondered if they were all thinking the same thing he was thinking: his father was dead a good twelve hours and yet he was dominating all their lives more than when he was alive.

© Michael Glassman 2004

Michael Glassman is currently associate professor in child development at The Ohio State University. He has been writing for most of his life, and once won a hundred dollar writing prize in college, which he quickly spent on a decadent diversion (which lasted less time than it took to read the story). He continues to write as much as he can, in Columbus but not about Columbus, in hopes that he can get other people to publish him or perhaps give him a hundred dollars (which he promises will be better spent).

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