Horsing Around in Church by Kathy Anderson

Eulogy I. Before the Funeral, Practicing with Microphone

Our father. Six wives. Four kids. Twelve jobs. Many hobbies. How to sum that all up. Here goes.

He loved to fish. He used to line us kids up, tie nets to our ankles, and make us walk downstream, hoping to shoo the fish his way. It never worked. I hope the fishing is better in heaven, Dad.

He made wine in the basement until the bottles exploded. Then he switched to worm farms down there. Our house always smelled bad but we were used to it. I hope heaven smells better than our house, Dad.

His jobs. He was a teenager in the Navy where they taught him to smoke, one of the greatest joys of his life. He tried to be an electrician’s assistant but the electrician was his father so that job didn’t last too long. He became an electrician, bought his father’s company, then fired him. He became a poet, went to law school at night and became one of those personal injury lawyers with ads on the bus that people deface, leapfrogged to municipal judge, back to poet, then bar owner, real estate flipper, real estate developer, back to poet, whew, then his final job—the most satisfying of all, he said—an actor in commercials for mattresses and hoagies. I hope heaven finds you your dream job, Dad.

His wives. The vegetarian mountain climber he called The Goat. That’s my mother. Hi Mom. The anorexic lawyer who wouldn’t eat anything except cucumbers and Twix bars. The big blonde party girl who liked to go to rehab to recharge. The dog trainer who hated to be touched. The mail-order bride from Thailand who beat him up when she was angry. Lastly, the sixth wife, a teacher, twenty years younger than him, with a long horsey face and the biggest teeth. She looked like she could tow a car with those teeth. I hope your love life is better in heaven, Dad.

My sister was hunched over in the front pew, shaking she was sobbing but she was laughing. Our mother was giving me the stink-eye.

“You are such a liar,” my sister whispered.

“It’s better than the truth,” I said.

“Stop horsing around,” my mother said.

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Eulogy II. All right, I’ll be more honest.

Our dad was the greatest guy.

He took us on nature walks.

He never turned his back on us to stare out the back door at night, wishing he was anywhere but trapped in that house with his sobbing wife and his surly daughters.

He read books out loud to us.

He never said to our mother Jesus Christ what’s wrong with you.

He never said You girls are like feral dogs.

He took us on a motorboat ride and he didn’t know how to drive it, so he aimed the boat toward shore and ramped up the speed as high as it would go until we all fell down screaming, clutching our baby sister.

So now at the hour of his burial under the ground, what is there to say, really?

I could list all the things he never did or said, but why?

It’s enough to tell you emphatically that he did the very best he could.

After all, look what he had to handle every day.

A wife who was crazy as a loon. Nutty as a fruitcake. Not wrapped too tight. Bananas. Basket case. The lights were on, but nobody was home. Lost her marbles. Not playing with a full deck of cards. Off her rocker. Stark raving.

He never left us.

He never left us alone with her.

He never left us with no forwarding address, no phone number, no way to get in touch with him.

He never knew his grandbabies.

He never knew what he missed.

Goodbye, Dad. It’s been good not knowing you.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of you if you don’t shut up,” my mother said. “I’m not the crazy one.”

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Eulogy III. Five minutes before the funeral.

Our dad looked like a movie star when he was young, but he was a seminarian. He went through high school there, training to become a Catholic priest. He was asked to leave because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Girls loved him, that wavy hair, those dimples, that gorgeous smile. He should have stuck with the priesthood because he was a terrible father to two different families—one his official family, one his secret family on the other side of town.

I was one of his official children. We found out about the others when we were teenagers. A girl who looked just like me and another girl who looked just like my sister but with sadder eyes walked up to me and my sister at the mall and stared at us.

“You’re real,” the girl who looked like me said. “I always thought you were a rumor.”

“We’re his love children,” said the sad-eyed girl. “Pleased to meet you.”

She killed herself a few years later, that girl with a hole in her heart where a real father should have been.

“Can’t you give a simple, brief, loving tribute to your father instead of making up all these stories?” my mother said.

“I didn’t know him.”

“That’s it,” my mother said. “Your sister will give the eulogy instead.”

“No,” I pleaded. “I need to do this. I’ll do it right, I promise.”

“She’s always saying she’ll do things and then bailing,” my sister said.

“I’m ready,” I said.

“Get off that altar,” my mother said. “Sit next to me and whisper it in my ear. If you do this right, I’ll let you go on. If you mess up again, I’ll tell the priest to say whatever he feels is appropriate.”

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The Whispered Eulogy

Tell the priest to say whatever he feels is appropriate.

Kathy Anderson’s short story collection, Bull and Other Stories (Autumn House Press, 2016) won the Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, was longlisted for The Story Prize, and was a finalist for Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, Lambda Literary Awards, and Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award.