brief and to the point.
“Bury him,” she said.
Of course there were no particulars; there was not even a corpse as of yet. And the commander told how Miss Pettigrew did not seem disposed to select a casket at the moment, did not seem disposed to have anything at all to do with her brother’s burial besides the commissioning of it. But even if Miss Pettigrew did not care to chat, Commander Jack had never been caught at a loss for words, even in the face of the most acute bereavement, so he carried on well enough for the both of them. As Commander Avery recollected it, his daddy got underway by explaining to Miss Pettigrew his theory of the evil magnetism of birthdays which he illustrated by way of a desk calendar that provided what Commander Jack called graphic proof of the tendency in people to succumb hard by and sometimes directly on the date of their birth. He called it a phenomenon and said it was most mysterious and unaccountable. Then he asked Miss Pettigrew just when the mayor had come into the world.
“December,” she said.
The commander told her he had been a July baby himself.
Daddy said of course the commander talked about the rivet, had to talk about the rivet since Miss Pettigrew provided him an ear he had not bent in that direction before. But she brought it upon herself in part, Daddy said, having made the mistake of saying “ship” and having made the mistake of saying “ocean.” And Commander Avery said yes, his daddy did produce the Tuttle rivet from out of his fob pocket, and did hold it up between his thumb and forefinger so Miss Pettigrew could get an eyeful of it, and did go on to tell her how it was a piece of history. Daddy said that’s a scene he always wished he had a picture of, just the least little snapshot of Miss Pettigrew there in the grand hallway of the Heavenly Rest as near to the front door as she could get without being out it and still an extremely handsome woman, still elegant and fine Momma would say, and more or less courageously suffering the Tuttle rivet beneath her nose as displayed between the fingers of Commander Jack who, looking generally like a Tuttle, seemed convincingly incapable of any sort of dauntlessness and who, out of the entire Tuttle clan, was the one most framed like a melon, the one most hairless, the one most eternally short of breath.
Daddy said he simply wanted a picture of it and maybe to go along with that one a companion shot of the commander’s face taken sometime after his elaborate and painstaking explanation of the Tuttle honorific, probably taken along about when Miss Pettigrew said, “Good day” and nothing more whatsoever.
Commander Jack did not see Miss Pettigrew again on the business of the mayor’s interment, most likely did not ever lay eyes on Miss Pettigrew again since he was already two years in the grave before she bothered to set foot outside once more. He got all his instructions over the telephone and even then only once. That was after the body had arrived and his men had fetched it over from the train station. He called for a funeral suit, but she did not see the need to provide one and told the commander to take something appropriate from the mayor’s luggage.
The Commander reported that the mayor did not arrive with any luggage.
So Miss Pettigrew told him to bury the mayor in whatever he had on.
“He’s wearing a white dinner jacket,” the Commander said.
“That’ll do fine,” she replied and hung up.
The Commander had the mayor’s jacket cleaned and his trousers pressed while the head mortician attempted to do something about the mayor’s color, which had gone from its usual ruddiness way past pallor and down to blue-black, due primarily, the mortician said, to freezer burns and general mistreatment. But when he could find no remedy short of housepaint, him and the Commander agreed to screw down the coffin lid, which sat well with the both of them since the mayor looked pretty much like a minstrel and
“Bury him,” she said.
Of course there were no particulars; there was not even a corpse as of yet. And the commander told how Miss Pettigrew did not seem disposed to select a casket at the moment, did not seem disposed to have anything at all to do with her brother’s burial besides the commissioning of it. But even if Miss Pettigrew did not care to chat, Commander Jack had never been caught at a loss for words, even in the face of the most acute bereavement, so he carried on well enough for the both of them. As Commander Avery recollected it, his daddy got underway by explaining to Miss Pettigrew his theory of the evil magnetism of birthdays which he illustrated by way of a desk calendar that provided what Commander Jack called graphic proof of the tendency in people to succumb hard by and sometimes directly on the date of their birth. He called it a phenomenon and said it was most mysterious and unaccountable. Then he asked Miss Pettigrew just when the mayor had come into the world.
“December,” she said.
The commander told her he had been a July baby himself.
Daddy said of course the commander talked about the rivet, had to talk about the rivet since Miss Pettigrew provided him an ear he had not bent in that direction before. But she brought it upon herself in part, Daddy said, having made the mistake of saying “ship” and having made the mistake of saying “ocean.” And Commander Avery said yes, his daddy did produce the Tuttle rivet from out of his fob pocket, and did hold it up between his thumb and forefinger so Miss Pettigrew could get an eyeful of it, and did go on to tell her how it was a piece of history. Daddy said that’s a scene he always wished he had a picture of, just the least little snapshot of Miss Pettigrew there in the grand hallway of the Heavenly Rest as near to the front door as she could get without being out it and still an extremely handsome woman, still elegant and fine Momma would say, and more or less courageously suffering the Tuttle rivet beneath her nose as displayed between the fingers of Commander Jack who, looking generally like a Tuttle, seemed convincingly incapable of any sort of dauntlessness and who, out of the entire Tuttle clan, was the one most framed like a melon, the one most hairless, the one most eternally short of breath.
Daddy said he simply wanted a picture of it and maybe to go along with that one a companion shot of the commander’s face taken sometime after his elaborate and painstaking explanation of the Tuttle honorific, probably taken along about when Miss Pettigrew said, “Good day” and nothing more whatsoever.
Commander Jack did not see Miss Pettigrew again on the business of the mayor’s interment, most likely did not ever lay eyes on Miss Pettigrew again since he was already two years in the grave before she bothered to set foot outside once more. He got all his instructions over the telephone and even then only once. That was after the body had arrived and his men had fetched it over from the train station. He called for a funeral suit, but she did not see the need to provide one and told the commander to take something appropriate from the mayor’s luggage.
The Commander reported that the mayor did not arrive with any luggage.
So Miss Pettigrew told him to bury the mayor in whatever he had on.
“He’s wearing a white dinner jacket,” the Commander said.
“That’ll do fine,” she replied and hung up.
The Commander had the mayor’s jacket cleaned and his trousers pressed while the head mortician attempted to do something about the mayor’s color, which had gone from its usual ruddiness way past pallor and down to blue-black, due primarily, the mortician said, to freezer burns and general mistreatment. But when he could find no remedy short of housepaint, him and the Commander agreed to screw down the coffin lid, which sat well with the both of them since the mayor looked pretty much like a minstrel and
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