Attending Cremations

Bruce had long felt attached (more precisely, attracted) to Frieda, though they were now firmly established as middle-aged friends of many years' standing. Romantically, he had never gotten past second base. He was grateful to her for many things, among them her delicious corn fritters, pigs in a blanket, and teaching him how to watch sitcoms. The path to her heart, however, was obscure. It seemed to have something to do with cremations. He had lost count of the number of cremations she had attended. There were far more of them open to the public than one might suppose. Her attendance record was sometimes held up to him as not only a spiritual but an intellectual advantage. If Frieda had a choice to attend a cremation or do something, anything else--say, an all expense paid trip to Puerto Vallarte--the cremation would always edge out the competition. "Why wouldn't I go if I had the chance? I wouldn't miss it for the world." "Can you say why?" "It puts me in touch with things that nothing else gives me access to." "Besides death?" "That's just one small part of it." At this point Frieda would begin talking about transcendence, and Bruce would get lost. She was so much more adept explaining the workings of sitcoms. Bruce felt he might solve the mystery of her fixation, in addition to suggesting a crucial common interest, by attending cremations with her. He decided to wear a pinstripe suit on these solemn occasions, a dapper outfit he had inherited from his Uncle Swayze, who had died in a mistaken murder by contract. The real intended victim was his brother Irv, who had somehow since clambered to the heights of business success. Bruce hoped to dazzle Frieda eventually by perfectly mirroring her demeanour and posture as the cleansing blaze commenced. There was a kind of plaintive luminosity about her that was tricky to emulate. After their tenth cremation, he felt that he might have found the exact convincing pose. She came over to him and gave him what might well have been a transcendent hug. How often he berated himself afterward for choosing just that moment of achieved closeness to feel her up. All future invitations to attend cremations with her were cancelled from that moment.