She Painted Skeletons on the Walls

  I wouldn’t’ve had it on my walls.

  But someone thought it was the “hot” thing to have.

  The house was done in leopard skin wallpaper.

Actual factual pic of wallpaper in question...

  I saw it while out yard sale-ing at an estate sale.

  Estate sales afford the unique experience of just walking right into a stranger’s house to see what’s for sale.

  “What are you looking at,” asked The Lady of the House.

  “This wallpaper,” I said, “It’s intense.”

  “The word I’d use would be ‘garish,’ she said.  “I find it interesting that it bothers you.”

  “It overwhelms the rooms,” I said.

  “This from the man who didn’t mind skeletons painted on his walls or that each wall was a different color,” said The Lady of the House.

  I should explain.

  Muriel* painted skeletons on the walls of the house we lived in in the hippie town of Bisbee, Arizona back in the 1990’s.  Muriel made sure that each wall was a different color.  In the living room, for instance, there was a blue wall, an emerald green wall, the mustard yellow wall and the Chinese red wall.

  Each wall featured a full-sized skeleton painted by Muriel.  Not on canvas or in a frame, right on the wall.

  Muriel said the different colored walls in the house were for variety’s sake.  The skeletons were to pay tribute to her arthritis which had a big influence on her life.

  That’s what she said anyway.

  I had no reason to doubt her.

  It wasn’t until after Muriel and I had parted company that it occurred to me that I should’ve questioned a lot of her stories, a lot of her reasoning.

  Muriel told a lot of stories.

  Muriel’s stories weren’t about “A list” people, places or things.  Nope, her stories had more “B-list or “C list” subject matter.

  For instance, Muriel said she should’ve gotten credit, gotten paid for the Sara Lee cakes slogan, “Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”

  “I was on a flight from Atlanta to Dallas back in the 80’s and I was sitting beside this woman who was trying to come up with a slogan for a bakery company, that’s all she told me,” said Muriel.  “So I said, ‘Most people don’t like something, but everyone likes our cakes.’”

  “Next thing I know I’m watching TV some months later and this Sara Lee ad comes on with people singing, ‘Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.’”

  I mean why would I doubt Muriel?  So what if her daddy was a Southern teller of tall tales.  It would be a few years in the future before I’d fully understand the old saying, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Muriel said she was in a car wreck in Denver in the mid-80’s.

  “I was bedridden for a year,” she told me.  “I wasn’t supposed to walk ever again.  I willed myself to walk again.  Then a couple of years later I developed arthritis in my back.”

  The arthritis was why Muriel had me walk up and down her back from time to time.

  Yes, walk up and down her back…me and my size 12 feet and 180 pound frame.  I’d walk up her back a couple of steps, turn and walk the other way…each step brought a weird crunching sound and vibration through the soles of my feet.

  “You sure this is okay?” I asked her during one of our first “sessions.”

  “If it bothered me you wouldn’t be doing it,” said Muriel.

  So after being exposed to Muriel’s taste in art, her own art, her own projects like saving dog fur to make a dog hair sweater or broken mirrors and glass to make mosaics and stuff like that I didn’t find it odd to have her paint skeletons on the walls of our newly acquired house in Bisbee.

  This after she painted the walls all different colors.

  After she painted the metal furniture black and white striped.

  After she was done she painted individual bricks on the outside walls of the cinderblock house…one by one.

  I never knew why Muriel was always painting.  When we lived in Roswell she painted the walls of her dad’s house blue…thing was she hadn’t consulted her dad, he was not amused.  She painted the paneling emerald green in the house we rented, much to the surprise of the landlord.  The walls of the condo in Phoenix got painted bright orange...when we moved we finally sold the place when we agreed to knock off a thousand bucks for an interior repainting.

  Muriel and I hung around with each other for seven years.

  Then one day the energy ran out of our little arrangement.

  It was time for me to go and leave Muriel to do things her way in the little Arizona town.

  One afternoon my buddy Ernesto came over to help me move out.  Muriel had excused herself to her business a few blocks away while I took care of getting my stuff out of what was to become her house.

  “Dios mio!,” said Ernesto as he walked into the house.  He crossed himself in that old school way that some religious folks do.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You live in a house of death,” he said.

  The two of us stood in the living room.  We were both looking around.  I was looking at the place now with I reckon what you could call “new eyes.”

  “Well damn,” I said.  “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “How could you live here with all this death around you?” 

  “I never saw it as death,” I said.  “I saw it as Muriel’s creativity.  I saw it as art.”

  “Oh, you didn’t paint this shit?  She did?” asked Ernesto, “Bro…I want you to imagine a realtor coming in here to show this place.”

  I laughed.

  “Well,” I said, “That sort of happened in Phoenix with orange walls.”

  “Orange?  Dude.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “Orange like road construction orange barrel orange.”

  Ernesto laughed.

  “Damn, bro.  This chick has issues.”

  “I didn’t see it before,” I said. 

  I looked around and smiled.

  “I see it now.”

 

*Name changed

The Dead Guy at Work

  I saw a post on social media the other day…

  BOB:  I just heard a man die on the air today.  

  Bob had been listening to a sports talk radio station in his town.

  He continued...

  .It made me sad.

  Then the comments started coming in…

  RAY:  This, of course, would make it no longer “live radio.”

  TOM:  That’s how I want to go...doing what I love. Don’t give me any warning.

  JORDY:  Live radio in Heaven.....

  AVERY:  … but he still hit the traffic & weather on the 8's...

  ANDY:  For real? Died on the air?  What did it sound like?

  BOB:  He stopped mid sentence and you could hear the chair fall over. Then the guy with him started asking "are you all right?" Then commercial.

  FAT MAN:  This must be fake news. There's no mention of it anywhere.

  BOB:  Keep checking, Fat Man, it happened.

  HARRY:  It just seemed odd that someone would drop-dead on the air and nobody would report it anywhere. In this day and age, you can’t take anything at face value. It’s truly nothing personal. Condolences to all those who knew and worked with the deceased.

  BOB:  Well, it happened.  I was listening.

  IRENE:  Anything to get ratings!

  BOB:  Not funny, Irene.

  IRENE:  Bob’s a snowflake.

  HARRY:  Sorry for doubting you, Bob. I spoke with people at the station where you said it happened, and they confirmed that a member of their staff passed-away on-air yesterday.

  BOB:  Thanks for verifying that I'm not a liar.

 

  We die.

  It’s part of the deal of coming to Planet Earth…we live, we die.

  People die in many ways…some people would like to die in their sleep, others surrounded by family and friends, still others would like to check out doing what they love doing.

  Me?

  I love my job but I sure as hell don’t want to die at work.

  I know of three guys who did.

  There was that guy at a radio station across town…it was just another morning…this particular dude was the news guy and he was in the news studio so when it came time for the morning show guy to go to news there was silence.  The morning jock put on a song and ran down the hall to the news studio to find the news guy slumped over the control board.

  Another one I heard about from co-workers.  He was a radio station advertising salesman sitting at his desk when he suddenly pitched forward, head hit the desk and didn’t move….dead from a massive coronary.

  The third fellow?

  I was there.

  I won’t tell you where or when it happened out of respect to the dead guy.

  It was just the beginning of another day at the radio station.  I had ridden my bicycle to work, came through the door, put my bike up and was ready to get ready for the morning show.

  I had seen that Boss Man was already at the station, his car was parked out front.

  “LET’S RADIO,” I yelled so Boss Man could hear it on the other side of the building.  Boss Man did a radio show on the other side.

  Wait.

  No response.

  Usually he’d yell something back once I yelled, “LET’S RADIO.”

  This morning…

  …nothing.

  Then I heard someone coming down the hall.

  It was Boss Man.

  He stopped and looked at me.

  “Grant,” he said, “I think Dave* is dead.”

  A weird shudder rolled over me.

  Boss Man turned and motioned for me to follow him back to the other side of the building.

  I rounded the corner and….

  …there was Dave, lying on the floor.  I reckoned Dave had had a seizure or heart attack and pitched off to the side out of his chair and on to the floor.  His legs were in his cubicle and the rest of him was sprawled out in the hallway.

  I walked around and looked at his face.  Dave’s eyes and mouth were open.

  “He was working on a project late last night,” said Boss Man.  “I talked to him around 10 last night.”

  I bent over and put my hand on Dave’s shoulder.

  I shook him slowly.

  “Dave?” I said.  “Dave, come on buddy.”

  But I felt a couple of new things…his body seemed loose, no tension.

  And Dave was cold.

  I was looking at my first real, live dead guy.

  Well, okay, I’ve seen dead people at funeral homes.  But dead people at funeral homes aren’t quite the same as a real, live dead guy.  Funeral home bodies don’t look real, they look like something between a mannequin and a person.

  But Dave looked real.  Thing is if his mouth and eyes were closed he probably would’ve looked like he was asleep.

  I stood up.

  “I called the rescue squad,” said Boss Man.

  I stood and looked at Boss Man.

  “Well, there’s nothing else for me to do,” I said.  “Reckon I’ll go start the show.”

  I’m the kind of guy who would’ve like to’ve told my listeners, “Hey, y’all know what’s going on here at the radio station?  One of our guys died and he’s out here in the hallway.”

  But I didn’t.

  I played music and really didn’t have much to say.

  I’d just seen my first real live dead guy.  It had quite an impact on me.

  I put on a long song and went to the break room to make some coffee.

  As I stepped out into the hallway and heard voices from the other side of the building.

  I walked around the corner and there was Dave, still sprawled out in the hallway.

  The Rescue Squad people had packed up all their stuff and were headed out the door.

  “Hey guys,” I called out to them.  “Just curious about something.”

  They turned and looked at me and I made a motion with my hands like I was making a presentation of Dave’s body.

  “What about this guy?” I asked.

  “He’s dead,” said one of the rescue squadsmen.  “There’s nothing we can do for him.”

  I laughed.

  “No shit,” I said.  “What happens next?”

  “Well,” said the same guy, “Deputies are coming along with the Medical Examiner and then the funeral home people will come and take the body away.

  And there was Dave, still lying there, still with his mouth open…and his eyes…

  I moseyed on back to the studio to make sure my song was still playing…it was…so I went to the break room to get a cup of coffee.

  That’s where I ran into Adelita, our DJ on the Mexican station.

  “Dios mio!” said Adelita with wide open eyes looking right into mine.  “Dave….dead…he’s just laying there.  Dios mio!  Cover him up or something.”

  “I don’t have anything to cover him with,” I said.

  “I have an old serape draped across my back seat, I’ll get that,” she said.

  Adelita turned around and went out the back door.

  I went around the corner again and there was a new guy standing over Dave’s body.  Two county deputies were standing by the door, one writing stuff down on a pad.

  “Are you from the funeral home?” I asked the guy standing by the body.

 “No,” the dude said sharply.  “I’m the medical examiner.”

  “Ah,” I said.  “Hey, is there any way we can cover the body?  Other staffers are coming in and they find him lying there a bit disturbing.”

  “NO!” yelled the man.

  Both deputies looked up.

  “I HAVE WORK TO DO,” yelled the medical examiner.  “THE BODY STAYS JUST AS IT IS.”

  I stood there and looked at him eye to eye, holding my cup of coffee.

  “Well,” I said, “That was easy to hear.”

  The man stood and stared at me for a few moments.

  “I’ve been up all night on another case,” he said in a calmer tone.  “I’m kind of tired.  Please tell anyone who’s bothered by this that when I am done taking pictures and notes I will cover him up.”

  I went back to the studio.

  While it was weird…having to act normal on the radio while a dead guy lay in the hallway just around the corner….I was learning stuff.

  I mean sure the Rescue Squad isn’t going to carry him away, the dude was dead.  Of course the Medical Examiner has to do his thing, to make sure there’s no foul play.

  A few minutes later the door to the radio studio opened up and there was Francesca.

  Francesca was the recruiter from the local university.  She dropped in from time to time and talked on the air about goings-on on campus.

  This morning Francesca walked through the studio door with eyes wide open.

  “Ah,” I said.  “I see you came in the front door.”

  “I mean, COVER HIM UP, JEEZ!” said Francesca.  “I can’t unsee that.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “sorry about that.  The medical examiner said we couldn’t cover him up til he was done.  But you know, I’m a day late and a dollar short on telling Boss Man we need to make a sign to send people to the side door and lock the front door.”

  I got up and walked around the corner.

  Two guys dressed in suit and tie were wrangling a body bag around Dave.

  “You must be from the funeral home,” I said.

  “Yes sir,” said one of the nattily dressed men without looking up.

  I just stood and watched as they got Dave in the bag, rolled him on to stretcher on the ground then raised him up to a nearby gurney.

  The guys secured Dave with some straps and wheeled him out the door.

  I stood there.

  I thought about life.

  How it really is true…any day on this side of the grass is a good day.

  I thought about death.

  How it just happens and for those left behind the world keeps on going.

  The idea that the world would do anything else BUT keep on going came from when I was an itty-bitty kid….those couple of days around November 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated.  The radio played slow, somber instrumentals…there wasn’t as much traffic on the roads.  It seemed like the world slowed down.  As the years went by I came to understand that was a unique time.

  I thought about work.

  Work is what we do to pay the bills.  Life isn’t supposed to be all about work.  I’d bet Dave would’ve rather’ve been home with his wife when his time came.

  I thought about home.

  I had a bit of a feeling that after this morning I’d just like to go home right then and there.

  “HEY GRANT,” it was Francesca’s voice from around the corner, “THE SONG’S OVER, GET IN HERE….”

E P I L O G U E

  I sat in my recliner that day after work telling The Lady of the House about Dead Dave and the parade of people who saw him.

  “I’d like to die at home,” I said.

  “Awake?” she said.  “I wouldn’t want to be awake.”

  “Yeah,” I said.  “I want to see what happens.”

  “You die,” said The Lady of the House.

  “Yeah,” I said, “But I’d like to see the transition.  I don’t think it’d be the same if I died in my sleep.”

  The Lady of the House waved her hand in my direction as if to say, “Enough of your stuff,” got up and headed for the kitchen.

  “Just don’t die in your sleep at night,” she said as she walked away.  “I can’t think of anything much creepier than me waking up next to you dead.”

  I sat in my recliner and pondered this scenario.

  The Lady of the House came walking back in the room with one of our folded old blankets.

  “Here,” she said putting it on the coffee table, “Take this to work to cover the next one of you guys who dies….because I’m sure there will be a next one.”

*Most names changed