Mickey - The View From Here PART TWO - Gallavich

Dodge the Dagger

Ian had made an appointment at a local funeral home. We ended up bringing the box Rachel rejected with us, sorting through the WWII Nazi crap my dad had left behind. If it all wasn't worth money, Ian would have gladly dumped it into Lake Michigan. These items were haunted, tainted with the blood of the innocent and the intent of evil. It was best to sell everything we could, dump the rest.

In the waiting room of the funeral home, Ian looked up the various memorabilia online to see what we could get in return. Apparently, history buffs and neo-Nazis were always in the market for what was in this box. "Gonna have no problem selling this shit."

"Then we can afford to give the fucker a proper sendoff after all." As I sifted through the box, I found myself too reminiscent. My hand closed around the filled sheath of a large dagger and my chest swelled with warmth. On the hilt, I ignored what Terry called the Parteiadler, the emblem of an eagle that represented the Nazi party.

Taking hold of the hilt, I pulled the dagger from its sheath to reveal German words engraved upon the blade.

My eyes blurred slightly as they misted. "He used to throw this at us when we were kids."

"What?" Ian replied, his voice laden with surprise and concern.

A smile found its way to my lips. "Yeah, as a game. Dodge the Dagger. Me and my brothers would run around the house, screamin', laughin', tryin' not to get stabbed." I chuckled as the fond memories flooded my mind.

"That's fun," my husband said, though his sarcasm flew over my head.

With a wide grin, I explained, "yeah, he threw it at me one time." I pointed the tip of the dagger at my face coming straight on to demonstrate, taking the blade gently into my hand. "I caught it midair." I paused as I gazed at the tip of the blade inches from my face, reliving the moment. "Cut the shit out of my hand, but...he was so proud of me."

Ian stared at me, wondering if I was even more fucked up than he ever thought. Hoping to snap me out of this haze of mourning a monster, he said, his sarcasm obvious now, "Aw?"

I met my husband's gaze then looked back to the dagger as though I had just woken from a dream. Assessing the dagger, I furrowed my brow and wondered, "fuck is wrong with me?" I asked more myself than Ian before the full reality of the item in my hand hit me. "How many Jews did this thing kill?"

I could feel one of the funeral home staff members pause behind me at what I had said. I ignored him and confessed, "still kinda wanna keep it, though. Is that weird?"

Ian smiled at the man behind us and told me to put the dagger back into the box.

When we were finally seen, I let Ian do most of the talking. I was out of my depths and people in suits always responded better to him than to me. It could have been the FUCK U-UP tattooed on my fists or simply the impatient, unamused look on my face. It could have been my inability to speak without cursing. Whatever the case, it was easier this way.

Ian was hoping to get us the cheapest option. "Terry wanted to be cremated. No funeral, no fancy jar."

The funeral director told us what the cheapest package included, costing $699.

"Oof," Ian said with civil displeasure.

I wasn't afraid to raise my voice. "699 bucks for you to light a fuckin' match?"

Trying to reel me in, my husband told me, "it's a little more complicated than that. They gotta transport the body, all that."

"That's all-inclusive, no hidden fees," the funeral director assured me, "a plastic urn is included."

Good enough, I thought, ready to have this done and over with. "Great, man. Whatever."

My relief was quickly trampled as we proceeded with the arrangements. They needed to know where Terry's body was for transfer.

Tapping away on a tablet he used to make the arrangements, the funeral director glanced up at me with a troubled, "um--"

Ian jumped on it right away. "Something wrong?"

Reluctantly, the funeral director informed us that my father's body had already been transferred. "Unfortunately, if you don't claim the body within 24 hours, they give it to the county."

I tried to gauge Ian's response, hoping he knew what to do.

"And then what?" my husband asked for me. "Where is it?"

"Johnson Creek Cemetery," he told us with a heavy heart. "It's a communal ground."

"The fuck does communal ground mean?" I questioned.

He didn't want to say it, but he had to. "A mass grave for the indigent."

"The what?"

"Poor people," Ian clarified before addressing the funeral director. "Can we get it back?"

Sympathetic, the funeral director told us, "I don't think so."