Recently a friend passed away. Other words or terms to explain what happened include, ‘perished, kicked the bucket, wearing a pine overcoat, ceased to exist, expired, croaked, departed, etc.’ Being that most of his family had perished before him, his only brother who had not yet expired held a wake in his honor. I’m not a fan of funerals and, without MC Static Cling by my side to put the ‘fun’ in funeral, was pleased to learn 1) they would only be holding a wake and 2) it would be at a local gay bar.
The wake took place yesterday; three weeks after we learned of his death. If you’re doing the math, which I’m hoping you are, that was on National Corndog Day (NCD). As we were enjoying the festivities of NCD, Tree entered the kitchen and shared the news, “Ricky is dead.” “Is he OK?” I asked, quoting Small Apartments. “No. He’s dead,” Tree said while laughing. Have I mentioned were assholes? If you who haven’t seen the movie, don’t, just take my word, the ‘your landlord is dead’ scenes are amazing.
Tree and I discussed our attire the night before the wake. He planned to wear a black dress shirt, tie, manpris and a fedora. I hadn’t decided on a dress, but I had a vintage black pillbox funeral hat with a veil that I had been dying to wear – pun intended. I arrived in my hat to be greeted by one of my favorite drag queens, “Oh girl, only white people would wear a veil in the afternoon. I should have worn a hat like that.” “Good mourning to you too,” I replied and sat on the stool next to her. Like me, funerals weren’t her thing, nor is death. “You know,” she told me, “Right after he died one of my friends told me that his mama and brother came and got him. I was like, ‘His mama and brother? I thought they were dead!’ Then my friend said, ‘They are dead. Their spirits took him away.’ Crazy shit.” With that, we raised our glasses in his honor, I raised my veil so I could drink and we made a toast, “To good mourning!”