I'll spare you the details of my father's call on Friday night. I could hear my mum crying on the background and he was using his this-is-serious-stuff voice. I really really wanted to tell them that this was another of Mark's stunts, that he was probably doing so to avoid taxes or some mafia stuff like that, but I couldn't. See, my brother and me hated each other in that special way that brother's do. We would always be fighting, unless we had a common enemy, and as we grew up, our biggest common enemy was our parents. I would never betray Mark's trust.
Okay, forget that. I would probably betray Mark's trust for the right amount of money, if they were women involved and if I was sure that no permanent damage could happen. If Mark was going to be faking his own death to avoid some dangers, telling my parents what he was doing could be the wrong move. Mark usually knew what he was doing, or at least he pretended too and usually got lucky. Sorry, Mum and Dad, but if Mark needed you to believe he was dead, I'm sure he had his reasons.
No, I mean it. It's him that was the jerk. Why am I the one who gets to feel like crap about the whole thing? Why the hell did I get to be the brother with a conscience?
So yes, my parents were depressed, my brother was, quote unquote: dead and I had to plan a date and a funeral for the same day. I thought about asking Wendy to postpone, but I was so upset about the selfishness of my brother that I decided to keep the date. "Hey, look at me, I'm at your funeral and pretty happy 'cause I just had lunch with a great girl!" I talked to Wendy and we agreed to meet at 2PM so after lunch I could take her home, go back, take a shower and change, and be at my parent's right on time.
I knew my father wanted me to spend those days with them, but I had managed to avoid it. My father was an old school worker, so when I mentioned that even through the grief I felt, there was no way I could leave the shop unattended for the weekend, as this was one of our busiest periods, I actually think I made him proud.
Thanks goodness I had been too lazy to tell him I quitted six months ago.
Then, as I was wondering what to wear for my date, my dad called again and reminded me that I needed to be at their house at 15:30.
"What?" I asked.
"We'll go by car, there's a chauffeur taking us to church from here."
"But I thought you said six in the evening?" I protested.
"We'll bury him at six, the funeral is at four."
"But," I started and stopped straight away, realising what a jerk I would make of myself if I was to tell my parents that I'd rather be on a date that at my brother's funeral. "I'll be there, Dad."
I then manage to get into the distraught brother's role, and express my grief and even comfort him while I was hearing in my head and the Oscar goes to... You wouldn't believe how much I hated Mark then.
My plans had once again been blown away. I tried to find a work-around but found out it was impossible so, at the end, I realised that I had to go to my date suited up.
See, when you see someone under forty with a suit nowadays they usually fall into one of two archetypes. There's the successful yuppie wanker who's fuelled by cocaine and stupid enough to believe every lie that got told on the eighties, or it's just teens who had been robbed of the dignity by being forced to wear a disguise that doesn't suit them, pun not intended. I was the perfect example of the second type. I was quite skinny and slouched a bit, so no matter what I tried, my shoulders looked weird and when looking at myself on the mirror I could only see what looked like a rag doll, a stupid cartoon like kid whose gotten into his dads closet by mistake.
Besides, how would I show the world that I was clever and witty if I didn't have a t-shirt with a funny slogan on it?
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