Cremains

By Anthony Neil Smith

They handed Blake his father – a plastic bag inside the plastic box. If he wanted anything fancier, an urn or a sweet wooden box, he’d have to pour the old man in himself.
“Cremains,” the funeral man said. “These are his cremains,” which sounded ridiculous to Blake.
“What do you call buried remains? Burmains? What do you call missing remains? Missmains? Jesus.”
“I have another family coming in. If we’re done here…” The funeral man waved towards the office door.
Another family. Sure.
Blake was alone. His mother had moved away from Minnesota when Blake was seventeen, thirty years ago. Took his younger sister along, but told Blake, “You’re too close to graduating. No need to flip your world.”
Weekly calls became monthly before creeping to four times a year. Now only texts. She was in Oregon awhile, then Utah, married fifteen years to a man Blake had met twice.
No family. Dad was estranged from goddamned near everyone he shared blood with other than Blake. When he thought about it, Blake only defended the man out of spite. Dad wasn’t a great father, but at least he’d stayed put, paid for everything Blake needed to live, but otherwise ignored him. By the time Mom left, Blake was pretty much on his own anyway – Dad a workaholic, a gym nut, always out on eHarmony dates, not at all willing to engage his son head-on anymore. They’d go days without more than “You okay for money?” or “Trash night.”
Dad poured his love into two Boston Terriers named Moose and Squirrel. It was Blake mowing the yard over piles of their shit. Before he left for college, he stopped washing the
mower, let the shit and grass and muck cake onto it. When he came home for Thanksgiving, it was exactly how he’d left it. Dad had hired a neighbor kid to mow. Plus, no Thanksgiving dinner either because Dad took some thrice-widowed real estate agent to a casino buffet. Blake ended up at a friend’s house for turkey, tater tot hot dish, and cranberry sauce. He didn’t bother coming home for Christmas.
Once he graduated and moved to Austin for a tech job, his parents and sister became background noise. If they wanted to reach him, they could friend him on Facebook. He fell in love a couple of times, and then again with Southeast Asia, flying over a few times a year. He married a remarkable Hmong woman who played metal guitar. He started a YouTube channel
about pre-code Hollywood flicks.
Life was great.
“It sure was,” he said to no one, driving Dad’s ashes back to the house he’d entered for the first time two days earlier, blood still thick and sticky over all the kitchen appliances. Why Dad chose the kitchen to blow his head off, fuck knew. Maybe he imagined some smug satisfaction thinking of Blake having to clean it all up in order to resell the place.
Like hell he would. He’d just hire someone to do it for him. Thanks, Dad.
Blake pulled into the garage beside his Dad’s Porche Cayenne. That’s right, Dad, if you’re going to spend a hundred grand on a luxury sports car, make it a cookie-cutter SUV with a tan paint job. Tan. In fact, the whole McMansion with its three car garage, six bedrooms, three baths, a great room, den, office, basement game room, and two decks each with a Jacuzzi, was proof his Dad’s taste was shit.
It was supposed to be easy. Dad didn’t have a formal will, but a folded-up note in his wallet said, If I die, it’s all Blake’s. Blake almost thought he meant, It’s all Blake’s fault.
Blake planned on putting the car up for sale, the house up for sale. Hire a junk trunk to haul away most of the rest. After a few laps in the house, the garage, the basement, the backyard shed, Blake realized there was absolutely nothing he wanted to remember his dad by.
“I’m letting it all go,” he’d told the lawyer. “Not even looking for the best deal. Just the fastest.”
He set his dad’s ashes on the breakfast bar. The rest of the house was furnished with garish brand-name furniture, a TV in every room. His could’ve stayed if he’d wanted, but no. The blood stains, the lack of a suicide note, the ridiculous amount of money to decorate this place with jumbo white leather sectionals and overstuffed recliners and tables with too many drawers and a sailing motif even though Dad never owned a boat. He’d rather stay in a hotel. He was back one more time before leaving town, just to make sure, since the lawyer said he’d handle it without needing Blake around. Obligation, maybe. Dotting i’s, crossing t’s.
Then the phone rang.
Of course his dad still had a landline. The same number all these years, Blake still remembered it. He let it go to the machine. Old-school. Digital answering machine built into the charging base of the wireless handset. A retractable antenna. Black plastic. But as soon as the machine picked up, Dad’s voice haunting the place – I’m not available at the moment. Leave your message and I’ll get right back to you – the caller hung up.
The phone immediately rang again.
Not a ring. More like a pleasant gurgle.
Once more, the machine. Once more, the hang-up.
Gurgle…gurgle…gurgle.
Blake swore, if this turned out to be a telemarketer –
Swiped it up. “Yes, Noyce residence?”
“Blake? Blake? It’s your mother. Can you hear me? Is this the machine again?”
He hadn’t heard her voice in years. “It’s me. I hear you.”
“Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get in touch with you? The number you gave me doesn’t work.”
The number he gave her was fine. He’d blocked her.
“You heard about Dad, then.”
“Of course I did. It would have been nice to have heard it from you instead of second or third hand.”
I’m hanging in there, thanks for asking. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“Of course I care! The father of my children? How could you think I didn’t care?”
Blake ticked off reasons in his head. “You caught me on my way out.”
“Wait a minute. Have you talked to your sister?”
“Why?”
“Have you?”
He hadn’t blocked his sister, they never had reason to talk. Facebook birthday posts, always the same photo of them as kids. None since. “Not lately.”
“I told her to call you. I did.”
“Well, she didn’t.”
“Listen. She’s on her way.”
Blake squeezed his eyes shut. “On what way?”
“Your way. She flew out, wants to see the house, see if there’s anything she’d like to have.”
He had plenty to say. Pl-en-ty. P. L.E…
No, fuck it. Not going to…
“Like what? I didn’t know she remembered Dad at all.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course she did. Of course.”
Every of course struck his ear as cha-ching.
“I mean, for real though. Like what?”
“She could use the car, right? You wouldn’t mind her taking the car, would you?”
The car. The car. Like it’s a used Honda. “The Porche, you mean?”
“Do you need it? I didn’t think you needed it.”
She was oblivious. Blake remembered now, the reason the calls dwindled. He would tell her what he was up to, his interests, his accomplishments, but she replied Oh good. That’s nice. Then bowled him over with her many health problems, money problems, marriage problems, on and on, until he wondered if she’d forgotten Blake was on the other end and it was a help line instead.
“There’s no will, Mom. I was going to sell it all. If you need some money, if she does, I’ll think about it.”
“Michael Blake.”
Fuck. His full name. No one ever called him Michael. “What?”
“She’s your sister. She didn’t have it as easy as you did. She didn’t know her own father. She doesn’t have the same talents as you. The least you can do is let her have some of these things. They’re just things. Only things. You don’t need them.”
Blake looked around the kitchen at the things. The things caked with now-brown-black blood and hair and brain. The Merry Maids were scheduled for tomorrow. What else would she want? The furniture? The giant wristwatches? The gold bars in the safe? The seventy-nine inch UHD plasma gold and diamond TV? The fake Gaugin Dad swore was real?
“Can’t you wait for her to get there? Let her take a look around? It’s her dad too, Blake.”
Tick tick tick tick.
Boom.
“How far out is she?”
“She’s at the airport, renting a car. A half-hour. An hour? Thank you. I mean it.”
He waited for her to ask how he was doing or how his wife was doing or ask him out to visit, go see Zion National Park.
But she didn’t.
“Okay. Yeah.”
After she sputtered through a few more byes, he hung up. Felt the tips of his ears go hot. Tasted tin foil. A sneer no one could see aimed at his dad’s cremains on the bar. “Should’ve left it to her, then.”
He grabbed the plastic box and headed for the door.
Stopped, backpedaled. If she wanted it, she could have it.
He searched a few cabinets, found a saute pan. He set it on the stove and poured in one of several expensive but untouched extra virgin olive oil bottles his Dad had left on the counter. Emptied it. Turned on the flame, hot as it would go.
He took a butter knife from the drawer and unscrewed the bottom of Dad’s plastic tomb, his first look at the big fat bag of grey and white ash, some bone shards peppered through. Opened the bag, reached in for a handful, then threw it in the pan, watch it swirl around like oregano. Some of the ashes sparked the flames when they missed the pan. Blake imagined the smoke and fire when it boiled over. Refried Dad. Another handful on top of the first.
He looked at his dusty hand. Whatever. Could be any ash. A campfire. A burned pile of paperwork. Nothing special about it. He wiped it on his jeans.
In the garage, Blake set his dad on a workbench. Might as well let him stay with his beloved shitty house. Right before climbing into the car, he took a long look at the fucking Porche.
Sigh.
He hunted the mostly empty shelves until he found something funnel-like. The top of an orange juice half-gallon, filthy. Blake remembered. Same he’d used to pour gasoline into the old mower so it wouldn’t spill. Why had his dad kept this? Another quick scan of the garage, and there it was. In the corner, almost hidden from view. The old mower. Blake stepped over, ran his fingers along the handle. Goddamn, still mucked with mud, dead grass, and dog shit, turned to cement after decades.
Fuck the lump in his throat. Time bomb in the kitchen. No time.
He stuck the funnel into the Porche’s gas tank, upended his dad’s ashes into it. He shook the funnel until all of his son-of-a-bitch father sifted into the tank.
There you go, sis. All yours.
Muted smoke alarms from inside. As he backed out of the garage, black smoke billowed from the front door. He could’ve sworn he passed his sister a few blocks later, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses, but he stared straight ahead, on his way to the airport to see if he could catch an earlier flight home.
When the calls started at the gate, he blocked his sister’s number. From the lawyer. Blocked. From unknown numbers with Utah area codes. Blocked.
From his wife.
“Hey babe. I’ve got some good news.”
There was a crowd of airport cops headed down the terminal hallway, staring right at Blake. But they could’ve been here for anyone. Anyone at all.

Anthony Neil Smith is a novelist whose short fiction has appeared in HAD, Bull, Cowboy Jamboree, Maudlin House, Reckon Review, The Gorko Gazette, and many more, as well as nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He’s a professor at Southwest Minnesota State University, and current editor of online lit mag Revolution John. One of his stories appeared in Best American Mystery & Suspense 2023.