Requiescat

The black suit is stiff and shiny, but it’s required wearing.

My old man was big shit in this town.

Everybody is here.

Reporters, the Mayor, even that basketball player.

All of them lining up to tell me how sorry they are for my loss.

He was a great man, your father.

He’ll be missed.

He’s gone to a better place.

The women go milk-eyed and pat my arm, the men give the hearty hand-pump and stare into my face like I’m in on the joke.

My old man, pillar of the community, solid gold son-of-a-bitch who got away with murder.

Friday Fictioneers

9 thoughts on “Requiescat

  1. Like the voice in this. Snide, direct, crude, disdainful of his father’s hypocrisy. I also imagine him as being a prep school kid, what with the Latin title.

    Im not familiar with milk eyed– the urban dictionary said aomething like lovey-dovey? Also i think theres a “how” missing in the 5th paragraph.

    The question is: he knows about the murder, now what’s he gonna do about it?

  2. As Jilly says, you’ve described a young man close to the end of his tether. What will happen if he tells? What worse things will happen if he doesn’t tell, as his frustration makes him murderously violent? It’s a terrific piece of flash that takes us way beyond both beginning and end of the text.

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