As we entered the school the bell for the end of recess blared loudly causing me to let go of Teresa and Samantha's hands and clap my hands over my ears. Whoever put one of the bells directly over the door had to be either a sadist or an idiot. Once the bell stopped ringing Teresa and Samantha said they had to go to the restroom before they took off running towards their destination. "No running!" Cathleen Woods yelled at the giggling girls before muttering "Damned kids." to herself as she rounded the corner. Upon seeing me and Shelby she leaned down and growled out "You have five minutes before the class bell rings. If you aren't in class by then I will have you writing lines for an hour after school.". I could honestly say it might have been intimidating if not for two things that made it seem almost comedic. With the way she bent down in her attempt to intimidate me and Shelby her shirt was pulled down by the weight of her breasts revealing she had brown nipples and no bra. The other thing that made it more comedic was the fact that Clayton's mother Mrs. Shaw had just entered through the primary entrance and was slowly tapping her foot in irritation. Mrs. Shaw was a ridiculously heavy built woman who stood at nearly seven feet tall and was the parent Clayton inherited his height from. Walking silently despite her size she pulled her baseball mitt sized hand back and gave Cathleen a spank hard enough that it knocked her to all fours "No bullying children." Mrs. Shaw's gravelly voice cut through the sudden silence with all the grace of a three point earthquake. I couldn't help but laugh as Cathleen gave out an eep of shock and fear before scurrying away. Mrs. Shaw narrowed her eyes slightly at me before turning her gaze to look at Shelby. Giving a smile revealing pearly white teeth she laughed a deep baritone laugh "You are in my little Clay's class yes?." she asked. I simply nodded at her question drawing another laugh from her. Nodding her head she pointed at the direction Cathleen scurried off to "You go to class now before tiny woman comes back." she said in her gravelly voice. "Tiny woman?" Shelby and I blurted out at the same time in confusion. "Ya, not tiny here." Mrs. Shaw said before putting her hand flat above her head to sign for height "or here." she said before lifting her mountainous chest up before letting it drop with a heavy clap "but here and here." she said before touching the side of her head and then where her heart was. "She closed mind off from world, thinks she always right and her heart is more shriveled than raisin. Now no more talking go to class now.". With her last bit said she made shooing motions with her hands. The walk to class was uneventful after that with Samantha and Teresa leaving the bathroom shortly after Shelby passed it. As soon as I entered Ms. Melom's class I decided to get a jump on the potential Melody kleptomania problem. I wasn't one for running but in that moment I decided to embrace my inner child's overabundance of energy. "Ms. Melom! Ms. Melom! I found a pet rock!" I said as I ran up to her while she was facing the other direction. She showed her quality as a teacher when she turned around calmly rather than jumping like I half expected her to do. "That's nice Jon. Just set it on your desk and grab a book." she said with a smile on her face. That was rather anticlimactic. Continuing on with my exhausting imitation of childish glee I pulled Persephone out to show Ms. Melom. Persephone turned the egg shaped shell she was stored in a dull gray in color to make it easier to avoid catching anyone's eyes. With a smile on her lips and a twinkle of her eye Ms. Melom leaned down and happily entered what she thought was a land of make believe "What a pretty rock. Does it have a name?" she asked in that kind tone that she used for all of her students, even after they were all grown up. With a cheery tone filling my voice I swiftly replied "Persephone!" before I gave her a hug and ran to my desk with a book in my hand. Looking at Ms. Melom out of the corner of my eyes revealed that her smile grew a little wider after the hug. Allowing a small smile of my own to grow I set Persephone on the desk before looking at the book I had grabbed. As Shelby, Samantha, and Teresa sat down I cleared my throat and began reading "Green eggs and Ham by Doctor Seuss.". Looking up at Teresa I leaned in and whispered conspiratorially "This sounds like a health risk to me." causing her to give a little giggle and the rest of my table to quirk their lips in amusement. For the rest of the story I simply replaced the word ham with Spam when it was my turn to read. While it wasn't as inspired as my See Spot Run skit it managed to get a small smile out of my reading partners. After reading time was over we switched to writing for the last few hours of school. After helping Teresa adjust her grip I went on to start my own writing. After a while I looked up and saw there were just four measly minutes left of school. Four measly minutes between me and investments that would help my plans greatly in the future. Four measly minutes before I could begin making the world a better place. Once the bell finally rang Ms. Melom calmly dismissed the class with a cheery wave and a "see you tomorrow children.". As I was leaving with Teresa holding my right hand and Samantha holding my left Shelby yelled out "See you tomorrow Jon!" before she ran ahead of my little group. Once we got to the car I noticed that only grandpa was inside shrugging my shoulders I let Samantha and Teresa get in first before getting in after them. The ride home was filled with excitement and nervousness in equal measures for me. Would grandpa and grandma listen to my suggestions? Would there be enough money to fulfill all my plans? I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn't notice Samantha and Teresa fall asleep during the ride. Once the car stopped at our house I gently nudged the girls awake and we got out of the car. The smell of pizza hit me with the subtlety of a sledgehammer the moment I opened the door. When I was in my late teens after grandpa passed away pizza was a common smell due to how quick and easy it was to make, as a child however pizza meant one of two things. Something great happened and we were the luckiest people in the world or they hoped the pizza kept me calm enough to listen until grandpa and grandma got done talking. Nervousness began clouding my mind, grandma was a compulsive buyer at times and knew how to keep grandpa occupied while she bought up as many 'good deals' as she could. Her humming in the kitchen while slicing the pizza told me she bought a lot of good deals. Samantha helped Teresa into her seat before hopping up into her own while I went and got paper plates like I usually did when we had pizza. Grandpa took a seat as I put a plate in front of everyone's seats. Once the final plate was in place grandma passed out the slices to everyone revealing the pizzas to be a mix of supreme and the old Polish favorite of sausage, mushrooms, onions, and garlic. After a quick prayer we began devouring the food in front of us, I am still surprised at how good everything tastes compared to the post civil war synthesized foods. Grandma kicked off the dreaded conversation "Now children as you know we won the lottery and we got to talking, grandpa and I.". Samantha and Teresa began bouncing in their seats with excitement not yet able to tell grandma's method of slowly winding the conversation up to deliver bad news like I could. Grandpa reached into his pocket and pulled out several sheets of printed paper, turned them toward us and began to explain what was on them in his deep and steady voice "We used the money to pay off the rest of what was owed on this house and the next door house as well as buy stocks in several companies.". As soon as I thought that it could have been worse grandma chimed in as she pulled out some papers from her purse "Oh yes! I just had to ask Rita what companies to invest in since her and Donald are such good investors.". My heart dropped and I damn near dropped a nugget in terror, don't get me wrong great aunt Rita and great uncle Donald were financially smart for all intents and purposes. But when you know them as well as I do you know that's only because uncle Donald is a truck driver that earns a ridiculous amount due to his forty plus years of experience otherwise aunt Rita's shit investments would have had them living in a cardboard box. It was shortly after uncle Don's death that aunt Rita finally realized how much money he was bringing in. Completely unaware of my internal thought process grandma continued talking "We decided to follow their investment plans and invested in Radio Shack, Blockbuster, and Stein Mart.". My plans were officially fucked Block Buster went the way of the disco in twenty thirteen, with Radio Shack following in seventeen, and Stein Mart in twenty twenty. I could see the nostalgia in two of their purchases after all everyone in the family could tell you that my deceased uncle Michael loved Radio Shack and Block Buster. As for Stein Mart it was doing fairly well until the Covid outbreak and would have continued to do well if not for the fact that the company seemed to ignore the need to modernize and embrace internet shopping. Thankfully grandma was to absorbed in her good feelings and grandpa in his seventh slice of pizza to notice my brooding. After dinner I helped clean up while Samantha and Teresa ran up to take a shower. Once everything was cleaned up I took a shower and crawled into bed pulling the already asleep girls next to me and joined them in the land of nod.
My dream continued on from where it left off. A rather unnerving event in all honesty even with Shelby's explanation fairly fresh in my mind. The smell of burning meat told me I left the chicken in a little to long, the black as coal coating on the chicken wings told me they were in for more than just a little to long. Shrugging my shoulders I proceeded to snarf down the wings once they were cooled enough. Going back upstairs I rummaged for a bit in the clothing drawer before I grabbed the least mouse munched pair of good pants I had as well as one of my old button up shirts. Once dressed I stuffed the house key into my pocket and grabbed an old windbreaker before putting it on. Looking at my sole less and soulless shoes I slipped them on and began my exit from the house. The moment I stepped outside the cold gales cut into my body deeper than any knife. I immediately turned my ass around and went into the house where I would wait until the wind decided to die down. Three hours of doing nothing but counting the paint flecks peeling from the walls were absolutely maddening, especially with the fact that I'm certain I counted one at least twice which means I'm going to have to count them all again. When things finally settled down I stuffed the windbreaker with some of my rattier shirts for warmth, gorilla taped the sleeve ends so none of the shirts would fall out, and with a deep breath and grit teeth I took my chances. Trudging through the snow for such a long time reminded me of that old Jeff Dunham joke that Walter said about walking up hill both ways, in the snow, with a boner, searching for a store that sold condoms. I don't know why but I just couldn't stop laughing as the joke repeated in my head endlessly. Maybe it was stress, maybe I really had lost my mind, either way once I hit town most of the people that were on the streets started making space between me and them due to my constant laughing. I'm sure they thought I was born crazy or lost my mind. Honestly at this point I wouldn't be able to argue with any of them on that matter. My journey was far more successful once I calmed my self and began asking for directions and information about the funeral home from the few people that weren't actively avoiding me. Everyone I ran into on the way to the job called him Mr. Lurch. He was described as a silent older man that kept to himself most of the time. Upon entering the funeral parlor I found several things out near instantly after opening my mouth and loudly asking "Is there a Mr. Lurch here?". I learned that no one knew his actual name because no one actually knew who he was or where he came from. Instead they just called him that due to his similarity in appearance to the Addam's Family character of the same name. I learned that he really didn't like being called Mr. Lurch when I got sucker punched hard and fast enough that I fell unconscious, and remained standing up. I can admit on my great and mighty manly pride that I had one hell of a headache for several hours after returning to the land of the living, only to see a man leaning over me with wide unblinking eyes. I can fully admit with my manly pride intact that I screamed like a prepubescent girl seeing a giant spider. A rasping sound drew my attention as a man came around the corner before moving the very well made up mannequin back to its corner. Pulling up a chair he sat down heavily in it before making the hand sign for 'start talking'.
Ignoring my headache it took me several tense minutes of explaining that I was looking for a job and on the way here several of his customers told me that Mr. Lurch was his actual name. Thankfully he ended up giving me the benefit of the doubt as well as the job. Looking closer at him throughout the following days as he handed me several sticky notes listing my jobs I noticed several peculiarities about him. The most important one was that he wasn't ignoring me or deeming me a waste of oxygen he literally couldn't talk for the most part. I guess in a sense it was true when the people said he was a silent man. He rarely talking due to the fact that he was rendered incapable of most "proper" speech by throat injuries he took during the war that he covered up with makeup. His skin was yellowed as was his sclera from a slowly and steadily failing liver that he refused to treat. His face was set in a permanent grimace similar to one would make while in pain thanks to shrapnel damage. When he pulled his lips back in his attempt at a smile it exposed his large, squared, yellow teeth. Every time I saw him at work he was wearing the same old worn black tuxedo with bloodstained white leather shoes. Of course his sense of humor was just a morbid as his appearance, he would move really slowly making about as much sound as a cat despite his infirmities then he would knock something sturdy over to see how high I would jump while steadily emitting a rasping cough like sound that I ended up finding out was his version of laughter. Honestly I think him scaring me actually became a form of entertainment or therapy for him. A few weeks later I decided to trust him and tell him all the locations of the bodies that we protected during the war. A few days later I saw him clicking spoons and grunting next to the mouth parts of a phone for a few minutes. A few hours later several trucks and hearses filled with black body bags pulled up to the back entrance of the building. Each unloaded and opened bag revealed bodies that were familiar to me, some were elderly, others were in the prime of their life, far to many were children. Each body was moved via a hidden elevator into a cooling room the size of a high school gymnasium to protect them. Rather than be allowed to help with taking care of the bodies I was delegated to cleaning up the hearses and trucks from any punctured bags once they were emptied. It took a couple weeks of learning to properly prepare a body via a specialized mannequin before he even took the time to think about allowing me to begin working on any of the deceased. Honestly it made me respect him even more after all the lessons. He used a child predator's corpse that was surrendered to science in order to show me that without the proper knowledge messing up the features of a body is horrifyingly easy to do, and near impossible to fix. I still wonder if it makes me a bad person for laughing at the ridiculousness of the grave keeper using a bundle of double A batteries and a length of copper wire to stimulate certain nerves to make the body's face screw up so it looked like it took a big bite out of a lemon before stimulating yet another cluster to make the eyes slowly cross. Of course once I was hands on knees with laughter he took a slightly larger battery out of his back pocket that had its own insulated wire and touched the corpse's back with the tip making it sit up with a loud cracking of unused joints. The moment I fell on my ass he laughed that raspy laugh. After a few more moments to control his laughing he calmed down and rapidly jabbed several spots on the body with the stronger electrical device. The change was horrifying, the mouth and face made audible cracking sounds as the eyes grew wide and the mouth parted in a silent scream. The arms cracked and creaked as they slowly rose with clawed fingers as if warding away an invisible attacker. "Re ect uh de." he grunted out before leaving. I didn't understand his way of talking back then but in that moment I didn't need to after all it was an easy message to comprehend respect the dead. Eventually the memory stream faded to black as I began waking up.
Looking around I saw that it was still the middle of the night based on how dark it was. I knew that there was absolutely no way I was going to be getting back to sleep, my mind was far to active. I knew my grandparents were logical and pragmatic in the extreme other than grandma's random purchases of fancy which was a good thing. What wasn't a good thing is the simple fact that they invested most of the lottery money they had left over in stocks that would loose most or all of their values within the next ten to twenty years. I had to find a way to make money that was legal, long lasting, and wouldn't draw attention to me until I was in a position where my actions either wouldn't or couldn't be contested. I learned far to late in my prior life that there were three types of power in the world, monetary power, military power, and political power. The man with all three was loved, hated, and respected in equal measure. It was easy to know what brought in money since food, medicine, and luxury were always desired by humanity. Anyone with enough money could buy up military power in the form of black market weapons and mercenaries. Political power on the other hand was the least stable thing in the United States simply because everyone wanted control and not a single person truly wanted to share it which made my whole island idea seem even more tempting to me. Why would I want to fight constantly to hold on to political might when the changing of a president or a new law made to reduce civilian authority could throw a rock at my delicately balanced little house of cards ruining everything in a single moment? No, if I wanted true power and equality for me and mine I would need to go elsewhere. There were several unclaimed islands within United States controlled waters and there were several corrupt politicians who could easily be bought out to pass the laws that I had in mind. Again the only problem was money and again my mind drifted to more and more potentials as sleep continued to evade me like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.