The Great Funeral Home Candy Bar Heist
1.
“I’m telling you guys, last Halloween me and my cousin trick-or-treated Dombrowski Funereal Home and they were giving away full-sized Snicker bars,” Skiba said.
Brian didn’t buy it. He’d come to a point in their friendship where he doubted every word spouted from Skiba’s lips. In the brief moment he caught Milsap’s sight line, he relayed his skepticism with a subtly arched eyebrow.
Milsap was a bit more pragmatic, though he rarely told the complete truth himself about anything. “Skiba, you lie through your yella teeth. Why even trick-or-treat a funereal home? Did you trick-or-treat the rectory next door? I’d hate to see what kinda treat Father John gave you. Whatever it was, I betcha it wasn’t full-sized.”
“Milsap, you’re such a dick.”
Milsap shrugged. Whether Skiba told the truth or not mattered little. If he wanted a full-sized candy bar, all he had to do was walk into White Hen Pantry, grab a Whatchamacallit, stuff it in his pocket, and walk out.
They sat on the concrete, backs against the brick wall of Olympia Lanes. Summer had ended, and October had brought in some blessedly cold air.
Brian’s kid brother, Wesley, exited the bowling alley as Skiba explained that he trick-or-treated everywhere. There was not a door in existence he was too proud to knock on, begging for candy, when Halloween rolled around.
Brian stood. “Well, did you get it?”
Wesley reached into the pocket of his stonewashed denim and produced a pack of Lucky Strikes. “I got it.” He handed the pack to Milsap who’d bankrolled the cigarette heist.
“Christ, man, what took you so fucking long? We figured you were in there curing the leaves yourself.” Brian said.
“The guy at the counter kept eyeballing me. I had to play a couple games of Bump N’Jump. Took forever for someone to finally come along and rent some shoes so I could get the smokes out of the vending machine.”
“You should’ve just went straight up and got the smokes. Fuck ‘em and feed ‘em to the fish. What they gonna say? They don’t want us to smoke, they should outlaw cigarette vending machines.” Milsap unwrapped the soft pack and smacked the pack against his palm several times.
“Tough talk for someone who stood outside the whole time,” Skiba said, still butt hurt over the candy bar slight. “I figure you just use your ninja skills and sneak in there.”
“I’m sensing some sarcasm which, why you’d want to make enemies with a ninja apprentice I don’t get. Anyway, I paid for them,” Milsap said. “I gotta go in and get them too, what do I need you guys for?”
Milsap doled cigarettes to Brian and Skiba before culling one out for himself.
“Can I have one?” Wesley asked.
Milsap glanced at his older brother. “Hell no. You’re too fucking young. If your mom and dad found out I’m giving cigarettes to an eleven-year-old, they’d string me up by my balls.”
“If your mom and dad found out you took their tithe money for the church and spent it on cigarettes, I bet you’d be twirling nun chucks in hell before you knew what hit you.”
“Well, damn,” Milsap said, shaking out an extra smoke. “I guess if you’re old enough to blackmail, you’re old enough to smoke.”
They walked west, across the field opposite Olympia Lanes. Pylons draped power lines across the mottled sky, raining cancerous rays on those foolish enough to live in close proximity.
The boys smoked their cigarettes. Milsap and Brian smoked theirs with a studied nonchalance. Skiba sucked angrily at his Lucky as though he wanted emphysema immediately. Wesley went easy on his, afraid of hacking or coughing or showing any other sign of weakness.
“So, Halloween’s tomorrow,” Milsap said. “We better figure out what kinda shit we’re going to get into. This’ll probably be the last time we can get into some mayhem and still get treated like kids.”
“I’m going trick-or-treating as a zombie,” Skiba said.
“Like the Michael Jackson video.” Milsap said.
“Thriller!” Wesley sang in a falsetto voice that made him a favorite with the priests of the Dioceses.
“Like the fucking George A. Romero movies,” Skiba said. “Day of the Dead. It’s on late night cable all the time. There’s this one army guy, they show the zombies just rip him apart and eat his guts while he’s still screaming. It’s awesome.”
“Haven’t seen it,” Milsap allowed. And he didn’t really want to see that shit, either. He liked horror movies as much as the next guy, but he didn’t want to see shit he couldn’t unsee. Since his mother’s death, Skiba had become a bit of a horror movie fanatic.
“I gotta agree with Milsap,” Brian said. “This will probably be our last time we get to run the streets in costume without it being sad and pathetic.”
“How about another cig?” Wesley asked.
“Me, too,” Skiba said.
“All right. All right.” Milsap said. “Go easy, guys. They’re an endangered species, here. Especially you, Skiba. It’s one thing not having money. I know your mom’s dead and your dad’s a raving alcoholic, but the least you could have done was volunteer to grab the smokes out of the bowling alley and not rely on an eleven-year-old to do your dirty work.”
“You’re such a prick. I don’t want to get busted, man.”
“I don’t want to get busted,” Milsap mocked, handing him a cigarette. “You’re a free agent, now, Skiba. You can do what you want.”
“I don’t wanna do nothing.”
“You still got that Michael Meyers mask?” Brian asked.
“Hanging off the bed post,” Milsap said.
“Father John puts it on every time he tucks you into bed,” Skiba said.
“You just smoked your last Lucky Strike, buddy.”
“Shut up, both of ya. I got an idea for our last Halloween hurrah.”
2.
“Shit. What the hell you put all over me?” Milsap sputtered.
“That’s just the Elmer’s glue drying,” Skiba said. “It’s getting stiff in the cold is all.”
“I don’t dig it,” Milsap huffed, eyeing Skiba.
“It’s sticky on me, too,” Wesley offered.
They were gathered in the alley behind Dombrowski’s Funereal. There was the rear entrance where the real corpses were brought in. Where Skiba’s mom was brought in four months or so ago.
Milsap wondered what it would be like living in the house across the alley from the funereal home. How often would you stand at the bedroom window watching the meat wagons make their deliveries?
Anyone looking out the window, now, would see four amateur zombies smoking the last of Milsap’s Lucky Strikes. Half full grocery bags of candy dangled from their hands like the severed heads of their enemies. A larger garbage bag slouched on the ground between them.
Milsap felt like a Mongoloid who’d been sniffing glue, poorly, all night. His face felt frozen in place. It hurt to smirk. Even raising his eyebrow seemed a facial impossibility. Brian, Welsey, and Skiba’s faces were similarly mortified with the tissue, corn syrup, and glue.
“It’s gonna take a goddam jackhammer to get this shit off,” Milsap sulked.
Skiba surveyed his handiwork. It beat out the make-up work from Dawn of the Dead. That was for sure.
“I think you guys look great.”
Despite the cold weather, there was an impressive turn-out for this year’s Halloween. Milsap figured he’d passed at least fifty kids running the streets.
“All right,” Brian said. “Let’s see if Skiba’s full of shit or not.”
“I’m just saying last year it was full sized bars,” Skiba hedged.
They crept out of the shadows and inundated themselves with a group of fifth graders they recognized from St. Casimir School, forming an odd fellowship. A witch, a werewolf, Darth Vader, Spiderman, and four shambling zombies.
“Heard they’re passing out full-sized candy bars,” Skiba whispered to the werewolf as they approached the front doors.
“That’s the rumor,” the werewolf replied.
Skiba smiled as smugly as his make-up allowed. “That’s pretty cool, ain’t it.”
“It’s just a candy bar, dude.”
Dombrowski, himself, owner and mortician, stood in the tastefully furnished foyer. He wore a fine charcoal suit with a painfully knotted tie creating a second rot-colored Adam’s apple beneath the razor-burned original. Milsap dressed as though he anticipated a hot date with a cold corpse the moment the trick-or-treaters dispersed. He kept this observation to himself, though, for the moment. All he needed was Skiba to run his mouth…
Dombrowski did a mean double take of the four zombies on the fringes of the candy beggars.
Brian eyeballed the five tiers of full-sized Snicker bars to the left of the regal, straight-backed chair just inside the doorway. Halloween decorations were conspicuously absent, though the burgundy curtains concealing the viewing rooms incurred more dread than any jack-o-lantern or cardboard ghoul could have mustered.
Two fifth graders mumbled “trick-or-treat.” The zombies stared, dead-eyed.
Dombrowski chuckled nervously. “You boys look familiar. Didn’t I bury you last week?”
No one responded, though they all thought about Skiba’s mom interred right before the end of their little league season. The mortician chuckled again and dropped a Snickers bar, one in each bag. “Hope you all have a safe Halloween,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to see you boys back here too soon.”
The boys walked away without so much as a “thank you, kiss my ass,” nothing. The fifth graders sought sugary fortunes elsewhere. The zombies ducked back behind the funereal home. They shrugged out of their tattered Salvation Army shirts and put their winter jackets back on. Brian put on Milsap’s Michael Meyers mask. Milsap shrugged into his ninja uniform, the homemade zukin sat oddly atop his zombie make-up. He couldn’t keep his hands off his face. Wesley and Skiba wore generic devil masks they stole from the dime store.
“This ain’t gonna work,” Brian said.
“Sure it will,” Skiba said.
“Not with ninja joe here fucking with his mask constantly. Where’s your ninja discipline at?”
“Fuck you, man. Name a ninja had to run around with a face full of Elmer’s glue. Fuck. Brian’s right. And even if it did work, what do we get? Another fucking candy bar.”
“Then why’d we even bother?” Wesley said,
“I got a better idea,” Skiba said
3.
Wesley and Skiba stood on the steps outside the front doors of St. Casimir Church across the street. He could see Dombrowski’s silhouette in the foyer of the funeral home.
“Dombrowski sucks dead dicks.”
Milsap and Brian heaved garbage cans at the roll up bay door to the rear of the funeral home. “Open up, cocksucker. Special delivery.” Milsap punctuated his words with graceless jump kicks to the door.
As soon as Dombrowski’s shadow receded from the foyer, Skiba broke into a dead run for the door. He could hear the clanging and banging continue unabated. Lights flashed on in the upper windows of the rectory across the street to the right. Skiba could only assume it was the priest rolling off the backside of an altar boy to see what all the fuss was about.
Skiba reached the door and looked inside. The five tiers of candy bars were left unattended. Finally, a plan that worked, it was all his idea for once. He pulled the door open, his heart beating like a kettle drum, and he slipped inside for the first time since his mom’s funeral.
Down the corridor, he heard Dombrowski’s plainitive shouts. “What the hell’s wrong with you, you little sonsabitches. I’m calling the cops.”
“Fuck you, dead body fucker.”
“You dirty sonsabitches. I’m calling the cops, you hear me?”
Skiba scooped the candy bars in his arms. The doorbell rang as he turned to leave. Beyond the front door stood twin blond princesses like the little dead girls from Kubrick’s The Shining haunting the Barbie Overlook Hotel playset. The pretty little mouths dropped open into trembling O’s.
“Fuck,” Skiba muttered. He receded into the darkness of the funeral home clutching the candy bars. There were curtains everywhere. He hid behind the first set as Dombrowski emerged, red-faced, in the corridor.
“Sonsabitches. Dirty sonsabitches,” Dombrowski gritted his teeth.
Skiba witnessed such reactions countless times, throwing crab apples at cars, shooting BB guns at eighteen wheelers, chucking old railroad ties into the middle of the street. It was an adult’s inability to comprehend the adolescent joy of petty anarchy.
Several feet away from where Skiba hid smelling his own sour breath reflected on him, he heard Dombrowski.
“Hey, pretty princesses. Happy Hallo— what the fuck?”
The sudden vehemence in such close proximity startled Skiba. The top tier slid forward dropping Snicker bars at his feet.
A pale hand alive with spidery black hairs gripped the curtain and wrenched it aside. They were face to sternum for only an instant. Dombrowski unleashed a shrill scream, more cartoon than human. He took a step back and gripped his chest. It was all the room Skiba needed to make a break for the front door.
Chocolate bars dropped from his arms as he rushed the eerie Barbie princesses, their blue eyes popped wide. They retreated in a whirl of pink crinoline.
Three steps from the door, Skiba felt the hand grip his shoulder and whirl him around. Dombrowski knocked the candy out of Skiba’s arms and began dragging him toward the back of the funeral home.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you kids,” Dombrowski’s sneering mouth sprayed spittle. “One candy bar not good enough for you? I put the extra money into getting the big candy bars cause I know the kids around here ain’t got much and this is how I’m repaid? Ugly jokes and petty robbery?”
“Get your fucking hands off me, creep.”
Dombrowski back-handed Skiba hard enough across the mouth to cut the inside of his mouth.
“Say something smart ass again.”
Skiba felt his bottom lip begin to tremble.
“Don’t you start crying. I’ll drag your worthless ass downstairs and stick an embalming flue down your throat. Would you like that?”
Skiba shook his head no.
“I know who you are. I know who you all are. And I know who your parents are, or were, in your case. And I know calling them won’t do a damn bit of good. But mark my words, you little sonsabitches, I’ve been here a long time and I’ll be here a long time more. I’ll be seeing a lot more of your loved ones pass through my basement. Keep that in mind the next time you want to fuck with me.”
Skiba could feel the snot bubbling from his nostrils and hated himself for it. Dombrowski reached down and grabbed a lone candy bar from the floor.
“Where’s the rest of them?”
“I dropped them.”
“Where at?”
“I don’t know,” Skiba sobbed. “They fell out of my hand.”
Dombrowski shoved the chocolate into Skiba’s coat pocket and pushed him toward the door.
“Get the fuck out of here. You disgust me.”
Skiba took a few weak-kneed steps toward the foyer, willing himself to contain his sobs. He stepped onto the sidewalk. He could hear the door lock behind him. When he turned around the lights were already extinguished.
A block down the street, Brian and Milsap and Wesley waited for him in the alley, eating Snickers bars.
“How’d it go in there?” Milsap said. Mischief danced in his eyes. The rest of his face remained glued in place.
Skiba glared at Wesley. “Where were you at?”
“Easy there, buddy,” Brian said. “Wesley’s good. He was in there gather up the candy bars while Dead Body Man was reading you the riot act.”
Wesley offered Skiba a bag of candy, brimming with full-sized Snickers bars. “Your cut of the heist.”
“I don’t want it.” Skiba said, continuing his walk toward the home he shared with his father, who likely wouldn’t be back home another two or three hours.
“Don’t be like that,” Milsap said. “You did great. Really great.”
“I’m going home.”
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
