Part III: What Happens a Cappella? (Chapter 48)
I don’t remember Unkie at all
If there are any photographs of
him, they are long gone. Uncle Charles has pictures of his corpse, lying in a
silver casket at the funeral home; Uncle Charles documents every funeral in the
family, making certain that everybody receives its time in the spotlight before
slipping under the sod.
What does he do with the
pictures after he develops them? Does he put them into an album and look at
them from time to time? No one else in the family seems to want those pictures.
I expect he’ll videotape Nana’s
funeral and send everyone a copy.
Once, I saw a pencil drawing of
Unkie: an old man with a beak nose and sour face staring back at me.
He was the first Jew, a real
mystery man, to infiltrate the family.
Even from the grave he scared
me. I wonder if the artist who drew the picture was a family member or some
starving street artist. Was the artist scared as Unkie posed for the drawing?
Sal says he and Auntie fought
like wild cats the day he died –
While lunging at her, he popped
a blood vessel in his head.