Welcome to the Fresh Hell Newsletter, where this week we deal with a big ole heaping helping of perspective. We also praise the gods for Carl Hiaasen.
I’d never been to a Jewish funeral. The Boy Wonder and I were invited to one a few weeks ago for a dear friend’s father who had lived a robust and happy life and departed in his late-80s. Since I didn’t know the man, I didn’t think the ceremony, conducted entirely grave side, would smack me up side the head quite so hard, but once you’ve lost a bunch of people you love, every funeral becomes a ‘previous episode recap’ of your own grief, and there is no ‘skip recap’ option.
The waterworks started early, when a Navy Ceremonial Guard appeared. I was a pile of mush before the second note of Taps. Salutes were given and the flag was folded and presented to the beautiful, composed widow.
I sobbed through my friend’s brother’s incredibly eulogy. The rabbi’s sermon (Is that the right word? Please, Jewish Hellions, forgive my translating this entire experience into ‘lapsed Catholic.’ It’s all I got.) was not as personal and moving, but what came next knocked my socks off.
The rabbi explained to the non-Jews in attendance that we were going to do a mitzvah; a good deed, an honor and an obligation. We were going to bury my friend’s dad using the shovels and big pile of dirt next to the grave. The first shovel of dirt would be done reluctantly. We didn’t want him to die, didn’t want to say goodbye. So we would turn the shovel over, use its back to pick up just a small amount of dirt, and put it into the grave. The second shovel full of dirt would be done with the correct side of the shovel. It was saying goodbye, accepting his passing, sending him on his way. Then we would put the shovel back in the pile of dirt for the next person.
I almost fell into my mother-in-law’s grave throwing dirt into it at her funeral. (In my defense, it was in Wales, it was pouring rain, the muddy edge of the grave was super sketch, I was blind with tears and I was stupidly wearing heels.) I decided to pass on the mitzvah lest this funeral become a two-fer. But watching others do it broke what needed to be broken inside of me and I felt clear and my brain went silent and empty for a while (a rare state). All from watching a man I did not know being buried by his loved ones. I’m still not sure why.
On the way home, we passed a horrific motorcycle accident near our house. A Harley, or what was left of it, was pinned underneath the front of a totaled car, both now lying in the parking lot of a Post Office. I couldn’t imagine the series of events that could have caused it—a race to make the last postal pickup time? However it happened, it was very, very bad. The firetrucks and other first responders were preparing to leave the scene, the victim/ victims had long since been transported to the hospital (I hoped). I turned to the Boy Wonder and said “the person riding that motorcycle did not walk away.”
The next day, I found out that the person was our dear friend and next door neighbor Mark. He was airlifted to a trauma center. He is very banged up. Recovery will be long and hard. But he’s alive, is now at home healing up and most importantly, his brain remains fully intact (or as intact as it ever was. Ha! I can say that cause you’re not dead, Mark. Also, thank you for not dying. Love you, man.)
So, what was my takeaway from my day of too much fucking perspective?
I’d been bitching a LOT lately for a variety of reasons. This thing is screwed up and that isn’t right and finances are scary and those mean people did a mean thing to me with no regard for my life plan and our government has lost its mind and my knees are shot and I’m bored and I’m overwhelmed and how is this my neck and I’m invisible and useless and, goddamn it, why can’t you shut the refrigerator door ALL the way….
….and shut the everlovin’ fuck up, Kristine.
I have absolutely nothing to complain about at the moment. Sometimes I legitimately do, but today, right now, writing this little letter to you fine, sweet Hellions, I do not. Not important stuff anyway. My friend whose father died does and Mark does, and billions of people around the world do every single moment of every single day. But at this moment, I do not and I’m going to try to make this moment last as long as possible. I hope you can join me in enjoying the quiet while we can.
Carl Hiaasen is one of the funniest, if not the funniest, novelists writing today. For those unfamiliar with this man’s brilliant oeuvre, he specializes in stories set in South Florida, where this is no shortage of flawed, weird characters. His weaves the preposterous with the reality on the ground. His plots are “thriller-y” without being reductive, his characters are fully fleshed-out, deeply fucked-up, three-dimensional humans, and his grasp of the subject matter makes you feel like you are learning something that feels profoundly true even though you know it’s not strictly accurate.
His most recent book (pubbed last year, but as ever I am late to the party) is Fever Beach (Penguin Random House). In it, he tells the tale of a “Proud Boys” reject (who gets kicked out of the group when, in a fit of insurrectionist fever at the Capitol on Jan. 6, he misguidedly smears poop on a Confederate general’s statue.) He starts his own extremist fascist group in Florida following his ousting, naming it “Strokers for Liberty.” His malapropisms alone are worth the price of the book.
We also meet his fed-up roommate, a hot smarty-pants; a right-wing, philandering, kink-having corrupt senator spearheading the extremist group for his own nefarious, hilariously misguided ends; the billionaire philanthropists funding it; and our hero, an environmental vigilante with more money than sense and an arsenal of tricks up his sleeve. He’s out to right the wrongs of the rampant political corruption that is decimating the natural wonder of the state he loves, and also out to generally fuck up some idiots. It’s Edward Abbey x George Carlin, with poop.
I realize this description might sound too much like the news you watched last night and not like a rollicking romp of a book, but it is.
Let me now extoll the virtues of Fever Beach.
It’s, of course, hilarious. Hiaasen, in his trademark style, sprinkles the storytelling with finely wrought details and snort-your-martini-out-your-nose specifics that tell us more about the characters and surroundings than all the flowery prose on Earth ever could. The man is a master of the “show don’t tell” rule for writers everywhere. I study, humbled, at his feet. Seriously, they should teach this book at MFA programs—Hiaasen is not in “The Canon” although he fucking should be. Study it, writers.
There is one scene that will live rent-free in my head for the rest of my life. It takes place in a Key West drag bar during karaoke night when the “Strokers for Liberty” decide to teach the performers a lesson they’ll never forget about traditional values—and it goes exactly as you’d expect. I laughed so hard when reading it that I think a small amount of pee came out. Then I almost hung up my pen cause I’ll never, ever be as funny or as talented as Carl. Neither will you. I love you, Carl.
Buy Fever Beach. It will give you the satisfaction of fictional retribution against a rampaging chorus of extremist mega-morons, a justice that our current IRL system seems unable to produce in any meaningful and consistent way. Please buy it at your local book store.
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