The Wake

The four veterans arrive last at my grandfather's wake. Grandma sends them to the kitchenette.

"They smell like death," she says. As if death isn't already laid out in state on the living room table.

I find the old marines sitting in silence. With watery, timorous eyes, they drink beer from Grandpa's secret stash. They all fought on the "Mircea" destroyer during World War II.

I open the last beer.

"For Grandpa!"

We raise our bottles.

"Do you know how we got torpedoed in '43?" asks one.

Like Grandpa, he changes the number of dead. Survivors are constantly five.