Magic Cookie Funeral Brigade

By Guy Hayes

Guy Hayes is a writer, artist, and programmer. He is the author of Maggot on The Broccoli, printed in Tales of the Unreal 1, and was the lead artist and designer for Silkworm, as well as Volumes 1 and 3 of Tales. You can visit his tech blog FloppyNoise if you would like to read more of his writing.

When I consume weed, I don't feel the pain of obligations. I can hand wash the dishes without becoming irate and smashing a crusty plate against the wall. Hell, I even started going to bed and getting up early. But funerals? Those are different. When my wife told me her Uncle Edmund died, I simply said, “Aw, Fuck.”

In my default state, I navel gaze and mostly ignore the world around me until my wife rolls a joint or she gets randy. After the high hits, my perception changes. I no longer think about myself, but the mysteries of the universe, how big God really is and how everyone puts Him in a little box based on the latest business trends, how weird it is that everyone has their own consciousness, and the psyches of those who happen to be around me.

Now observing people is an art of subtlety. I wouldn't recommend staring someone down. I've found people don't like that very much, and some of them will actually say something to you. Then you're left embarrassed. And if you're faded, you might feel that embarrassment too intensely. But most people will simply flit their attention to something else. I know I do, and I usually focus on something extremely mundane like a box of plastic cutlery. Then that leads into thoughts about the artist who designed the box. Did they do it in Photoshop? Were they sitting in a cubicle in an office somewhere in California? Or was he commissioned, a stay-at-home dad whose wife made a deal with him that she'll work for the next five years while he tries to get his hobby to take off and gain monetary value? After those five years though, he'll have to get a regular job and his dreams will be dead.

This happens a lot, especially when I'm trying to navigate gatherings.

I loathe social events.

And I married into a big family. Every week it seems there's a birthday, or holiday, or a cookout. This also means more people around me drop like flies. Uncle Edmund was the third funeral within a year. Each death reminds me of how little I know these people, how I'm connected to them only through my wife.

My wife made a batch of cookies the night before. As we were getting ready for bed, she said, "We're going tomorrow, aren't we?"

"Do we have to?" I asked, hoping she’d be the first to bail.

She nodded, then grinned. "We can go stoned, though."

God, I love this woman. She gets it. She knows exactly how my brain short-circuits around her family, how I disappear into my head when the anxiety kicks in.

I ate the cookie about an hour and a half before we had to leave. We arrived at the church and parked in its gravel lot. I was beginning to second guess the cookie. Is it working? Maybe I got a dud. Maybe I didn't eat enough, and another cookie is required. Damn, I knew we shouldn't have wasted six grams on that stupid butter.

We walked up the porch and entered through the back door into the kitchen. The smell hit me first – fried chicken and potato salad and grief.

Uncle Bob was proselytizing to Cousin Cynth while chowing down on the best fried chicken in the world (from Kroger). "Read it! The whole book. It's worth your while."

"I will," Cynth told him with toothless contortion. "First Corinthians, right." She was high on something. She inched back toward the side door we just came in.

As soon as Uncle Bob's focus shifted to us, Cynth was gone, a vapor sucked out the door.

Uncle Bob's eyes, wide behind his black frames, locked me into a conversation.

We used to go to church with Uncle Bob and Aunt Bernice. Then we figured out the whole operation was basically a cult. The preacher would say the most fucked up shit from the pulpit—stuff about people going to hell for smoking cigarettes while he himself was a glutton, belly hanging over his belt, survivor of one heart attack already. Plus Aunt Bernice kept passing pills out to people after service like some kind of generous and holy drug dealer, and the pastor wouldn't say a word about it. We hated sitting by her too because she wouldn't shut up during the sermon, whispering judgments about everyone's clothes and hair and "lifestyle choices." So we quit going. I couldn’t take the hypocrisy. It's been awkward between us and Uncle Bob and Aunt Bernice since. They carry disappointment like the bible Uncle Bob keeps tucked beneath his armpit.

Now here I was trying to concentrate on the words coming out of Uncle Bob's face, just realizing that I'm faded all of a sudden.

Shit, he's gonna see that my eyes are bloodshot, and I'm going to have to tell him that I'm just tired. Or worse, no one will say anything about it at all and leave me guessing.

Uncle Bob looked at me funny. "I'm glad you came," he said, surprising me. He patted my shoulder and moved on.

I spaced out, looking out the window beside the refrigerator. Children frolicked in the new green grass around the swingset.

New grass. New human life. The polar opposite of a funeral. Yeah, a funeral. I forgot we were at a funeral.

Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd blasted from down the hall from the sanctuary. It was after that I treaded the social waters out the door behind my wife and onto the porch, where we lit our cigarettes and talked to Cousin America. America was dating a guy who'd, years ago, worked for my parents. Joker. Joker had a big mouth and a form of smugness I could only guess was caused by some disease. He was a skinny, tall dickhead who always walked around shirtless, showing off a torso so tan and bony it looked like a half-assembled Halloween decoration. But man, the way he strutted around, you'd think he was God's gift. Thought he was the cock of the walk, swaggering through town like he owned it when he couldn't even afford his own pack of smokes.

He was a cigarette bum too. Every hour, on the hour, while working for my family, Joker would show up in my room and absolutely rape my cigarette cache. Always with some bullshit excuse about leaving his pack in his other pants or how his girlfriend just left in the car and took his smokes. Meanwhile, my carton would disappear one coffin nail at a time.

The worst part was when he stole from my dad. He walked off with a drill and a pneumatic nail gun. High-dollar tools. Joker vanished with them, probably pawning them off to score some pills. This was the first time I’d seen him since.

But this guy with Cousin America wasn't the same old Joker. Apparently, at some point after his disappearing act, someone had shot Joker in the back of the head.

And he survived.

He's what they call "non-verbal," and so now he walks with a cane and keeps his shirt on.

The spirit must have been flowing that day, that day of mourning, that day of death because I couldn't hold a grudge against Joker anymore. Looking at him, struggling to communicate with Cousin America through nods and hand squeezes.

What the fuck? Is this real? I love Joker now!

I took a look around and saw–felt–how everyone connected. There was a wave made of particles, invisible to the naked eye, flowing through all people, all things. A breathing. All life connected somehow.

My wife found me and slipped her arm through mine. "You doing okay?" she whispered.

"Better than okay," I said, and meant it.

I ended up in the nursery, where my sister-in-law and our nephew were hanging out in little chairs with Cousin Cynth.

I sat in a little chair. On the wall in front of me were the words, painted on printer paper:

GOD IS LIGHT
IN HIM
THERE IS NO
DARKNESS

I guess it meant something. I don't know. But it felt about right.

We never saw the body. Never entered the sanctuary. We saw no darkness.

As I came down the other side of Magic Mountain, I found myself between Uncle Bob and Aunt Bernice, walking them to their car. They had a couple of platefuls in each hand, wrapped up to take home to eat later. (It was good chicken.) Not once did they shame us, or bring our not going to church up.

Yes, there was no darkness there.

Only love

and magic…

That night I slept well.

Oh, Magic Cookie, you let my love shine. You took the gray away, and took me down a peg.

Cannabis is medicinal. I believe this wholeheartedly. But as with any medicine, it shouldn't be taken on a perpetual basis. It's good, for a time, to deal with some trauma, work out some shit deep in your soul, but eventually you gotta come off of it.

But on days like this, when the world asks too much of you, when families gather to mourn–or judge–maybe a little magic helps you see what matters. Not the awkwardness or the social anxiety or even the religious differences, but the connections. The light without darkness.

I’m left to conclude that the Devil does not tend a lettuce patch. (He probably runs a meth lab.)

Weed is slowly becoming legal across the United States, with a consensus that it's safer than alcohol and nowhere near as addictive as cigarettes. So before you tell me I'm going to burn in hell for imbibing a cookie made with love from my dear wife, mild psychoactives, and semi-sweet chocolate chips, please kindly go tell it to someone else.

I've seen how it works. Unlike the stereotypical wild college parties with their sloppy drunkenness, when a person consumes the magic that is contained within these pungent flowers known as marijuana, weed, ganja, Mary Jane, pot, et al., the outcome tends to be peaceful and reflective. Like at Uncle Edmund's funeral—where I could finally feel the connections between us all, where I could forgive Joker, where I could stand between Uncle Bob and Aunt Bernice without judgment.

It beats that time, years ago, that I was on Prozac and became a psychopath. But that’s a story for another time.