They Call it Spirit Airlines

by Gideon Leek

Runner up in the ORB’s TT24 Short Fiction Prize, judged by Mona Simpson.

The funeral was on a Thursday. Boris flew in Wednesday night. Cheap, no-frills, Spirit Airlines. When he asked for water, the stewardess replied, “Cash or Apple Pay?”

Before he even arrived, there had already been a fight. His brother, Carl, had regained his faith in midlife. He insisted on a church service and a consecrated Catholic burial. Boris insisted otherwise. He detested all strongly held beliefs, especially those of his brother. Carl could have insisted on an environmentally conscious decomposing coffin or a Norse burial on a burning ship. He’d still have heard no.

The fight went on for three hours over text. Carl was furious, pouring scorn and shame on his brother. Boris was monosyllabic: “No.” “No.” “No.” Their dead father was silent, as he had been in life.

They compromised. Their dad would get a Catholic sermon, but no burial — just cremation and an urn in some church basement columbarium. His priest reassured him, referring to a 2016 instruction, “Ad resurgendum cum Christo.” Boris got half of what he wanted, which was nothing at all. The priest also pointed out that a note approved by Pope Francis allowed for a minimal part of the ashes to be kept by the family. This minimal portion was offered to Boris. He did not especially want it. Boris knew somewhere that his brother was attempting to be kind, but he felt responsibility for the urn was a kind of punishment. A way of making him pay for having prevented the burial. And he was certain he would pay. He knew the urn would break, and dad would die all over again. Only this time it’d be his fault. He’d asked for it.

The wake was in a small suburban funeral parlour, low ceilings, bright lights, mints, a dozen cars in the lot behind. Boris stood next to his brother shaking hands. He was wearing his prom suit. Almost thirty, it was still his only suit. He’d worn it to a wedding on Long Island last summer. It still smelled like champagne. Carl had a new suit. It smelled like chemicals.

Boris hadn’t told any of his friends about the funeral. And none of them had come. Great groups of Carl’s friends had come — his church group, his coworkers, his poker buddies.

“I wish I was meeting you under different circumstances,” said Stan, a member of Carl’s church, to Boris.

“How do you usually meet people?” asked Boris.

Soon the mourners were gone. The family was left alone for a final goodbye. Boris kneeled in front of the coffin. His father’s expressionless, moisturized corpse stared up at him. He wondered how much of his father would end up in the urn. Would it be a whole part? An arm? A leg? An ear? Or just some anonymous portion of dust. He took a picture of his father with his phone and went to post it on his Instagram story. He wrote “RIP Dad” across the coffin — then deleted the draft.

The church was gaudy, red velvet chairs, sky-blue ceiling, cheap-stained glass. The priest’s forehead had wilted, fallen skin hung below his cheeks. His energy was low. It was a dry, anonymous sermon. Childhood in Jamaica Plain. Varsity Football. Air Force ROTC. BA in Engineering from RPI. Four years as an officer, all at Hanscom Base in Lexington. Job at Raytheon. House in Sudbury. Wife. Two kids. PTA. Rotary Club. Kids leave. Divorce. Death.

Maybe, thought Boris, his father had been a dry, anonymous man. Maybe so was he.

After the service, Boris and Carl had to wait for the skin and hair and eyes of their father to burn into ash. They’d paid for a rush order, but cremation would still take two days. They went home.

It was the same as ever. A white McMansion at the end of a cul-de-sac, with white McMansions to the left and right and, behind them, more cul-de-sacs. The garage still full of sports equipment. The inside of the house still full of televisions, in the living room, in the basement, above the stove, in every bedroom. Outside there still was an empty pool. In the pool house, there still was another television.

Boris and Carl sat on La-Z-Boys in front of the television in the living room drinking beers. On the television, they watched sports. The La-Z-Boys were new.

“There used to be a couch in here,” said Carl.

“At some point they stopped sitting together,” said Boris. “Then they got divorced.”

“I wonder if he got sad with the empty chair,” asked Carl.

“Probably,” said Boris. He pushed down the lever and reclined.

They both drank more beer. And then they ordered pizza.

The next day they went through their father’s belongings. Air Force memorabilia, Tom Clancy novels, porn — it was all garbage. In the afternoon, a lawyer explained the will. Their father hadn’t had much besides the house. They each got half his house and half his garbage. They would have to get rid of the garbage to sell the house. The lawyer knew a real estate agent and a cleaner. He was experienced. They let him handle it.

The next day the cleaners came in the morning, and the real estate agent came in the afternoon. Boris and Carl sat on Adirondack chairs in the backyard and drank beer. It was sunny.

“The last time I saw him,” began Carl after his third beer, “Dad said the worst choice he made in his life was joining the Air Force.”

“That was his only choice, everything else came from that,” said Boris. “If he regretted the Air Force, he regretted his whole life.”

“He told me he should have joined the navy,” said Carl. “He said they had better planes.”

“One time dad told me he felt like a laundry machine in a world without change,” said Boris. He laughed. They drank more beer. And then they ordered wings.

Hungover, Boris looked out on a line of black garbage bags out front and painters on ladders redoing the trim. Downstairs, Carl was calling for him. The ashes were finally ready. It was time to see the sconce at the church.

On both walls of the church basement neatly was a grid of symmetrical remains. A few had flowers or cards, otherwise they were identical. Their father was on the bottom shelf on the far right, above him were three empty sconces. Carl knelt down to pray, then he put down flowers. A priest gave Boris a bright black urn. He waited, felt nothing, and left. Later, Carl would ask him why he didn’t say goodbye.

Spirit Airlines had a same day flight home. It cost ninety-five dollars and left in six hours. Boris took the commuter rail into Boston and the train to the airport.

At security, he pushed the urn through in his backpack. It was bigger than he had expected: it pushed at the front of the bag and protruded awkwardly from the top.

“Do you look in the urn?” he asked.

“You couldn’t pay me to,” said a TSA officer.

“Sorry for your loss,” said another.

“We weren’t close,” said Boris.

He ate a twelve-hundred calorie sub on a stool at a Potbelly’s. It soured in his stomach like a dead whale at low tide. At Dunkin’ he got an iced coffee to help digest. He sipped the coffee on a black vinyl chair, waiting at the gate. Air conditioning whirred above him. It was freezing. The iced coffee had been a mistake. He took a picture of the urn peeking out of his bag and went to post it on his Instagram story. He wrote “RIP Dad” across the top — then deleted the draft.

A speaker announced the plane was boarding. Boris got in line. He pulled up the ticket on his phone. A boarding agent waved him over.

“That bag is too big,” said the agent.

“What do you mean? I flew with it on the way here,” said Boris. Suddenly, for the first time in days he was filled with emotion, furious emotion.

“Can I check it in the sizer?” asked the agent. He gestured at a metal device with two bins — one for a personal item, the other for a carry-on. Boris handed him the bag. The agent lowered the bag into the personal item bin, it stopped at the base of the urn. It was too wide by a couple inches. Then he lowered it into the carry-on bin. It fit.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “You’ll have to pay for a carry-on. Fifty-nine ninety-five.”

“No, no, it’ll fit,” said Boris. “Just give me a second.” He began to pull items from his bag and stuff them in his coat pockets. Socks sticking out of his pockets, he held up the slightly smaller bag. The agent shook his head.

“It’s not going to fit,” said the agent.

Boris lowered the bag into the bin. It started to slide down, then, once again, it got stuck. The agent smirked. Boris squatted down. It had gone much further this time. It was just stuck on the widest part of the urn. One firm final push should do it, thought Boris. He smiled at the agent and gave the bag a shove. The urn cracked.

“Fuck me,” groaned Boris. Instinctively, he yanked the bag back out. Ashes fell everywhere — his clothes, the sizing bins, the carpet, the gate agent, the passengers behind him.

“You idiot!” shouted the gate agent, wiping ashes from his eyes. He spat ashes from his mouth. “What is that?”

“That’s my dad,” said Boris.

“Look,” said someone from behind him. Boris spun his head in disbelief. Particles of ash spun ghost-like all around him. He looked up at them flying up into the HVAC ventilation. Eternity in an airport, he thought. Dad did always like planes, he thought.

“That’s why they call it Spirit Airlines,” said someone from behind him. Boris laughed.

GIDEON LEEK is a writer based in Brooklyn. His work has been featured in Animal Blood Magazine, The Village Voice, Liberties, Los Angeles Review of Books, Cleveland Review of Books, and Public Domain Review.

Art by Cordelia Wilson