The Trip to Egypt

"Post hoc ergo propter hoc," Glenn said. "Though I think I prefer the more colloquial, if less technically correct, 'correlation is not causation'."

"God knows we should always be technically correct when discussing the death of a friend," Michelle responded. "Sorry."

"What for?" Glenn asked.

"For the tone." Michelle sighed. "I hate funerals."

"Yeah, me too," Glenn said. "They definitely lack the drunken dancing of weddings. Actually, this is my first funeral."

"Mine, too," Michelle said. "Hate at first sight, I guess."

Glenn nodded. Steve's life had been celebrated at a church he had never attended and his body had been buried in the family plot, right next to his father. Steve had hated his father, they were estranged and barely spoke, but dying young and unexpectedly had left the choice for his final resting place to his mother, who reasoned the two men would have all eternity to work out their issues. It had been a sunny, cloudless morning, a perfect day for a parade. It should be overcast and raining for a funeral, Glenn thought. Glenn and Michelle had hugged and said goodbye to Steve's mother; they were the last two members of the funeral party still at the grave site. Michelle lit a cigarette.

"You know, those things will kill you," Glenn said. "Unlike a mummy's curse."

Michelle blew smoke in his face. "You're not funny. And you're not helping. I thought Steve was your best friend."

Steve had been Glenn's best friend. Steve's sudden and inexplicable death had hit him pretty hard. Steve was young, successful, a kind of big brother that Glenn looked up to and tried, in many ways, to emulate. Yes, he was a little jealous of Steve's relationship with Michelle, who was the prettiest girl Glenn had ever met in real life. She had the look of a model/actress, an athletic build, a swimmer's body. Her hair was black and her skin was always tan, even in winter. Despite the Mason family name, Glenn suspected her family's roots sprung from the Mediterranean. Her eyes were blue and seemed illuminated from within. She had the faintest dimple in her chin and a smile that was kind and instantly disarming. 

As if being beautiful wasn't enough, she was smart, successful in her own right - already a VP of Operations, running the technology infrastructure for Marsh & McLennan - and she was active in the community, a sincere and good human being. Glenn wasn't sure how many times he had agreed to help with Michelle's latest cause just to be able to spend time with her. If he couldn't be good himself, he could be adjacent to good by being wherever Michelle was.

Glenn knew, though, that if he'd been in Michelle's place, he would've chosen Steve, too. Glenn didn't tease him by calling him "Mr. Clooney" for nothing. He'd been outwardly happy for Steve's success in whatever it was that Steve did for Deutsche Bank - and which had taken him on the fateful trip to Cairo that preceded his death - but if Steve had been a failure and Michelle had fallen into his arms instead, Glenn had to admit, he would've been perfectly happy.

Glenn saw that Michelle was crying. "I'm sorry."

Michelle nodded and sniffed, considered the cigarette in her hand and took another puff. "If now isn't a good reason for smoking a cigarette, I don't know what is."

"Okay," Glenn said. "Steve died suddenly following a trip to Egypt. The doctors were at a loss as to exactly what killed him. The autopsy results were inconclusive."

"I believe they concluded that he was perfectly healthy and the only thing they were inconclusive about was the cause of death," Michelle said. 

"But one and one in this case doesn't add up to a mummy's curse. I mean, he was working for Deutsche Bank - and they don't exactly have the most pristine of reputations - in the Middle East, for god's sake." Glenn remembered Steve telling him once that the world of high finance was every bit as dangerous as dealing crack but at the time he'd thought Steve was kidding, or grandstanding, or maybe a little drunk. Now he wasn't so sure. "Whatever the case, Steve is dead. There's nothing we can do about that."

"You clearly are unfamiliar with mummy movies," Michelle said.

"Which are movies, after all," Glenn said.

"Based on mummy lore and legend, not to mention curses that were literally carved in stone," Michelle said.

Glenn looked at Steve's headstone. 

Steve Baumann

January 20, 1993 - July 17, 2021

Alive Always In Our Hearts

"I, uh, I'm still at a loss as to what we can do about it," he said.

"Come back to Steve's townhouse with me," Michelle said. "I need a fresh set of eyes."

"That's what the mummy said," Glenn noted with a smile.

Michelle was not amused. "Are you going to help me - and your best friend - or not?"

Another of Michelle's causes that Glenn knew he was going to volunteer for. "All right," Glenn said. "What do you want me to do?"

As they walked to Glenn's car, Michelle noted that she had been through Steve's office on the pretext of collecting his personal belongings, hoping to find some clue; an artifact of Steve's recent business trip to Egypt, something that would support her theory of a mummy's curse to explain Steve's admittedly mysterious death. Finding nothing there, she hoped to find that elusive clue, the dingus, some explanation for Steve's death in his home. Glenn believed Michelle was simply grief-stricken and hoped that with some patience and sympathy he could help her come to grips with Steve's passing. How did those stages of grief go? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Was Michelle in denial or was she bargaining? Maybe it's more like a spectrum than stages, Glenn thought. Maybe there was just a little anger in there, too. 

Steve had owned a townhouse in Cambridge where they had often met for dinner and drinks, to watch Patriots  games in winter, and backyard picnics in the summer with the Sox on the radio. Glenn had been jealous of Steve's success perhaps as much as he'd been jealous of Steve's relationship with Michelle. He suspected they both were well aware of his feelings, evident in the multiple and disastrous attempts to fix him up. 

Michelle's hilarious reportage of her co-worker Katrina's reaction to their fix up made Glenn smile every time he thought of it. Or maybe he just liked remembering Katrina, who was pretty in that girl next door way and had proven in their brief encounter that she knew more about the Red Sox than Glenn did, which he found both challenging and intriguing. A first date at Fenway had seemed like a no brainer. Was he really a monstrous experiment in the animation of large curd cottage cheese? Okay, that was a funny line, Glenn thought. He'd always thought humor was a sign of intelligence and Katrina clearly had jokes. Only this time the joke was on him and  it stung just a little, too. Maybe because this time it mattered to him. Still, his "You just need to add some pepper," response to Michelle letting him know he needn't give Katrina a call had become a catchphrase for the three of them. Just add some pepper.

Despite Glenn's obvious feelings for Michelle, Steve had remained a steadfast and loyal friend. Glenn was struck by a wave of emotions as Michelle used her key to let them into the townhouse. Glenn and Steve had been best friends since middle school. They had shared all the major milestones of their young lives; first cars, first girlfriends, the ridiculous ups and downs of high school, first jobs, first concert, college acceptance letters, first jobs not in food service… There wasn't a story Glenn could tell that didn't feature Steve in some way and now he was gone. Forever. Glenn hadn't let himself think about it, how much he had relied on Steve's friendship and he suddenly felt overwhelmed. Did he have any other friends? He wasn't sure Michelle counted; their relationship was clearly complicated. And she might be going crazy, he thought.

"Dusty," Glenn said, sniffing and blinking back tears. "Allergies."

"Kleenex on the coffee table," Michelle said, oblivious to the losing struggle with his emotions. "I'll check the bedroom, why don't you take Steve's office?" she said, and moved with a purpose to the stairway that led to the second floor and the master bedroom. Glenn picked up the box of tissues and carried them with him to Steve's office, a converted study he had filled with tech, ergonomic office furniture, and enough artificial light to eliminate any trace of a shadow. It felt a little bit like a clean room in a lab, a temple for the worship of hard facts, numbers, analytics.

Glenn stood in the doorway of Steve's office and yelled, "What am I looking for?"

After what Glenn thought was a pause driven by exasperation, Michelle yelled back, "You'll know it when you see it!"

Glenn wasn't really sure he knew it when he saw the small figurine but somehow he knew this was what Michelle was looking for. It looked like an Egyptian god - it had the head of an animal, like a dog, he thought - but he wasn't sure which one. Osiris? Anubis? Horis? Which one had the head of a dog? 

Glenn startled as Michelle said, "What did you find?"

Glenn took a deep breath and said, "So,I guess you didn't find anything in the bedroom then?"

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," she said and nodded toward the figurine he held in his right hand. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Glenn said.

"Nothing?" Michelle asked. "You jumped like you saw a ghost just now."

"It's… It's just a figurine," Glenn said. "A hotel gift shop tchotchke."

"Let me see it," Michelle said, holding out her hand. Glenn brought it to her.

"Anubis," Michelle said, "God of the Dead," and then suddenly she threw the figurine to the floor, hard, smashing it into several pieces.

"What are you doing?" Glenn asked.

"I think you mean, what have I done," Michelle said.

"Okay," Glenn said. "I mean, aren't we supposed to return the… thing, the, uh, artifact - relic - to its rightful place of origin or rest or the Temple of Ra or some mystical city that was wiped from the face of the earth by the hand of God?"

"So you have seen a mummy movie?" Michelle asked, and tilted her head to one side. "We? What did you think? We were going to fly off to Cairo for an adventure on the Nile, where we'd break the mummy's curse and you would save my life and in return I would give you my heart? Figuratively, of course. Just to be clear, given that we're talking about mummy's."

"I…" Glenn wasn't sure what to say. He hadn't thought about it in that much detail and was momentarily caught up in the fantasy of Michelle in his arms, his heroic, mummy's curse-breaking arms. "I'm not really sure what's going on," he said, thinking that much was true. "But I do know that Steve is dead. And death is forever."

"Love is forever," Michelle said. "I know you think you love me. I know who I am, I've known since I was 14 and you're like the 127th man who's fallen madly if briefly in love with me over the last 13 years. It isn't love. It's mere infatuation. Or some kind of Darwinian impulse. What Steve and I had was real. True. Immutable. Forever. I won't let anyone or anything take that away from me."

Glenn knew Michelle was right. He wondered how much of his life he'd given up to the vain hope that one day she would be his. How many opportunities had he ignored? His obsession with Michelle had stolen how many chances for a love of his own? He wondered if he had become addicted to his own sadness. 

Michelle looked down at the floor then and Glenn followed her eyes to the smashed figurine. As he looked, the pieces decomposed into sand. "Have you ever seen a hotel gift shop tchotchke do that?" she asked.

Glenn shook his head. "No." 

Michelle pulled out the drawers of the desk and after three tries found an envelope which she used to carefully collect the sand.

"Come on," Michelle said. "I need you to drive me back to the cemetery. Steve is still alive." She turned and headed for the front door before Glenn could muster a logical explanation for what he had just seen or an argument against disinterring his dead best friend's body. Instead, he followed Michelle out to the driveway, got behind the wheel of his car, and drove back to Mount Auburn. Michelle made a call to her father as they were pulling out, saying she had found what she had hoped to find and to meet her in 30 minutes.

After the call, Michelle explained, "My dad will help us. I mean, we weren't going to dig him up with just our bare hands, after all. You remember me telling you my dad worked in construction?"

"Yeah, but I guess I never thought you meant that literally, you know, uh... maybe it's the romantic in me," Glenn said, smiling to himself at the Casablanca reference, "but I like to think-"

"You thought my dad was mobbed up?" Michelle said, incredulous.

"Come on! It's not like you didn't immediately know what I was going to say. To be fair," Glenn protested, "the one and only time I met him was at your sister Gina's wedding and he was wearing that grey, pinstriped silk suit, sporting that impossible not to notice pinky ring, his hair slicked back with enough product to lubricate a tractor-trailer. You know, I almost reflexively bowed to kiss that ring."

"Leave the gun, bring the backhoe," Michelle said, more to herself than to Glenn.

"What?" Glenn asked.

"Nothing," Michelle said. "Just drive, please." Now, it was Michelle's turn to cry. Glenn abandoned his plans to talk Michelle out of this. It was a bad idea but there was no stopping her and he knew it. It was going to end badly. He was sure of that, but the only way out of this was through it.

When they arrived at Steve's gravesite, Michelle's father was waiting for them with a backhoe. He was dressed unfashionably for work; a sweat-stained Red Sox cap, blue, wool-blend work shirt, brown canvas cargo pants, and sturdy, scuffed boots. Under the cap, Glenn imagined his hair was slicked back as he'd remembered it but this time he noticed a little grey showing at the temples. 

"Hello, Mr. Mason," Glenn said, shaking his hand. "Nice to see you again."

Michelle's father looked askance at Glenn, then brightened. "Gina's wedding." Glenn nodded. "I don't often get the chance to cut loose like that any more," Michelle's father said. "Call me Homer." 

He stuck out his hand and Glenn took it, "Glenn," he said.

"Can we get started?" Michelle asked, or rather, demanded.

"Don't you think someone is going to notice us, you know, and ask questions. I mean, it's broad daylight," Glenn protested.

"Right," Michelle said. "A backhoe digging a grave in a cemetery. You don't see that every day. Oh wait! It is something you see every day. Look! There's one right over there!"

Glenn looked where Michelle was pointing and there, down a bit of a slope and maybe 50 yards away was a backhoe, digging a grave.

"Maybe you should go over there and ask them what the hell they're up to," Michelle said. "Now. Can we get started?"

"Roger that," Michelle's father said and walked to the backhoe. Glenn followed him.

As quietly as he could, Glenn asked Michelle's father, "You know this is a bad idea, right? Can't you talk her out of it? I mean, you're her dad and I know she thinks the world of you and-"

Homer interrupted him. "You don't have kids, do you?"

"Well, no, I'm-" Glenn began.

"Hope and pray that one day, when you do have kids, that you have sons," Homer said. And with that, he clambered up the side of the backhoe and into the cab. "You all should stand back and give me some room to work, all right?"

Michelle's father fired up the backhoe and began digging. 

It took the better part of an hour, with the last few inches of dirt shoveled out by hand by the two men. Michelle's father then pried open the coffin with a crowbar. Glenn steeled himself for the horrifying reveal he assumed was coming if Steve's death was indeed the result of a mummy's curse; a shriveled, eyeless corpse, his mouth open as if screaming in pain for all eternity, bloody scratch marks on the lid of the coffin…

But it was just Steve as they had seen him just that morning in the viewing. Glenn felt relieved. And foolish. He'd given in to Michelle's delusion - a folie a deux - and was surprised by his shock and relief at finding his best friend was still dead. He climbed out of the grave, followed by Michelle's father.

"I'm sorry-" Glenn began but Michelle ignored him and jumped into the grave. 

"Michelle!" Glenn said.

"Let her do what she's got to do," Michelle's father said.

Glenn watched as Michelle took the envelope from her hip pocket, the envelope she had filled with the sand from the figurine at Steve's townhouse. She opened Steve's left hand and slowly and carefully, she sprinkled the sand onto the palm and then closed his fingers around it. She was saying something but Glenn couldn't quite make it out. A soft, golden light emanated from Steve's hand, revealing the bones in his fingers, illuminating the grave and Michelle's face. 

The light faded and was gone.

Steve opened his eyes. "I knew you'd find me," he said to Michelle.

"I never lost you," Michelle said. 

Steve opened his hand to reveal the figurine, restored, looking exactly as Glenn had found it in Steve's townhouse office. Michelle turned to her father. "Did you bring the tickets?"

"Of course," Michelle's father said.

Michelle took the figurine from Steve's hand and looked at Glenn. She smiled, "We need to return this to the Temple of Ra."

"Really?" Glenn asked. "I knew it!"

"No, not really!" Michelle said. "Well, not literally." She looked back at Steve and smiled. "But we do need to get back to Cairo."

"Temple of Ra?" Steve asked.

"I'll explain later," Michelle said, helping him to his feet.

Glenn and Michelle's father helped them both out of the grave. Glenn hugged Steve. "I don't know how. I don't know why. And I don't care. I'm just glad you're back," Glenn said. "You are back, right?"

"Yes. I'm back. But... this is goodbye, I'm afraid," Steve said. "Michelle and I have to leave now and I'm not sure we'll ever see you again." He nodded at Michelle's father who nodded in return. 

Michelle's father handed her a set of keys. "The tickets are in the truck. You two get going. I'll fill the grave in. No one will be the wiser." 

Michelle hugged her father until he broke the embrace. "I love you. Now get going." To Steve he said, "You take care of my princess, now, you hear me?"

"You know I will," Steve said, as the two men shook hands.

"Princess?" Glenn asked.

"It's just a stupid family nickname, Glenn. Really," Michelle said. "You don't mind helping my dad… clean up, do you?"

"No, I'm…" Glenn was at an absolute loss for words, finally coming up with "Sure, no problem."

"Thank you," Michelle said. She turned to Steve. "We should go."

Steve nodded.

Glenn and Homer watched as Michelle and Steve walked, hand in hand, down the gentle slope to a path that would take them to the parking lot and those plane tickets to Cairo. 

"A lot to take in," Homer said, putting his right hand on Glenn's shoulder. Glenn nodded, still dumbstruck. "I'd like to think that it goes without saying that all of this needs to stay between the two of us but, well, there, I said it anyway."

Glenn nodded again. Who would he tell? And wouldn't they think he was crazy? I think I'm crazy, he thought. Maybe that wasn't the worst case. 

"Well, this grave isn't going to fill itself!" Homer said, then stopped. "Would you like to try? The backhoe?" Homer asked.

"I, uh… No. Thanks," Glenn said.

"Suit yourself!" Homer said as he got back into the cab of the backhoe. He smiled at Glenn. "It's really just a big toy, you know."

An hour later, they were done. 

"Thank you," Homer said. "For everything you did for my daughter. I know it wasn't easy for you."

Glenn shrugged. "Steve was - is - my best friend."

"Yes, but you love Michelle," Homer said. 

"I don't-" Glenn began reflexively and stopped.

"It's okay," Homer said. "When you have a beautiful daughter, well, let's just say I've seen a hundred guys like you. What Michelle and Steve have is something, well, special. In more ways than one, I suppose, but most importantly, they share a true and eternal love. The kind of love that operas are written about. You'll find your one and only someday, too."

"How do you know that?" Glenn asked.

"I know," Homer said with a wink. Glenn's phone rang. He looked and saw it was an unknown caller. "Answer it," Homer said. "It could be the universe calling."

"I'd say you were freaking me out right now but I'm way, way past freaked out at this point," Glenn said. He picked up the call. "Hello?"

"Hi!" a woman's voice said, sounding very much like a real person and not a robot. "Is this Glenn?"

"Yes," Glenn answered.

"Oh, good! This is Katrina. I'm not sure if you remember me. We met at a get together at Steve and Michelle's place in Cambridge. About a month ago, maybe?"

"I remember," Glenn answered.

"I know this must seem completely out of the blue," Katrina said.

"It's okay," Glenn said. "I really don't like cottage cheese, either."

There was a pause before Katrina said, "Michelle told you."

"Yes," Glenn said.

"I'm sorry," Katrina said. 

"It's okay," Glenn said with a laugh. "You just need to add pepper."

"Add… what?" Katrina asked.

"Never mind," Glenn said. "Long story.

Homer held up his hand.

Can you hang on for a second?" Glenn asked and muted his phone.

"My work here is done," Homer said. "Thanks again, Glenn. You're a good guy, I don't care what anybody says." He winked and smiled at his own joke. They shook hands. Homer nodded and pointed at the backhoe. "It's going to get loud when I drive that out of here." Glenn nodded and began the walk away from the gravesite and back to the parking lot.

Glenn returned to his phone. "Still there?"

"Did I get you at a bad time?" Katrina asked.

"No," Glenn said. "Well, more weird than bad, I suppose."

"I can call back," Katrina said.

"No, it's fine," Glenn said. "It's a good time." 

"Okay, well, as I'm sure you know the Sox are in the middle of a homestand and I have a couple of tickets for tonight's game and I thought maybe, if you didn't have any plans, we could meet at the Lansdowne Pub for a burger before the game and then watch the Sox beat the Jays," Katrina said. "I know it's short notice but-"

The universe was calling and for the first time in a long time Glenn was going to say yes. "It sounds great. Really. What time shall we meet?"

 

Katrina said 5:30 but Glenn heard forever.