Queer eye for the dead guy

Carson and I set about choosing a suit for Harold, while Jai sits down with my mother to discuss the cultural significance of death and funerals. "Yeah, okay," she says after he is finished, "but do I get a free iPod like everyone else?" Kyan helps the mortician as she attempts in vain to make the nicoteine stains on his fingernails a little less visible. Dad leaves with Thom to discuss how on earth we could possibly return his disgusting apartment into some sort of livable space. At our request, Ted teaches my sister to cook something other than kraft dinner.

It is a beautiful funeral. There are boquets of black orchids everywhere and we are all done up in the trendiest black outfits. Carson got me a cute little black dress with a pleat in the back that I would be sure to wear elsewhere. Harold, well, Harold looks like Harold, huge, ugly, crewcut and German. He fills up his coffin, just the same way he used to fill doorways with his presence.

I shrug off my velvet bolero blazer and take my place at the head of the ceremony, where I read out a poem about love and understanding, the family naturally preferring my own bullshit to that of a minister. I know that sitting in their flat, the queer guys will be exclaiming over how heartfelt and beautiful the whole thing is. Whatever.

We have a solemn reception after the ceremony. Fed up by the fact that I won't let them smoke in my apartment, Harold's friends and neighbours leave almost immediately for the nearest bar. I'm not upset. They were creepy and disgusting people. Back in New York, the Fab 5 are cheering.

"Is that the ex-wife?" one of them asks, pointing toward their wide-screen TV. It is. "It's about goddamned time," Grandma Eileen laughs over a glass of wine. "Wow, she's bitchy," someone says all the way from New York. "To be fair, they've been divorced for over 20 years, and this must be a stressful time for her," Ted says, always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

"What the hell is this shit?" Grandma asks, screwing up her face as she samples the food on the table. Back in New York, Ted has just changed his mind about my grandmother. "It's naan bread with homous and baba ghanousj," Du says, "I made it myself."

"Well why can't you cook something useful like a pork roast instead of this Hindoo shit?" No one says anything. What I would like to say is not appropriate for prime-time TV, and I become painfully aware of the cameras everywhere in the room. It's almost time to send Grandma back to the hospital. I'm glad. Some days I just want to slap her for the crap she says.

After all is said and done, the big screen tv switches off and the Fab 5 discusses everything over their drinks. "I think they handled that very well..." someone says.

And that's about the time when I woke up.