Joining the large procession of mourners, Marrie Potter slowly made her way down the center aisle of St. Mary Contumacious church. The pine box loomed in front of her; inside lay her secret love of over ten years, Jim Welch. Marrie choked back her sobs. They stuck in her throat, strangling her, but she could not, at all, at all, reveal the profundity of her sorrow. She had bravely joked and laughed about Jim's humiliating demise along with the other St. Mary's parishioners, but did so with a heavy heart. Although she had been madly in love with Jim since junior high, she could not risk losing the respect of her friends, family, community, and co-workers by admitting her obsession. By reminding herself that concealing one's feelings is better than being laughed at, Marrie had kept silent for too long. Unrealized and unspoken, her passion had merely grown over the years. And now, this tragedy.

We could have been so good together, thought Marrie. Jim, why, oh why, you? She was near the first step up to the altar now, and she closed her eyes to shield herself from the unbearable sight of the formerly hearty and virile Jim Welch lying so wan and still.

Unfortunately, Marrie had never been blessed with balance or coordination. Upon closing her eyes, she tripped over that treacherous first step and nearly fell face-first into Boobsie's ample backside. Marrie heard derisive snickering coming from Kelly Trucker somewhere behind her in line. Kelly has always enjoyed my defeats, thought Marrie, and she glared murderously at the step beneath her. Blast ye, step! First you lead me to the whited sepulchre, so to speak, of my dear departed would-be lover and then, to pour salt, it would seem, in my still-fresh wound, you most foully cause me to stumble, revealing my innate, though usually cleverly concealed, clumsiness!

An ear-splitting crack of flatus interrupted Marrie's reverie. She looked up from the cursed steps and was horrified to see Boobsie, hunched over with her hands on her knees, facing her and the rest of the congregation, aiming her posterior at the coffin. She was busily releasing noxious gas directly into the helpless face of Jim Welch. Boobsie's brow wrinkled in concentration. Marrie's jaw dropped in disbelief. Her delicate nose revolted against the bog of stench that wafted about the altar, rising toward the ceiling like incense: a perverse offering to the gods. Boobsie cackled with glee at her roguish jape.

At first, the church was utterly silent, perhaps out of respect for the record-breaking duration of the fart, or perhaps simply because it was so unexpected. Mitzie O'Leary was the first to begin giggling. However, once the hilarity struck her, it spread like a plague. Pew after pew of mourners roared with laughter. Tatty Teitramp actually stood up (with great effort) and applauded, gladdened for the distraction from her rumbling stomach. The Welches themselves were likewise able to appreciate the humor of the situation and joined in the general mirth, giving each other high fives and hooting maniacally. Shouts of approval rang out. "Way to be, Boobsie! Good call!" Burt Suture, waiting in line to pay his respects, boomingly sounded out his pleasure at the drôlerie of it all. Even his firm, muscle-bound body could not tolerate the hilarity, and he collapsed with laughter into Kelly Trucker's waiting arms. Marrie noticed that Kelly, unlike Burt, was not laughing. In truth, she had a rather strained expression on her usually vacant face.

Could it be, Marrie thought, that Kelly is not the vapid twit I have taken her for? Is she as disgusted as I at this atrocious irreverence? Perhaps I have misjudged her.

Unbeknowst to Marrie, Kelly's expression was merely a reflection of the effort she made to adequately support Burt's magnificent physique. "Burt, you woodsman," she simpered, "have you been working out?"

Boobsie, pleased with the funeralgoers' reaction, turned her attention once again to the corpse and quickly snapped several shots of it, then waddled back down the steps to her seat. By this time, the crowd had settled down once more, and the strains of "How Great Thou Art" were again audible. Marrie ascended the steps to face the lifeless, yet still strangely hunky, body of her lost love. Jim Welch was outfitted in his dress blues, the very clothes that had indirectly led him to his untimely, syphilis-related death. Marrie's eyes flooded with tears. How ironic, she thought. Jim had always been a model of chastity and purity in high school. She knelt beside the coffin. From her bulky purse she surreptitiously retrieved two Oreo cookies and lovingly placed one on each of Jim's closed eyes. It was a touching and heartfelt tribute to the man who had loved Oreos so.

"I'm wearing the dress you loved so much, Jim," Marrie whispered tenderly. He looked almost alive. For a frantic moment, she hoped that the Oreos would fall, Jim's baby blues would pop open and that he would wink at her suggestively in the manner he was wont to in high school. But his eyes remained closed and his lips never parted to utter the nickname he used to call her, "Snoopy."

Marrie, hoping no one was watching, touched those lips with her fingers and murmured, "Jim. I loved you."

"Hey!" said someone from behind her. She felt someone tap her on the shoulder.

Marrie quickly blinked away her unshed tears and turned to face a grinning Kelly.

"What'd you do, fall asleep?"

Marrie forced a chuckle. "No, I was trying to see if his genitals had really exploded like Burt and Boobsie claimed they did."

Kelly's eyes widened with curiosity. She craned her neck eagerly to examine Jim's trousers. "Well, have they?"

Marrie made herself look in the direction of Jim's ruined crotch. "I can't tell," she said truthfully. "His hands are in the way."

Jim's hands were in the way. They were folded protectively over his syphilitic package.

"Ah," Kelly sighed, amused. "Jim will be forever masturbating in death just as he was in life." She flashed a wicked grin at Marrie, who smiled weakly in return.

"Come on, gamines, give someone else a chance to ogle the body," complained Burt from behind them.

"All right, all right," said Kelly petulantly. She patted Jim's head and headed back to her seat.

Marrie gave one last lingering look and then followed suit. I shall never forget you, sweet prince. You were too good for this world.

Back in the pew, Kelly leaned forward and whispered to Marrie, Mitzie, and Claudius. "You guys going to the burial?"

"Shows what you know, Kelly," Marrie spat. "Jim was Viking Orthodox. He's not going to be buried, he's going to be burned on a pyre on the shores of Lake Wisconsin and then set adrift on a warship with his most treasured possessions."

"God, Marrie, what's up your ass?" said Mitzie, staring curiously at Marrie's suddenly beet-red countenance and wild, bulging eyes.

"Yeah," Kelly sneered. "The scum of the parish is dead. Let us rejoice and be glad."

"Marrie's got a boyfriend," taunted Claudius.

"Oh, Claudius, stop babbling," Mitzie snapped. "She doesn't care. Nobody does."

Marrie looked down, embarrassed.

Burt, rejoining the group, interrupted the awkward silence with a titter of anticipation. "Girls, get a load of Tatty!"

All eyes fixed upon the altar where Tatty stood before Jim Welch's coffin. Her plump buttocks threatened to split her Girbauds as she bent over Jim's body. A moan of desire escaped her lips.

"Tatty, what … ?!" her mother said sharply.

Burt and his chums were fascinated. What could be the object of Tatty's longing?

Tatty, drool dripping from her thick lips, extended her porky digits to Jim's eyes and deftly plucked the Oreos from whence they lay. She shoved both cookies in her cavernous mouth and gobbled them greedily.

"Tatty!" Martyr shouted. "Those were an offering to Thor!"

"Oh, mother, I couldn't help it," cried Tatty lustily, crumbs vaulting from her chocolate-blackened teeth. She patted her bloated belly contentedly. "My hunger simply overwhelmed me."

"Come, Tatty," her mother instructed, and prodded her back down the aisle. As Tatty passed by Kelly's pew, Kelly hissed, "What a PIG." Tatty whipped her massive head around, looking very much like an infuriated Medusa. She glared at Kelly, her colorless eyes aflame with indignation. Kelly's own eyes were wide and deceptively innocent. She pointed an accusing finger to her left, charging Marrie with the insolence.

Tatty's brain, if extracted, would not be sufficient to spread on a particularly small oyster cracker. But even she was not fooled by Kelly Trucker's pathetic ruse. She gritted her corn-kernel teeth at her rival and shook her chubby middle finger in the bitch's direction.

Kelly merely smiled serenely and focused her attention back to the front of the church.

Boobsie had been shifting uncomfortably in her wooden seat for ten minutes, bored out of her mind. Suddenly she snapped to attention and fumbled excitedly for her camera. Gora Welch, Jim's youngest sista, was ascending the steps to the lectern in order to give her brother's eulogy.

Gora has certainly grown into a lovely young woman, thought Burt admiringly. Her flaming red hair hung in waist-length ringlets and was coated with a slick sheen of gel. A spray of freckles covered her nose and plump red cheeks. Burt stared lasciviously at her ensemble: a clingy, horizontally-striped, primary-colored midriff tee and acid-washed Daisy Dukes. Her chunky thighs rubbed together enticingly as she climbed the steps. Oh, Gora, Burt thought. I want to fuck thee more than harp.

Burt's mother elbowed him. "Hey, Burt, don't let me catch you eyeing that trash. You don't want to end up like Trucker here, a cast-off of the parish hoi polloi."

Kelly made a face and stuck out her tongue at Boobsie.

"Box of rocks," muttered Boobsie sotto voce.

"Mother, you ignorant slut …" began Burt.

Boobsie hurriedly shushed him and waved her hand at him dismissively. Her comments were not designed to receive rebuttals. She began to snap candid photos of little Gora.

Gora raised her ponderous arms and spoke:

"I wanna thank y'all for bein' here today. I'm finna give special shout-outs to my brother's peeps Mason and Derek, who were with Jim when he bit it." She kissed her index and middle fingers, placed them over her left breast, and then pointed them at the grinning boys in a streetwise gesture of goodwill. "Anyway, I made a change to this fucked-up program. My parents wanted me to play "The Rose," but I hate that shit and so did Jim." She raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Mad props, J-Dawg. You my boy."

She pulled a tape out from her shorts pocket and slipped it into the boombox that lay on the carpet to the right of the lectern. A sexy male voice intoned:

"Attention, all ladies.
The Candyman is on the prowl.
And for those that wanna get busy,
You GOTS to speak up now."

A smooth groove began to rock the house, accentuated by the orgasmic gasps and laughter of a loose woman layered under the Candyman's seductive voice.

Mitzie, Kelly, and Claudius gaped in horror, their ears rebelling against the pornographic tune. Marrie, however, was moving her shoulders spastically in a kind of solitary pew-dance. Oh, Jim, she thought. I wish we could still knock boots. The sight of young Gora, who had broken into spontaneous "butterflying" at the altar, mesmerized Burt.

"Whoop, there it is," bellowed Boobsie, as she merrily reloaded her camera. In her rush to capture the hoopla, she dropped her just-completed roll of film. "Shit. Fuck. Damn. Get it, lard-ass." She pulled Burt's sleeve in the direction of the floor.

"Mother, I'll ruin my finery!" Burt objected.

"Oh, I'm gonna PUKE," said Kelly.

"Can you believe this shit?" whispered Mitzie in Claudius's ear. He was rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands as though to erase the visual memory of the gyrating Gora.

"Oh, god, I think Claud's brain is melting," said Mitzie to her friends. "I need to get him out of here."

"Let's blow," said Kelly, grabbing her coat and purse.

Mitzie pulled Claudius to his feet and, sheltering his eyes with her arm, dragged his semiconscious body down the side aisle.

No one seemed to notice their departure.

Burt was engrossed in the floor show.

Boobsie had already forgotten the wayward roll of film and was snapping pictures frantically.

And Marrie had a glazed look on her face. A single tear slid down her velvety cheek.