Cat Fights and Caskets

Hey there kids! Well, it's been a couple months since we last talked. However, a lot has happened. Let me fill you in on the last two months real quick:

• Thanksgiving happened rather uneventfully
• Finals week nearly killed me and everyone around me
• I returned home for winter break
• Hanukkah
• Doing an autopsy on Christmas Eve
• Christmas
• This:
  

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"Cat Fights and Caskets"

Whenever I go home for more than a month or so I generally look for work that is as far away from the morgue (which my mother operates in Laredo) as possible. However, this endeavor generally fails and I end up working at the funeral home mentioned in "Ashes to Ashes - Where Did They Go?!". It's a fun job and all, however, there's pay's lousy, there are no benefits, and I only really got the job since the employees at [Funeral Home] are deathly afraid of my mother. However, for all its faults, there are its good sides. One of them is the sheer amount of over the border crazy that I see walk through the front doors.

This past December I worked for a week at [Funeral Home] to get some cash to play around with. On day six or so I go to one of the nicer buildings for a rather large funeral. Upon checking in with the receptionist and two of my five bosses (I'm the bitch of the company. Well, any usher is.) I'm given some insight into tonight's service:

Boss S: Hey, just a heads up, the guy the service if for got shot over the border.
Me: Okay, so?
Boss S: He was shot by the cops during a drug run.

At first I thought he was pulling my leg. However, after I grabbed a paper from the front office, I discovered that he wasn't. This man, who was in his 20s or so, was part o a very large gang in Mexico and was in fact shot twice (or so) in the head by the police during a drug bust. Well, that explains why he was being buried in a beanie.

After this lovely piece of information my boss comes back to tell me that these people who were to come for the viewing that night were all gang members and we were not to fuck with them.

Boss S: If they want to bring food into the chapel, let them. Don't talk back. Don't make eye contact. If they need anything, you get me.

Yeah, he was serious. Let me tell you, when people started showing up, I found out why. Nobody spoke English (which isn't a huge deal on the border.), all the men were huge and had tattoos on their faces and whatnot to show where they were ranked in the gang (I found out that's what the tattoos meant later), a few refused to come inside, but instead stayed on the front porch of the chapel as lookouts (I shit you not.), and others stood by the doors inside as if guarding the interior of the chapel. This night was bound to be a treat.

About halfway through the service (there is over a hundred people inside by now and at least twenty on the front porch) a woman walks in with a toddler in her arms. She's very pretty, and very young. After looking around for a moment she signs the register and just stands out in the lobby where I am stationed. While I watched, the wife of the deceased man walks into the lobby with her child, sees the woman and the other baby, and begins to walk in the opposite direction. The new girl sets her kid down, walks over to the wife, and grabs her coat.

Then all hell broke out.

The wife whirls around, grabs the new girl by the jacket, and begins to drag her outside. When they reached the front door she SLAMS the new girl into the wall and then opens the door. Well, new girl isn't having this, so she grabs the wife's hair and begins to scratch her.

Yes folks, a cat fight has broken out at the service. What's better? The new girl is the deceased man's girlfriend and the toddler she was carrying was his other child.

That's right. That's his baby momma out of wedlock. She is young. Pretty. And very, very, pissed off.

Back to the story.

Now, as this is going on I do two things very quickly:

1. Smile and try to restrain laughter at the sight of this cat fight
2. Get my boss

By the time I return with Boss S a circle of family has formed between these two women in the lobby (I guess Girlfriend clawed her way back inside) as if we were in a high school cafeteria fight. It doesn't take long for Boss S to push his way into the circle and between the two women. Now, I'm not a woman. I'm quite happy I don't have a vagina. However, I do know some girl rules. One of them is: Don't get between two pissed off broads. During a fight, they see nothing but red. Apparently Boss S didn't realize this. However, he was able to stop them and escort them, and the wife's posse (all chicks. ((who I wouldn't be surprised if the husband screwed))) into his office. The circle dispersed and I was once again left with this now very agitated family. The other ushers at this point decided to go take a smoke break. Now, normally I could hold down the fort in situations such as this, however, I am young, somewhat short compared to some of these men (and some of the women), a cracker, and I only speak enough Spanish to save my life. I am jail bait.

After a while the wife and posse returned from Boss S's office and immediately left the service. Girlfriend stayed, wife left. Let me repeat myself, THE WIFE LEFT HER HUSBAND'S SERVICE AND THE UNMARRIED GIRLFRIEND STAYED. What's better? Wife left her kid (all of two or three years old) at the funeral home. Oh, the night only gets better from here.

After that little show, Boss S walks up to us ushers (the other two decided to grace me with their presence after their fifteen or so minute smoke break) and says that he's leaving for the night. Don't call him. Lock up when the family's done. Oh, and they've paid for an extra hour. Bye.

FUCK.NO.

My boss just left. He left. He didn't go out for his own smoke break. He left. He didn't go to get me a drink for witnessing bloodshed in the lobby. He left. He left. He fucking abandoned the crazy ship across the Rio Grande and left for home. He's not coming back. He can't deal with it. He left. I am now alone. Three ushers. One secretary. Only the secretary speaks Spanish and she's' protected inside the front office where a wall of glass (probably bulletproof) separates her form the gun-toting, now riled up, Mexican gangsters who just lost their best drug runner.

Two hours later:

They're still not gone. Luckily though, no fights broke out. However, wife and posse reappeared and now there's this awkward atmosphere mixed with testosterone and anger that the NRA would be jealous of.

Luckily, after a long while, the "family" decided to leave. However, the memories of that night never will.