Mason Valentine couldn’t stop laughing.
The entire day had basically been a delightfully kooky acid trip with notes of Fawlty Towers, The Vicar of Dibley, a sprinkle of Schitt’s Creek, and some extra weirdness from the Twilight Zone.
True, Mason had some inkling that his grandfather’s funeral services would be less than ordinary (“colorful” was the politically correct term for it). Still, he definitely didn’t foresee the swarm of weirdos who descended upon the family’s resort to honor the late Senator Miles “The Tank” Valentine. It could best be described as a circus without the clowns and cotton candy. Actually—on second glance, maybe the clowns had arrived.
Mason valiantly attempted to maintain his composure. He tried every breathing rhythm and mindfulness exercise he could think of. He played with his suit buttons, avoided eye contact, and tried to think of every awful tragedy he’d ever lived through. In the process, he’d suspected he’d done a Kegel exercise or two! Unless it wasn't possible for a man to do Kegels? He wasn’t sure.
However, the surprise bellow of Julie Andrews yodeling about goat herders from the speaker system was such a shock that it caused every bird in earshot to dart out of the autumn-tinged trees in distress, defecating with remarkable accuracy on the eclectic group of guests. Hitchcock couldn’t have planned it better, and Mason couldn’t hold his laughter any longer. And to think, Mason worried he was going to be the party pooper!
In the years following the death of his first wife, Lady Jean Valentine, the Senator, who was already known for his eccentric behavior, had become the world’s highest-profile conspiracy theorist. Testifying before Congress and appearing on television shows around the world, he touted his “privileged” access to information concerning the “truth” about everything from the “New World Order” to extra-terrestrials. Did the Senator have “privileged” information about life beyond the stars or a cabal of banking aficionados bilking the public for their own private enjoyment? No. Of course, he didn’t. Like so many politicians, the Senator was born with a “spotlight” complex. He’d have thrown himself on Celebrity Survivor and noshed on donkey testicles if it was sure to get him press. Being in the news aroused him to near orgasm every time.
That said, the Senator’s fame—for reasons only Freud or Jung could explain—always had an unparalleled ability to attract oddballs and nutbars, which Mason assumed were the correct clinical terms to describe them. Indeed, during his life—particularly when Highclere Inn & Carriage House was operational as a resort—most of its annual guests would fall somewhere on the spectrum between delightfully eccentric to one lost marble away from a straitjacket. The Valentine family felt the cross-section of guests made the resort business amusingly quirky—though profitably futile—with most guests returning year after year and becoming eccentric extended family to the Valentines.
The conspiracy theory contingent, however…well…they were another matter altogether. As Mason scanned the sizeable crowd, he felt he’d mistakenly wandered onto the Island of Misfit Toys—or into a kinky cosplay den.
It was a rare sight to have the property brimming with activity. Highclere Inn & Carriage House had been closed for 20 years, but Senator Valentine reopened for the summer to a select contingent of loyal guests to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Highclere’s building. “Select” was a rather generous word considering the actual qualifications for an invite were one, being a former guest and two, still being alive. Thanks to Father Time, the pool of invitees had whittled down to about a dozen couples and a handful of amorous ghosts. Adult diapers, Metamucil, and Poligrip had replaced the traditional bottle of wine and box of chocolates as the guest welcome gift.
However, the Senator never again returned to Highclere alive.
*Â *Â *
Earlier, the Senator’s coffin, ostentatiously draped in a Canadian flag, traveled to the burial plot atop a make-shift gun carriage from the picturesque, tiny, white clapboard steepled church at the peak of Highclere Hill—where a private family service was conducted by one of Highclere’s most stalwart guests, the Reverend Bernard St. Joy. In truth, it was never clear to the Valentine family, and even to the Senator himself, what exactly Bernard St. Joy was a reverend of. Their obtuseness had gone on too long, however, and it was past the point anyone could reasonably ask Bernard what his credentials were.
Further puzzlement piqued when Bernard conducted the funeral wearing a kippah and an old, black sash draped over his shoulders like a shawl that read “Bachelorette Party,” with hand-drawn crosses added in silver Sharpie at each end.Â
Following the private service and the arrival of a windowless white van that Mason assumed was the local asylum looking for its runaways, the procession kicked off from Highclere Hill to the burial plot. The gun carriage—an extremely loose description for a wobbly old hospital gurney decked out with bicycle tires being pulled by two ponies—led the way down the uneven, dusty rural road, leaving plumes of kicked-up dirt in its wake.
Mason, the middle child of Senator and Lady Valentine’s son Lawrence, was surrounded by his parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles, all walking in step, waving the kicked-up dust out of their faces. Mason became briefly energized when he realized how utterly fabulous it was that the procession was beginning to resemble a scene from Evita! However, he thwarted his sudden urge to raise his arms into a high V-shape and sing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” by imagining—of all things—puppies drowning. A skosh dark, sure, but it did the trick.
The dirt raised by the horses pulling the casket dissipated as the cortege passed the old rotting gatehouse and moved onto the property’s aged tarmac. With the light and dust out of their eyes and finally able to see ahead of them, the Valentine family was…befuddled. Bemused? Maybe something more akin to wanting to run away in high-pitched screams? When dozens of mourners came into view, lining the driveway, wishing to pay their own nutty last respects to the Senator.
To start, several dozen (organized by the leader of the Senator’s fan club, “The Tanks”) were dressed in red hoodies and on bicycles, with pictures of the Senator affixed to their handlebars. Or, in the case of a few resourceful and dedicated fans who had access to a 3D printer, small busts of Tank poked through a posy of daisies in wicker handlebar baskets. All paying tribute in a manner obviously dreamed up by stalwarts of the film E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial. First Evita, and now E.T.…
Mason burped out an accidental guffaw as John William’s E.T. theme song started swirling in his head.
Dead puppies…dead puppies.
The tributes became increasingly eclectic the further the procession traveled through the property. It was akin to the tunnel of horrors from Willy Wonka. The next group of mourners were all dressed in suits and handcuffed together with signs around their necks saying, “Jail the Cronies—New World Order Styles.”
Evita, E.T, New World Order. Check, Check, Check.
Dead puppies…dead puppies.
The procession followed the slight bend in the road and continued toward the narrow, grassy, tree-arched footpath that led to the burial plot. As the family reorganized themselves into single file to pass the threshold, they encountered the last set of mourners from “The Tanks.” This bunch was a hodge podge containing a mix of fans carrying signs that read “9/11 AND TANK VALENTINE—INSIDE JOBS,” some dressed as Ghostbusters displaying the initials “JFK” on their left breast pockets, while others were in black painted astronaut suits. Finally, a man in a Donald Trump mask wearing a number 46 jersey stood among the crowd.
Evita, E.T., New World Order, 9/11 conspiracy, JFK truthers, plus moon landing and election deniers, ALL in the same place at the same time. Oh, what a beautiful morning—er, afternoon.Â
Dead puppies…dead puppies.
After what felt like traveling through different dimensions and realities, the procession entered the burial plot—a one-acre, circular piece of the Highclere grounds designated as a cemetery decades earlier. The Senator’s wobbly assembled gun carriage was wheeled within feet of his vast, self-designed monument, which sat above a specially built vault where the Senator would rest in peace.
The burial plot was primarily filled with close family friends, colleagues, distant relations, and, of course, the living guests of Highclere Inn & Carriage House. Distinguished semi-retired lawyer Roland Mast and his wife Viviane, guests of Highclere for 40 years, greeted the Valentines at the front of the group. Roland and Viviane had stumbled across Highclere one evening and fell in love with the property. While the Masts were fashionable, grand people in nearly every sense, their inclination for pomp and sparkle faded whenever they drove across the threshold of Highclere. Their inclination for a very stiff drink, however, never failed to follow them to their summers away, resulting in some rather loud, though entertaining, nights watching the pink, orange, and purple hues of the sunsets melt into darkness.
Behind the Masts was Angel Conner, another long-time guest, accompanied by her pet squirrel, Lenore, who stood at attention on the end of a bedazzled leash. Angel, heavyset with wiry silver hair, a penchant for patchouli oil, and dressed in a custom caftan—embellished the night before using Highclere’s flowers and leaves—would largely be considered one of the resort’s most colorful…though marble-missing…guests. When Angel arrived two weeks earlier with Lenore, the family realized that the old fable of pets looking like their owners remained true of species outside of the traditional cat and dog. Angel and Lenore could’ve been twins! While Mason hadn’t seen Angel in two decades, he’d learned in the previous days that she and her husband Robert had divorced some years earlier after Robert’s therapy pet alligator named Flipper ate Angel’s pet, which at the time was a rat named Maureen. Unable to go on with the marriage because of her grief, Angel filed for divorce. Sadly, Robert was killed two years later during a pilgrimage to Florida to introduce Flipper to her relatives in the Everglades. It was mating season. Flipper found her match, and Robert got in the way. Rescuers salvaged Robert’s watch from the stomach of a neighboring gator.
Next to Angel Conner stood Brian and Prunella Fisher. Their devotion and love of Highclere began in the 1970s when the cult they were a part of booked a two-week retreat at the property. The cult, as it would turn out, had intended to climax their trip with the group’s self-death in the bowels of the lake. The manager of Highclere at the time was a woman named Germaine LeBlanc, who, upon hearing the plans of the group 48 hours before their earthly checkout, quickly ensured she processed the credit card on file. Once payment cleared, it occurred to her she should also alert the authorities—and one assumes the asylum that increasingly holds more and more of the Valentine’s nearest and dearest—who scuppered the plan before its execution. Execution is quite literal in this case.
Two days later, Brian and Prunella checked back in. Their lanky, handsome bodies were clad in hip waders and wearing bucket hats with fishing paraphernalia sewn in. The couple carried two tiny suitcases and asked for the smallest room and the nearest fishing boat. They left their cult and joined the clan of Highclere Inn & Carriage House.
Lastly, seated beside Angel Conner in a distinguished-looking wheelchair was Dr. Louella Stone, the oldest surviving Highclere guest. At 93 years old, Louella had known Senator and Lady Valentine her entire adult life. A forceful personality whose svelte aging body could no longer be relied upon to comfortably carry her, Louella remained refined while hunched with a perfect silver bob. She was a confidante for Lady Valentine and the Valentine children, and she, alongside her late husband Atticus, was one of only three families welcomed to continue holidays at Highclere every summer after the resort ceased operations. It was their favorite place in the world. Next to Louella was the polished grave of her husband, Atticus Stone, who was buried a decade earlier.
Every person braving the heat in black funeral garb on an unseasonably warm Labor Day weekend held a special place in the hearts of the Valentine family. Their lives intertwined by fate, experience, happenstance, love…and a whole lot of nuttiness.
The soloist, Senator Valentine, had specifically requested sing at his service, “conveniently” discovered she suffered from “seasonal allergies” during rehearsal the day before. The funeral directors had no choice but to use records and a speaker system to honor the Senator’s musical wishes.
As Mason removed his extra-large, square sunglasses to dab the sweat now beading down his forehead, his thoughts went back to “The Tanks” at the gate, the Evita procession, Bernard's “Bachelorette Party,” sash, rat-eating alligators, leashed squirrels, and the amusing online conspiracy theories about the Senator’s death. He smiled again.
Dead puppies…dead puppies.
Suddenly, a squeal pierced the thick, humid air from the speaker system. Julie Andrews yodeled about goat herders, and every bird in the adjacent trees—which of late hadn’t been many—flew off in terror, shitting a storm on the manicured guests and meticulously curated service. This was a level of absurdity too far, and Mason burst out in laughter and couldn’t stop.
*Â *Â *
As the funeral directors distributed wet wipes, the gentle lilt of the opening bars of “Edelweiss” enveloped the circular burial ground. This was the Sound of Music song they were looking for.
Mason stifled his girlish cackle with his hands and tried to regain his composure when he looked across the burial ground to see a well-dressed woman, whom he guessed to be in her fifties, staring at him with a warm smile. Wearing three strands of pearls, a black cocktail dress, and carrying a stunning gold-plated box, she looked familiar…but he couldn’t place her.Â
Who was she?
The pallbearers removed and folded the Canadian flag that draped the coffin of Senator Valentine before transferring the casket onto a hydraulic lift to begin its sacred descent into the vault below. Despite the absurdity around them, the family felt the somber ritual. The Valentines were visibly moved, their faces pronounced by grief. At the Senator’s request, his semi-retired groundskeeper, Ahren, had the honor of controlling the casket’s descent into the vault; he’d then return the excavated earth mounded next to the Senator’s monument onto the casket until it became one with the soil below.
As the earth consumed the polished wood, a tearful Laverna Clifton-Lehrman, Senator Valentine’s stepdaughter, walked to the monument bearing the face of the man she had just buried and removed a red velvet cover to reveal the etched date of a few short weeks earlier. The date Senator Miles “The Tank” Valentine had died.
