Thursday morning the father of one of my close friends was found dead in his rented flophouse. All signs point towards overdose, so we’ll just go with that as manner of death for now. He was a piece of shit father who was in and out of the lives of his children, spent time in jail, and was smoking crack with his youngest son on his sixteenth birthday. To sum it up, he was a piece of shit. Now, fast-forward to the day of the funeral.
The wealthy sister (who was amazing and solid as a rock through the entire thing) of the deceased showed up from Kansas City and paid for the entire funeral. Means of burial was cremation and even taking this route was, in my opinion, insanely extensive. $4,200 for the services and cremation; the bill stated the cardboard in the rented coffin cost $600. Re-fucking-diculous. My friend asked that I arrive at his house at noon and provide him moral support outside of his family; he knew that I would talk about other things than the funeral and provide a healthy distraction from the sadness of the day. He also knew he was going to need help with his on again off again drug addict, younger brother who is twenty-two going on thirteen.
His brother started drinking straight vodka around 1 pm; the visitation did not start until 6 pm. My friend, who has a 7 year old daughter who was close to the deceased, was absolutely distraught over his brother’s behavior. His brother, we’ll call Brody, was acting a got-damn fool. He was eating valium, drinking vodka, and pontificating about he was, “The closest one to my dad out of all you motherfuckers.” This is in front of the family, including one other brother and two sisters and also the aunt who was paying for the entire thing.
His histrionics and ignorance absolutely dominated the day. He was not thankful at all and nothing was done right according to his drunken, exacting standards. He demanded that Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird be played, not once, but throughout the entire visitation. I wasn’t even aware there was music at visitations, but he was hell bent.
He made everyone there, at my friend’s house uncomfortable, around twenty people. He demanded to be the first one into the funeral home to view the body, stating that he was going to, “Grab dad and lift him up out of the casket and tell him to ‘WAKE UP!’. Well, surely enough, he was the first one there and acted like a complete idiot. He did exactly what he said he was going to do, up to and including throwing himself on the corpse and playing dress up with the body: He put a bandana and sunglasses on his dad. He was screaming at the top of the lungs which sent my friends seven year old daughter into hysterics.
Rather than greeting the people who came to pay their respects, Brody kept disappearing to the parking lot with a group of his fucking junky, loser friends where they were smashing shots of Crown Royal. Every time a new group of people would show up he’d wash, rinse, and repeat the whole wailing and gnashing of teeth routine, screaming and yelling that he was the “CLOSEST MOTHERFUCKER HERE” to his father. His actions were upsetting to everyone in attendance and a few people who were warned at the door of his behavior turned around and left without ever going in.
He then accosted the funeral director yelling, “I don’t want you to burn my fucking dad.” We had to physically escort him out of the funeral home while his buddy chimed in, “Yeah I heard you guys smash the body before you burn.” He and his buddy came back to my friend’s house, whereupon I tossed out his brother’s trashed friend, by force. His brother then left the house to score meth in a grocery store parking lot down the road and didn’t return that night. We didn’t see him until the next day.
At the funeral he was a complete disaster and it was apparent he had gone days without sleep. He pulled the same shit he did at the visitation and ruined the entire experience for everyone, leaving his aunt who paid for the entire thing in tears. The shit-show is still continuing; he called my house on Sunday night after the funeral to find his brother who was staying with me to get away from his house. He was threatening to shoot, “EVERY MOTHERFUCKER” who had stepped on his toes and ruined his grieving process. I hung the phone up and haven’t heard from him since. For all I know he will be the next one his wealthy aunt will have to pay funeral expenses for. FUUUUUUUUUUCK:smack:
So, dopers, any train-wreck funeral stories to be shared?