Joan could barely hold back the tears. It had been 24 hours since Rex had to be put down by the veterinarian. Rex had cancer, and faced a suffering decline, so Joan agreed to have him put to sleep. Joan vowed that Rex would have a funeral fit for the important role he had played in her life. Joan is single, and never had children. Now in her late 40′s, she devoted herself to Rex after her mother died in 2005.
Some people thought Joan was a bit odd for putting such devotion into her pet iguana. He was, after all, a reptile. But Rex was always a special creature – he loved to be handled and gladly accepted hand-feeding. He never bit or snapped at Joan, something her former boyfriend couldn’t claim. Rex was also protective of Joan, and more than once he could be found biting the nose of Joan’s boyfriend during the couples violent fights.
Joan had gone through a quart of gin in the last day, but nothing could stop the pain of bereavement. It took all of her willpower to not call her meth connection, but she knew she had to be able to function until the burial was completed later today. Once Rex was interred, she could relax and shoot up before hitting the streets again. Big John let her take a day off from turning tricks, but he would be real angry if she didn’t start bringing in money again.
Well, everything was set. The pastor from the halfway house agreed to officiate at the ceremony, and a client, Billy, who worked at a pet cemetery, offered her a free service, complete with sad music and funeral flowers. She was grateful for Billy’s kindness, and vowed to charge him half price next time they got together.
She entered the pet cemetery carrying Rex in a shoebox. It was still hard to accept he was gone, but she knew she had to be brave or she’d never get through the ordeal. Billy started the CD recording of the third movement of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a suitably elegiac choice for Rex. The pastor mumbled a few words, then Billy quickly dug a small grave just two feet deep and carefully placed the shoebox, cover off, in the center. He let Joan shovel the dirt back into the grave, and suddenly Rex was gone. Joan couldn’t afford a monument, so she made one of her own from Popsicle sticks, and now placed it at the front of Rex’s grave. Joan had scrawled an inscription: “Rex, I wish it had been me instead.”
As it started to rain, Joan and Billy climbed into the back of Big John’s limo and headed back to the city. The pastor looked on, blinking back the tears, and walked off into the rainy night.