My uncle, who was buried yesterday in a small cemetery outside of Peekskill, would not have gotten anywhere near the kick out of this that his brother, my father would.  My father had a truly dark sense of humor, and few things made him laugh more than things that were tinged with horror.  I felt a pang, when my cousin told me the story, that I couldn’t call my father and tell him about it.   He would have chuckled.

The rabbi had thoughtlessly mentioned my uncle’s unpaid membership dues for 2012 while discussing the burial.  He told my cousin about the congregation’s strict policy about not burying any member who was in arrears.   I had a more violent reaction to this bad behavior on the rabbi’s part than my cousin did.  My cousin was merely annoyed.  For me, it woke a lot of pissed off ghosts who were sleeping in that graveyard.

When the time came, I was mild with the rabbi, even as Sekhnet glared at him.  After the funeral, as my cousin took his wrung out mother down the hill toward the cars, I found myself speaking directly and without rancor.

“Rabbi, I need to raise something that’s a little difficult.  We were all upset that you brought up membership dues with Jon when he called to arrange his father’s funeral the other day.”

“But Jon didn’t say anything,” the rabbi said, looking slightly aghast.

“Jon’s pretty stoic, and his father had just died,” I said.

“I’m so sorry,” said the rabbi sincerely.

“I found an invoice in my uncle’s files dated December 2011, seven months after his stroke.  He was billed $2,640 and his letter was attached, along with his payment for $350 and yet another special waiver.  There is a pile of letters, year after year, from my father and my uncle, about their out-of-town membership rate.  They’d each paid dues for more than 60 years.”

“I… I apologize, I shouldn’t have brought that up at that time,” said the rabbi, looking pale in the cold.

“OK, you should tell Jon,” I said, pointing down the hill towards Jon and his tiny, huddled mother.

The rabbi apologized to Jon, we said goodbye to Jon and my aunt as they prepared to make the long drive back to Maryland.  I had Sekhnet go get her Where The Wild Things Are fake fur hat with the pointy animal ears on top, and she got a smile out of my aunt with the adorable hat.  They drove off.

I spoke to Jon last night and he gave me the details that would have brought laughs from my father’s wry skeleton.   About 150 miles south of Peekskill Jon’s cell phone rang.  The caller introduced himself as one of the directors of the Jewish Center, the son of the kosher butcher who was the best friend of our cousin Eli, the guy with the famous temper who told the rabbi to put a dog in his grave, that he wasn’t paying any more in dues.  The man offered his condolences, apologized again for the rabbi’s thoughtless imitation of a rabbi from an anti-Semite’s joke.  He went on for some time, my cousin reported, although Jon had no idea what the purpose of the call really was.  Clearly the rabbi had given him the cell phone number.

There was another apology from the rabbi, this time in email form.  But here’s the punchline, dear reader, and Dad.  They sent Jon an electronic invoice for the membership dues in the amount, not of the $350 he’d billed to his credit card right before the hearse left for the cemetery, but $325.

“$325,” I laughed, “what percent discount is that?  Less than 10%, hmmmmm, that’s good.”  The laugh I laughed was bitter and not very satisfying.  My father would have been able to get more out of it.