It was a huge funeral, and the sons of the dead man were dead drunk. I was directing the rosary that evening, and one of the grandsons told me that his uncles were about to start a brawl in the family room. The family room has a glass wall opening onto a patio, and a fistfight in there could easily turn into a bloody mess, so I hustled the two fighters out the front door onto the lawn.
Once they were outside, it became clear that the instigator of the fight was neither of the brothers. Juan, one of the brothers, had an equally inebriated wife who stood behind him and screamed, “Hit him, Juan!” repeatedly and pushed her husband toward his teetering, bleary-eyed brother.
Juan, finally convinced that decking his brother was the only way he would achieve domestic tranquility, wound up like a major league pitcher and threw his best knockout punch. His fist sailed right past his brother’s nose and, as Juan drunkenly spun, his blow landed powerfully on his wife’s chin. He decked her. He knocked her clean out.
I will never know whether he did that on purpose, but it’s very possible he did. The two brothers, suddenly much more sober, carried the silent woman into the funeral home and laid her on the couch. I wasn’t surprised that no one made any serious effort to revive her.
Anonymous Funeral Director
