My neighbor, the funeral home.

Living across the street from a funeral home has its benefits. Neighbors tend to stay quiet in reverence, stray cats steer clear of our block. Maybe cats lose one of their lives if they come too close. But the best is definitely the parking lot. I love the parking lot.

The property adjacent to the funeral home and back a few dozen meters from the street holds the grocery store where I shop. I walk there regularly and the path thereto leads right across the funeral home parking lot. Many times it's barren. But sometimes there's a service inside and the small lot's full of cars. Occasionally I cross the lot when the service inside is finished and there are people outside in the parking lot.

I've seen gatherings for dozens of services. There doesn't seem to be a specific socioeconomic category to which this funeral home caters. All types of people, all types of cars. Some services with Cadillacs, BMWs, etc. Others with rust-buckets littering the parking lot. But all groups share some things. The front doors have a two-fold bottleneck effect- After a service, once people hit the open air, they 1)reform into groups from their single file configuration, and 2)breathe again, like they've been bottled up a long time and now they can move.

In addition to the way in which people exit the building, there's another thing most groups have in common. It's the way they converse in the parking lot. Now obviously I don't walk directly through conversations, but as I traverse the perimeter of the parking lot on my way to the grocery store following a service, I pick up general bits. This is why I like the parking lot. People circle up around car hoods and truck beds. Cigarettes are lit. Laughter, stories, hugs, etc. It doesn't seem to matter what types of cars are in the parking lot. After a service, there's always stories and laughter.

This afternoon my grocery walk coincided with the end of a service. Two mid-20s looking, cigarette-bearing guys stood with an old man. From a distance, they had the look of two estranged brothers standing uncomfortably with their grandfather. Anxious little movements from all of them. The two stood a slight distance from the old man, like they knew he disapproved of their smokes, but they were going to smoke anyway. The old man buried his hands deep in his suit coat pockets.

I walked in to the grocery store and reemerged a few minutes later. The three were still talking. The two still smoking. Hands still buried in coat pockets. As I crossed the street back toward my house, I stole a glance in their direction. They were mid-embrace. All three in one big tangle. I got to the sidewalk on the other side of the street and turned away from them toward my house. From behind me, I wasn't surprised to hear their laughter.