You are listening to a Clark's World magazine podcast with

their host and narrator Kate Baker. As I mentioned in last week's episode, we are

now on Joy Ride. So please if you have a moment go to

get Joyride.com forward slash Clarks World for all the information. Our third story for the month of December 2014 is now

dress me in my finest suit and lay me in my casket. And is by a new author to Clark's World, M.

Benardo. M. Benardo is the writer of over 50 short stories appearing in Asimov's, beneath Ceaseless Skies, Light Speed magazine, and others.

He is also co-editor of The Machine of Death.

Bear Stash Books 2010 and its sequel, This is How You Die, Grand Central Publishing 2013.

You can find him at his website M. Benardo.com, and that's M-N-A-D-O.

So I invite you to relax, to sit back

and let me tell you a story.

Every night as a young girl, I would help my grandfather finish dressing in his nicest, cleanest suit.

He would stand in his black gold-toed socks on the bedroom rug, his twill trousers hanging slack as he threaded cuff links through the

buttonholes of his shining white shirt.

His tie knot was always a double Windsor, with a tie pin pushed through to keep it in place above the collar, a cheap

manufactured Ruby on the end of the pin to match the cuff links. His gray hair was carefully shaped and parted too, then sprayed into permanent

obedience. The individual marks of the comb teeth preserved like furrows in a field.

Earlier just after dinner, there had been a fresh shave for his cheeks and neck, a fresh trim for his mustache, and two quick sharp splashes of aftershave that lingered now in a muddled measma of which

Hazel in alcohol.

Any night of the week, my father might pass by as I helped my grandfather into the cool black sleeves of his jacket, dusting his shoulders and back for stray cat hairs.

Father wouldn't say anything, wouldn't even look in the room, but a slam of a door down the hall would let us know how he felt.

No shoes, Grandfather would say to me as if he were imparting a great secret of life, no shoes and no hat, and every pocket empty.

...