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In the pickup's trailer lies the sheeted body of Jack. Tim loaded it there on his very own.
He would put the radio on, but all that is playing are transmissions of Handsome Jack’s funeral. Hyperion has been blasting it all over the news — it has been pompous and theatrical and, obviously, closed-casket, and as rushed as veneers of decency would allow. It’s an embarrassing moment in company history — having to bury their invictus leader. They also did not bury shit. Not even his fanboys were arsed enough to retrieve the body. Tim was never the most loyal. Hell, he was one of the first to jump ship. And yet, here he fucking is, isn’t he.
Here he is, breaking the law. Lilith’s edict is: no burial. Pandora is one big charnel house anyway — and better men had rotten under this sun. Not even a handful of clay should be thrown at the corpse, those the orders. Disobey and join Jack in the fun.
She is entitled to command this — how many of hers remain unburied? It’s a petty payback, of course. Maybe it’s rightful, in some way. If there is one law Pandora respects it’s Hammurabi's. But Timothy doesn't! What's that, Lilith ain’t got anything better to do but watch Jack decompose? He will turn unrecognisable soon, just another dead man.
What does she gain from this? Roland is dead. Pandora is free. Tim just wants to tie up all loose ends, what sort of crime is that?
And, she wasn’t guarding Jack’s pitiful carcass anyway. She has her own wounds to lick, funerals to attend. She has a victory to rejoice in. The body laid insecure, there for taking. What’s more important, it’s Tim’s business, and only his business, how he should take care of his dead. To hell with Lilith.
So, he is driving in silence, being extra careful to not jolt the body too much. It’s all profoundly strange. He always thought that Jack would be the one to bury him, not the other way around.
But it all happened exactly this way, and when he arrives at his hideout — a shack that he nestled in — he can only think how damn cumbersome the corpse is to carry. The weight Tim doesn’t mind, only the freaky limpness. He steps inside, body in his arms. It’s like a grotesque parody of a groom carrying his bride through the doorway. Even the cloth Jack is bound in is white.
The cloth used to be his sheet. He doesn't mind parting with it. There is something ridiculous about him owning one, anyway. How does he live? Want a house tour? He is really into asceticism nowadays. If he ever hosted guests he'd show them; a steel bed frame, mattress softish with decay, a wooden table, that's it. Where in this does he have room for a bed sheet.
He'd always starch it after washing, as his mother used to.
It gave him nothing but trouble, now that he thinks about it. Jack is doing him a favour here honestly.
He also felt sick at the idea of handling Jack without it and just putting him into his car with no care or anything.
Bodies command respect.
Bodies also leak.
He puts Jack down onto a table, where he can do exactly that. This doesn't make Timothy nauseous.
All that’s needed had been prepared beforehand. He got water, ethanol and a bucket of lime for the burial, so the rot won’t spoil the soil. He got an empty space in his garden. If he stands in it straight his forehead barely meets the ridge, that means it's deep enough. It was no easy work, digging it all up, his shoulders ached badly. When he was finished with it, he laid down at the bottom. He had to check if Jack would fit. It was strange to look at things from his point of view, he spent years looking at him not with him. Never with him. And then he stopped looking altogether.
At six feet deep Pandora's soil was no longer orange and chasmed. It was wet and cold like a tongue. His jacket got dirty.
At six feet deep, it's an unreal space to exist in.
He was thinking about what if he had stayed would Hyperion be burying the two of them hip to hip.
Let's not think about it, let's just not.
Here comes the difficult part.
Tim strips him, he lays bare and desecrated. Hope, of course there is hope. It could be a Doppel, still. Maybe the real deal, having orchestrated his own death, is now sitting safe and sound in Helios. He’d have a right goddamn laugh if he knew what Timothy was up to. He’d also be terribly offended that Tim picked his own backyard for a burial ground. It’s a good spot, he’d argue back. This way Tim can keep an eye on the grave, fend of skags and whatnot. It’s a good spot, all right, and it’s not like Jack can bitch about it now. Too damn late.
It isn’t a clone, of course. He can tell by the face alone. Somebody had ripped off the mask, the ill blue of burned skin reveals the identity. Still he ineptly sponge bathes the body half-hoping for some counterevidence. But it is the real deal, the Handsome goddamn Jack, now cold and growing stiff. He is certain of it, he used to be his. This one that lays before him is so much more gaunt. The endearing softness of his belly and thighs is gone. Those past few years weren’t kind to him— it shows in the face. Timothy is nearly ashamed of how well his own brand healed.
Small solace — He isn’t as mangled as Tim had fretted when he first saw him in that volcano. Jack is in one piece, more or less. He took some bullets to the gut, and that’s it. Not even a full clip. Makes one think how this hasn’t been done much sooner. He feels dizzy. What a lame-ass defeat. What a lame-ass death! God, what Tim endured, what he pulled through, how is Jack gone when he is still here. It’s just absurd, that’s what it is.
He wipes the blood off his chest and stomach. He cleans his hands. He can’t bear to look at his face, and so it stays dirty.
Before Tim wraps him up again, he steals his ring as a keepsake. He is barely sentimental but Jack owes him this one. If he still had that damn mask, he would have put it on him in return. But he doesn’t, and so there is only one thing left to be done.
* * *
Every spadeful he feels on his own chest well he is burying himself.
The evening is sultry, it’s late summer. It’s hard to grow anything around these parts, but maybe Tim could sow the grave with some flowers, make it all pretty an’ shit.
He thought he could go to Lynchwood for the wake. And then he got the news that Nisha is dead as well. Shame, some say that she sobered up near the end. Or at least, that she has been making attempts to fall back, must have nosed out the trouble cooking. Tim doubts it — Nisha had never been a fall back type of woman. She has always been a fall forward girl through and through. That’s why it all ended this way for her.
He won't cry over her, Nisha would hate that. He will drink to her instead. Both her and Wilhelm, the next time he'll get pissed.
When this is finished up, what should he do with his hands then? He asks into the grave.
The shovel work is almost over.