In an American city of old churches and ambitious pagans, death comes calling for an elderly woman — a bit ahead of schedule. God takes a meeting or two, and the eternal questions arise. A funeral becomes a party, a son inherits a home with an uninvited guest, an iron lady is in the house, and they need more burgers down on the Weber grill.[Author's note: this small work emerged from an early version of the novel that became "The Bad American." This e-version restores considerable material that was excised from the print version published in February 2013.]