A/N: An epilogue to the 1988 movie "Rocket Gibraltar".

Late-Breaking News

As read in the small local Hampton Harbinger newspaper on the passing of Levi Rockwell.

This reporter can only say "What a way to go" for local resident Levi Rockwell; in this report I shall attempt to set the story straight on the passing of one of our venerated citizens. All facts reported here are matters of record, either recorded before or brought out during the hearing following the events of July 17, 1988.

Mr. Levi Rockwell passed away on his birthday in his own home in the Hamptons, having reached the age of seventy-seven; the death occurred immediately before a planned party for his family and friends. His four children and their spouses and grandchildren were in attendance for the party catered by Norton Cranston dba Monsieur Henri.

Prior to the start of the party, shortly after Mr. Rockwell's passing the grandchildren (all of whom were minors) collectively took it upon themselves to fulfill his birthday wish for a "proper Viking funeral" without informing their parents. These facts were known before the case was heard by the Honorable Judge Odette Blanchard; recently retired, the good judge has been sitting in on a few cases and managed to get a doozy this time. These events in themselves were quite newsworthy, but further facts will be of even more interest to our readers.

Fact: the children stole the Monsieur Henri catering van for purposes of transporting the body of Mr. Rockwell to the beach. In the process the unlicensed driver broke several additional laws including right-of-way, excessive speed and trespassing by motor vehicle into a wildlife sanctuary where an endangered turtle was run over, rendering that particular example extinct. Since Monsieur Henri's van was not licensed to carry deceased people (nor should it), this statute was broken as well.

Fact: In pursuit of the children, the parents broke several laws as well while local police gave chase. Only providence allowed no one to become injured by the high-speed caravan in that pursuit until officers could be informed and give proper escort, although a certain Milo Hansen complained of chest pains while watching the chase pass by his usual dog walking excursion. However, it has been noted that Mr. Hansen complains of chest pains every day that ends in the letter 'y' so this is probably of no great consequence.

Fact: Having previously stolen and destroyed the historic condition of the derelict rowboat "Rock Gibraltar", they placed the body of Mr. Rockwell in the boat along with combustibles and a few personal keepsakes from his estate that had yet to be settled before shoving the boat into the ocean. The sail was made from a sheet, whose owner has yet to come forward.

Fact: Without a fire permit, the children created a bonfire and then proceeded to arm themselves with flaming arrows which they aimed and let fly at the floating boat. During the course of said artillery barrage, a visiting wayward narwhal took a direct hit and perished due to shock and disbelief.

Fact: The parents arrived just as the unsupervised children succeeded in lighting the boat on fire. Unknown to the children, Viking funerals make it a point to anchor the boat offshore during the event in order to prevent inadvertent drifting of the funeral pyre. Having missed this critical point, it was not a surprise when the boat drifted into a nearby pier and the raging inferno managed to catch the pier on fire too.

Fact: The pier fire would have been put out much more quickly had one of the pyre mementos not been a grenade from World War II previously owned by the deceased. The resulting detonation of the grenade in the conflagration caused a delay as the fire department took precious time to determine that no more munitions were present, and the fire could be extinguished safely.

And in the most shocking revelation of the hearing, Mr. Rockwell's attending physician Dr. Bonicker admitted that Levi had not died of an aortic aneurysm at all as had been reported earlier, but in fact had died of poisoning that he himself had administered under the guise of treatment for his ficticious condition. It seems that Bonicker had never gotten over losing a courtship battle long ago with Levi over the soon to be Mrs. Rockwell and jealousy took its sweet time in causing Dr. Bonicker's fatal bedside manner.

Although Mr. Rockwell would likely have perished from the poison anyway, the subsequent situation would not have arisen if not for a speech Mr. Rockwell gave to his grandchildren about his wishes, recorded without his knowledge by one of them. The transcription of the relevant part was given as evidence and is as follows:

Their whole life was the sea, the sea and their boats. So in celebrating their deaths - yes, you can say celebrating - they used both. The families of the great Viking would put the body of their loved one on a ship, cover it with straw, and then, as the sun was setting, cast it away into the water. They would light huge bonfires on the beach, and then the Vikings would light the tips of their arrows in the bonfire and shoot them at the ship. Ah, it must have been so beautiful, fire on the water. Legend has it that if the color of the setting sun and the color of the burning ship were the same then that Viking had led a good life, and in the afterlife he would go to Viking heaven. All night long the Viking men, women, and children watched the ship with the body as it burned in the water. By dawn all that was left were ashes, complete obliteration, carried by the currents to the four corners of the earth; fresh and beautiful, and vanished completely, like a dream.

And as to the motivation of the children to enact this birthday wish, in the words of grandson Cy Blue Black: "When grandma died they put her in the ground and the worms ate her. Gramps wanted this and no worms are gonna get him now."

A hearing next week will determine what, if any, charges will be pressed against the children and liability assessed for damages. In the meantime Dr. Bonicker has been taken into custody and is being held in the local jail with no bond. This is a developing story and the reader will find an update in the next edition of the Hampton Harbinger.

The End

A/N: Admittedly, that isn't quite the picturesque ending that the movie originally had but that's what Burt gets for dying before the end...