I’m on my way to my friend’s daughter’s funeral. The day is bright and still expanding. Above the interstate, it’s all skies and treetops and turkey vultures gliding. I take the Springridge Road exit, pass Applebee’s, Frog Head Grill, Office Max, and arrive at the stucco facade once known as the United Artist Cineplex, only now it’s called Pine Lake Worship Center. The massive parking lot is completely full, so I park on the frontage road at the end of a long line of silver and white SUVs.
I check my phone one more time before going in. On Facebook, the post about the funeral has well over a hundred comments. Someone named Donald Youngblood posted a GIF of a small child-like angel holding a candle. The little blonde cherub sparkles with gold dust and her wings flap in an eternal loop. I drop the phone in the glove box.
The walk from my car to the worship center covers some four hundred yards.
The sun is high and my starched collar chafes my neck. Blotches of sweat appear on my shirt and I begin to wonder why I’m here.
I thought going to the funeral would be a good thing. I wanted to be a good friend, to do the right thing. But now I’m here. Now I have to think of something to say to my friend, Brent, the father of the deceased.
Brent and I were roommates for a semester in college. We drank Jäger every night. Lit things on fire. A lifetime ago. I know very little about his current life, only what I’ve gleaned from Facebook over the years. He’d been married and divorced and remarried. He had children. One of the children, his daughter from his first marriage, had died. It was unexpected. Something with her brain. Her funeral would be at Pine Lake, the Clinton location.
I’m blasted by cool air when I open the lobby doors. A cacophony of human speech reverberates in the spacious reception area, which is nothing like the lobby I remember: no movie posters or arcade games, no claw machine, no aroma of buttery popcorn, no vibrant carpet covered in whacky, geometric shapes. Everything is minimal, gray, navy, and taupe. The floor is stained concrete. There’s a smell of fresh paint. Natural light pours through newly installed skylights and the name JESUS is spelled on the wall in gigantic Helvetica surrounded by smaller words in a variety of fonts: light, lamb, truth, savior, father, son, redeemer, lord, bread of life. The receiving line snakes through the main lobby, rounds a corner, and extends down a hallway with no end in sight.
Faces glance up as I walk to find my place. They all give me the same look, curious at first, the expectation that mine is a face they might recognize, followed by the dismissal of my unplaceable features. And then, finally, a solemn nod. I’m almost at the end of the line when I hear it.
“Dutch?”
It’s a name I haven’t been called in years. I fix my sight on a middle-aged man, balding, wife and child in tow.
“Stubbs?” Under different circumstances we might have hugged it out, laughed, made a big fuss. But Stubbs just offers his hand and we shake without saying anything for an entire beat. Then I say “Good to see you, man.”
It comes out wrong, too much enthusiasm.
“Yeah, man. How you been? You still playing?” He makes a little strumming motion with his hand.
“Nah, I’m teaching history now. At Hinds. The Vicksburg Campus.”
“Ah. Cool, cool.”
“How about you?”
“I work for Katie’s dad. Insurance. Katie, you remember Dutch?”
“Hey!” says Katie. We side hug but neither of us remembers.
“Who’s this?” I motion toward the child.
Stubbs’ daughter looks at me with no shortage of suspicion.
“Ferris, say hello to Mr. Dutch.”
Ferris hides behind her mother. I’m beginning to wonder if Stubbs knows my real name.
“It’s a lot for her,” says Stubbs. “Amber was in her class.”
“Amber?”
“Yeah. Brent’s daughter?”
“Oh right.”
“Amber’s in heaven,” Ferris adds, peeking from behind her mother’s left leg.
Stubbs smiles at Ferris for a moment. Then he says, “It’s a tough age, you know. She kinda gets it–but she kinda doesn’t.”
“Yeah, that’s tough.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, what happened?”
“Happened?”
“Yeah, to Amber. Seems out of the blue.”
Stubbs’ eyes tell me. I immediately regret asking. But then he turns his body to cut Ferris and Katie out of our conversation. He looks side to side. “Aneurysm,” he says under his breath. “But you know, I think they should look into it. I think they should go after the vaccine companies.”
“Oh wow,” I say.
“Yeah. Seriously,” says Stubbs.
I want to change the subject. “Remember when this was a movie theater?”
“Totally. Our parents used to drop us off here. I remember this one time we were here to see Twister.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, Helen Hunt. Great movie. Thing is there was an actual storm going on outside. The movie ended and we kept hearing thunder. Real thunder. They wouldn’t let us leave. The sky was yellow. The sirens were going off and everything.” Stubbs laughs a little. Then he looks around and says, “At least it’s positive.”
“Positive?”
“Yeah the church. It’s a good thing. At least they turned it into something positive.”
“Yeah, totally.”
We miss a beat. Then Stubbs says, “Hey, man it was good of you to come. Good to see you.”
We both want to say more but the conversation has ended.
Mourners continue to accumulate at the end of the receiving line. I’m two spots behind Stubbs, his wife and child.
They seem happy, like happy people doing a sad thing. I watch the way they stand in line together. They smile at one another. Stubbs puts his arm around his wife.
Time moves slowly. I catch my hand instinctively reaching for my phone before remembering it’s in the car. Good, I think.
I focus on the word cloud overhead: life, light, king of kings. There are so many ways to say one thing. I search for my own words, for something meaningful to say to Brent, but nothing comes to mind.
Then the line lurches forward. We amble through the lobby and eventually pass through the doors of the auditorium.
Two gigantic screens flank the stage. Pictures of Amber fade in, and then out. There’s one of her in a school uniform before a mottled portrait backdrop, another visiting Disney World with her family, all of them squinting in the Florida sun.
The slideshow advances through dance recitals and little league and birthdays.
I’m aware that I’ve seen all of these pictures on Facebook.
On stage, a woman with short red hair strums chords an acoustic guitar. I lean to the side to view the family, to find Brent, but all I see are the backs of suited shoulders and zipped dresses. Faceless bodies hug and envelop the family members. Arms become entwined, hands held. I’m still a great distance from the family but the line seems to move faster here in the auditorium. I have nothing to say to Brent.
I lean to the side again and for a brief moment I see him.
Only it’s not him, not exactly. It is, and is not Brent. I watch as he prepares for another hug, another expression. Arms extend toward him and he is engulfed once again. He disappears into the mouth of the reception line with a look of stern acceptance. When he surfaces again, nothing has changed. The line continues, wave after wave of well-wishes, and still Brent absorbs it all with social grace. He offers the same look of measured grief, an exchange of a few short words, a nod of mutual understanding. And he does this with hundreds of people, some of which he knows well, and some not so well, and some he once knew, people like me, who have chosen to reappear, and who will undoubtedly disappear once again, until something happens, something worthy of a ceremony.
We lurch forth. Brent is only a couple yards away now. I’m searching for my words.
So sorry for your loss.
Brent, I’m sorry.
This has been so well attended.
She was so loved. I can’t imagine what you’re…
There’s no one between Brent and me. I’d forgotten how enormous he is. He’s so large, so much taller than me. And he looks at me with the same stern acceptance, the same social grace. “Brent… I…” But before I can finish my sentence Brent grabs my hand and pulls me in.
“Thanks brother,” he says as we hug. And while we hug I hear Brent whisper something.
At first I think he’s telling me something, that he’s sharing something with me, maybe a memory from our days together. But then I realize he’s not talking to me. He’s counting, whispering to himself, “One, two, three.” On three he releases me, and offers the nod of mutual understanding. Then he directs his attention to the next person.
I don’t look for a seat in the auditorium. Instead I walk up the aisle, back through the empty lobby, and out the front doors. Outside the day is no longer expanding. In fact it has contracted a great deal. Heavy clouds hang just above the tree line. The air is thick. The sky has yellowed. I hear something in the distance. It sounds like music, but not the music from the ceremony. It sounds like a harmony coming from the sky. Pure tones, like sine waves, faint at first but swelling. My first thought is that it’s coming from heaven, the song of angels. The sky darkens further and short gusts of wind knock me off balance. I try to focus on the sound, to know this music, to remember it forever, but the sounds have waned. The wind picks up. Somewhere a tree crackles under the stress of the atmosphere. When I step into the parking lot it begins to rain. By the time I’m at the frontage road I’m already soaked. I walk stiffly along the shoulder of the road, passing empty cars. Finally I arrive at my car. I fling the door open, plop myself down, and shut the door. But I don’t start the car. Instead I reach into the glove box for my phone. I try to open it but my hands are wet. At first the screen can’t feel my fingertips. I swipe, and swipe, and finally it wakes up. I touch the Facebook app and the little golden angel reappears. The angel’s wings are still flapping. The candle flame still flickers. Beneath the angel I open a comment box and I type Brent , I”m so sorry for your lost
J.D. Hosemann is a writer living in Jackson, Mississippi. His work has appeared in places like Farewell Transmission, New World Writing, Maudlin House, hex, The Kenyon Review Online, ergot. and elsewhere. You can find him at jdhosemann.com.