Greener Pastures

(This is all, more-or-less, true)

His skin was stretched over his body oddly, like the way cellophane is pulled over misshapen leftovers. I didn’t like it. It made me think of him like a hollow doll with glassy eyes and greasy hair. And he was smiling. They always smile, smile with an expression that relates to walking in on a surprise party, or picking up a dollar on the street. But I bet they don’t smile while they’re dying; I know he didn’t, because I saw him die. I saw it as clear as day, and at that instant it was pushing apart the grey-matter in my brain and bustling to the front of my central lobe, where it hovered just in my line of sight, waiting to pounce out and grab the collar of my shirt.

It was this dream I had the night I heard he passed. The dream of my uncle being alone in a hospital-bed with the window-curtains drawn back, so that the wind which was tossing snow across Lake Huron could be heard whistling loudly. He was breathing soft at first, then heavier, and heavier, and heavier. His eyes shot open, and in that moment I could tell that he was looking at God. And God was staring back from Limbo, waiting for my uncle’s twisted face to lay still. And when it did, when my uncle finally died, God picked him up and carried him out of that dark room. But even in that moment, he wasn’t smiling.

Thinking about that dream while slowly wrinkling a fresh-pressed suit at uncle Larry’s funeral was enough to make any normal person cry, but it wasn’t until I stood up and saw his face, his face with the phony smile and over-emphasized skin tone, that a tear forced its way out of my eye, kissing my failing facade as it rolled down my features. Then another one fell with the impact of a mortar shell. It ripped a hole in the rose-wood floor and the ground opened up under me, and I was swallowed. Soon more tears came until I was drowning in them, gasping frantically for air. I had always pretended that death never bothered me, because men aren’t supposed to cry. Men are brick and titanium. They are reinforced bomb-shelters with bullet-proof glass and automated doors. They are steel-jawed and chisel-cheeked, and they don’t cry. I knew that, and when I saw my dad’s apathetic face I could tell that he was a man. But that day, at my Uncle Larry’s funeral, I was a boy. I was lost in a grocery store screaming “Mommy!” and grasping at the hands of every middle-aged woman that passed.

“Shhh, shhhh, shhhhh,” my grandma lulled, putting her hands on my shoulders and slowly budging me back to a seat.

“I-… I’m thirteen… I’m, I’m, I’m not supposed to…cry,” I choked out between sobs.

“Now you listen here Addy,” my grandma started, brushing my suit off and pulling me close. “Do you think your uncle would want you crying here? Do you think he’s smiling down from heaven, happy that he made you weep? Do you think that’s what he would like to see?”

“… Heaven is fake and stupid…”

My grandma’s hand skipped across the back of my head lightly, but it felt like a sledgehammer. I hadn’t meant to say that, and I didn’t believe it, but I couldn’t blame her for the slap; those words leapt out of my mouth before I could close it, and when they did they hit my grandma with the exact same force she hit me. I stopped crying, and sat as frozen and lifeless as the corpse in the casket. I wanted to go home.

I sat through the ceremony a living cadaver, waiting with no emotion for the event to end. My cousin, the youngest daughter of Uncle Larry, stood up and began the last speech. “I, I remember sitting in my car, when I heard he was gone. I remember thinking, ‘God, at least he was happy.’ At least he had been to Arizona and seen his grandson, held him in his hands and tickled his stomach. At least he found a reason to die. Most people don’t have reasons to die, because they are all afraid, curious about what lies ahead. My father had a reason to die: he has achieved every goal he has made for himself. The last of them, I believe he told me, was, ‘Damn it Chrissie, make sure, if nothing else, I have the best lookin’ corpse in the whole damn morgue.’ And I think he does. He looks like a gentleman who just arrived on a train back from World War II, dressed in a fine suit to meet my mother for dinner and a nickel drive-in movie; dad loved those.

“And on the way back to my house last night, I decided to turn on the radio. Well, what came on made me slam on my brakes and slide onto the shoulder of I-75. It reminded me of my father, of something he’d say to me. It felt like him talking, and I want all of you to listen, while the song is played. Listen for his voice; see if you can hear him whispering, even if it’s just a word or two.”

She sat back down and blew her nose. She had been crying through her entire speech.

“That was really beautiful,” my mother said quietly to my father, who looked somewhat less steel-jawed and chisel-cheeked.

“Well thank God it was beautiful,” he said back, “She’s been in college for over fifteen years ‘majoring’ in English. It should be Shakespeare by now.”

“Shhhhh!” Grandma hissed, and the room was silent. Then, over the loud-speakers, a song began to increase in volume. “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” by Elton John echoed through the calm, building like a crescendo, rattling the walls and picture-frames at the funeral home.

When it was over, all of the women were crying, and all of the men had a look of shock and grief, like they had just realized that somebody had died. My cousin stood back up, and announced, “Ok everybody, thank you for coming. There’s just one thing left to do. If you would follow us in your cars, we would appreciate it if you attended the burial.”

As my uncle’s casket met the earth, I began to think of the model cars he had placed throughout his house; he had once told me that he owned the real car of every model he made. My favorite was a Mustang, a year ’64 that would shine in the back corner of his third shelf in the living room, right behind his rocking chair. The car’s candy-red color would reflect promises of speed, dependability and adventure, and I could imagine my uncle laid-back in the seat, smoking a cigar with a thick pair of Aviators on. I chuckled out a sob, and it was met by the harsh silence that comes with yelling in a library. I eased back into my nervous shell, and watched as the man with the waxy smile was placed into the ground, pushing against the dirt and eventually sandwiched between layers of soil. To close the ceremony, a stocky Scottish man entered between the crowd, and, holding the reed of the bag-pipe to his lips, pushed the notes of “Amazing Grace” through his breath. The notes were bitter, and clung to the air, ripping and pulling at the skin of the mourners as they faded into obscurity. Everyone began to breakdown, the tears being gunshots that peaked into a crescendo of wailing and pitied gasps. The notes hit me then, gripping my side-burns and climbing into my ears, eventually falling and resting in the canal. I broke down too. I looked around, and saw my mother weeping, my father with his hand over his face, protecting his chiseled-cheeks; the man playing the bag-pipes was getting emotional too, tears falling on the bag-pipes as he frowned through the rest of the song. My father, myself, and the rest of the adults, we were united in our suffering.