The Grievers (24 page)

“I took a trip,” I said. “To the bridge where Billy killed himself. I don’t know what I was looking for, but what I found was sad and lonely, and all I could think about was how angry I was. At the world. At Billy. At myself.”

No, I thought as my throat tightened and I choked out the last word. This was wrong. I couldn’t—I shouldn’t—let anyone see me like this. Breaking down. Losing control. This wasn’t me at all. I was the smartass. I was the cynic. I was the misanthrope. I was the guy who never took anything seriously.

But this?

It was real.

Almost too real.

Too real, in any case, to shrug off.

I looked at Billy’s parents, perhaps for the first time. His father looked exactly like Billy, or the man Billy would have become if he’d ever gotten the chance to grow old—skinny and graying, a humble smile in a three-button suit. His mother was a tiny woman who kept her head bowed low and held a leather-bound photo album in her arms as if she were holding a baby.

“I could have been a better friend,” I said. “We all could have been better friends. Not just to Billy, but to each other, too. We were practically babies when we came to Saint Leonard’s. Thirteen, fourteen years old. Pretending to be men. Pretending we knew what we were doing when all we were was scared.”

I cleared my throat, sure I’d start to fall apart at any second.

“So we played these games,” I said. “Stupid games. Cruel games. Games that boys play when all they want to do is let the world know how tough they are, how smart, how funny, how good with women.”

I bit the inside of my mouth and tried to hold on.

“But not Billy,” I said. “He was quiet and shy and never went in for that kind of stuff. Putting on airs, I mean. Acting like he knew it all, like a tough guy, like he could handle anything.”

I looked at Karen. I looked at Neil. I wanted to say I was sorry for all I’d ever put them through, sorry for playing games all the time, sorry for turning everything into a joke, and sorry, most of all, for acting so often like I was still fourteen years old.

“We had a cat one year,” I said. “In biology class. After the worm and the frog and the fetal pig, they gave us a cat, and Billy named it Fascia. To me it was just another prop, something to cut open and poke around in, but to Billy it was almost holy. Like—I don’t know—like the cat had given its life to teach him something. Like he owed some kind of respect to the cat. Like the least he could do was treat the cat with kindness, even in death.”

Time was slipping away from me.

Time was
always
slipping away.

“I wish I could tell you more,” I said. “I wish I could stand here and say this was Billy, and this is why he was special and this is why the world is worse without him, but I can’t. All I can ask is that you remember him kindly. Remember our friend and the example he set. Remember his kindness. Remember his love. Remember the delicate light we all took for granted, and open your hearts to the wonder of the world. Always be generous. Always be kind. And know that although he’s no longer with us, Billy Chin will always be near—watching with interest, smiling down on us, lighting our way. Shining.”

When I returned to my pew, Neil laid a hand on my shoulder, and Karen squeezed my fingers. It wasn’t until then that I started to cry. Not because I was sad, but not because I was happy either. Because I was both. Because when Neil touched my shoulder and Karen squeezed my fingers, I knew they loved me and that I loved them, just like Billy had loved his parents and they had loved him more than anything in the world. I wanted that moment to last forever, that love, that connection, that feeling beyond words, but I knew there was no way it could because there was time, because there was life, because there was death as well. Because there were always intrusions, deviations, surprises, and interruptions, and even though I loved Karen and Neil and wanted more than anything to hold them close and never let go, I knew it wasn’t an option because what I wanted wasn’t living, and it wasn’t even dying. Because living and dying walk hand in hand, and the alternative to both is neither—cold as a stone, unchanging and lifeless.

A
FTER THE
service, we all went outside where the red and blue lights of a police cruiser were sweeping the perimeter of the Academy’s courtyard as a cop conferred with a Nazi prison guard and the woman with the grocery cart took down the number on my license plate.

“You can leave in a taxi,” Neil said as the ersatz Nazi pointed me out to the police officer. “But if you can’t get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. And if that’s too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.”

Animal Crackers
, I wondered?

“Don’t worry,” Dwayne Coleman said on his way out of the church. “I’ll handle this.”

Flashing his badge, Dwayne intercepted the officer. Was the old woman’s complaint legitimate, he asked? Certainly. Were there any other witnesses? No. Had I, in fact, driven the wrong way down a one-way street? Absolutely. Did I have a good reason for doing so? Not at all. Would arresting me take a dangerous driver off the road? Without a doubt. Was it worth the paperwork on a Saturday morning? Highly unlikely.

“Have fun in the big house,” Neil murmured, but the officer was already leaving the scene.

When Phil Ennis was sure no one was being arrested, he invited us all into the school where, thanks to my efforts, a hundred-odd strangers, mostly children, were already milling about the lobby and the adjoining gymnasium—climbing on artificial rocks, throwing darts at balloons, tossing tiny plastic rings over the necks of glass coke bottles, and punching Mr. Monkeybounce in the nuts because he couldn’t get his trampoline to inflate properly. Standing on a small riser in the lobby, Ennis thanked everyone for coming and launched into his usual speech about what a wonderful place the Academy was and what a great job the school did when it came to molding young men into the leaders of the future. Young men like Billy Chin, he added, who would have been so glad to see all his friends coming together to celebrate his life at the school he loved so much.

I looked at Neil, and he shrugged as if to say this was who Ennis was and that we couldn’t expect any more or any less from him. I shrugged back, and a skinny kid from the neighborhood pressed an envelope into my hand.
Yes!
it read.
I would like to make a contribution of __$100 __$250 __$500 __$1,000 __ (or more!) to honor the memory of Billy Chin and help Saint Leonard’s Academy continue in its tradition of excellence.

I shook my head and turned to show the envelope to Karen, but she was nowhere to be found. When I asked Neil if he’d seen her, he said that if my wife had received the same invitation that Greg’s mother had sent to Madeline, she was probably looking for a safe place to hide. As if to confirm Neil’s suspicion, Greg’s mother spotted us and made a beeline through the crowd. Where were our wives, she demanded? Were they already inside the theater waiting for the play to start? Pushing children out of her way, she waded up to us and snapped a picture. For posterity, she said. So Greg could remember all the little people when he made it to the big time. One of these days, his picture would be in all the papers, she said. We’d turn on the evening news, and Greg’s name would be on everyone’s lips.

“That’s funny,” Neil said. “Sean Sullivan keeps saying the same thing.”

“Speaking of which, why isn’t he here?”

At the far end of the gym, Dwayne Coleman was attempting to hold a crowd of children at bay while Mr. Monkeybounce writhed on the floor, howling with pain.

“I think he is,” Neil said.

Curled up in a ball and clad in a monkey suit, Sean held two furry hands over his testicles as Dwayne shooed little kids away from him. Having suffered a similar brand of humiliation back when I was a dollar sign, I was particularly attuned to Sean’s pain, so I joined in the fray and helped Dwayne drive the hopped-up hordes of angry young children away from my fallen comrade and his malfunctioning trampoline.

“Shoot me,” Sean moaned as Neil helped him to his feet. “I mean it, Dwayne. Put me out of my misery. I’m dying.”

“Not today, pal,” Neil said as the lights in the gym flashed like lightning.

“Jesus,” Sean moaned. “It’s the end of the world.”

“Not quite,” Neil said, pulling the mask from Sean’s face to give him some air. “But it may be the end of legitimate theater as we know it.”

“Dare we?” Dwayne said as the crowd started swirling through the theater doors like water down a drain.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve had enough drama for a while.”

T
HE LAST
thing I expected to hear was laughter, but there it was. First, a soft, rolling lilt that made me think of children at play. This was Karen’s laugh, but there was another one, too—a woman whose voice sounded vaguely familiar. Maybe Madeline. Maybe someone else. Then a third and a fourth, a snort and a chuckle. A man’s laugh, like a crow, and a whinny, like a horse. This was music. This was song. Five-part harmony in a dozen different keys, and my first instinct was to silence it.

This was no time for laughter, I wanted to say, burning with self-righteous indignation. This was no time for joy. My friend was dead, and I’d turned his memorial service into a massive roadside spectacle. What business, I was ready to demand as I worked my way through the crowd with my best friend, a cop, and a gorilla in tow, did anyone have laughing under such circumstances?

That Karen’s voice was among the guilty only added to my rage. She was my wife, for God’s sake. I thought I knew her. If anyone would have the common decency to maintain a certain level of decorum and behave with at least a modicum of respect, it would be her. I wouldn’t single her out, of course, but in my mind I was already pulling Karen aside and asking how she thought Billy’s parents would feel if they could hear her laughing at their son’s memorial service. Zeroing in on the source of the jocularity, however, I realized the point was moot. Billy’s parents were right there with her, along with Madeline Pogue and Maya Dearborn. They were seated around a small, gray table in the school cafeteria, each with a hand on Mrs. Chin’s photo album. On the page in front of them, her son was five years old and wore a wide smile despite the fact that he was missing two front teeth.

“He had a name for every squirrel in the neighborhood,” Billy’s mother was saying. “He used to call them his outside pets.”

They all laughed again—Karen and Madeline, Maya, Billy’s parents. Frank Dearborn was lurking in the background, watching his wife for cues. He smiled when she smiled, laughed when she laughed, and I wondered if she made him more human.

“Charley,” Karen said when she saw me. “Come look at these pictures of Billy.”

Billy’s mother looked up, and so did his father. They were both smiling, their eyes wet with tears.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” I said. “I should have called. I should have asked if this was what you wanted.”

“Sit with us,” Billy’s mother said. “Please.”

The table was crowded, but everyone squeezed together to make room for me, and Frank Dearborn grabbed a chair from an adjoining table.

“Come on, Schwartz. Have a seat,” he said.

Neil was standing next to me. The other guys weren’t too far behind. This one was my call—take the seat or hold on to my grief. As if one necessarily precluded the other. But playing the martyr had come so easily. I could rant and rave and roar at the world for screwing Billy at every turn. I could hate myself for failing Billy in his time of need. I could even stand in front of everyone and adopt the wise demeanor of someone who had experienced loss and was only now learning to deal with it, but none of that was about Billy. It was all about me. If I really wanted to honor his memory, if I really wanted to move on, if I really believed in mercy and compassion and all the stuff I talked about when I had the world’s attention, I’d sit down with Billy’s parents and my wife and my best friend and my sworn enemy, and I’d look at pictures of Billy and smile and laugh and cry and remember what a wonderful human being he really was.

“I didn’t know it would turn out like this,” I said. “I didn’t know everything would get so out of hand.”