The Up and Comer (27 page)

Almost immediately, I wondered if maybe we didn't have the right funeral. Tracy and I were the only ones who could possibly have been viewed as contemporaries of Tyler's. A few small children notwithstanding, the vast majority of those in attendance were easily twenty years our senior. Acquaintances of his parents, I assumed.

"Didn't he have any friends?" Tracy asked me, looking around surprised.

"Not many that I knew of," I replied.

"Maybe they couldn't make it on such short notice," she said, as if to give Tyler the benefit of the doubt.

"Could be."

Tracy pointed. "Do you think those are his parents?"

I followed Tracy's finger and saw an older man and woman facing what looked to be an ad hoc receiving line. "I'd have to believe so," I told her.

"There's just the two of them there — Tyler must have been an only child."

"I think he may have mentioned that to me once," I made up.

She grabbed my arm and began to walk toward them. "C'mon," she said.

"Whoa, what are you doing?" I said, not budging.

"What do you mean,
what am I doing?
We're going over there so we can introduce ourselves and say our condolences. What'd you think I was doing?"

"Do we really have to?" I tried. "We're here, isn't that enough?"

"No, it's not enough," she said, almost amused by my lame reasoning.

I started to grasp for anything. "Look at how long the line is."

"It's just going to get longer," she said. "They're obviously greeting people first. Now, c'mon. It's the right thing to do."

My wife — wise in the ways of funeral protocol, and at that moment not about to take no for an answer. All that was missing was the leash around my neck. Begrudgingly, I started to walk with her toward Tyler's parents.

Traffic I may have hated. Funerals I loathed. Not because they were sad, or reminded me of my own mortality, but because of the simple fact that I never knew what to say at them. I could wax eloquent in the courtroom and be as hail-fellow-well-met as the rest of them most anywhere else, and yet, for some reason I could never bring myself to deliver lines like "He'll be deeply missed," or "I am so very sorry" to a grieving member of someone's family. And that was at funerals where I hadn't actually been a participant in the person's death. You can imagine my additional reluctance.

We made it to the front of the line, Tracy first.

"Mrs. Mills, I'm Tracy Randall; we spoke yesterday on the phone."

"Yes, of course, Tracy, thank you so much for coming," said Tyler's mother, slowly and deliberately. She looked to be on a few Tic Tacs herself, if you know what I'm saying. Early sixties, mostly gray, tall, and relatively thin. A New Jersey society type, if there was such a thing. In addition to her black outfit and black hat, she had black circles around her eyes. Safe to say she hadn't slept for a few days. She turned her head and looked at me. "You must be Philip," she said.

I nodded and was about to say something trite and expected from the funeral lexicon when she continued: "... Tyler told me so much about you."

I froze.

"Of course, that was a long time ago, back when you were classmates at Deerfield."

I unfroze. "Those were good times," I said.

"I often wonder," she responded. "You know, Tyler never seemed to be the same after that place."

Awkward silence. There was little I could say to that. "Hey, you're the one who sent him there" probably wouldn't have gone over too well.

Tracy saved me. She had moved on to introduce herself to Tyler's father and, not wanting to hold up the line, started to pull me over.

"I hope we can talk more after the service," I told Mrs. Mills.

The conversation with Mr. Mills was short and sweet. There was no "Tyler told me so much about you." Actually, there was no Tyler anything. When I explained that I knew his son from Deerfield, the man, also in his early sixties, mostly gray, tall, and relatively thin, simply shook my hand again and told me that it was good of me to come.

Translation: Next!

That was fine by me. Tracy and I moved it along and over to a flower bed, where we stood and waited for Tyler's parents to greet the remainder of the line behind us. That morning, on the walk to the garage for the car, I had negotiated with Tracy that our obligation ended after the service. The burial and any possible reception to follow we were planning to skip. Which was why, having endured the encounter with Mr. and Mrs. Mills, I figured the worst was over.

Ha!

As everyone eventually began to proceed into the church, Mrs. Mills, in all her pharmaceutically induced calmness, walked up to Tracy and me.

"Philip, I was wondering if I could ask you something?" she said.

"Sure, anything," I answered.

"I was wondering if maybe you could get up and say a few words on Tyler's behalf during the service?"

Again, I froze.

"…It would mean a great deal to me, and I know it's something Tyler would've wanted," she added.

Don't be so sure, Mrs. Mills.

I was starting to hem and haw about not having prepared anything when out of the corner of my eye I caught Tracy's glare. Said the glare, "You can't say no to a grieving mother, you stupid idiot, don't you know anything?!"

Fucking Tracy and her funeral protocol.

"I'd be honored to, Mrs. Mills," came out of my mouth. I wasn't exactly sure how it did.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll mention it to Father Whelan so he can have you come forward at the appropriate time."

Mrs. Mills walked off.

I looked at Tracy. "What the hell am I going to say?"

"Something nice, I would hope. Think of it as your ultimate closing statement. If that doesn't help, lie your ass off."

"Thanks," I told her. "You're a big help."

We headed inside the church. I tried my best not to look at the coffin as we took our seats.

The pew felt especially hard. I sat there fidgeting, trying my damnedest to think of something that I could stand up and pass off as part of my fond remembrances of Tyler. I flashed through our years at Deerfield. After eliminating every anecdote that involved either smoking pot or making fun of him, I was essentially left with nothing. The hymns were flying by, and Father Whelan had already used the phrase "senseless tragedy" a dozen times in his eulogy. I was definitely in the on-deck circle.

Which was precisely when I thought of my grandfather.

During my second year of law school he had passed away. My father's father. It was a stroke. He and my grandmother had been living in Florida for about six years after spending most of their lives in Philadelphia. Despite its being doctor's orders (arthritis), my grandfather had moved away reluctantly. "Death's Triple A Club," he called Florida, always quick to tack on that he was "just waiting to get called up." He too liked his baseball.

Anyway, at his funeral, the usual suspects among my relatives stood up and read poems or gave speeches. My uncle Timothy played his guitar. All in the good name of my grandfather. It was nice, though none of it was particularly moving. Then, right as everyone thought there was no one left who wanted to speak, an elderly man sitting in the back row rose to his feet. He slowly walked up to the lectern. You could see my relatives looking at one another as if to ask, "Who is this man?" At the time, nobody knew. They simply watched as he cleared his throat and started to talk. What he shared with us was one of the most heartfelt stories that I had ever heard.

I mention all of this because on that day of Tyler's funeral, it also became one of the most heartfelt stories that I had ever stolen. All I had to do was change the names and places. That, and have the guts to actually tell it.

"Now," said Father Whelan, giving me a nod, "I'd like to ask Philip Randall, a very good friend of Tyler's from their days at Deerfield together, to come forward."

Tracy squeezed my hand — the nonbandaged one — for good luck as I made my way out into the aisle and up to the front of the congregation. I stood there for a second and looked out at everyone waiting for me to begin. Here goes nothing, I thought.

I've been thinking this morning about whether or not you can ever truly know someone. You may think you can, you may hope you can, and yet, often it seems, you can never really know for sure. But one thing I do know is that the story I'm about to tell you is very much real. And I think it says a great deal about who Tyler Mills really was.

It begins back at Deerfield. Tyler and I were walking in the woods around campus one afternoon during the fall of our sophomore year when we came across a brass compass lying there on the ground. It was old and its glass casing was scratched. Nonetheless, there was no denying the fact that it was beautiful. Its shine may have been gone, but somehow it still managed to sparkle.

As we had both seen the compass at the same time, my immediate concern became which one of us would be able to keep it. To be honest with you, I wanted it to be me. However, I also knew that I had no more claim to it than Tyler had. So there we stood, alone in the woods, staring at this beautiful compass that we had both found together.

That's when Tyler had an idea. To prevent either one of us from being disappointed, he said, maybe what we should do is take turns holding on to it. One of us would have it for one year, and after that we'd hand it over to the other person for the next, and so on.

I remember looking at Tyler when he finished telling me his idea. It was a great idea, and I felt awful. I had been so preoccupied with wanting this compass for myself that it never occurred to me that we both could share it. I was embarrassed at how selfish my thoughts had been.

So from that day forward, that's what we did. We took turns holding on to the compass. Tyler let me have it the first year and then I gave it to him for the next. For the first few years, the exchange happened in person, and we were always sure to make an occasion out of it. It was something that we kept private, never telling anyone else about the arrangement.

Of course, as the years went by and our lives took us to different places, it became harder and harder to meet up in person to exchange the compass. That didn't mean we didn't do it. It just meant that every other year a small package would arrive in my mail, just like it had the previous year in Tyler's. And inside this package the compass would always be there, and in my case, there'd also always be a little note from Tyler. It said the same thing every time.

May this compass remain as true as our friendship.

Last night I went to my drawer and took out that old, scuffed-up compass and looked at it. You see, it's been my year to hold on to it. Come this fall, though, if you happen to see it on the ground by Tyler's grave, I respectfully ask that you let it be. Because that's when it will be his turn to watch over it.

It's funny; to this day that compass still knows how to point north. But I'll tell you this much: it will never be quite as true as my good friend Tyler Mills.

I stopped and I stood there for a second looking out at everyone. There wasn't a dry eye in the church. Even Father Whelan was choked up. One lady in the fourth row was sobbing so loudly her husband had to escort her out. Damn, I was good. I left the lectern and returned to my seat. The pew no longer felt so hard.

Tracy, tissue in hand, leaned over to me and whispered, "Why didn't you ever tell me about that?"

"Because it never happened," I whispered back, leaving off the
you idiot.

We stood for the final hymn.

After the service you practically had to peel Mrs. Mills off of me. She rushed up and plastered a hug so hard it nearly knocked me over.

"Tell me you brought that compass with you," she said. "You have to let me see it."

Uh-oh.

"I'm afraid I didn't," I said.

"Will you send it to me? Please, will you do that?" she begged.

"Of course," I told her.

Right after I go and find one that matches the description in a pawnshop somewhere.

Yep... I was going to hell, all right.

That afternoon I returned to the office to find Jack insisting on a blow-by-blow account of Sally's DMV hearing. The fact that he'd been forced to wait until I got back from "my friend's funeral" had driven him crazy. To make it up to him I was embellishing the story whenever possible, such as claiming that attorney Jonathan Clemments could barely get Jack's name out of his mouth due to the fact that he had been stuttering so much out of fear. "De-De-De-Devine," I said, pretending to imitate the poor guy. Jack laughed so hard he was practically in tears. He joked that the finishing touch would be arranging for a copy machine repair guy to visit Clemments's office out in Westchester every day for a week straight. Jack went so far as to summon Donna into his office to make the necessary calls, though he quickly changed his mind. "On second thought," said Jack, "I hate end-zone dances."

TWENTY-SEVEN