The preacher opened his book and began to read. Of the five of us in attendance, only four turned to watch him. I remained motionless, eyes trapped on the sky as if it was about to fall in any second. Grace gently touched me, probably trying to get my attention, I don’t know. Eyes up like that I probably looked like a fucking psycho—
“Psycho.”
“Addict.”
Murderer.
“I killed him…” It was going to full on rain soon. I wondered if it would have rained that night, might he still be alive. Probably not. The preacher continued to talk, not bothering with me.
“I am a killer,” I mused as droplets fell on my cheeks. “Add that to my repertoire. Psycho. Addict. And murderer. Is that a hat trick?” The laugh wasn’t supposed to happen, it just kind of did. Like a lot of the shit with Vic and me, it just came out. And soon the laugh transformed into a wet and wailing thing. Or maybe that was the rain.
I took a step toward the casket and oh man, you could just feel their unease. They probably wondered: what is this crazy harlot gonna do now? What hadn’t I already done? That was the question they should have been asking. The preacher clicked his tongue because I wasn’t simply standing and holding my grief inside.
“Sweetie?” Lissie asked, her hand hovering just above my back. Eli stepped toward me and I…I lost it.
“Get the fuck off me Eli!” The words brought me to the ground. I didn’t do it on purpose. I wasn’t trying to display my mourning like a one-woman show. Hey, come check out this bitch as she unravels before everyone in a fucking cemetery! I just needed to see inside the grave. Maybe if I looked I would see…it. That part of me Vic had taken when he died.
The past few days there had been nothing. I’d thought I knew what nothing felt like, but I was so naively unaware. It was as if I was walking through the world without color, without sound, and without warmth. Everything was shadows now.
Vic had held a vital spot inside me. When he died it was torn out. I was bleeding and everyone was giving me flowers and casseroles to fill up the hole.
Did you know you won’t immediately stop asking for them? I was saying things like “Oh, I’ll go get Vic,” or “Let me ask Vic.” Even as we prepared for his funeral, I was about to ask Vic if he wanted something. Something for his own fucking funeral.
My head was in my hands and the pretty black dress Lissie had lent me was getting wet and muddy; it was probably worth thousands too. I felt their hands on me, trying to comfort me, but it wasn’t right. It didn’t fit. That wasn’t what was supposed to go inside the hole.
We had to finish, though. We had to finish this funeral.
I stood up and flung a hand at the preacher, because fuck that guy. Wasn’t this his job? Why was he acting like I was the first person to ever mourn in front of him?
He couldn’t have had much time left in his sermon, but that place I lived in now, you know the one, the shadow place? Well, that place existed beyond time, so I felt their small worried glances at my now torn up knees. I saw the hurried glances between them as they wondered at my red eyes filling up with unshed tears. I saw all of that, and I felt it spread on and on.
Then the preacher closed his book, and suddenly time was too fucking short. The sound was like a judge’s mallet when the pages kissed. I should have been better prepared, I fucking know that okay? Obviously a funeral ends. I’m not living in a Tim Burton film where the whole thing is some weird homage to a funeral. I get it.
Still, when he closed the book, and the guards raised the guns, and the casket started to lower, the last bit of me snapped. I screamed and flung myself on the casket. Don’t try and ask me why. Reason had left the building. I was a sobbing, heaving, mess off loss.
I knew Vic wasn’t inside the coffin
He was ashes.
Well what the fuck ever. All I had left was inside the coffin. All I had left were squished orchids. All I had left was about to disappear beneath six feet of earth.
I wasn’t ready. I could never be ready. Life didn’t even prepare you for the l
iving, much less when the living ended up dead…
Lissie, Zoe, Eli, and Grace all grabbed me by my feet, my hands, my waist—anything, basically, and pulled me off the casket. I didn’t fight. My fight had died with the man in the box. I fell back into them, limp and broken, my eyes speaking the words my tongue refused to acknowledge: I wanted to be inside the box.
I should never have left.
I should have died with him.
There was something supernatural about watching my own funeral. But now, standing on the loose dirt of my own grave, I felt more alive than ever. Cocking my head to the side, I read my headstone. It protruded from the ground almost ostentatiously.
Vic Wall
Beloved Lover, Brother, Friend
Grace must have picked that out. I couldn’t imagine Lennox choosing something so…clean. No, that wasn’t the right word. Formal wasn’t the right word either. It was traditional, which Lenny wasn’t.