Fragile Beasts (55 page)

“Aunt Candy and I wrote to each other frequently.”

His English is very formal, but this just adds to his regal air. His accent is much thicker than Luis’s.

“You’re a bullfighter, too? Right?”

“Yes, I am.”

Knowing he stands unarmed face-to-face with large and mythically murderous beasts and knowing he’s related to El Soltero makes him seem like a character who’s stepped out of a fairy tale. I don’t know what to say to him.

“And you are an artist, too?” he says to me.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

Rafael smiles.

“You are very young. Soon you will accept it. I hope you are not too sad at Aunt Candy’s passing.”

“I’m a little sad.”

A lump catches in my throat, and I have to stop after I say these words. I’ve been trying to pretend I’m not upset. I keep telling myself it’s not possible for me to care that much. I didn’t know her long enough. Plus her death wasn’t a tragedy like Dad going over the mountain or Manuel being killed by a bull’s horns. She was old. She lived a long life. It was her time. We’re not supposed to feel bad. At least that’s what everyone keeps saying.

I blink back some tears and tell myself again that it doesn’t make sense to be sad.

“You must try and think like a Spaniard,” Rafael says encouragingly. “A Spaniard lives only to die. We’re not frightened or horrified by death. On the contrary, we are always thinking about our own deaths. We wish them to be lovely and honorable.”

“Like death in a bullfight?”

He smiles again.

“Yes. There is a poem I like very much by one of our most famous poets, Jorge Manrique: Nuestra vidas son los rios / Que van a dar en la mar / Que es el morir.

It means, our lives are the rivers that go to the sea, which is death.”

“It’s nice,” I tell him, “in a creepy way.”

He laughs at this.

“I know it is hard for you to understand. Americans are only concerned with living well; Spaniards want to die well.”

I wonder if Miss Jack died well by a Spaniard’s standard. The doctor said she passed away quietly. I think that might even be better than dying instantly.

“You should come for a visit to Spain,” he tells me.

“I’d like that.”

“Would you like to see a bullfight?”

“Yeah. That would be cool.”

“Do you write letters?”

“Well, I can. I’ve never done it because I’ve never known anyone who would write back.”

“I’ll miss my letters from Aunt Candy. Maybe you and I could write to each other?”

“Sure.”

“We should go inside,” Luis announces.

Rafael leaves us. Luis gestures for Klint. We wait for him and then we go inside together.

The church is packed. We stare at the rows of pews stretching away from us filled with the backs of people’s murmuring heads.

I don’t know where we’re going to sit.

“I wish to stay behind,” Luis tells us.

“Klint,” he says, “you know where you should be.”

Klint doesn’t say anything to me. He just starts walking down the red-carpeted aisle toward the front of the church where Miss Jack’s closed casket stands. I knew she’d insist on this. She would never tolerate having people look at her when she couldn’t look back at them.

I haven’t seen Bert Shulman yet, but his presence is felt by the amount of yellow roses everywhere. There are dozens of vases of them, wreaths and garlands, and hundreds heaped on the coffin. He must’ve bought every yellow rose in the state.

As we near the front pew I can make out the heads of the Jack family: Cam Jack’s slick pewter cap of hair and his wife’s teased blond mane; then Shelby, the shiny new penny; Starr, the tawny beast; and Sky, the golden princess; and a man sitting next to her I assume must be her prince.

There’s a man crouched down in the aisle next to their pew talking to Mr. Jack. He’s Chip Edgars, the lawyer who advertises on TV. I’ve seen his picture on billboards, sides of buildings, flyers stapled to telephone poles, and even a few barns.

It takes a special kind of ego to want to see your own face that much.

He stands up, claps Mr. Jack on the shoulder, and starts walking back
down the aisle in our direction. As he passes us, he gives us a funny look; for a moment I think he’s going to say something to me, but he keeps walking.

We reach the family pew and stop.

Starr looks the worst of all of them, tired and faded. My heart goes out to her, and I don’t even know why. I’m supposed to be consumed with feeling sorry and scared for myself. I wish I could comfort her, although I don’t think I have the ability. Maybe someday I’ll paint that picture of her we talked about. She doesn’t have to pose for me in the flesh. A painter works not only from visual images but from emotional stores, and I’ll never forget how she made me feel that day.

Skylar’s on her cell phone and is dressed in a skimpy black dress and a lot of jewelry that makes me think she and her boyfriend are heading for the nearest city after the funeral for an expensive dinner and a night of clubbing.

Mrs. Jack is a wreck. Her eyes are red and swollen and rimmed with bleeding mascara, and her lap is littered with wet, crumpled Kleenex. I do a double take when I notice her purse sitting between her and Shelby.

I’m not mistaken. Baby’s bulbous eyes are peering out from its depths.

Shelby’s sniffling into a tissue. She looks up at me. A range of emotions play over her tearstained face: relief at seeing me, her ongoing grief, then something like fear.

I realize where this is coming from.

Mr. Jack immediately gets to his feet to block us.

Klint stands his ground. They face each other, nose to nose. The church falls completely silent except for the melancholy soundtrack provided by the organist.

Mr. Jack is distorted with rage. He clenches his fists at his sides. Sweat beads pop out along his hairline. He clamps his lips in a tight, trembling seal against the poison he wants to spew at us.

Klint remains calm. I’m probably the only one here who’s aware of the terrible trembling coursing through his body. I don’t know if he’s trying to restrain his anger and disgust or if he’s truly frightened.

They stand this way for an eternity that lasts a minute before Cam Jack, the richest, most powerful man I will ever know, a captain of industry, and heir to a ruthless bastard’s legacy crumbles beneath the flame blue gaze of my brother, a janitor’s son and heir to nothing except the pain of family secrets and sudden deaths.

Klint and I walk past him to the end of the pew where we take our seats with the rest of Miss Jack’s family.

I reach for Shelby’s hand.

M
ISS
J
ACK IS
going to be laid to rest next to her brother and his wife. When the church service is over, we drive to the cemetery.

At first I’m surprised to find out Stan Jack was buried on this unremarkable hillside among cashiers and truck drivers and laid-off coal miners, but then I remember how he chose to build his homes here and raise his son here no matter how much money he made.

His headstone is big but square and simple and comes across as humble compared with the five-foot marble cross marking the grave of a well-known car dealer or the sword-wielding avenging angel standing guard over the final resting place of the local Mattress King.

I finally catch sight of Bert Shulman. He’s in a charcoal suit with a bright yellow bow tie that matches the single yellow rose he’s carrying.

He musters a smile when he sees me and Klint and nods in our direction.

I also see Jerry for the first time today. I almost don’t recognize him. Working around Miss Jack’s house in his gray work pants, flannel shirt, and ball cap, he always seemed all-powerful and indestructible. There was no problem he couldn’t fix. In a suit and tie he looks like an ordinary old man.

He’s standing far away from everyone else, almost as if he thinks he shouldn’t be here.

I’m thinking about walking over and saying hi to him when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

“Hey, Kyle.”

It’s Bill, another guy who loses himself when he puts on a suit.

“Hey, Bill.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Okay. How about you?”

“I’m okay. She was a nice lady.”

“Yeah.”

That same lump comes back into my throat again, and I have to swallow hard.

“You got a minute?” Bill asks.

“I’m at the same funeral you are. What do you mean?”

“Come here.”

He starts limping away from the crowd back toward the road where the cars are parked in a seemingly endless line.

“I told her this might not be the best place to talk to you, but she insisted,” Bill starts explaining. “I kind of got the feeling she wanted to pay her respects to Miss Jack, too.”

He looks toward a lone woman in the middle of the road who’s pacing and frantically smoking. I’d know the spidery jerky movements of her arms and legs anywhere.

“Hey, Aunt Jen,” I say to her.

She came to see Klint once after he got home from the hospital. She brought him an ice cream cake and a deck of cards and couldn’t make eye contact with either of us. She left right away. We haven’t seen her since.

“Sorry about all this,” she says to me when I get close enough to see she’s in a torn pair of jeans and a beat-up leather jacket.

She’s definitely not dressed for a funeral.

“Yeah,” I answer her.

“I hear you and Klint are going to live with Bill for now.”

“Yeah.”

“I hear Klint’s been getting a lot of college offers already.”

“Yeah.”

“Has he decided where he wants to go?”

“No. Maybe Kansas or Florida or even Hawaii. It’s all the same to me.”

I plunge my hands in my pants pockets and rock on my heels waiting to see if she has anything else to say. It’s strange that she came to Miss Jack’s funeral just to make small talk with me.

“I want you to know I didn’t know about anything,” she says suddenly, her words choked off by an unexpected sob.

She composes herself quickly. I try to read her expression through the fog of cigarette smoke hanging between us. She looks startled by her own admission.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You want to come over to the funeral?”

“No. No, I hate funerals,” she says, shaking her head vigorously. “I went to my mom’s, and I told myself that was the last one I was ever going to. Besides, I’m pretty sure Miss Jack hated me.”

“She was probably just disappointed in you. It took me a while to figure out there’s a big difference between the two. I don’t think she hated anybody.”

She seems to think about what I said, finishes her cigarette, and tosses it into the grass.

“Well, I’ll let you get back but before you go, there’s someone here who wants to see you.”

I look around me in all directions, but all I see is the flaming October countryside and a road parked full of cars and trucks.

Aunt Jen starts walking even farther away from the funeral, and I helplessly follow.

Soon I recognize her car, and I notice there’s someone small sitting on the passenger side.

She looks up and sees me.

I rush over to the car. She doesn’t open the door, but her window is down. I lean inside it.

“Hey, Krystal. What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Kyle,” she says in a chirpy, normal little girl voice. “I’m visiting Aunt Jen.”

She’s in jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair in a ponytail, and has dirt under her fingernails like she’s been playing outside. She’s reading a paperback book with a girl and a horse on the cover. I can’t find any sign of the hateful little woman she was at Dad’s funeral. Even her freckles are starting to come back. Relief rushes through me.

“Krystal’s staying with me for a while,” Aunt Jen explains. “I wanted to let you know so you can make plans to see each other.”

“I’m sorry your old lady died,” Krystal says. “Did you like her?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Aunt Jen says we can go out to dinner tonight if you want. And Klint, too.”

I glance at Jen, who seems to have calmed down a little if the reduced speed of her smoking is any sign.

“I didn’t know if you’d be busy.”

“No. We can do it.”

I pull the tiny silver shoe from my pocket and show it to Krystal.

“Do you remember? I gave it to you at Dad’s funeral, and you said you didn’t need it and threw it away.”

“Why do you have it?”

“I kept it.”

“Why?”

“To remind me of you.”

“You’re crazy, Kyle,” she says, rolling her eyes like I’m already annoying her, exactly the way a little sister should act.

I put it back in my pocket and smile to myself.

“Okay, hon. Give me one more minute to talk to your brother,” Aunt Jen breaks in on our reunion. “I’ll be right back.”

She leads me back down the row of cars.

“I haven’t told Krystal yet, but she’s not just visiting me. Your mom dumped her on me. Maybe for good. I don’t know. She’s run off with some new guy.”

“Are you serious? I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it.”

“Are you going to be able to take care of her?”

“I don’t know. I’m gonna try. It would be nice if you boys could help out. You know. Visit her and stuff.”

“Sure.”

I give her a quick, awkward hug.

“Everything will be okay,” I tell her.

She doesn’t look convinced.

I decide to wait and tell Klint about Krystal when the funeral’s over. I join him where he’s standing with Tyler, his parents, Bill, and to my surprise, Coach Hill.

The Jack family is seated in a row of folding chairs set up beside the coffin where it’s waiting to be lowered into the ground.

Klint and I stand on the other side of the coffin.

I look around for Luis as the preacher gets ready to say his final words and find him standing at the edge of crowd with Jerry. They’re shaking hands, but Jerry’s head is bowed down and Luis has his other hand bracing his shoulder like he’s holding him up.

There’s always been a mild antagonism between the two of them, just like I suppose there should be between any two knights serving the same queen. Now that she’s gone, for today, their duty is to each other.