The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second (20 page)

Sunday, October 14

Rob wasn't at church today and I was gonna call and see what was up, but when we got home, the phone was ringing. Mom answered.

“Ruth, settle down; what is it?” Ruth is Mrs. Binkmeyer. “Ruth, you're not making any sense. Just slow down.”

Apparently, Aaron told the family he'd joined the Marines and was shipping out to boot camp on Monday.
Way to break it to 'em gently, Aaron.
Still, I think he was right for not telling Mrs. B sooner. If he had, he'd have spent weeks opening his bedroom door to find half-melted Cabbage Patch Kids at his feet.
This is what napalm does to children, Aaron. Is this what you want to do? Burn babies? Kill women and children?
Mom kept telling Mrs. B she shouldn't worry.

Nothing Mom said settled Mrs. B down, so we ended up spending the afternoon at their place. When we got there, Aaron and Mr. B were gone. Bink said Aaron had stormed out, yelling that it was his life, he'd do what he wanted, and no give-peace-a-chance guilt trip from a bunch of washed-up Jewish hippies was gonna stop him.

I made the mistake of saying I didn't see what all the fuss was about. Bink rolled his eyes, smacked me upside the head, and called me a dumb-ass, saying now everyone was gonna have to listen to one of Mrs. B's lectures—
again
. He was
sooo
right it was scary.

From the way Mrs. B reacted, practically spritzing Bink and me with patchouli oil and flashing the peace sign like it was the sign of the cross and she was a Catholic performing an exorcism, you'd have thought I'd said I'd pay Aaron a nickel for every Sudanese baby he bayoneted. The next thing I knew, Mrs. B'd pulled out this giant cardboard box full of crap: tie-dyes and bell-bottoms; her yellowed and tear-stained front pages of the
Chicago Tribune
announcing the assassinations of Jack, Malcolm, Martin, and Bobby; her original Woodstock LP (signed by Sha Na Na and Arlo Guthrie—
Leave it to her
, Bink said,
to get it signed by the lamest people there.
); a snapshot of a naked, unwashed, and unshaved Mrs. B trying to give a flower to some frumpy lard-ass in glasses (Bink nearly got grounded for saying the guy looked like great-uncle Irving.
That's Kissinger. What a piece of work he was…told me to get my tits out of his way, go home to my bubbie, and stop embarrassing
our
people.
); a bunch of news-magazine clippings of murdered Vietnamese and Cambodian women and children; and her “Hey, Hey, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?” protest sign.

I couldn't've been more bored.

 

 

Tuesday, October 16

Apparently, Bink's not a big supporter of Aaron's whole Semper-Fi-defend-truth-justice-and-gay-porn-in-Abu-Ghraib thing, either. When we got to school yesterday morning, the Rot-See Nazis were all over him, shoving Dana to the side and telling Bink how frickin' awesome it was that his brother was in the Corps.

HOOAH!

Tripp, you're a dumb-ass.
Hooah's
the Army. The Marines are OOH-RAH!

Screw you, Paulson. Army, Marines—it doesn't matter. Binkmeyer's brother'll be picking off towel heads from fifteen hundred yards.

Earth to Tripp. He'll have an M40A3. The range on that's, like, a little over a thousand, max.

Yeah, well, my cousin knows this guy who—

“You guys really need to get laid,” Bink said, brushing past them.

“And since that's not going to happen,” I said, “you better go home, pop in
Red Dawn
, and jerk each other off.”

“Wolverines,” Dana said, flashing a clenched fist at the Rot-See dorks before we walked away.

 

 

Thursday, October 18

Rob's mom is dead. She died late Tuesday night. When I called Rob—these last few days are all blending together—Mr. Hunt answered. He told me she'd passed away. He said I could come over if I wanted to. Rob could use a friend. Mom called me out of school yesterday so we could go over and help.

We were on the couch, Rob's head resting in my lap, when he told me how it happened. He wasn't crying, but his eyes were puffy and swollen, cheeks stained with dried tears. His mom had been having trouble breathing. It had been bad. Really bad. Rob's dad wanted him to play the piano for Mrs. Hunt while he got something to relax her. They were hoping music would make it easier for her to breathe until the medicine kicked in. Rob played “Morning Has Broken” as Mr. Hunt got the medicine ready. Rob said he couldn't concentrate and kept chipping notes—easy ones. He stopped and sat next to her, holding her hand, and kept apologizing, like, if he kept talking she'd get better. Whatever Mr. Hunt gave her, it helped for a while. She looked more peaceful than she had in months—almost like she could smile again.

“It's weird, Charlie.” Rob's head was in my lap and I was stroking his hair, trying not to cry. I nodded, wiping my eyes on my shoulder. “I was holding her hand and just talking…not really saying anything…and that's when she was dying. I didn't notice it. Neither did Dad. You'd think if your mom was dying, you'd notice it. I didn't.”

“Shhh,” I said, pressing my fingers to his lips.

For the rest of the afternoon, Mom and I helped any way we could. Most of the funeral arrangements had been made in advance, so Mom and I cleaned, straightening the house and making up the guest bedrooms. Out-of-state relatives would call and Mom would give them directions from O'Hare or Midway to their hotels, from the hotel to Flagg and Son's Funeral Home.

Tonight was the wake. Mom said we shouldn't stay too long—that this was a time for Rob and his dad to be with family—but Rob didn't want me to go. Mom said it was okay, but I
had
to call her when the visitation was over so the Hunts could have some time alone.

Rob and his dad spent most of the night standing by the casket, hugging relatives, shaking hands with Mr. Hunt's coworkers and clients, chatting quietly with Rob's teachers and old friends of Mrs. Hunt who'd grown up with her in Crystal Lake. Coach Mueller and the guys from the soccer team came, looking out of place—like they'd all bought new dress shirts for the wake and had forgotten to take out the pins. The guys paid their respects with “Rob, dude, sorry, man,” and slunk to the back of the funeral home, whispering about how creepy funeral homes are and wondering where they kept the bodies. Dana and the rest of the Flannigan horde showed up. I was surprised they didn't bring a camera—you know, another family portrait. The Flannigans in white robes, all harps and halos, gathered around Mrs. Hunt's casket as they waited for her bodily ascension into heaven.

I kept to myself and stayed out of the way mostly, but once, when there wasn't a stream of people offering Mr. Hunt casseroles and condolences, I asked him and Rob if they needed a break, something to eat. Mr. Hunt told Rob he should get out, have a bite, and maybe walk around.

“Where we going? I can't go far,” Rob said when we stepped outside.

“We can head over to The Cottage if you want. I don't think anyone'd hassle you if you ordered a beer.”

Rob kicked a plastic bottle cap from the sidewalk into the gutter.

“There's the Olympia down the street. Diner food. Good steak fries, though. We can stop by Pop's Corn Crib after. Get popcorn balls. Ever have one?”

Rob shook his head, his chin quivering. He was crying, only it wasn't crying, not exactly. It was something scarier. A silent movie howl. His eyes looked raw, pinched, and almost disappeared into his face. He was shaking all over. His shoulders trembled. I didn't know what to do. I was useless. It was like when Mrs. B got back from the hospital after having one of Bink's sisters and she'd asked if I wanted to hold the baby. Amanda started wailing and I freaked, thinking I broke her and they wouldn't be able to fix her. Mrs. B took Amanda from me, laughing. “Babies cry, Charlie. You didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes, they just need a good cry. We all do.” But with Rob, I wasn't sure what to do. It's not like his pain and sadness were these things that someone older and wiser could take from him.

At the Olympia, I got us a spot in the back, away from the windows and the rest of the customers. Rob collapsed into the booth, elbows on the table, his face in his hands. I pulled a handkerchief out of my coat—the one with shoulder pads so large it made the suit look like it was still on the hanger—and handed it to Rob. He dried his eyes, blew his nose, and took a menu from the waitress.

Rob got a Monte Carlo that he didn't really eat, just picked at, stabbing it with his steak fries and pushing it through the rivers of ketchup on his plate. When he seemed bored with that, he dissected it with his butter knife and started dumping whatever he could find on the turkey and ham—Sweet 'N Low, half-and-half, sugar, salt, pepper, A1 Steak Sauce.

The waitress eyed us and I half-expected her to come over and bitch at us for acting like a couple of punks who wouldn't eat what they ordered like normal, decent people. Rob broke down before she could.

“That's not her in there, Charlie,” he said, jabbing his butter knife in the direction of the funeral home. He sniffled and wiped his nose along the arm of his suit. “My mom's not in that fucking box. It's not her. She didn't wear makeup, not makeup like that.” A tear dropped from his chin to the table.

“I hate this town, Charlie. I hate everything about it. This wouldn't have happened in Manhattan. This shitty little town.”

Seeing him like that, raging, pissed beyond tears, one minute lashing at anything, too weak, too defeated the next—it was too much. I kept telling myself to do something, say something, but it was like my voice was trapped inside me. Here's this thing that's killing him, eating him from the inside, and I couldn't do or say anything that meant shit. All I had were the empty, funeral-home “sorry's” and “she's in a better place's.” What the fuck good would those do him?

“She's dead.” His body shook. “It hurts, Charlie. God, it hurts.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let's get you back.”

I opened my wallet and threw money on the table, thanked the waitress—she'd overheard Rob and was tearing up—and took Rob back to the funeral home. Rob ran to his dad, threw his arms around him, and crumbled. Mr. Hunt held Rob close to his chest, buried his face in Rob's neck, and sobbed. “That's it, let it out. Let it all out.” It was the first time I'd seen Mr. Hunt lose control.

It's probably terrible to say this, but there's something showy and selfish about grief. Everybody it touches gets this look-but-don't-touch, if-you-have-to-ask-you-can't-afford-it vibe. Like there's a rule that says whoever's suffering is one up on everyone else. It makes them different, special. Unreachable. No matter how many whispered is-there-anything-I-can-do-for-you offerings we make, there's nothing in our words that's strong enough to bridge the gap. Grief's an island.

Look at me—acting like I actually understand any of this crap.

About an hour after Rob and I got back to Flagg and Son's, I needed to take a leak. There was a first-floor bathroom, but a line of old men was waiting to get in. I figured they had to be at the funeral home window-shopping or hoping for some kind of morbid test drive. None of 'em had paid their respects, which was fine with me. Old people creep me out. They're always yammering about how the world's going to hell in a handbasket, how there hasn't been any decent music since the Andrews Sisters, and how if men are wearing earrings, they might as well wear bras, too. They smell, too—the half gallon of Old Spice that still doesn't cover the scent of mothballs, fifty years of smoking two packs a day, piss, iodine, and pending death. To get away from them, I pretended someone was calling me. I shouted, “Coming, Mom,” and found the bathroom downstairs.

Nobody was there, which was great until Mr. Five-Incher decided not to cooperate. As soon as he was out of my fly, he decided to stretch out, so to speak. Even though we were in a funeral home, my little guy wasn't really in the mood to do the respectful thing and settle down.

What was I supposed to do? Wait until it went away? Like that'd happen. Go back upstairs, walk around, and, like a complete dweeb, pretend like I didn't have a hard-on? Yeah, and when it got spotted—there's no hiding 'em in suit pants—what would I say?
Oh, don't worry, I always get like this when I'm around dead people.
That'd go over well.

So, I hate admitting this, but I did what needed to be done. I made sure the bathroom door was locked, pushed my suit pants and underwear below my knees, spit in my palm, and with no sense of decency or shame, I jerked off.

By the time I was done with my DNA dump, the visitation was almost over. The crowd in the viewing room had thinned out. I went past the floral sprays—crosses, hearts, and wreaths, the arrangements in baskets, floral pillows—and stood next to the casket for the first time.

Rob was right. It didn't look like her. Mrs. Hunt looked waxy and fake, like the mortician guessed at what she might've looked like once. I'd been trying to do the same thing since I met her. It was only when either Rob or Mr. Hunt was talking to her that I'd maybe see a glimpse of who she'd been. A twinkle in her eyes. Something in her hands, maybe. But that was it. Everything else is just what I imagined.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Rob's dad.

“How are you, Mr. Hunt?”

“I'm fine. I've known this was coming for longer than Rob has.”

“Can I get you something? Coffee? A Coke?”

“No, thanks,” he said, folding his arms in front of him. “You would have liked her, Charlie, if you'd gotten a chance to really know her. The two of you were a lot alike. She could talk her way into or out of anything. Had a mouth on her that went a mile a minute, but she always meant well. She had a good heart and she loved Rob.”