Love & Darts (9781937316075) (18 page)

An old red Chevy truck approached. Graceful
curves of slush sprayed out from the wheels, and halfhearted
flurries dove past the headlights. The truck came to a treacherous
stop and leaned against the curb, exhausted. The passenger asked
the driver, probably again, to escort her in. He reached across her
and pushed the door open. It scraped the curb, sticking in the
grassy mud. A fat woman backed out of the truck and stood on the
curb. With her weight removed, the door rose from the mud. She
still spoke to the driver. He nodded. The fat woman shut the door
and checked her makeup in the side mirror before the old truck
pulled away. She smacked the fender in disgust. She hadn’t finished
primping before her husband drove off. But. He didn’t stop. She
made her way carefully along the curb to the sidewalk.

The red-haired woman moved away from her
post between the landscaping light and the sign it lit. The shadow
shrank down the wall and disappeared. People on the sidewalk smiled
and nodded as she passed them with her arms crossed tightly over
her chest. She watched the fat lady's balancing act with interest.
She was nominally excited for the fat woman when she successfully
made it to the sidewalk without falling into the slush-filled
gutter or toppling over into the soggy grass. The fat woman's
brand-new high heels made the event preposterous. Dropping her
cigarette, the red-haired woman, who was much skinnier than her
friend, clapped sarcastically, despite the others. The fat lady
giggled but silenced herself quickly. Laughter was not appropriate
with a dead young man inside.

The redhead greeted the fat woman's smile
with an eager wave, justifying her wait to whoever was around. The
two women fell in line with the other mourners on the sidewalk,
stepped onto the Astroturf together, smiled at the man who held the
door for them as he went past and out into the night with hollow,
dutiful, thank-God-that’s-over eyes.

They had to go through with it now.

The fat woman struggled out of her coat. She
stuffed her hat down one of the bulky sleeves and her scarf down
the other. She laid the coat over her left arm, began diligently
picking lint off her blouse, and signed the guest book.

While her friend pondered over what to write
as a condolence, the redheaded woman smoothed her hair and pulled
at her skirt, fighting its static cling. She looked around. Flowers
were balanced precariously on mismatched antique end tables. Men in
dark blue or gray suits were huddled together around the edges of
the room missing their cocktails. Children—looking sad since they
knew Tuesday is never supposed to wear Sunday's clothes—sat
waiting, draping themselves without hope of comfort on
satin-striped divans in the foyer or on wooden folding chairs that
defined the expectation to stay for a while in the spacious front
room. Though the husbands and children were removed and
recalcitrant the mothers resolved to stand in line to be received
and pay their last respects.

As each woman approached the casket, she
snapped her fingers in the direction of the perimeter of men,
stared at the number of bored, quietly-swarming children, and
hissed specific names, summoning the rest of her entourage. One
after another each matron made it to the front of the line, the
husband came over, sheepish with guilt. The children’s porcelain
faces betrayed no pain of awareness or understanding even as their
mother’s fingernails dug into their sweet, awkwardly well-dressed
shoulders. Each woman guarded her own. She instilled undeserved
strength into her little clan. Keeping herself between them and the
casket, they faced death together. This mother was strong. She
looked the grieving mother in the eyes as if to say, “I'll shit if
this ever happens to me. And if any one of these ungrateful family
fools of mine do to me what’s been done to you, I swear to God,
I’ll kill them all.” But that went without saying as the graceful,
Christian sympathies rolled out of well-intentioned mouths.

The red-haired woman and the fat woman
didn’t have anyone to summon other than each other. So they just
stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their hands clasped in front of
them, watching women they knew at the front of the line. The aisle
carpet had been worn through by years of mourners’ shuffling shoes.
In the carpet underneath the wooden folding chairs, pink ribbon
reins that spanned a navy background held gaudy textile bouquets
together and tight. The red-haired woman tried to decide whether it
was possible to have that kind of carpet in a home. She couldn't.
She just knew she’d never have it at her house. The fat woman
slightly behind her leaned forward and whispered, “I still can’t
believe he did it.”

The red-haired woman pulled the shoulder
strap of her purse closer to her neck. In the same motion, a
furtive finger grabbed her sneaking bra strap and cinched it back
into position. Knowing you are not supposed to allude to bra straps
with such gestures, she leaned into the ear of the fat woman. “It’s
unreal. You wouldn't expect it out of such a sweet kid.”

“I don't understand. My kids always thought
he was so great.”

“He was. Because look at his mother. Marion
is just wonderful, isn’t she? Look at her with that girlfriend of
his. She hasn’t let her hand go for fifteen minutes.”

“Well, you know, that was his ex-girlfriend.
They had broke up about six months back.”

“Really? I guess I didn’t know. Whenever my
kids graduated I stopped getting most of the high school gossip.”
She tossed her head back to force a bothersome strand of hair to
fall out of her eyes. She wrinkled her nose to squint toward the
girl. She needed glasses but looked at Marion and the
ex-girlfriend. “Well, then that's maybe another reason he pulled
this stunt.”

“I don't know that you could call something
so drastic a stunt. He just needed some kind of help, I suppose.
Don’t you think? I don't know, really. My boys always said he was
an odd sort. They never bothered him much, you know. Nothing wrong
with him or nothing—just a weird kid.”

“He wasn’t weird. How was he weird? He was a
sweet boy. And a point guard.”

The skinny woman was looking at an elderly
couple across the room. She produced a bright smile for them, and
then saw them turn to discuss her identity under a green straw hat
and with the support of an old cane. She knew what they were
saying: pregnant in high school, abused, divorced. She’d heard it
all before. Felt like carrying her college diploma around with her
half the time. Wanted to see that woman even try to work two jobs,
get her kids from daycare, and still cook dinner while she finished
her degree. But. It didn’t matter. She knew what they were saying:
Now which one is that? Is that Irene’s daughter or the one who
ended up taking everybody’s head off at the ecumenical bake sale
two years ago?
Whispers, nods, and shaking heads got tossed
back and forth between the old couple. One of his arthritic fingers
jumped at the moment of enlightenment, and the green hat rose and
fell in agreement. With a curt nod to the old couple, the redhead
turned back to the fat woman.

“He was on Jim’s Little League team back ten
years or so ago. All the pictures he's in the middle of the back
row tall as can be and showing off that big grin he had. His mother
loved that sweet smile.”

“Did he smoke? I thought I saw him smoking
over by the grocery a few times. Maybe that was something.”

“I don't think so. Do you, really? No. Well,
they all smoke.” She smoked two packs a day. “Even my boys once in
a while. But I'll tell you, when my brother-in-law came off with
that cancer, I didn't smell it on my sister or him much
anymore.”

“Don't you just love it when they think you
don't know?” The fat woman leaned in with satisfaction, patting the
redhead’s freckled forearm. She withdrew her hand modestly, and
tried to pull her blazer close around her large midriff. She went
on. “I used to go up to my oldest son when he was first in high
school and give him a big hug or ask to make him a big dinner when
I just knew they'd been drinking beer up at Cawlyer's farm. That
poor boy would roll his head back, hold his breath, whatever, just
trying not to say anything right into my nose. And he would just
reek of alcohol. Frank and I would go to bed and just laugh.” She
chuckled mostly over the mention of her bed in a funeral
parlor.

The red-haired woman thought about the fat
woman in bed with the skinny pickup truck driver who had dropped
her off. They were an odd couple. Always had been. The red-haired
woman tried not to cringe. She sucked in her cheeks and raised her
eyebrows. Her response was calculated, an admonishment not at all
her own, but one that showed her effort to remain neutral. “Those
boys can be so cruel to each other with that beer.”

The fat woman regained her composure with a
cleansing sniff, giving her full attention to the small talk. She
sensed condescension and did not appreciate it. “Oh. Well, my boys
never did any of that. But they like to have a good time, just like
anyone.”

“I've never been much of a drinker. My
father was an alcoholic. You knew that.”

“No. Now I didn't know that.”

The women took several steps forward. The
people behind them moved in closer. The fat woman was uncomfortable
and someone stepped on the back of the redhead's shoe. Both women
turned half-defensively, then recognizing a local pastor and his
wife they nodded, graciously forgiving the infringement, probably
hoping he would return the favor.

He didn’t.

The redhead went back to her story. “He was.
It was awful. I don't remember too much about it, but he used to
beat up my brothers pretty bad. My oldest sister says that he used
to hit my mother, but I don't believe he would do any of that.”

“Frank hit me once.”

The redheaded woman had never heard that.
She rolled her wedding ring around her finger with her right hand.
She looked down at it. Remembering where her husband had bought it,
she suddenly let it go. “Well.” She didn’t say it: Everybody gets
hit once.

At least.

The fat woman tried again. “Were you the
youngest then?”

“Well, close. There was me and then one
more. He had the Down's Syndrome though, you know, and he only
lived to be about ten for some reason. Nowadays that doesn't stop
them at all. They grow up as good as anybody.” One of her arms
flailed out to the side and fell back down against her side in an
exaggerated shrug.

The fat woman was embarrassed by this
theatrical gesture. Trying to remember his name, knowing she should
know the red-haired brother’s name, she wondered what the pastor
would think of the dramatic, flailing arm of her friend. She looked
around quickly, willing to grant necessary apologies to onlookers
who might have been offended. No one cared.

The red-haired woman was confused by the fat
woman's overt glances. A funeral parlor is not the place to pass
judgment on people's fashion sense. “But Dad never laid a hand on
him, now.”

“Oh. Of course not. It’s unimaginable.” They
both ignored the shaky insecurity in her assertion that such things
were.

The two women took an impatient step forward
as the line inched along. They craned their necks to see who was
paying last respects and to find out what could possibly be taking
so long. A mother had picked up her little girl to let her look at
the coffin. The little girl reached for the edge of the lid and
pulled on it. The mother slapped her hand and put the little girl
down. The little girl ran back down the aisle pushing through all
the legs of people waiting in the receiving line. Her brother
appeared from nowhere and followed her through the crowd. His hair
was neatly combed and wet. He said, “Excuse me,” to the red-haired
woman. He moved quickly, careful not to run, and fidgeted with his
tie. As the red-haired woman smiled down at him, the fat woman
echoed with her own appropriate smile.

The red-haired woman revived their other
conversation. “Why? Did your boys?” There was interest in her
voice.

“Well, I would like to think not. But
sometimes I suspected it. There was this one time with my middle
boy, and he was just being secretive as you wouldn't believe. It
made us both, me and Frank, just so uncomfortable. Sometimes he
would have the bleary eyes, you know. Broke my heart.”

“I saw that on the news program once. About
the eyes. With marijuana.” The red-haired woman didn’t say anything
about buying a dime bag two weeks ago.

“Well, there was some strange cars come out
to our place a few times, too. I told Frank we should ask him about
it, but he thought we shouldn't get involved.”

“But if he was in trouble why wouldn’t
you?”

The little girl ran back into the room
slapping her patent leather shoes deliberately on the carpet. She
ran past the flowers along the left wall until she came to a group
of men in black and blue suits. She found her father and jumped up
into his arms. Her brother stopped short, abandoning pursuit. The
little girl rubbed her eyes to stop crying and wriggled up to the
top of her father's shoulder. Defiantly, she stuck out her little
pink tongue at her brother as the father patted her ruffled rear
end. The brother receded.

“Well, Frank seemed to think it was just a
phase and that he should work it out himself. And he did.”

The little girl wriggled out of her father's
arms. He set her down without notice and continued his
conversation. The little girl ran off to find her brother on the
other side of the room. When she did, she pushed him hard from
behind.

“He’s down in college now. He’s studying
some kind of business. Seems to like it enough and doing real good,
too. He got a D in economics, but he never was as good as his
brother in math, so that figures. Otherwise his grades are real
good. He’s not stupid, you know. Not at all. Look at Marion. She
looks frozen almost, doesn’t she?”