The End or Something Like That (5 page)

The worst people possible walked into Ms. Dead Homeyer's funeral.

First Gabby.

She was wearing tight tiny shorts and a tank top. Her boobs were showing, which meant she was wearing the double padded bra she ordered online from Bonanza dot com last summer. She made me get one, too, but it didn't do that to my chest.

“You should get one, Kim,” she'd said.

Kim just laughed. Kim didn't need a bra to do stuff to her chest.

Now Kim was dead.

So Gabby was wearing that bra for sure, her hair in a ponytail, and green eye shadow.

I pulled my jacket closed over my sequin dress and acted like I didn't care.

Then two of Gabby's halter-top friends, Sadie Andreason and Heidi Baker, came in.

Next was Jud Jackson and Paul Lohner and Carl Armstrong. Then Laura Thomas and Jillie Brown.

And then, as if things couldn't get any worse, the hugest jerk of all of them, Tony Shurtz.

When Tony Shurtz walked in, I wanted to die. I couldn't deal with him today. Not today.

I sank in my seat even lower.

Skeeter looked at me. “What are you doing?”

I was so far down on the pew, I couldn't see Mr. Au. In fact, my head was cranked into my chest.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” I said.

Mr. Au got out a ukulele and started singing.

By the time he was done with his song about birds, ten more people in our grade had walked in.

I sat up. What is going on?

Finally, after one more song, this one about dogs, Au put his mouth on the mic. “That was a song I know Carla liked.” He wiped his forehead, because singing songs with a ukulele can get sweaty and said, “We don't have anything else planned for the funeral, right?”

He looked at the mortuary guys. They looked at each other.

Who was in charge? Where was Ms. Homeyer's family? Where were her friends?

Au said, “I thought we could have an open microphone. Anyone who feels compelled to should come up here and express their feelings.”

An open mic? At a funeral?

For no reason, my heart started to thump.

He kept talking, “I see that some of my homeroom students are here. They were a half hour late and that was my fault. I told them the wrong time.”

Tony Shurtz fake laughed, loud and obnoxious, and I thought I would throw up. I was sure I would throw up.

Au kept talking, “You only get tardy makeup points if you come say something about Ms. Homeyer. Aloha.”

And then he sat down.

Mr. Au was giving out tardy makeup points for talking at Ms. Dead Homeyer's funeral?

Perfect.

I looked back at Tony, and he winked at me.

After Mr. Au opened the funeral up, everyone sat there.

The lady knitting in the corner sneezed so loud the light flickered.

She had really, really yellow hair.

And then it was silent again.

Au turned around and looked at all of us.

“Go up there,” he said. His voice boomed, almost shaking the pews.

Someone giggled.

I thought you shouldn't yell at people during a funeral, but obviously I didn't know anything.

I looked over at Gabby.

When she saw me looking at her, I looked away.

“Do you want to leave?” Skeeter whispered.

“It's okay,” I said. I didn't want to walk out in front of everyone, have them all watch me.

But the room was closing in. Everything was getting tighter and smaller. I felt dizzy, so I focused on watching the muumuu lady's hair in the light. The dust particles in the air moving in and out of the bleached strands.

Au turned around again. “Tony,” he said. “You need some points. Get up there.”

Why Tony? Why was this happening?

Tony said, “Me? Me?” in a loud voice that echoed off the walls.

“Yeah, Tony. Come on,” Au said.

Tony stood up, his Knicks jersey and all. His friends patting him on the back. “Go, Tony,” one of them said.

I hated this. This was a funeral.

A funeral.

He sauntered up to the front and stood at the podium.

He stood there for a while saying nothing, and people were whispering-giggling. He looked over at me and winked. I felt like I'd been kicked.

Finally he said in a fake crying voice, “I've been really struggling with Ms. Homeyer's death. She was like a mother to me.”

They giggled. Giggle giggle.

Skeeter stared at him.

Tony kept talking. “Carla, she always wanted me to call her Carla, she one time held me like a baby, and I found comfort in her bosom.”

I waited for Au to tell him to stop, but he didn't. He just let him keep going. Like this whole thing was a joke.

“When she died, a part of me died with her.”

He looked at the casket, “Me and Carla forever,” he said, and then he blew a kiss at the box.

Someone laughed. Loud.

Au turned around and gave whoever it was a look. That was it.

Tony walked back to his seat, smiling at me.

My stomach rumbled.

Tony Shurtz was the type of person who made you want to hide in the janitor's storage room.

He was a huge kid with a big face and spiky black hair, and he wore NBA jerseys every day. Usually the Knicks but sometimes the Spurs or the Lakers and he was nasty nasty mean.

Like one time he made my English teacher, Mrs. Porter, bawl when he glued her purse closed while she was in the bathroom.

One time he got this picture of a girl in my class, Laurel Preston, and he pasted a photo of a pig on her face and put it up all over the school. From then on, people oinked like a pig when Laurel walked by.

And he made everyone laugh during class by saying disgusting things. Like when Mindy Chapman was doing her report on ancient China and she was wearing white pants, and he kept asking questions like, what PERIOD was the Great Wall made, and do you think this PERIOD in history was important to women? And do you think women during this PERIOD would have rode on donkeys or would it have irritated them?

Everyone knew what he was doing, and the teacher was sitting there in oblivion.

Mindy had had a mishap a couple of months before.

Tony was nasty.

But the worst part about Tony was the entire year, this year, when I wanted no one to look at me. No one to talk to me. I just wanted to be alone and sit there. This year, he'd picked me.

He picked me.

Every day on the bus, and he'd walk by, he'd whisper something. Something like,
How's your dead friend?

Or

Are you sad the only reason people talked to you is gone?

Or

You look especially fat today, Emmy. Too bad you don't have your good-looking friend around to make you feel better.

Sometimes in the hallway he'd yell something at me

And it wasn't even obvious how horrible it was. Like he'd say, “HEY, EMMY! HOW ARE YOU!”

And everyone would turn and look at me. I hated everyone looking at me.

Or he'd go, “EMMY! DID YOU GET THAT SHIRT AT T.J. MAXX? IT LOOKS AMAZING!”

It'd always be when I looked like crap because I always looked like crap.

I tried to not care. I tried to breathe and not care.

Don't care.

Who cares.

But he was there. Always.

Before Kim died, he was just an obnoxious kid. After she died, he turned into this monster that was in every hallway. Every class. Every lunchtime.

I didn't get it.

One time, I was out in the deserted hall during pre-algebra to take a note to the office for my teacher. It had been a bad day already. I hadn't slept all night, Mom had made me drink a green smoothie for breakfast, and then I'd forgotten I had to give a report on van Gogh in history.

It was just a sucky day. And then, I saw Tony.

He was at the other end of the hallway, right by the office where I had to go.

I stopped.

I could . . .

•

What could I do?

•

I could turn around.

I could go around the school outside.

I could . . .

•

I could go in the bathroom and wait, but I was supposed to hurry.

•

I could . . .

What could I do? How could I avoid this?

But he had already seen me. He had seen me and he was walking toward me. I went to the side of the hall and looked at the ground as I walked.

Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

His footsteps got louder, almost exaggerated and, of course, they were exaggerated; he was stomping but I wouldn't look up. I had to walk fast and get past him. Just walk fast and get past him.

Then he was standing there, in front of me.

“Hi, Emmy,” he said.

He was wearing basketball shorts with a huge hole. And his dumb Knicks jersey.

“Hi,” I said. I took a step to go around, but he blocked me.

“Where are you going?”

“To the office,” I said, all quiet.

“What?”

“To the office,” I said.

“I can't hear you.”

My stomach rumbled.

“I'm going to the office,” I said, and I looked at his face for the first time. He had a big smile and he'd been sunburned, his face on one side was blistered and bulging.

“Will you let me go?” I said.

He nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Go ahead.”

I took a step, but he blocked me again.

I took a step the other way. He did it again.

I tried to run the other way.

He did, too.

Back and forth and back and forth

And he said, “This is fun, Emmy.”

I stopped.

He stopped.

Then he said, “Did you ever know that everyone talks about how unfortunate your body is?”

My heart pounded. Pounded. And I just wanted to be nowhere. I just wanted him to leave me alone.

“Please let me go,” I said.

“Be my guest,” he said. And he leaned in, right up to my face, his breath hot and stale, and was about to say something when Mrs. Taylor came out of classroom and headed toward the office.

I stepped around Tony and followed the teacher.

Tony didn't do anything, except he did whistle. A soft low whistle that made my hair stand up.

And I hated him.

I hated him and I hated school and I hated everything.

The open mic continued. People really wanted tardy makeup points.

Some people talked about how Au did a really cool luau at lunch last month and how that was cool and everything's cool, and Ms. Homeyer died and she would have been sad because she's going to miss more cool luaus.

Some people talked about how they did all their word searches in Ms. Homeyer's class and how they learned so much when they finally found the words Red Giant.

Some people said sort of sincere things like, Ms. Homeyer was a nice lady or Ms. Homeyer had a good smile.

One kid, Josh Ahlstrom, he put his mouth on the microphone and said, “Au. You the man.”

He fist-pumped.

Au said, “All right, all right.”

And he said, “No seriously, you the man.”

I hoped Au didn't give him points for that, but he probably would because he the man.

One old guy got up and said she was good neighbor. The other old guy knew her from Bingo, which made me feel even worse for her. She wasn't that old. Why was she going to Bingo? Suddenly I knew I was going to play Bingo like Ms. Homeyer some day. When I was twenty-five or twenty-six, and I was going to die alone.

The last person to get up other than me and Skeeter was Gabby.

The whole time people had been talking, she'd just sat there. I kept stealing looks at her. And even with all the makeup, she looked pale. Almost sick and I wondered if she remembered what day it was tomorrow.

I wondered if she was thinking about Kim, too.

After Byron Smith, she stood up.

She was wearing one of my headbands that I'd left at Kim's house and for some reason that made me feel hopeful. I don't know why.

Gabby had the capacity to surprise you.

She walked up the aisle. Slow.

She looked at me.

I looked at my hands.

She stood at the microphone.

“I think it's sad Ms. Homeyer died,” she said.

Au nodded.

“I think . . .

“I think . . .”

Her voice cracked. She wiped her eyes and I couldn't believe it.

I waited, like everyone else, to hear what she was going to say next.

She took the microphone off the stand like she was going to do karaoke and said, “Ms. Homeyer, you did not have to die alone. None of us do, people. So love each other. Give someone a hug today.”

Then she stopped.

Someone clapped.

We don't have to die alone.

We don't have to die alone.

We don't have to die alone.

I felt tears starting to form, but I blinked them away.

Kim's funeral had been at the Family Church for All People just off the strip. It was a dark place with stained-glass windows and hard black pews and a fat man in a suit who said things like Jesus loves you and Heaven is a place on Earth and Bless this Mess. Except he didn't say that but he probably would have.

Trish had come over right after Kim died. Like the night Kim died and she was crying and Mom was rubbing her back and Dad was walking around taking things out of cupboards and putting them back and Joe had his hat pulled down over his eyes.

I sat there.

I sat there waiting for Mom to look at me. For her to look at me and for me to be her horrible child, because I was horrible.

Everything was a blur. A horrible terrible blur.

I sat there and Kim was dead.

She was dead.

When we left the hospital I hadn't thought everything through but now I had and I hated myself.

“Is she in a drawer?” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

“What?” Trish said. Mascara was down her face, and she wiped her nose with her hand.

“Is she in a drawer?” I said again.

“Emmy,” Mom said, “what has gotten into you?”

I sat there and they started talking again. I thought maybe Kim was in a drawer.

“They told me this could happen. We knew this could happen, right?” Trish said.

Mom nodded.

“I just, I just, you know, I didn't know, I didn't think.”

She stopped and put her head on Mom's shoulder.

I thought about how Kim was in a drawer. At the hospital morgue.

I also thought about how I was a sucky friend.

Trish was talking again. She said her boyfriend was taking care of everything.

Mom said, “What do you mean?”

Trish always had new boyfriends. Kim never wanted to go home because Trish was never there and when she was there, she usually had a different guy with her. Her latest boyfriend, Greg, was a real estate agent with a huge head and a huge truck and a huge ego.

“He knows everyone,” Trish said to me and Mom at a barbecue. Greg was telling Dad about a guy he knew who could help us fix the fence, and Kim said, “He doesn't know everyone, Mom.”

Trish was annoyed. “He knows the guy who owns the Bellagio. He knows Siegfried. He knows Criss Angel.”

“Gross,” Kim said.

Then they got in an argument and Mom said, “Okay okay.”

So now Greg the boyfriend real estate agent was taking care of everything.

“His brother knows a church and he said it's big and beautiful, right off the strip,” Trish said. “They're going to help me with the expenses and Greg says they'll, you know, they'll make all the arrangements.”

Mom said, “That's good.”

“Yeah, it's a huge relief.”

Joe looked at me and I looked at him.

•

One time, when the three of us—me, Joe, and Kim—were out in the pool, Kim had said, “What do you want your funeral to be like?”

She did stuff like that. Everything would be normal and then suddenly
what do you want your funeral to be like?

She and Joe were playing a game of one-on-one and I was sitting on the steps keeping score. Joe was winning.

He said, “I'm not going to die.”

He shot the basketball and it went in.

“Everyone dies,” Kim said, grabbing the ball.

“Not me,” Joe said. He was two years older than us and thought he was awesome.

“You're going to die, Joe. Sorry to say. And if you don't plan now, you'll be sorry.”

She sounded like a commercial.

“Let's stop talking about this please,” I said.

Kim tried to get around Joe, and there was splashing as he dunked her, and she shoved him and then she almost got to the basket, but he pulled her back under the water. She came up laughing.

“FOUL!” she said.

“Whatever.”

“It was a foul,” I said.

He handed her the ball, and she said, “For the record, I want my funeral at Red Rock.”

Joe splashed her face, and she said, “Stop. I'm serious. Stop.”

Joe stopped.

“Look at me,” she said. She pointed at Joe and then at me. “Both of you. I want it at Red Rock. Maybe up Turtlehead Peak.”

“Really?” Joe said. “That's the worst hike.”

“I don't care,” she said. “It's my funeral.”

Joe glanced at me. Then he said, “Mine's going to be at the Thunderdome.”

Barf. Of course.

“You could never fill the Thunderdome,” I said. Because he couldn't.

“I could. I have fifty-five thousand friends and they'd probably put it on YouTube.”

We started arguing and then Kim said, “GUYS!”

And we both got quiet.

“I'm serious. I want mine up Red Rock Canyon.” She focused on me. “And I want live music and a chocolate fountain and buckets and buckets of Snickers bars and balloons. Hundreds of balloons.”

Joe looked at me. I felt hot.

“You got it?” she said. “That's what I want.”

Everything was quiet in the backyard then.

“You're a dork,” Joe said, and grabbed the ball from her.

•

She was a dork and now she was dead and Trish's new boyfriend Greg was going to take care of everything. Kim hated Greg.

Joe kept giving me a look, so I said, “Kim wanted it at Red Rock.”

“What?” Trish said. And then again, everyone was looking at me.

“She wanted her funeral at Red Rock.”

“She talked to you about that?” Trish said.

I nodded. “She wanted it at Red Rock, and she wanted a live band and a chocolate fountain and Snickers.”

Trish wiped her nose again.

“What?”

“A chocolate fountain.”

“And balloons,” Joe said, looking at me. “Remember? Hundreds of balloons.”

Three days later, her funeral was at the Family Church for All People just off the strip. And it was huge. And dark. And Kim would have hated it.

Joe and I sat in between Mom and Dad

Kim's uncle kept hiccupping.

Gabby was in a maxi-dress that had birds on it.

The speaker was the fat man with the suit, and he talked about Daniel and the lions' den and love and one time, when he was up in a mountain all by himself, he had a vision, and in that vision he saw a young deer, a fawn. And the fawn came up and ate a peanut butter sandwich right out of his hand and, if you can believe this folks, he even nestled right up to the preacher. Like a deer hug. He said, “This deer gave me a hug and when I came to, when the vision ended and I was hiking down through the good trees of glory, I came upon none other than the dead carcass of a deer. A little deer. A fawn, ladies and gentlemen.”

I stared at the box of ashes on the table in front.

The man spoke for forty-five minutes.

Then we sang a hymn about the beauty of the earth, and then it was over.

There was no chocolate fountain. No Snickers. No live bands. And no balloons.

•

Sometimes, I close my eyes and try to be nowhere. To feel what it would be like to disappear into the darkness.

What would it be like to be nowhere?

To be nothing?

It's easier to imagine than I want it to be.