Chapter 2
THE FUNERAL
The morning of the funeral dawned bright and sunny.
Clear blue skies, whistling birds, and a strange sense of stillness in the air.
Dad made good on his promise to drive the Cadillac, which was just about the only thing that endeared him to me this morning.
We had barely spoken since leaving Grandma and Grandpa’s house last night.
I followed behind Dad in his truck, driving barefoot because my wedge heels were too clunky on the pedals.
The black A-line dress I’d borrowed from Mom fit snugly against my skin.
I had taken pains to iron it last night, but it was already wrinkling from the humidity …
or maybe from sweat. I seemed to be perspiring out of every pore in my body.
If facing my grandparents had been like walking into the lion’s den, then today was like walking into the Colosseum.
I would be facing the whole of Rustin in everyone’s favorite place to pass judgment: church.
Bethel Baptist looked the same as ever: white, stately, looming monstrously above the road.
I hadn’t been here since last summer, when Grandpa had insisted that the whole family pack the pews for Father’s Day.
My stomach had clenched uncomfortably then—I’d never felt at home in church, even when I still thought I was straight—but now it positively roiled and thrashed in protest. I half expected to burst into flames the moment I walked through the heavy front doors.
Breathe, I told myself. I blasted the air conditioner and leaned my armpits toward it, trying to dry the stubborn sweat still pooling in every crevice of my body. I am gay, I am here, I am gay, I am here … and tomorrow I’ll head back to safety.
“This is unhinged,” Dad said when I parked and joined him by the Cadillac.
Looking around, I had to agree with him.
The service wasn’t set to begin for another hour, but the parking lot was already a circus.
Traffic cops had been deployed to direct the swarming cars; most of them wore GEORGIE BOY buttons alongside their badges.
The old church ladies were gathered out front, handing out funeral programs, paper fans, and a generous helping of judgment on people’s outfit choices.
And for whatever reason, the Rustin University marching band was out in full force, cycling through the fanfare music they played at football games.
As Dad and I lumbered through the parking lot with the photo boards, the band paused so a lone bugler could play military taps, even though Uncle George had never been in the service.
Inside the church, the air-conditioning was running full blast and the lights had been dimmed to minimize the heat.
Dad and I set up the photo boards in the atrium, then went to join the family at the front of the church.
Grandma wore a snappy black pantsuit and a wide-brimmed hat with a pale pink ribbon.
Grandpa was dressed in a tailored black suit with a navy-blue tie that matched Rustin’s football uniforms. There were corn bread crumbs on his lapel.
“Louisa, sweetheart, come give me a hug,” Aunt Shannon said gravely.
She was Dad’s younger sister by two years, and though Dad would never admit it, I knew he didn’t like her.
She wore a pantsuit that matched Grandma’s, except hers was mint green and looked better suited for a Kentucky Derby party.
Her hair was piled high on her head like a honeycomb.
When she leaned in to hug me, I thought it might tip over.
“I’m sure you’re having a tough time,” Aunt Shannon said, touching my chin. “How could you not be?”
A space opened inside my heart, making room, finally, for someone in my family to acknowledge what I was going through—
“Losing Uncle George is hard on all of us,” Aunt Shannon went on, and my heart closed right up. She tutted and plucked a stray fuzz off my dress. “But for a young person like you, I know it feels like the end of the world. It’s probably the hardest thing you’ve ever been through.”
I looked into her clueless porcelain face and bit down on what I wanted to say, which was Oh, definitely, other than my parents’ divorce and moving to a completely different part of the country and, just recently, this teeeeeeensy little thing called coming out.
“Totally,” I said instead.
“I’ll be singing the communion hymn.” Aunt Shannon puffed out a breath like it was a real sacrifice on her part, but I knew she’d lobbied my grandparents for the honor. Aunt Shannon thought she had an incredible singing voice. Dad thought she sang like a goat in heat.
“That will be beautiful, Aunt Shan.”
“Thank you. I hope I can do Uncle Georgie proud.” She turned to my dad and clucked her tongue. “Oh, sweet brother, how are you holding up?”
I dipped away and went to stand by my little cousins. Quinn, the six-year-old, clutched a Nerf gun in his hand. Charlie, the three-year-old, was eating candy from a Pokémon Pez dispenser.
“I need to blow my nose,” Quinn announced.
Aunt Shannon’s husband, Uncle Keith, looked around like someone might produce a tissue. When nobody did, he handed Quinn his funeral program. Quinn stared at it, then blew his nose right into the poorly cropped photo of Uncle George.
“Daddy, it scratched my nose,” Quinn whined with a gob of snot stuck to his chin.
“Suck it up, Quinny. Your great-uncle just died.”
Quinn shot the Nerf gun at him and ducked to hide behind me.
“That’s enough fooling around!” Grandma snapped. Her hat wobbled on her tight hair. “The receiving line is starting. Get in position. Charlie, what’s that in your teeth?”
We lined up single file. I was struck by the strange performance of it all: my family, fanned across the altar in a unified front, facing the whole of our town like we were about to put on a show.
Grandpa was first, Grandma right next to him, both of them officious and solemn like diplomats at the White House.
Aunt Shannon and Uncle Keith were next, and Dad was next to them, cracking his neck and shifting his weight nervously.
The receiving line seemed to stretch for miles. Hundreds of voices bounced off the ceiling until my ears started to ache. I twisted my toe into a burn mark on the carpet, trying to ground myself as every soul in the town came forward to pay their respects.
“Your uncle was a great guy,” the people said, each face taking me in. Strange hands clasped my own: soft, sweaty, calloused, strong. “I was his barber.” “George was my neighbor.” “I’m with the alumni office; your uncle made our job a breeze.”
Did I know them? Did I used to?
“You’ve turned into a pretty picture,” said a local businessman whose eyes lingered too long. “You sure got tall,” said one of Grandpa’s old friends. “Oh, Louisa, you darling thing,” said a woman drenched in cloying perfume.
“Thank you,” I said, over and over, hating my fake smile.
Did they know me? All of me? What had they heard, and what did they think of me?
And how self-involved was I to be worrying about their perceptions of me, when today was supposed to be about Uncle George?
But I couldn’t help feeling like I was outside of my skin, seeing myself from afar, seeing other people see me.
I am gay, I am here, I am gay, I am here …
Suddenly, a rush of whispers filled the room.
A towering, imposing man had strutted into the church, his chest puffed out with importance, exuding so much arrogance you would have thought he was swaggering into the US Capitol Building rather than a church in Alabama.
His wife lingered behind him like an afterthought, wearing a tasteful black dress and a diamond necklace.
Immediately, Grandpa dropped the hand of the woman he was talking to. He straightened up and motioned for the man to cut to the front of the receiving line.
“Amos,” the man said in a deep, rumbling voice.
He wore a smartly tailored suit with flashy cuff links.
His hair was parted impeccably. He pumped my grandfather’s hand, then kissed my grandmother on the cheek.
“Martha. Such a shame about George. He was a good, God-fearing man. Our program wouldn’t be what it is without him. ”
His words sounded rehearsed and affected, but my grandparents were eating it up. I leaned into Dad and whispered, “Who is that?”
“Rhett Calhoun,” he muttered into my ear. “New head coach.”
Of course. Rustin’s new football dynamo, the man who stepped in last summer when Rustin’s previous coach was unceremoniously fired.
Coach Calhoun had revitalized the program and led the Reckoners to a winning season for the first time in four years—including a trip to a bowl game.
No wonder my grandparents were looking at him like the sun shone out of his ass.
“He was a, uh…” Coach Calhoun clicked his tongue and looked off to the side dramatically. “Well, he was a hero of mine.”
“Oh, Rhett,” Grandma said, clutching her chest. I caught Dad’s eye and refrained from pretending to barf.
The service went on for nearly two hours. My grandfather spoke. The minister spoke. The mayor and the university president spoke. Bert Lamott from Lamott Cadillac rambled on for fifteen minutes, collapsed into sobs, and had to be escorted off the stage by the funeral director.
Aunt Shannon warbled through “How Great Thou Art” and cracked her voice twice.
Local schoolchildren laid roses on the altar, with one little boy placing a football in the middle of them.
My dad held steady until the final hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross,” began to play.
His shoulders shook, and I buried my resentment from the night before as I wrapped my arm around him.