Chapter 28 Samson
I saw the notice in the local newspaper.
Today, at noon, Mr. Jeffrey Donald Turner will be laid to rest in St. Christopher’s Church, Shannon Avenue. No flowers. Donations to Veterans for Peace.
Dad’s already left for work. Our boxers and socks are lined up on the camping chairs to dry by the dying embers of the fire. His are worse than mine. Old and gray with holes.
I lock up the boat and I’m dressed like any other kid from my school: striped tie, dark slacks, black shoes, black jacket, white shirt.
But I am not going to school. As I walk along the frosty towpath that thought buoys me.
I have an absurd spring in my step because I will not need to face them today.
There is a dead badger on the road. An 18-wheeler drives by and flattens it some more.
Black and white. Larger than average. Broken.
It reminds me of Amber before I buried her.
I should move the badger to the poplars and give it a good burial, with leaves and branches and moss, but that will have to wait.
Mr. Turner used to say I could be an archaeologist or bone hunter one day if I wanted it bad enough. He said I’d get there one baby step at a time.
I spend two hours visiting the town paper and several convenience stores asking for work.
I’m offered some one-off yard maintenance and painting jobs between the questions about why I’m not in school, and then I’m offered a temporary paper route for a boy who broke his arm falling off his BMX. I take the job.
The school emblem on my jacket is covered with a square of black paper.
It is Scotch-taped in place. People look at it as they walk past, and I drop my gaze to the asphalt.
Couples stare at me and then look each other in the eye.
Some people look around trying to catch someone else’s eye.
I stare down. I keep my eyes, and my thoughts, to myself.
The church is small.
Unshowy.
Four cars in the lot and the wind is picking up. Roadwork outside; pneumatic drills and a yellow excavator digging up the pavement; two men shoveling and smoking, a third reading a folded tabloid.
I check the clock up by the steeple. Five minutes to twelve.
The wind eddies around the graveyard.
The sign says:
Feed Your Faith and Your Fear Will Starve to Death. Everyone Welcome.
Talk about mixed messages.
I walk closer.
No flowers. That struck me as a strange request. No flowers? I would have brought some, I had planned on it. But they want no flowers.
People walk into the churchyard dressed in black and gray and navy blue. Church clothes are a real thing. One woman wears a bottle-green dress with a black shawl. The door closes. I wait awhile and then I walk in.
Candles.
An intimate church with little in the way of decoration. Stained glass immediately behind the altar but the rest of the windows are plain and domestic-looking. I’ve never been in here before. The sound of the drill outside fades as I walk deeper into the hushed structure. I take a pew at the back.
Fourteen people including the priest.
Fourteen.
There are numbers up on the pillar. Two hymns. And next to the pillar is Mr. Turner in his casket. Dark wood with brass handles. He’s inside, poor guy. No flowers. The church is cold and Mr. Turner is inside that coffin.
They all stand.
Music from the organ. The notes: a little scrambled and blurry.
The priest says a few words and then the organist starts again.
Nobody sings. The priest and the organist do their best to compensate but there is very little volume.
I watch the backs of heads, and I watch the casket, and I wonder what Mr. Turner would think of all this.
He never spoke to me of any religion. He liked war films and crosswords and history books; I know that.
His parents passed when he was a young man.
He wanted to be a veterinarian but never got the grades, so he became a seed wholesaler instead and traveled to Europe several times in the eighties.
The man in the casket, cold, locked in, motionless, drowned, enjoyed Guinness poured properly into a glass, and he liked the cheeseburgers they served at the diner Mom took me to.
He used to go there every weekend without fail.
Cheeseburgers with curly fries and onion rings.
He said their chocolate malt shakes were the best he’d ever tasted.
The priest talks about Mr. Turner’s life but I can’t hear him well from back here.
The heads are still. I can’t sense anyone crying or grieving. Fourteen people and me.
Is the value of a man’s life measured by the attendance numbers at his funeral? I can say, categorically, having known Mr. Turner less than a year, that it is not.
After the service we walk out into the churchyard and the hole has already been dug.
I am surprised by the depth of it. There is a mound of earth covered with bright artificial grass.
We wait for a long time. The traffic noise hums in the background and the excavator keeps on digging regardless.
Just another dead guy, I guess. The only person I recognize here is the gaunt man, Mr. Turner’s cousin’s son, Phoenix.
Black leather jacket, skinny suit pants, black cowboy boots, white shirt, black pencil-thin tie.
He looks at me from time to time like he’s surprised I turned up.
They bring out the casket slowly and carefully and they place it down inside the hole.
I start to choke up a little out of nowhere.
What am I doing? I cough to hide it. Turn to face the other way until I regain my composure.
The sight of Mr. Turner being lowered down is worse than I’d expected.
The finality of it. Phoenix glances over at me like he’s checking I’m OK.
I look away. The other attendees throw a little dirt down onto the timber lid, one after the other.
I am last in line. I push my hand down into my pocket and pull out Amber’s pink collar.
The leather is soft. A few of her hairs still cling to the studs.
I hold it at arm’s length and two women look at each other disapprovingly and one clears her throat.
I glance at the priest, but I can’t read him.
I look at Phoenix in his black leather jacket and he smiles.
I drop her collar.
There is an audible tap as metal hits wood.
The others talk in groups, mainly about the weather and the parking situation, and I hang back. Phoenix, pale, with dyed black hair that matches his leather jacket, approaches with his hands in his pockets. He looks older than my parents today.
“We’re going to the bar next door if you want to come along. Private event.”
I look up at him.
He has gray at his temples and his face has scars. He is very thin. Deep brown eyes.
“Just sandwiches and stuff,” he says. “You’re welcome. It’s just us. To see him off, you know.”
I have no money in my pocket. “Thanks. But I’ve got to get back. Thanks, though.”
He nods and taps his open palm on my shoulder and walks back to join the others.
I spend the afternoon on the footbridge over the railroad counting train cars and feeling numb to the wind.
I sit cross-legged and let my mind wander.
To Jennifer, the girl who sat with me that one time and acted like that was normal, the sight of her in her school dress as she walked away, the way she moved inside it.
To Mom, in the hospital. I try to imagine what her room looks like, but I can’t.
I wish she would write me a letter to say.
A short note. She could send it to Dad’s work or to school.
I would give everything I have for a letter from her.
I’d open it carefully and smell the paper and I’d hold it to my cheek and to the skin above my upper lip.
I read in the newspaper how there was an inquest held and that the coroner ruled Mr. Turner’s case to be death by misadventure. I wish he’d stayed safe inside his boat that night. I wish he hadn’t had a drink of Dad’s stupid whiskey and ventured outside.
A diesel locomotive rumbles below. A freight train covered in graffiti. Bright marks. Tags and curse words. We are all angry and lost and we learn to deal with it, or not, in our own ways.
I remove the patch of black paper from my jacket, revealing my school logo, and then I walk home carrying a broken branch, tapping it against the uneven ground.
When Dad returns to the boat I’ve already emptied the ashes. I have folded and put away our laundry and set the fire and done the dishes and cleaned the kitchen.
“Born in a barn?” he says, walking in.
I frown.
“Door’s open. Letting my heat out. I’m paying good money to heat a public towpath, am I? You know how much coal is? You know how much a sack of coal is?”
He decides he will move the boat farther up the canal tomorrow. I’m not sure if he considers this some kind of punishment, but I honestly don’t care anymore. He should know that the long walks don’t concern me. He can move the boat as far away from civilization as he likes.
We eat canned sardines and then we share a pack of cream of wheat.
“Fish will put hairs on your chest, boy,” he says. “Brain food.”
Is it chest hair food or brain food, Dad? Choose one, damn it. Commit.
We play cards and then he goes off to shave before his writing session.
Their bedroom is empty.
The boat smells different without her.
I convert the dinette into my bed and lie down listening to a Johnny Cash song on the radio through my foam headphones. There is a crescent moon and it makes the canal water sparkle and shimmy. Smoke in the air. Is she watching the same moon?
He comes out, glistening, hairless, ready.