you rest in peace.”
Wait.
Alvin Hyman Fudgewick?
We were in the wrong place.
In the wrong line of cars, at the wrong grave site, in the right cemetery, at the wrong funeral.
Alvin Hyman Fudgewick’s.
“Alvin Hyman Fudgewick is not my grandma,” I whispered to Nora. I grabbed her elbow. We walked away as quickly as we possibly could, before bursting into smothered laughter at the bottom of the hill.
“Quiet!” whispered Nora. “Alvin Hyman Fudgewick is dead and he would not like us laughing at his funeral.”
I snorted. “We are horrible people. I can’t believe we’re laughing.”
“Where is your family?”
“I have no idea.”
“Should we look for them?”
“Probably. Shall we tell them about Alvin?”
“You can’t call him Alvin,” said Nora. “You don’t even know him. You have to call him Mr. Fudgewick.”
“I cried at his funeral. I think I can call him Alvin.”
Nora paused. Then she just said: “Alvin Hyman Fudgewick.”
I burst out laughing.
We got back into Nora’s car and drove around the cemetery. Whenever it seemed too quiet, or there was a pause in the conversation, one of us would say “Alvin Hyman Fudgewick” and we’d collapse into giggles.
It was me and Nora.
Not the way we had been. We might not ever be like that again.
But laughing, which is something we’d always been good at together.
Alvin Hyman Fudgewick.
Alvin Hyman Fudgewick.
Eventually, we found my family, far at the other end of the graveyard.
My dad was sobbing on Hutch’s shoulder.
Grandma Suzette was already in the ground.
Uncle Hanson was drinking from a flask, sitting on the hood of his rental car.
My mom was furious with me.
I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.
Another video clip:
Hutch is in Kevin Oliver’s greenhouse repotting a bonsai tree. His haircut is growing out and he has it tied off his face with a blue bandana. His acne flares in the summer heat, so his forehead and chin look swollen and irritated.
Hutch has been going to school with me since kindergarten. He’s been a roly-poly1 since seventh grade due to a tragic case of acne, the cruelty of middle schoolers and a tendency to quote retro metal lyrics in place of making ordinary human conversation. He works for my dad as an assistant gardener, and somehow we’ve become friends.
Just from proximity, I guess.
And because everyone else at Tate Prep shuns us.
Anyway, Hutch is funny, once he starts talking. He doesn’t like his parents much, and they don’t seem to like him either, since they never come to any school events. He seems to think hanging out with my dad and eating raw food for dinner at our house is preferable to whatever he might be doing at home, so he’s around a fair amount. I’m taking his cinematic education in hand. We made our own documentary film festival that we named The Kirk Hammett Festival of Truth and Glory, Hammett being Hutch’s favorite guitar player and subject of the best movie in our whole series:
More from the Hutch interview in the greenhouse:
