I struggled out of the couch. I felt faintly foolish. I shook his hand. I thanked him for his time. He pressed the elevator button for me. With his left hand.
I took the elevator down. I nodded at the doorman. I hailed a cab.
Looks like I confirmed my theory, I said to myself.
That something might be going on.
And I don’t know what it is.
76.
We couldn’t have a funeral. We didn’t have a body. God knew how long the ghouls were going to keep her. Keep taking little bits of her for tests. And anyway I had to draw the line somewhere. I wasn’t going to call a funeral home. I wanted nothing to do with that. Kelly would have to settle for a memorial service.
I didn’t want a service, either. But my reasons were selfish. I didn’t want to go through it. I didn’t want to hear a hundred different ways how sorry everybody was.
I hated going to funerals. I never knew what to say. I couldn’t bring myself to speak by rote. ‘I’m so sorry. He was a beautiful person. He lived a full life.’ But the alternatives were just as dire. Tell the truth? ‘Hardly knew the guy, actually. I hear he was an arrogant sonofabitch.’ ‘Just here to put in an appearance, folks. Hoping to curry favor with some potential client I heard would be here.’
No, not really feasible.
Think up some original and striking way to say the obvious? Couldn’t do it. Beyond my ability.
So I usually found myself shaking hands and saying nothing. Putting on an empathetic face. Feeling inadequate and out of place.
And truth be told, I simply didn’t want to make anyone else go through that.
But Kelly told me otherwise.
Not everybody’s a grouch like you, she said. They like a service. It makes them feel good. They come, they see old friends. They remember. It’s important to people. There’s a reason everybody does it, Daddy. Get over yourself.
Well, of course she was right. And I certainly wasn’t going to argue the point. I wasn’t going to tell my angel child she couldn’t mourn her mother’s death in any way she chose.
So a service there was. Complete with pomp and ceremony and a reception afterwards that set me back a cool five grand.
I could have made a speech. A eulogy. But there wasn’t a chance that I could pull it off. So I kept it simple. Recited the twenty-third psalm. That was it. Nothing else.
It was perceived as eloquent. A beautifully minimalist gesture. I didn’t hasten to correct the perception.
Some AA acquaintance of Melissa’s buttonholed me afterwards. I’d never seen him in my life. He was dressed in denim coveralls. Paint-splattered. An artist of some type, I surmised. Or a housepainter. He came up to me. Shook my hand. It gave me the creeps. All those AA folks were past masters at the art of being your lifelong buddy the first time they met you.
That was the best version of the twenty-third I’ve ever heard, he said.
I resisted it. But it made me feel good. Him saying that. Apparently I’d done something right.
Jerry, he said his name was. He introduced me to a cabal of other AA folks. They were all my new best friends. Lucia, small and fat and bubbly. Ron, a tall cadaverous man with missing teeth and an enormous hand that almost swallowed mine. A brace of mismatched lesbians in threadbare suits and ties, Janice and Phoebe. The whole crowd of them would not have looked out of place on a Bowery street corner, back when the Bowery was the Bowery. Or filing out of a seedy church basement after Meeting, desperately pulling out the cigarettes they’d been forbidden to smoke inside.
I was surrounded by them. I felt like an alien among aliens.
Melissa was a special person, said Lucia.
Here we go, I thought. Cliche time.
Her jokes, Lucia said, were so subtle.
Jokes? Melissa? I didn’t think I’d seen her laugh at a joke in a decade. Let alone tell one. And this coming from a tiny round woman in a polyester flower-print dress.
There was something going on here, and I didn’t know what it was.
I’d call them Mel-isms, said Jerry.
The whole group laughed knowingly.
She had a unique perspective, said Jerry.
She sure did, said Lucia.
I never met anybody so sardonic, said Ron, his big smile displaying the black gaps in his mouth.
Janice and Phoebe nodded.
And her cakes, said Janice.
They were the best, said Ron.
Everybody was excited when she’d come to a meeting, said Phoebe’s small voice.
There’d be cake, said Jerry.
The best, said Janice.
Mmmmm, they all said, laughing.
Cakes? Melissa had never baked anything in her life.
I looked about me. Five absurd faces. Five bodies of bizarrely varying sizes and shapes. Five portraits from the Gallery of Freaks. Talking of Melissa as if they’d known her from childhood.
I wondered if I’d stumbled into someone else’s memorial service.
You were a very lucky man, to have shared her life for a while, said Ron, putting an arm on my shoulder.
They all nodded in agreement.
I’m surprised to see you don’t weigh three hundred pounds, said Janice.
All that cake! exclaimed Lucia with glee.
General laughter.
Oh God, I thought. I’m dreaming. I’ve been transported into a David Lynch movie.
She’ll be in my thoughts forever, said Janice in a tearful growl. Every day.
Mine too, squeaked Phoebe.
More head-nodding.
I needed to be alone. I mouthed a few platitudes. I turned to look for a quiet corner in which to brood.
And there was Jake.
With tears in his eyes.
Red blotches on his face, his neck.
He was almost prostrate with apparent grief.
He threw his arms around me. Buried his head in my shoulder.
I’m so, so sorry, he sobbed.
I extracted myself.
Thank you, I said, a puzzled frown on my face.
I don’t know what to say, he said, removing a tissue from his pocket and wiping his eyes.
He had a stoned look.
It’s all right, I said. It’s all right.
Reassuring a guy at my wife’s memorial service. A guy who had met her once, for ten minutes.
I wanted to run away. Never look back.
I was much relieved to see Steiglitz. Glass of wine in hand. Earnestly chatting with Kelly.
For all I hated the pompous overachiever, I could count on him not to surprise me.
Dr. Steiglitz, I said. So good of you to come.
He turned to me. The hand he proffered was shaking.
Oh God, he said, I’m sorry, Rick. I wish I could have done more.
