The Saturday Boy

and I got the feeling Mom needed me to be strong right now—which would’ve been a lot easier if I couldn’t see my Dad’s coffin being lowered into the ground.

“…suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.”

The minister picked up a handful of dirt and as he tossed it in the hole I finally found the strength to close my eyes.

“In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life…”

Darkness. The scrape of shovels.

“…we commend to Almighty God our brother Jason and we commit his body to the ground…”

Sobbing behind me. Mom’s grip tightening on my hand.

“…lift up his countenance upon him and give him peace…”

The minister paused. For some reason I held my breath. I don’t know why.

“…Amen.”

* * *

Me, Mom and Aunt Josie were the last ones to leave the cemetery because just about everyone stopped and said how sorry they were again and what a great guy they thought my dad was. Even though I liked hearing it I’d really had enough for one day. So had Mom. I could tell.

I looked through the back window of the car as Aunt Josie drove slowly through the gates to the main road and could see a mini loader chugging up the small hill toward my dad’s gravesite. There was only one reason for it to be heading that way and I didn’t want to think about it. I turned back around and faced the front. Neither Mom nor Aunt Josie were saying anything and I wasn’t saying anything either. It had been silent in the car for so long that when Aunt Josie finally cleared her throat it was like a gunshot.

“That was a nice service, wasn’t it?” she said.

“As nice as a funeral service can be, I suppose,” Mom answered. Then she chuckled a little. “Jason would have said all the sad people really brought the place down.”

“Like a trip to Dragsville, Ohio,” I added.

“Or breakfast at the International House of Bummer.”

“God, he could be such a dork sometimes,” said Aunt Josie. “I mean, seriously? IHOB?”

Then it dawned on me—we were driving home after burying my father and we were all laughing. It didn’t feel inappropriate. It wasn’t disrespectful. It was exactly the opposite. And in a weird way I’d never felt better. We got some strange looks at a stop light and it wasn’t until we’d driven away that I realized we hadn’t yet taken the FUNERAL sign out of the window, which, for some reason, made us laugh harder. We were still giggling when we got home but it tapered off as we turned in from the street to find a car in our driveway.

Aunt Josie pulled in next to it and turned off the engine. I could see somebody in the driver’s seat—a big somebody who didn’t so much step from the car as shrug himself out of it like he was taking off an overcoat. Sunlight winked off the brass buttons and badges pinned to his jacket.

“Can I help you?”

“Annie Lamb?”

“Yes,” Mom said. “And you are?”

“Sergeant Jahri Glover, ma’am,” said the soldier. “I served with your husband and came to offer my condolences.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Can I interest you in a cup of coffee?”

Mom unlocked the front door while Sergeant Glover leaned back into his car and got a big manila envelope from the passenger seat. He saw me when he straightened up and seemed to be studying me as he pushed the car door closed.

“You’re Derek,” he said.

I nodded.

“It’s so good to finally meet you. My name’s Jahri.”

He put his hand out and when I took it mine disappeared completely. Seriously. It looked like my arm ended at the wrist.

“It’s good to meet you, too,” I said. “You knew my dad?”

“Sure did. Hey, your mom said something about a cup of coffee—mind if we go inside and see about it?”

Jahri took his hat off and was careful to wipe his shoes on the mat when we came in. I kicked mine off and went into the kitchen. I hadn’t been hungry lately but now that the funeral was over and everybody had said what they’d come to say my appetite had returned. And not a moment too soon—Mom had just put a plate of cookies out on the table. Her voice stopped me as I reached for one.

“Derek, don’t be rude,” Mom said. Her back was turned and she was getting coffee mugs down from the cabinet. “Offer the cookies to Sergeant Glover first.”

“His name’s Jahri, Mom.”

“Oh, is it?”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I prefer it, actually.”

“The coffee will be another minute but please have a seat and help yourself to some cookies.”

Jahri pulled out a chair and sat down, putting the manila envelope on the table. It bulged. Full of something. I sat down across from him and waited for him to take a cookie. He was looking at me—studying me again the way he had in the driveway.

“You should have a cookie,” I said. “They’re awesome. Really.”

He smiled and reached for the plate. Then he seemed to have second thoughts and sat back again.

“What?” I said. There was something in the way he was looking at me that made me want to tell him everything I’d ever done. Mom came around and put coffee mugs, a little thing of milk, and the sugar bowl on the table. Jahri turned around in his chair.

“Can I help with something?” he asked.

“No. Please sit. The coffee’s nearly—see? There we are.”

Mom grabbed the coffeepot before the machine had even stopped beeping. She filled Jahri’s mug first, then Aunt Josie’s, and then her own. Jahri thanked my mom and blew on his coffee before taking a sip.

“Derek,” he said as he put the mug down, “would it be okay with you if I talked with your mom for a little while? Why don’t you go to your room and I’ll come find you when we’re done, cool?”

“Yeah. Cool. Totally.”

“Let me put you out your misery first, though,” he said, smiling again and taking a cookie from the plate. He put his fist out as I went by and I bumped it with one of mine. Of course I had to shift a few cookies in order to do so. “See you in a little while, partner.”

I must have dozed off waiting for Mom and Jahri to finish talking because the next thing I remembered was a knock on my bedroom door. There were cookie crumbs between the pages of the comic book that lay open on my chest. I took it to the wastebasket and shook the crumbs into it because I didn’t want to attract mice. Mom once told me that she and Dad had had another son before me but that he kept eating chips and stuff in the bedroom and never cleaned and that the crumbs attracted mice and then one night the mice carried him away and they never saw him again. And as crazy and impossible as that sounded, I wasn’t about to take any chances.

“Derek?” said Jahri’s voice in the hall. “You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah. Yes,” I said.

Jahri came in and my room suddenly seemed a lot smaller. He didn’t sit right away. Instead he walked slowly around the room looking carefully at everything, ducking occasionally to avoid running into a model airplane. Putting the big envelope on my desk, he sat in my chair and studied me again for a moment before speaking.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look just like your daddy?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Naw, I mean just like him. I seen pictures and everything but… damn. How old are you now? Ten?”