Kathleen laughed and said, “Maybe you
“Why’s that?”
“So you can see what it feels like to have old age creeping up on you.”
Chapter 23
The Huntington, West Virginia sky was dark and menacing, like an angry panther pacing its cage. Mourners kept a wary eye on the rumbling thunderheads, with good reason: lightning had already killed one golfer the day before, less than a mile from this very spot. Which meant some of these people would have a second chance to wear their black suits this week.
Jerry Beck, father of Charlie and devoted alumnus of Marshall University, had years ago purchased several prime burial plots under a giant, black-barked chestnut oak tree in Spring Hill Cemetery near the Marshall Memorial.
Jerry had been proud to score such elegant eternal accommodations at the time, only he didn’t figure to need them so soon.
The Marshall Memorial honors the football team, coaches and supporters who perished in the famous plane crash of 1970. Like the Memorial and the oak tree, Charlie’s grave site was located on the highest point of the cemetery, overlooking the City of Huntington and the Marshall University campus. Kimberly, Kathleen and I followed the mourners up the hill. As we passed the Memorial I noticed six unmarked graves commemorating the plane crash victims whose remains were never identified.
I wondered how many of Charlie’s victims had never come forward to be identified. I wondered if Kimberly might have been the next. I gave her hand a squeeze.
More than two hundred people showed up for the burial, making it the largest turnout I’d ever seen. Had the weather been better, twice as many might have shown. Kimberly attributed the large numbers to Charlie’s popularity, but I suspected it was something else. I mean, you don’t have to be a local to figure out which way the shit rolled in this part of the country. In West-by-God-Virginia, it rolled downhill, starting with the governor and Jerry Beck.
I was appropriately somber for the occasion, but it didn’t keep me from noticing things. Like how many people had shown up, how many kept glancing at the sky and how many men were holding purses.
I wore a dark suit and black aviator sunglasses, and held my arm around Kimberly and did my best to comfort her. Kimberly was having a rough time. She kept sobbing and burying her face into my side. The wind whipped the women’s dresses mercilessly, and those who wore hats needed both hands to keep hat and dress in place—which explained why so many husbands held their wives’ purses.
My ex-wife, Janet, stood brooding a few yards away. On the few occasions we happened to catch each others’ eyes I saw storms in her face that could have scared the shit out of Katrina.
If my being at the funeral upset Janet—and it did—Kathleen’s presence infuriated her. Janet didn’t have to stare long at my girlfriend to realize this was not the woman who met her months ago, claiming to have been brutally beaten by Ken Chapman, Janet’s fiance at the time. It was that meeting that ended Janet’s relationship with Chapman. Janet always suspected I played a small part in her breakup, but only now realized I’d orchestrated the whole thing.
I looked at her small, patent leather purse and wondered what secrets might lie within. Specifically I wondered if she was still carrying the Taurus 85 Ultra Lite .38 special I’d bought her years ago. If so, I might need my own burial plot by the end of today’s service.
The group closed in around the grave site and the local pastor made some remarks about life and death and doorways, and healing and belief and loved ones and the hereafter. Family members placed roses on the casket as it was lowered into the ground. Once in place, the preacher took a small shovel and scattered some dirt onto it. A few words were exchanged between the parents and the cemetery director. The director pointed at the sky and then at the two men standing in the distance holding shovels. Jerry Beck spoke quietly to the preacher and the decision was made to begin filling in the hole before the storm broke. I thought they did this sort of thing with a backhoe, and figured they would, as soon as the funeral party left.
Jerry and Jennifer Beck stood beside the grave and prayed a few minutes before walking over to the Marshall Memorial, where they planned to accept condolences from friends and family. The air had a stillness, as if all hell was about to break loose above us.
Kimberly had never met Charlie’s parents, so she wanted to introduce herself. She needed a hug, as she put it, and needed to be hugged. In her mind, but for Charlie’s death, she would have someday been Jerry and Jennifer’s daughter-in-law. Kimberly, Kathleen and I watched the mourners form a long line that began moving quickly. Janet did not budge from her dark place, content to cast baleful looks at me and Kathleen. I kept an eye on her hand and purse. Twenty yards behind us the grave diggers were moving dirt faster than I would have thought possible. I watched them work a few minutes, until the Bobcat backhoe appeared, looked at the Becks and wondered how they felt about the grave being filled in at this point. They probably realized it was the prudent thing to do.
As the line of well-wishers dwindled, Kimberly said, “Come with me, Daddy. I need to say something to them.”
I glanced at Janet and said, “What about your mother?”
“She’ll be fine.”
