by David Rhodes
But as the recounting of memories continued, it soon became clear to the speaking side of the room that the other side was not participating. An idea slowly began to congeal: perhaps the other half did not know July Montgomery at all, or even disapproved of him in some way.
Soon, memories in which July’s suspicion of organized religion was the central issue, along with his fondness for cigars and European beer, were being shared. The fact that he didn’t own a suit or tie but was tolerant, kind, and generous came up several times. It was mentioned that his only relative, a cousin in Omaha, was supposedly an extremely religious person but had not bothered to come to the funeral, which was typical of rank hypocrites, of which July Montgomery had not been one.
In the back of the church, Wade Armbuster rose to the tension in the room like a bass to surface bait. With his left hand on Olivia’s shoulder, he declared July the most patriotic man he had ever known, and dared anyone to say otherwise. He said he owed the completion of his custom car and staying out of prison to July, who, he said, “stood like a mighty oak for justice, freedom, and decency.” If the world were fair, he said, July would still be alive now and not stuffed inside a copper-colored coffin. “And if anybody doubts how unfair the present world is, they should just open the coffin and look inside.”
Jacob went forward and he and Winnie picked up the short bench she was sitting on, carried it down the two steps, placed it in front of the casket, and reseated themselves on it. The movement imposed a temporary silence. Then several more people spoke and another brief silence followed.
Then Gail Shotwell came forward, alone, and moved the double bass near the microphone. Her voice shook as she explained that she wanted to sing a song she had recently written, and dedicated it to July. It was called “Along the Side of the Road”. She played five or six deep, rising notes and began to sing.
It was a difficult song, with lyrical phrases that did not seem altogether connected to each other. The chorus was so different from the first verse that it seemed like an altogether separate melody. Finally, tears ran down her cheeks, her chin wrinkled, and her voice collapsed. She stopped playing and attempted to start over, failed again, wiped tears from her eyes, but wouldn’t sit down.
Winnie looked anxiously at Jacob, and he stood up just as a woman with jet-black hair and green eyes rose in a pew near the middle, squirmed around the knees between her and the center aisle, and walked forward.
She smiled at Gail and, clearly accustomed to dealing with musical equipment, she moved the drummer’s microphone next to Gail’s, adjusted the strap on the acoustic guitar, and hung it around her shoulders.
“Start slower,” she whispered, counted to four, and hit a diminished chord.
The two women sang. At the slower speed, the lyrics turned into poetry, assumed a meaning beyond the words themselves. Rural images bloomed inside themes of redemption and the sadness of unfulfilled longing. Tears flowed in every pew, and during the second verse Gail’s voice broke free of her body and from a place somewhere above her held the room hostage to the sublime. Afterwards, everyone rose to their feet and applauded. A coal-black woman with a shaved head continued clapping after everyone else stopped, and then she stopped too. Then everyone sat back down.
After the singers sat down, Winnie stood up.
“First let me say how much I appreciate that you are all here. In preparing for today I wrote some things down, but I confess I don’t know what the right things to say are.”
She handed her notes to Jacob, glanced at her uncle, and continued, fear leading her to a higher castle.
“What I do know is that God loves us, completely, every one of us, all the time, and upon that single fact the hundred billion stars are hung. That love is both the source and the cause of all life.”
Jacob watched as Winnie stepped further down the aisle, as though entering the room’s center of gravity. She was beginning to gesture with her hands.
“We are here today to celebrate and mourn July Montgomery, and to do these things together.
“At moments like these it is hard not to wish for an end to suffering—a cancellation of it. But friends, a life without grief is hardly worth living, and someone who is not willing to give his or her life for something worth more than mere living is hardly alive.
“The things that wound us are the most important things we know, and the things that wound us deepest are things like July’s dying in an accident.
“Why did it happen? What went wrong? What would be different if his life had not been interrupted? Instead of coming here today, we might have met him somewhere and he might have spoken to us. But that is no longer possible, and because it isn’t, do things that are still possible have a different color?
“By all reports he was an honorable man, yet he died horribly. What does that mean? What obligation does it place us under? The grief hurts, but how will hurting change us? Will the suspicion that we might perhaps have done something to interrupt the flow of events that eventually ended his life haunt us into becoming different people?
“In our lives we make only a few important decisions—some of us only one or two—and the rest of our time is spent living them out. But what should we decide here today? How can we bear the responsibility of running our own lives when something like this happens to us?
“The remains of July Montgomery are behind me, inside the casket. We have them with us. That’s the easy part, and we know quite well what to do with them. We’ll take them to the cemetery and bury them. We can keep good track of material things. But what of July? Where will we look to find the part of him that convinced us to come today? Where will we locate the influence he continues to have on us? How will the stories he set into motion end?”
Winnie walked back to the bench and stood next to Jacob.
“Who was July Montgomery and where is he now?
“Friends, we are all connected in ways we cannot even begin to fathom. Our lives unfold through each other and within each other. What one suffers, we all feel. What one does changes others forever. July was part of us and that part of us will never be gone. We can find him in each other. Everyone here has a part of him, and the part he was able to share with us we can share with each other.
“So we’re united today not in belief but in grief—staring into the past, where July died alone. But though the world has cast him out, we never will. So long as we refuse to be separated from the love of God, which holds us all together, we will never lose July. We will never let him die. How we feel about him can never be taken from us. Nothing,” she said, turning and looking straight at her uncle and smiling, “nothing can ever, against our will, separate us from the love of God, and we will do the best we can.”
Pulling on the pew in front of him, Rusty stood up. He looked directly at Winnie and said “amen,” in a manner that suggested he had never spoken the word before and was unlikely ever to speak it again, and sat down.
Winnie continued, “After these last songs I ask you to come with me to the cemetery.”
Winnie sat beside Jacob and the Straight Flush took up their instruments and played “Bringing in the Sheaves.”
Leslie Weedle came forward to lead the closing song. Afterwards, Winnie gave the benediction.
Six pallbearers rolled the casket to the front door and with surprising ease carried it down the steps and set it in the back of the hearse. A line of cars, pickups, vans, and buggies followed Jacob and Winnie and the casket to the cemetery, in the corner of a cornfield. Under two sugar maples an open grave waited.
Winnie said a prayer, and a dozen people placed flowers on top of the casket. Once it was in the ground, Gail Shotwell, Wade Armbuster, and Jacob Helm shoveled in a token amount of dirt, which landed on the flowers and plastic lid with a flat, hollow sound. Then everyone stood back and sang as much of “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder” as they knew without songbooks and Leslie Weedle ended the song after the first verse.
Winnie said another prayer an
d the service was over. Some people stayed and talked, but most went back to the church for lunch, while eight men wearing work pants, T-shirts, and boots quickly shoveled the remaining loose dirt onto the coffin, filling the hole above ground level.
“Are you staying for the lunch?” Winnie asked Rusty.
“No, I should leave,” said Rusty. “You did a good job with the service. I knew you would.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ve got to go back to the church now. This is Jacob Helm. Jacob, this is my uncle, Russell Smith.”
“We’ve met,” said Jacob and they shook hands.
In the church basement, Jacob asked for more potato salad. As Violet placed a heaping spoonful on his sagging paper plate, he inquired after the aluminum receptacle. “I just happened to notice,” he said.
“Oh that,” she said. “I found it in the cabinet.”
“Nice vase,” said Jacob.
“I know. Land sakes, just sitting there when I needed it, with a screw top if you can imagine, filled up with oak ashes.”
“Oak ashes?”
“I’d recognize them anywhere. They’re distinctive, different. We always used to burn oak. My father said it was the best wood for heat. Pound for pound, he said, oak was the best. Oh my, how that old stove used to puff and smoke. You couldn’t come within ten feet of it when it was really cooking. I can remember as a little girl how the—”
“A vase filled with oak ashes?”
“That’s what I wondered myself. It must have been some young person, as near as I can tell—thinking to have something to stand flowers up in. Bad idea really. Ashes are too caustic for growing things, takes the life straight out of ’em. Sand would be okay but not ashes. Who knows where young people get their ideas? Take Wade, for instance, he often doesn’t seem to know anything about anything. Just the other day when he was helping me with the—”
“What did you do with the ashes in the vase?”
“I put them under the peony bushes in front of the church. Spread out, ashes are good, and they don’t have to be oak. They neutralize the soil. That’s what I try to do every couple years—get a good load of manure on the garden, not green manure, that’s too ripe, and add some ash, you know, for lime. Helps work up better. Is that enough potato for you?”
“Yes. I wonder if I might buy that vase from you.”
“What vase?”
“The vase you put the flowers in.”
“Gracious no, it’s not mine. It was just here. I guess it belongs to the church.”
“How would I purchase it?”
“No one can buy it without a meeting of the trustees. In any case, you’d have to talk to the pastor.”
“May I have some cake, please?” said Leslie Weedle, holding out a plate in an expectant manner.
“Which one?” asked Violet.
“Who made that one?”
“Leona Pikes.”
“Give me the other.”
“Nice funeral.”
“I thought so. What did you think of the preaching?”
“Well, if you ask me it went on too long really. I don’t know why things have to be so complicated—someone dies, they go to heaven, and we’ll see them soon. That’s all that’s needed. I really liked the singing, though.”
“That Shotwell girl does such a nice job.”
“The black-haired woman has a band of her own, you know, and every person in it is a woman.”
“Never mind about the cake, Violet. Are there any more frozen sandwiches?”
DRIFTLESS
AFTER THE CLEANUP IN THE CHURCH BASEMENT, WINNIE GAVE Maxine a ride home.
“I’m sorry about this,” said Maxine. “Russell doesn’t like crowds so he left early.”
“He wouldn’t even stay to eat.”
“Being around too many people is hard on his nervous system.”
“He doesn’t talk easily, it seems,” said Winnie.
“It’s true. We communicate well but don’t talk much. Here, let me out by the road—I need to get the mail.”
When Winnie returned to the church, it was empty inside. The evening air was floral scented, quiet and still.
She carried the few remaining folding chairs out of the sanctuary and into the basement, then picked up the discarded bulletins, gum wrappers, and other scraps of paper.
The band had not returned the piano to its proper place, and she made a mental note to find some people to move it back before Sunday morning. She also needed to distribute the flowers among the local nursing homes, keeping several of the arrangements brought in by her own people.
She closed the windows, slipped off her shoes, and settled into a middle bench, feeling her body relax. She attempted to pray, but as soon as her defenses were down she thought about July Montgomery and the look of death. What would it be like to know your coat had been caught and to understand you would perish? To die like that, alone, beaten to death by a machine, seemed terrible. Much of human life seemed ugly and brutal, and Winnie cried herself to sleep, lying on the pew.
It was well after dark when she woke up, the church as dark as the ocean floor. The smell of flowers was the first thing to greet her, joined by the coarse texture of the pew covering pressing against her cheek and the distant sound of a dog barking. These sensations coaxed her further into wakefulness and she climbed to her feet and turned on a light. Rubbing her face to remove the prickles, she began loading her car with flowers so they would be ready to take to the nursing home in the morning.
She recognized the aluminum vase as soon as she saw it and experienced a horror that reached all the way to the bottom of her.
But it did not last long. From the same psychic depths came a new feeling, and as it rose up it broke through all the gates, obstructions, and dams in its path.
She was angry, and her anger continued to mount until it burned white-hot.
Jacob Helm was up late. He sat in his living room staring into a small red fire, smoking his pipe and thinking about sitting next to Winnie on the short bench in the church—the smell of her soap. The little fire died to embers and he was putting on another log when the aluminum urn broke through the double-paned window and banged across the floor, spraying glass all over the room.
“You lied to me!” screamed Winnie from outside.
Jacob ran to the door. “Winifred!”
“You lied to me,” she screamed again, standing in stocking feet in the wet, cool grass.
“I didn’t.”
“You did. How could you do that?”
“You’re crying.”
“I’m not crying, I’m mad. Can’t you even tell the difference, you idiot?”
“Winifred, come inside. You’re shaking all over.”
“I can’t trust you. I’ll never trust you. You’re a rotten liar.”
“I was trying to protect you. And I didn’t quite lie. I chose my words carefully. I love you.”
“I told you not to say that,” screamed Winnie. “I told you not to say that—you filthy liar.”
“Why?”
“Because of how it sounds when I hear it. It mocks me. You don’t know how lonely I am.”
“I love you.”
“I told you to stop!”
Jacob went to her and put his arm around her thin shoulders.
“Don’t touch me,” she said and pushed him away. “You let me go through that whole funeral believing something that wasn’t true.”
“What could I do? Violet Brasso had poured July’s ashes on the peony beds in front of the church.”
“You could have told me. At least I would have known.”
“Come inside, you’re shivering.”
“No.”
“Winifred, come inside.”
“I won’t ever.”
“Then wait right here.”
He ran inside and after much clattering and bumping returned with a stuffed armchair and a blanket. He wrapped the blanket around he
r and settled her into the chair, then sat in the grass in front of her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you, you’re right. I have no good excuse. Can you forgive me?”
“No.”
“Come on, Winifred, be human.”
“This is what being human is. You’ve been smoking.”
“Yes, I was smoking.”
“I didn’t know you were a smoker as well as a liar.”
“I rarely smoke. If it bothers you, I’ll give it up.”
“I loathe that smell.”
“Then I will never smoke again.”
Jacob’s front door blew shut.
“My mother died from smoking cigarettes,” said Winnie, and Jacob leaned back on his arms, watching her carefully.
“I’m sorry. Tell me about her. I want to know everything. Don’t leave anything out. What was she like?”
Winnie was quiet for a long time.
“When I was little,” she said, “I could look into her eyes and see heaven. She was the closest thing to a saint I ever hope to know. She could reach into her soul and find something for everyone. After she died, her memory was the only thing keeping me sane.”
“She was religious then?”
“In every meaningful sense of the word, though she never attended church or read the Bible.”
“Winifred, she would have been very proud of you.”
“You say that but you don’t even know me.”
“That may be true, but how many times do I need to experience autumn or taste strawberry pie before I can say I know what autumn and strawberry pie are like? I know enough to think about you all day long. I go to sleep thinking about you and wake up thinking about you. I’d like to spend the rest of my life discovering you. There’s something unquenchable about you. When I think of you I’m filled with something I can’t describe. And being with you—nothing compares to it. Being with you makes everything else all right. Everything I learn about you, everything you say, everything about you brings me pleasure.”
“I’m not a toy, Jacob, and certainly not a strawberry pie.”
“Of course not—I should have said happiness instead of pleasure.”