by Rich Foster
People gathered across the street to watch the house burn. Men shared whisk flasks or chugged beers. The flames fed a festive mood. A half-hour later the skeletal frame of the structure caved in, sending up a shower of sparks. A cheer rose from the crowd. Slowly, they broke up. Neighbors returned to their homes. The glow died down in the night sky. The volunteers rolled up the fire hoses.
The group from Moses’ Bar stayed to finish their beers. They heaved the empties into Goodman’s gutted foundation.
“They should have burned him in the house”, said one who spat the words out past a wad of chew in his cheek.
The other men piled into their pick-ups. Then, happily drunk, they punched the gas, kicking up gravel and squealing their tires as they fishtailed down the street.
Chapter Twelve
The day before the fire, Will Farron drove past the parsonage but no one answered his knock. He tried to call but the line was busy. After trying over a period of two hours he gave up, assuming they Leeds had taken their phone off the hook. Unable to reach Lester, he called other board members to see what they wanted to do about the church and funeral services. They almost universally said they couldn’t deal with it right now. Others plead obligations out of town. A surprising number of people had decided it was time to leave for vacation.
On Wednesday, Will called the sheriff’s office to see if he could enter the church. An hour later a deputy called back to say the C.S.I. team was finished documenting the site. He was free to go in.
Will put the closed sign up in his office window. He walked down the street and up the drive to the church. Yellow crime scene tape, like bunting for a party, ran between the posts of the church’s portico. He pulled it down, rolling it into a ball. He knew he was stalling, denying his reluctance to reenter the church. At last he slid his church key into the lock, turned the bolt, and opened the door.
The air was pungent from old wood and the residual odor of firearms and blood that lingered in the air. He propped the outer doors open, as though death could be aired out. He resolutely crossed the foyer, until the bullet hole in the sanctuary door gave him pause. It all seemed so normal now. The nightmare had passed.
Upon entering the sanctuary he was awash in memories. He felt a surge of shame, but tried to bury it under a wave of self-justification. They volunteered; it wasn’t his fault they died.
He worked his way forward, opening the windows as he went, attempting to vent the imagined odor of death from the room.
The stains on the carpet formed five distinct Rorschach inkblots. Two merged together at their margins. One stain was heart shaped, like a pathetic Valentine’s Day card. On Sunday night, the stains were crimson pools, now they had soaked in and turned a dark burgundy. Evidence samples had been cut from the carpet; the old pine floor lay bare beneath. The wood was stained; the victim’s blood had run deep.
On the platform, another section of carpet was stained where Goodman fell. The white wood wainscot, enclosing the choir loft, was smeared with streaks of dried blood. On the rear wall the plaster was broken away, leaving a hole, where the police dug out the bullet that tore through Goodman’s shoulder.
Will thought the carpeting by the choir loft might be cleaned. Below they could just cut out all the carpet back to the first pew. The wood floor would do until other plans were made.
Unexpectedly, amidst such banal thoughts, tears welled in his eyes. He was not a man given to crying but suddenly he began sobbing like a lost child. He sank to the floor, wracked by tears of shame and sorrow. Sorrow for those who died and shame for himself knowing that a retarded man and a six-year-old child had done what he had been too afraid to do.
He was still sitting numbly on the floor when someone appeared at the sanctuary doors. Will scrubbed at his eyes with his hands, as though, he could wipe away the sorrow that clung like grime to his face.
“Could I help you?” he called out.
“I was looking for the pastor. I’m Lucas James, Elijah’s nephew.”
“I haven’t seen him. You might try the parsonage but they haven’t been answering the door or the phone. Maybe they will now that the press is gone. Could I help you with anything?”
“I wanted to speak to someone about my uncle’s funeral.”
“Reverend Leeds might not be up to it. I’m head of the church board. I guess I can help.”
Will pulled himself up and together as he walked to the rear of the church. Lucas met him with an extended hand.
“How do you do. My uncle and I didn’t see a lot of each other, but we stayed close. He was a prolific letter writer. I’ve never been here, yet everything in town is familiar from his letters.”
“Well, after what happened this week, it all seems strange to me.”
“It will get better,” Lucas said with firm authority. Something in the man’s voice made Will want to believe him.
“I was an Army chaplain for twenty years. I’ve seen my share of violence and human suffering. Believe me, the sun always rises.”
Will wondered if Lucas knew “exactly” what had happened Sunday night. But he did not ask.
“I’m afraid we have some work to do before the church is ready to use. We have to clean up and remove some of the carpet.”
“I’m willing to help,” Lucas volunteered.
The two men spent the afternoon working in companionable silence. Together they moved the altar and cut out the stained carpet below. They rolled it up, carrying it out slung over their shoulders, like a final body leaving the scene of the crime. Will found bleach, rags, and buckets in the janitor’s closet. On their knees they scrubbed the wood floor. Lucas radiated a calm that Will desperately wanted.
Soon it was midday. Lucas suggested they take lunch across the road at Abby’s coffee shop. Afterward, perhaps they could find carpet edging at Hiram’s Hardware store. They chatted over lunch. Lucas spoke of his years in the military. He drew Will out with a conversation about the local real estate market. Will found himself wondering if Lucas would sell his uncle’s house could he get the listing.
Lucas never mentioned the shootings. He never even asked if Will had been there. Lucas was either devoid of most people’s prurient curiosity for gruesome details, or he was holding his own curiosity in check.
“I’d like to do my uncle’s service. Do you think there would be any problem with that?”
“No, that would be fine. I… I didn’t really know your uncle. I mean, he’s been coming to our church since he moved here. But, we never really talked much.”
“My uncle was a man of few words. He felt more comfortable with paper and pen.”
“It’s just that I don’t know how many people will come.”
“Don’t worry Will, it’s a funeral, not a rally.”
After lunch they bought supplies at the hardware store.
“Terrible thing that happened over there,” said Hiram looking for gossip.
Will, looked down hoping to end the conversation. But Lucas spoke up. “Yes, these tragedies are hard. It’s the living who suffer.”
Back at the church, Will sanded the residual stains on the wood planks. Lucas proved himself handy with tools as he edged, tucked, and hammered down the carpeting. The choir loft paneling was returned to pure white with a few passes of white spray paint that almost matched. The bare sanded spots on the wood flooring were rubbed with wood stain.
The odor of stain, cleansers, and lemon oil filled the room. A summer breeze blew through the open windows, as if nature were aiding in exorcizing the demons of death and violence from the building.
Tuesday afternoon, a few women from the church came bearing casseroles for Calley and her family. Food and bereavement seemed to be a staple of life. They were shocked by the change in her. It was if who she was had been stolen and a broken parody of herself left behind. Calley steered them out the door as quickly as possible.
The next morning, she summoned up her courage and called Bailard and Son’s to arrange for Ruthie’s fu
neral. They asked her to come in and choose a casket. When she arrived, she was ushered into a room lined with coffins. The most expensive ones were to the right, the direction most people turned when they entered. With great unction the younger Bailard guided her down the row and down by price, while implicitly tying her level of love to the money she spent. When they reached the plain wood casket Calley said despairingly, “I can’t afford any of these.”
“Well, of course you might want to consider cremation, that is much cheaper,” said the undertaker.
At the thought of her baby being burned Calley collapsed in tears. Mr. Bailard who was inured to grief, made sympathetic murmurings and then, excused himself from the room. After waiting a few minutes, to permit Calley to compose herself, he returned with information on their easy payment plan.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “we can not offer this program on the less desirable coffins. The interest terms are quite reasonable.”
Calley chose the least expensive coffin that Bailard would finance. She signed for a new debt she could ill afford. There would be time to worry about it later; after she buried her child.
It was a week for funerals.
The first was held Thursday, at the Baptist Church, for Jenny Daniels. Her parents were the ones who pressed their son-in-law toward a traditional funeral.
It was after Kevin left the hospital when they invited him to their house where they broached the subject. Kevin voiced the opinion that cremation made far more economic sense. The Langstons were horrified by the thought. They were adamant; their daughter would be properly buried. The discussion quickly elevated to an angry dispute.
“Jenny and I were married. It’s my decision.”
“She was our daughter a lot longer than she was your wife!” Earl shouted back, rising from his chair. Through clenched teeth he said, “My daughter will have a decent Christian burial! Not burned like some pagan!”
“She’s dead! She won’t know the difference!” Kevin shouted back at him, leaping from the sofa.
Earl visibly flinched before the verbal blow, and fell back into his chair as though physically struck. He put his face in his hands.
“She’s our baby,” his wife moaned.
“Didn’t you hear me? She’s dead!” Kevin lashed out in anger at the people least to blame. “A church won’t do her any damn good.” Kevin’s face was flushed. His shoulders shook with pent up rage that wanted to lash out at the heavens. He glared at his in-laws before turning and stalking out of their house. The screen door slammed itself behind him.
Later, the Langstons contacted the morgue but found Jenny’s body could only be released to her husband or to them if he signed a release. Earl was a man who had spent his life taking orders. He knew when someone held power; it was time to submit. He went to Kevin’s house Tuesday evening.
“I was wrong, son. I’m sorry,” he forced the words out. “She’s your wife. Not six months ago her mother and I gave her away, at your wedding, but now I’m begging for you to give her back.”
Unconsciously his hands clasped in supplication.
Kevin eyed his father-in-law. He was a big man who could, if he chose, easily beat him senseless with the same powerful hands he used to wrestle logs.
Earl continued. “Maybe it don’t mean nothing to you. Maybe you don’t believe in God no more. But it would mean a lot to her mother and me. And it wouldn’t do no harm, would it?”
Kevin felt embarrassed to see the man beg. He thought of his parents. The remembrance of his own loss made him relent. He realized he wanted to punish someone for the waste of Jenny’s life, but her parents were hardly the ones to blame.
“Okay, sir”, he had said. Then he turned away, embarrassed to see the tears streaming down Langston’s face.
The church was full. The young had more friends, more future, and brought a greater sense of loss than their elders. News vans lined the road near the church. Any semblance of privacy was destroyed by telephoto lens that spread their private grief across the communal networks.
Lucas went to Jenny’s funeral, as had Calley, because the deaths were a part of a set. Four people died together. It seemed important to be there to say good-bye.
At the cemetery, the flowers wilted in the afternoon heat. People dressed in black sweltered under the summer sun. For Kevin, the minister’s words were like the buzz of a pesky insect interrupting his private thoughts. Finally, the last hymn was sung, the final prayer was prayed, and the mourners left. Kevin lingered nearby, out of sight behind a tree, watching the cemetery workers back filling the grave as they buried his dreams.
Lucas James planned Elijah’s funeral for Friday morning. Will gave him the okay, since he had been unable to reach Reverend Leeds. On Wednesday he peered into the parsonage’s garage window. One of the cars was missing. It seemed odd that Lester and Grace would go out of town without saying something. Maybe they needed time away. Given what had happened, perhaps it was best.
After Jenny’s funeral Will stopped Lucas in the parking lot.
“I hate to drag you into our problems, here in town, but I wanted to ask you for a favor.” Lucas nodded for him to go on. “Desmond, our custodian, has no family. Our minister seems to have left town, so I was wondering if you’d be willing to do a service for him?”
Lucas nodded his head in assent. “Why don’t we do them together? Let’s be honest, not too many people will come to an old man’s funeral. I know my Uncle Elijah kept to himself. Perhaps between the two we can form a respectable crowd.”
“Are you sure? You didn’t even know Desmond.”
“No, but he and my uncle were friends. Elijah often wrote about him. He once said Desmond was the only man he ever met who never had a doubt about God!”
Will realized how little he knew about either of these men. He was stunned to learn they had been friends. He kept his thoughts to himself.
“I’ll arrange for the body,” Will said. “I guess the church will have to pick up the cost.”
“Why not have him cremated? It’s what my uncle wanted. He once said take the savings and put it to a charitable use.”
Farron thought about it, one casket and one urn seemed out of balance, besides it would save the church money.
“Okay, I’ll take care of it. If it can’t be done, we can have a service for Desmond next week.”
He went back to his office and got on the phone. It proved possible for Desmond’s body to be picked up and cremated that day. As he put the phone down, he thought how he had never been to a funeral that was a double header, much less one for a white and a black. It was a strange week indeed.
On Friday morning the church was almost empty. Many people gave up work for Jenny’s funeral; they could not afford to waste time on another.
Lou Harding was the only member of the media to cover the funeral. Lou’s story was cut to eight lines; the editor ran it as a filler item on page 22.
Lucas kept the service short. They sung the usual hymns. He spoke praise of the two men, who nobody there had really known. And then it was over.
In the foyer, strangers stopped to extend their sympathy to Lucas. He realized that they were there because of Desmond. Numerous people started with the words, “I didn’t really know your uncle well…” Lucas smiled and thanked them anyways.
Afterward they chatted as they drifted out into the mid-morning sun. The steamy heat shimmered already on the parking lot asphalt.
Will stopped to say he had an appointment and if Lucas didn’t mind could he just make sure the door was pulled shut on his way out?
“The door will lock itself. I locked Desmond’s ashes in the church office. I’ll handle them later!”
To Lucas it seemed a lonely end, to be left on a desk until someone in the land of the living could make time. Desmond and Elijah departed life, the way they died, largely alone.
Soon he was alone. The last car pulled out of the lot. He turned around and went back into the sanctuary to get his uncle’s ashes.
Later he planned to climb one of the local peaks and scatter them to the wind as his uncle asked several years before.
He picked up the urn. It was surprising how compact the human body was when turned to ash. Turning to walk down the aisle he was startled to see a woman sitting in the last pew. Her head was deeply bent. All he could see was her blond hair and her shoulders that quietly heaved up and down. He doubted such visible anguish was for his uncle or Desmond. His footsteps were silent, muted by the carpet, as he came down the aisle. When he reached her pew he spoke softly, “Will you be okay, Miss?
He did not ask, “Are you okay?” because she obviously was not.
The woman looked up. She was beautiful. Lucas felt it in his heart. But grief had damaged her face. Her eyes were swollen and her cheeks puffy from days of crying, not from moments or hours. Dark rings lay beneath her eyes. Her hair was tangled up where she had compulsively run her fingers through it. She tried to speak but, as though she were mute, no sound came out. Her hands began to tremble when she looked at the urn tucked under his arm. A low animalistic whimpering began deep within her. It changed to a moan and her hands shook violently as they went up to her face. The moan became a rising crescendo of agony. Tears flowed between her fingers from her eyes.
“I killed my baby!” Her suffering was painful to see. “I let her die! I let that animal kill Ruthie!” She was yelling; teetering on the brink of hysteria.
Lucas realized who she was. He set the urn down, out of her sight. He took her in his arms. He didn’t lie and say it would be all right. In fact, he didn’t even speak. He merely hugged her, and let her feel the comfort of another human being. She trembled like a small child lost in a frightening world she did not understand.