The Tear Collector

by Patrick Jones

  “That’s a common reaction,” Dr. Albrecht says. “That’s why we want students who might feel that way to seek out counseling. Guilt is a common emotion linked with death.”

  I bite my tongue. In my house, Robyn’s death was called “just wonderful” because death causes tears, and tears give us life. I know Brittney isn’t one of us, but the crocodile tears she sheds for Robyn make me wonder. Brittney is treating Robyn’s death as one more attention-getting opportunity.

  “We need to get started,” Mr. Abraham says. I sneak one more peek through the drawn curtain before we head out onstage. I see some people are laughing, some are already crying, but most just look stunned. It is the look of denial. The first stage of grief.

  On every seat is a sheet of paper. The top of the page has a picture of Robyn and information about her life. The middle of the page contains information about the ceremony. The bottom of the page lists the five stages of grief to help everybody understand the grieving process.

  I go out onstage along with Mr. Abraham, Principal Carlson, and Dr. Albrecht. There’s a chair for Brittney, but she’s still backstage. I turn around and go to her, speaking softly. “Brittney, it’s okay. You can do this. All is forgiven. This is for Robyn.”

  “I can’t,” is all she says. Her voice isn’t sad; it is angry for showing weakness in front of me. I don’t gloat; instead, I lightly touch her arm, and pull her close.

  “For Robyn,” I say softly, and she nods. I give her my handkerchief, and she gives me a sad thank-you smile. She wipes her eyes, hands it back to me, and starts out onstage. Before I return, I press the handkerchief against my naked left shoulder, but feel no energy rush. The tears might be real, but the emotion behind them is false. One drop can energize me for weeks, but Brittney’s tears so lack real emotional energy that I feel nothing. Just like Brittney. She’s not upset; she’s just trying to upstage everyone else by making a late entrance.

  To the right of the podium is a large blowup of Robyn’s junior picture. It is surrounded by collages of other photos printed from Robyn’s Facebook page and from the yearbook. Mr. A asked the yearbook teacher, Mr. Kvasnica, to assist, so several students worked all night creating the collages. To the left of the podium are chairs for us, although one chair is missing—the chair we had originally set out for Craig, but his parents said he wouldn’t participate in the memorial service. Looking out over the crowd, it seems as if he also couldn’t bring himself to attend the services at all.

  The adults all say how much everyone will miss Robyn and how everyone that knew her knows she would want people to be happy. Mr. Abraham says that the only way to heal is to first hurt and experience grief. He says people shouldn’t feel embarrassed about weeping during the ceremony. Today, crying is a community ritual.

  Brittney rises, slowly, when it is her turn. She looks out of place; all the teachers are wearing black with just small white flowers in their labels. Brittney’s wearing her bright blue cheerleading uniform, but she can’t show any enthusiasm. She gets six sentences into her speech, which Mr. A helped her write, and loses it. Everybody in the audience looks concerned.

  I rush to the podium. “It’s okay, Brittney,” I tell her. But she’s not looking at me; she’s looking out at the audience looking up at her. I seek everyone’s tears, but Brittney seeks their attention. I’m no better than she is. Both of us are using Robyn’s death for our own selfish ends.

  Mr. A helps her back to her seat, while I look at the crowd. Jocks who wouldn’t cry if they broke a leg now sport quivering lips. Most of the girls don’t even try to hold back. They obey Mr. A’s words and are openly weeping. It’s my turn to speak, and I’ve thought about this moment since I heard the news. I don’t like speaking in public, so my words will be brief.

  “I don’t know what I can say that hasn’t been already said here or said by all of you since you learned Robyn was gone,” I say slowly. “We love you and miss you, Robyn. Good-bye.”

  The funeral tomorrow is for family and close friends only, so this is their chance to say good-bye. I want my actions, not my words, to speak for me. I nod to Michael, who is running the sound, and the music starts. While Robyn and I loved Beatles music, I needed something more current for the finale. Over the music I say, “On the bottom of the stage are boxes of flowers, a sign of hope and renewal. If you loved Robyn, come take a flower, bring it on the stage, place it in front of her picture, and say some final words to her. Like this song says, we have just memories, and they will never change.”

  Between the silence at the end of my speech and the first words of the songs by Fuel, there’s a symphony of sorrow welling to a crescendo as “Leave the Memories Alone” starts.

  One by one, Robyn’s friends and closest classmates come up onstage to leave a flower by her photo. Some do it quickly, the way you’d pull off a Band-Aid, taking the pain all at once; others linger in front of the picture. Some are still in shock; most are in tears. I embrace all who invite it; some accept it and need me to shoulder their sorrow. Most people I know; a few—maybe seniors or sophomores—I don’t. The few who stayed seated and laughed, I never want to know.

  I notice three people not in attendance: Samantha, Scott, and Craig. I also notice the glares of hate from Kelsey, Tyler, and Cody. Cody’s not alone; Kelsey’s smug and smiling friend Bethany is with him. She’s an athlete too; she runs track, obviously a sprinter. All four avoid me when they come onstage and pass by Robyn’s photo. Even though the girls are crying, I don’t reach out to them.

  When Brittney sees them, however, she magically manages to pull herself together. The minute she walks onstage, her act goes away and her true self emerges. I knew when I touched her and soaked in her tears, she didn’t feel grief or guilt. As Brittney stands in front of the photo of her dead friend, she pulls out her iPod to use as a mirror to fix her crocodile tears–stained makeup. Her friend is dead, and she’s consumed not with sorrow or shame but with self-importance.

  The song repeats twice before everyone has come up. Mrs. Carlson starts to speak, but I’m not listening. I’m thinking not about Robyn, but about myself. Memories may never change, but people change. I wonder if all creatures have it in their power to transform their very nature.

  I focus again as Mrs. Carlson invites the school choir to come onstage. Tamika Ross, the best singer in the choir, starts slowly singing the oldie “Lean on Me” in the style of a gospel song. People who had sat down stand up when they hear it. After only two verses, anyone who had stopped crying has started again. People are holding hands, swaying back and forth, coming together as a community. As I walk toward some swimmer friends, two junior girls—Elizabeth and Sara—who sometimes ate lunch at Robyn’s table, stop me. They were not her best friends, more like honors-class acquaintances, but maybe that’s why they seem so emotional. They’re crying, not because of memories, but I assume because they regret not knowing Robyn better.

  I stand between Elizabeth and Sara, their hands intertwined with mine, their cascading tears falling on my bare shoulders as they listen to the song and lean on me. My body feels soaked, almost overfull, with all the emotional energy in the room. I’m feeling dizzy and disoriented, almost as if I am overdosing.

  Sara tries to speak, but I let her know that now isn’t the time to talk. It is a time to reflect. I look inside myself and damn not my deeds, but my very nature, which craves constant tragedy. My best friend is dead, but standing among this crying crowd, I’ve never felt so alive. Yet who—or rather what— I am has never felt so wrong.

  NEWS REPORT #4

  Police report that twelve-year-old Jason Hamilton of Midland returned home a few days ago after he was missing for almost a week. At this point, police are releasing few other details. In a related story, police reported six more incidents in the mid-Michigan area of elementary and middle-school boys being kidnapped, blindfolded, gagged, and then released after a few days. Previously thought to be isolated incidents, they are now all believed to be linked. In at lea
st one other case, a black Ford van was seen nearby. In every case, the young person was walking alone. Police would only comment that they are puzzled by the cases, as these kidnappings have not involved ransom. One officer said anonymously that while sexual assault was not involved, the young men were “terrorized” but none suffered severe physical injury. The same officer noted, however, that “torture” occurred in each case.

  CHAPTER 11

  SATURDAY, MARCH 21

  How are you doing, Becca?”

  She looks up at me; her sad blue eyes look larger than ever. Her head’s covered in a black scarf. It matches the black dress and the color everyone in her family wore this morning of mourning. Saint Dominic’s was packed; Robyn would’ve loved to have been around so many people, even if they couldn’t see her. The casket was closed, which didn’t surprise me, but did sadden me.

  Grandmother Maggie came with me, although she wasn’t my first choice. I asked Scott, but he was working—waiting tables at Paul’s Coney Island—and couldn’t get time off. And he couldn’t switch his work shift to later in the day because he has a hot date tonight. With me.

  I wanted to sit with Becca at the funeral, hold her hand, give her strength, but Mr. Berry said his sister volunteered. The last thing he needed was a fight about funeral seating arrangements. But I’m next to her now, as people mill around the Saint Dominic’s Family Life Center awaiting the repast. It’s so odd for people to get together to break bread so soon after putting the closed casket into the cold hard ground. If anything proves the range of human emotion, it is a morning like this. From the anguish of the funeral Mass to the agony of the last ride to the cemetery to hearing laughter at this gathering of survivors, somehow humanity survives the depths of despair and always returns to hope. Like any species, humanity adapted this trait of emotional resiliency in order to survive.

  Few people from school were invited; even fewer showed up. Someone—maybe it was me—made sure Mrs. Berry knew how Craig drove a nail through her daughter’s heart with Brittney holding the stake, so neither one was invited. Several teachers attended, even Mr. Abraham, who wasn’t one of Robyn’s teachers.

  Everybody’s paying attention to Becca, so it’s hard for me to comfort her, but there’ll be time later. I’ve told her parents that unless I’m at the hospital, church, or school, I’ll do my best to make myself available for Becca. I owe them; I know I can never tell them why.

  “I want to go home,” Becca says in between the steady stream of mourners paying their respects. She’s sitting on a hard red plastic chair and looking as tired as the room’s worn carpet.

  “I wish I could take you,” I say, kneeling down next to her. “This will be over soon.”

  “I don’t know why we’re doing this,” she says, almost pouting. “It’s weird.”

  “I know, but it is important for people to say good-bye,” I tell her. “It’s good they can gather together like this and share their sadness.”

  “Cass, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure thing,” I say, smiling brightly.

  “Why do people cry?” she asks.

  I try not to look at her strangely; there’s already been too much of that today. As I’ve stood next to Becca, I’ve listened to people choosing their words as carefully as if they were navigating a minefield. The elephant in the room is an eight-year-old with cancer. Everybody knows that in the next year—two at most—they’ll be back in this same room saying the same words, not to Becca but about her. Then, there’ll be no surprise, but there’ll still be as much sorrow.

  “Cass?” Becca says, and I snap back to attention. “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say, as my eyes gaze out on the entire room. “Why do you think?”

  “I think people cry when they’re sad because when they’re done crying, they don’t feel as sad anymore. That’s how I feel,” she says, sounding too smart for eight. I think she asked me because she’d already thought about the answer. Like her sister, she’s a little bit of a show-off.

  “Maybe, Short Stuff. Maybe you’re right.” I’m still avoiding her wide eyes.

  “To feel good, you have to feel bad,” she says, and I finally look at her. She’s beaming as if she’s just won the spelling bee. She looks familiar; she looks like Robyn leading a cheer.

  “That’s so smart,” I tell her, then pat her on the back.

  “So why don’t you cry, Cass?” she says very softly. “Don’t you want to feel better?”

  I look out over the room, desperately trying to find someone I know, but no one comes to my rescue. Instead, I’m left with Becca looking up at me, awaiting my answer.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, stalling for time.

  “I saw that you didn’t cry for Robyn at the funeral this morning.”

  “Not everybody reacts the same way,” I tell her, then sigh. “Everybody’s different.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Becca says. She looks like she’s about to ask me something else when another of Mr. Berry’s sisters starts walking toward us and Becca yells, “Aunt Ella!”

  “See you later, Short Stuff,” I say, stealing a quick hug. “I’ll be over tomorrow if I can.”

  “Okay, I’ll miss you,” she says, and proves it by hanging on tight. I get my face up next to her and give her a tiny kiss on the cheek. “I feel better when I cry. You should try it, Cass.”

  I rise, then start to walk toward the exit. The food’s on the table in the Family Life Center, and all the tears have been shed in the church. Before Becca finds me again, I locate Maggie standing by the front door. She looks impatient, edgy. “Are you ready to go?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Maggie says. She’s not looking at me; her eyes dart wildly around the room.

  “Me too,” I say. “I don’t think I can take much more. I’m ready to explode.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, Robyn was lucky,” Scott says, his eyes for the first time not looking at me. We’re at Coach’s Pizza on a busy Saturday night.

  “How could you say that?” I ask, then sip from my water bottle; Scott sips from his pop.

  “To die like she did, fast and, except for probably a few seconds, painlessly,” he says.

  “You didn’t come to her memorial,” I say, pretending to pout.

  Scott readjusts in his seat like a defendant on trial, then whispers, “I couldn’t.”

  “It was hard for everybody,” I say softly.

  “But for her friends, her real friends like you, it must—,” Scott starts, but stops when both of us hear loud laughing from a booth across the room. We look over to see Kelsey with Tyler, and Cody with Bethany. They’ve just noticed us; Cody hurls a hunk of bread across the room. It lands far short of the table; looks like Cody will be spending another baseball season on the bench.

  “Immature assholes,” I mutter.

  “Do you want to leave?” Scott asks as he picks up the bread and puts it on our table.

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  “There are people waiting for tables,” he says. “It’s polite to go and let them sit.”

  I smile, ignoring another roll hurled our way. “That’s so nice, Scott.”

  “Hey, this is what I do,” he says. Earlier in the evening, Scott had told me funny stories about his job waiting tables, but also about how hard the work is. He sets down a nice tip along with the bill. I offer to pay as well, but he turns me down. I suspect, however, that will be the only time he turns me down this evening. Yes, he’s kind, polite, and religious, but he’s still a guy.

  “Okay, but if we leave now, then they win,” I say.

  “We can’t let the terrorists win,” Scott says, then laughs. We’ve talked politics, current events, movies, and books. Unlike Cody, Scott reads the paper beyond the sports page.

  I laugh, as I’ve done a lot this evening. Cody made me laugh by accident; Scott does it on purpose. As I watch Cody and his crew yak it up, I wonder how I stoo
d him for a second, let alone six months. “Okay, we’ll stay,” I say, then smile. “What were we talking about?”

  Scott pauses, bites his bottom lip, then mumbles, “I don’t want to think about death anymore.” We were talking about Robyn; but he’s thinking about his grandmother. Scott and I left for our date from the hospital, a strange start to a beautiful evening.

  “How is your grandmother?” I ask, unable to resist what comes naturally.

  “Not much better,” he says, looking down. “I know she’s in pain, but she can’t tell us.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to do?” I ask.

  “I overhear Mom on the phone. She needs full-time care and we can’t afford it. Mom can’t do it because she’d need to quit her job. I work all I can, but I can’t quit school because then I’ll never get into college,” he says, then sighs. “It’s a vicious circle, like life itself.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “The whole thing about you’re born helpless and sometimes, like my grandmother and my grandfather before her, you spend the end of your life equally as helpless. It’s a circle.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He pauses, then once again finds his smile, a small, sideways one, but a smile nonetheless. “All we can do is pray to God that something will work out.”

  “Don’t tell Samantha,” I crack.

  “She doesn’t get it,” he answers, then shakes his head in amusement and disgust.

  “What do you mean?” I slide my hand another half inch closer to his.

  His hands stay in place: one on the glass, one in his lap. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

  “It’s okay, Scott, whatever you want,” I say, then pause to think how different Scott is from most guys I’ve met at Lapeer High. Most of my exes couldn’t wait to speak badly of the girl who came before me. I wonder if the laughter at the other table comes from Cody cracking wise about me. Maybe he and Tyler are entertaining their dates with tales of the backseat. Whatever they’re doing, it’s causing a disturbance. I see their server speaking to them, but she’s not getting anywhere. Her words are easily swallowed up into that ocean of assholes.