Quabbin - 8. Chapter 8

The funeral was at a church in Northampton, halfway between Waldron and Amherst. We knew at least several hundred people would be there, so Cameron and the security staff -- all six of us -- were helping with the parking. I had on a black suit, but the other guys wore various dark jackets and pants. There’d be a graveside service later, but just for family and friends.

It was hot, and my suit was too small. I’d forgotten how much I’d been working out. In my jacket, I’d found a program from Maddie’s mass. They’d buried her with the rest of the family, on the grounds that her death had been an accident.

Cameron and I were working back-to-back, sorting cars, so I couldn’t see his face when he whistled. “God, he’s something,” he quickly followed.

“Hey! It’s a funeral!” I barked, not entirely serious.

“Tell that to my dick.”

“Who you talking about?” I turned around, but all I saw was an older woman from the Mill -- with her family.

“Kevin Orr,” Cameron said, over his shoulder. I still couldn’t see his face, but I would’ve bet he was grinning. The only problem -- I had no idea who Kevin Orr was. And Cameron knew I’d have to ask.

“You haven’t seen him?” he baited.

“I don’t know. What’s he look like?” We were facing away from each other again.

Cameron laughed. “Hot! Hot! Hot!”

That wasn’t what I wanted to be thinking about at a funeral, though the sunny day was already working against my mood. But I didn’t want to be thinking about Kohler in a box, either.

It was too weird. I’d watched the hearse arrive and watched the polished coffin being wheeled into the church. I knew what it all meant but could so much more easily take it as a symbol of someone’s death than actually accept that someone I knew was in that box.

Kohler’s family hadn’t wanted a viewing, so Carrie and Bob had never seen their father dead. Carrie said that was fine, and Bob just nodded. Eileen had last seen Kohler in the Founder’s House, and, again, I hoped he was out of the tub. She’d rushed there after Grenon had given her the news.

I’d seen my mother, and I’d seen Maddie. I’d also seen several of my older relatives -- my parents believing that children should learn, early, that death was something to understand. “Better than having it sprung on you,” I remember someone telling me. It could’ve been Mom, gently, or Dad, flat. Or it could’ve been Ted or Ann or Ron -- the ones I learned so much from.

Maddie had looked OK. She looked like she was just stretched out on the couch. For months, I’d come home from school, and she’d be sacked out in the living room, TV on, art books open on the coffee table, craft and gossip magazines piled nearby. And usually a drink, getting warm. Sometimes, I’d wake her, warning, “Dad’ll be home soon.” Towards the end, I let her sleep. Of course, if I’d known it was near the end, I would’ve done differently. But I figured she’d just sleep the whole thing off.

Ann and Carol had thought that, too. I’m not sure how Ted or Ron felt. They were broken up at the funeral and cried with the rest of us. But everyone knew Maddie was in trouble, and she was barely nineteen. Still, she looked OK in her box, with her usual, “Don’t you dare wake me” smirk.

Mom had been in the water some time before they found her, so the funeral people had done a bit of work. They tried to make her pretty, which she was, but not the way they chose. I almost never saw her in makeup and mainly saw her in a dress on Sundays, when we all tramped to St. Al’s.

“James, you’re late!” she’d shout, when everyone else was ready. Of course, I was late. I was the youngest -- the last to get the bathroom. And Mom wouldn’t let me go without showering.

“I’ll walk,” I’d call back, trying to stall for time.

“You’ll ride your damn bike, and I’m not paying to have your good pants cleaned again.” She’d be hollering from the front hall, while I’d be upstairs. “Now get going and drive with us.”

It was easier once Ted had his car. I’d ride with him, and, when I was lucky, get to smoke part of his cigarette. That was before we started getting high to go to church. I don’t want to tell you how young I was then.

“It’s like getting a dog high,” Ted had defended himself to Ann. “Jimmy doesn’t mind. He thinks he’s being funny.”

Ann couldn’t tell Mom, ‘cause that would get her busted, too. So we were all safe.

“The last time I’ll be in one of these places,” Ted had complained one Sunday on our way to St. Al’s, “is to get married.” Of course, he hadn’t counted on funerals.

Dad made Ann take off Mom’s makeup before the viewing. “She doesn’t look that way,” he’d insisted. And he had Maddie change her hair. “You know how she wore it.”

So Ann carefully washed Mom’s face, while the funeral director stood by, warning her not to take off too much base. And Maddie combed out the fake curls they’d given Mom, then flattened her bangs, trying to make her look “real.” In a way, with all of us standing around watching, it took some of the scariness away from her death.

After my first funeral, which must have been for one of my many great aunts, I remember asking Ted or Ann what that was all about. I hadn’t gone to the mass or cemetery. I was probably less than five, and my parents must’ve figured going to the viewing was enough. “Does she get to go home after that?” I’d asked. “And does she get to keep all the flowers?” Ann or Ted had explained that, “No, she was dead, like the goldfish. Dead, like that squirrel in the driveway. Dead, like spiders you crush, or ants you rub to nothing in your fingers.” They made it pretty clear that I didn’t want to be dead.

And Cameron made it pretty clear what he wanted to do with Kevin Orr. Since I hadn’t even seen the guy, I mindlessly started asking Twenty Questions. “What’s he look like?” I began. “Other than ‘Hot! Hot! Hot!’ ”

He laughed. “You really don’t know him?”

“If I did, and he’s really as cool as you say, I’d ask him out.”

“No way!” Cameron insisted. “No chance. You wouldn’t, ‘cause you’re still mooning over Dane, and Kevin’s older than you are anyhow. You’re just a kid.”

“So now you’re hot for an old guy?” I joked. “You’re going to hell, Cam.”

“He’s younger than I am. Maybe five or six years -- which still makes him older than you.”

“What’s he do at the Mill?” I asked, trying for more information.

He had to think about that. “Business,” he decided.

“Which department?”

Again, you could tell he didn’t know, because he didn’t have a fast enough answer. “Something to do with planning,” he mumbled. “Not accounting, and not management, but...”

“Where’d he go to school?”

“Why do you always ask that?” he grumbled. “Just ‘cause everyone you know got into good ones...”

Cameron’s one degree, in Phys. Ed, was all he ever wanted. But he wouldn’t have complained if it came from somewhere sharper than UMass.

“It just gives me an idea,” I went on, not sure exactly what I meant.

“Yeah, well, it’s a long way from getting an idea to getting laid.”

“Not if you work it right,” I kidded.

Cameron laughed again. “You just have to see him, Jim. You’ve got to.”

Inside the church, Cameron spent most of the service quietly trying to point Kevin out. We were standing at the back, along with Larsen and the rest of the crew. If I hadn’t been working, I would’ve been sitting with Dad, Ann, and Carol.

I knew they were coming. There was no way they wouldn’t have. But only Carol and I were going to the cemetery. Dad didn’t feel comfortable with that, and Ann had to get back to teach. “It’s the first week of summer session, and I can’t cancel a class yet.”

With all of Security there, this would’ve been a great time to rob the Mill -- nothing but alarms and cameras to protect it. But Cameron didn’t seem to care. He knew some things were more important.

“Third from the left,” he whispered. “Eleven rows back, right side of the aisle, sitting kind of diagonally under that light.”

Yeah, that was important. This was his future. If only for a very short time.

Of course, even with perfect directions, you had to be standing exactly where Cameron was to get the right angle. Eventually, I found the guy. The only problem was the church held maybe three hundred people, and that morning it was crammed. All I could see of the man who might be Kevin Orr was dark curly hair.

Longish dark curly hair, the kind that looked so hot in shampoo commercials on buff models with no shirts. It always took me everywhere but where they sold shampoo.

“Too bad,” Cameron muttered, when I told him my view was blocked. “I’ll point him out later.” Unexpectedly, he added, “Wish I knew some way to meet the guy.”

I glanced at him. He was also studying Kevin Orr, probably pretty well thinking what I was. But the feeling he needed some way to meet a guy was new.

Cameron was in no way shy. He was as good looking as any model and seemed able to reach any man he met. If he thought this one was unapproachable, he must be something. Or maybe something was changing in Cameron.

To pass the time -- the service was as boring as any mass -- I wondered how I’d meet Orr. Now there was a question. Sex was one thing. That was easy, if you paid for it, once you knew where to look. But I hadn’t dated since high school. And I’d met Dane as part of a group.

That was probably the last good thing about high school -- you traveled in packs. We played football in the fall, wrestled in the winter, and in spring did dumb things in track -- in my case, the shot put. The shot put isn’t a football, but it’s a lot better than heaving a lead Frisbee or a spear. I wanted to pole vault, but I’m not really great at flying, and I’ve never been fast enough to run. My friends wouldn’t play baseball in the spring, which I would’ve been far better at, ‘cause our team really sucked. And you wouldn’t catch us playing tennis.

With the gang came the girls. They were always there. Not cheerleaders, though some of them were. But it wasn’t really a good time to be a cheerleader. Most of the girls we hung out with were brighter than that, anyway. Carrie was always vice president of our class. I used to write speeches for her, and she and Dane wanted me to run for treasurer every year, but I refused. I could talk fine to a handful of guys in the locker room, organizing an end-of-the-season dinner or a present for the coach. And I could always write well enough -- I got that beaten into me by Mom. “Now if Aunt Peggy was nice enough to send you a birthday present, the least you can do is write her a decent thank you note.” But talking in front of people I didn’t know -- well, I just got stupid.

“Come on, Jim, everyone loves you,” Dane had insisted. “They always want to be your friend.” And maybe I loved Dane because he told me things like that. Or maybe I just loved Dane.

We started going together somewhere in sophomore year. I can never remember exactly when, but, even before that, he was always there. Then he was always there, and I absolutely remember when we started sleeping together. First, there was all that easing up stuff. Letting me touch him. Letting him touch me. Then, there was New Year’s Eve, junior year.

It was hot. Well, hot and fumbly, and we really didn’t know what we were doing -- but I’m guessing no one does till they’re actually there. You can look at pictures -- and I looked at a lot -- and listen to people -- which I did, especially to my sisters and brothers -- and you can even read a little. And you can get the basic idea, but things aren’t that way at all when you’re right there in the middle. The best thing I can say about Dane and me at the beginning was we were fumbling together. Saying, “No,” and “Yes,” and “NO!” and “YES!” And after a while, saying “Yes,” a lot, and maybe that’s why it was so tough when he started pulling away.

He was sad enough after my accident, when my bike got hit. But the fact that I was head-to-toe fiberglass when I finally made it back to Massachusetts didn’t exactly make me look seductive. I wasn’t even sure all my parts were going to work again, and I’m talking legs and arms, never mind the small stuff. There weren’t a lot of people I could ask about that, either. Ted and Ron, yeah, but they were only around on holidays, and there were some things I couldn’t explain on the phone. Carol came by all the time, and I could pretty well tell her anything. But she knew a lot less about medicine than Ted, who was just finishing his residency. All the doctors would say was, “We’ll have to wait and see.” That wasn’t a lot to offer Dane.

When he confessed that some guy had been pushing him for a date, I was pissed. I mean, when I was doing sports, I heard a couple of guys joke about me, but nothing ever came of it -- ‘cause everyone knew I was seeing Dane. And there were probably as many guys who wanted to hit on him -- hell, who wouldn’t -- but everyone knew he was dating me, so that was that. Dane and I even talked about getting married, in the way probably everyone jokes about it when they’re lying in bed. But we knew college came first, and, besides, we were going to different schools. Still, when Dane actually started going out with someone who was not only mobile but also had money, well, what could I do? Ask him to lure the guy to the hospital so I could clobber him with my walker? And when Dane broke off with me...

Yeah, well, that was a fun week. I actually made one of the nurses cry. I knew she thought I was cute -- I mean, there wasn’t much I could hide from the nurses. And one night I got caught up telling her how much I loved Dane.

Jim, Jim, Jimmy, couldn’t ya die?

Talks with girls and makes ‘em cry.

By the time they moved me to Dad’s, Dane was already sleeping with the slumlord. Then he stopped visiting me regularly, not that I wanted to see him. After the casts came off, I was a mess. Skinny. Bent. Even before I could walk, I started lifting, and it all came back. Slowly, yeah. But I had nothing else to do.

In England, the first time a guy hit on me, I was still so numb, I didn’t even get what he really wanted. Not till after he asked for money. Even then, I figured it was just for cigarettes -- he smoked almost constantly. And when I asked if he wanted to see a movie the next night, he stared at me like I was perverse. The second time, in Belgium, was easier, and by Germany I had it down to a glance.

Still, how would I meet Kevin Orr, this guy whose face I still hadn’t seen? “My boss thinks you’re really hot,” I could say, running into him at the Mill. Though that might make it seem I was pimping for Cameron. “What department do you work in?” was always a safe start, but it could also be a fast finish when he found out where I worked. Ditto, “Where did you go to school?” -- especially once he figured out that I’d barely started. “Want to hear about Louang Phrabang?” I could ask. But if I mispronounced it, he might laugh, not that he’d probably know that it was in Laos. Getting him to laugh seemed like a good idea though. Now all we had to do was meet.

As Orr was leaving after the service, Cameron did manage to point him out. Clumped with a group of other people, staff I guessed, since they were mainly dressed in Waldron Mill’s finest, Kevin Orr stood out. He was maybe twenty-five, comfortably tall, with dark eyes and a perfect model smile. His suit was as well-cut as anything I’d ever seen Drew Kohler wear yet still managed to fit into a small town funeral. I smiled as he passed. He looked me in the eyes and grinned -- as Cameron gave me the elbow.

“What ya up to, honkster?” he poked.

It made me laugh, completely out of place. A middle-aged woman glared at me, like I’d clearly brought shame to the universe. Then Cameron wouldn’t back off. “You’re not gettin’ him before I do,” he challenged. “I saw him. I told you about him. I get shot down first.”

“Why?” I had to ask quietly, trying to remind him to lower his voice. But he had no answer. That was good, ‘cause the question was about my only defense. Before Dane left, I wouldn’t even have looked at another guy, not seriously, let alone one as hot as Kevin Orr. But after the whores of the world -- a kind of international doll set like my sisters used to collect -- well, that kind of changed. I still wanted to marry Dane, but the fact that he wasn’t even back from his honeymoon was kind of pushing me in another direction. I knew he still loved me, though my friends and family were all saying, “Don’t be stupid,” or “You’re being a kid about this.” Or they just thought I was crazy. But the way I figured it, I just needed to wait Dane out -- meanwhile keeping myself sane by doing other stuff. Like working. Or taking classes. Or even mindlessly dating. I really didn’t want to do that. It went against everything I believed. But if I could sleep my way around the world, I could dumbly date in small town Massachusetts. Besides, Cameron’s interest in Kevin Orr was enough to make me really curious.