Untitled - 1. Chapter 1

There’s something disturbing about the fake grass they use at a graveside funeral. Its color is unnaturally bright, reminding me of Easter mornings and lime jello. A happy color, when you think about it. I guess that’s why it bothers me; it’s like trying to force happiness where there should be none. Funerals are supposed to be depressing, with people crying and comforting each other. I can’t cry for this man and I can’t force myself to feel sad for his death, and judging by the faces of almost everyone else here on a sunny September day, neither can they. Maybe that’s why the grass bothers me so much–it reflects that nothing about this funeral is the way it should be.

My stepfather’s eulogy is filled with glowing descriptions of him as a dedicated family man, and it makes me think that whoever wrote it didn’t know the man at all. Or maybe they believed the facade that he built up around us–I guess from the outside, we always did look like a normal family. No one could ever hear me screaming silently from the inside, though, and I can’t help but feel bitter towards the people around me. Was it really so hard to realize how much the man terrified me?

I can’t concentrate on the minister’s droning voice as it continues to laud my stepfather. I could give a better service than him, could let each and every person here know what it truly was like to live with him. I suppose that eulogies aren’t really about honesty to a dead man’s memory, but about making everyone who knew him feel better about themselves. As though they’d let a kid like me tell my story, anyway.

My stepfather died a few hours after suffering his fourth heart attack. His first came when he was barely thirty years old. The heart attack struck right after he finished eating a plate of fried eggs and bacon, right after he had lit his second after-dinner cigarette. He could never be bothered to actually listen to anything a doctor had to say about his health; eggs and bacon despite cholesterol high enough to choke a horse, three packs of filterless Camels a day despite ten years of emphysema. He refused to change anything about himself to adapt to the realities confronting him, including when a six-year old kid came into his house.

I sometimes wonder why he was so insistent on marrying my mother after my parents’ divorce. He was married at the time, and I can’t figure out if he planned to marry my mother or if it was a whim to exercise power over another person. At my aunt’s house, he called his wife and told her that he was leaving her for another woman, my mother. The fact that she was reconnecting with a former boyfriend meant nothing to him–my mother was as surprised as his soon-to-be ex-wife. I think what shocked her most about his decision was that he had never shown any interest in me at all, and now would be "replacing" my father. Maybe he thought himself the drill sergeant to my boot camp recruit. He was adamant about the kind of relationship I was to have with him–always my superior, and never reticent to reaffirm his dominance. It wasn’t the violence that hurt me the most, the fists with one knuckle protruding that came crashing down on my head in what he called a "noogie." He never lost control of himself enough to leave a mark that couldn’t be easily explained away. It was his words that scarred me, the insults and the taunts that I grew up with for eight years. He never missed an opportunity to tell me how much of a disappointment I was, or how worthless I would grow up to be. He particularly enjoyed to hurt me in front of my friends until they were uncomfortable enough to stop visiting.

I turned to my mother for protection she couldn’t provide as I grew older. How could she keep him from tormenting me when he had his claws into her as well? He always controlled the family finances and chased away her friends like he did mine, removing nearly all of her independence. The passage of time wore her down as much as it did me–in the last year before he died, her resistance was reduced to trying to come between he and I. I credit her for making the noogies finally stop, though she wasn’t always there to see the verbal attacks that came in their place.

I look over at her now, and see her rub at her eyes with a handkerchief. Seeing her cry makes me tear up as well, and I’m not quite fast enough to keep them from falling. I can’t help but look around guiltily and hope that no one saw–nothing infuriated my stepfather more than when I acted like a "pansy-ass faggot." That was the most important thing I learned from him, that it was better to keep everything bottled up inside until he exhausted his rage and left me alone. Now I can’t let anyone see my emotions without fearing that they’ll use them to hurt me.

This funeral is such a contradiction. The only feeling his death inspires in me is relief, and the only reasons I cry are my mother’s tears. People around me are fidgeting, impatient for their obligations to his memory to be fulfilled. I wonder if he somehow knows how little people really cared for him in the end. Somehow, I think he’d be satisfied.