Her body relaxed.
Then she was gone.
2:37 p.m.
The sidewalk below, bustling with strangers.
The tears came then, and I couldn’t stop them.
2
Gerdy McCowen squeezed my hand.
I glanced at her, standing beside me in a long, black dress, black hat, and black gloves, and I forced a smile.
Dunk stood on my left in a dark suit, one I had never seen him wear before and would never see again, his head bowed low. Mr. Krendal stood beside him, having closed the diner for the day. I told him he should stay open, Auntie Jo would have wanted him to stay open, but he would have none of that. He scribbled out a sign on the back of one of the menus and placed it in the window beside the diner’s door for all to see:
Join us Friday at 2 p.m., April 30, in South Side Cemetery for the funeral of our beloved Josephine Gargery, loving aunt and friend, gone too soon.
Most of Brentwood had turned out for the funeral, hundreds of people. Some I recognized, most I did not. I didn’t realize how many people Auntie Jo had touched throughout her life until that very moment, and I was grateful they all came. As people arrived, I felt eyes find me, seeking me out among the mourners before finding a seat or a place in the crowd to stand. At first, I shied away from this, then I welcomed it, a warmth put out for her I somehow felt.
Her sealed casket rested on cloth bands above a hole next to my mother’s grave, the displaced dirt hidden beneath a green blanket off to the side. I thought of Auntie Jo, so close to my father with only my mother between as a buffer. I pictured her reaching over at the first opportunity and smacking the side of his head.
This thought caused me to chuckle softly, and Gerdy looked up at me, a puzzled look on her face. She squeezed my hand again.
We had gone on several dates over the past few months—movies, dinner, even a party at Willy Trudeau’s house the weekend his parents went to the Bahamas. The alcohol had been flowing at that party, Dunk saw to that, somehow arranging a keg and enough bottles to stock a bar, and Gerdy had gone home with me. The both of us beyond tipsy, the both of us wanting a little something more from each other and comfortable enough to give it.
A first time for me, and although she hadn’t said anything, I knew it was the first time for her too. She swiped a bottle of Captain Morgan from the party, just a small fifth, and she pulled it from her oversized purse outside my apartment door as I fumbled with the keys. She took a long, hard drink, shivered, then passed the bottle to me, and I followed suit, the liquor warm and welcomed by my electric nerves.
As I pushed open the door, I held a finger to my lips and nodded toward Auntie Jo, sleeping soundly in her chair at the window, then led Gerdy through the dark apartment into my darker room, and closed the door behind us. When we entered my apartment, Gerdy had been wearing a pink sweater and tight jeans. When I turned back to her in my room, having turned away only long enough to pull off my noisy shoes, she was standing before me in nothing but a pink bra and matching panties. A glimmer twinkled in her eyes, and she raised the bottle to her lips again, turning slightly to her side as she drank, just enough for me to realize she wore thong panties. When she passed me the bottle, I gulped it down, then set it on my dresser, fumbling with my own clothes as she backed up to my bed and sprawled across the top.
When I woke the following morning, I found Gerdy already awake, sitting up in the bed with the sheets held over her small, perky breasts, her eyes roaming the walls of my room, the dozens of drawings of Stella covering nearly every inch. “This is really awkward,” she said softly.
I tried to explain.
She said there was no need.
Gerdy’s hand felt nice in mine, but her soft, black gloves reminded me of another.
Father Garland Hopps welcomed everyone, and I tried so hard to listen to his words. I knew they were kind, but he could have been reciting the lyrics to a Zeppelin song or the preamble to the Constitution. I comprehended none of it.
After Jo’s funeral, a few people came back to the apartment. Krendal supplied sandwiches. The mood was quiet, somber.
Dunk left after about thirty minutes—something urgent. One of Crocket’s cars picked him up in front of the apartment building. Gerdy left shortly after that. Others took that as a cue and filed out behind her.
When I found myself alone in the apartment, sitting on the edge of Jo’s hospital bed at the window, I spotted a crumpled pack of Marlboro 100s jammed between the cold metal frame and the mattress.
I buried my head in my hands and let the tears come.
I wish I could say the death of 1993 ended with my Auntie Jo, but I’d be lying. More would come soon—two close to me, one other not so close, but horrible all the same.
Log 05/03/1993—
Subject “D” within expected parameters.
Audio/video recording.
“Why’s everyone got a collective stick up the bum today? That nimrod Cody even made me show him my ID at the gate—he’s known me for four years,” Carl said.
