The coffin. It was sitting up on a table and it was open! Dennis said, “Whooaa.” Carl Ray stepped right up and pulled Dennis beside him. Dennis dragged me.
I couldn’t breathe. There was Mr. Furtz, lying on this white silky pillow with his hands folded over his chest. He was wearing a brown suit and a white dress shirt and tie. And he had this fancy quilt over him, covering his legs. It seemed strange to see a man in a suit lying in this box that was trying to look like a bed.
He really did look like he was sleeping, and he looked pretty much like Mr. Furtz except he wasn’t smiling as he usually did, and his face looked like it had powder on it. I kept thinking he was going to open his eyes and be real mad that we were all staring at him.
I never saw so many flowers all in one room before. There were flowers in the coffin (“To Charles Randolph Furtz, With love from your children”), baskets of gladiolas all along a shelf behind the coffin, and then about a hundred other baskets of flowers around the room.
I started looking at these baskets, because each one had a card on it telling who it was from. The cards said things like “In loving memory” and “Rest in peace” and “To our Beloved.” They were all pretty depressing. It was as if people were cramming in all these last-minute messages in case Mr. Furtz could still hear. The funny thing was he looked as if he could hear. I kept looking at the cards, wishing at least one of them would say the truth: “Oh how awful!” or “I wish you weren’t dead” or “This is the absolute worst thing in the world.” But none of them did.
When I turned around to show Dennis, Carl Ray was staring down into the coffin and rubbing his finger over this brass marker on the side of the coffin. The marker had Mr. Furtz’s initials on it: CRF. But then I saw Carl Ray reach out with one hand and touch Mr. Furtz on the arm! “Carl Ray!” I said.
He jumped back. And then you know what? Carl Ray was crying! I have to admit that I felt like crying as soon as I saw Mr. Furtz, but Carl Ray hardly knows him. For a minute there, I actually liked Carl Ray because he could cry over Mr. Furtz like that.
I saw my mom standing by Dad, and they were both crying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad cry, and that made me so sad.
They told us kids to go on home, because they were going to stay awhile, so we started back up the street. I was surprised to see that Carl Ray was holding Tommy’s hand.
“Did you see the body?” Dougie asked Tommy.
Tommy nodded. His eyes were wide open—you could tell he didn’t like what he saw. Then Tommy turned to Carl Ray and said, “So where’s he going now?”
“They’ll bury him,” Carl Ray said.
“Where?”
“In the cemetery, in the ground.”
“Does he stay in the box?”
“Yup.”
“What about heaven?”
Carl Ray looked up at the sky and back at Tommy. “What about it?”
“When does he go there?”
“Well,” Carl Ray said, “soon, I guess.”
Tommy was staring at Carl Ray’s face real hard. “So how is he gonna get out of the ground?”
Carl Ray didn’t even bat an eye. “God will come and get his soul.”
Tommy nodded.
All of a sudden, I saw this image of Zeus swooping down with this shovel and digging down into the earth and pulling open the coffin and taking Mr. Furtz by the hand and flying off with him up into the clouds, sort of like Superman. Imagine.
But now that I am home and it’s dark outside and time to go to bed, I just don’t like the idea of Mr. Furtz being in that box when they close the lid, and of him being down there in the ground while Mrs. Furtz and Cathy and Barry and David go on living in that house.
And I keep wondering what Mr. Furtz feels like. I know, I know, he can’t feel anything if he’s dead, but he must know it’s dark or that he can’t breathe or that everyone is crying and feeling so miserable that he’s gone. Can he dream? Is he just waiting for someone to come and take his soul?
Mr. Furtz was buried today. Only Mom and Dad went. They decided that none of us kids could go because we all had nightmares last night (all except Carl Ray, who if he did have one didn’t admit it, and Maggie, who didn’t go to the funeral home).
In my dream (or nightmare) I was walking through these woods. It was snowing and very cold and I was lost. I kept looking for my parents, calling, “Mom! Dad!” There were no tracks anywhere and it was pretty dark. I thought I saw Carl Ray behind a tree, and I called his name and ran up to the tree, but when I got there he was gone. I was screaming, “Carl Ray! Save me! Save me!” And then I sat up straight in bed and there was Maggie staring at me, saying, “Hey! Wake up!”
Dennis said he dreamed that someone locked him in the garage and people kept staring in the window but he couldn’t hear what they were saying and they wouldn’t let him out.
Dougie said he was picking flowers in this huge field of flowers when all of a sudden a big black bird came down out of the sky and started pecking at his head.
And Tommy said the “boogerman” was after him, so he climbed in bed with Mom and Dad, and then he wet the bed, which really made Dad mad.
Nobody felt like doing anything today while Mom and Dad were gone. When Tommy said he was hungry for lunch, I realized that Dad wouldn’t be going to Alesci’s today, so I started rummaging through the cupboards for something to fix. And then, what do you know? In walks Carl Ray (up before noon on Saturday for the first time since he arrived) with a big Alesci’s bag. He had walked all the way there (about a mile) and back. He had just what we needed: hot bread and ham. It made me feel a little bad about the deodorant and the soap I left on his dresser.
Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday that Beth Ann didn’t come over. She had to go get her hair cut (all day?). But she did come over this afternoon for about an hour. She seemed real curious about Carl Ray. She kept asking what he was like and where he worked and what I thought of him and which room was his and didn’t we mind him staying there and how long was he staying and on and on. She sure can talk.
It was funny, but even though Carl Ray has not been the most thrilling guest and he has sure driven me crazy, I didn’t tell Beth Ann any of that. In fact I made him sound almost exotic. Carl Ray! And when she asked if we minded him staying there, I said, “Beth Ann! What a thing to say. Of course we don’t mind—where else would he stay?” even though we all mind a whole lot, especially me.
Finally, I had to ask Beth Ann about Derek. “So how’s Derek?” I asked.
She looked down at her fingernails before answering. “Ohhh, he’s just fiiiiine.”
“So what does he look like?”
“Oh, he’s just gorgeous!”
“I know, but what does he look like?”
“Well, he has these cute blue eyes and these longgggg eyelashes and this adorrrrr-able smile.”
“Ah. I can just picture him.” Actually, I couldn’t at all. Her description wasn’t exactly precise. “Is he gawky?”
“Gawky? Gawky! No!”
“Does he talk?”
“Of course he does, Mary Lou. You make it sound like you think he’s some sort of jerk or something.” She has a way of pulling down her mouth on the sides like a little kid who’s letting you know you’ve hurt her feelings.
I really wanted to know what they did at these movies. I mean, did they just sit there or did they talk or hold hands or what? But I figured that was the kind of thing she would tell me without my having to ask. She didn’t, though. She seems like she’s bragging more when she doesn’t tell me what happened than if she did tell me all the details.