"Wimp." Timmy turned to Barry. "How about you?"
"I can't either, man. I've got to… well, you know."
"What?"
"I've got to help my dad with your Grandpa, after everyone else leaves."
"Oh…" He'd forgotten about that. It seemed weird, somehow, that his best friend would help to bury his grandfather. Fresh grief welled up inside him, and Timmy sighed. Behind them, someone cleared her throat. The boys turned around. Katie Moore stood in the doorway to the Sunday school room. Timmy' s heart beat a little faster, the way it always did when Katie was around. Sometimes, Timmy hated the way Katie made him feel. It was exciting, but scary, too. On Sundays, during the sermon, he found his gaze invariably drawn to her. Next year, she ' d be starting sixth grade, and would go to the junior high school with them. He wondered what that would be like, and if they 'd see more of each other then, and if so, if the possibilities of them hanging out together more often would increase. Thinking about it made his stomach hurt.
"Hey Katie," Barry said.
"Hey." She smiled sadly. "Hi Timmy."
Timmy responded with what could only be described as a garbled squawk.
"What's up, Katie?" Doug asked.
"They sent me down here to find you guys," she explained. "The funeral is getting ready to start."
"Oh."
Timmy's apprehension returned at the thought of sitting in the front pew, staring at his grandfather's notsleeping corpse while Katie' s father droned on about ashes and dust and walking through the valley of the shadow of death. "We 'll be right up."
"I'm sorry about your Grandpa, Timmy. He was a nice man." Doug's Hot Wheels car made scratching noises in the background. Barry cleared his throat and loosened his tie.
Timmy realized Katie was staring at him, and that he hadn't responded.
"Thanks." He searched for something else to say to her before she left, anxious to keep the conversation going for just a little longer. "I' m sorry to hear about your sister. I hope she's okay."
"Yeah, me too. I miss her."
"Do you guys know where she went?"
Katie's voice grew quieter. "No. Mom and Dad are really worried. She got in a fight with Dad before she left the house. He didn' t want her going out with Pat. She did anyway. The township and state police said they 'd tell us when they heard something, but that's about all."
"Well, I'm sorry," Timmy said again, and meant it.
"So am I." She smiled again, but this time it wasn' t quite so sad. Their eyes lingered for a moment. Then Katie blushed and turned away.
They heard her shoes clomping up the stairs two at a time. Timmy's face and ears were scarlet.
"You like her," Barry teased, shoving him playfully. Grinning, Timmy pushed him back. "Screw you. I do not."
"Why not? She's cute, man."
Timmy's stomach sank. Did Barry like Katie, too? He' d said hi to her first, while Timmy was still struggling to talk. And if so, did Katie like Barry more than she liked him?
"Not as cute as her sister, though," Barry added quickly, as if sensing his friend's thoughts.
Doug stood up and slipped the toy car into his pants pocket. "I guess we better go upstairs."
"Yeah," Timmy sighed. "I guess we better." Then he thought of his grandpa again, and started crying. It was starting to sink in that he'd never see him, talk to him, or hear his voice again. Timmy remembered the last time he' d seen him, Saturday morning when they 'd been watching cartoons together. He'd hugged him goodbye and then gone out to play with Doug. He' d been anxious to go outside and enjoy his summer vacation. If only he 'd known then what he knew now. He would have stayed behind.
Summers were endless. Life was not.
He was still weeping when he took a seat between his parents in the front pew, and when Reverend Moore began the service.
"Friends, would you please bow your heads in prayer." The preacher's voice was soft, and the sobs echoed over it.
The tears kept falling, and Timmy wondered if they'd ever stop. They did stop, though, after the service, when the coffin was carried to the hearse. The sudden lack of tears surprised him, and for a moment, Timmy felt guilty. The emotions drained from his body as the tears dried up. Timmy felt empty. Hollow. He watched the pallbearers his father among them, tears streaming down his face load his grandfather's casket into the back of the hearse and experienced only a numb sense of finality.
The rain had stopped, too. Beams of sunlight peeked through the dissipating cloud cover. White and yellow butterflies played in the puddles. Sluggish earthworms, forced topside by the rains, crawled and squirmed on the blacktop. The mourners walked slowly along behind the hearse, following it down the cemetery's middle road. They talked softly among themselves, murmuring gossip that had nothing to do with the deceased; President Reagan and William Casey and Ed Meese, the godless Communists, the godly Pat Robertson, who was going to see the Charlie Daniels Band at this year's York Fair, what had happened on last week's episode of Hill Street Blues, how Charlie Pitts had been able to afford that big new satellite television dish when he was still on disability, and the twelve point buck that Elliott Ramsey had poached out of season in Mr. Brown's orchard, and whether or not the Orioles would make it to the World Series (even though they lived in Pennsylvania, Southern York County was close enough to the Maryland state border that most of the residents rooted for Baltimore's teams). Timmy felt like hollering at everybody to shut up, but he didn't. Instead, he tried to ignore the whispers, and looked down over the hill. Far below, in the old part of the cemetery, he noticed again that another gravestone had sunken down into the ground. He 'd seen two more like that the day Doug unveiled the mapa day that seemed like an eternity ago, even though it had been less than a week.
It was hard to tell through the drizzle, but it looked like in addition to the sinking grave markers, a few more headstones might have fallen over onto the grass, too. Barry 's dad was letting the cemetery fall into disrepair. Despite the man's misgivings, it was unlike him. Even if he was laid up drunk somewhere, he' d crack the whip, making sure his son covered for him. Maybe he just didn 't have enough time to keep up with the sinking tombstones.
The funeral procession halted. The coffin was unloaded from the hearse while the crowd circled the open grave. Timmy's breath caught in his throat. Barry and his father had dug the grave that morning. The top of the hole was framed with a brass rail and covered with a white cloth. A mound of fresh, reddish, claylike dirt lay piled to one side, along with squares of sod. Deep backhoe tracks marked the grass, but Clark Smeltzer had moved the machine back into the utility shed so that it wouldn 't loom over the service.
This was it, his grandfather's final resting placea long, rectangular hole in the ground, right next to his grandmother. Now, every time Timmy came here to play, they 'd both be nearby. The morbid strangeness of it all was not lost on him. This was both his playground and his grandparents' burial ground. If not for the Dugout and the fierce pride he took in its construction, he 'd have suggested to Barry and Doug that they'd been right before, and maybe they should play in Bowman' s Woods more often, or settle for a tree house somewhere else.
After the graveside portion of the service, Timmy trudged home with his parents. They walked in silence, not speaking, emotionally and physically exhausted. For the first time in his life, Timmy felt two new sensations. He felt old.
And he felt mortaleven more now than when he did playing among the graves of kids his own age.
He didn't at all like feeling either one.
Grandpa wasn't sleeping. He was dead. That was that. Sooner or later, everybody died. And one day, it would be his turn.
The cemetery had a new permanent resident.