CHASING AFTER THE FUNERAL by ELIZABETH EVANS MCWHIRTER A THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the Department of English in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2009 Copyright Elizabeth Evans McWhirter 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time. -Ralph Waldo Emerson 1 PART ONE The Funeral 2 He’d ridden the bus there. Strange, he’d thought upon seeing the yellow marker come into view from his seat near the driver—a bus stop at a cemetery. He’d wanted to tell someone on the bus that he was going to his psychologist’s funeral. He wanted someone to be as surprised as he was. Oh dear, they would say, hands to their mouths. He wanted them to worry about his condition. What would he do now? A man like him, all alone in the world without his doctor. But there was no one to tell. The woman in the seat across from him was asleep, her chin buried in the mangy fur of her lined coat. At one point Allen caught the driver’s heavy-lidded eyes in the mirror above the windshield. “Don’t talk to me, baby,” he thought he’d heard her say. “What?” He popped out an earphone, but she wasn’t looking at him. A man in the back of the bus drummed on a notebook with two pencils, his head swinging wildly with each riff. Allen wondered if they might be getting off at the same stop. Now Allen sat on a bench watching the masses enter the funeral home. Techno music pulsed through earphones wedged deep inside his canals, a German group he never grew tired of. As he looked on, the mourners began to trudge in time to the beat, carrying their heavy hearts in unison. It started to rain, which he found appropriate for the occasion. He stood up and raised the hood of his sweatshirt. The people walking toward the limestone funeral home began to run now 3 grabbing hands, leaning into one another. He wondered if he could pick out the patients. Would it be obvious? A certain weary limp, a curvature of the spine, neck bent forward from the weight of a head full of stones. Here was a woman in a red raincoat scurrying across the parking lot. Red high heels, blonde hair. She moved too easily, waved too gracefully at a couple stepping out from a green Volvo. She couldn’t be one. Here was a man in a brown suit, the bottoms of his pants dragging through the blacktop puddles. He might be one, yes. His pace did not quicken with the hardening rain. He kept his head low, rain water running down the back of his collar. Allen felt his own sweatshirt grow heavy. “Yes,” he said, pressing a finger against his left earphone. “That’s right.” He nodded. “Okay then . three,” he said, and walked into the hundred sheets of rain billowing before him. Flipsie Moraten was unaware that the first rows of wooden chairs, the ones with side arms for the tearfully weary, were for family members only. She sat down in the middle of the front row, smoothing the black velvet of her skirt in one direction. She turned toward the twenty or so rows of white folding chairs behind her, laughing at the crowd streaming into the room. “And they just keep coming!” she shouted, scanning the audience for someone to laugh with. She caught the eyes of woman in a navy hat and threw out a gesturing hand. “Can you believe this crowd?” The woman’s eyes darted away, then back to Flipsie. She raised her hand to a ruby hummingbird pinned beneath her throat. “It is a lot of people.” 4 Flipsie slapped her hand against the back of her chair. “Isn’t it, though?” she said, fluffing her short blonde hair. She turned around to face the pulpit and threw her hands in the air. “Who knew?” That morning, Flipsie sang show tunes as she prepared for the funeral—bouncing about her darkened bedroom, staging movements as if she were the lead in a musical. A curtsy as she pulled open the dresser drawer, “And we’ll go danc-ing,” she sang, a little leap on the last syllable, “in Cinci-nat-ti,” a spin in front of the large, Hollywood mirror lighting the bathroom, “Cinci-nat-ti,” a second turn, the sound of her heels on the tile making a pleasing, feminine sound, “or may-be . .” a bow now toward her reflection, a forlorn face, a quiet appeal to the audience, “just may-be . .” she studied her heavily-mascaraed eyes in the mirror, trying to make them as big and sad as Carole Lombard’s. “may-be . .” she closed them now, as if dreaming of some big plantation home she’d left for the city, “I’ll just . .” letting the words linger here, “go . .” She smacked her lips against the mirror and pulled back from the counter to admire the red imprint. “Wouldya lookit that,” she said, arm on her hip, tipping herself sideways and looking left at her male lead. 5 “Oh dear!” She shot upright, hand to the skin exposed by the deep V of her rayon sweater. “Oh my, it’s time to go. I simply must go or I’ll be terribly late.” She pulled the stopper from a bottle of perfume and dabbed the cool, glass tip behind her ears. Jim parked his bike against a pine tree and watched the adults shuffle children and the elderly into the great limestone building. He balked at its grandness—why a building so elegant? A funeral should occur in a setting that matches the affair—an empty warehouse or some endless retail parking lot. Or maybe a stalled construction site, the skeleton of some long-dead blueprint looming in the background. No, Kluer’s funeral should be held in the common room of a mental ward. “Press Your Luck!” on a small television in the corner, the caged windows holding a few pale flowers stuck between the grating. Jim smoked a cigarette and was thinking these things out when he heard a bus brake on the road behind him. A small man in a black sweatshirt descended the bus stairs, looked left-right-left and then sat down on a bench. Jim wondered if he was waiting for someone. He watched the man watch the parking lot. It began to rain and the man pulled his hood over his head and continued watching the parking lot with a pale, blank face. Jim lifted his face to the rain and looked up through the latticework of branches, which seemed to grow in anticipation of a climber. He could, he thought. Climb up there and watch the building from above. As he thought it, a lightning bolt lit the sky. He wondered if it was Kluer, challenging him. The hot zone is only as hot as you'll let it be. Just when Jim determined to make his move from the shelter of the pine, the man 6 in the sweatshirt charged stiffly through the wet grass toward the parking lot. He turned his head and looked at Jim as he passed by, squinting his eyes and giving a subtle nod. It reminded Jim of some lone cowboy riding down main street in some old town, in some old movie. He waited until the man hit pavement, then dropped his cigarette and followed behind in his muddy tracks. The viewing line began just inside the door of the funeral home and snaked through a dreary furnished lobby—maroon couches flanked by heavy brass lamps, Kleenex boxes sheathed in satin, a grandfather clock asleep against the wall. The line of mourners continued down a dimly lit hall, a small marble-top table offered pamphlets advertising the rooms they stood within. For the curious, a sneak peek at the room which lay ahead, beyond the curtained doorway of the visitation room. After thirty minutes, Allen had made it just halfway down the hall. The experience thus far reminded him of waiting in line for a rollercoaster. He had only ridden one in his life: the Mouse Trap at Old Indiana Fun Park. He’d been eleven. His twin brother Glenn had brought a girl named Jodi Crocker, and he’d made fun of Allen right in front of her. “He doesn’t have the guts to ride anything but the kiddie cars,” Glenn said, shoving a giant puff of cotton candy into his brother’s hand. “Take this,” he said, handing him Jodi’s puff too. She had laughed at him, his pale face framed by the pink and blue wisps. “You sure you don’t wanna come?” she asked, pulling a sweat-stained bra strap up her shoulder. 7 “Waste of space ain’t going,” his brother said. “Let’s go.” And he grabbed Jodi’s hand and pulled her off toward the rollercoaster. But she’d looked back at Allen, mouthing the words, “come on” with her pink, frosted lips. It was, as far as he could remember, the first time any woman younger than his mother had whispered to him. This pretty, freckled face girl releasing silent words meant only for him. Something squirmed inside his 11 year-old body, then a sudden urge to drop the candy sticks and run to the nearest row of turquoise Porta-Potties.