Max Collins - Midnight Haul

She seemed so out of place here. Even more so than him. At least he was wearing a suit, wrinkled as it was from being stuffed in his one small suitcase. But among all these people in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, wearing their Sunday best, this blonde girl, woman, whatever, with jeans and an old plaid shirt...

He’d watched when she came in, a little late, and he was watching her now, the back of her head, side of her face. Good-looking girl. Woman. Cute face, no makeup. Nice body, no bra.

Jesus: he was getting a hard-on.

He crossed his legs. Tried to cross his legs. Folded his hands in his lap, feeling uncomfortable and ashamed. But he could hear an amused Mary Beth saying, “A hard-on at my funeral? Very classy behavior, asshole.” At least that’s how his Mary Beth would’ve reacted; he didn’t know how the Mary Beth who killed herself would react. He didn’t know that Mary Beth at all.

The moment passed, and so did the casket, brought up the aisle by the pallbearers, men in their forties and fifties, nameless relatives all, and now the only thing Crane felt was empty.

It was good to get outside, in the sunshine. Cool, crisp, early fall day. Football weather soon. Iowa City. It would be nice to get back to Iowa City... if Mary Beth were there...

They were putting Mary Beth into the hearse. That is, the pallbearers were, with the guiding hand of someone from the funeral home, putting the casket in the back of the black Cadillac.

This isn’t happening , he thought.

“I suppose you don’t have a car.”

He turned. The blonde girl — woman — in the plaid shirt and jeans was standing there. He felt a rush of embarrassment.

“Do you always blush at funerals?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t particularly friendly. It was, in fact, coldly sarcastic.

“I... don’t know you...” Crane stammered.

“You’re Crane. You’d have to be. I’m Boone.”

“Boone?”

“It’s my last name. My first name is Anne, but let’s just keep it Crane and Boone, okay? I got a car.”

“Huh?”

“A car. I got a car. You want to be in the funeral procession or what?”

“I’d like to be at the graveside, yes, when they...”

“Then come on.”

She had a little yellow Datsun, a couple years old, and she opened the door on the rider’s side for him and he got in.

“You were a friend of Mary Beth’s?” he asked her.

“I still am.”

“Nobody else her age was there.”

“I wasn’t her age. I’m older than she was. And I’m older than you, too.”

“Oh.”

They found a place in the line of cars. Boone switched her lights on. A five-minute drive brought them to Greenwood Cemetery in the country, amidst more Grant Wood scenery.

Crane stood near the grave as a few more words were spoken and the casket was lowered into the ground. Boone stayed back by her car.

Mary Beth’s mother approached Crane and said, “Please stop by the house before you leave town,” and turned away, a male relative in his forties or fifties guiding her by the arm toward a waiting car.

When everyone had gone, Crane was still there. Standing. Staring. At the arrangements of flowers near the hole in the ground where Mary Beth was. And would be.

Boone was still back by the car. She called out to him.

“Are you about done?” she said. Cold as stone.

“Hey — fuck you. I can walk back to town.”

“Suit yourself.”

A few minutes later he realized she was standing beside him, now, and she said, “Look. You better come with me. Come on.”

Crane rubbed some wetness away from his eyes and he and Boone walked to the Datsun.

“You got a place to crash?” she asked him.

“Motel.”

“Leaving tonight?”

“I guess.”

They got in the car and drove out of the cemetery.

“You’ll be starting back to school, then,” Boone said, suddenly, after several minutes of silence.

“Uh. Yeah. Sure. I guess.”

“Fine. That’s just dandy.”

“What’s your problem?”

“My problem?”

“You don’t know me. I don’t know you. But the hostility in here’s so thick I’m choking.”

“Yeah. Well. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

“Take what out?”

“I liked Mary Beth. That’s all.”

“ I loved her.” His eyes were getting wet again.

“I’m sorry. Sorry, Crane. She never said a bad word about you. She loved you. She did.”

They were at the motel now.

Crane got out.

“If she loved me,” he said, “why’d she kill herself?”

“Who says she did?” Boone said.

And drove away.

Mary Beth’s mother lived in one of the new houses in the development on the edge of town, a split-level that differed from the pale yellow house on its left and the pale pink house on its right by being pale green. There were a lot of cars parked in front of the place and in its driveway. Crane walked across the lawn, with its couple of sad-looking scrawny trees, and past a trio of men with their coats off and beers in hand, talking loud. He didn’t hear Mary Beth’s name mentioned in their conversation.

He knocked on the screen door (the front door stood open) and a middle-aged woman with a floral print dress and a haggard look greeted him with a suitably sad smile, saying, “We’re so glad you stopped by.” He had never seen her before.

He said, “Thank you,” and was inside the living room with a dozen other people, who stood in small groups, talking in hushed voices, plates of food and cups of coffee in hand. All the chairs were taken. On the couch, flanked by elderly female relatives, was Mary Beth’s mother. He went over to her.

It took her a moment to recognize him.

“This is Mary Beth’s fiancé,” she said, with a weak smile, nodding to the woman on her left and to her right.

They were all pleased to meet him and he took each offered hand and returned it.

He looked down at Mary Beth’s mother and again saw Mary Beth’s eyes in the plump face, and impulsively, leaned over and kissed her cheek. It surprised her. She touched her face where he’d kissed her and said, “There’s food in the kitchen.”

There was food in the kitchen. A table of it: hors d’oeuvre plates, plates of cold cuts, white bread, rye bread, nut bread, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, pecan pie, lemon meringue pie, angel food cake. Food. People were eating it.

There were more men than women in the kitchen. Though it was serve-yourself, a woman in an apron stood behind the table of food, offering help that was never needed. Another woman in an apron was doing dishes: apparently some of the mourners had eaten and run, or perhaps some people were onto a second plate. The men stood with beers in hand, talking softer than the men out on the lawn but louder than the people in the living room.

Crane took some coffee, sipped at it occasionally, leaned against a wall in the kitchen. No one spoke to him. The bits and pieces of conversation that drifted his way didn’t include Mary Beth’s name.

He wandered off, unnoticed, into the other part of the house, the upper level of the split-level.

He looked in at Mary Beth’s room. It was a small room, four cold pale pink swirled plaster walls, a dresser with mirror, a chest of drawers, a double bed with a dark pink spread. There was a stuffed toy, a tiger, on the bed, a childhood keepsake she’d had with her in their apartment. Little else in the room suggested Mary Beth’s personality. This summer was the only time in her life she’d lived in this room. Her mother and father had moved into this house after she’d left home for college. So this was not a room she’d lived in, really.