Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

The unfortunate task of disclosing his wishes to the old man fell naturally to Trinnie. He shot the messenger, then reloaded, initially appalled that his daughter-in-law had sneakily purchased mass graves in the very spot it had taken him years to select. It was hostile and underhanded — but worse than that, it contaminated … she had connivingly hauled her cut-rate bleeding heart onto his domain and now would ask him to soak himself in its tainted fluids as they leached down into the very earth intended to encoffin him, and he would not have it! And that her son —his grandson , a Trotter , and the noblest of the lot — would be buried alongside the murdered children of addicts and criminals, born of rotten wombs! Hadn’t the boy come to him with a plan not long ago? He had said that he wished to be interred somewhere beauteous, beside his grandpa — those were his words, his instincts. TO MY AUNTIE be damned! It was obvious he’d been unduly influenced … but why? Why would she want that for him? Some born-again conversion? Was it possibly true she could be such a crazy cunt? Who was she but a spinster — a non-executive secretary at Trotter Waste Systems — and a shitty one at that — a tired, dried-out fuck who had preyed upon his son and made a lucky last-ditch marriage. He would see her in court! At any rate, the boy was still a minor and such an “instrument” could be superseded. He paced the Withdrawing Room like a wounded bull. He had loved that child … he had made a promise to him, and would keep it!

In their agony, neither party would relent. Joyce descended on her husband, who diplomatically remained neutral. Does your father think that we’re making this up? They’d shown him the letter — tantamount to a last will and testament, it could not be ignored. Did he really imagine that because of his own narcissistic obsession with the “aesthetics” of death she would fly in the face of her son’s final wishes? Did he think she was one of his toadies? That she would capitulate? Was he so arrogant to assume that she had had no discourse with her son, her son, no quiet intimacies wherein he confessed his desires? He had even dared throw at her the circumstances of the difficult birth and her “selfish sequestration”—how cruel of him, how merciless! It only strengthened her resolve. Weeks ago, when Edward shared his plan, she had brought Dodd in on it; now he had told his father as much, but the old asshole only spat and raged. You are simply siding with your wife! he said. During a fiasco of a “mediation,” Father de Kooning predictably made no headway; and Mr. Trotter warned the by now co-dependent chorus of Montecito therapists not to come near him. (On a drive to Woodland Hills, Dodd hatched a bizarre peacekeeping compromise: the boy would be cremated and kept in a fourth-century Scythian vase in the lobby of the Majestyk. It was good he kept the brainstorm to himself.)

Word of the passing found Marcus much aggrieved. He phoned his son to say how sorry he was, and Toulouse cried, softly thanking him. He asked if he was coming to the service. Marcus said he’d very much like to, but feared it would make his mother uncomfortable; this wasn’t the time for additional drama. The boy understood, appreciating his sensitivities in the matter. Marcus said, “Bon courage,” and hung up.

The funeral, held on what was perhaps the dreariest Sunday in the history of the basin if not the world, was a horrific affair. Such was their fervor that the mourners threatened at any given moment to break out in mass insanity, as in storied incidents of villages poisoned by ergotlaced water. The park was ringed by bodyguards, for there was a large contingent of press (he had been, after all, a royal son) and principals wore swatches of fabric, torn from Edward’s shrouds, pinned to their clothes in the manner of Orthodox Jews. Even Pullman wore a papier-mâché mask contrived by Lucy and Toulouse to sit on his shoulders so that it devoutly faced the sky. Dot Campbell’s skirt, blouse and coat were poignantly mismatched; Sling Blade wore a suit, his first ever, purchased for the occasion. It was also a first for Dot to see a zoned-out look in the haggard caretaker’s eye, as if he had finally had enough of death. He drove the Mauck to the cemetery as per Dodd’s instructions, and lowered the buggy from its berth; once grounded, it sat like an otherworldly catafalque. The sight of it sent a fresh wave of despair through those gathered.

Joyce, in lenses dark as obsidian, was supported on one side by Dodd and on the other by Trinnie (appropriately Edwardian, in a high-collared Branquinho waistcoat), with Father de Kooning and the vigilant Candelaria in tow. She sporadically stopped sobbing to aver, as if in the middle of a daymare, “I never named him! I named the babies — but never him!”—spectacularly moving and bathetic at once. She wore Prada, except for the distinctive veil that fell on her face: a favorite of Edward’s, it was inelegantly poised and made for a grotesquely comic effect. A row of votive Candlelighters stood close to the parcel where Edward would be laid, while the lesbians from the Palisades hovered nearby, perturbed and guilt-stricken, as if all this might have been avoided if the Lord had taken their boy instead. (Fortunately, the son of Jane Scull was on his best behavior throughout the ceremonies, although, upon her catching sight of the bundle she had dubbed Lazarus, the same could not be said of Mrs. Trotter.) Then Winter’s heel broke and she fell with a thud; Frances-Leigh, and two from the deceased’s Olde CityWalk health-care team rushed to her aid, but Epitacio and his brother adroitly won out. She rubbed her ankle and smiled as they helped her stand, and spent the remainder of the event partly unshod, anchored by the somber, handsome brothers.

Louis Trotter, incensed and betrayed, did not attend; he was the digger after all, and had that in him. He would visit his grandson another time, away from the circus, and let a moment pass before contemplating legal action to move the boy to more hallowed ground. He visited Bluey instead, who was in fine form, and sat with her on a bench along the path of the wandering garden.

The Weiners stood a respectful distance off until Trinnie waved them closer. Ruth helped Harry navigate the gravestones and he kept reaching for his yarmulke, which, ill-clipped, threatened to tumble from his head. Detective Dowling passed Lucy and Toulouse — he smiled at the girl, and her face lit up through her sorrow — and Trinnie greeted him warmly. When she embraced Ralph Mirdling, who had come to pay respects with his friend Ron Bass, Samson stepped back and stared contemplatively at the ground. He was going to say hello to Dodd but would have to wait, for the billionaire was consumed with ministering to his wife.

There were photo flashes as Diane Keaton walked through the gate on the arm of John Burnham (she and Ralph were still seeing each other but had decided to arrive separately), and it was only a coincidence that Boulder Langon and her mother arrived just after. The starlet gave the wannest of smiles to the paparazzi before hurrying along to join the group from Four Winds — Mr. Hookstratten, his lanky friend Reed and the teachers and nurses and flight crew from the world tour. All the globe-trotting kids were there, too, shocked and shivering, deflowered by death.

Trinnie stoically held the hands of son and niece, and, as the casket was lowered, at last began to fall apart. When she saw them watching her, she smiled like a valiant dying superhero: “He loved you,” she said. “He so loved you!”

While his mother gently released the warm water of a sea sponge over his spindly chest, Edward used to speak of the potter’s field his cousin visited that famed stowaway afternoon. Toulouse had told him the plaques were inscribed with years instead of names — that’s what Edward said he wanted. But she couldn’t bear to listen — and could not bear it now , could not bear to have him in the earth without his name as a marker. She had violated her son’s request and begged his forgiveness. Joyce felt a bottomless pang of loneliness for him, but soon there would be others crowding around — the “gang.” She knew how sardonic yet welcoming he would be. He would disperse their fears like doves into the air, and call them by their new names.