Bud Smith - F 250

I looked away. Otherwise, I was gonna kill that motherfucker. It’d been his coke. His pills. Both.

An older gentleman I didn’t recognize walked past with two elderly woman. They all had canes. It looked to me like they were entering the funeral home to case it out, to prepare for their own swiftly approaching funerals.

Then I saw somebody I’d forgotten all about.

Shannon, Seth’s ex, was weeping openly as she stepped towards me. My head began to spin. I sat down on the curb again. I said to myself, “Please don’t come over here. Please don’t come over here…”

The weeping grew in intensity. Shannon sat down next to me on the yellow curb. Her clutch purse fell into a puddle.

She didn’t notice.

One strap of her spaghetti string dress slipped off her shoulder. Her make-up was over applied. Mascara ran down her cheek, making her look like a punk rocker.

Nothing farther from the truth.

“We were gonna get married,” Shannon said, bawling against my shoulder.

She hugged me. I hugged back, limply, without any emotion.

“We were gonna move to L.A.,” she said.

I thought, “Oh fuck,” as I looked up and saw Denise Santalucia walking through the parking lot. She saw me and started coming closer but was intercepted by Feral and Trish at the side of Trish’s station wagon.

I watched Trish wrap up Denise with a big hug. Feral looked up at the clouds, through the clouds, from behind his aviator sunglasses.

“I got a tattoo,” Shannon said to me.

It was on her right shoulder blade. A cartoonish snare drum with two crossed drumsticks. It said, “SETH” on the face of the kick drum. The tattoo was crusty. Enflamed. Brand new. She’d just gotten it the day before.

“That’s nice,” I said, not meaning it, knowing that was horrible. Her tears dried up. She stood.

“Gotta stay strong,” she said to herself.

“I’ll see you inside.”

She walked up the creaky wooden steps into the funeral parlor. A guy was standing on the porch smoking a cigarette. He was in a very nice suit. I figured he was one of two people: the guy running the funeral parlor or Seth’s brother Mark. Before I could say anything to him, he flicked his half-lit cigarette onto the bricks and walked into the funeral parlor.

The service was just beginning.

I followed.

I was surprised to see so many people come out. Not that I should’ve been. Seth was really loved. I was afraid to walk into the main chamber. I didn’t want to see him there, lying in his casket, because I didn’t want to say goodbye to my friend. I wanted it all to be a mistake or, even better, a joke. Yes, I wanted Seth to be faking his own death.

But if that was really happening, he’d have to have faked all the way through his own joke … and that was impossible. There was nothing Seth found funnier than his own jokes. The laughs would have slipped from those now-tight lips, and, well, they were not holding back laughs. They were blue painted pink by professionals. The smile seen on the corner of the mouth was put there by a mortician, not an inside joke — those were over.

I stood in the foyer and milled around while people filed in from the porch. There was Aldo and Gail. Aldo had on a leather cap and a button up shirt with small starbursts all over it. Gail was in a long, green dress. They both looked frazzled, like they’d just lost their dog and had been out hanging up flyers on every single telephone pole in the world. That dog was gone forever.

Aldo grabbed my shoulders and asked gruffly, “You gonna be alright?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Awwww,” Gail said, pushing away Aldo’s thick hands and hugging me … hard. “I’ll take care of you sweetie,” she cooed.

When she let go, a part of me never wanted that hug to end. She was warm, the opposite of death. She smelled like cherries.

Others arrived: Seth’s friends from Catholic school (I’d gone to public), girlfriends of the ancient past, neighbors, his high school track coach, music store coworkers, people he’d played in various bands with. The place was packed. Sold out show.

Another guy in a suit appeared, but this one was cheesy and un-tailored. He came up, touched my back lightly, and said, “The service is about to begin if you would like to step inside.”

I walked in shell-shocked. All of the seats were taken. I stood along the back wall, just looking at the casket from afar.

To my dismay, Seth’s drum kit was set up in the corner beside the casket. I thought this was something he wouldn’t have wanted. That’s what happens when you die though: people latch onto the thing you were best at, and that becomes the summary of who you were to them.

An old man started to talk. A priest. He wasn’t dressed up like a priest, but he still had on his little white clerical collar. He said a lot of nice things about my friend. The emphasis was on what a great drummer he was. Apparently, the priest had a son who used to play with Seth in a Christian rock band back when they went to high school. It was a short service, but a lot of nice, heartfelt things were said. Afterwards, a line formed. People were going up to the casket to pay their respects. I got in the line with weak knees to say goodbye to my friend one last time.

The person in front of me turned back and half smiled. I recognized him as one of Seth’s Catholic school friends, we’d spoken at various parties, but I could never remember his name. Some people are just like that. The kid said hello and asked me where Ethan was. I said, “Fuck Ethan.”

He turned and didn’t say another word to me.

The line inched up. There was a poster board packed solid with photos of Seth. That was the saddest part: having to look at that. It was sweet, and the memories were bright, but boy was it ever a kick in my gut. There he was, an innocent little kid: just a toddler, naked in a bath tub; playing catch on a lawn somewhere, with a baseball glove almost as big as him; riding a red BMX; just a beanpole skinny adolescent sitting behind his first drum set; fishing on a boat with some guys I didn’t know; at prom with Shannon; on stage with me, playing a show at Spider bar. All that life … gone.

The line inched up, and I looked down briefly at his face. I silently hoped he’d sit up and say something funny — one last funny thing, a dirty joke or something to break the tension. But no, he just lay there in a very nice suit. I wondered if he had on pants. He probably wanted to be buried in his corduroys and Converse All-stars. I’m not sure anybody gets a choice.

The lid on the inside of the casket had a drum set embroidered onto it. I felt so bad about that.

I looked around at all the people at the viewing and got so angry at them. They thought they knew Seth. I wasn’t sure many of them knew anything about him.

I wanted to leave something in his casket. I searched my pockets, but they were empty. All I found was a little scrap of paper — a gas station receipt. I didn’t have a pen. I shoved the receipt back in my pocket.

I had to get out of there. The walls of the funeral home were collapsing. Still, I almost cracked up laughing when I thought about the sound that the cymbal made when it smashed into Ethan. That. I wanted to do that — to all those people — but I didn’t.

I went out to the parking lot for some air. Seth’s brother was standing there, smoking another cigarette.

“I’m no good at these things,” he said.

“Your brother’s dead,” I said. It was so stupid, it just came out.

Mark said he recognized me from the photographs. “Seth said good things about you when we were together upstate.”

“Oh?”

“The lake house. That funeral.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about all of it,” I said.