Four Star Funerals: An Anthology About Death

PREFACE

Anguish, joy, anger, relief, regret, sadness, numbness, fear, guilt, greed, indifference—so many ways to feel about a death. Maybe you reach for a touch of humor to lighten your heart. Whatever your response to the end of a life, know that you are not alone.

Four Star Funerals is a collection drawn from the personal experiences of the Four Star writers, a critique group that met at the Four Star Coffee Bar in Fort Worth, Texas. Death has not merely touched our group, it has hammered many of us in recent years. We’ve lost children, husbands, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, close friends. We’ve lost one of our own, a beloved member of our close-knit group.

Write what you know is standard advice to writers. We’ve taken it to heart. Death is what we’ve come to know too well in recent times. Our individual responses to our bereavements show a universe of emotions. You never know how you will react until you’ve been there.

If you’ve been there, if you’ve lost someone important to you, maybe you’ve been surprised—even shocked—by your reaction. Perhaps you have felt that your emotions are inappropriate. Maybe it will help you to know that one of us, in our small but diverse writers’ group, has felt much as you have. In our essays, anecdotes, poems, and stories, we hope you find a measure of comfort. You are not alone, nor are we.

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CONTENTS

Part I: MEMOIR

Take Back Time—Ann Barrington

Requiem for a Sailor—David R. Davis

Saved—Cecile Odell

Filling Spaces—Deborah J. Lightfoot

Rolling Down the Aisle—BJ Stone

A Crooked Smile—Kathryn Lay

Never Trust a Person in a Paper Hat—Diane Roberts

Community Property—Melissa Russell Deur

Survivor Guilt—Deborah J. Lightfoot

Pandora’s Coffin—Melissa Russell Deur

Eulogies—BJ Stone

Heima’s House—Deborah J. Lightfoot

The Mistake—Diane Roberts

Pieces of Peaches—Kathryn Lay

Digging for the Dead—Deborah J. Lightfoot

Ashes in the Wind—BJ Stone

Fingers From the Grave—Ann Barrington

Saint John the Divine—Diane Roberts

Ola’s Wake—BJ Stone

The Love of Spiders—Deborah J. Lightfoot

Rings—Patricia Holland

Part II: POETRY

Played Out—Melissa Russell Deur

Grief As It Is—Patricia Holland

Missing My Kitten—Ann Barrington

Fiddle Man—David R. Davis

Eddie’s Goodbye—Patricia Holland

Part III: FICTION

On This Day—Martha Moore

The Inn—Melissa Russell Deur

The Flower Pillow—Patricia Holland

Day of the Dead—Deborah J. Lightfoot

Black Diamond—David R. Davis

Afterword

When the End Comes—David R. Davis

About the Authors

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Part I: MEMOIR

Take Back Time

Ann Barrington

The room was small and the walls white, a nurse’s white. She, the nurse, had said, I need you to identify these.

I was stark of emotion, so I said, Sure.

I stood staring down at his watch. 6:00 a.m. had been frozen on the face of it beneath an icy thin crack. 6:00 a.m.

His watch, a pilot’s watch, he had told me, smiling proudly. I can tell you what time it is anywhere in the world.

Zulu time was all I wanted to know. What time is it in Zulu Land?

I could not take my eyes off the watch, now. If I did I would have to touch his leather pilot’s jacket, and hold his bulky flight manual, leather-bound with his name engraved in gold letters. All treasures. Now they were soaked in ribbons of blood.

My breathing would not come. 6:00 a.m. was when his plane would have gone down. I could not keep from knowing how hard he would have fought it. How he would have worked the instruments even in the midst of a spring storm. How, if not for the skin of a wing, that mountain could not have claimed him. He was an ace pilot. But a mountain is a mountain. If he could have he would have conquered it and come home with his watch on his beautiful wrist, the fur collar of his pilot’s jacket up around his neck and holding his briefcase with flight manual tucked neatly away as he had dozens of times before. He would have come through my living room door with the story of the conquering hero.

I sat. The nurse walked in and asked, So, are these all his?

Yes.

We’ll wrap them up for you, she said, with a nod toward the door.

But 6:00 a.m. will never come again without this watch in my mind and now as I stood, ready to follow the nurse out, it will never come again without 6:00 a.m. under a cracked glass that I bury in my coat pocket.

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Requiem for a Sailor

David R. Davis

My daddy was thirty-three when he died in 1957. He left behind two ex-wives and two children.

I was his only son.

He was always A.D. to me, not Daddy. He had tattooed arms, smoked Camels, and had an easy laugh. A.D. loved the navy and hated the officers. He volunteered at seventeen because of Pearl Harbor and because he’d seen enough of chopping cotton in Depression-riddled East Texas. He came home at twenty-one with hair going to gray and recurrent nightmares about war in the Pacific.

A.D. had to beat women off with a stick because of his movie-star good looks. He never found life-changing love, but he sure found the women.

He whistled Boogie Woogie and Hank Williams tunes all the time, especially while driving. Sometimes he drew Popeye for me at the breakfast table over a cup of black coffee and a cigarette.

Folks said A.D. drank too much whiskey. Maybe he drank to forget, or maybe he just wanted to cut loose once in a while and raise hell. I saw him pour vodka into his coffee a time or two. I saw him drunk a couple of times. I was just a kid, so I don’t know all the whys. Leave it to God and the gossips.

The phone rang a little after six on that Sunday evening in September. My sister and I were setting the table. I was the leader because I was nine. My sister was just seven. The San Antonio weather was still warm enough for us to eat out on the screened breezeway. Banana trees and cannas were still in full bloom in the backyard, and a castor bean plant scraped against the screen in the light breeze. We folded the paper napkins to make the table settings look like the ones on the Father Knows Best TV show.

At the first ring, I dropped the silverware.

I walked to the hall and stared at the phone. I didn’t pick it up—I just let it ring.

Mom answered the call.

Oh, God! she whispered.

Mom’s face darkened. She dropped the Sunday paper, and the sections fanned out on the floor. She didn’t notice.

When?

She looked at me, and then quickly turned to the wall.

Mom clunked the receiver down and ran into the bedroom. I heard Mom and my stepdad whispering.

David, you and Jan come in here, my stepdad said.

He pushed his thinning hair back with his hand, shut the door behind us, and sat down on the bed next to Mom. The water cooler whirred in the background. I leaned against the dresser and stared at my feet.

Mom looked at my sister and me, and stammered as she tried to get the words out.

Listen, kids, you have to be brave. I have some terrible news. A.D. died in a fire in Houston last night. A.D. is gone, children. I know he’d want you to be brave.

Be brave? Be brave? Why do adults always want you to be brave?

I thought of the time A.D. swatted me for being afraid. He was teaching me to swim at a small lake in East Texas. The deep water scared me.

David, let go of the inner tube! he yelled.

I screamed, A.D., the water’s over my head!

I cried and wrapped myself around the tube for dear life. He tried to pry me loose while the tube spun around and around in the water.

Let go of the damned inner tube! A.D. said, and swatted my leg hard. He yelled, Quit cryin’ like a sissy!

I couldn’t. He swatted me again. I let go of the tube and went under. I surfaced, choking on water. A.D. jerked me by one arm up on the bank.

Son, a man doesn’t cry, he said, as I sat in the mud throwing up water. I stared at the red handprints on my leg while he threw the inner tube into the trunk of the car. He slammed the trunk. Let’s go to the house, he said.

I climbed into the front seat and sat on my towel.

After a while, he wasn’t mad anymore. We even stopped to get a Coke, but no matter what he did, I felt like I had shamed him. The red welts still showed on my leg. The mark of a coward.

When I came to myself, Mom was comforting my sister. My sister’s pigtails shook as she sobbed. I looked back at my feet.

I’m going to be brave this time, A.D., I said to myself. Look down from heaven and see. I’m going to be brave this time.

I tried to swallow the knot in my throat.

Mom went back to the phone and called Grandpaw Lacy. It was so quiet I could hear the rings on the other end of the line. Grandpaw said hello.

Daddy, this is Margie. I just found out that A.D. is dead.

She paused.

Yes, I’m sure.

Yes, he’d been drinking. He was smoking in bed. The mattress caught fire, and the smoke killed him.

Another pause.

No, he wasn’t burned at all. He almost made it out. The fireman found him by the door.

Mom sniffled.

Okay, Daddy. Good-bye.

She hung up the phone.

The next day, Mom and Aunt Bennie drove us to the wake in our green ’47 Plymouth Coupe. We traveled 350 miles from San Antonio to the small East Texas town, New Summerfield.

I don’t recall much about the drive except the music on the radio. The stations kept playing a couple of songs that were popular in 1957. Honeycomb, and Tan Shoes and Pink Shoelaces.

We pulled up to Grandmaw Tavie’s house about eight p.m. It looked to me like the whole world had gathered for this country wake. Cars and pickups were parked all around the small frame house, and vehicles lined the Rusk highway on both sides for a good quarter mile. Mom squeezed our car into a space in the front yard and killed the engine. I didn’t want to get out of the car. Someone opened the car doors for us and pulled me out into the horde of mourners.

Every light in the house burned. People milled around and talked in the front and back yards. I didn’t like being stared at by the knots of visitors. I dodged them when I could.

A blue-haired woman holding a New Testament patted me on the shoulder. Remember, he’s with Jesus, son, she said.

I backed away.

A leather-faced farmer in a frock coat and Stetson scowled at her and pulled me aside. He pumped my hand. Listen here, boy, he said. I knowed your daddy. He didn’t drink no more than any other feller around here. Don’t let nobody tell you different.

I made it a few yards farther before my Summer Bible School teacher hugged me. She smelled of perfume and powder. We’ll understand all things farther along, she said. She kissed me on the top of my head before she let me go.

I noticed Grandpaw Davis standing in the yard laughing at something. It was only the third time I’d ever seen him. He’d deserted Grandmaw Tavie and their three sons during the Depression. How could he laugh at anything when his son was dead?

I overheard all kinds of whispered comments:

Poor little feller.

A.D. was the best-lookin’ man I ever saw.

Only thirty-three. Too damn young to die.

This will kill his Mama.

Whiskey and the war killed that boy. Sure as a pistol shot.

A.D. could never settle down after he come home.

He don’t look dead. Not a mark on him.

There’s his boy, yonder.

I hurried up the front porch steps through the perfume of Grandmaw Tavie’s petunias and into the screened breezeway. A rack of deer horns hung over each of the three doors that led into the house proper. Assorted Stetsons and fedoras dangled on them.

I ran through the middle door and into the crowd inside.

The massive gunmetal-gray casket dominated the parlor to my left, but I refused to look at it. I had to find Grandmaw Tavie. I thought it really might kill her to see her firstborn dead.

It was killing me.

The crowd inside stopped talking for a moment, and stared at me, as I ran toward the kitchen. I accidentally knocked a cup of coffee out of a man’s hand. Nobody got on to me.

I found Grandmaw Tavie slicing a pecan pie. She wore a cotton apron over her Sunday best. Every table and counter around her was heaped with all kinds of food. Coffee perked in several pots. Grandmaw stopped to mop her brow with a handkerchief.

Brother Jones tried to steer her to the day rocker in the corner. Sit down, Tavie, the preacher said. Let someone else do that.

Pastor, I’ve got to see to my guests, she said. She handed him a piece of pie. Besides, I’ll go crazy if I don’t stay busy.

She saw me and smiled. I ran to her. Grandmaw Tavie hugged my neck. She bent down and cradled my face in her hands. David, always remember that your daddy loved you.

I didn’t say anything.

You ought to eat somethin’, Grandmaw said. She quickly loaded a plate and tried to hand it to me.

I pushed it away. I don’t want anything, Grandmaw, I said.

At least let me cut you a piece of pecan pie. It’s your favorite.

I’m not hungry.

My mother and sister came in. They hugged