I don’t know who decided to paint the outside of the funeral home beige, but I can’t help but think that it’s unfitting. Beige is perfect for lots of things: public schools, bank lobbies, waiting rooms. It’s perfect for these things because it inspires no feeling. Funerals are for every feeling, though, all at once, in a way that hits you like a punch to the face or the long cry at the end of a Nicholas Sparks movie.
Mark would have hated going out in a beige building. I’m probably a bad judge of this, given that I missed that last few years of his life, but something about it seems off. Not as off as the fact that the visitation started twenty minutes ago and I’m leaning against my toilet paper-speckled car in the parking lot, but off nonetheless. Now that I’m here, going inside is a bridge I’m not so sure I want to cross. There’s a finality to it all that I don’t want to deal with because dealing with it means that Mark’s really gone.
Lisa’s next to me, leaning against my car with her arms crossed. She’s wearing a black dress, a high-necked thing with lace near the top. Her blonde hair’s in a messy bun behind her head, and thin, curling strands fall down either side of her face. Her lips are red, and they haven’t moved since we got here. When I picked her up, she told me she’d called the other members of S.A.M. and told them that I’d be with her. She explained to them what I said to her at Old Rupert’s, and she told them that she thought Mark would appreciate my attitude. Mr. King, she told me, took this well. He said it wasn’t a good idea, but that he trusted her. Kenny, on the other hand, hung up on her.
While Lisa was doing this at her house, I was back at Mark’s trying to put on a suit. My cast wouldn’t fit through the arm, though, and the sleeve ripped at the elbow when I tried to force it. I opted for a short-sleeved button-up instead, gray with a black tie. It’s the sort of outfit that reminds me of how I dressed for middle school dances when I wanted to look like a member of Green Day, but it’s all I could make work.
Lisa and I walk to the door, and before I open it, I look at myself in the glass. Face puffy, covered in purples and blues and browns, I realize that I’m more colorful than the building itself. There’s no reason for this to comfort me, but it does.
When we step inside, Lisa wraps her hand around my good arm. Her fingers press into me one at a time as she squeezes the soft underside, reminding me of our senior prom. At the end of that night, she clung to my arm just like this, and we ran to my car so we could get to the after party. Back then, though, my arms weren’t so squishy. I wasn’t so squishy.
She pulls me in, and I tilt my head toward hers.
“Remember,” she hisses. “No shit, okay?”
I nod, and one of the funeral home workers steps up to us and clears his throat. His forehead is crinkled in fat, overlapping folds, and his eyes are narrow, looking as irritated as a teacher at the front of a rowdy classroom.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” His words come out in a low, mumbling drawl. “I was told to keep the kid with the pink cast out.”
I freeze. All I can think to do is smile at being called a kid.
“I’m sorry,” Lisa says, tugging on my arm, “but this is a misunderstanding. This is Mr. King’s brother.”
Hearing myself referred to as Mark’s brother makes my insides twitch, and a tear gathers up in the corner of my eye. I expect the man’s glare to break, but it doesn’t. Instead, he narrows his eyes further, making his eyebrows almost sag over them.
“So,” she adds, “we’re going to go in.”
For a second, he looks like he’s going to stop us. My first thought is to ask him if he’s really going to tell us we can’t go in, but before I can, the fingers wrapped around my arm remind me that I’ve spent the better part of the week dueling with people who have been trying to do just that.
The man sighs and curses under his breath, looking almost cartoonish as he slumps away. Lisa squeezes my arm again, and we walk through the doorway and into the viewing. I expect everyone to turn toward us, but they don’t. It’s half-empty, with small islands of people separated by seas of white folding chairs.
There’s less crying than I thought there’d be. A few folks make up for those who aren’t, but everyone’s quieter than I expected. At the front of the room, near Beth, is a blown-up copy of Mark’s senior portrait. He’s smiling, teeth white, black hair shaggy, and he’s wearing a black suit that makes his shoulders look huge, like something out of a ’90s superhero cartoon. There’s no hint of the man he’ll become, the alcoholic who bends and breaks because his best friend screwed him over and his dad worked him too hard. This Mark, all he cares about is doing well enough in school so he can take over his dad’s custard stand one day. He’s the Mark I ran away from.
I hung out with Mark the day he got his senior portraits. He hated everything about them, from the suit to the settings and even the photographer, but his dad had insisted on them. For one of the photos, the backdrop was a collection of gears, making it look like he was in some sort of trippy steampunk movie. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets, and he stared down the camera while a fan blew his hair back. It was so campy, like something out of one of our comic books or video games, that I thought he might love it. We called it the Gearmaster photo, made cracks about how he could control any watch or clock so people wouldn’t know what time it was. It was our own little joke, at least until the portrait studio decided they wanted to use it for advertising. Then, Gearmaster became as much of a local legend as King’s Frozen Custard or Purdue’s Cradle of Quarterbacks, and Mark stopped talking about it.
A mane of flowers surrounds Mark’s picture, and next to it, on a little stand that looks like a plastic Romanesque column, is a black urn. On the other side of it stands Beth, then Mark’s dad, and finally, Mark’s mom. People come up to them one by one, hugging them or placing a hand on their shoulder, and they smile, remaining as genuine as ever despite what I’m sure is a wave of emotion. Beth’s jaw drops when she realizes who I’m with, but she recovers as quickly as she breaks, and the people she’s talking to don’t notice. Chin raised, shoulders square, she doesn’t look half the mess I expected her to be.
I lean over to Lisa. “Are you sure I’m not going to get kicked out?”
Before she can answer, a hand claps down on my shoulder. “Never thought I’d see you two together again,” Brian says.
Lisa laughs.
Brian squeezes me, then lets go. “I’m glad you were able to make it,” he says. “I talked to Mark’s folks before the service, and they didn’t mention a thing about it. Asked how you were, even.”
After everything that’s happened, I hadn’t considered this to be a possibility.
“You go ahead,” I tell Lisa, nodding toward the front. “I’m going to let things thin out a little.”
She smiles, and for a minute, she’s the girl I fell for in high school. She starts to walk away, but before she can make it too far, I reach for her and tap her arm.
“Thanks, too,” I say. “I appreciate this a lot.”
“It wasn’t for you,” she says. “It was for Mark. Whatever apology or goodbye you have in store, he deserves it.”
This reminds me that I have no idea what I have in store. “Well, thanks again.”
When she leaves, Brian and I fall back into a couple chairs. Brian, in his suit that probably costs more than my car, and me, in a short-sleeved shirt that I think I got at a flea market. We’re so different anymore, so pulled apart, but here, I’ve never felt closer to him. My mind flips through scenes from our past, weekends sharing the basement and meals made in Mark’s kitchen, and I wonder if he’s thinking about the same things.
“It’s kind of funny,” my brother says. “All that S.A.M. shit, and all you needed to do was talk to your ex.”
“I guess.” My eyes scan the room, studying the faces of everyone in attendance. “Where’s Kenny, though?”
Brian shrugs. “He’s been in and out. I think this was tougher than he thought it would be.”
I nod, staring at the picture of Mark smiling from across the room. He’s easier to look at than everyone else, and I can’t help but feel that this should be more difficult. That I shouldn’t be sitting here with my brother, making small talk. That I should be crying and hugging people and talking about Mark and everything he meant to me. My stomach wrenches and twists into a tight knot, and all I can think is that I’ve done this all wrong, the whole trip here, and that I should have done it sooner. That maybe, I should have stayed here all along.
The last of the crowd makes its way through Beth, Mark’s dad, and Mark’s mom. It stays quiet for a while, and the three of them eventually retreat to the refreshments in the far corner of the room.
Brian nudges my side. “You ready?”
I swallow, mostly to buy time, but nothing’s there. My throat is dry, like everything has up and disappeared.
“I guess.” The words come out in a whisper, like I’m parched and crawling across the desert.
“Go for it, dude,” he says. I blink a couple times, expecting him to get up, but he leans farther back into his seat. “I’ve seen him,” he adds. “Paid my respects earlier.”
I wipe my hands on my pants. The cast snags on my left leg, pulling a string or two loose, and I want nothing more than to crack the plaster open and throw it away. Mark wouldn’t expect me to look like this. He’d expect better.
Or, after everything that went down between us, maybe worse. Who knows?
I walk up to the photo. The flowers are more vivid up close, bright reds and whites and purples that look like something out of a parade or circus. I’m not even sure Mark would enjoy flowers, but I suppose these sorts of things are more for the attendees than anyone else. In the middle of them, his smile is huge, spreading from cheek to cheek.
“Hey,” I say. I feel like an idiot, but I don’t know what else to do. I picture myself at Walmart all those years ago, frozen and waving from across the discount DVD bin, and wish I’d done then what I’m doing now. My lower lip trembles, and my eyes start to sting. “I know it’s late,” I add, “but I’m sorry for the way things happened. For leaving and all. And for Beth.”
I pause and hope for an answer. Before one comes, though, a hand slaps down on my shoulder, and I turn to face it. Kenny’s staring at me through narrow, red eyes, holding onto me either because he can’t stand or because he wants to apologize. He sways backward and forward, rocking as if his legs are softening underneath him. His breath smells like cheap beer, and his cheeks are red and raw from what I assume are tears he’s been wiping away.
“You okay?” I ask.
Kenny closes his eyes. He stays that way for a few seconds, still rocking, then opens them. He glares at me from under half-shut lids, looking like a supervillain sizing up his enemy, and I realize that he’s here because he’s still pissed at me.
“You pulled it off,” he says. His words slide together as they make their way off his tongue, sounding almost like Daffy Duck. “Got away with another fast one.”
I look over my shoulder at the portrait of Mark, at the urn holding his ashes. I couldn’t tell from across the room, but it’s painted with the New York skyline, complete with a little Spider-Man swinging between the buildings. It’s an older Spider-Man, with smaller eyes and a shorter body, a far cry from the scarier, bug-eyed version of the character we grew up on.
In front of me, Kenny’s still glaring.
“Can we not do this here?” I say. I want to laugh and tell him that his stupid plan failed, that he was a dipshit all along, but I keep it to myself. I made a promise, after all.
He lets go and shoves me, and I stumble back a step. “Lisa called us,” he says. “Told Mark’s dad and me that she was bringing you. Said you deserved a chance, that you’d been through enough. Mark’s dad didn’t care, even after you ran off with the cat he insisted I get him. And nobody would listen to me. All this time, all this energy, all for nothing because you got what you wanted so you can give your shitty apology and disappear again.”
Nobody’s paying attention to us. People are immersed in conversation, sharing stories about Mark and hugging off their sorrows.
“Look,” I say. I raise a hand to keep him at bay. “We can do this later, dude. We don’t—”
Kenny swipes away my hand. “He didn’t even like you,” he says. “He used to get hammered and talk about what an idiot you were, how he carried you through high school, how you fucked him over because you knew you’d never be as good as him. He used to—”
“Jesus,” I say. The tops of my cheeks burn, and the fingers of my good arm ball up in a fist. “I get it.”
He takes another step toward me, and I step back into what little space I have left. The flowers brush against my back, and my cast bumps the pillar, sending the urn wobbling. Kenny’s closer now, breathing between clenched teeth. He’s so drunk he’s practically drooling.
“I don’t think Mark would want it like this,” I tell him. “Not—”
“Oh,” he says, eyes going wide, “you know what he’d want now, huh?”
I hold my hands up, trying to create space between us. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You suck at saying what you mean, then,” he says. “Because he wouldn’t have wanted you here.” He pushes a finger into my chest. “He would have beat the shit out of you if he saw you here.”
Behind him, across the room, Brian and Beth are talking. I lean over, trying to get their attention, but neither of them notices.
Kenny looks over his shoulder, then turns back around, grinning. It’s a lopsided thing that makes him look deranged. “Looking for your crew?” he says. “Need some help before I kick your ass?”
Before I can say anything, he’s winding up, bringing his fist back, and launching it forward. It comes at me in slow motion, and I stare at the wrinkles in his knuckles for a fraction of a second, feeling like a badass out of The Matrix before stepping to the side and shoving him away. Kenny stumbles forward, but he makes it less than a step before I realize that I’ve pushed him right toward the picture of Mark and the urn. I reach out to stop him from colliding with it all, but he grips onto my shirt before I can, sending me down with him.
And like that, my Matrix aspirations fall apart.
The two of us tear through the picture and onto the floor, and my leg catches the pillar, sending everything into a tumble. The urn hits the ground in a soft crunch and a poof, and before I can cover myself, my nose and throat go dry from the small explosion of dust. I stay still for what feels like hours, eyes closed, as the rest of my senses come to. There’s a broken picture frame under my shoulder. A pillow of flowers cradling my head. Thorns pierced into my skin. There’s Kenny’s arm across my waist, still held tight in a sweaty ball around my shirt. My chest heaves, and I try with everything in my body to stop it because I don’t want to breathe.
When I open my eyes, I wipe my hand across my face. It’s covered in a gray, chalky glove of my best friend’s remains. Next to me, Spider-Man’s broken in half, his web attached to a shard of a building whose other half is a few inches away. My stomach rumbles, and acid rises in my throat, but I swallow down the vomit because throwing up will only make things worse.
There’s the sound of heels clicking, quick and steady, and Beth steps over my torso, one leg on either side of me, staring down. Her hair dangles from either side of her face, creating a sort of wall, and I imagine the two of us locked in a room, eye to eye. Her cheeks shine red against her blonde hair, and her lips tremble. Tears grow in the corners of her eyes and make their way down her face. Her shoulders are hunched, her hands clenched in tight fists.
Next to me, Kenny groans. He pulls his arm off me and plants it into the ground in an attempt to push himself up, only to fall back down again.
“I told you,” Beth says. She shakes her head and pulls her lips in tight. “I told you days ago that this back-and-forth between you two needed to end.”
“Look,” I tell her, scrambling to come up with an explanation. I prop myself up on my elbow—the good one, that is—but before I can say anything else, she kicks me back down.
“No,” she says. Her voice cracks, sounding like a laugh or a scream. “I don’t want to hear it. You need to leave.”
I turn my head toward a forest of chair legs. People’s feet are in the distance, behind them all, as if Kenny and I are wild animals in need of space. One set moves closer, though, in quick steps like a doctor rushing through an emergency room.
Beth steps backward, leaving me exposed, and turns toward my brother. The tears cover her face now, making her cheeks look like a charcoal drawing. “Get rid of him,” she says. “Just get him out.”
Brian grabs the back of my shirt and pulls me up like a mama cat picking up a kitten. He grabs Kenny in the other one, displaying a strength I didn’t know he had, and drags us toward the back of the room. I pick my feet up as soon as I can and stumble alongside my brother, letting him keep his hold on me as we make our way out. I lower my head, avoiding Lisa, Mark’s dad, and even the worker who let me in. This is what they expected, who they think I am, and I don’t want to see it reflected in their eyes.
When we get outside, Brian shoves us both forward. The three of us stand there, eyes darting from one to another, until Brian takes a step back. “You guys have to go,” he says.
Kenny mumbles a few words, then hiccups.
“Yeah,” I say, defeated. “I get it.”
“You need to stay away for a while,” he says. “This,” he adds, looking back into the funeral home over his shoulder, “this was a shitshow, dudes. You’re both better than that.”
I open my mouth to respond, but he cuts me off. “Just give everyone some space,” he says. “Do us all a favor and stay away.”