The Episcopal minister hired to say a few parting words about Rayfield apologized for his brevity, but he never knew the deceased. “You’re not the only one,” I thought. Rayfield’s offspring in particular all seemed to wear the same faintly eager look, as if, given the chance, they would have been glad to learn something about the departed. I met one half sister for the first time and also renewed my acquaintance with the three other older siblings, two of whom I barely recognized from the faded photos gathering dust in Rayfield and Betsy’s spare bedroom. They were nice kin. One of them had traveled clear across the continent. They were quiet and well behaved, uniformly tall, I remember. But I was trying so hard not to drink, I couldn’t concentrate. And I couldn’t help but compare it with Eddie’s wake the day before, which was crowded and noisy.
In fact, for a little punk con man only in his twenties who never did much of anything but beat his friends out of a couple of dollars, the crowd was large indeed. Everyone showed up: a full roster of fringe characters from below Fourteenth Street; all the resident lowlifes on City Island; and several madams led by Corinne wearing a floppy black hat. In fact she had been the first to arrive. Evelyn’s family huddled together in one corner. Later Eddie’s high school chums arrived, including several ex-girlfriends. Finally, a few musicians from the clubs turned up at the last minute to solemnly pay their respects.
I had never been to a wake before. Maggie was there with me. I couldn’t go alone. When we first arrived, we stood hesitating just inside the door. It was still early in the day and there were rows of folding chairs, many of them as yet empty, facing a bare stage with the coffin on it. Baskets of flowers flanked the stage. Off to one side, there was a metal tree that looked like a music stand with pictures of saints hanging from it. It was all very strange. Evelyn came over. She looked like someone else in her conservative black suit with her hair up in a bun. I introduced her to my mother. They embraced. Then Evelyn held me tight. She started to cry.
“It was just his time. That’s all. We’ve got to accept it. Do you want to say good-bye to him with me?”
She took me by the hand and led me to the coffin on the low stage. The coffin was lit from above. Evelyn shoved me gently.
“Go ahead, Janet, say good-bye.”
I went up and looked in the casket. Eddie lay there, with his hands folded, in a gray suit, white shirt and striped tie. He was wearing black wing-tipped shoes. His curly hair was much darker because it was slicked down with styling gel and combed in a side part to cover the wound at his temple. He looked waxen, of course, not luminous, not touched with moonlight as in life, but he was the same shade of junkie white. The suit made him look like a small, well-groomed, and attractive young man, someone you would trust to handle your portfolio or sell you insurance. I imagined the life we might have had together if he had been that person he was portrayed as in the coffin. We would have lived in Queens, Forest Hills if we were lucky, and had babies.
“Good-bye, I love you. Where are you now?”
Evelyn came and knelt down, so I did the same. She made the sign of the cross; I did, too: up and down, then left to right. She and I bowed our heads and lifted our hands in prayer.
A short while after that, Donna came in with Arthur, who appeared to be a natural-born mourner in his elegant, dark three-piece pinstriped suit. First he came over to where I had rejoined Maggie.
“You look lovely,” he said to me. (Maggie had taken me to Lord & Taylor the day before, where I had found a flattering black crepe dress and heels.) Arthur introduced himself to Maggie and offered condolences to both of us for my father. He said how difficult it must be to have to miss Eddie’s funeral the next day, as I was going to my father’s funeral instead. “Your heart must be torn with grief.”
Then he took my hand and looked me right in the eye. “Listen, Janet. There’s no point in my telling you I’m sorry. Of course I am. But I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep over what happened, because the chances are pretty good I would have to do the same thing again given the circumstances.”
He kept holding my hand, giving me that doleful look he had. I wanted to scream, ‘And now Eddie’s dead.’
Arthur pulled a little silver flask out of his pocket and offered Maggie and then me a swig. “Grand Marnier, excellent balm for the nerves,” he said.
Maggie looked slightly tempted, and I’m sure I looked very tempted, but we both politely refused. I hadn’t had a drink since I’d been hauled off to Bellevue.
Arthur put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “I always believed in you, kid.”
“Good to finally meet you,” he said to Maggie before he moved away.
Then Arthur walked right over to Evelyn. I was surprised. I would have thought Eddie’s killer might have kept his distance from his victim’s mother; instead I saw the two of them embrace. They both seemed to be impersonating straight people as they stood together talking in their respective black suits. Evelyn would say something and he would nod. Then it looked like he would tell a story, maybe a funny Eddie story, and she would smile, a little of her former gleam appearing for an instant before the shroud of bottomless grief descended again. I remembered Arthur always did indulge Eddie like an impossible prodigal, the cross he had to bear.
I kept looking at Arthur and Evelyn, trying to make some sense of it all. Eventually I watched them go before the coffin, each one making the sign of the cross as, in one fluid motion, they knelt, bowed their heads, and prayed. Their rhythm and economy of movement impressed me. ‘Catholics really know how to exit this world,’ I thought.
Michael came with Ava. I wouldn’t have believed Michael had it in him. He even wore a jacket over his black turtleneck and real shoes, black loafers. Ava had pulled her massive hair up into a bun. She wore a long black skirt that accentuated her height. Michael and Ava went over to Evelyn and Arthur, who both stood up from where they were kneeling in front of the coffin. Ava knelt down right away in front of Eddie. Michael made the sign of the cross but remained standing. I watched Evelyn introduce him to Arthur. It was all so civilized. Especially Evelyn. I would have expected her to be lashing out with grief. But she was so entirely miserable, all she could do was love and forgive.
Maggie nodded respectfully to everyone. She summoned her theatrical training to play the role of the young widow’s mother, as if this were an antebellum affair and the collective dignity of the local gentry was being gathered up to honor the pride of the southern countryside.
I introduced her to Evelyn’s longtime boyfriend, Daniel, who smiled his benevolent, toothless smile. Then he produced a flask, which he waved at me. I could have used a drink. I hated this saying no to a drink.
Michael retreated to a corner alone, where he stood also nipping from a flask. He had pulled his black hair back in a ponytail, and he looked wonderfully forlorn. He was a frail soul, I realized, not for the first time. I was playing the familiar game with myself in which I tried every way I could to dismantle the appeal he still held for me. But whatever I came up with backfired. All his faults were treasures to me. What kind of person was I that at poor Eddie’s wake, right in front of his cold body, I could be lusting after an old flame? Life makes beasts of us—it’s base, this desire in the face of death. Which is precisely what had always revolted Eddie about the whole deal.
Meanwhile, Michael continued to stand there alone, managing to appear awkward and poised at the same time. God, he was tall and majestic—splendid, really. He looked like a frosty quart of beer on a hot afternoon. Finally I hit on something that allowed me to detach from my Svengali. I had heard through the grapevine he and Ava were just about through, and this had the peculiar effect of liberating me. I don’t think it was gloating exactly, because I felt for Ava. It was more that I had a new understanding: Michael, the once and future king of one-night stands, could only enjoy at most one inspired weekend with a woman, after which he felt obliged to spend the next two to ten years letting her down easy. Seeing Ava across the room, her body drooping with grief and depression, I could remember the chronic pain of enduring Michael’s protracted rejection. I remembered it was like watching someone gracefully disentangle himself from a messy web. Except I was the web.
Michael could not have brought himself to approach anyone, but once I took Maggie over to him, he responded with his characteristic diffident charm. He took Maggie’s hand, shook it, and nodded his head slightly at the same time.
“Your daughter is a true love of mine,” he said.
“One of them, I understand,” Maggie said, ever the cynic on this subject.
“Yes, but it’s a very small club, and I have a feeling there won’t be any more new members.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re still a very handsome young man. In fact, you look more sensitive and artistic than I would have thought. Anyway, hunker down, kid, because love keeps at you for a long time, and it’s a bloody nuisance.”
Michael smiled. “Thank you. I can take heart now.”
The way they were romancing each other with their wry disillusion. They were both so full of crap. I wished Eddie were there to tell them so.