7

John had thought that my attending the funeral would be a bad idea but wouldn’t tell me why, besides of course the obvious reason that I was the one who killed the guy. Perhaps he thought my likeness would cause people anxiety. I insisted, though, simply because he was dead only because I didn’t kill myself first.

It took about twenty minutes for the Lakeshore bus to drop me off at the newer cemeteries. It was a no-frills funeral. The lawn chair service was at one of those mausoleum places near the old New Orleans Academy. This section on the parish line of Orleans Parish was a manicured collection of residential subdivisions shielded from the Interstate by this league of funeral establishments. The Interstate connected the central business district to Metairie and then ran on to Baton Rouge. But the dead, an effective buffer, made sure that the rude motor vehicular expressway noise that could wake the dead didn’t go far enough for the suburbanites to be bothered.

One of the interment locales featured a lawn that was a burial place for deceased infants. I found it strange that all of the chairs for an adult’s service were placed in this spot. I arrived unnoticed right after the ritual had started and sat in a chair in the back row. I found it impossible to immediately pay attention to what was going on, because of a reverence for wanting to honor these dead children at our feet. You see, it felt friendly here, all of these little wonderful ghosts cheering the rest of us on.

As was typical, it was impossibly hot and sticky. It was a little after ten in the morning, but the heat and humidity were already peaking. I wore my closet’s best, a leisure suit coat of polyester with clingy slacks to match that made my behind itch the whole time. There were maybe thirty people in the amphitheater arrangement of padded folding chairs that sat in the open grass at the threshold of the expanding graves boundary. Our setting occupied the as yet unsettled graveyard.

I saw the back of a lot of heads and way up at the front was apparently his wife and child. I strained to see the type of woman my co-exister, my co-me, would marry but was thwarted by bad optical physics: someone’s big, fat, stupid head was in the way. The child she held was young, perhaps four or five, and he was squirming pretty good. He was dressed in a tight little red sport coat that apparently had been perfect for him on Easter. It must have seemed to his mother it would do today. She was in a conservatively designed black dress. When everyone arose, I could still see the child better than I could see her. As she placed him from her clutch to a standing position on the ground, I noticed the knobby knees on his skinny legs fold in, dislodging his feet out—the perfect stance for a diagnosis of cerebral palsy.

He maintained his balance by holding onto the slacks of the man standing next to them who turned out to be John. Actually, he was cutting up something awful with chanting over and over in repetitive slurred speech.

“I...want...to go...bye bye,” he incessantly repeated in monotone. His mother would shush him and whisper into his ear, but to no avail. When she re-sat, she lifted him up onto her lap, but he only began squirming again. This went on the whole ceremony. It was a hell of a distraction, I thought, when trying to concentrate on the grief over sending off a late husband.

The eulogy was given by an elderly priest. I think he was Catholic or Anglican or something. He was definitely a legit ecclesiastic, not some barker three-piece-suiter “Jyezus” harper. He stood, confident and smiling, before the casket which hovered suspended on straps over an open grave. What a lucky guy! I thought, to be buried among children. How’d he pull that off? The reverend closed his book which he held in his hand, and he slowly looked at everyone, even me.

“Friends of Ralph Ebe,” he addressed us. “We come here to say good-bye to a wonderful man. A man who took life’s rewards and shared them. A man who took life’s burdens and carried them alone. Why am I not sad when a wonderful man like this is called back by God?” He paused for a moment, almost to the point that his question might not be taken as rhetorical. Just as the congregation began to look uncomfortable, he continued.

“Don’t you think,” he asked, “that that’s the whole reason we’re here? Do you think this is it? This mere seventy or eighty or even more years or so?”

Don’t push your luck, I thought, as the old priest was probably well past seventy himself. He smiled at everyone with a face that had all of the answers. “We’re here to join God, of course. We’re here to live, to be sure; but we’re also here to die. For that is the plan. For living here is what makes us ready to die, to go to God.

“Ralph isn’t gone from us forever,” he surmised. “He’s just gone on to a better place. A place with God.” He now looked to the front row, at Ralph’s wife. “You’ll see him again, I promise. And it will only be in ten or thirty or fifty years or so. That is,” he now whispered, a glint in his eyes, “in just a little while.” He smiled and motioned to the funeral home worker to get ready to crank the handle that would lower Ralph Ebe’s body into the ground.

“He was a man of wealth, to be sure,” Father continued. “He was an important benefactor to Children’s Hospital. Maybe that’s because the tragedy of a child being ‘special’ touched him personally. Maybe because of what he told me one day. He said, ‘Jesus felt children are special.’” The old priest paused. “‘I believe that,’ Ralph went on to tell me. ‘I believe that,’ he said, ‘because their worlds change for them every single day. Every time they turn around the world has a different color, shape, and perspective. And the children use this constant fluctuation to grow, to mature.’” Father smiled at everyone listening, then concluded the eulogy, saying, “A man of means can be buried any way he wants. A man of generosity as Ralph was generous deserves his wonderful, eccentric wish—to be buried with the children who were not lucky enough to survive very long in this world. Did you know that we had to get permission from every single parent of every deceased child buried here to allow him his wish? Did you know that not a single one hesitated? Such was the name of the benefactor, Ralph Ebe, in the broken hearts of parents of deceased children.” He picked up his Bible and opened it to a passage marked by a red ribbon.

“From Matthew 18. At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” And with that the service was ended.

The only living child here, of course, had kept up his distractions all during the priest’s words. Finally, as the homily concluded, John picked him up and walked to the back by me so Mrs. Ebe could dwell on the final moments of the burial. As the coffin was lowered the final feet into the grave, several people in the gathering began weeping. Out loud. To my utter amazement, one of them was me!

I don’t know what came over me. It wasn’t reactive grief. Don’t get me wrong, I feel terrible about what had happened. But it was an inappropriate invading reaction, as alien and as unwelcome as the suicidal psychosis that had affected me before. The little boy, sitting in John’s lap next to me was now groping around, yanking on me in his path. I hardly noticed him as I collapsed into my chair with only enough control to not burst out loud again. Nevertheless, like the most valiant effort in a tear-jerker movie, I trembled my jaw as my eyes glazed heavy with tears and as I felt my sinuses jam. My final maudlin pose had my face in my hands, elbows on my knees, still valiant, still an effort. When I finally opened my burning wet eyes, all of the people were off walking away except for John, Ralph’s little boy, and his widow, who was standing right in front of me. As my eyes slowly moved up her black dress, I ultimately found her eyes had fought the same fight. They were red, wet, and they were my Abby’s, on my Abby’s older face. This is when I gave up and crashed, however inappropriately, tears and nasopharynx washing me away.

Crumbling, I felt her hand on my shoulder—the kind of grip that gives comfort and strength at the same time.

I know now what my feelings were. I was replacing Ralph in this world, settling into the vacuum he had left. I was being born here and, like any newborn, I cried. I was now a part of this world. For the first time in my life, I belonged somewhere. And it was overwhelming. And when she—as midwife—had placed her hand on my shoulder, I was being accepted by this world, by her; and the tears and emotion were outward expressions of catharsis, of resolution, of equilibration. Of delivery. I felt I had a slight hint of how Christ must have felt when He had been welcomed from the cross into His rightful place in His father’s world. I felt I knew what Ralph Ebe embraced as he was welcomed to a better place, shepherded there by the children he chose to be surrounded by for eternity.

And his wife: I was immediately and helplessly in love with this older true-exister-Abby-type who, for a short time before the magnet episode, had co-existed with my Abby, and who now co-existed with the other one who had stormed out of the hospital that day.

And the little crippled, apparently blind, developmentally delayed boy finally managed his hands around my neck, advancing until his arms could hug me no harder. He wriggled with delight at how I felt to him.

“I...want...to go...bye bye...Daddy,” he said to me, misinterpreting my feel as familiar, and I was immediately and helplessly in love with him, too.

He clung tightly to me, surprising his mother, known as, to my surprise, Ava.

“He knows you’re not his Daddy,” she told me in John’s car as we all rode back to her house. “He’s really taken a liking to you.” My God, her voice was Abby’s.

Her house was in one of the very subdivisions bordering the area where the funeral was. I could tell by John’s and Ava’s reactions when it came into their view as we rounded one final corner in John’s Lincoln—a big car, a land yacht. The house was a stucco two-story construction which I found very pleasing, as I had always liked stucco and in fact had hoped to eventually have this type of home myself one day. Actually, it was pseudo-stucco—a look-alike, for real stucco could never make it in the Louisiana humidity without years of regrets and expense.

“Make yourself at home, Rocky,” Ava kindly and softly offered, and I found it easy to do so. We had entered through the large double cut-glass door, through a white marble-floored foyer, into a large den. The first thing I noticed was that this house had been made child-proof. Marble in the foyer, now flagstone in the den, (through the corner of my eye) granite counters in the kitchen—it was a hearty house for hearty goings-on. The built-in shelving in the den was painted an off-white to set off the pastel motif of the walls and leather furniture. The paint on everything, I noticed, was that hard enamel from which one could easily wipe crayon, cola, blood—the usual childrearing fallout. We all sat comfortably on broken-in leather, richly warm sectionals attached together in a soft semi-circle around a clean, cold, inert tropical fireplace. I was still somewhat uneasy as to how Ava’s mood might vacillate in my presence as she went on and on in a self-appointed duty to get me to know her and her late husband.

He and Ava had long since stopped sliding before their marriage, and they had been long married before the pregnancy. She was now a woman in her late forties, and her manner and style made late forties look desirable. Blond hair, green eyes, older.

“My Abby has sure held up well,” I almost caught myself mumbling about her before I remembered this Ava’s separate identity. Hard to do, what with that same bump on her nose and all.

Thanks to a brief, light shower, the afternoon was cooler than the midday scorch Ralph had been buried under. His son, Leslie, was napping. I asked and she answered:

“Leslie was born twelve weeks early,” Ava explained. “Their little brains are very delicate at that time, and he had an intracranial hemorrhage. The oxygen he had to be under made him visually impaired.”

“So he’s not actually blind, then,” I said, looking to be relieved by anything.

“He’s blind legally. He’ll never read. He’s got what is called ‘navigational vision.’” He can get around without bumping into things but can’t look straight at you. The left eye sees only light and dark, the right one with its contact lens can see shapes.

“Contact lens?” I asked.

“He had his eyes’ lenses surgically removed to save the eyes. So I put his contact in every morning and take it out every evening.”

“Is the brain hemorrhage why he’s, uh...?”

“Retarded?” she finished for me.

“Yes.”

“That’s a bad word, isn’t it? We don’t think he’s…that. We think he’s got normal intelligence with a severe learning disability due to the vision. And some gaps, from the bleeding.”

“He won’t tell us,” John added, and Ava smiled at him.

“But he’s doing better all of the time,” she said. “He’s never stopped progressing. You should have seen him a year ago.”

“And the physical therapist feels he could actually walk by next year if he keeps doing well,” John further added.

“And that would be wonderful,” she said to John, smiling a sad smile that started a reverent silence on the subject—a sad smile I’ve seen before.

“I had a dream once,” she finally said softly. “I dreamed I had died, or at least I think that’s what it was, because I went to a place that must have been Heaven.” She paused to swallow, then resumed. “But actually it was like a beach. I’ve always felt weird about beaches,” she said dreamily. “I’ve always felt them to be so final—like the end of the Earth, like the end of existence. Probably why the sailors in the olden days feared falling off the flat Earth. Anyway, I I thought I was in Heaven. It was a beach, and it was so peaceful, too. Just being there I was so restful and happy. No worries, no decisions to be made. I looked for someone to share my happiness with, but all I could see was the back of Les as he sat on a mound of sand up ahead. He had a bathing suit on. I was some distance away and started for him. I could feel the sand between my toes as I walked, just like the tactile feel Les must be grabbing for with his fingers. He often does that. I don’t know if it’s the blindness or some tactile fixation, but his hands are always grabbing things.” She had drifted off-topic, but then caught herself. “I thought to myself,” she continued, “why is he here? He’s not dead like me, unless a part of him is peaking in for my benefit. And how ironic I thought it was that I would be in Heaven and still have to repress the pain that every mother of a handicapped child suffers each day—you know, what could have been. And when I was apparently close enough for him to hear the sand being kicked up by my footsteps, he arose...God! he raised himself straight up, with ease and with perfect balance, revealing a height his sickly growth had always robbed him of. I stopped dead in my tracks. He slowly wheeled his head around, the rest of his body pivoting on two straight, strong legs. As I looked up from his beautiful and powerful limbs to his face, I could see his chest was sculptured and free of all of those nasty chest tube scars he had gotten when he was just born. And I was burned through by his gaze that was fixed fast on me. On his mother. And then he spoke to me—not in that sing-song voice of his, but in the perfect soprano of a normal five-year old.

“‘Mom, I’m glad you’re back,’ he said, like I had just paused a brief time somewhere and gotten back to where I belonged. ‘Me, too,’ I said back and held my firm child. And if this were Heaven, I thought, then this was all I needed.”

She paused again, and then finally she spoke as if another wonderful thought could improve this story even more. “And if this is where Ralph just went, I know this is all he’ll need, and he’s way ahead of me.” John and I just sat, neither wishing to diminish the moment with continuing any type of mundane conversation.

“Hey, Rocky,” she finally spoke, “Look, I know what happened and I don’t blame you for it. My husband and I knew the risk being taken when he went to meet you. We had discussed it. We had accepted the chance that something strange might happen. He always felt that a co-true exister offered a chance to see one’s self from another direction, and that any opportunity that could lead him to learn a way back the other way should be taken aggressively.” She stopped for a moment to consider her next sentence. “True,” she said softly, “I didn’t expect him to die...”

“Ava,” John said, placing a hand on her forearm.

“No, Rocky,” she re-emphasized, “I don’t blame you. I feel nothing negative about you at all. Actually, I can’t explain my feeling toward you yet...very confusing,” she said sternly to the floor, intending to get to the bottom of things. “John has told me of your plan to look for Abby. I’d like to look for Ralph.” She had apparently crossed territory that John had already forbad, for he interrupted.

“Ava, stop,” he told her. “Ralph’s probably dead in all the areas you would go to.”

“I want him back; is that so terrible? And this magnet thing can probably help me.”

“Ava,” I said, “I don’t even know what I’m doing. I know I have to try to find Abby so she can have at least one person sane in whatever insane place she’s gone to. If we’re lucky we maybe can afford to theorize a way back—if we’re lucky.”

“Right, Ava,” John badgered. “And don’t forget Les. You can’t just leave a son behind. He needs you.”

“And he needs Ralph,” she fired back. “He needs his Daddy, and he needs me to find him for him. Don’t you think I’ve thought this thing out? He can stay with you, John; he likes you.”

“Ava,” John warned, “you came here from elsewhere. From a better place. When you leave, another will certainly pop in. And she’ll pop in to raise your son. And I won’t have much to say about it. She may be worse for Les. She may be O.K., but she may be worse.”

“You hide him from her,” Ava said.

“Oh, right,” he shouted back at her, “I’ll kidnap him. I’ll see his pictures on milk cartons in this fucking shit world!”

“John,” I said, startled. I had never heard him use any foul language up till this moment.

“John,” Ava said, too. Even she had never, she said, in all their years of friendship, heard anything like that from him.

“And what are you going to face from your son at the next stop?” he continued unabated, unswayed. “A blinder son? Even more delayed? A vegetable? Ava, it can always be worse.”

John had taken one of my favorite maxims right out of my mouth. She fell silent, apparently defeated. Until...

“Will you at least think about it, John?”

“O.K.,” he patronized her, “I’ll at least think about it.” Yea, right, I thought, thinking for the both of us.

But she believed him and she smiled that sad smile again.

By this time Leslie was stirring from his nap. He crawled into the den, raised himself up by clawing the wall, and leaned against it as he walked to his mother.

“I...have...to make...pee,” he monotoned. He was a beautiful child and such a good sport in this world, for I knew, and I knew his mother knew, that in a world in which I had graduated summa cum laude he was running amuck with the best of ’em.

And that thought almost made it alright about him.