The night before saw weather far better suited to the day at hand: rain and thunder and clamor and clatter, and that’s what Atlanta feels inside, a tornado in a teapot screaming and howling so loud in her ears she can barely hear the graveside service. A service ringed in flowers.
Flowers on the ground. Flowers on tripods. Flowers on lapels.
And early though the laurel grows…
Her friend is dead. Lowered into the earth. And she wants to be there with him.
With the worms and the roots. It’s where she belongs.
* * *
The beer bottle breaks against the grave with a pop. Green glass flicks into the grass. She has nothing against Nancy Tottlemeyer—the grave against which she’s broken three Yuengling bottles—but it’s the easiest target and Atlanta doesn’t give much of a shit right now. Because dear Nancy got a long life, damn near 80 years long, and for that, fuck her right in the dead old lady ear.
Atlanta rubs her eyes. Sighs to ward off crying. Drinks more.
The bitter beer taste coats Atlanta’s tongue like a soap scum sheen. Time, then, to wash it out. She fetches a bottle of cheap Polish vodka from her bag, spins the cap, takes a pull. Clean white fire. Liquid. Bright.
She sits like that for a while. Next to Chris’ gravestone, which is a modest stone that does not suit him. The stone shows a copse of pine trees and the silhouette of a mallard duck flying from the brush. Then, his name, and the dates that frame his life like a pair of parentheses.
A stone chosen by his father. One last spite by a man who did not understand his son. And didn’t want to.
“I hate that stone,” Shane says, tottering up. His hands are flat and tucked into his pockets. The little roly-poly Venezuelan with the well-coiffed hair and the poochy belly plops next to her. His voice is raw, like it’s been run across a cheese grater a few times. Like he’s been smoking. He hasn’t, she knows. He’d never touch a cigarette. Hell, he’d never touch one of those candy cigarettes.
But he has been crying.
They both have.
“It’s all wrong,” she agrees.
He sighs. And he says, with all seriousness, “It’s not fabulous enough.”
Chris. A king of fabulosity. Like the vodka, he was liquid and bright. (Speaking of, she takes another pull that sets flame to the sorrow in her belly.) His life, cut short. And why?
Because of me, Atlanta thinks. A thought that deserves a third glug of bad potato juice.
“The flowers,” Shane says, “they were all wrong, too.”
She agrees. “All wrong.”
“Roses, carnations. Roses, carnations. Chrysanthemums. Easel sprays, baskets, wreaths. Bo-ring.” Shane’s not one of the school’s gay mafia, the so-called La Cozy Nostra, but he has style. Much of that coming from his friendship with Chris. His best friendship. Two geeks in their geek burrito: Captain America and Star Wars and books about kings and dragons and spaceships. Stuff Atlanta doesn’t really get but suddenly she wishes she did and it makes her heart hurt in a deep and hollow place.
She passes Shane the vodka. He sniffs at it. Raises an eyebrow.
“Just drink it,” she says.
To her surprise, he does. Two seconds later he’s on his hands and knees next to the grave, coughing, eyes bulging like they’re trying to get out of his fool head.
He spits in the grass but does not hurl.
When he’s done he hands the bottle back.
“Delicious,” he groans.
“What kind of flowers would he have liked?” Atlanta asks. “You knew him better than I did.” And longer.
“I don’t know. He had an orchid plant but be barely took care of it. I think for him it wasn’t so much the flowers as much as it was the arrangement.”
“That sounds right.”
“He would’ve wanted bigger.”
She nods, fills her cheeks with vodka before gulping. After the gasp, she says, “More colorful, too.”
“Like, he would’ve wanted it to be kitschy. Sparklers and tiki torches.”
“And naked fire dancers,” she adds.
“And a robot.”
She snorts. “Okay, now you lost me.”
Above their head, the sky darkens toward evening. A plane drifts. White contrail behind it. Shane continues:
“He liked robots. He had a bunch of old toy robots from the 1950s and stuff. Lot of them still worked. I mean, not as actual robots.”
“I kinda figured.” She stands up. Arms crossed. “He needed a better outfit, too. You see the suit they stuffed him in? Like a used car salesman. Surprised they didn’t go for the powdered blue tuxedo. A classic. You want kitsch, there