Storymania - Home, For A Funeral by Christopher E Nolen

Home, For A Funeral
Christopher E Nolen

Airplanes make me sick. My name is Sean Mitchell and I have a problem with flying. I go through, on average, four air sickness bags each flight, collecting them from surrounding passengers. Every now and then somebody gets skeptical of exactly why I’d want their sickness bag, as though it’s filled with diamonds and I’ve been sent to retrieve it. They never seem to notice the two damp ones sitting on my lap, soaking through to my jeans and waiting for the stewardess to finish serving peanuts.
Before the flight I took ten milligrams of Valium. It helps; my air sickness bag is still flat and tucked in the pouch in front of me, nestled with a copy of Sky Life Magazine. I reach for the bag every few minutes out of habit. The stewardess comes by. I order a tomato juice. I don’t usually drink tomato juice, but on a plane it seems comforting. It must be the red.
The woman sitting next to me starts a conversation. She’s from Wisconsin. She makes a joke about the name of my town, “Belchertown, huh? They burp a lot there?” She seems amused with herself.
“No.”
She moves on, “So what were you doing in Austin?”
“I go to school there. I’m heading home. My grandmother is dead.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Why? Did you have something to do with it?”
We don’t talk the rest of the flight.

When we land, my father is waiting at the airport. The collar of his winter coat is up to hide the tracks of dried tears that are clear, mapped roads to his weak, pink eyes. On the drive home he tells me how his mother died. “She just slipped, Sean. Getting in the bath, she just slipped and that was it.” His voice trembles and cracks every time he starts a sentence. He doesn’t know what more to say, “Hit her head and that was it.”
At the house, everyone’s there. When I walk in, my mother gives me a hug and my brother helps me with my bags. “It’s too bad about Nanny Barbara.” He shakes his head as he helps me lift my duffel out of the trunk of my father’s car.
“Yeah, Mitch. I liked her.” My brother Jack is two years older than me. Everyone calls him Mitch, even us. I don’t know when it started.
The bathroom in the house looks somehow different. My mother always changes something when I’m gone. I think it’s the wallpaper. I miss pissing in a urinal, the quiet sound of the stream splashing hard against the porcelain wall.
“Do you like the new wallpaper?” My mother is waiting by the bathroom door when I come out.
“I didn’t notice. I guess I was more interested in the task at hand. Held it the whole flight.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re home” she hugs me again. “Tomorrow, there’s a dinner at your uncle Billy’s. The whole family will be there.”
“Okay.” I pick up my bag and start towards the stairs “I’m going to bed early.”
“You feel all right?”
“I’m just tired from the flight.”
In my room, the bed looks smaller than I remember. I undress and slide under the covers. On the ceiling, decorative stars that I placed there as a child glow a green haze in the dark. I can still feel the Valium. I fall asleep.

When we arrive, there are already a number of cars outside my uncle’s house. The walk to the front door is cold and my only pair of dress pants gets wet in the snow. Before coming, I took the last two caplets of Valium that were in my bag. I figured a family reunion is as good a time as any to take them.
My uncle Billy greets us at the door, his large fat figure occupying the frame. He hugs my mother and shakes my father’s hand. Then he looks over at me and rests his thick palm firmly on my shoulder, “Sean I’m glad you could make it. I’m sure you’re busy at school.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, everyone get inside before you freeze your asses clean off. There’s plenty of food and plenty of booze.” A typical Mitchell wake.
I make my way to the food table and converse with whatever relative decides to come over. I try not to look anxious. Finally, I find Billy’s third wife, Helen, and ask her where the wine is. She makes a quip about me being too young before pointing me to the kitchen. I pour a glass of red wine and drink it down quickly in the kitchen while my cousin talks in my ear, “Can you believe my dad supports Bush?” he yells, spitting on my neck and I make no secret of wiping it off, “It’s because of abortion, just that one issue. I can’t believe how stupid he is.” I pour another glass of wine, grab a beer for after, and excuse myself.
On my way back to the food, I run into my uncle.
“You get taller every time I see you” He doesn’t realize I stopped growing two years ago. “And it looks like you lost some weight”.
“Are you saying I was fat before?”
He laughs awkwardly. His whole stomach shakes up and down as if nodding so his head doesn’t have to do any work. Bits of the cheddar cheese that was laid out as an appetizer are sprinkled throughout his thick beard. The wine is good. I don’t usually drink it but this is good wine.
“Ya know, your grandmother loved you guys very much.”
“I know, Billy.”
“Will you be home long?”
“No. Just came back for the funeral. I’m actually flying back to school tomorrow night after it’s done.”
“Well, I hope you’re studying hard and not just partying.” He points to the glass of wine in my hand and laughs. “Say, aren’t you nineteen?” He laughs again and pats me on the shoulder.
For dinner we have pot roast. My uncle makes some claim to it being my grandmother’s favorite meal. I hate the taste of it so I have two more glasses of wine before switching over entirely to beer. After my third one, I let the table know I need to take a piss but nobody seems to hear.
When I return, a number of my relatives are putting on jackets and preparing to leave. My head gets a little louder. I sit down to try and quiet it. My uncle comes over to us after he’s seen the others out. Mitch sits across the table from me and Billy looks at both of us with wide, excited eyes, “I got something you boys might appreciate.”
He walks over to the cupboard and pulls out a small wooden case. I tap my knuckle on the side of my head once to silence it. Billy opens the case and pulls out a half-empty bottle of whiskey. “Aged twenty years,” he says with a pride that I envy. “You boys want a glass?”
My father stands in the doorway of the dining room. “We should probably get going pretty soon, Bill.”
“You have time for one glass. Hell, your wife and Helen are in the kitchen having coffee and gossiping. My guess is you won’t be able to drag her out for at least another half-hour.”
Billy pours four glasses and hands one to each of us. I raise my glass up, “To Barbara.” I nod twice and laugh when everyone responds to my toast. The whiskey is strong and I force it down in one fixed swallow. It makes me cringe and I feel the warm liquid tease its way back up my throat before I push it down again. I bring the empty glass down hard onto the table. The wood of the table is nice and I feel I should say something, “I like this table. It’s sturdy.”
My uncle seems unsure of the compliment, “Yeah, thanks Sean.”
I reach for the whiskey and fill the glass a quarter of the way. This time I sip at the drink more slowly. The noise is now numbed down to a comfortable static. I decide to break the silence, “What were you saying before…about abortion?” I look around and realize my cousin left. I close my eyes tight for a moment and whisper “Never. Mind.”
Mitch looks at me in a way that makes the blood in my face flow fast and warm. I want to confront him but my father speaks, “Bill, it was a nice meal but we really need to go. We need to get ready for tomorrow.” I don’t know when he got it, but my father holds my jacket tight in his hands and reaches it out to me.
We say our good-byes and walk down the ice-coated path, bushes pushing at us on either side.
In my uncle’s house, my head hurt. But we are all in the car now. Inside that car, it is all right. I lean forward and rest my forehead on the cool leather upholstery of the front seat. Frost has formed on the windows in rigid patterns. “The heat needs to be on,” I declare, not lifting my head.
“Sit back, Sean” my mom speaks, “you’re drunk”. I feel a madness run up inside my stomach but I agree and hold my tongue.
My father starts telling me that I did something wrong.
“You embarrassed yourself, Sean.”
“I didn’t do anything, Barbara died.”
There is a silence.
I feel I didn’t explain myself well enough; somehow I’m not getting my point across. “I just need to get back, you know that?” I try again, “Leave everything back here.” My father begins telling me that I’m making things worse, but I remember a story that might help explain what I want to say. “I remember six years ago when we were in California and we stayed at that hotel that bumped us up to a suite because they overbooked.”
“Just keep quiet Sean.” My mother wants me to stop. I can’t.
“And they had that lounge. You remember, Mitch?”
Mitch responds reluctantly after a few seconds, “Yeah, I remember.”
I continue.
“That lounge had cheese and crackers and free soda all the time because it was a suite and rich people like their free soda. And we sat by a window in that lounge one day when it was white out.”
“Why don’t you shut up, Sean? You’re embarrassing yourself.” Mitch is really Jack.
“I need to finish this fucking story. Anyway, we sat in those chairs and watched the California whiteness out that window. You know that - that framed absence. And there were these flies, hundreds of small see-through flies” I pinch my thumb and index finger together to show just how small those little fuckers were, “they were all flying in different directions. But I realized they weren’t real; my eyes were playing a trick. It was fake. That’s all it was.”
The car is silent and cold and I remember the funeral is tomorrow.
When we get to the house, I head to the basement. I put on a record and lay on the couch. The music is soothing and it helps my head. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know it’s two in the morning and there’s red vomit on the sleeve of my shirt. It’s half dried, stiffening the fabric, and the smell of it makes me cough. I find my way to the stairs and head up to my room. I don’t turn the light on but rely of the green glow to guide me to the bed.

There are a lot of people at the funeral. The sweet, heavy smell of incense fills the hollow church. Sun shines through the stained glass window and blue and yellow light dance together on a statue of Mary that stands in the corner. The casket is open.
Before the service starts, I walk up and kneel down in front of my grandmother. Looking at her face, it seems unreal. Her skin is too dark, I think, like there’s a black jelly underneath that pale leather exterior. I half-expect the eyelids to open.
I kneel for a while and pretend to pray. I try not to think of anything but my flight later tonight and if it will be cancelled due to the snowstorm. Then I smell the perfume they put on my grandmother and remember her. I think back to how she read to me the same book, one about the elephant Babar, over and over again. Every time, I forgot how it ended. For a moment, I miss her.

My father drives me to the airport and most of the way we don’t speak. At a red light he asks “Will you be coming home for Thanksgiving?”
“I’ll try,” I lie and know I won’t see him again until another relative dies. He’s in the running for that position I think to myself, and let out a small laugh. He doesn’t notice.

The airport was grey and mostly empty. I sat and waited for the boarding call. The people around me read magazines and newspapers and waited. Some slept on the metal benches. Outside, the snow blew hard against the noses of the planes. “Attention passengers, flight 383 to Austin is now boarding rows 20 through 30.” I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket. I took it out, the small screen on the front said, “Home”. I slid the phone back in my pocket and boarded the plane.