GRANDMA'S FUNERAL
by
Steve Sigourney (copyright 1997 All Rights Reserved)
It was an eight hour car ride from Springfield,
Illinois to Saginaw, Michigan. We drove through the cornfields
and past the silos around Chicago and past Detroit to Saginaw. A
town, like many Midwestern towns, that had seen prosperity.
Downtown used to be bustling with people in and out of five and
ten stores. Crime didn't used to be a problem. And Steering
Gear, the local General Motors plant, used to employ thousands
of working class Detroit Lions fans. "Used to be" is something I
heard a great deal as a child.
Grandma Schrems died when I was fourteen. So we loaded
up the Chevy Chevette and headed home. I was looking forward to
seeing my cousins Cemur and Fuzz. Everyone called my cousin Tom,
Fuzz, since he was a born with a full head of it. Cemur lived in
the "country." That is what we called being forty minutes out of
Saginaw, "the country." They lived on ten acres of grass one
hundred yards from "the crick." They pronounced creek, "crick".
We used to shoot our bb guns together. Fuzz and I only got to
shoot when we went out to the country. It took four trips to the
crick on four different weekends until Fuzz finally got his
first frog. Fuz's first frog was shot seven times directly in
the spine. At Cemur's instruction, we aimed for the frog's
spine. That way, even if the shot didn't kill the frog, it would
be unable to jump into the creek to freedom. Fuzz's problem in
killing frogs was that he always walked too close to the water.
By the time he saw his target, it jumped from the bank to
freedom. So when Fuzz saw his first frog and it didn't jump into
the water, he shot it in the spine. He hit it and paralyzed it.
But Fuzz was so worried that it would jump, he didn't walk
closer and pick it up and put it into Cemur's pillowcase. He
pumped his bb gun again, ten times, and shot the frog again. He
repeated this seven times that I saw from the bushes, but Cemur
says there were ten bb's in the frog when he cleaned it. After
we killed frogs all morning, Cemur separated the legs from the
body with his hunting knife. Then he pulled green skin from the
muscle and put the legs into a freezer. At the end of summer
Aunt Virginia fried the frog legs for a fall family feast.
Cemur, Fuzz, and I told stories about how we killed
the frogs. We always digressed into the peripheral stories. Like
the time when Fuzz couldn't hold it anymore and shit on the bank
of the crick. Then Cemur caught a frog and stuffed it head first
into the pile. The frog's legs kicked into the air for about a
minute and then stopped. We started laughing like crazy
criminals who had just robbed a train and didn't stop until we
got home. We walked into the house, leaving our shoes outside
the door. Aunt Virginia was standing next to the kitchen sink
mashing raw eggs from the neighbor's barn into four pounds of
ground chuck.
"What are you three laughing about?"
We broke into fresh laughter, Fuzz laughing the
loudest.
**********
When we arrived in Saginaw we went to Aunt Nancy's,
the centrifuge of mourning. Her and my Mom exchanged hugs and
tears. Fuzz and I grabbed a pop and sat in the family room with
everyone else. Mom and Aunt Nancy told stories, all very
positive, loving stories. My mother didn't mention how she was
afraid to bring home friends when she was young because Grandma
may have been drunk and, "she was a mean drunk," Mom used to
say. Or how she would call Mom in the middle of the night, drunk
and crying about how she had wasted her life. And I didn't tell
how Fuzz and I had gone to Grandma's to pick raspberries, but
didn't knock on the door to say hi. This wasn't a day for those
stories.
There was an open casket at Grandma's funeral and she
looked thinner, as if she been sick for a long time or someone
had siphoned the water out of her. Grandma's yellow dress made
her gray skin look like death against the bright sun. I looked
at her as soon as we arrived. I said goodbye. I said I wished we
could have been friends. I wished we could have communicated. I
wished that liquor hadn't ruined her and branded the family with
fear. And I wished that Grandpa hadn't died when Mom was twelve
leaving the family in disarray. Then I sat in the back of the
viewing at Bronson and Sons Funeral Home.
I watched as the family members, many I didn't know,
file past Grandma as if they were in the line at the buffet.
Each person paused with their head down, lips murmuring, then
crossing themselves. Aunt Esther, Grandma's sister, inched her
wrinkled body straight toward the coffin, cutting in line. She
stopped, crossed herself and dropped to her knees like a person
who had been shot. She shuffled a gray rosary through her
nicotine stained fingers. She tried to get up. Dad and Uncle Tom
each grabbed an elbow and walked Esther to her seat. I noticed
Aunt Esther wasn't crying.
I sat silent waiting for Fuzz and Cemur to get through
the line. Fuzz looked out of place anywhere he went. His clothes
were always too small and he walked as if he was trying to hide.
A cowlick reached for the ceiling on the top of his head. He
crossed himself clumsily in front of Grandma. His mother, Aunt
Nancy, was next to him. She looked like a younger version of the
woman in the coffin. Fuzz started to walk away and Aunt Nancy
grabbed his shirtsleeve, keeping him at the coffin. I laughed
and got a glance from my mother.
I headed for the lobby. A few minutes later Fuzz and
Cemur followed.
"Let's get out of here."
"Why we gonna go?"
I led the guys out to the parking lot in the back of
the home. There was a football in Uncle Tom's car and we started
throwing it around.
"So, Fuzz, have you got drunk yet?"
"Yeah, he was drunk," Cemur said, "that time we fed
him one beer in the garage and he woke up with a headache."
"I did have a headache, Cemur, but I didn't feel
drunk-I just went to sleep."
"Don't worry, Fuzz, the only reason Cemur is such a
good drinker, is because he has his own still out back. You
country fucks."
"Us guys have lot more fun than you city dorks."
"If you like hanging out in the woods, dipping, and
fucking cows."
All three of us laughed. A few minutes of comfortable
silence passed while brown and yellow leaves fell to the gray
pavement.
"Did you guys like Grandma Schrems?"
"She had her good points," Fuzz chimed.
"Like what Fuzz? She never got off the fucking couch."
"Jesus Steve, she's lying dead in that building."
"She's been dead since I can remember."
"Well she was sick, she was alcoholic - like Uncle
Slim," Fuzz put his head down, always the sensitive one.
Cemur spoke, "Fuck it. How do you like Springfield?"
"It sucks. I go to public school. There is a school
two miles from our house but they bus us fifteen miles downtown
so I can go to school with the niggers. Dad's making more money.
I hang out with the guy across street. His name is John; he's
pretty cool. I'm on the basketball team-I didn't start at
first-but now I do. I don't really have any friends at school.
John is a year older, doesn't go to the same school. I eat lunch
by myself, kinda sucks. How's school for you guys? Cemur, you
ever get any tit from Debbie?"
"No. We broke up. I come around the corner at school
she was about kissing Jimmy Phillips."
"I always hated that guy, when he would come around
and want to hunt frogs with us. What about you, Fuzz?"
"Same old thing."
Cemur and I nodded. We knew Fuzz's social life was
still born.
"Why did you guys leave, Steve? Uncle Frank was doing
well here wasn't he?"
"I don't know. I didn't want to go: it sucks. I feel
like telling Mom and Dad to screw off. And this whole Grandma
thing, She's better off in the casket."
"Steven Thomas! You get over here this minute."
I wanted to tell her to screw off. To let her know I
missed my cousins and friends here. And how much it sucked
eating soggy peanut butter and jelly alone in a noisy cafeteria,
with niggers calling me "fat boy" and "cracker." Strange people
on my basketball team. I didn't do my homework because I wanted
to be kicked out of school. If we couldn't afford it, why did
Dad take the job? Wasn't he making more money? I wanted to tell
her I didn't care about Grandma. It was all a big mess in my
head and I couldn't say anything. I could feel warmth on my
cheeks starting to cool. November was so gray and sad and cold
and people die and people leave and it sucks.
I could see Mom's face contort through water and I
remembered swimming as a boy, not wanting to leave the water.
She started to cry. She covered her face with hands
and doubled over in slow motion as if she was going to be sick.
People started to exit the funeral home. My Dad walked up behind
her and led her to the car. He looked back me and said, "God
damn it, Steve! What did you say to start her crying again?"
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