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The minister called up Isaac, who was much more serious than he’d been at the prefuneral. “A ugustus Waters was the Mayor of the
Secret City of Cancervania, and he is not replaceable,” Isaac began. “Other people will be able to tell you fu
heartbroken and didn’t want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, ‘I have wonderful news!’ A nd I was like, ‘I don’t really want to hear wonderful news right now,’ and Gus said, ‘This is wonderful news you want to hear,’ and I asked him, ‘Fine, what is it?’ and he said, ‘You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you ca
Isaac couldn’t go on, or maybe that was all he had written.
A fter a high school friend told some stories about Gus’s considerable basketball talents and his many qualities as a teammate, the minister said, “We’ll now hear a few words from A ugustus’s special friend, Hazel.” Special friend? There were some titters in the audience, so I figured it was safe for me to start out by saying to the minister, “I was his girlfriend.” That got a laugh. Then I began reading from the eulogy I’d written.
“There’s a great quote in Gus’s house, one that both he and I found very comforting: Without pain, we couldn’t know joy.”
I went on spouting bullshit Encouragements as Gus’s parents, arm in arm, hugged each other and nodded at every word. Funerals, I had
decided, are for the living.
A fter his sister Julie spoke, the service ended with a prayer about Gus’s union with God, and I thought back to what he’d told me at Oranjee, that he didn’t believe in mansions and harps, but did believe in capital-S Something, and so I tried to imagine him capital-S Somewhere as we prayed, but even then I could not quite convince myself that he and I would be together again. I already knew too many dead people. I knew
that time would now pass for me differently than it would for him—that I, like everyone in that room, would go on accumulating loves and
losses while he would not. A nd for me, that was the final and truly unbearable tragedy: Like all the i
A nd then one of Gus’s brothers-in-law brought up a boom box and they played this song Gus had picked out—a sad and quiet song by
The Hectic Glow called “The New Partner.” I just wanted to go home, honestly. I didn’t know hardly any of these people, and I felt Peter Van Houten’s little eyes boring into my exposed shoulder blades, but after the song was over, everyone had to come up to me and tell me that I’d spoken beautifully, and that it was a lovely service, which was a lie: It was a funeral. It looked like any other funeral.
His pallbearers—cousins, his dad, an uncle, friends I’d never seen—came and got him, and they all started walking toward the hearse.
When Mom and Dad and I got in the car, I said, “I don’t want to go. I’m tired.”
“Hazel,” Mom said.
“Mom, there won’t be a place to sit and it’ll last forever and I’m exhausted.”
“Hazel, we have to go for Mr. and Mrs. Waters,” Mom said.
“Just . . .” I said. I felt so little in the backseat for some reason. I kind of wanted to be little. I wanted to be like six years old or
something. “Fine,” I said.
I just stared out the window awhile. I really didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to see them lower him into the ground in the spot he’d picked out with his dad, and I didn’t want to see his parents sink to their knees in the dew-wet grass and moan in pain, and I didn’t want to see Peter Van Houten’s alcoholic belly stretched against his linen jacket, and I didn’t want to cry in front of a bunch of people, and I didn’t want to toss a handful of dirt onto his grave, and I didn’t want my parents to have to stand there beneath the clear blue sky with its certain slant of
afternoon light, thinking about their day and their kid and my plot and my casket and my dirt.
But I did these things. I did all of them and worse, because Mom and Dad felt we should.
* * *
A fter it was over, Van Houten walked up to me and put a fat hand on my shoulder and said, “Could I hitch a ride? Left my rental at the
bottom of the hill.” I shrugged, and he opened the door to the backseat right as my dad unlocked the car.
Inside, he leaned between the front seats and said, “Peter Van Houten: Novelist Emeritus and Semiprofessional Disappointer.”
My parents introduced themselves. He shook their hands. I was pretty surprised that Peter Van Houten had flown halfway across the
world to attend a funeral. “How did you even—” I started, but he cut me off.
“I used the infernal Internet of yours to follow the Indianapolis obituary notices.” He reached into his linen suit and produced a fifth of whiskey.
“A nd you just like bought a ticket and—”
He interrupted again while unscrewing the cap. “It was fifteen thousand for a first-class ticket, but I’m sufficiently capitalized to indulge such whims. A nd the drinks are free on the flight. If you’re ambitious, you can almost break even.”
Van Houten took a swig of the whiskey and then leaned forward to offer it to my dad, who said, “Um, no thanks.” Then Van Houten
nodded the bottle toward me. I grabbed it.
“Hazel,” my mom said, but I unscrewed the cap and sipped. It made my stomach feel like my lungs. I handed the bottle back to Van
Houten, who took a long slug from it and then said, “So. Omnis cellula e cellula.”
“Huh?”
“Your boy Waters and I corresponded a bit, and in his last—”
“Wait, you read your fan mail now?”
“No, he sent it to my house, not through my publisher. A nd I’d hardly call him a fan. He despised me. But at any rate he was quite
insistent that I’d be absolved for my misbehavior if I attended his funeral and told you what became of A
there’s your answer: Omnis cellula e cellula.”
“What?” I asked again.
“Omnis cellula e cellula,” he said again. “A ll cells come from cells. Every cell is born of a previous cell, which was born of a previous cell.
Life comes from life. Life begets life begets life begets life begets life.”
We reached the bottom of the hill. “Okay, yeah,” I said. I was in no mood for this. Peter Van Houten would not hijack Gus’s funeral. I
wouldn’t allow it. “Thanks,” I said. “Well, I guess we’re at the bottom of the hill.”
“You don’t want an explanation?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m good. I think you’re a pathetic alcoholic who says fancy things to get attention like a really precocious eleven-year-old and I feel super bad for you. But yeah, no, you’re not the guy who wrote A n Imperial A ffliction anymore, so you couldn’t sequel it even if you wanted to. Thanks, though. Have an excellent life.”
“But—”
“Thanks for the booze,” I said. “Now get out of the car.” He looked scolded. Dad had stopped the car and we just idled there below Gus’s
grave for a minute until Van Houten opened the door and, finally silent, left.
A s we drove away, I watched through the back window as he took a drink and raised the bottle in my direction, as if toasting me. His
eyes looked so sad. I felt kinda bad for him, to be honest.
We finally got home around six, and I was exhausted. I just wanted to sleep, but Mom made me eat some cheesy pasta, although she at least
allowed me to eat in bed. I slept with the BiPA P for a couple hours. Waking up was horrible, because for a disoriented moment I felt like
everything was fine, and then it crushed me anew. Mom took me off the BiPA P, I tethered myself to a portable tank, and stumbled into my