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IT WAS Michael who found dad’s body, but Steven didn’t see it until the funeral. He’d been home a few days already, but part of him still believed dad was somewhere else, maybe off on a trip (though dad hadn’t taken trips). Lee Hanson had been a man who planned carefully for the future even if he didn’t quite know how to live in the present, and it wasn’t like him to go off like this. Of course, Steven wasn’t the first person to think that. The strangest thing any father can do is die.
It was a small funeral, almost embarrassingly small—sixteen of them, barely enough to fill half the room. Mom sat in the front row, without Ben. Michael didn’t want Ben there, and Steven hadn’t cared enough to intervene. Anyway, it seemed weird to bring Ben to dad’s funeral… so Michael had won that one. But he still wouldn’t talk to her. Steven had seen mom keep trying all day without any luck. Though at least Michael wouldn’t yell in public, like he did when mom came around the house.
Steven sat with Michael in the opposite aisle. That left mom alone with grandma Granger: a thin, corpselike woman Steven had never known very well, her voice gnarled and raspy from lung cancer. Mom always told stories about grandma Granger, how nice and supportive she was. But neither brother had ever felt like part of mom’s family, and it had been a relief, after the divorce, to not have to see them anymore. They were nice, normal Christians who had big parties every Christmas and seemed to actually enjoy spending time with each other; and for as long as Steven could remember, he’d hated being in the same room with them.
Mom started crying early on—and Steven was surprised how, even now, any sign she was unhappy made him feel good. Michael gave her the same, almost triumphant look. Steven knew it wasn’t fair, that really they were never fair to mom, but he didn’t care. He hoped she felt like it was her fault. That was half of what Steven talked about with Michael: things mom did wrong. Michael’s list got longer every time Steven came home; and each time it made Steven angry at her again, even when he’d told himself he’d be a bit nicer this time. At least a little.
Steven hardly listened during the eulogy. It was the pastor from mom’s church, a large, almost leonine man who did his best to appear very cool and worldly and not like a religious person. Steven had never seen him start out so somber. Years ago, when she’d dragged them to church (something Steven had never forgiven her for), the pastor always started out with a joke. But it seemed weird to have him at dad’s funeral. Dad hadn’t been religious. He’d never believed in much of anything, except for doing what needed to be done.
Steven could still hear dad’s voice in his head, the exact tone of him saying those words. Dad had said them so much over the years it was sort of annoying—except now there was nothing else left of him.
The truth hit Steven as they stood up, forming a line towards the casket. Every step forward brought a deeper, sinking feeling—a sort of tilting weightlessness, like flying someplace he’d never wanted to go; starting behind his throat, tracing a line down his stomach, and settling in some secret, hidden node behind his balls. [p1] It was fucking with his center of gravity; worse the closer he got to the casket, amidst the strained, respectful looks on everyone’s faces.
They all looked down like there was something to see, like there was some significance to the gesture—but no. It was a ritual: staring at a corpse. Mom cried harder when she got there, so hard Steven almost felt embarrassed—the same way everything she did embarrassed him. But it was okay, because it kept him from looking at dad.
Instead, he watched Michael step forward. But Michael had seen dad already. He didn’t stop, or even turn towards the coffin. He just kept his eyes down and walked past.
Steven had been to funerals before, his great-grandparents on both sides. As a little kid, when someone that old died it was still sad, at least theoretically, but at the same time something felt very right about it. Old people were meant to die. It seemed very normal for them to settle into their proper place in the universe, weighed down by those lines on their faces, their unsteady, shaking limbs and their turgid, brittle bodies. But it didn’t seem right to look at dad.
The skin was strained and firm and almost waxy—a delicate, pellucid transformation that gave dad a kind of terrifying youth. One detail in particular stood out. Dad always used to have a mustache before the divorce. After that it became a beard, not a big one but enough to cover the way a man’s throat sags when he hits fifty. When Steven was young, dad’s mustache had seemed like the ultimate symbol of adulthood: some terrible remnant of the eighties dad would always wear on his face. Having a mustache marked you as grown up, as an adult who lived in the real world—until the mustache disappeared. Dad had changed forever. But now he was dead and he had a mustache again.
It was difficult, strangely difficult, for Steven to believe this body had once belonged to the man who raised him. Some details were right—the broad face with its wide cheeks and solid, almost oaken skin, just barely showing the jowls. But he seemed too small beneath the suit. Diminished. Dad had never been very tall, but that belly made him seem large: a robust, adult fullness… only maybe there was more to it. He’d pushed two-twenty at his heaviest, but it had gone down, way down, since the divorce. Going on five years now. A few more and dad might even have been thin.
Steven leaned down, like he’d seen everyone else do. The feeling surprised him—curiosity. But even that was odd. Wasn’t he supposed to feel something, some terrible sadness? He almost felt proud of himself, and then a bit bothered. It must be in the details somewhere, the sadness. That’s why he looked so close at the black wave of dad’s hair, just now thinning at the front; those quiet, peaceful eyes that never rested when he was alive; even the hands folded delicately across his stomach. Shouldn’t a normal person feel something more when he looked at the dead body of his father?
But then, there it was, the shimmer of something far in the distance—that lilting, sinking feeling in his pelvis. It had been there the whole time, only he didn’t want to notice it. Was that what grief felt like? Was that real pain? He felt very curious, almost excited, as the sensation made its way up from his stomach, towards his throat, sharpening to a faint hint of discomfort. But he only turned his head at the last second, when he realized what was going to happen.
Any longer, and he would have vomited on the corpse.
Even while it happened, part of him barely noticed. Steven always made the same sound when he threw up—this heavy, lurching wretch. It was so loud, not a sound a human should make. He watched distantly as vomit flecked back onto his shoes: the nice, sharp Dockers he’d bought a few days ago from a shop out near the mall. Was it this loud when everyone vomited, this terrible roar churning in his ears?... or was it like part of him had always wondered, always secretly believed? (He was strange, different, somehow more grotesque—no one else made that sound. No one else was so terribly, brutally physical.)
Three sprays, he counted. The first came in a heavy, sharp blast—someone would have to clean that carpet, but at least it wouldn’t be him. The second hit along with the smell: a harsh, acidic fire, reeking so much like it tasted. There were pieces of hot dog in it. (That was even worse, how something tasted when it went in you then came out.) The third convulsion struck hard, but the fourth conjured only a few bits of white foam—and after that, just pain as Steven wrenched a few more times, the sense of scraping at the bottom of an already empty barrel.
Steven looked up to a still and silent room. Part of him wanted to wipe his mouth on his arm, but he couldn’t, because this was an expensive tuxedo and they were renting it. He wondered the same thing—shouldn’t he be embarrassed? Again, it almost made him proud not to be. Everything used to embarrass him a little. When he met people from high school, or took too long to order food at a restaurant. But now he’d vomited in front of a crowd and hardly felt a thing.
“I’m alright,” he said, looking from face, to face, to face. Most of them he recognized. Older—dad’s friends, men with very plain, American names like Dave, and Rich, and Buzz, and Cliff. So many wide eyes. Some of them frowning; others with their mouths hanging open. Mom was walking towards him—but Michael was backing up. And Steven could tell when his mom put her hand on his shoulder that she felt good being the okay one for once: the one giving advice, instead of receiving it.
“Don’t worry, Steven,” she said. “It’s normal to be sad.”
“I just got a little sick.” He glanced, counted—six, no seven flecks on his shoes. Two tiny dots on the pants. He needed to clean them soon or else they’d stain. Someone else would have to deal with the puddle, warm enough to give off a faint mist of steam.
He started, but didn’t finish, counting the pieces of hot dog. Rustling and footsteps—probably they stepped back because of the smell.
“Wow.” Steven wanted some sign of disapproval, of transgression, from the pastor, but didn’t get it. “I made a mess, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay, son.” The pastor even sounded like he meant the words. But none of them understood. Steven wanted to explain. It wasn’t because he was sad, though he was. It was simpler than that.
“I was just a little sick. It’s over now.”
“It better be,” Michael said—and it must have surprised everyone when Steven started to laugh. Maybe that made it ok, which is why one, then a few more people laughed too.
“It’s okay, hon.” Mom rubbed him on the arm: soft, then harder. There was something very comforting and maternal in the gesture. Which was weird because she wasn’t so good at being maternal—and seeing her like that, like such a mom, sort of annoyed him. “I miss him too. We all do.”
Steven pushed her hand away, and it made him feel good to see her face fall. It always felt good to remind her they wouldn’t let her be the mom she wanted to be.
“I should go clean up, shouldn’t it?”
“Lick it up,” Michael said. “That should do the trick.”
“Shut up, Michael.” Steven glanced up, around. Everyone was still staring at him—but now it didn’t feel natural. Now his face burned, and he felt more pressure behind his pelvis uncomfortably like he needed to take a shit.
“I need to go,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
“We’ll be here,” mom said.
The embarrassment finally hit as Steven walked past everyone on the way to the door. If dad was still alive, probably this would have made him angry. Dad would have done his best to stay composed in front of everyone, then he would have blown up at Steven in the car. What’s wrong with you? he would have asked. But no answer was ever good enough.
For so many years, when something went wrong—even once, as a teenager, when Steven had gotten in a car accident—the hardest part had always been telling dad. For something small he would get a stern, disapproving look, and another lecture about doing what had to be done. For something big, especially something embarrassing, dad would call him an idiot. Sometimes dad got furious, so angry everyone knew to leave him alone for the rest of the day when he went into another room to watch TV… and when he came out once before bed, you knew to be still, to be quiet; and if his gaze passed over you, just one word could bring the wrath of the giant.
But now Steven was an idiot and there was no one to tell him, because dad was dead. So he went into the bathroom, cleaned off his shoes with a big handful of paper towels, and went into the stalls to take a shit. It took a long time: pushing, and pushing, and pushing. Except no matter how long he did it, that feeling in his stomach didn’t go away.
When he got the call from mom with the news, a week ago today, the first impression had been an absence somewhere in himself: a space he’d thought would always stay filled, some force or solidity underlying the universe. No matter what happened, dad would always be there: to give advice that was never quite as useful as he thought it was; a looming authority even now, when he no longer told Steven what to do; to help out with money and taxes because Steven still didn’t understand any of that stuff. But now there was nothing, and it left a hole: the shadow of a thing that ought to be there but wasn’t.
That was what sadness felt like, he’d decided—but no, Steven realized as he was sitting in that stall, gritting his teeth and pushing. It felt like needing to take a shit; except even afterwards, you didn’t feel any better.
