Ever After (15 page)

I take off my shirt and undershirt. They're soaking wet. I'm a big sweater. I fill the little basin with water and dunk both shirt and undershirt into it. I push down and slosh it around to soak the nervous smell out. I can't get any wetter. Then I wring them out as best I can and slide them back on. It's refreshing. I'm just finished when Steve comes into the restroom. I tell him what I've done. He's only wearing a T-shirt. He pulls it over his head and does the same thing. He's thin but with strong arms and more hair than I thought he'd have, although still not as much as Bert or me.

“Lord, I smell like a stallion with the scurvy.”

He uses his wet T-shirt to wipe under his arms and down his stomach, then rinses it before he wrings it out again and slides it back on. We go out of the restroom refreshed, wet, and ready for the Oregon heat.

The film place is nearby. We ask to have the negatives made first, then we'll choose which ones to print. They can do this all in one day.

We go out and head for Capitol Monuments. They're open. I lift the model out of the car. Steve is already talking to a round-faced man. They're surrounded by a stone forest of varying monuments, with slabs of marble against the wall. It's like an indoor cemetery. Steve is telling how he's the brother of Bert Woodman who was killed in the I-5 crash. He introduces me and the man is very sympathetic. Probably tombstone-builders need to learn sympathy almost as much as morticians.

I show him the model and explain what I want. He has trouble catching on that I'm not concerned about its being a functioning sundial or a religious symbol. I want it to be a symbol of the everlasting life, like the constant revolving of the sun, or at least its seeming revolution: another one of the delusions of time which has fooled men for thousands of years.

Then we start talking about what kind of stone. There must be fifty different sorts of stone to choose from. I like one which is a rich, warm gray but he tells me it wouldn't hold up against the weather the way another granite called “sierra” would.

There's not that much difference so I say OK to the “sierra.” It turns out he doesn't have any in stock but he can order it. That's OK with me. There's no way I can stay around to see it anyhow. I'll most likely never see this monument.

Steve looks at his watch. We leave the graveyard of polished stones and enter into the heat again. We drive back to the film place. Steve has air-conditioning, but even so, it's hot. We're disappointed when we look at the negatives. Practically none of them is usable. We were so nervous and shaken up we seem to have made every mistake possible. It's three o'clock. The next day is Sunday and Tuesday's the funeral. We ask how soon they'd need to have new film in order to have them ready by Monday. They close at six. Steve uses their phone to call the mortuary. John says he hasn't sent the bodies back yet but can't hold them past four because the coroner's office closes at five on Saturdays.

We buy more film. We drive like madmen to the mortuary. We're out there and in the back room in five minutes. John shows us some Polaroid shots his son has taken. They'll probably be good enough if we don't do it right this time.

We're much more calm and collected as we work. I check every move, every setting on my camera to get it right. It's astonishing how the human mind can adjust to almost anything. We have the photos shot in half an hour. We're both crying as we go along but we're functioning. We thank John profusely. Nobody could be nicer under such conditions.

We take the film out of the camera and deliver it to the photo shop with time to spare, if there is such a thing as time to spare. Steve takes his camera from me. I was unloading as he was driving. They tell us we can see the negatives and maybe positive prints before they close, if we want to wait. I think they've looked at the work we did before and know what we're doing. Two young women run the place and they're very considerate. We say we'll be back at ten minutes to six and walk out into the heat again. Nobody should have to die in weather like this. Steve turns away from his car.

“I need a beer. I know a good, dark, air-conditioned place about half a block from here.”

“Sounds good to me, Steve; I'll go any place that's cool.”

We walk into the back of a wood-paneled inn with the bar up front. Steve orders two draft beers on the way past. I can feel myself fading. I lean back in my chair. Steve quaffs off his beer with only one stop. It's so cold it hurts my eyes.

“Steve, you know what I'd like to do while we're waiting for those photos to be done?”

It's obviously a rhetorical question, but I think Steve's expecting just about anything from me.

“How far is it from here to where the accident happened? Do you think we could make it from here to there and back before the photo shop closes?”

Steve stares at his watch, then sucks out the foamy dregs of his beer.

“We could do it, but it'd be close. I don't think we'd find anything there though. The road is all black and the grass is burned, and they've cleared everything away with big equipment. I watched some of it on TV.”

“I'd really just like to see the last things they saw. I think it would bring me closer to them.”

Steve stands up, pushes back his chair, leaves money on the table.

“OK, let's get going then. We'll have about two hours, that should do it.”

He's already going out the door. I take one last slug of my beer and I catch up behind him. The heat hits us again.

Steve drives faster than before but still not so fast I'm uncomfortable. We don't talk much. Steve keeps looking at his watch.

“We'll make it and have ten minutes to look around if we want. I haven't been there myself, just didn't have the nerve. We'll need to drive about twelve miles past the place to find an on-ramp to the I-5. There's some kind of construction on the southbound lane. But I think we'll make it OK.”

We drive onto the I-5 going north and I look out the windows, wondering what Kate or Bert, or either of the kids, might have seen. I'm also hoping for some contact from them. I'm now so close to where they last were in this world, although four days have passed. The newspapers said the accident seemed to have happened about four o'clock. We aren't far off that.

But all I experience is a weird frozen quality to the landscape, as if nobody has ever been here. To my right there's a lovely little hill in the generally flat country. Kate must have noticed that. As a geologist, this strange formation would have meant something to her.

Both north- and southbound traffic is on the north side with us. The trucks are enormous and, considering the density of traffic, they're going fast. There's no passing. These guys have got to make up time. About three miles after the highway opens up again, and the southbound traffic is back in its own lane, we see where the accident occurred. Steve pulls over. We get out in the pounding sun, and look. The roadbed is all cracked up from the intense heat of the crash. I looked only briefly at the newspapers everybody kept pushing into my face last night because I wasn't ready. But I remember the fire burned for hours. It seems diesel fuel leaked out of a truck and it, combined with a truck filled with wood chips, made quite a blaze. I find a piece of metal on the road. I shine it up: it's the name-plate of a Corvette. Steve and I need to be careful: the cars and trucks are tearing by us, nobody going under seventy. People don't seem to learn.

“Steve, we'd better get going. I don't know if I can take this any longer. It's hard to predict traffic at this time of night. Also that photo shop might close on us.”

So, we hop back in the car and head north, continuing the trip Kate, Bert, Dayiel, and Mia never got to finish.

We arrive at the photo shop at ten till six. The girls pull out both the negatives and contact prints. They have a light-box and magnifying glasses. It's almost worse than the reality. This time we did it right. Steve wants me to make the choices. I'm not sure just what Bert really wanted, except that, somehow, these photos were supposed to help fight field burning. I try selecting the photos which best show the terrible damage done to their bodies. I know that, after the funeral, only these photos can ever prove that damage. Two days from now, the cremation will be completed and, as far as we mere mortals are concerned, the bodies won't exist any more.

For full-scale enlargement, I select twenty photos. The rest of the negatives and proofs I put in a separate packet.

“Are these photos of the victims of the I-5 crash Wednesday?”

“That's right.”

Steve looks at me to see if it's OK to tell them.

“Are you from the police? How did you get these pictures? I couldn't help looking at them. They're horrible!”

We're both quiet for a moment. She has a right to know now.

“No, not the police. I'm the father of the woman and grandfather to the two babies. My friend here is the brother of the man and uncle to the two babies. We took these pictures so we'd have something to remember them by.”

She looks to see if I'm kidding, sees I'm not, puts her hand to her mouth.

“But what a terrible way to remember them. I don't know how you could have taken these pictures. Didn't I just say that to you, Diana?”

“Well, it wasn't easy, but we did it. In a certain way, we had to. How much will I owe you for all this work? It's very well done. Could you write out the bill for the enlargements, also the development and proofs? I'll pay now. My friend will come pick them up when they're ready.”

She takes out a form and checks the negatives that are to be enlarged, peering at the numbers in the margin. The cost comes to just under $200. I take two hundred-dollar bills out of my pocket. She peers at them just to check if they're real, I think. Then she gives me the change.

“We're terribly sorry about what happened. Isn't that field burning just awful?”

“I don't know, except it killed my family. We don't allow dumb things like this where I live.”

We turn and leave. It's hot in the car. Even at six o'clock in the evening it's hot. But then, this is August. Steve turns up the air- conditioner. I lay my head back on the headrest. My eyes feel bare. But we did get it done, everything, the monument, the pictures. I need to give my address in Paris to Steve and some money to mail the pictures. This should finish up that part of things. Maybe I can relax.

I hope I sleep tonight. I should. I'm dead tired. I dread the funeral. I own one suit, one white shirt, one tie, one decent pair of shoes. Getting dressed up for things is not my style.

W
HEN I WAKE
Tuesday morning, it sounds as if there's a party going on downstairs. I feel rested. I look over at Rosemary. She's watching me.

“You were even smiling in your sleep. It's so good to see you back to normal again.”

“How about you, did you sleep well?”

“Like a dead person, but I didn't dream, not of Kate, not of anybody. You seemed to have been dreaming and having a good time and I'm sure it was with them.”

“I don't remember anything.”

We slide out of the bed. Rosemary showers first. My watch says nine o'clock. It's been a long time since I've slept this late.

When I come downstairs, I see that the house has filled with flowers as fast as it did with food. The center of all the action is the kitchen. I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday so I'm hungry. I help myself to some scrambled eggs and a few pieces of bacon. I surprise the hell out of Claire by kissing her good morning. I'm not tuned into Oregonian ways. Out in the streets on my own, I'd probably be nabbed as a rapist or child-molester.

Over breakfast there's talk about the music to be played. Rosemary wants Ravel's “Pavane for a Dead Infanta”—Kate's favorite—but no one has heard of it. Matthew suggests “Send in the Clowns,” a favorite of both Kate and Bert, somehow “their” song. We played it at their wedding.

There's a young guitarist who says she'll play it. She'll also play some music she's written especially for Bert and Kate. It seems, in high school, she and Bert had been special friends. Claire and Jo Ellen would like some religious music since we're not having a funeral mass. I suggest a
Stabat Mater
, but
Ave Maria
wins out.

Steve and I will be the principal speakers after the representative from Munich International School has spoken. He's flown over for the funeral. The students, faculty, and administrators had gotten the money together for him to join us.

The funeral cortege isn't much for fancy automobiles, but the numbers are amazing in such a small town. The local policeman leads the way; we're going about forty miles an hour all the way to Dallas.

At the mortuary, John has fixed up everything beautifully. We bring in the flowers from Steve's station-wagon and add them to the flowers already there. We go in quietly, two by two, Rosemary on my arm.

We slide in and take our places. The place is filled, and people are standing along the walls and at the doors. Bert was popular in this world; we've brought along our own mourners as well, and because of the publicity, many have come from far away.

I keep looking for an official, someone representing the state, or a farmer, but I don't see anyone. John, the mortician, has promised to look out for anyone he might recognize.

At the appropriate moment, he goes up to the rostrum and speaks briefly. Steve follows and talks about his brother. Midway, he almost breaks down. Doug, Bert's best friend, all six-foot-seven of him, is in the front row, his head in his hands, crying and sobbing, racked with grief. After Steve, John nods to me and I go to the rostrum. I have no notes, nor did Steve.

I tell how I came to Oregon for the first time in my life with bitterness in my heart. We'd reared our children so carefully, hoping to avoid this kind of reckless horror. Then, in a matter of minutes, all is lost. I want to know why they let this field burning go on. Aren't they afraid it might one day be them or one of their loved ones burned to a crisp, curled up in one of those coffins?