13
Funerals on the Run
W
here are we now?" I ask for
the hundredth time, or does it only seem that way?
"On four-forty-one and passing Twelfth Street," Evvie
reports. As always she sits in the front seat next to me. The upper
half of the opened map covers her side of the windshield, and the lower
half is spread across both our laps. And she still doesn't have a clue
as to where we are.
"It can't be," I tell her, once again pushing the map out
of my line of sight. "We passed that corner five minutes ago."
"I told you we were lost!" wails Ida. "We already passed
Fuddruckers twice!"
Bella is keening, "Oh, God . . . Oh, God . . . We shoulda
been there half an hour ago."
"I knew we shoulda taken University. This traffic is
killing us!" Ida's voice is sharp.
"Shoulda, coulda, woulda," singsongs Sophie for the third
time in fifteen minutes.
All our voices are shrill. We are beyond our boiling
points. Today, of all days, the air conditioner isn't working. Even Ida
is hot, which should give you an idea of how bad it is. The windows are
all open, and between the dirt flying in and the deafening noise of the
trucks rumbling past us--I am not coping well. And naturally we are all
dressed up in clothes that feel way too tight after living day after
day in loose sundresses and bathing suits. We are sweating and
miserable.
"We're so late, we're so late. . . ." Bella, who is in
tears, sounds like a demented Alice, only this is no tea party we're
going to.
Ida is now shouting. "Of course we're late. Because
Sophie wasn't ready." She elbows her in her stomach. "How could you be
late for Francie's funeral!"
"Stop already with the blame," Sophie says defensively.
"You're a broken record, play another."
"I'll stop when you stop being impossible!" We have been
driving around aimlessly for forty minutes and Ida has lost it by now.
I think we all have.
"I knew we should have hired a car," Evvie says.
"Woulda, coulda, shoulda," says Sophie yet again.
"You say that once more, and I'll throw you out the
door!" Ida's hand moves across Sophie's lap toward the door handle.
Sophie shuts right up.
But Evvie is right. I should never have offered to drive
to the cemetery. I am much too upset about Francie. I can't think
straight, and I'm making mistakes.
Evvie grabs my arm, jerking the steering wheel.
"Don't ever do that!" I shout at her, trying to avoid a
pedestrian crossing the street in front of me.
"Turn right! This is where we were supposed to turn
right. On Davie Boulevard."
"No," I insist. "I did that last time and that's why
we're right back where we started. Davie and Twelfth are the same
street. It's left."
"No, right. You turned left last time."
"Gladdy's right, it's left, not right," says Ida, digging
her fingers into the upholstery behind my back.
I know I'm driving erratically. Now I narrowly miss a
Holsum's White Bread truck as I turn onto Stirling.
"Oh, no," Evvie gasps.
"What! What is it?" I ask, in a state of total panic.
"Look. Look where we are." She points across the street
and everyone stares out the window.
"No!" Ida says. "It can't be! We're at bingo!"
Sophie is so excited she is jumping up and down in her
seat, her black wide-brimmed hat, with tiny red rosettes, bobbing.
"Yes! And today's pick-a-pet day!"
And sure enough we've arrived at a spot that is very
familiar to all of us: the Seminole tribe reservation where we go every
week to play bingo.
I pull over to the curb and stop the car. I throw my arms
across the steering wheel and lean my head on my hands. I am laughing
and I am crying and I am laughing . . . I'm hysterical.
"What's so damn funny?" Ida asks.
"Pppick-a-ppppet day." I can't stop laughing.
"So? What's so funny about picking out a stuffed animal
full of money when you win at Bingo?"
Evvie is beside herself. "You're babbling on about
winning a stuffed animal and they're burying Francie!"
"I just realized," I say through hiccuping sobs. "We've
been to so many funerals at Beth Israel Park Cemetery and we go to
bingo every week and I never realized it before. The cemetery is on the
same street as bingo."
Evvie starts to laugh, too. "If you go left you play, if
you go right you die."
Ida and Sophie are stone-faced. "I don't see what's funny
about that," Ida says, crossing her arms.
"You wouldn't," Evvie says.
By now my laughing has turned into sobbing. I bang my
fists on the steering wheel. I just can't stop. "Francie is dead!
Francie is dead and gone and we'll never see her again! And I can't
find the damned cemetery!"
Good old Bella joins in with me. She hasn't stopped
crying anyway, since she got in the car. Now her sobs escalate. A
moment later, Evvie is crying, too, and leaning her head on my
shoulder. And like falling dominos, Sophie and Ida grab onto one
another as they erupt into tears.
If anyone driving by looked in our windows, what a sight
they would see.
We all needed a cry. I finally compose myself. The others
pull themselves together. I check the map one more time.
"OK, now I've got my bearings. We are directly east on
Stirling Road. I know how to get there now. We're only about six blocks
away."
"Thank God," Bella says.
I make an illegal U-turn, ignoring the honking horns and
squealing brakes, and we are finally headed in the right direction.
We drive through the ornate cemetery gates, and I pull up
to the main information office. Evvie jumps out to get directions as
Ida yells for her to hurry. The rest of us climb out of the car and try
to stretch our aching muscles, at the same time peeling our sticky
clothes away from our bodies.
Evvie rushes out again waving at us a paper with a lot of
small black-and-white boxes on it.
"Oh, no," says Ida, "not another map."
"Come on, we have to follow it. Look for row twelve."
"Aren't we taking the car?" Sophie wants to know.
"It'll be faster if we cut across," Evvie shouts.
We all race after her as best we can.
"Cut across what?" Bella asks with trepidation.
"Across the stones."
Bella stops in her tracks. "You mean walk over all those
graves?" she says in horror, looking down at the seemingly endless rows
of flat stone markers. "With all the people I know under there?"
Now everyone has stopped.
"All right!" Evvie says, exasperated. "So, walk on the
grass around the stones."
"But they're still graves."
"Bella. Come on!" says Sophie.
"I can't. It's not right. I'll walk along the outside."
"Forget it," Ida says. "That'll take forever."
"Don't be ridiculous, Bella. You've been to plenty of
other funerals here and you walked on the stones," Evvie says.
"I don't remember that."
Evvie is moving briskly along. "Here's aisle twelve, now
we need to find plot two-eleven. . . ."
Ida grabs Bella by the hand and starts pulling her. Bella
digs her heels into the ground. But with one good yank, Ida dislodges
her. "One more word out of you and I'm throwing you into the next open
grave!"
We follow Evvie, moving briskly along. Except for Bella
who is trying to walk on her tiptoes and keeping up a litany of
Oh,
God
s.
Sophie keeps looking down at the grave markers. "Keep
your eyes open for six forty-two."
I ask why.
"Because I changed my plot. I wanted one with a corner
view and I wanna make sure I got it."
Bella utters a small screech.
"What is it now!?" Evvie calls without looking back.
"I've stepped on my cousin, Sarah! Oh, God . . ."
"Over there!" Sophie points. And sure enough, not thirty
feet away, I can see our neighbors and friends from Lanai Gardens. And
in an instant, I know this is not good news. They are not facing in the
right direction. They're turned away from the graveside. In fact, they
are all walking toward us.
We meet them halfway.
"Such a lovely service," says Mrs. Fein from Phase Three.
"How could you miss it?" asks Hy Binder.
"It was inspirational," says Lola.
"It's over?" Evvie says, totally dejected.
"By five minutes. Where were you girls?"
"Don't ask," says Ida.
I watch in misery as Francie's son, Jerry, and his wife,
Ilene, and the grandchildren pass by, heads down, unable to see or talk
to anyone. Denny is there, in a suit much too small for him, probably
the last suit his mother ever picked out for him. He is sobbing
uncontrollably. Harriet struggles as she pushes her mother's wheelchair
over the uneven ground. Irving, with the help of his pal, Sol, is
supporting Millie, who has no idea where she is or why. Tessie Hoffman
passes us muttering something about another death so soon after her
dear Selma. Enya, as always, walks alone. Even Conchetta and Barney
have taken time off from the library to pay their respects. I recognize
a few of our Canadians. And--no surprise--there's Leo Slezak with a few
of his cohorts from the Sunrise-Sunset Real Estate office. The Sleaze,
being what he is, is slowly sidling up to Francie's family, his hand in
the pocket where he keeps his damned cards.
Evvie looks at me and I look at her. We are despondent.
We nod and watch mutely as everyone passes us on the
path. We wait until every last person is gone and then the five of us
walk up the knoll and over to where Francie's casket sits on an
elevated hoist.
We stand there silent and bemused.
Bella looks to me for help. "Say good-bye," I tell her.
"How?" Without the rabbi, she doesn't know what to do.
"Any way you like, Bella, dear. She'll know."
And each of us in our own way quietly says our last words
to Francie.
"Thank you for always being nice to me," Bella says.
"I'll miss you," Sophie says, "especially your baking."
She stamps her formal black orthopedic sneakers, annoyed. "Oh, that's a
stupid thing to say. I don't know what to say to a dead person."
Ida turns away. She chokes up, shakes her head. For once
the words won't come. She picks up a stone and places it on the casket.
"Thank you for your friendship," Evvie says, sobbing.
"There will never be anyone like you again."
I can't speak. I silently tell my beloved friend what is
in my heart. What do I do now, Francie? You're the only reason I stayed
down here. Because we shared the same interests and laughed at all the
same things. Because we were intellectual snobs at heart and we knew we
really didn't belong down here, but going back was too hard, so we made
it work for both of us. Because we knew what the other was thinking
before we ever said it. Because home is where the person you love
resides. And that person was you and I no longer have a home--
"Glad?" Evvie interrupts my reverie. "Remember how I
first met Francie?"
I smile. None of can remember what we ate for breakfast,
but ask about the distant past, and it seems like only yesterday.
"I don't think I ever heard that story," says Ida.
"It was a couple of years before you got here."
"It was just after I arrived," I comment.
"I was here," Bella says, "but I forgot."
"So, tell us," says Sophie as she sits on the bench next
to the plot. Bella immediately joins her. Ida and I sit on the bench
opposite.
"Actually, we met Al first. It was twenty-five years ago,
when the buildings were new and people were first starting to move down
here. Millie and I are standing on the balcony with our laundry,
gossiping, when we see this nice-looking man walking up and down in
front of our building. He keeps walking, then he disappears around the
corner and then here he is again. Then a few minutes later, we see this
beautiful woman doing the same thing. We finally figure out they are
looking for each other, but keep missing each other. Soon, I hear him
calling 'Francie, where are you,' and then we hear, 'Al, where are
you?' Millie and I start laughing. Finally Millie can't stand it and
she calls down, 'Hey, Francie, if that's who you are, stand still!' She
is so surprised she stops in her tracks. A minute later Al appears and
they run to one another hugging and kissing. 'I thought I'd never see
you again,' he says.
"Everybody used to get lost at first. This place seemed
so big, and all the buildings looked exactly the same. But we all
became good friends after that."
We sit quietly for a few minutes. Behind us a half dozen
graceful flamingos meander by, unmindful of our presence. "That was a
nice story," Bella says.
"Now what?" a very subdued Ida asks. All of us stare at
this tiny piece of ground where Francie will stay forever. At least she
is with her beloved Al once again.
