Hallelujah Ch. 09

The podium wobbles a little as I reach out to grip it. It's made of compressed wood, a dark and somber shade of brown, and from afar it looks nice and mournful. But now that I'm right next to it I can see that one of the casters is either loose or broken, and the whole thing is just waiting for someone to lean on it wrong and send it crashing to the ground. I adjust my grip to prevent both the wobbling and its accompanying squeak. It occurs to me that this is exactly how the bored-looking priest placed his hands when he was up here. Now I get it.

Even in this small room, the collected crowd looks abysmal. The aforementioned priest is seated, now, having delivered his churchy service. There are four old women and two old men from the home, none dressed in black, all seated near the door. I vaguely recognize two of them, but Grandpa never introduced me to any of them or gave me any reason to assume they were friends. I imagine they're here by way of karma. If they go to their comrades' funerals, they probably tell themselves, then maybe somebody will come to theirs. Even at my age, the idea of an empty funeral feels depressing. For someone who is staring down the face of death...

For the most part, they watch the ground examine the walls, stoically ignoring any possible significance this setting might have for them.

Besides them, there are three nurses who Grandpa must have made an impression on, myself, and Jasmine. One of those nurses is a fat large-breasted thing of maybe twenty-seven. Turns out she was my 'Mrs. Claus,' and I'm glad I don't take any pride in my age guessing skills...I would have been off by twenty years or more. Something about that voice sounds so warm and safe throws me off. It must be all the empathy and grandmotherly calm.

She was a little more persistent than most in offering condolences. "He was so proud of you," she said over and over again as she constantly sought ways to make physical contact. "I've never seen anything like it." She reached out a fat hand and rubbed my arm.

"I never knew," I admitted at last. "He never said much, or asked much, about my career. I guess I assumed he was proud, but it's nice to hear it."

She blinked at me. "What do you do?"

"He never told you?"

She squinted, like she was thinking really hard about that one. Her hand came up, and I was afraid I was going to get sweaty-palmed again, but she only stroked her chin. "No. No, I don't recall him ever talking about a job, or anything like that."

I didn't expect that. "Then what was he proud of?" I asked.

She mirrored the same flabbergasted face right back at me. "Why, YOU, dear. Mr. Cooper was always telling us about YOU, and what kind of wonderful you were." By that point she was looking at me like maybe she was reevaluating Grandpa's assessment. "He seemed to think you could do anything in the world that you wanted to do. I don't think he worried too much about what you chose, because no matter what it was he knew you could do it." I couldn't think of anything to say to that. It didn't take her long to excuse herself and go sit and talk quietly with the other nurses.

Jasmine overheard. I know she did. But she didn't say anything to me about it, except to ask me how I was doing the next time I went by her.

I initially didn't want her to come up for this. I felt like what I needed was more space, more distance, not less. Having Jasmine Knox around me is clearly not conducive to good decision-making or wizened thinking. But Grandpa Cooper was a part of her life, too, and it seemed rude to deny her the chance to pay her respects. They'd always gotten along well, bonding pretty strongly while we were together. He made her laugh, and to an old man getting a beautiful girl to giggle has to be a marvelous sensation. I assume it's the equivalent of when you had that wonderfully-breasted third grade teacher who never really caught on that third grade boys like boobs too, and who would lean over you from behind so that you could feel their glorious weight brush your shoulder and arm. You know, somewhere between innocent and "This sure kicks ass." That kind of feeling. And if she hadn't seen him in the last six years, I knew that he was still a part of her past that had mattered to her and was now gone. She had every right to say goodbye.

Still, in spite of how completely alone (and therefore lonely) Grandpa's passing has made me feel, I refused to travel up here with her. If we were going, we were going separately. Jasmine thought that just seemed stubbornly stupid, especially when she could get us both airline tickets and all I could afford was to drive up. I was almost inclined to agree when I got halfway from Nashville to New York, but I'm glad I did it. I needed the time to think. And, since Buck was willing to lend me the money for gas, it was an opportunity worth taking. I think he was a bit relieved to have us away for awhile, after having to be on AJ patrol for half a week.

Whether I wanted her here or now, Jasmine's been something of a godsend. She helped arrange the funeral. She contacted Bennie and left a message with John Kennedy regarding Grandpa's passing. This was probably unnecessary; I'm sure both of them had already been informed by Teddy Fields that I was no longer welcome to work with his band. She took a plane, insisting that if I wouldn't do the same then she was at least paying for the motel rooms. I let that happen, under the condition that we stay in separate places. I got another "you're being a stubborn jackass" look, but no argument. Even a woman has a hard time lecturing a man when he's grieving.

She's also been smart enough to maintain a certain distance. I don't know if she understands why, fully...maybe she figures it has to do with AJ's appearance, or maybe she thinks I'm moody because I lost my job and my grandfather...but she recognizes that it's important to me to stay away from her for the time being.

Up until now, I think the whole funeral has been a bit of a joke. Funerals and weddings have one thing in common: you let the church in and suddenly the first two-thirds of the ceremony have nothing to do with you. They are completely interchangeable from person to person. Here we are mourning an individual, someone who stood out from the crowd and who did their own thing, and there's nothing individualized or unique about the first forty minutes of sermon. Lots of talk about God, hardly anything about August Cooper. No surprise there, really...that's just the way it is...but I'm glad I insisted on saying a few words near the end. If I hadn't, we might as well have just all gone to church on Sunday.

Standing up here now, looking down at a poorly mixed handful of strangers, I wonder what the fuck the point even is. One of the nurses looks at her watch. The old man seated nearest the door quietly makes his exit. Even the priest seems distracted. The only person who really cares that August Cooper is never coming back is me. I take a deep breath.

Let me eulogize my grandfather, so that none may hear.

"After my mother died," I say, to no one, "my grandfather started to occasionally refer to me as 'son.' Not often, at first, but as the years passed he did it more and more. Sometimes, not always, he would correct himself after, without apology or embarrassment. I always assumed it was a slip of the tongue." I can't help but smile a little bit as I continue. "You know what? I can't think of one other time, or of one other scenario, where he slipped and used any word other than the one he intended to use. Not one. If he couldn't remember a name, or how a story ended, he would simply stop. If it took him four minutes to find the right word, the word he was looking for, then he would take those four minutes to think. He always had the time for the right word." I find myself looking at the fat nurse. "August Cooper was careful with his words. If he omitted something, it was intentional. If he told the same story over and over again...it's because he believed it was worth the telling. I think he knew, as some people instinctively know and as others never learn, that the words are important. Even more important than the story." I'm getting choked up, now, and I can feel my smile fade. "My grandfather didn't call me son by mistake. He didn't call me son as a way of mourning, or hiding the loss of, his own child. And he didn't call me son as a casual term of endearment. My grandfather, in his own gentle way, wanted to make sure that I knew how much I meant to him. He wanted me to know that, even if I only had the one person left in this world, it was someone who loved me unconditionally and who would be there for me." I have to pause for a moment to regain control. One stray tear tickles my cheek, and for some reason it embarrasses me. Where will I cry, if not at a funeral? I look down at Jasmine, and she has a matching tear on her own cheek. "When my dad died, it hurt. He didn't deserve the way his life had been torn apart in the last years before his death, and it still makes me sad to think of where he was when he passed. It makes me sad to think that I was a small part of that. But I learned to cope with my feelings, and in some ways as time passed I got over the loss. When my mother died, it hurt even more...not because I loved her more, or because she was more important to me, but because this time I didn't have a parent to lean on as I grieved. And yet August Cooper was there, and Jasmine Jones was there. They were there for me. And again, with time, I learned to live with the loss. This, somehow, seems worse. This time, I'm not sure..." my throat catches, and I can't speak. I look out at these people, some of them now watching me carefully. Fat nurse wipes at her eyes, and I don't want to be here. I can't be here.

I have to get out.

I do my best to maintain some semblance of self-control, at least enough that I'm able to wave my hand apologetically and step down from the podium with quiet grace. I walk slowly, calmly down the aisle, not running or weeping or even hurrying, and only when I'm outside do I begin to speed up.

Across the street from the funeral home is a diner. I go in, take a booth in the corner, and order coffee. Jasmine never shows up, which is good. After a few hours, I pay my tab and leave. The home is closed and my car is the only one left in the lot.

I pull my jacket tight against the chilly wind.

Goodbye, Grandpa.

-

I spend most of the rest of the day in my hotel room. I don't have anywhere I really want to go, or anyone I really want to see, although I know that laying around feeling sorry isn't helping me. If I could get up, if I could move beyond, then I would. But I have no inertia, and that's just what it is.

Jacob Currie. Currie. I run the name over and over in my head. But it's not the name, it's the people. My mother and father, their parents...all the things that made them of this world. It's all gone, except for what little remains in me. And those remains are likely to vanish, too. There are no little Jake Curries running around anywhere, and I wonder if there ever will be. I'm going to be thirty-two soon, and I haven't even met the right woman yet. Or maybe I have, and I never gave her a chance because I wasn't prepared to do so. Or maybe I met her, and she got away.

There is something of August Cooper in me, and it feels special enough that it should be preserved. It feels like the most valuable thing I have to offer this world. For the first time in my life, the idea of looking down at the round, cherubic face of a child bearing my name seems overwhelmingly beautiful. It seems like something to want. Something to need.

I'd never really thought hard about the idea before. I guess I always felt an undercurrent of certainty that I would not make a very good father. My own parents were such a mess by the end, and I feel like I share their stumbling ways more than my grandfather's calm and timeless wisdom. I just always thought I had to wait until I had my shit together, and that if that never happened then it was okay to not father a child. Now I'm wondering if that was a mistake.

How could it be, though, if I had no one to start my family with?

It's getting late when a knock on the door pulls me out of my meditation. It's Jasmine, and she has McDonalds.

"I was worried that you might not have eaten," she says.

"I haven't," I admit. "Thank you."

She looks up at me, sad empathy in her eyes, and she looks beautiful. She's changed clothes, donning that peasant skirt that looks so nice on her, and has only the lightest touch of make-up on. "Can I come in?" she asks.

Jacob Currie. Currie.

"Yes."

We sit silently next to each other on the bed and eat our hamburgers. "That was sweet, what you said today," she says when we've finished.

"No it wasn't."

"It was." She turns to me, and I notice that she smells good. "Thank you for letting me come. And for..." she bites her lip, staring at me, and I turn to look at her.

She kisses me. Again, almost without passion or lust. She simply pushes her lips to mine and holds them there. Her hand comes up and touches my cheek through my beard. And suddenly all I can feel is that this is someone who I am close to, who has mattered to me and who matters to me now. I kiss her back, pushing forward so that she lies back on the bed. I follow, crouching over her.

We finish the kiss and I pull back just enough to look down into her eyes. She smiles up at me and strokes my cheek. "Please," she says softly.

We kiss again, and I feel drunk. Her hand is fumbling with my belt buckle, and then my zipper. She pushes my pants down and hikes her skirt up. Another kiss, and I pull her underwear off of her.

There's no more foreplay than that, no real sensuality at all. There's just the driving need to be together, but it's enough. She's soaking as I slide into her. She gasps and pulls at my back. I can hardly breathe. We're moving together, pushing our bodies up against each other, but it's happening to somebody else. Or it's happening to all of me. I can't tell which.

She cries out, and I can see a tear on her cheek. I am more aware of my orgasm in the abstract than from any real sense of pleasure. We share another long kiss.

I stay there, above her, for a long time afterward. She cries for a while, whispering "thank you" through the sobs, and I don't know what to say. After a while we climb under the covers and hold each other. It's so intoxicating, I don't know how I could ever want anything else.

"Good night," she says softly into my neck.

"Good night," I whisper back. And I sleep very, very well.

-

The next morning is surprisingly easy, and after showering we walk across the street to get some breakfast. The conversation is light and flowing, and neither of us is trying to test the other to see what all this means. The wind is gone and, in spite of the late season, its sunny and warm outside.

"Your flight leaves tomorrow morning, right?" I ask as we finish up.

"It does." She dabs at her lips with a napkin. "Were you planning on leaving right away? It's a long drive."

"I don't mind that. The drive is kind of nice. I was actually wondering how you planned on spending your day."

"Shopping, I suppose. There's an outdoor mall not too far from here, and a larger shopping plaza up the road from that. Why?"

I shrug. "Thought I might join you, if you don't mind."

She looks like she wants to jump across the table and hug me. "Of course I don't mind!"

We spend the day going from store to store. I'd forgotten, but shopping was never a painful experience with Jasmine. The outdoor mall has a craft fair set up in the parking lot, and most of the items are either worth talking about for how neat they are or worth making fun of for what pieces of shit they are. We laugh and kid and eat well, and even hold hands for a little bit as the sun starts to dip down. It's almost seven by the time I pull into the lot at her hotel.

"Are you..." she gives me a hopeful look, "...are you staying?"

I take a deep breath. It's tempting. "No," I say. "I've got a lot to think about, and night driving is good for that."

"You're not too tired to drive?"

"I've got enough money for a stopover somewhere, but no. I'll just get a coffee and see if I can't make it home in one rush."

She smiles. "You'll spend all night listening to music, I suppose."

I shake my head. "No. That doesn't really appeal to me right now."

"It doesn't?" She raises her eyebrows. "Who are you?!"

We both laugh. "Good question. You sleep well, okay?" I lean over and kiss her. She tastes like lip gloss. "I'll see you in Nashville."

"See you there." She seems to want to say something more, but she doesn't. I'm glad. Instead, she just climbs out of the car and shuts the door. Once she's gotten her packages out of the back seat, she gives me a wave through the window and steps back. I return the gesture and drive on. Looking in the rear view, I can see her watching me pull away.

I look down at the IPod, sitting in the cupholder. 'Who are you?' she'd asked. Makes me think of the Tom Waits song. One of the finest bits of songwriting I've ever...

And there I go again.

I don't need music trivia or one-liners from other people's songs right now. I need silence, and focus.

As I come up the on-ramp onto the interstate, I roll down the window and throw the IPod out, as hard as I can. It bounces on the concrete and ends up lying lonely in the dirt. I roll the window up and start over.

'Who are you?' she'd asked...

-

It takes about thirteen hours in a car to go from the lower New York area to Nashville, Tennessee. Plenty of time to reassess pretty much every single thing going on in my life. Fueled by a steady intake of coffee and a sense that my arrival home marks some sort of significant deadline, I drive the whole way without stopping to do more than pee, get food, or caffeine up.

The list of questions I face is so impossibly endless and all-encompasses that I almost feel as if there's no starting point. I have no single tract where I can plant my flag and say, "Here. This is the one thing that will remain true. Everything else must be build around it." Literally every tiny bit of who and what I am feels worth questioning. And as hard as that is...it feels right. It feels like I'm asking questions that I should have asked a long time ago.

Still, as important as it may or may not be, it's an arduous process. I keep running into some question or feeling that forces me to start over. I keep going back to that question. Who am I? Somewhere around Buchanan, Virginia it starts to feel like pieces are falling into place. It's like I'm building a puzzle...the more sections I can find a home for, the clearer the big picture becomes. Only this puzzle is three dimensional. And it has a billion pieces.

And like any puzzle, there's one magic piece that seems to clear everything up. Once that one piece has found its home, everything becomes clearer. By the time I leave Virginia, that piece is in place. Somewhere around the border, I realize something about myself that helps me understand everything. I mean EVERYthing. I know, for the first time, exactly what the problems are and exactly what solutions need to be applied in order to fix them.

And I know that I can apply them.

It's just after ten in the morning when I pull into the parking lot. My stomach hurts from too much greasy food and coffee. I'm buzzed and exhausted in nearly equal measure. My back thinks its fifty years old. Jasmine isn't here yet...her flight lands at ten thirty...so I piss in the sink. Then I lie down and pass out.

-

"Jake. Jake, I know you're tired. I think you need to get up."

Soft, small female fingers run through my hair, and I feel the warm breath on the back of my neck right before she kisses me there.