2010-01-06 - 2:15 p.m.
Just back from a funeral. It was for my friend's dad. He was 70. He died of a heart attack. My friend is pretty, and small, and so I'd known her dad was small. I'd met him once, maybe eight years ago. But I didn't know he was this small, as small as he was up there in that casket, that small, round, dark face in that big suit. Alis talked about her dad sometimes, how he worked two jobs--one at the Holiday Inn and the other at a 7-Eleven--but she never talked about her mom, or when she did, it was to say she was maybe going crazy.
They did a full service at the little Episcopalian church where Alis went as a girl. I caught a ride with my friend, Tommy, to the George Washington Cemetery. The pond was frozen. The wind whipped hair, turned my ears numb. If everyone else hadn't been Indian, their noses would've been red. It was the kind of cold wind, wind, I'd imagine, that's from the Arctic and then Canada and then the Great Plains and then Chicago and then here, wind with some meanness in its teeth, wind that, when it hits you square in the open mouth, makes it hard to breathe.
We drove to another little church, a newer one, a Seventh-Day Adventist church, for the reception. The ladies had brought in lots of Indian food: curries and stews and something like cole slaw and three different dishes in which hard-boiled eggs were the main ingredient. We ate and it was good seeing everyone from college: Alis, Tommy, three or four others, and Deb, the girl I once thought I'd marry and make babies with. She just got married, a few months ago, to a guy with a Jewish name. She lives in Brooklyn. I overheard her telling someone that she doesn't drink, because he doesn't. She's still pretty, will always be pretty, laughs a lot, and will always fit very well in my arms, when I hug her.
The drive back was long, and sad, and my truck's making slight thumping noises when I take it too fast and the wind was blowing so hard that it felt like it was trying to knock me off the highway altogether.
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