Page 86 of Absinthe Dreams
To Chainsaw’s credit, he let me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Chainsaw…
The hearse pulled up outside of Landry’s, and we stood to either side, all the guys, to let it pass between us. When it came to a stop, Saint was the one to open the back of the hearse’s door.
Cypress’s sleek black casket with silver and chrome embellishments was sohim. A giant mound of crimson roses adorning it, with sprays of white baby’s breath peeking out between the blossoms, and deep green foliage was a classy and elegant touch.
The cops wouldn’t give us back his cut. It was evidence, they said, and we’d fought the good fight, but we’d lost. We had a new one made up with all the patches that Cy had earned throughout his time with the brotherhood. He wore it under the shiny black carapace of his casket as we lined up, LaCroix, Hex, and Saint on one side. Bennie, Axe, and I, on the other to carry Cy into his last party and final send-off with the club.
It didn’t feel right, not doing it at the club, but at the same time, it was perfect doing things here at Landry’s.
We carried his casket into the building through the front door, and put it up on the stand the funeral home had suppliedand set up on the stage at one end of the dance floor for us. A smaller, temporary stage had been set up on the other end, tables and chairs moved out so that the live zydeco band could play.
It’s what Cypress had wanted. Good food, good beer, his favorite live music from his homies back in the swamp. A good time. Some real live, laugh, love shit, the sentimental bastard.
It was a closed casket. It needed to be. There wasn’t enough left of his face for anyone to look at.
We got him set, we backed off, and LaCroix, as our president, was supposed to say some words. We stood, all of us silent and at a loss for words ourselves, waiting… but nothing came.
Just that awful silence and pervasive sense of deep loss that we would feel for the rest of our fucking lives.
Someone coughed, and it seemed to rouse our pres out of whatever deep thoughts he’d been lost in.
“I ain’t got shit to say,” LaCroix said finally, putting his hand against the casket. He looked to Hex, who did the same, just put his hand against the casket, and shook his head. I stepped up and put my hand on it, eyes misting and growing wet. Saint came next, tears tracking down his cheeks. Bennie sniffed and laid his hand against the wood. He wasn’t spilling over like Saint, but he wasn’t exactly dry-eyed either.
Axe put his hand against the casket last, after Collier, and I looked to him. His face was as stoic and closed down as I had ever seen it, but then again? He didn’t feel like the rest of us, and by “us” I meant the rest of humanity. While he didn’t carry anyofficialdiagnosis, something sure wasn’t right with him, but none of us cared. He was one of us. Reliable, dependable, and good for anything. We wouldn’t have him any other way.
I closed my eyes and bowed my head and felt a hand at the back of my shoulder as Genesis came up behind me, to comfort me. In an echo of us, the women of the club touched their menthe way we laid our hands on the box that held our brother, and it did something.
It was as though some magic spell was cast, and it bound all of us. Ever tighter, ever closer, and while I didn’t know where she’d come from, or who she was, a slight woman stood behind Axe, her hand on his shoulder, the way Genesis’s hand was on me.
“Somebody play some fuckin’ music or something, and get this party started,” LaCroix ordered, and a cheer went up among all present, which was a fair few. Not only were we here as Cypress’s club and brothers, we’d opened up the wake to everyone in Cy’s life, and everyone had shown up.
I turned, letting my hand drop last from his casket, and wrapped Genesis up in my arms as she wrapped her arms around me. We stood in the midst of the partygoers, friends, family, cousins and sisters, as well as club brothers and his brothers in the Cajun Navy. Fellow gator fishers and the staff at Landry’s, who were all here even though the majority of them had been given the day off.
The place was packed, the food was going out onto the banquet table that’d been set up, and already there were a couple of couples on the dance floor, cuttin’ up to the band’s lively music.
Cypress would have been proud.
I towed Genesis in her little back dress that was somewhere between funeral appropriate andJesus Christ,she gave me a boner, over to the line of buffet to get her something to eat. I guided her in front of me, with a hand to her lower back, and put a plate in her hands.
Bennie fell in behind me, with Sandy behind him, and asked me, “Axe have a lady?”
I scanned the room and found my friend with the little lady in his lap, his arms loose around her slender waist as she pressedher forehead to his and cupped his face. She was murmuring something, and Axe looked… at peace, and content. His eyes closed as he soaked up every word she spoke.
“Looks like it,” I said.
“Did you know?” Bennie asked, and I frowned and lifted a shoulder in a shrug.
“Axe doesn’t tell meeverything, man. To answer your question, no, I didn’t know, and yeah, it bothers me a little bit that I didn’t.”
But it was Axeman, and out of all of us, he held his secrets close to his vest and was the most private. He’d been quieter than usual the last several months about his activities outside the club, but I hadn’t really thought anything of it. Axe always tended to get quiet when the shit was getting deep. Still, if he was with a girl, maybe it was the smarter play, keeping her outside all of this shit.
I looked to Genesis, who was softly smiling, but in a sad way, quietly contemplative as she picked at the offerings and loaded up her plate with enough that it would likely keep me from fussing at her.
I felt like, in that moment, I had let her down by bringing her into the fold as fast as I had. That I’d taken for granted her previous exposure to the life, and had handed her too much all at once, you know?
