Page 179 of Beneath the Stain
It was a damned weird-looking arrangement, and it took up the entire empty coffin.
And it made Trav smile. God, it wasn’t perfect or ordinary, but it was definitely his people. And it was showy, and that was important, because this wasn’t the real funeral—not for Trav’s guys. This was a performance piece, a play, and they’d even practiced a little, taking turns saying the shit they most wanted off their chest about Grant Adams and, by association, the town that had twisted them all.
Mackey brought his guitar, and grinned at Grant’s parents and Samantha, who glared back. The baby was there, struggling to crawl out of Samantha’s arms, and Ms. Sanders was on that like white on rice.
“Can I take her?” she said, smiling into Samantha’s eyes. “I’ll just let her wander over here while Mackey talks. It’s not fun for a baby.”
Samantha simply gave her over, and Mackey’s mom smiled her son’s smile, but untainted by bitterness or guile. “Thank you! It’s lovely to hold a baby. It’s been so long.”
Trav watched the way Samantha looked after the two of them, and then looked over at her parents. He thought that maybe there would be more healing to happen—but that, please God, he and Mackey wouldn’t have to be there for any of it.
Mackey looked around at the crowd—the guys from Grant’s dad’s dealership, what looked to be Grant’s relatives including his mostly absent sister, all sitting down in the ordered chairs and looking solemn, and Samantha and her mother and father—and then looked at his phone for the time.
“We about ready?” he asked, tuning idly, and Kell, Jefferson, and Stevie shook their heads.
“You’re doing all the hard shit, Mackey,” Kell answered, getting his own guitar out of the case. “Areyouready?”
“If you drop the fucking song, Kell, I will throw you into the big hole.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. Grant didn’t make this easy on you.”
Mackey rolled his eyes. “God, ain’t that the truth. Didn’t make it easy on any of us. Okay, everyone. Whether you’re ready for this or not, here goes.” He swung to the assembly without ceremony or reverence, and Trav wondered if everyone was as surprised by Grant’s edict as he was.Tell the truth. Tell it unvarnished. Be pissed off if you want. And sing something angry. This isn’t the real ceremony. That’s private. This is the rock star show. It’s all the public needs to know.
“Grant Adams,” Mackey said, and then paused like he was choosing his words. He said Grant’s name again, licked his lips, and then, like a cannonball, he was off.
“Grant Adams asked me and my brothers to talk at his funeral. You may notice we’re burying an empty casket, which I think is weird and Kell thinks is fucking hilarious, and you’re welcome to think what you like, but it’s what we’re doing. See, Grant Adams and I….” He took a deep breath and met Trav’s eyes. Whatever he saw in Trav’s eyes must have given him strength, because he kept going.
“Grant Adams and I were in love for five years. We wereloversfor five years. And we kept that from everybody—from his parents, from his girlfriend, from my brothers. And he let me go, at first because he was afraid of what would happen if he came out and told the world about us, and then because his girlfriend lied and said she was knocked up, because she knew it would keep him here.”
Samantha gasped and Mackey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, don’t nobody think I can do math or anything. Grant neither. We knew. We figured it out. It was a shitty thing to do, but Grant loved that baby, so he forgave you for it. Don’t worry. Anyway, my boyfriend and my brother’s best friend felt like none of you knew him. You knew what youthoughtwas him. The good boy who stayed home when he wanted to fly, the nice husband, the good father, and maybe he was partly those things—but that was just the outside. That’s what you get to bury. Kell?”
Mackey’s delivery had been sarcastic and aggressive, and Kell’s was not much better.
“We’re going to take his ashes to the San Francisco Bay and we’re going to throw them in. He’s got a boat, and a trust, and a whole thing worked out. Me and my brothers are going to see it, and we’re going to ride on the ferry, which he told us was hella fun, and we’re going to eat fried donuts at the pier and buy all sorts of shit we don’t need and ship it up here to his daughter. He told me once that some of his happiest moments had been in San Francisco. I didn’t know then that those were when he was sneaking away to bang my brother silly, but now that I know, I figured you all have to live with that information too. Itshouldmake you happy that he got some happy, and if it does, then you can count yourself as someone my best friend—my brother—really loved. If it doesn’t, I’m going to let you live with that, because it should, and yes, I think it makes you a bad person if you think worse of the dead because he stole him some happy.”
“Grant wanted us to sing a nice song and all,” Jefferson said, picking up the thread. Even in rehearsals they’d gotten good at picking up the thread when the last person dropped it. Which might come in handy, especially if the crowd turned ugly. “But not here. He wants my brother to play their love song, which I don’t know if Mackey will ever be able to sing again after he does that, so it’s a big deal—but Grant doesn’t want that here. He wants that on the ferry, and I’m sort of looking forward to that. What he wants here is an old Eric Burdon song that I think every garage band in the history of ever has played. Which is awesome. I wish Grant had played this when we were in high school. This would have been a very different thing.”
“And by the way,” Stevie said, taking his part. That small, subversive smile that he got when he was about to do something evil had crept up. “I know a lot of you are out there judging us, judging this dog and pony show, judging how pissed off we sound and how we’re saving the sweetness for ourselves and not sharing. You all ask yourself this. Can I get a show of hands for how many people knew my father was a douche bag who liked to watch little boys undress and touch their asses and beat off while they watched?”
Trav opened his eyes really wide and looked out at the crowd in disbelief.Thishad not been in rehearsal.
To his horror, about half the crowd looked shocked. And the other half looked uncomfortable and guilty. Fucking Jesus, was he ready to get out of this town.
“Yeah,” Stevie said, angry. “I sort of thought so. So those of you judging us, you go ahead and judge yourselves, okay? I got no more apologies to make to you people, and neither do my brothers. Blake, you got anything to say?”
Blake glared out at the little group of people and grinned at the few news cameras that had been sent to cover a quiet funeral attended by a rock band.
“Yeah, all. Whoever fucks with my brothers ain’t worthy. Grant Adams was my brother too. We’re going to let you to your little funeral, the one with the preacher and the service and the empty casket and all, but we’ve got to catch a flight to Sausalito in an hour so we can go have a day at the pier. You ready, Mackey?”
Mackey grinned at them and screamed out, “But Baby—”
“Baby—”
“Remember—”
“Remember—”
“It’s my life, and I’ll do what I want—”
