the Pallbearers (2010) Read Online Free Page A
Author: Stephen - Scully 09 Cannell
made Jack go back to the store and stood there while he confessed to the manager, who was so impressed, he gave Jack a part-time job as a box boy.
"After that, I was stealing so much candy, I went into business selling it to the rest of you jerks in the rec center," he joked.
We laughed at the stories. I had no funny stories to add. Pop had saved me, but there was nothing humorous about it. He had done it by steadfastly looking past my anger and giving me support and counsel. So I kept quiet and listened. The service was a trip into the past. Happy memories--pure Walter Dix.
After the stories, Father Leary pulled down a screen and turned on a video projector. Shots of long-ago Christmas parties flickered on white acetate. Lots of little kids sitting around in the rec center while Pop, as Santa, handed out presents.
Then it was Easter-egg hunts on the old dirt athletic field, which I assumed was gone now because Pop had told me on my last visit years ago that it was being replaced with expensive rubberized turf. There were pictures of half a dozen Halloween parties over the years, with twenty or more kids dressed for trick-or-treating. Pop was leading the festivities, an unlikely surfing Elvis in a black wig, high - collared Hawaiian shirt, and board shorts. He was helping kids into the vans to be taken to the rich neighborhoods, where we always went because the candy was safer and more plentiful.
The video shots were cobbled together from years' and years' worth of these events. Some in the chapel were crying at the loss, some were leaning forward, trying to catch glimpses of themselves. In the video, Pop's hair and clothes changed with the years, but he never seemed to get any older. In all of them, he looked just as I remembered him--happy, full of energy, involved in making our lives more bearable. It was hard not to marvel at the energy he had put into us.
One thought kept bugging me. How could a man so devoted decide to go out into his backyard and blow his head off with a shotgun? How could Pop have done that?
Alexa must have sensed my mood because she took my hand and squeezed it. I looked over, trying to find myself in all this, trying to come out of it more or less the way I went in. But my betrayal, if that's what it was, kept weighing heavily on me, causing emptiness and reevaluation.
After the service, I got up from the pew and, along with my fellow pallbearers, grasped the chrome rails of the heavy mahogany coffin. We lifted it up off its stand and, while a young man with stringy blond surf hair played a mournful song on the harmonica, carried the flower-laden box slowly out of the crowded church, making our way down the stone path.
I was on the left front, across from the badly dressed Jack Straw in his frayed tank top. I was keeping my eyes up, trying to give Walt's last journey the respect that I'd foiled to provide during his life.
We stopped at the hearse, and under the instructions of the black - suited driver, Jack and I set the leading edge of the coffin into a chrome tray on rollers. We then stepped aside as the next two behind us pushed the box into the shiny, humpbacked black Cadillac. Seriana Cotton and Sabas Vargas pushed the back end of the coffin into the hearse and stood with the rest of us as the driver closed the door.
"That's it," Diamond said. "There's no graveside service, so we don't go to the cemetery." She handed each of us a slip of paper. A computer printed invitation that read:
Please join us in celebration of a magnificent) life.
"There's a reception following this back at Huntington House," she said. Then for some reason she turned to me and asked, "Do you need a map to find it?"
I didn't know if it was a cold shot or just a friendly question.
"I can find it," I said stiffly. "I lived there on and off for ten years."
I could see one or two others up by the steps also handing out invitations as the rest of the mourners left the church.
"See you there," Diamond said to
"After that, I was stealing so much candy, I went into business selling it to the rest of you jerks in the rec center," he joked.
We laughed at the stories. I had no funny stories to add. Pop had saved me, but there was nothing humorous about it. He had done it by steadfastly looking past my anger and giving me support and counsel. So I kept quiet and listened. The service was a trip into the past. Happy memories--pure Walter Dix.
After the stories, Father Leary pulled down a screen and turned on a video projector. Shots of long-ago Christmas parties flickered on white acetate. Lots of little kids sitting around in the rec center while Pop, as Santa, handed out presents.
Then it was Easter-egg hunts on the old dirt athletic field, which I assumed was gone now because Pop had told me on my last visit years ago that it was being replaced with expensive rubberized turf. There were pictures of half a dozen Halloween parties over the years, with twenty or more kids dressed for trick-or-treating. Pop was leading the festivities, an unlikely surfing Elvis in a black wig, high - collared Hawaiian shirt, and board shorts. He was helping kids into the vans to be taken to the rich neighborhoods, where we always went because the candy was safer and more plentiful.
The video shots were cobbled together from years' and years' worth of these events. Some in the chapel were crying at the loss, some were leaning forward, trying to catch glimpses of themselves. In the video, Pop's hair and clothes changed with the years, but he never seemed to get any older. In all of them, he looked just as I remembered him--happy, full of energy, involved in making our lives more bearable. It was hard not to marvel at the energy he had put into us.
One thought kept bugging me. How could a man so devoted decide to go out into his backyard and blow his head off with a shotgun? How could Pop have done that?
Alexa must have sensed my mood because she took my hand and squeezed it. I looked over, trying to find myself in all this, trying to come out of it more or less the way I went in. But my betrayal, if that's what it was, kept weighing heavily on me, causing emptiness and reevaluation.
After the service, I got up from the pew and, along with my fellow pallbearers, grasped the chrome rails of the heavy mahogany coffin. We lifted it up off its stand and, while a young man with stringy blond surf hair played a mournful song on the harmonica, carried the flower-laden box slowly out of the crowded church, making our way down the stone path.
I was on the left front, across from the badly dressed Jack Straw in his frayed tank top. I was keeping my eyes up, trying to give Walt's last journey the respect that I'd foiled to provide during his life.
We stopped at the hearse, and under the instructions of the black - suited driver, Jack and I set the leading edge of the coffin into a chrome tray on rollers. We then stepped aside as the next two behind us pushed the box into the shiny, humpbacked black Cadillac. Seriana Cotton and Sabas Vargas pushed the back end of the coffin into the hearse and stood with the rest of us as the driver closed the door.
"That's it," Diamond said. "There's no graveside service, so we don't go to the cemetery." She handed each of us a slip of paper. A computer printed invitation that read:
Please join us in celebration of a magnificent) life.
"There's a reception following this back at Huntington House," she said. Then for some reason she turned to me and asked, "Do you need a map to find it?"
I didn't know if it was a cold shot or just a friendly question.
"I can find it," I said stiffly. "I lived there on and off for ten years."
I could see one or two others up by the steps also handing out invitations as the rest of the mourners left the church.
"See you there," Diamond said to
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