THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT

by

Erin Marissa Russell

“ ‘He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all

faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken

it.’ Amen.” Brother Lawrence snaps his Bible shut and steps out from behind the podium. He takes a

deep breath.

He’s telling us this isn’t fair. God and Alexander Wolff and the rest of us just have to ride it out

until the apocalypse.

Kate drove me to the funeral, and now she won’t sit still. She’s texting someone on her phone,

digging for lotion in her purse and putting it on. The whole place is starting to smell like cucumber-

melon.

“Stop it,” I say, in the hiss-whisper I learned from my mom.

She rolls her eyes, writes on a slip of paper: You didn’t like him anyway.

I glare at her and snatch the pencil. It doesn’t matter. Behave yourself!

She puts the paper away, and scratches at her black pantyhose. It’s August in Texas, but we’re

all wearing pantyhose for Alexander Wolff.

I really didn’t like him anyway. When we were little, he poured a rubber glove full of Windex

over my head. The liquid rolled down into my eyes, and I thought I would go blind. An enormous

woman leaned me over the sink, held my eyelids open as the clear water rinsed the burning away.

He got me again in the ninth grade. The youth group had gone camping, although none of us

had a tent. I woke up smelling toothpaste. It was all over me, crusting in my clothes and burning my
skin. I don’t think Alex realized that the ants would come, but they had bitten me all over while I slept.

Even inside my throat.

The point is, this kid was no saint. He was just a sixteen-year-old terror that died of leukemia.

But you wouldn’t know it from his funeral. All 62 members of the church have turned out.

Alex’s mom is sitting up front. Just her boyfriend sits beside her. Someone bought her a new

dress, I think. It’s a black dress with a scalloped neckline. I’ve never seen her in clothes that really fit

her before. She keeps her hands folded in her lap, staring at the casket. Her hair is a brown tangle, like

always, and she isn‘t wearing any makeup.

At potluck dinners, my mom would always tell me what to avoid. Don’t eat the banana

pudding, Theresa Wolff brought it and you know she lives in those nasty little apartments. Steer clear of

the ham, who knows how many cats that Manning woman keeps in the kitchen. Only eat the brisket

with our name on the dish.

Mom and Dad and everyone else are listening and nodding like they know just what Brother

Lawrence means. The other kids from the youth group are all together on one row. The girls started

sniffling and sobbing before we even sat down, and by now they’re wailing.

Kate leans over, pointing to them with her chin. “They should be professional mourners. If I die,

I am hiring those girls to cry at my funeral.”

I widen my eyes and shush her.

I sneeze. It’s so loud, like a trumpet. Everyone stops for a second, even the wailers. Someone

behind me hands me a tissue.

I dig the paper out of Kate’s purse and write: Do you have an allergy pill? She nods. We are

both allergic to everything. Do you have water?

She stops, thinking. Cocking an eyebrow at me, she lifts a flask about an inch out of her purse. I

swat at her hand and put the flask back, but she just shrugs.

Now my eyes are watering and I’m sniffling from the carnations everywhere. It helps. Someone
might think I’m crying.

People start standing up, filing into neat lines to go look into the slick black casket.

“Hey,” I whisper to Kate. “Hey, do you want to leave?”

“You don’t want to look at him?” she asks. I shake my head. “Me neither.” She picks up her

purse, and we go to her car.

She’s driving us to the cemetery when I say, “Do you think he’s gone? Poof- like that?”

“Yeah,” she says, looking at me funny. “Yeah, Clara, when people die they are gone.”

“No, I know.” After a while I try again. “It’s just, it takes nine months to be born. How can it

take a second to die?”

“It didn’t take him a second to die, he had leukemia,” Kate says.

At the graveside ceremony, the youth minister tells a story about how when we went to visit

Alex at the hospital the last time, everyone was crying because he looked so awful. But Alex said he

felt fine. He stood up and did the Hokey Pokey to prove it, even with all the machines and cords

coming out of him. The minister says Alex had a wonderful spirit.

The ceremony ends, and Alex’s mom is standing to the side, still just staring, holding a

carnation from the top of his casket. She’s been crying this whole time, but you can’t see each tear run

down her cheek. They’re just big rivers, like the side of the street when it rains.

One of the girls starts singing, “You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out.” The

whole youth group joins in, and we’re doing this ridiculous dance over a person-sized hole in the

ground. They lower him down, and we shake it all about.

The adults are eyeing each other like they don’t know whether to stop us. Alex’s mom smiles

just a little. I think this is the first Baptist dancing funeral.

When we get to Kate’s car to go home, there’s a red carnation on my seat.

“Did you do this?” I ask. I inspect the flower like it might be bugged.

“I was with you the whole time,” she says.

 “Was the door locked?” I say.

“You just saw me unlock it,” she answers.

I get in the car and hold the flower up to my face. It doesn’t smell like anything. Riding home, I

run my thumb over the crumpled tissue-paper petals again and again. They’re cool and wet. I wonder if

it’s because flowers have water inside them.

I don’t know if I believe Kate, but I keep the carnation, drying it carefully upside-down in my

room. Sometimes I brush past it walking by, and petals crumble off. It takes twelve days to die.