Black Hair Ribbons

            James was standing at the back of the funeral crowd thinking that it might be time again for a haircut. His bangs had started to get caught in his eyebrows. He could tell that the back of his head was getting frizzy from the day’s humidity. The sun had come out from behind the clouds somewhere toward the end of the service and the misting rain had stopped. He didn’t need an umbrella, which was good since he had left his on the floorboard of his Plymouth. He tugged at the neck of his shirt, and unfastened the top button beneath his tie—the shirt was one that he had dredged from the back of the closet at his mom’s house. James had been on one of his rare visits home when his Uncle Gary had suddenly died. He got a text from his sister around lunchtime asking James if he could stick around town for the funeral.

How could James have known he would need a funeral outfit? The shirt he borrowed was just a little bit too small for him, and it clung to his skin, absorbing sweat. James’s father—now five years divorced from James’s mother—had brought a sports jacket for James to wear; it was a size too big and made James feel like he was wearing a costume. He felt like an idiot for staying—he’d cancelled a meeting with a client, and he always hated the excuse that a loved one had died.

            It wasn’t his first funeral, so he knew what to expect. His left pocket was shoved half-full with breath mints. His right had a small pack of tissues—not for him, but to be offered to other people. James felt that it was unlikely he would cry at this funeral. The inside pocket of his jacket held his Denman-Professional hair comb. In his back pocket was the small aluminum case that held his business cards. He was proud of these cards and what they advertized because they said that James had achieved something in life and that he had managed to escape the small town of Goodview, where he had grown up. Some days, when he thought of home, he would pull out his business cards and read “JAMES EDWARD THOMPSON, ARBORTOWN INSURANCE AGENT” and he would remember that he was still going to go somewhere in the world. He carried those cards with him all the time because, as he often said, he never knew when he might need one.

            James stood at the back of the crowd. He couldn’t hear the preacher, but he could see everything. A towel had been passed around to dry off the aluminum folding chairs set out for the mourners, but by the time it had reached James, it was saturated; James stood behind his chair. He recognized a few people in the crowd, but was slightly surprised at how many he did not recognize. He was sure they were family—who else would come to his Uncle Gary’s funeral? Some faces he half-recognized from family reunions, Christmases, and Easters, but the rest were people he had just met at the open-casket viewing.

***

            The open casket service was held earlier that day at a small Baptist church at the end of Main. The parking lot was small, so many of the guests’ cars had spilled into neighboring parking lots. James had parked across the street at a small diner that his parents had taken him and his sister to on parade days. The funeral home was beside the church. Convenient, James thought. Good for business. There was a misting of rain, so most of the guests had huddled together under umbrellas on their way into the building. James had left his in the car.

            At the viewing, the church had been packed with people milling about, looking lost. Greetings were whispered, accompanied with a wish that they were meeting under different circumstances. A few people sat in pews, but most stood. James remembered lurching forward with the crowd glance at his uncle’s corpse. James’s cousin Kate was standing by the casket, being hugged. James gave Kate a hug. It had been ten years since James had last seen her. She was a tall, thin girl now. Her black dress hung loose on her arms and James smelled alcohol mixed with perfume.

James had had his first kiss with her when they were kids. “Look at what Daddy taught me.” She had pulled James beneath one of the tables draped with fabric at a reunion and parted his lips with hers. He had liked it—it was foreign, new, and he had seen his parents kiss a few times before his dad moved away. James and Kate had had a romance during that family weekend, but it didn’t survive. James never let himself think that Kate’s dad, his dead uncle Gary, had taught her to kiss, but now he couldn’t help thinking of what it had meant. It made James feel nauseous. More than anything else about the funeral, James hated that the people were here to hypocritically honor this horrible man, and everyone knew so.

As they grew up, Kate became a source of family gossip. She had run away from home once or twice, but just down to a neighbor’s or a friend’s place. She got caught in a large cheating scandal during her high school SOL tests and dropped out because of it. The gossip didn’t really get bad until she ran off and got married to a city boy from DC. In the midst of the gossip, it somehow got out that Gary had been investigated for having relations with his daughter. It was never proven, but James knew, and everyone else knew as well.

            James never liked Kate’s dad. His casket was made of cheap oak with a cushioned white interior. Gary had once attempted to hike across Blue Ridge, he told James. He’d once gone swimming with sharks, but James didn’t believe him. He used to own a business, one time. James had been unimpressed, and was still unimpressed by the dead man. Gary’s face was plastered with makeup to make him look more alive. Gary’s suit fit better than James’ did, James noticed. James smiled, amused that his uncle Gary looked better in death than he ever had before.

            James stepped away to allow his great aunt Gertrude—or maybe it was Greta?—to stare at the corpse. The line of gawkers had moved into an empty side room filled with tables of tiny sandwiches that came from the diner across the street. Quite a little operation they have here. James grabbed a cucumber sandwich and walked to the back of the room. The service was about to start, so James fixed his hair in a hall mirror before sitting in the rear pew.

            James’s sister Meghan was already there with her son, Gavin, who was playing a hand-held video game with the volume turned up just loud enough to be annoying.

            “So Mom didn’t make it then?” Meghan’s hair was pulled back with a black scrunchie, but a few strands were stubbornly jutting out to the side. James handed her his comb.

            “Not her brother. Not her problem. You know how she can be. She sends her best.” James took the comb back from his sister and pulled a few hairs from the teeth before slipping it back into his breast pocket. Their mother had estranged herself from their father’s side of the family after the divorce.

            Meghan nodded. “Gavin. I said save your game and put it away.”

            Gavin looked up from the game. “But Ma-ahm!” Meghan gave the boy a look again and held out her hand. He kept playing, and Meghan took her hand back.

            Meghan looked back at James. “I am surprised that you and dad are here, at the same time. You two can barely occupy the same space without fighting.” Meghan looked toward the front pew. Their father was in the front row, sitting next to Kate. Gary was his brother, after all. Meghan would never bring it up to James, but the reason their parents divorced was because their father had thought James was too effeminate as a boy, and so their father had mistreated James. Meghan admired her mother for kicking their father out of the house, but she didn’t want James to think it was all his fault.

Before James had come out in high school, he and his dad had been fighting. Since the divorce, James rarely saw his dad, except during an obligatory family function, and even then they would either ignore each other, or start arguing. Even at the funeral, the only exchange between the two had been when his father had passed James the sports jacket and told him to keep it. “I won’t wear it after you,” his father had said. James just shrugged the jacket on and walked away. James’s father had never come to terms with having a gay son. James pretended like he didn’t have a father.

“Are you two ever going to make up?” Meghan looked at her brother. “His brother did just die, Jamie. He’s vulnerable to compassion.”

“What am I supposed to do? Apologize? What for? He’s an asshole, and I’m through with trying.” James would’ve gone on, but the pastor had just stepped up to the front of the room. Meghan told Gavin again to turn off his game. He turned the volume down and kept playing.

The pastor welcomed everyone to the gathering and read the twenty-third Psalm. He invited everyone in for a moment of reflection, and then opened the floor to family and friends who would like to share a memory of their dearly-departed Gary. James listened as people talked about Gary’s self-made business (though they left out the part about it failing). They talked about times they went hiking with the man and the trip to the ocean he had once taken his family to see. Everyone had only good things to say about Gary. To distract himself from the lies, James kept fidgeting with his bangs. In between speakers, all anyone could hear was the sound of rain on the church roof. James was distracted by the sound of Gavin’s thumbs jabbing buttons on his game.

After several people spoke, Kate took her turn. Like the others, she spoke only kind things. The memory that she gave the congregation was of a time when she was little and she had just come home from school with an A+ on a drawing assignment. Her father, sober at the time—though she did not mention that—had taken the drawing and told Kate how much he liked it. It was a drawing of her and her dad holding hands in a field with blue grass and a yellow sky.

When Kate left the pulpit, she sat beside James’s father and a man that James did not recognize. The man was dressed better than James. The man’s hair was crisp and neat. This must be Kate’s husband, James thought. The man kept checking his watch.

James’s father did not stand to speak. When no one came forward to speak after Kate, the pastor returned to say some parting words, and gave instructions about how they would proceed to the gravesite.

“And it sounds as though God has stopped the rain, just for us.” Everyone stood and sang a hymn before they began to pile toward the doors. Gavin finally turned his game off. He sneaked away from Meghan and began speaking with one of his younger cousins, a pretty little blonde girl wearing black hair ribbons. As the two kids ran off, James clenched his fist and thought about when he and Kate had met beneath the table as kids.

“Did you meet Raymond yet? Nice guy,” Meghan broke James’s reverie as she nodded toward Kate’s husband who was jabbing at his phone’s touch-screen. James shook his head. “He’s an accountant from Washington. He wants to make it big. I bet you two would get along.”

James rolled his eyes, but as the crowd began to file through the doors, he found himself being drawn unintentionally closer to Kate and Raymond. James smiled to himself, thinking that this would be the perfect opportunity to get revenge on the hypocrisy in the room. Raymond was an attractive man, and James wasn’t above using his charm to distract people.

“That was a very nice story you told about your dad, Kate.” James ran his hand through his hair with the hope that his sweaty palm would help it stay down.

Kate smiled a smile that could have been mistaken as a frown. “Have you met Raymond?” Her breath smelled like bourbon, and James thought of the breath mints in his pocket. When Kate spoke, Raymond looked up from his phone and nodded before he went back to typing.

James extended his hand toward the man, anyway. “I’m James, Kate’s cousin. I heard you do accounting?”

Raymond looked up from his phone and smiled. “Oh, yes. Raymond Williams. I run the books for New Haven Auto Insurance.” He shoved his phone back into his pocket and shook James’s hand. James noticed that Raymond did not have a very strong grip, and his hand was soft and sweaty, like his own. Raymond had grayish blue eyes.

“New Haven?” James smiled. He reached into his back pocket for his aluminum case, flipped it open, and handed Raymond a card. “I’m an agent for Arbortown. Small world.” Raymond accepted the card and frowned.

“Nice card. I guess we’re rivals. Just kidding of course.” Raymond reached into his pocket and pulled a card to hand to James. James took the card, but continued to look Raymond in the eyes. He smiled at Raymond as the crowd forced them through the door and out into the graveyard.

It was much brighter outside than it had been. It was warm now—welcoming. The sky was bright blue and the clouds were puffy and white. It was a beautiful day. In the light, James realized that his dad was standing just on the other side of Kate, pretending not to realize that James was there. James glared at his dad before looking back at Raymond. “It’s very nice in DC. I’m up there every other weekend or so. It’s much better than this stinking hole I grew up in, anyway.” James spoke for his dad to hear. His dad broke away to sit with the funeral crowd in the fold up chairs.

“I like it here, to be honest. It’s where I met Kate, you know.” Raymond smiled at Kate and put his arm around her shoulder. “It was nice to meet you.” Raymond guided Kate toward the front of the crowd. James stayed at the back with a bad taste in his mouth. He unwrapped a breath mint and ate it.

***

After the casket was lowered into the ground, the crowd began to disperse. James was ready to leave—if he could get out of there fast, he could schedule a hair appointment and still have enough time to get on the road before dark. Meghan caught his arm as he turned to leave, though.

“Have you seen Gavin?” She did not look worried, but she did seem as though she was preoccupied. James looked around real quick, and saw Gavin walk out of the church with the little girl. Her black hair ribbons were gone, and her hair looked messy for the lack of them. James pointed in their direction. “Oh, thanks.” Meghan turned to leave, but then turned back and gave James a hug. “Talk to dad. Seriously,” she whispered in his ear. Before James had a chance to respond, she ran over to get Gavin, and left for her car.

James turned around and looked toward the grave. The marker was simple. It listed Gary’s full name, his birthday and last Tuesday’s date. James did the math; he had been forty-nine years old. Kate was still standing talking with mourners. Raymond was checking his watch while speaking with the pastor. James’s father was looking at the grave, but his back was turned to James, and he did not see James, who turned away and walked back through the church.

James passed by the little blonde girl who was brushing her hair. With a smile on her face, the girl asked her mother, “Why do we put people in boxes when they die?” James left before he heard the answer.

James got in his car and pulled out his phone to call the old barber shop. He was in luck—there was time for a trim. James shrugged his dad’s jacket off and tossed it out the window. That will give this town something to talk about. He reached into his breast pocket for his comb and found Raymond’s business card. James tossed the card into the floorboard beside his umbrella. While he drove, he thought of black hair ribbons and his uncle’s grave marker which waited for the tombstone he was sure Kate and her Raymond had ordered for his Uncle Gary.