Garden of The Humbled Gods

Putting Him in The Ground

Mark stands at the pulpit. His eyes are as dry as the Oklahoma red clay his father escaped at age 16. He hasn't slept. He doesn't know how he's still standing. Everything's hollowed out of him, like a massive tree carved into a canoe. He's ready to head down the river and get smashed against the rocks or whatever is waiting for him. Beyond Ashley, there isn't much to keep his head above water for. Conner didn't even like him, but he was his son. His. Only. Son. Mark stares out blankly at the congregation, letting them all blur into one large mass of humans. Braxton sits in the back row with his fists clenched. They've been that way for the last week. He's tried to relax them, but they won't listen. He's so fucking angry. It was supposed to be him. Everything would be fine right now if he was dead. Sure his dad would be sad, but not like this. Conner's family actually loved him. Despite all of that shit, he said back at the tent, his dad has barely looked at him since. He can't. He knows it should be him who's lying up there. Everyone does. Weirdly, that's what he was trying to get at by starting that shit with Tyshawn. He doesn't want to die— he just doesn't know how to live. Both sides pulling at him, trying to move him off the line. Death calls his name. At least with death, you only have to make the decision once, and then it's over with. Life, on the other hand, is a high maintenance lover. You have to please her daily to just keep her from wanting to leave you.

Fucking Tyshawn—

They buried him yesterday. Braxton snuck into the back of his funeral as well. His mother and sister sat in the front row, crying, just like Ellen and Ashley are now. Everything was almost identical to this, except for everybody was black.

Mark is supposed to say something about his son— but how do you begin a speech like this? There's no magic formula for this sort of thing, you just do it, and you do the best you can. He clears his throat, "One Easter when Conner was little— he couldn't have been more than three or four— Ellen made the mistake of buying him an all-white outfit to wear to church. He looked cute in his tiny linen shorts and bow tie for about two seconds—" the congregation breaks into a slight chuckle as if this is not the first time they've heard this story before.

It's the first time Braxton's heard it, though. It's weird to think that he knew Conner better than anyone, and he had an entire life that existed before they met each other.

"I remember watching him through the kitchen window as he played in the backyard— just covered from head to toe in grass stains. His outfit was ruined before we even got a chance to take a picture of him in it— but god, watching him play— he was so happy—"

This is the breaking point. The moment he lets the waves crash and take him away, "My little boy used to play in the grass—"

Mark grips the polished wooden edges of the pulpit with both hands to brace himself— he fights to get back to the surface so he can breathe again. But memories of his son's life and light keep pulling him deeper into the abyss— until it's so dark that he cannot even see the light that got him here— all that is left is his son's smiling face tormenting him— and the weight of his absence. He looks at the casket—he isn't there anymore. It's just a body, "He used to have the most beautiful eyes— you could see the whole world in them." Mark's not strong enough, "I'm sorry," he chokes between sobs.

The minister comes over to help him off the stage— handing him over to Mark's older brother Charlie, who helps him to his seat. Ellen sits stoically with an expressionless look on her face. Her mascara runs unapologetically down her cheeks. She is empty as well— hell, she was gone before she got out of bed this morning. Poor Ashley sits on the other side of her, gutted and heartbroken— the child left behind. The one they will never love quite as much as they love him. Her parents haven't looked at her in the last week. It will still be another six months before she stands in the middle of their kitchen, screaming, "I miss Conner too— but he wasn't your only child— I'm still here. It's like we both died that day!"

She'll get a nose ring and a tattoo to be seen. Eventually, she'll act out in other ways, popping molly and Xans to fuck off the pain. She'll fall for any boy who notices her— and give them whatever they want, as long as he promises to see her. They never do, though. At that moment, she'll be everything, and then she'll be nothing again. She'll be pregnant by the time she's seventeen and be in rehab before her thirtieth birthday. Everyone will make a point to tell her what a fuck up she is— but you can point back to this day as the day it all started. They'll say she just couldn't cope with the loss of her brother. But that's not it— if her parents could only see through their bleary gaze and realize how badly she still needs him. The next hour is a procession of people getting up on stage and fabricating inspirational stories out of thin air about what a great kid Conner was. His old coach talks about how whenever the team was down, he was always the one to stand up and rally them to victory. Uncle Charlie talks about how he never cried when he was a baby, and that he was the first to smile and find the good in any situation. It's his old sociology teacher who is full of the most bullshit though, she tells a story about how in the ninth grade, she saw him stand up to some boys who were bullying a fellow student with Autism, and how she told this story to her students just this week and challenged them to stand up for equality and humanity like Conner did. But this is how the ritual goes. We make good shit up about the dead to cement their legacy in our minds; this way, we can remember them as demi-gods they weren't. At best, Conner was a flawed kid who was just trying to fit in and figure things out. At worst, he was a gutless, racist, piece of shit, and the world is better off without him. Which was the real Conner Wallace? He was honestly probably somewhere in the middle— but he sure as hell wasn't all the things they're saying up there.

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Photo by Tiitus Saaristo courtesy of Unsplash