BY REASON OF INSANITY by Edward L. Woodyard

By Reason of Insanity Chapter Forty-Six

Duke's closed mahogany coffin rested on thick straps that would lower it into the grave from a stainless-steel cylinder railing as the priest announced the conclusion of the service and the funeral director motioned mourners away from the gravesite. No one was to witness Duke's interment into the earth. Either Elaine was continuing to be solemn or she became cold and methodical in pushing people toward their cars and limousines. She announced that people could go back to her place to get drunk and high if they wanted. That was the last place the Holliman family would want to be that afternoon.

After the crowd dispersed, I stood alone next to Duke's coffin. Barbara started to approach me, but Stuart didn't think that a good idea, once he saw me transfixed and rigid. I was thinking as I looked at the coffin that passions which inspire do survive the grave.

I didn't move until Mara pulled on my arm. I didn't want to move, but Willie took my other arm and they both led me from the gravesite.

Mara told me that I had screamed my recitation of the poem.

"I had to be heard over all those people saying 'watermelon, watermelon.'"

Mara sensed that I was losing it. When we arrived at our white Infiniti, Mara thought it better if she drove. I turned off my eFone as she went around to the driver's side; I was no longer interested in any texts or messages. I wanted to disconnect. I had problems of my own I needed to solve.

After Willie got into the back seat of the car, I was about sit in the front passenger seat when I turned to look back at the cemetery.

I bolted. I ran back immediately toward Duke's gravesite. Willie and Mara chased after me. I saw that Duke's coffin was being lowered into the ground. I was beside myself.

I took out my pen and corrected the spelling in the misspelled sign on the palm tree, x-ing out the "a" in "cemetary" and replacing it with an "e."

Willie cautioned Mara that he would be the one to handle me, then humored me by asking me about the "k" in the sign. I told him that "picnicking" was spelled correctly. I thought that he should have known that with his USC bachelor's degree in English, but that no one could spell these days, not even computers and eFones.

We returned to the car, the three of us, arm-in-arm. I didn't dare tell the two people I loved most on the planet that I was completely traumatized by Duke's death.

I became like the "p" in psychosis. Silent but defining the condition. I would evolve into a pronounceable letter: P-Adam. "Padam, I'm Adap." But I kept my attempt at humor to myself. They wouldn't understand my thinking or reasoning. I remained "psy-lent."

Mara drove the car through the phalanx of police at the entrance to the cemetery. Cell phones and cameras clicked and news camcorders whirred as the barricades were removed and Mara took a left onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

On the drive home, a red image flashed in my sideview mirror; it was a red coupe driving behind us. Seeing one of them was becoming so ordinary as to not be extraordinary enough to hold my attention, especially when Mara was trying to get my attention to tell me that I only did all right with my poem recitation. She was being so critical and making so many comments, I was feeling like the town whore showing up in church.

I was zoning her out. Mara was sounding like background crowd noise.

Watermelon, watermelon.

When I didn't respond to her, Maya wisely changed the subject, saying how surprised she was that more people didn't show up for Duke's funeral. When I said that I didn't know where they would've put them all, she told that there had only been fourteen people there: Elaine Bishop, the three of us, Stuart Abramowitz, Barbara Gould, Duke's agent, Duke's manager, two former bandmates, his parents, the priest, and a college girl named Denise who was rumored to be Duke's new girlfriend. That was all.

After I yelled at Mara that she was out of her freakin' mind, I continued with, "What about the open coffin and Duke lying there naked with a guitar over him and people throwing things into it?"

Mara shot me the most anxious and frightful look I had ever seen her give me. She whispered slowly and gently, "Adam, the coffin was closed the entire time. Duke's mother told me that he was dressed in a charcoal gray three-piece suit."

Willie leaned forward from the back seat to show me his selfie photos of Duke's funeral. The photos on his cell phone only showed him and thirteen others at the funeral.

I didn't want to argue with technology, but I wasn't easily fooled. Technology can make any truth out of any lie, using gimmickry. But I knew in my mind that Willie's selfies had simply failed to show everyone else who was there – and to record what had happened before the coffin was closed.