From farther back in my mind
blossomed the memory of a winter night
in high school when I’d stood on a downtown corner in my hometown and let my
eyes follow the steeple of Grace Church up into the dark sky among the
stars. I stared upward, fascinated by no
more substance than tiny little pin pricks of light splayed across a blanket of
darkness, a void I’d been told was the endless universe. It was a marvel how black nothingness could
titillate the emerging intellect of a 15 year old.
God was up there, or so I’d been
told in my Catholic school classes. And
some day I’d go home to Him. But not just yet, thank you. From the heavens beyond the top of the steeple
my thoughts rushed back down to where I stood rooted in the snow, my head dizzy
with the night and a girl. I had walked
from the North side of the city halfway home to Cornhill and clomped through
snow that stopped falling ten minutes before when the clouds gave up the sky
and allowed the Milky Way to dust its light upon my upturned face.
Snow had come down all evening and
piled up over a foot. Plow trucks were
out to clear the roads, but the sidewalks wouldn’t be shoveled until early the
next morning, making the walk more of a trek. No matter, I could hike to the
Arctic Circle after such an evening. She had kissed me. My world would never be the same.
In the hour after our lips met I
became convinced that nothing was more important than a kiss. As simple and chaste as ours had been, it
more than touched me. It astounded me. I wondered why all the men and women I
saw each day didn’t use their time to kiss each other over and over. Maybe I wasn’t allowed to, but certainly adults
had the freedom to just stop in the middle of their work or chores, throw their
arms around each other and kiss. I wondered
why they didn’t. And of course I wondered
about more than kissing. Instead, people worked at jobs they disliked,
saved money for boats they would soon tire of and planned vacations that would
wear out a drill sergeant. As for me, I told Fred in this monologue of my youth,
given the opportunity I’d try to kiss every girl in sight, assuming I found any
who wanted me. I was busy in school most days, but I could start kissing right
after I finished my newspaper route before supper.
From the seat next to me on the
bus Fred laughed at my improbable reverie. “I remember that feeling.”
I laughed.
“The tingle,” he said. “What it was all about.”
I looked sideways at him and held
on to the back of the seat in front of me as the bus began to move more like an
airplane, swerving from side to side. Past him through the window I should have
seen the lights of shopping malls, but there was nothing except the agitated
swirl of snow.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “It was
kind of like a tingle.”
He gestured out the window at the
snow. “Just like Christmas. Like going home.”
Fred was the perfect companion for
this trip. In fact, it had been his
idea. He was one of those guys who without
much ado grew up to be a nice person. In
fact, he almost certainly had been born that way.
“Fred, I’ll bet on the day you
were born … and I do remember it was in the same hospital on the same day as me—
“Don’t start that twin brother
stuff again,” he said laughing, “like when you tried to get me to buy you a
beer.”
“Fred, I never did that,” I said
trying to appear shocked.
Now we were both laughing.
“I bet you started making friends
right off the bat … in the delivery room,” I said.
I could see that mischievous look
settle in Fred’s eyes. “I started with the nurses.”
“I’m sure,” I said
“I had to say Hello to Mom first, of course.”
“You no doubt planned a party for
that evening in the nursery,” I said.
“Don’t you remember it, Dave? You were there.”
“Actually,” I said, “it was early
to bed for me in those days, very early”
Fred and I could always riff on
any theme handed to us. But now I was
feeling just a bit woozy and said so.
“Your mind is still in and out of things,” he
said. “No need to worry, it’ll clear up.”
We had met in our senior year of
high school when our two schools were thrown together by the Catholic Diocese
for reasons that never made any sense to us.
We were in different home rooms and didn’t pal around much that year. After
graduation we lost track of each other while Fred went to work in the family business and joined
the National Guard to get his draft obligation out of the way. I attended a small local college. Two years later in the mid 1960s we each
traveled to New York City to live. I
took a job and Fred moved down for a year to study mortuary science. His family owned a funeral business. One Friday night we discovered each other on
the bus headed home and became friends for the short time we lived in the city.
“You must have been a hell of a
kid,” I said.
“When I was a youngster,” he said,
“I’d wake up early Christmas morning and I couldn’t go back to sleep. Most years I didn’t expect anything in
particular under the tree, but I knew there’d be a surprise and I couldn’t wait
to tear the wrappings off.”
“I know the feeling,” I said.
“All the week before I would …
tingle, just thinking of Christmas morning and the rest of the day. We’d come back from church and have a special
breakfast with something extra nice from the bakery. And then a day with the relatives coming over
to visit. My father would pop in and out
depending on how many souls were called home that day.”
“I never thought of what a funeral
director did on holidays,” I said
Fred chuckled. “The march to eternity doesn’t stop.”
“Right to your front door,” I
said.
He nodded. “At least when they’re
down, they stay down.”
“Lost their tingle,” I said, “for
good.”
“You never lose your tingle,” he said. “Never.”
What I liked best about Fred was
the relaxed attitude he carried, more generous and deep seated than mine. I’m sure his was real. People who got to know me soon realized I was
laid back only on the outside. Inside I continually
agonized over one thing or another, often afraid and very unsure of
myself. But Fred’s personality was always
real. He had the true spirit of a man
who knew himself and his capabilities. He
must have faced his demons earlier in life than most and learned to accept himself. It allowed him to accept others and come to
terms with the world as presented to him.
No doubt that’s why he so enjoyed life.
I remembered stopping one night at
the Olcott Hotel on West 72nd Street where he lived with roommates
from the embalming school. We planned to
go out for a few beers. The 1960s was a
more formal time in Manhattan and while I waited in the living room for Fred to
finish dressing, a few of the many mortuary science texts that lay about caught
my eye. I began to read a history of
embalming. Although the Egyptians were known for their excellent embalming
skills, it turns out the hot dry climate was more responsible for their success
in the preservation of 400 million mummies over almost six thousand
years.
"What're you reading?" said Fred as he came into
the living room and stood in front of the long mirror near the front door. He fastened the top button of his shirt and
tied a perfect four-square knot in his tie.
"A text book from your embalming school," I
said. “Did you know that embalming wasn’t often done in colonial America? But it became popular during the Civil War
because Mr. Lincoln wanted the war dead preserved and shipped home to their families
for a proper burial.”
“Yes, I knew that,” he said. “I’ve often thought of it
when I went down to the train station for a soldier’s coffin.”
“Viet Nam,” I said. “It’s terrible and it’s just begun.”
“Hey” he said, “I thought we were going out for a few
beers.”
“Well, at least your text books
are interesting,” I said. “My
engineering texts were quite dull.”
“I’m amazed you can pick up all of that in ten
minutes from a textbook,” he said.
“I read all the time, Fred. Not a
big deal.”
“I wish I was a natural student,”
he said.
“Fred,” I told him, “you’re a
natural person. That’s more important.”
And so off we went that
evening. First to Patrick J. Flynn’s
down at Columbus Circle near the Lincoln Center and West 65th
Street. And another block farther west we
found a bar across from The Julliard School.
We took care to choose places for their pleasant surroundings and cheap
prices.
But now as I stared out the window
into a blizzard of white I thought of all the walking about the city I could no
longer do. I would never again be a young man.
And neither would Fred.
Everything seemed so long
ago. Memories overtook my mind like
dreams. They were jumbled and confused,
perhaps because of what I’d been through in the past few weeks.
I saw my children at different stages
of their lives, from babies to the present day.
I saw my wife as I have always seen her. For the past fifty years she
has been for me the girl I first met one night sitting across the table in a
college bar. I remembered my career, my
accomplishments and my frustrations and failures. There came a dream of an evening as I sat alone
in front of a Christmas tree, all the lights shining out from fragrant
branches. I was in a wonderful room with
a huge fireplace and handsome furniture. Books lined two of the walls and I sat near
the fireplace at a polished desk. But
the larger part of my mind was depressed and disappointed. An agony gripped me and gnawed at my
heart. The sheer contrast between my good
fortune and my depression stripped me of any happiness. I didn’t realize I had a glass of whiskey in
my hand until I threw it at the Christmas tree. I never drank again.
When I awoke, I felt older. My arms and legs ached, the vague familiar echoes
of age.
I glanced over at Fred. Beyond him I could see my reflection in the
darkened window. My face seemed much
wider than I remembered and my hair appeared lighter, what there was of
it. Fred didn’t look a great deal older
than the last time I’d been with him in early 1965. In fact, not a lot older than the photo in
his obituary, which suddenly came to mind.
I glanced down at my hands and
they were those of an old man with age spots, pronounced knuckles and veins bubbling
up from the back of each. When I pushed
up the arm of my hospital gown there were more spots, dark and large.
“Where are we going, Fred?”
He smiled. “Home, Dave.”
“You mean Home, don’t you, Fred?”
“I mean Home, Dave.”
“I have to say I’m a bit scared,” I said.
“I know the feeling,” he said.
“I always thought maybe my Dad
would come for me.”
“He’ll be there. And everyone
else.”
“I have to ask you, Fred. We haven’t seen each other in over fifty
years. Why did you come for me?”
He glanced my way with a quizzical
look on his face.
“We were friends,” he said. “And I was an undertaker. I still love the business. I still love to bring people home.”
I thought it was very nice of Fred
to accompany me on my final journey. From
nowhere a thought occurred to me with a twinge of guilt and before I could stop
myself I spoke.
“I was in love with your wife at
one time, Fred.” I wished I had caught
myself before saying it. He turned and
looked at me with a blank expression.
“I didn’t know that,” he said.
I looked out the window and there
was nothing there, not even snow. “When she
and I were in the Sister Veronica’s sixth grade class together.”
He nodded and his smile returned. “And how long did your young heart yearn for
her?”
I sighed. “Until I met Linda in the seventh grade.”
He nodded again, slow this time in
a sage manner. “And what did my wife think of your undying devotion … fickle as
it turned out to be?”
“I never told her, of course,” I
said. “I was an eleven year old Catholic
boy in a Catholic school with occasional thoughts of entering the
priesthood. I couldn’t go around
announcing my love to all the pretty girls.”
“You mean you were too chicken to
tell her.”
I laughed. “Since you put it that
way … yeah.”
“I know how you felt,” he said.
“How does one explain such yearning?”
I knew Fred loved his wife in the
same way I felt toward mine. My wife had
captured my heart and defined my life. She
was everything to me. The tingle in my
life.
“We were both very lucky men,
Fred.”
“I know,” he said. ”We were
blessed.”
Out the front window of the bus the
snow had stopped. I could see lights
ahead, concentrated in a small circle as if we were in a tunnel. The circle of
light grew larger.
“I’m down for the count, Fred. Is that right?”
“Down and staying down,” he said
with a smile.
“I don’t feel as though I’m ready
for this,” I said.
“Sure you are, Dave.”
“I feel breathless, Fred.”
“Because you’re not breathing,
Dave,” he said. “And you’re not supposed to be.”
“I haven’t … done everything I
need to do.”
“You’ve done everything you
could.”
“I should have prayed more. A lot more, come to think of it.”
“Your entire life was a prayer,
just like mine,” he said.
“No, I mean—“
Fred glanced sideways at me. “I know what you mean. But everything we did was a prayer.”
“Do you mean,” I said, “like when
I helped old ladies across the street?”
He laughed gently. “No, I meant what you spent most of your life
doing.”
“Thinking of women?”
“Not only that,” he said. “All of
your yearning. For a red bicycle when
you were 8 years old, to kiss every girl in sight when you were fifteen, for
the courage to tell people you loved them, for your academic success, for the
woman you married, for the jobs you wanted, for the success of your
children. Yearning was just that
reflection we saw dimly. Desire was the tingle. It was our lifelong prayer and
exactly what He wanted.”
“I thought I had to be heroic,” I
said.
“No,” said Fred, “each of us is just
a part of the dance, the great dance of his creation. He wanted you to join it, to bring your
yearning as much as you were able.”
I sighed. “You make it sound like
finding my way to heaven was actually much easier than I believed.”
“That’s right,” he said. “It was.”
Rest
in peace, Fred Heintz, III. You are
missed.
copyright 2014. David Griffin
The Windswept Press
Murrells Inlet, South Carolina
www.windsweptpress.com
