And now I started to choke up. I sucked in my breath, trying not to blink as the hammer chipped away at my chest. “He fought for so long to just be normal, normal like me. I wish I could have told him that normal didn’t exist. He was fighting for something that wasn’t real. But in that fight he found me as a friend, he found Perry as a friend, he found his girlfriend, Rose. He found her once and he found her again. How fucking lucky is that? Well, that’s Max for you. And I know there was so much more to him. We just saw the tip of the iceberg and now the whole thing has gone to shit.”
I sighed, hard. “I just wish he didn’t have to do that for me. But I’m fucking grateful that he did. So fucking grateful.” I squeezed Perry’s hand then took a fistful of petals from the flowers she was holding and ripped them off the stem, throwing them into the river. Half of them floated in the breeze, landing at our feet. “Here’s to you big guy. Please, feel free to haunt me anytime.”
Ada and her mother said “Amen,” like it was the Lord’s prayer, while Perry was staring at me, perplexed, like it was the weirdest eulogy she’d ever heard. Or maybe it was the way I beheaded half of the bouquet.
She stepped up the bank next, gathering the few nice stems left in one hand. “Maximus, I don’t have much to say. I…I don’t even know what to say. But, you came into my life for a reason and I couldn’t be more grateful.”
“Don’t say grateful,” I said out of the side of my mouth, my hands clasped in front of me. “I just used grateful. Pick a different word.”
She looked at me aghast. “This isn’t funny, Dex,” she said.
I shot her a sad smile. “I know it’s not. But I need it to be. Just for now, just to get through it.”
She shook her head, not understanding, and went on. “So I wanted to thank you, Maximus, for being a friend. For being that guy I wanted to call when everything went wrong. For showing up and helping me. For looking out for Dex. Sometimes I was never quite sure about you but I was always sure about you and Dex. You were friends, even when you weren’t, and I want to thank you for that. I hope wherever you are, it’s a warm place.” She sniffed and wiped away a tear. “I hope that it’s nice and that you’ll one day be with Rose again. I hope I’ll see you too.”
She closed her eyes and a wash of tears spilled down her cheeks as she threw her flowers in the river. I put my arm around her, holding her close to me.
Ada took the flowers next and gave half to her mother.
“Maximus,” she said. “I’m gonna miss you. I never thought I’d find a ginger with a soul, but you proved that wrong.” She kissed her fingers and then pressed it into the sky. “Peace out, ginger bro.”
She threw her flowers in and so did Perry’s mom, who said a simple, “thank you” and that was that. Daniel, of course, was standing wide-stance, arms folded across his belly. The interesting thing was he was starting to sweat a little. There was a tinge of “oh shit, maybe these bitches weren’t tripping” on his brow, of course phrased in a theologian way.
But ever the master of the house and of the smooth moves, he covered it up and said, “Well, now that it’s all done, who is up for a visit to MOMA and then some lunch?”
Yes, because nothing tops off a funeral like looking at abstract art.
Perry’s mother put her arm around Ada and said, “I think that would be a good idea. Good way to keep busy, right Ada?”
Ada just shrugged. They could have suggested an all-expenses paid shopping spree and she still would have looked the same.
“What about you?” Daniel asked.
I looked to Perry, who was red-eyed and dabbing her cute little nose with tissue. “Um,” I said, “I think we’ll pass on that.”
“Wait,” Perry said, turning to them, “can we go eat first? Then you guys can go to MOMA.”
“What are you going to do?” Ada asked, like she wanted an invite.
Actually I had no idea what Perry had in mind, but I was suddenly hit by a crazy idea, brought on by all the sorrow and shit that was swirling around us.
She shrugged. “I think we just want to hang low,” she said. “But if we all ate first, it would give us a chance to talk.” She said that as she stared at her mom, sending signals that looked to be invisible but probably weren’t. Interestingly, I tried to drop in on her thoughts but I couldn’t access them. Perry was learning how to aim and hide at the same time. There had to be a sexual analogy somewhere in there.
Her mom nodded, hearing her loud and clear. “Of course. That sounds good.”