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out in fragmented chunks. The man was as uncomfortable with his eulogy as Charlie was with being there. |
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The words were empty, hollow, meaningless things, and those that were assembled stirred nervously. Charlie somehow understood what many of them didn't. Regardless of what the clergyman promised, life was over for Cleveland Frazier, and there was no choice but to acknowledge that fact. |
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His father let go of his hand and stepped around him to his grandfather's coffin. To Charlie's horror, the man reached down and lifted the lid. Charlie recoiled. There he was again, that despicable old man with his ugly face all shiny and puffed out, his eyes closed like he was merely sleeping. It wasn't at all like Theodore had told him it would be. Theodore had told him their grandfather's cheeks sunk in the moment he died, and that the eyes got brittle and fell apart like shattered pieces of glass, and that the teeth rotted instantly. None of those things had happened, and he wondered why his grandfather didn't look dead. Maybe he wasn't responsible for his death after all. Maybe, he decided, everyone was just as tired of the old man as he was, and they were going to bury him while he was sleeping. Wouldn't that be something? |
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When he saw his father bend down and kiss the man in the coffin, he shuddered. |
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