Oh Captain, My Captain

It was hot in the flat graveyard as our fathers glided easily over the browning grass as they took the body of our beloved August to his final resting place. They had done it as a service to the rest of us, knowing that we wouldn’t have been able to endure it. Disposing of the dead had always upset me, and it wasn’t until a few months later that I came to learn they didn’t even bury that sleek bullet of a casket draped in ivy, magnolias, and marigolds. In fact, August hadn’t even been in it at all as we stood there sweating as Gus, high as a kite, leaned on it in despair in the viewing room. They had cremated him. After we left the gravesite, they buried a small urn of his ashes and took the rest home to spread them out across the water. You can’t imagine how much better I felt having learned that—that it wasn’t a trapped and wired and patched up August in that box.

I felt like you could see sweat through my suit, and to be honest, that is the last memory I have associated with the burial of one of my best friends—worried that one of his attractive cousins would notice pit stains in my suit. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways. The ex and I were still holding hands, sweat forming and puddling in the hollow place the size of a marble where our palms met. Olive’s black dress fluttered around her knees; her arms were folded across her torso as she dabbed at her eyes underneath gargantuan black sunglasses.

I remember most that there were no, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, all that jazz. It was a soft-spoken man in a wild robe who led the service, both indoors and out, hands outstretched to the sky and chanted in his native tongue. Mrs. Huber was like that, very spiritual; they didn’t belong to a church and had no religious inclinations of any sort that I was aware of. He was her counselor and closest friend. It had all been talk of parallel planes, matter becoming matter; that we would sigh and take new breath in a tree or a swallow flying above it. The man burned a large bundle of sage over the grave. Eli sniffled loudly next to me and gave my hand a squeeze as he rested his head on my shoulder. Gus was still swaying side to side in an opioid bliss and muttered under his breath, “Oh captain, my captain.”

There was no wailing or gnashing of teeth. Mr. and Mrs. Huber sat in those rigid faux velvet chairs that sat under the foul green tent and cried silent tears, holding one another’s hands for dear life in their laps. I heard Mrs. Cranbrooke whisper, “You think they would take that eyesore of a tent down on a day like this.” She had paid for a great deal of it, so I assumed she was allowed a comment. August’s sister, Stella, strummed her mandolin at the head of the casket next to the spiritual leader, and it made Olive break down into sobs that caused Eli to break our hand holding to put his around her shoulders.

———

Somehow, and unsurprisingly, I got stuck with Gus after the funeral. I didn’t mind it so much now that he was settling into some sort of sobriety. The Hubers lived in a beautiful house on the water. There was an intimate gathering of people and they talked low. Laughter was now acceptable. Mrs. Huber looked more comfortable with a buttery Chardonnay in her hand, and she was holding my mother’s hand with her free one and they were having a, “Soul Talk.” Gus had put his sunglasses back on and a twisted-up cocktail napkin jutted out of his nostril to stop his nosebleed as he walked close behind me; at one point hooking a finger through my belt loop.

“Hey! Knock it off! Jesus, I’m not going anywhere,” I hissed.

I made two plates of food and figured it wouldn’t hurt for him to have a glass of wine. I poured two big glasses of red and carried them to a place on the back deck that led directly into the water. A fire crackled in the iron chiminea at the corner and Gus had sat down right in front of it. A big tree stump had been finished and repurposed as a coffee table, and he hadn’t even started to touch his food. I sat his wineglass down next to his plate and he continued to stare into the flames. He ran his fingers through the flames closest to him and I winced at the sight of it.

He sighed long and hard and fell back into the tasteful rattan chair and ran a hand through his hair. The cocktail napkin fell out of his nostril and it didn’t faze him in the slightest. “Wowee, would you look at this spread here, Clarky! A real feast. Fuck-a-me I could eat for days on this. WOW, when did that nectar get here?” He took up the wineglass and took a long sip and his bony Adam’s apple jolted. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and then pushed his sunglasses back from his face. His pupils were so wide his eyes were almost black. “I’ll tell ya this, Clarky, I’m not sticking around here much longer. I’m eat up with it.” I wanted to ask what exactly it was that he was eaten up with, but I doubted I would get a straight answer, so I just popped another bacon wrapped cocktail wiener in my mouth. “I’m going out west, Clarky; I want you to come with me.” I coughed and pounded my chest as the wiener went down wrong, and that was very on brand for me.

“Gus,” I said frankly, “what on earth are you going to do out west? How do you plan on getting there? You have, like, negative money!” He blew a raspberry and fanned it away. He scooped a dollop of the rich potatoes on his finger and stuck it in his mouth.

“Minor things, Clark, minor things!” He reached out for his wine glass and took a great bite of a buttered roll. “You see, you see, I knew that August was going to die.” My eyes grew wide and he nodded his head and rested his ankle on his knee.

“Gus,” I whispered and scratched my head wildly.

“I saw it, Clark; I have known it for some time. I saw the other world start to surround him. You know, so that’s how I knew it was only a matter of time. Don’t you remember how overcome with emotion I was when he proposed to our dear Olive. It was because I knew, Clarky; I knew it was only a matter of time before they meant to take him from us.” He leaned forward now and was talking excitedly. I wanted to cry. I put my hands on the back of my neck and tried to breathe normally.

“Gus, cut it out. You can’t say things like that, man. What is wrong with you? You didn’t know. No one knew. If you say crazy shit like that too loud and someone hears, they are going to start asking questions,” I said, my voice low, and I watched as he still shook slightly, like he had done throughout the funeral. He narrowed his eyes at me, and a frightening anger flushed his face.

“Oh now, now, now. You don’t mean to tell me that you think I was somehow responsible? Oh, Clark. It wasn’t me! But I did know, I really did!”

“Gus! Shut the fuck up! This is the first time you’ve said anything halfway coherent since you showed up and it’s this? This nonsense? No one knew where you were. None of us have heard from you in months! If you start flying off the handle, saying shit like that could get you locked up for good. Don’t you understand that? Buddy, Gus, what’s happening to you?

“I am happening, Clark. I am happening.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that we all have to go into it. We have to dig life like The Beats. August had to die so that we could live. Don’t you see that? He was our glue. If he had lived, we wouldn’t have gone anywhere. We would have stayed right here and married off one another to boring men and women and joined a boat club and put pistols in our mouths by thirty. He had to die so that we could run, Clark. We have to run; don’t you see it? We’ve got to go. We’ve got to dig all the wild wonders.” He ran his hand through his hair and his sunglasses fell onto the deck and he left them there and took a long sip of wine. “I don’t think he wanted to be buried in a box, though, do you?” There were tears in my eyes. Hot ones that stung and I kneaded them away with my knuckles and sniffled loudly.

“There you two are! I’ve been looking for you.” Stella’s sandals flapped on the steps down onto the deck. She was the spitting image of her mother, buttery chardonnay and all. She had two marigolds from the arrangement that had been on her brother’s casket behind her ears and it sent a shiver over me. I rose from my chair and held out my arms for her. She hugged me tight, smelling of patchouli. I apologized for not getting a chance to talk to her at the funeral. “It’s awful, but I think I’ve blocked the whole thing out. I don’t remember a thing.” She turned to Gus and straddled him, running her fingers through his hair and kissing him passionately.

“I was just asking Clarky if he wanted to come out west with us,” Gus said as their lips parted.

“Oh yes! Clark, pack a bag baby and hit the road with us. Can’t you think of how much fun we’ll have?” I stared at her, fully aware that my mouth was hanging open.

They looked like they should be in a catalogue. The sun was hanging low in the sky, the trees beginning to change color; water splashed happily against the thick posts supporting the deck and against the stairs that led down into the water. Reeds rustled; her mane of golden hair was disrupted by the breeze. The petals of the marigolds folded over. Her great, troubled lover in her dead brother’s clothes. I somehow knew she would go with him. There was no wilder, deep rooted love than theirs. No matter what he did or where he went, she would follow him. His ray of light. The only hope that he may survive this world in which he didn’t belong.

I wanted to beg her not to. What sort of wild torment would she endure? I wanted to beg them both to stay and forget this. That glint in his eye seemed permanent now. He was wild in his core. He was lost to us. There were things he needed to see and have all his carnal questions answered. He was a madman. It was plain to me now. He plucked one of the marigolds from behind her ear and flicked the petals into the lake. I thought suddenly how we were all very much like those petals. Lost on the breeze now that August was dead. I wish I had said something more to them then on that little deck. I just shook my head and told them I couldn’t. I mumbled something about Olive and school, and I reached out and took my wine and went back into the house.