Rites of Passage

It was hot, and I was eleven. The sky was an inverted bowl of blue, vacant but for the blazing Oklahoma sun. There was no wind. The powdery red dust hung in the air, almost floating.
I stood in my grandparents' yard and looked across the dirt road at the church. I had been there many times before for Sunday services. It looked like the typical little country church that you see in Norman Rockwell paintings. It was small and white, simple in design, and surrounded by a rusty iron fence. There were several cars parked at the side, and I could see a few people standing under the trees in front of the churchyard. Except for my grandparents' house, the church was the only building in sight. The narrow, hard-packed lane that separated the two stretched off into the distance, snaking over the hills until it joined the main highway a couple of miles away. A small speck appeared at the junction and grew steadily larger, its passage marked by a billowing rooster-tail of red dust. I knew it was my parents, coming to pick me up.
My good shoes were dusty from walking around in the dirt and weeds. I hastily wiped them off with my new handkerchief so my step-father wouldn't yell at me. I got all the dust off, but they didn't shine so much anymore. I practiced leaning forward slightly, so that my pant legs covered up most of them. But my step-father didn't yell at me. He didn't even notice. Both he and Mama acted as if I wasn't even around. I just didn't understand this at all, since they had so pointedly made arrangements for me to be there.
My step-father and I had never really gotten along very well. I was ecstatic the day Mama had told me that she and Francis were getting married. "Will he be my Daddy, then?" I had asked. My real father had died when I was six, and I knew that no one could ever really replace him. But for the past two years I had been yearning for someone to fill the gap in my life that his death had left.
I remember the day that I came home early from school to find Mama and our mailman necking on the couch. Even though I was somewhat hazy on what, exactly, was going on, I nonetheless understood the general concept of adult affection. It was the first time that I realized that Mama might find someone to take Daddy's place. The concept had simply never occurred to me before. I was heartily in favor of the idea, but the mailman never came back, at least not when I was around. Though, come to think of it, we did keep getting mail. Shortly after that incident, Mama started dating Francis. And it wasn't too much longer before she announced that she was going to re-marry.
My initial joy, however, was short-lived.
My new step-father was a big man, with lots of hair on his arms and not so much on the top of his head. He had a deep voice that he used to yell with a lot more than to laugh. He didn't want to get down on the floor with me and eat popcorn and watch cartoons, like my real Dad had. He didn't like to go to the park, or to go rock- collecting or anything. All he wanted to do was work on cars and pull weeds. When The Wizard of Oz came on TV one year, he made me go out in the yard and pull weeds with him until it was over -- until something he liked was on.
He had two sons and a daughter from a previous marriage, and he did stuff with them sometimes. But all he wanted me for was to hold the trouble-light while he worked on cars. My arm would get tired, and I'd have to hold it up with the other one for a while. I didn't dare let the light slip and shine into his eyes, because if I did, he'd yell at me.
But he didn't yell today. He hardly spoke at all. And when he did, he spoke in a low voice that I'd only heard him use when he was just waking up from a nap.
As he and Mama walked me across the road, I was both bored and interested at the same time. I could tell by looking at all the somber adults standing around in the churchyard that this was going to be pretty dull. On the other hand, I felt a stir of curious anticipation, for after all, this was my first funeral.
The lady who had died had been my step-father's cousin. I had never met her. I don't think I had ever even heard of her until Grandma called with the news. I was sorry that she had died, but her death really meant nothing to me. In my blissful ignorance, I followed my parents through the church door.
The atmosphere inside hit me like a wrecking ball. I almost staggered under the shock of it. The air was charged with tension. The pain and grief was so thick that I felt as if I were trying to wade through a tar pit. It closed about me and pressed against me as I fought my way through it, struggling to stay close to my parents. My heart was crashing in my chest. All around me people were crying and sobbing, all of the sounds combining to form one huge moan that filled the church, crushing me to the pew, forcing its way between my clenched teeth and down my throat. It was a scene straight out of Hell. I wanted to run, to hide, to shut it out. But I didn't. The one thing that kept me nailed to the pew next to my parents was the horrible fear of being alone in this awful place. In the front, one lady suddenly jumped up, screaming and wailing, and made straight for the coffin. It took three ushers to get her off it. I felt nauseated.
I couldn't find anywhere to look that didn't make me feel bad. Everywhere that my eyes came to rest I saw only suffering and misery. Out of sheer desperation, I looked finally to the one person who was, if nothing else, a symbol of strength to me.
My step-father stared straight ahead, not speaking or moving. His face held the same expression that it did when he was trying to break loose a rusty nut on an old engine.
Without warning, a single tear rolled slowly down his cheek until it reached his jaw line and stopped, spent. He didn't even wipe it away. He just sat there, the cords of his neck sticking out. I matched his first tear, then doubled it and tripled it. My whole face was wet, and I didn't even know why. With almost agonizing slowness, his head turned toward me. And for the longest time, my Dad and I simply looked at each other, weeping for things undone and words unsaid.

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