The Joy of Funerals, page 17
Neighbors and friends told endless stories about him, each funnier and more bizarre than the next. One guy remembered the time Mr. Marshal had insisted their neighbor was a mass murderer. He and three other men held a two-day stakeout. Aside from his army experience, those forty-eight hours were the most bonding ones he’d ever had.
Mr. Marshal made the neighborhood colorful, said one man. He was dependable, eccentric, comical. But in all his weirdness, all his oddities, he was a good friend. His son broke his leg and it was Mr. Marshal who made the splint out of plywood and masking tape. When his wife died it was Mr. Marshal who was his drinking buddy.
Another man joked about the dried food Mr. Marshal ordered in preparing for a war. “If a tornado hit, you’d bet we’d be running over to Al’s, eating powdered, freeze-dried ice cream, watching The Mummy or The Blob in a huge, cozy underground house.”
I leaned forward in my seat, captivated.
Finally, Gail spoke. She talked about how her father was her best friend. That he was unconventional and imaginative. Months were spent planning their Halloween costumes. Hide-and-seek games went on for days. “I’m not going to cry because I think he’d tell me to tough it out. That he’s happy wherever he is.” She looked up, then down, then back to us. “He’s probably laughing and playing tricks on someone or organizing a heaven Halloween ball or pulling a prank on … ” She stopped. She opened her mouth several times, but no sound came out. I held my own breath, felt the muscles in my chest go tight while mentally encouraging her to continue.
“I loved him very much. I miss you, Dad.” Her chin moved slightly, and I had to lean closer to see if she was crying. Her speech was terrific. Honest and moving. I was jealous she’d had such a wonderful life. A sister she was close with, a father who did things with her, a mother who was there. When she finished, I wanted to clap and almost did, but caught myself.
“This isn’t a show, Nina,” my mother said, her hand firmly placed on my arm.
Next, Gwen brought up a large tan bag. Gail explained each object she removed from the sack before putting it into her father’s coffin. She took out a Swiss Army Knife, a flashlight with new batteries, several bags of his freeze-dried food, money clip, deck of cards, garlic cloves, a cross, and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “This is the first comic book he ever bought—No. 2 Superman—and a copy of Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.”
We were encouraged to say our good-byes to Mr. Marshal individually and a line formed immediately. I walked up with my father and peered in. He looked like a wax dummy. His face was cut up and the objects Gail and Gwen had shown were placed around his body. Everyone thought it a joke. Mourners expected him to jump out and laugh. I did, too. I waited a few minutes, staring at him, looking for breath or for his chest to move up and down, or for his lips to crack a smile. Nothing. He was really dead, my father insisted. He wasn’t coming back.
My parents retired to Mrs. Marshal’s house while the kids from the neighborhood hung around. I had the best time. Gail showed me her father’s collection of horror memorabilia: comic books, movies, and action figures. She led me on a tour through the morgue, boasted that her father had owned one years before but her mother made him sell it. She was sure her father had hidden something for her in the house—a note or map—and we spent the day searching for it, snooping through the cobwebbed basement and stifling hot attic.
Hours later, dirty and hungry, we emerged and found my parents waiting outside on the porch.
“Nina, we’ve been calling for you for the past two hours. Where the hell have you been?”
“On a treasure hunt.”
“We almost left without you,” my mother proclaimed. “Come on!” She marched to our car, almost tripping on a rock in her high heels.
I waved good-bye from the window, looking like one of those kids getting hauled off to boarding school.
I never saw Gail or Gwen again.
I love it when the funeral I’m attending is for a shrink. It’s like live theater. The Freudians stand around smoking, rubbing small objects, looking inquisitive and authoritarian; the behaviorists all congregate by open windows or doorframes, always prepared to make an escape; the analysts take to the couch, finding comfort in the cushions. I enjoy playing the “friend, foe, or patient game.” Generally, I can pick out the clients from those who knew the deceased personally, not professionally. I tend to fall into the latter.
The first therapist I saw, my parents sent me to. I was twelve and pudgy. My mother thought I was overeating and one of her friends suggested we find out why I was feeding myself so much, what empty place I was trying to fill.
I was forced to go for one year.
The doctor was an older man, a true Freudian, and rarely talked to me. When he did, he made preposterous statements, as if he were testing my reactions. One time I was touching the edge of his beat-up couch and the top plastic thing fell out of my hands—I had a habit of pulling it off and sticking it back on. He turned to me and said, “Your actions say you want to have sexual encounters with me.” I told my mother this in the middle of our hallway, my coat still on, my face blotchy from embarrassment. She insisted I was lying. She came with me to the next session and asked if this were true. Freud sat there motionless and stoic for several minutes. Finally, he crossed his legs and asked my mother why it was that she didn’t believe her daughter.
I didn’t have to go back.
A turbulent senior year at Lenox, a private school on the Upper East Side, brought me to Dr. Gitler, a young, well-meaning woman who was more repressed than I. She sported long skirts and long-sleeved shirts and never showed an ounce of skin.
She didn’t talk much but made lots of notes. Her hands were always busy, scratching the paper, tearing out sheets, clipping them into folders. Her pens were constantly running out of ink, and she’d shove them angrily into her enormous yellow knapsack and pull out another dried-up one until she eventually dumped the contents of her bag out onto the floor. There was so much crap I couldn’t believe it. Crumpled-up dirty tissues, Juicy Fruit gum wrappers, lipsticks, rubber bands, paper clips, a wallet, checkbook, huge ring of keys, and her hospital badge. If she was so disorganized in her life, how could she straighten out mine?
I bought her a box of blue Bics and presented them to her at our next appointment, but she told me she didn’t accept gifts from patients. I explained they weren’t a gift, more of an offering. Watching her frazzled state was annoying. We spent the next four months talking about how that made me feel.
There was the one I saw in college who told me I remind him of a dog; the one who wanted to talk about my womb experience; the fresh-out-of-grad-school psychologist; and Maggie, a doughty, kindly woman. She was soft-spoken and chunky with swollen ankles and a thick neck. She was the nicest of the bunch. She asked lots of questions and nodded. When I cried she leaned forward, looking like she really wanted to help. Her approach was not for pills but for tissues. She took no notes, just sat and listened. She sighed a lot and her eyes read pity, not sympathy. She never made a single statement, and I never felt we made any progress. After eight months, she gave me Marty’s number and thought I’d be more comfortable talking to a male doctor whose therapy was more progressive and “hipper.”
Marty was my last.
He was extremely attractive in a young-father kind of way. Of all the shrinks, I liked his waiting room best. Liked the magazines he had to read, the people who sat waiting for their appointments, the structure it gave me.
He shared the space with several other shrinks so it was always bustling with people, like a club or coffee shop where you saw the same familiar faces. I thought about asking one of the patients out once, for a soda or after-work drink. He was scruffy and lean and always wore sweats or fleece. He looked like he’d come from the gym or had played racquetball with his buddies. I figured, at least he’s here working on his shit. He had the language down, the special words, understood the importance of open discussion. I had asked Marty if it would be all right. He was pleased that I felt “safe” in the surroundings, but was concerned I was attaching myself to unobtainable men. “I’m not sure it’s inner office protocol. I have to ask my associates and get back to you.” Then he added, “Besides, you don’t know what’s wrong with him. I’m not keen on you dating some passive-aggressive psychopath.”
I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
And there was something a little sleazy about him. I always felt like he wanted to sleep with me. I shared this with my mother, a proclaimed therapy believer who insisted lying on the couch twice a week was the only way people functioned in this world. “Everyone thinks that, Nina. That’s part of the process. That’s how you know it’s working. It’s called transference.”
Marty loved drugs and prescribed endless prescriptions. “The cocktail of champions,” he called it. At thirty-three, my kitchen counter looked like a pharmacy. None worked. The Elavil made me dizzy. I couldn’t string my beads or read a newspaper. Words danced around the pages of books. All I could do was look at fashion magazines. Prozac made it impossible to pee, Zoloft made me groggy—I could function, I couldn’t think. I tried to tell him about my need for connection, the longing for human touch, but he seemed disinterested. Eventually, I stopped going.
I missed the office more than Marty.
Sometimes I resurrect all of my therapists, place them in my living room, and make them talk to each other. They share morning coffee and muffins or scones, or they gather in the early evening, make Cheever-like drinks, and discuss me outside on an imaginary front lawn or back deck. They chatter away, misdiagnosing me, making general assumptions about my childhood.
“She clearly wasn’t breastfed,” the Freudian spits out in between puffs on his pipe.
“Nina suffered from narcissistic parents,” another would hunch.
“It started in the womb,” chimed in the reclaimer of the inner child. “She wasn’t fed emotionally from the start. Her mother barely helped push her out. All cesareans suffer from this.”
If only one of them would have asked, What can I do for you, Nina? How can I help you? Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you, I promise, all would have been fine. I could have told them about my needs. About not feeling my life.
But they never asked. They never offered anything. They just watched me, watched the clock, and gave me quickly scribbled bills and carelessly written prescriptions. Now I go to funerals. It’s cheaper, and I can choose who to talk to. I can see who needs me and who I need.
Marty’s funeral was nice—two of his colleagues spoke, and his roommate from grad school. I didn’t see anyone from the office though I looked for the scruffy gym guy. Not that he would come—Marty wasn’t his doctor.
Marty’s wife, Faye, greets each visitor warmly at the door, a smile on her drawn face. She is well-poised and appears tired and bubbly at the same time, as if she’s thrown a tremendously successful party and is ready to ask the guests to leave.
She doesn’t ask how I came here or how I know Marty and I don’t render the information. I don’t want to be pegged for some crazy patient, at least not yet.
I take a customary lap. The apartment is rather big by Manhattan standards. Three bedrooms, a large living room, dining room, walk-through kitchen and connecting pantry, housekeeper’s room that is used to store bikes, ski equipment, and two of Faye’s furs, and two and a half bathrooms.
People are sprinkled throughout the apartment but most congregate in the living room and dining area. The group is mostly professionals, mid-to-late forties, and older professors and doctors who mingle with many of what look like Faye and Marty’s neighbors.
I find an empty seat on the couch and sip Diet Coke and pretend to look busy as I eat cold macaroni salad and build a lettuce, ham, and Swiss sandwich.
A woman clutching a small gold bag sits down next to me. Her shiny blond hair has been perfectly highlighted, her blue eyes remain tearless. She looks as if she’s stepped out of a fashion catalogue in her brown shawl, matching skirt, and white silk shirt. She glances at the walls, then over to me.
“Hi, I’m Gina.” I extend my hand. She lifts hers, goes to shake mine and, noticing my bracelet, reaches for that instead.
“I’m Helen. How lovely. May I?”
I move my arm closer to her. Her fingers run lightly over the misshapen turquoise and round silver beads. She slides two fingers inside the bracelet and places her thumb on top, then presses together. She rubs her finger back and forth, as if trying to steal some of the magic.
“It’s so pretty.”
“Thanks.”
“Can I ask where you got it?”
“I made it.” It didn’t take long. I strung together three separate strands and connected them with several silver-plated pieces and a matching clasp.
“Really?”
I nod, beaming.
“It’s really nice. I would have guessed Bergdorf’s.” Her fingers are still caressing the stones. “Do you sell to them?”
“People have suggested that. Mostly I make them for friends, give them as gifts.”
I think about asking if she wants me to make her one. I could take her wrist measurements and inquire what kind she’d like. I have virtually hundreds of beads at home, sitting in different-sized, clear boxes, waiting for a purpose, eager to be used.
I’d design jewelry for a living but, as my mother has pointed out, if I can’t hold down a real job, I shouldn’t be putting my efforts into self-employment. My parents thought it best I work for my father while sorting out my problems in therapy. While Marty’s drugs played havoc with my emotions and mental status, I did menial duties for my dad. I went in some days, stayed home others.
He doesn’t care if I’m there or not. Sometimes I go home with him, and we have a family dinner. We usually enter to find my mother still in her suit, the phone permanently attached to her ear. She represents musical prodigies, agent to tomorrow’s youngest stars. Headshots and photos of them holding their instruments, looking serious and sophisticated yet young and impressionable, are stacked in piles on her worktable in the den. Their press clips, reviews, and articles are kept in Lucite holders.
I was forced to take piano from age six to fifteen. To this day, all I can play is “Celebration” and everyone’s favorite, “Chopsticks.” I’m convinced that this fact alone is my biggest disappointment to her. It’s hard to rep other people’s children when your daughter is tone deaf.
All of Helen’s fingers have inched their way around my wrist as she inspects my craftsmanship. She looks up at me. Then something behind my head catches her attention. I watch her eyes leave my face and rove up and left, toward the mantel where Marty’s remains are housed. I’m about to ask for her address when she drops my wrist and stands, zombie-like. She pauses there for a moment, then takes small steps closer to Marty. I set the paper plate down on the coffee table and am in the middle of standing when another woman slips in and starts conversing with her. I watch the two speak, wondering what they’re saying, if they’re talking about me. I’m inches away from Helen and am ready to take off my bracelet and lure her back, offering it up, when the other woman turns around and faces me. She takes me by the arm sharply and whispers, “She’d like a minute or two alone.”
After we’ve taken several steps away, she adds, “I think she’s one of Marty’s patients. Faye invited them.”
I nod earnestly. “I had no idea. How kind of her.”
The woman leans in closer. “You know, Marty used to tell Faye about his sessions. I believe she’s a shopaholic. Spends thousands each month on clothing and what-have-you.”
I stop short, wonder which of my secrets he would have shared, what theories he told his wife but withheld from me.
“Really?” I say in mock-shock. “She does look especially put together.”
“Of all the sicknesses to have, that’s the best one, don’t you think?”
We both decide this is so, and resume walking toward the dining room with the mission of retrieving some cookies and marble pound cake when a shrill is heard. I know in my gut it belongs to Faye. We rush with others to the kitchen area and find her crumpled on the floor in deep sobs. Like ants migrating, everyone flocks to surround her.
Faye’s sister bends down, others do as well, but she raises a hand, a silent indication to retreat. And they obey. Everyone takes one step backward while the sister slinks to the floor and cradles Faye in her arms. Suddenly, I wish to be both. I want to be the holder and the holdee. The personal fight of which side to take, of which person to be, makes me dizzy. I stand, paralyzed, and watch with other spectators, as if we are witnessing a car accident. It’s so real, so raw, I want to cry. I look up at the guests’ faces. They are either horrified or slightly saddened, lips pressed downward, eyes droopy. Some bring their hands to their mouths, trying to muffle a cry, while their eyes spill with tears. Others cover their faces completely. The way everyone is looking at Faye makes me sick. I stifle the urge to ask them to leave. Can’t they see she’s gone through enough? She doesn’t need an audience. Her husband is dead.
Her husband is dead.
“Honey,” the sister’s voice is light and cooing, but urgent, “let’s go into the bedroom.”
Faye is crying so hard she can’t hear or move.
“Help me get her to her feet,” commands the man standing next to me. Another, a woman in a tweed suit and patterned scarf, suggests giving her some water. I watch two other women fight as they reach for the same glass. Someone else insists they get Faye up and walk her to an open window. The sister just sits and holds her, calm as can be, as if this is a daily occurrence.
“Shhhhh, I’m right here,” she says while stroking her hair, “I’m here. It’s okay.”
I’m feeling a little disconnected and turn back to look for Helen. I search the entire room—nothing. I look for her in other parts of the apartment and when I don’t find her in the study or in one of the bedrooms, I start to panic. I remember she’s a patient and think maybe this is all too much for her. Maybe she, too, is having a breakdown somewhere.
