In the middle of a long, hot summer, Malcolm Watkins attended the funeral of his friend Guillermo Rivas, who had overdosed on OxyContin. Malcolm didn’t know the Rivas family. Other than the priest, Guillermo’s father was the only one who spoke. He kept begging his dead son for forgiveness. He wept so much throughout the funeral that it was hard to understand his words. He kept saying he knew Guillermo would surely forgive him. The priest offered ambiguous euphemisms for what would happen in the afterlife. Malcolm found out later that for months after the funeral, Mrs. Rivas just sat in a chair for hours on end, rocking silently back and forth and staring out the window.
In late November, Malcolm attended another funeral, this time for Jamal Moore’s father, who died of pancreatic cancer. During the service, Jamal’s sister Jada delivered a beautiful eulogy honoring Mr. Moore. She said that no matter what sorts of mistakes the Moore kids made, her father always let them know that things would be OK. He encouraged them to believe that they were probably doing the best they could at the time and would do better in the future. He told them he was always in their corner. Since the sun was going to rise tomorrow with or without them, they might as well enjoy life as much as possible and do something useful because every moment above ground was worth appreciating.
At the post-funeral reception, Malcolm heard Jamal say quietly to a small circle of listeners that his dad had never been anything but kind to him. The entire family seemed at peace with Mr. Moore’s passing despite the sorrow they felt from losing him.
On his drive home from Mr. Moore’s funeral, Malcolm thought about his own father, Ben Watkins, who had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Ben struggled with PTSD. Various Agent Orange-related illnesses from his three tours in Vietnam had ruined him. For years, Mrs. Watkins and the children walked on pins and needles trying not to upset Ben. He could explode at a moment’s notice and beat the kids when they didn’t follow the house rules to the letter. He never once struck Mrs. Watkins, but sometimes he knocked her out of bed at night when a car driving by would backfire, or when some other loud noise triggered a disturbing flashback. He would yell at everyone when his mood took a wrong turn.
Malcolm decided to swing by the old neighborhood and visit his parents before heading home. He parked in the driveway and walked through the front door. The living room lights were dim. His dad was sitting in front of the TV in his reclining chair. He held a glass of whiskey in one hand and a cigar in the other. He looked up at Malcolm and said, “Hey, aren’t you that gay boy that used to be my son?”
Malcolm sat down in a chair a few feet away. He said, “Anybody you raised was bound to turn out gay.”
“Sure enough.”
Ben told Malcolm a story about the moon rising over the South China Sea, and how he fell in love with Malcolm’s mother the moment he laid eyes on her in Saigon, and how he beat his cousin Darius half to death in a drunken argument for calling her racist names, and how the drugs he was taking just weren’t working very well anymore. Malcolm listened and nodded and laughed. He kept from worrying too much because this was a chance to talk about anything. It was late, and they were getting along. They talked deep into the night, telling stories and sharing truths, until there was nothing left unsaid.
