While I was talking to him, Mom and Dad had moved up to the second row with my tank, so I didn’t have a long walk back.
Dad handed me a tissue as I sat down. I blew my nose, threaded the tubes around my ears, and put the nubbins back in.
I thought we’d go into the proper sanctuary for the real funeral,
but it all happened in that little side room—the Literal Hand of Jesus, I guess, the part of the cross he’d been nailed to.
A minister walked up and stood behind the coffin, almost like the coffin was a pulpit or something,
and talked a little bit about how Augustus had a courageous battle
and how his heroism in the face of illness was an inspiration to us all,
and I was already starting to get pissed off at the minister when he said, “In heaven, Augustus will finally be healed and whole,”
implying that he had been less whole than other people due to his leglessness, and I kind of could not repress my sigh of disgust.
My dad grabbed me just above the knee and cut me a disapproving look,
but from the row behind me, someone muttered almost inaudibly near my ear, “What a load of horse crap, eh, kid?”
I spun around. Peter Van Houten wore a white linen suit, tailored to account for his rotundity, a powder-blue dress shirt, and a green tie.
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