Private Funeral

Private Funeral

fiction
edward w pritchard

It was a private funeral with a security guard at the door to keep out the uninvited. We had been friends once, we both played third base for different teams in little league. We both were good at stopping the ball with our bodies or diving to the left and snagging a skidding line drive. We had different styles but we both loved baseball and once in a while we would pal around like kids do when they are ten and travel somewhere  for hours and hours and then exhausted stumble into someones house and have a couple peanut butter sandwiches.

Years and years pass and you lose touch permanently. I saw in the paper that he was gone and when I stopped at one of the funeral homes  in our old hometown the security guard greeted me at the door. Rather than cause any discomfort to his family I went around to the back of the parking lot at the funeral home and sat in my vehicle.

I watched the staff at the funeral home line up the cars for my old friends trip to the cemetery and repeat the same procedure for the funeral in parlor B, for someone I didn't now called the Lindwell family.

My friends family had a lot of very nice cars in it, new Mercedes and top of the line American cars. One young relative maybe a nephew in college had a Hummer, the kind known as military style. I saw one of our town's councilmen, and the University President and his wife get in their cars. Everyone quickly walked to their cars and  politely waited in silence for the long slow drive to the burial site.

The other family the Lindwell's had a lot of old trucks. When they came out of the parlor to get in their cars they put their hands on each others shoulders and helped each other into their vehicles. Five or six family members helped an older lady open and close the door of the second car of the procession, a black Cadillac obviously belonging to the funeral home.

From where my vehicle sat in the parking lot I watched the funeral staff load up the coffins for my friend from little league days and then the family from parlor B, the Lindwell  family and then pull both vehicles to the front of the perspective lines for the trip to the graveyard.  The funeral staff all in black suits followed the exact same procedure for both families. I watched after as both processions had left the premises several of the older men in black suits stood out side the loading dock area of the funeral parlor and had a cigarette or two before they went inside to start preparing for the early afternoon and late evening services in parlor A where my  dear friend had been and in parlor B where someone from the Lindwell family had just waited in their coffin. 

I sat in my vehicle for a long time in the back of the funeral parking lot until I started to get hungry. I fooled around with my radio dial with the engine off looking for a major league baseball game to listen to but apparently none were to be broadcast until this evening. After an hour or so one of the suited workers from the funeral home came over to check on me but I told him that I was fine. A light rain had begun, so, I started  my truck to go get a sandwich for lunch, and then head on back to work.
end