Awkward Funeral Sex

Short story: Death can be full of surprises

I’m going to tell you about the most embarrassing moment of my life. But first let me tell you about my friend’s death. I have to do that because, unfortunately, one caused the other. 

When I was 16, I worked as the phone operator at the Radisson Hotel in Richardson, Texas. I only had to answer calls coming from outside the hotel and I had to answer the phone, every time, with this line: “It's a great day at the Radisson Hotel in Richardson. My name is Ruben. Where can I direct your call?"

It was a simple job and, though repetitive, incredibly easy. I also had a lot of time to read because there weren’t many calls. Not a bad gig, really. I even liked when a smart ass would call in, hear my greeting, and say something like "Yeah? What's so great about it?"

I genuinely appreciated those people. I saw them as someone trying to break free, even if it's for a moment, from all the ceremonial bullshit we're supposed to blindly adhere to every day. Transgression means you're still alive. But one day, that transgression meant someone died. 

The phone rang and I answered. 

“It's a great day at the Radisson Hotel in Richardson. My name is Ruben. Where can I direct your call?"

"It's not a great day, Ruben," the voice on the other end said. "Julie is dead."

The person speaking was Katie, Julie's best friend and a close friend of mine, too. 

Katie’s sobs were deep and guttural. She was in pain.

"It's a horrible fucking day," she said.

I thought it was a prank at first. I almost said something to play along like, “it’s about time” or “I know, I did it.” But Katie’s sobs were real. They were final. She didn’t joke like that and this was not a prank. It hit me: Julie was dead. 

As Katie explained what happened, the front of my mind processed the words she was saying. but the back of my mind fixated on how, two nights ago, I was kissing Julie in a pool. 

"Last night, she was out driving with some guy, we don't really know who he is yet.”

Julie and I were in the same friend group at school, but had never been close - not for any particular reason, just never had a chance. Two nights ago, however,  we were hanging out at a pool party at one of those fancy Dallas apartment complexes and got talking. We were both high, in a good mood, and somehow got the jacuzzi to ourselves. I was buzzed off Heineken and dirt weed, so I told her she was beautiful. She laughed and said I was corny.

"Police think the driver was racing, like a drag race."

I agreed with her about my corniness and reached in for a kiss. She met me halfway.

"They said they were going something like 90 miles per hour on a 40 mile per hour ramp."

We kissed for several minutes, went to get some more drinks, then sat in the corner of the pool, kissed some more, and talked some more. It was the first time we had any conversation longer than a few minutes. Talking to her was easy. We talked about everything for hours that night, and made up for the two or three years we knew of each other but didn’t really know each other.  

"The car flipped over and fell off the ramp. The whole car burned up. She’s dead.”

The apartment security guards finally came unexpectedly late and kicked everyone out. As everyone prepared to leave, she told me she wanted to see me again soon.

Her last words to me were: “My parents won’t be home Wednesday night. Come by and hang out, just me and you.”

I said I would, and left feeling that puppy love elation - something I hadn't felt in a long time at my ripe old age of 16. In fact, I had actually become a little bitter towards the idea of love due to recent events that I won’t digress about. But Julie was pretty and fun to talk to and liked me. I was excited for the future. 

But now she was dead. 

I was stunned. I told my boss what happened - not to ask to be let off work, but just because I had to tell somebody. I had to say it with my own voice and someone had to hear it - and he was there. He was a chubby, cross-eyed man in his 30s who was always trying to be hip with the high school and college-aged staff. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Take the rest of the day off, bro. Let me know if you need more time."

I accepted the offer. After all, I couldn't tell people how great a day it was at the Radisson Hotel, could I? 

---

The funeral was held at a Baptist church down the street from Julie's home. I hung out in that neighborhood a lot but never noticed this church before. The building felt artificial, like it was created just for this occasion. 

Inside, it was packed. Julie was young, pretty, and popular. People love you when you are those things, and miss you more when you’re gone. The older people, I assumed, were mostly Julie’s family members and friends of family. Seeing the older relatives of a dead teenager, watching them live and breathe in their wrinkled, withered bodies, gave me an immediate sense of injustice. Things aren’t supposed to go this way. The young are supposed to outlive the old. That’s the rule. If it wasn’t obeyed, humanity would end. But sometimes, it happens. And when it does, it’s cruel.

"Ruben?" I felt a soft tap on my shoulder and turned around. It was Hannah, Julie's mother. She was Julie with a gentle veil of 30 years on her face. The exact same face - same light brown eyes that sparkled bright with just a little light, same aquiline nose that gave her a regal profile, and same wide mouth that had a smile that forced others to join in. My mind reflexively went back to the pool and how, five days ago, I was looking into those same eyes and kissing that same mouth.

The scene was so vivid in my imagination, I could taste the beer on Julie’s breath, and feel her wet skin on my fingers. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking about that, but I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to be there, in that pool with her, where she was beautiful and alive, not here at her funeral. Dead in a box. So I clung to the memory, letting it live in my head and be my armor protecting me from this place I didn’t want to be. 

"Can you please be a pallbearer for Julie?" Hannah said, her eyes, which were no longer Julie’s eyes, moist from tears.

"Of course," I said. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to touch the coffin. That would mean participating in all of this - being complicit in something that shouldn’t have happened. And I didn’t even want to be here. I wanted to be in my head, in the past, not the present and not the future of this present, either. But I was stuck. Stuck in a church listening to a preacher talk about a dead girl he didn’t know and would never know, but who I knew and was keeping alive in my head. 

---

“My parents won’t be home Wednesday night. Come by and hang out, just me and you.”

The service seemed to go by in an instant. The preacher said a few vague words that indicated he didn't know Julie at all. But the words seemed to do the job of giving a senseless death meaning and value by connecting it to a higher power that will one day make beautiful sense out of all our pain and grief. At least that’s what I assumed the effect was.

As for me, I couldn’t stop thinking about Julie. She got more beautiful and more sexy the more I thought about her. Her face became more angelic. Her body became more curvaceous. Her voice was sweeter and her laugh was more specific to the bad jokes and dumb observations I made. I imagined us together at her house when her parents weren’t home. It would have been tonight.

If everything had worked out, if she didn’t die in a fiery car crash, I would have been getting ready right now to go over to her house. I would have gotten really freshened up, slapped on just a little cologne, not too much, and worn something nice, not too nice. I would have worn the pants I was wearing - I had been into my black slacks lately because they fit nicely and had a cool, worn-out look that made them seem both casual and dressy at the same time. I would have brought that bag of really good weed I’d been saving for a special occasion. I would have thought about a bunch of cool and interesting things to say and she would have been very impressed and we would have…

“Ruben!” 

It was Julie’s father, Bartholomew. He looked completely different from Julie. No resemblance that I could see. Cold blue eyes peered out from a face that was slathered in dry wrinkles, like he had been smoking since he was born, with a scraggly, old-school Texan voice that supported that hypothesis. 

“It’s time!” he said in a loud whisper, like he was in a hurry. Maybe he was. Maybe he just wanted to get this over with.

The service was over and it was time to carry Julie’s coffin to the burial site.

Me and two of my friends who also knew Julie made up half of the pallbearer team. Julie’s father and two brothers made the other half. I heard Hannah tell somebody that Julie would have wanted her friends to be a part of this, and this made me feel annoyed at Julie for wanting this, if she did, which I’ll never know. 

---

"Y’all ready?" Bartholomew said. We all said yes in some way - either by word or by grunt, and lifted. It was light. Six men carrying a 110-pound body inside a wooden box is easy. It was like lifting furniture, but it shouldn't have been. It should have hurt us to do this - a physical burden to go along with the mental one. But she was light. She was dead and light. We all are eventually. 

It was a beautiful day out. As we carried Julie’s coffin to the burial site, I looked at that big, dark hole underneath the big, bright blue sky, and I didn’t want to put her in the ground. It wasn’t right. Any of these old people should be going in there. Hey had enough big, bright blue skies. This was their time to go, not Julie’s. Julie had life to live, lots of life to live. We were supposed to live together tonight, have one of those nights you look back on and smile to yourself.

The pallbearers put the casket on the lowering device - a big, complicated machine that didn’t seem necessary. I wanted to correct this mistake. I wanted to open the casket, pull Julie out, bring her back to life and take her to another world where all these absurd mistakes don’t happen. But I couldn’t be that person. That person didn’t really exist, just like that other world didn’t exist, and just like Julie no longer existed. And so nothing happened. I had to stand there and look sad and hopeless against fate.

But I still had my imagination. And in my head, Wednesday night was happening. Julie greeted me with that big smile and those sparkly eyes. We took up right where we left off. We went to her living room couch. She took off my shirt. I took off hers. We went to her bedroom and we were alive and well. 

This wasn’t happening. It would never happen. But it was real in my head. I felt every sensation. I smelled her hair, her skin, I felt her body. She was beautiful, perfect, and completely alive. She made me alive. She made me appreciate what life was.

It wasn’t until I noticed the reverend looking at me. I saw his eyes, and then I realized everyone’s eyes were on me. 

I looked down and saw that I had the biggest erection of my life. My first reaction was pride. The damn thing tore through my pants - worn-out pants, yes - but it still tore through them. And now it was right there, in plain sight, no cover, for all to see, pointing at the coffin and the big hole in the ground. A strong, cold wind blew and I realized I had never felt the wind on my dick. It felt good. 

I heard the frightened gasps and the enraged whispers. I even heard a few giggles. And I knew what had happened. But I couldn’t do anything about it. I was in a daze. I was somewhere else. I was at Julie’s house, in her bed, with her, like we were supposed to be doing tonight. I was listening to her voice, touching her skin, her curves, smelling her hair. And then Bartholomew grabbed me by my collar and threw me on the ground.

“What the hell is wrong with you, boy!!!??”

I snapped out of the dream as soon as my face hit the ground. I glanced at my crotch and saw my exposed member, now covered in dirt, but not covered enough. I looked up and saw dozens of eyes looking down on me - a collage of rage, disgust, and amusement. 

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean it,” I said. “It just happened!”

“Boy, you best get out of here right now before they get to having two funerals today,” he said, lifting his blazer to show me his gun, which was much bigger than mine. 

I got up and tried to tuck it back in my pants, but it was too stiff and there was also the big hole in my pants, so I took my jacket off and wrapped it around my waist.

I wanted to make a heroic speech and tell everyone that I was not a pervert at all. Rather, I was standing against the unfair death of a beautiful young woman who had a whole, amazing life ahead of her, and I was keeping her alive in my mind, honoring her life instead of her death. I wanted to tell them that we can, we must, live every moment of our life with joy and love our loved ones always and forever.

But they just wanted me to leave. And so I did, and I took Julie with me.

---