Rafe had been raised as a Baptist, Ford remembered, but hated church and organized religion by the time they met in high school. It seemed unlikely that he had changed during the intervening years, so it seemed just as unlikely that the Reverend Somebody had known Rafe at all, let alone well enough to memorialize him. Just so long as he didn't give a sermon. But he did.
Ford settled into his seat, ready to tune out the slick, shallow performance to come. But, surprise, surprise, the sermon was neither slick nor shallow. The Reverend Somebody turned out to be a thoughtful man and an honest speaker. No, he hadn't known Rafe. But he knew about pain, and he knew about loss, and he spoke about the things he knew with sincerity, a clarity, and a sense of humor that had every man there sitting up, listening. By the time he was done, Ford felt better about Rafe and better about funerals, but foolish for having stereotyped the minister so glibly. Presupposition was a disease of the lazy or terminally oblivious, and he had been showing symptoms of both lately.
When the minister finished, the men milled around talking, pretending to be unaware that no one seemed to know exactly what to do next. Harvey stood in the corner, staring at the urn: a what now? expression on his face. Ford touched him on the elbow and said, "I have a boat back on Sanibel. You're welcome to use it. Maybe spread the ashes around Pine Island Sound. Rafe would like that."
"Yeah, well . . . that would be nice, only my plane home leaves Naples at four. I can't afford to take any more time off work, and it's a pretty long drive back to Sanibel." Harvey looked at him. "You could take them, Doc. You were his best friend."
"I will if you want."
"Or, I was thinking, with all these guys here, it might be nice to take care of it right now. While they're still around. They all played ball with him, they knew him better than anybody else."
Ford said, "The beach is only about three blocks from here—"
"I was thinking maybe North Cut. That's only a mile or two, and the tide rips through; carry him right out to sea. One night, when we were kids, Rafe caught a thirty-pound snook there using a white bucktail tipped with shrimp. Man, was he happy. "
"I'll tell the guys to follow us."
"Doc? There's something else you can do ... if you don't mind too much."
"Name it, Harvey."
Harvey was looking at the floor, uneasy. "Could you carry that . . . that vase with you? My nerves are all messed up today, and I just know I'll drop the damn thing and break it."
"I could drive you both."
"Naw, I feel like being alone for a little bit. If you don't mind."
"We'll meet you at North Cut," Ford said. "I'll take care of everything here. Take your time.'
He told the other men where to meet, then found the funeral director. On the phone, she had sounded as if she was in her fifties with blue hair and a sour, pinched face. She was actually in her late thirties, had the hair of a Woodstock groupie, and a sour, pinched face. Ford said, "I'd like to take care of the bill now," taking cash from his pocket.
The woman was standing behind a plastic desk and her expression told Ford that she recognized his voice. "The deceased's brother has already made arrangements for that," she said primly.
"He's made arrangements to pay, or to make payments?"
"Mr. . . . Ford was it? I really don't see—"
He said, "Dr. Ford," cringing at the childishness of demanding the prefix, but dealing with a woman like this seemed to require it.
"I really don't see that it's any of your business, Dr. Ford."
"Let's pretend you don't have any say in the matter."
"He's already signed the papers. Arrangements have already been made—"
Ford leaned over the desk a little. "He's made arrangements to pay off the bill in monthly installments at—what?—twenty percent interest? But now I'm going to give you cash, and you're going to mark the bill paid and you're going to give me a receipt. You have to accept cash, lady, for any outstanding debt. It's the law. Even if it means missing all that nice interest."
Fuming, biting her lips, the woman pulled open a drawer, flipped through files, and pulled out the statement. "I'd prefer a major credit card. It would make it easier for our records."
Ford said, "I don't use credit cards."
The woman slammed the drawer closed. "I'm not surprised."
TEN
Rafe was in the pickup, riding right there beside him through the heat and traffic, and Ford couldn't resist the urge to open the urn and have a look: some brown and gray stuff, about the same texture as cat litter, but a whole bunch of bone shards, too. Seemed to be way too many bones to be properly called ashes, and then Ford remembered the man on the phone, the man at the crematorium, saying they'd cremated the remains but hadn't pulverized them, and should they put a hold on that?
Apparently they'd put a hold on the pulverization just to be safe, or had forgotten because the process had been interrupted. Which wasn't great news. Now Harvey was going to have to see his brother's bones spread along with his ashes; bits of fingers, tibia, ribs easily recognized. And Ford had thought the worst was over. . . .
North Cut was a deep-water pass that separated Sandy Key from the next barrier island. It was narrow, only about a hundred yards wide, and the tidal current ripped through like a river. Ford carried the urn down onto the beach where Harvey and the other men were standing. They were an odd-looking group in their dark suits, standing uneasily in the sun as vacationers strolled by and while, down the shore, teenagers threw a Frisbee for a big Chesapeake Bay retriever.
Harvey took a breath and said, "Well, I guess we ought to get it done. What you figure, just sort of pour the ashes in the water? Tide's going pretty good; nice outgoing tide. Take my brother right out to sea."
Ford was holding the urn in his right arm, but he shifted it to the other side, away from Harvey, and removed the lid so that Les Durell and a couple of others could peek in, but Harvey couldn't. Ford said, "We could do that, Harv. Or ... I guess there are a couple of other ways to do it, too. "
Durell was looking in the urn, then he looked down the beach at the dog. The danger of dumping all those bone shards in the water with a retriever around was obvious, and he said quickly, "Yeah, Harvey, maybe we ought to think of another way."
Harvey looked perplexed, but a little irritated, too. "What other way? You guys have a better way, just come out and tell me. Damn it, I wish we'd brought that minister. He was a good guy. He'd of known how to do it."
Bern Horack, who was a couple of years older than Ford but had graduated a year behind him, said, "Maybe you should say a few words, Harv, then we could throw the whole jar in. Like a burial at sea." He was staring at the retriever, giving it an evil look. "Unless you boys want to excuse me for a minute, while I find a club—"
Ford cut in, saying "How about this, Harvey? We could walk past the urn and each take a turn throwing some of Rafe's . . . ashes . . . into the water. It might be a nice way to say good-bye. And each man could have a moment of silence to think about Rafe, remember him the way he was."
The look of evil on Horack's face faded. "Reach in there . . . with our hands?"
Harvey was nodding, oblivious to Horack, relieved. "That's a good idea, Doc. I like that. These are the best friends Rafe ever had. Your way would make it real personal." He looked at Ford for a moment. "You were his best friend. You start. I'd like to just watch for a bit."