ON DEATH AND BURIAL
FEBRUARY, 1990
He took the flowers off the casket. He left my tears.
I always wondered what I would do it someone I knew were killed. It has not been uncommon for me to contemplate it. The friendships I have that I call friendships are close ones. There are many people I know who Ôused to be my friendsÕ not because I donÕt like them anymore, but merely because they havenÕt kept in touch over the years. I fear that this sounds cruel, it is not intended to be. Indeed, some friendships stop for a while and then resume. I never ruled out that possibility.
But early in the morning on the fourth of February 1990, Corey Smith, who had never stopped being a friend, was killed in an automobile accident. It was on the Boulder Canyon highway, a notoriously nasty stretch of road. It was icy. The car he was in skidded off the road. The driver over-corrected and the car flew back across the highway. An oncoming car T-boned them. Corey was killed instantly, they say. It seems so senseless, but I guess that most deaths can seem no other way.
There are a lot of things that I had to watch myself over during this month. Naturally, my already intense hatred of the automobile set hte stage for my obsessing and blaming the Ford motor company. I could blame the driver of the car. I could feel guilty because I didntÕ see him over Winter break. I could run around screaming WHY WHY WHY? I stopped myself from wondering if death was preferable to him being severely handicapped. I stopped myself from thinking about whether I would trade places with him. Why did I do this?
Why wouldnÕt I let myself get trapped into
the common trapping of a grieving loved-one? Mostly because Corey was a really positive
person to begin with and I was not about to let the positive energy of Corey Smith have a
negative energy of any type. This is not to say I did not grieve. I scared pople I grieved
so much. but the point is that if there is nothing after death then life is pointless, in
a personal sense and grieving is futile. If there is something, anthing, after death, then
Corey is just off doing something else and probably being pretty easy going about whatever
it is.
Obviously, i have no idea what happens when a person dies. I donÕt believe in a Christian god, so I pretty much rule out corey with a harp dancing around some white room with a fog machine. Therefore I am basing my actions on the two assumptions made above. Together they take into account both of the possibilities, termination or continuation, and come to the same conclusion.
Chronologically, things happened like this:
On Tuesday, Ann and I sat down to eat some spaghetti and the phone rang. I was going to get rid of whoever was on the phone because we were eating. It was David Fisher. ÒHi,Ó he said.
ÒWhatÕs up?Ó I replied.
ÒI have some bad news.Ó He sounded
confused.
ÒWhatÕs wrong?Ó
ÒWell, there was an accident, and...Corey was in it and, evidently he died.Ó
ÒOh, god, well, how did you find this out?Ó
ÒWell, evidently, my father saw something in the paper and then he was down at the funeral home dropping off a wheel chair and he heard something about he Smith kid dying.Ó
ÒNothing more concrete than that?Ó
ÒWell, no.Ó
ÒSo it could be a mistake?Ó
ÒI suppose it could.Ó
Pause.
ÒWell, Dave, uh, IÕm eating dinner. Can you call me back when you know for sure?Ó
ÒYes, itÕs the dinner hour? Oh, the viewing is on Thursday and the burial is on Friday.Ó
ÒOkay, call em back when you know.Ó
ÒAll right.Ó
I hung up and tried to eat.
ÒWhat was that?Ó Ann asked. I didnÕt reply. ÒWhatÕs wrong?Ó
ÒI donÕt know yet.Ó I said.
ÒWhat? WhatÕs wrong?Ó She asked again and came over to sit by me. I donÕt know how I looked at the time, but I must have looked really confused and frightened.
I told Ann what had evidently happened. I
told her over and over that nothing was for sure, mostly to remind myself. Ann called her
sister, who also lives in Boulder, but she had see nothing in the paper. Finally, Ann got
me to call CoreyÕs place.
ÒHello?Ó His roommate said.
ÒHi, is Corey there?Ó I asked hopefully.
ÒUh, how you know Corey?Ó he asked.
ÒShit,Ó I said, ÒThatÕs all I needed to hear.Ó
ÒOh, did you see something in the paper?Ó
ÒNo, I live in Michigan, a friend called. It was unclear so I was calling for confirmation. I guess this is confirmation.Ó
ÒYeah, how did you know Corey?Ó
ÒHe was one of my best friends. IÕve
known him for years.Ó
ÒYeah, itÕs really sad.Ó
And so forth, I called Dave back and told him that I had confirmed it. Then I called airlines for several hours and got plan reservations for Thursday morning. Called Dave back again to let him know that I was coming and needed to be picked up, a roof over my head, and chauffeured around. I called other friends. BJ broke down on the phone and I havenÕt talked to her since. It certainly wasnÕt good news.
I arrived in Lincoln on Thursday at about noon. The flight wasnÕt bad. Dave and I drove back to his place and we picked up Melissa, the woman he lives with, and went out to eat. I was pretty freaked after the news and this sudden flight which I could afford only by the grace of a Citibank emergency credit increase. We went to a mexican place. Melissa told me that she couldnÕt understand how Dave could like me after she had read certain parts of J. LeRoyÕs Progress. ÒI would ahte you if you wrote things like that about me! And I asked Dave about it and he just said, 'IÕm glad I make good copy!' do you hate Dave or what?Ó
I told her that I did not hate Dave and
that quite the contrary was true. I tried to tell her that Dave was a real pain in the ass
at times and that those things actually happened. But to no avail. ThatÕs all right
though, it made me laugh, which I needed to do at the time.
After lunch, Dave and Melissa went to their afternoon classes and I went to the city campus at the University of Nebraska to visit some people. I told my old roommate Chad what had happened and he was supportive, as usual. Then, after a time, we left for Grand Island for the viewing.
We walked into the funeral home. i walked ahead of Dave and Melissa. Still hoping for some last ditch mistake to have been made. But I was prepared. I had envisioned what Corey would look like in a casket about six million times between the point I found out and that point.
We walked into the room where Corey was lying in state. I saw him lying there, his mother came and greeted me. I stood with her for about forty five minutes, talking to other people. One woman asked me where I from. I told her Michigan. She asked if I had just come home for the weekend. i told her had come back for the funeral. This seemed to surprise her. Her surprise annoyed me.
It was at that point that I realized that
people didnÕt take my personal grief and suffering seriously because I wasnÕt a blood
relative of CoreyÕs. To this point, I cannot understand why. But hen again, I have come
to the conclusion that other people must not have truly close friends. There can be no
other reason.
After those forty five minutes or so, I broke away. CoreyÕs brother Tim had told me to Òspend some time with himÓ meaning Corey. I had intended on it. I walked past Dave and Melissa, who were talked to CoreyÕs dad and some other people. Dave glanced at me with a coping glance, which I returned.
I walked to the edge of the casket and stared at my dead friend. He looked pallid. I thought about how my grandparents, who ran a funeral home, would have made him look better. Then everything started to get weird. I have no idea how long I stood there. I know it was over an hour. People came and went. All I could hear were halves of sentences from the various conversations going on. ÒOh, Corey,Ó and Òquite a musician,Ó and Òplayed more notes in twenty three years than...Ó and so on while I re-ran my whole life with corey in my head. Slowly, quickly, examining certain parts.
Tim came up after a while and we talked. he
showed me where Corey had been cut and told me all the details of the accident. He told me
about how he and Corey were just getting to be friends instead of just brothers. He told
me about how he knew what I was going through because his best friend was killed at about
the same time in his life in about the same manner.
He left and I stood there. I didnÕt cry to much. What I did cry I just let run down my cheeks and fall to the floor. People would come up and look at Corey, then look at me, then say a half sentence and walk away.
The hardest thing to deal with wasnÕt Corey in the casket. I had prepared myself for Corey in the casket. I had seen hundreds of people in caskets when visiting my grandparents. What I was not ready for was CoreyÕs new violin.
Corey played everything with strings incredibly well. I recorded thousands of hours worth of material with him over the years and without him my musical career would never have existed. In January, he called me to tell me about the new violin he had just purchased. He was incredibly proud of it.
At the viewing, Corey was along the east
wall. The violin was along the north, on the marble slab. Corey had been made presentable.
The violin had not. No one on the face of the earth could have made the violin
presentable. It was totally destroyed.
Tim had told me that the car was almost unrecognizable as a car. It was totally demolished. Corey looked very good, considering the accident. The violin was in a case the time of impact. I am not lying when I say that if someone set out to break apart a violin they would have had to take great pains to break it into so many pieces. Even the bow was snapped. Every string was snapped in half. All the hairs on the bow were snapped in half. I stared at it in total horror for about ten mintues and then went back to Corey because I couldnÕt take the violin.
After a while, a little over an hour, I remembered that I had not come alone. I decided that I should get back to Dave and Melissa. I turned and they were gone. I was about to go find them when Tim came back and started talking to me again. We talked for an hour or so more, taking all of the support from each other that we could.
Steve McCarthy, a friend from junior high, came in. We said hello and shook hands. He asked me where I was living and seemed impressed that I had come back for the funeral. Again, this upset me, so I told Tim that I should go find Dave and Melissa, told Steve goodbye, and left the viewing room.
Dave, Melissa, and DaveÕs parents were in
the front room of the funeral home. Corey lived with DaveÕs dad for a short time in
Denver Ð about the same amount of time I lived with the Goldberg family when I first
moved to Denver. DaveÕs dad was telling anecdotes about living with Corey. Dave and
Melissa looked up at me, then DaveÕs mom, and then DaveÕs Dad. I told them that I was
ready to go, and that I was sorry to have kept them so long. Actually, I would have stayed
all night if they werenÕt there.
We drove out to a Chinese restaurant. I filled Dave and Melissa in on things about the accident they didnÕt know. Grand island is small, so the drive was short. On the way into HunanÕs, Dave and Melissa made nasty comments on ValentinoÕs Pizza which Dave at one time had proclaimed was the only thing on earth truly worth eating. I mentioned this and they told me that the quality had fallen off quite a bit.
Dave and Melissa got a table and I called Ann. It was really too soon after the viewing to describe it. Now I can type it at my normal speed, but that was certainly too soon. I choked out words about CoreyÕs family and almost broke down when describing the violin. We talked for about twenty minutes or so. When I got to the table, DaveÕs parents had arrived and were smoking.
We ate. Eating was strange. HunanÕs had
less than three vegetarian dishes. The one I had was tasty, but I canÕt remember what it
was. I asked for a tonic and lime and got a tonic and lemon and drank my water.
After eating, Dave and Melissa took me to AnnÕs motherÕs home and we watched L.A. Law. It was very strange. I remember talking about chocolate, but little else.
The next morning was the funeral. After the relative ease of the viewing, I didnÕt think the funeral would be that much of a problem. I talked to CoreyÕs mother for a bit and then went to take a last look at him. It was a brief look.
We sat as close to the front as we could, given that our bloodlines were not traceable to CoreyÕs ancestry. Not much was said, we fiddled around with the church paraphernalia in front of us.
After a bit I turned and saw Sara, CoreyÕs old girl friend sitting in the row behind us. She was really broken up. After a point, I went back and sat with her. There wasnÕt much to say, so we didnÕt say much. We sat there and held each other for a while. Tim came by and said hello.
After a few minutes, my brother showed up,
so I went to sit with him. I asked him if he had seen Corey. He said that he hadnÕt, so I
sent him back to do so. Dave commented that my brother was too tall now. My brother came
back and asked how I was. I said I was ok. I asked him what he thought of Corey. He said
he couldnÕt look at him. I thought that was pretty bizarre for someone who had no trouble
at any other funerals and who, in fact, had found both of my paternal grandparents after
they died.
Then the service started. It was totally and horribly religious. It had four prayers, three hymns, two big speeches about how great god and christ were and, as it says in the program, The Memorial Moment. My brother, after it was over, told me that I had never looked more angy in his memory. I stood there through this pile of religious tripe that I thought was supposed to honor the memory and the actions and the person that was my friend Corey. Instead, I was (and Corey was) subjected to a stream of paranoiac Yahweh-babble with a memorial moment tossed in as an after thought.
The Moment was delivered by a pastor who hardly knew my friend. It did not mention our peer group. It did not mention the Boat People. It was read from a script. All this for the finest musician I had ever known. All this for a person whom I loved dearly.
It finally ended. There was a post-service
lunch, but I couldnÕt deal with it. My brother and I went and walked around our old
property and around Grand IslandÕs golf course. An hour before the burial, we left for
Fullerton Ð the burial site.
We arrived at the Fullerton Manor late. We then drove out to the cemetary, only to arrive just as everyone was leaving the grave. If there was anything worth hearing said over CoreyÕs casket by someone other than myself, I missed hearing it.
I basically abandoned my party. I walked under the tent and stared at the casket. Touched it. I think Dave and my brother said things to me, but IÕm not sure. I walked over to the head of the casket on the opening side.
The sun was very bright. Fullerton is a city out in the cornfields of Nebraska. The cemetery sialso in the cornfields.
Again, Tim came up and asked if I was alright. I really wasnÕt at that time. I chokingly asked him for his address. He got one of his family business cards from his wife. Children and people I had not seen for several years took flowers off the casket. It was a symbolic gesture I did not understand.
Tim left at some point. He really did help
a lot, I don't want it to sound like he was pestering me or anything like that. I donÕt
think I helped him very much, however.
Anyway, he went off to speak to someone. I put my head down on the casket and my brain filled with thoughts. Thoughts of Corey, of the past, of the potential lost, of the stupid people who lived past the fourth of February, of anger, of hurt, of what happens when a person dies, and of just about everything else. At some point in the middle of all this, as I was thinking these things and watching the tears well up in my glasses and fall to the glistening silver casket, I heard Jeremy, CoreyÕs oldest Nephew, ask Tim ÒWhy does he had his head down like that?Ó Time answered, ÒBecause heÕs very sad.Ó
Everyone but the people I held captive (Dave, Melissa and my brother) had left by the time the funeral people finally moved me from the coffin and set about the dirty business of lowering the casket. I had grossly underestimated the amount I had been crying becuase snot was streaming from my nose. I, of course, had no tissues.
I walked about ten feet from the coffin and bent down on one knee. I wanted to watch them lower Corey down. The sun was intense. The frozen breath of the grave workers floated up into the tent as they rolled the coffin into the box, rolled the lid over, brought the coffin up to the lid, and lowered the whole tomb into the ground. It was a slow and quiet process, except for the two or three clanks by metal meeting metal.
After it was all over, I got up and walked
ot the car. Dave and Melissa were ahead of me about five yards, my brother was about three
yards to my right. We got back to the cars. I retrieved a tissue from my coat. My brother
went back to Grand Island. Dave, Melissa and I drove to Lincoln so that we could go out
with some of their friends that evening.
ThereÕs more to this story, the evening with the friends was strange to say the least. We went into Omaha for a day and saw my parents. IÕll save all that for later, though. And as I close this I can only think of the time that Corey said,ÓI think IÕd rather be cremated, but IÕll probably end up being buried.Ó
Journal Entries During the Above Ordeal
Thu 8 February 90, 8:09 East Lansing
IÕm sitting here in the Lansing airport not really knowing what to expect form the rest of the day. By the end of today I will have seen one of my best friends in a casket. This is definitely my least favorite journey ever. As IÕve already recorded in my DayTimer, I really havenÕt freaked out. Of course, my hands betray me. TheyÕre starting to peel already. Of course, they started the day before I found out, but even so. My skin is separating from all of my fingers, instead of gradually, like it normally does.
I hope that my hands arenÕt too hideous
when I meet the people at the Humphry Insititue. I wonder if thereÕs anything I can do
for this disorder that wonÕt fuck up my nervous system or cost a large sum of money and
time.
Right now IÕm mostly feeling hungry and tired, but the last thing I want to do is eat at the airport. IÕve done it before and it cost a lot and didnÕt do much for me. Otherwise, IÕve bot about foty minutes before flight leaves and I officially start this adventure of a fornight that will take me to at least eight cities and a thousand different itneraries.
ItÕs a nice day here, I didnÕt check on Lincoln weather. I hope itÕs fair sailing all the way. The last think I need is for another thing to make Ann even more nervous.
Anyway, as for my fingers, I am hoping that the trip to Minneapolis will help them out a little. Last time they went crazy (almost two year ago) they didnÕt get better until after I had visited several other cities.
The last time I was in this damn airport, AnnÕs flight was delyaed forever and it was a million degrees in here because they didnÕt believe in air conditioning, I guess. I always thought it was a standard feature of airports. Then again, most airports have really high ceilings, for no apparent reason and must be hell to control the climate of.
I didnÕt charge up baby last night. I hope
I donÕt get the three-beep warning of the batteriens imminent demise on the plane. The
baggage check people had a wonderful time checking out baby and turning her on and off,
looking at the transformer, and so forth. (Pardon me, I just had a Corey flashback Ð it
had to do with the word ÒtransformerÓ. This is because in the late seventies Corey and I
used to be heavily into model railway. Corey was very proud of a new transformer that he
had been given for Xmas. It was by the Model Rectifier Corporation He used to sing those
words. ÒMo-o-del Rect-i-fier Corpo-r-a-a-tion,Ó heÕd sing.)) , Ð I was going to put
that quote/ditty in a BVI recently but forgot. It seemed like a neat thing to do, since it
had been so long. But it didnÕt seem that important. Anyway, I hear that song everytime I
hear the workd transformer.
On the bus downtown this morning I talked to JanetÕs roommate. The roommate told me that she was preparing to leave for japan at the end of the month. She will be there for nine months. Nine months. Now I have to drag out the phone book and find out just where, exactly, Janet McGurk lives. She lives somewhere in my apartment complex, but itÕs a large complex. Going door to door isnÕt something I was ready to do.
My plane has just arrived. I feel very strange right now. Actually, I feel like I do everytime a plane IÕm about to board or greet someone from arrives. It's an inexplicable feeling of anticipation. Normally I feel impatience. This may be just another manifestation of that same impatience, but for the sake of positive thinking, IÕll call it anticiaption. This is why I have touble with suspenseful movies, I get really impatient for the resolution of whatever there is to resolve.
Well, I should probably pack up baby and
Ryuichi Sakamoto and get ready to board the damn plane.
Thu 8 February 90, 10:10 Chicago
I didnÕt even end up taking this thing out of its case. I sat next to some Architect that had offices in Lansing and Hawaii. We had a nice hour long chat about economic development and public private partnerships. Talking to him was fun because he was rather right-wing, so it was hard for him to accept some of my definitions for things. I defined what he called a Òwill for changeÓ as a Òquestioning of authorityÓ. I actually succeeded in doing so, though, and he seemed quite comfortable with it after a while. It was hard for him, I believe, becuase being right-wing heÕd probably been told to revere authority and quedsitoning it at any time is out of the question. So to speak.
One other ironic thing about his trip is that United calls its domestic flights Òfriendship serviceÓ so this will be ÒUnited Flight 577 friendship service to Lincoln, NebraskaÓ the ironic thing about this is that in the song ÒThe PartyÓ Corey and I clinked some glasses and I said, ÒTo friendship.Ó Oh oh, got to go.
Fri 9 February 90, 8:46 Grand Island
The funeral is at eleven. Dave and Melissa are coming by at ten. Originally, I wasnÕt going to even get out of bed until nine, but AnnÕs mother had a second alarm clock sitting in another room that went off at seven. Twue to what apperas to be Miner form it was a clock raido turned up all the way. I couldnÕt get to sleep again after that, so at about eight I tried to call my brother, but I just missed him evidently. That means he should show up right around the time that Dave and Melissa do.
The viewing wasnÕt really traumatic. I supposed I was pretty prepared for it. Corey looked like I expected him to, except that the mortician had made him look a little too pallid Ð which annoyed me. I talked to all the Smith family for quie a while, about twenty minutes, but spent about an hour and forty minutes just staring at him. People came and went and said things like, ÒOh, Corey,Ó or something about music. Wafts of converstion hit me like framentary dialog in some Beckett play. I remember CoryÕs dad saying, ÒHe probably played more notes in his twenty three years...Ó and, Òhe was just coming back from some jam session up in the mountains...Ó etc. etc. etc.
Corey was in a large silver casket. His new
violin, which was also in the wreck and looked much worse than he did, had its own little
wooden casket that sat nearby. It was probably the saddest thing I have ever seen. And
ever hope to see.
I had a dream last night that I was reading a zine like IÕm going to write about Corey written by his family. It was really vivid and interesting. ItÕs also rather bizarre that I should have that dream so soon. The viewing must have had quite an impact on me. The lag-time of my dreams to everyday life is considerable.
Something for the Enquirer or those Time-Life new age books is that since Monday I have woken up at 3:35 am (EST) 1:35 (MST) Corey was killed around 1:55 (MST) on Sunday morning. Last night I woke up, but the clock was too far for me to see. I guess it doesnÕt really matter what time it was. I found out on Wednesday that he he'd been killed. I donÕt know if I woke up at the time of the accidnet. Many times I have awoken with one of those Time-Life new age premonitions that something bad has happened to some person and IÕll call and theyÕll say, ÒNo, IÕm fine.Ó That didnÕt happen this time. Nothing really happened. Dave just called me and that was it. The only problem is that now IÕm going to be paranoid every time I wake up at night.
Sat 10 February 1990 10:11 Lincoln
Yesterday was really rough. It was like two weeks smashed into a single, bizarre day. The funeral was a terrible experience for me. I felt very excluded from the whole thing. The church service talked about Corey for about ten seconds and then how great god was and how we should all beg him to take Corey home. My brother told me that I looked really angry during the whole service. ThatÕs not surprising given that I felt very angry during the whole serivce. I mean, here was Corey, my best friend for several years. a person with whom IÕve spent countless days at a time locked in various basements recording, bulding electronic things, building model railways, making movies, writing, talking, sitting, yelling, etc. and IÕm being told who Corey was by a guy who had one or two little anecdotes. A guy who did not know of A.M.A. or The Boat People or me or Dave or John or Sarah or anything that was Corey. It just didnÕt make sense.
I realize that the service was a necessary thing for CoreyÕs family. I have no real problem with the strong religious background of his family. But first off, funerals can be individualized. There is nothing that says it had to be that way. IÕm not religious, Corey wasnÕt religious, but the service wasnÕt for Corey. It was for other people and Jesus Christ. I guess I just see no real point in begging a god who is supposedly all-forgiving to allow someone like Corey into ÔheavenÕ. I guess I donÕt see the point of it at all.
It wasnÕt CoreyÕs funeral it was a human
offering to Jesus Christ and I feel quite strongly that Corey was above such a banal act.
The burial was in Fullerton. It was at 2:30. It must have been done by that guy who used to talk really fast in the Federal Express Ads because we got there at 2:40 and it was over. I stood and stared at the closed coffin, waiting to be lowered into the ground, it just sat there and glistened in the sun. Peoople I had never seen before came up and took flower off of it. I wanted to ask them all how they knew Corey and if they could possibly measure their anguish against mine, but I didnÕt. I put my hand on the coffin towards the foot, about where CoreyÕs right thigh would have been. I stood there for ten minutes. People, my brother, Dave and Melissa included, came up and looked at me for a bit, probably expecting me to leave, but I did not leave.
After those ten minutes passed I walked to the head of the coffin and stared at it. IÕm not sure how long I was there, but judging from the fragments of conversations and the amount of people who came and went from my peripheral vision, it must have been about twenty minutes. Tim came up to ask me if I was alright. I wasnÕt, he knew that. He knew what I was going through. He tried his best and I appreciate that. I asked him for his address, so I could send him things. then I put my head on the coffin right next to CoreyÕs and cried as long as the morticians would let me. My tears fell from my eyes, into my glasses , out of the top of my glasses, onto the top of the casket, then theyÕd run to the edge and pool up, until there was a sufficient amount for them to run down the side and fall in to the tomb-box.
Finally, one of the morticians wanted to go
home, or something. He told me to step back so that they could bury Corey. I couldnÕt
yell at him or anything becuase I knew it was something that my grandfather, my father,
and my uncle had to do several times.
He took the flowers off the casket. He left my tears. They were still gleaming in the sunlight as the lid was placed on the box.
After he told me to move, I walked about seven feet from the grave site and bent down on one knee. I watched as they lowered my friend into the ground. The sun was really bright, there were corn fields as far as they eye could see. The grave guys moved around in complete silence. They cranked Corey down into the box, cranked the box up to the lid, cranked the lid down to the box, and, finally, Corey and about a ton of metal were lowered into the ground. They buried him with that bashed up violin. I hope they put one in there he could use.
The morticians packed up their things. I walked away from the grave alone and in silence. The sun was still incredibly bright. It was February.
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