The FUneral
There was a box full of Abuelo’s things in Henry’s bedroom in Augusto’s house. Henry searched through it, finding a bag full of coins, some books, and a ring. The coins inside the bag were from the United States, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. “I didn’t know Abuelo was such and avid coin collector,” he thought. Henry skimmed through the several books on coin collecting his grandfather left him. He wanted to find out how much the coins he had in his new collection were worth. There was a good 500 dollars worth of collectable coins in that bag. He then picked up the ring that was lying in the bottom of the box. It was gold with a blue sapphire stone. He examined the intricate design on the face of the ring: a big G in the center between compass needles and what looked like a 90 degree angle ruler. He thought the ring was pretty, so he tried it on. It didn’t fit on his ring finger but it fit on his pinky, so he left it there.
When Augusto arrived from work, he noticed Henry’s mother’s Jeep was parked outside the house. “Henry!,” he thought. He hurried into the house to see his son.
“Hola, hijo,” he said.
“Hola, papá.”
“That’s a box of stuff your grandfather left in the house that I thought you’d find interesting.”
“Thanks. These things are pretty cool.”
“Enjoy ‘em, mi hijo. They’re your inheritance from him.”
“Okay, dad.”
Augusto looked at his watch.
“Shit, we gotta go. it’s already 5:45,” he said.
He looked at Henry and noticed he was still wearing his “street clothes,” open-toed shoes included.
“Hijo, you have to put on something nicer than that. Get dressed and be ready to leave in five. The service is at six,” he said, and left to start up the car.
As they drove to the funeral house it seemed like the entire family was already there. The parking lot was full so they had to go search for a spot out in town. They ended up parking by the side of a road next to a cliff. Henry could see a panorama of the old hills, mountains, and forests he trekked through in his childhood. He remembered this view. Whenever he felt homesick, back in New York, he would daydream about these mountains and forests. But something felt off. Many of the mountains he knew when he was a child were no longer there; he couldn’t recognize the scene.
The city had sprawled into the bosom of the island. The fields of coffee, plantains, and tobacco had turned into a field of commuters lost in a jungle of concrete. The sounds of the rainforest of his childhood were being drowned by the primitive rhythms of the sex-music reggaetón, which blared from the trunk speakers of the cars that rolled through road-rivers of cement. He had only been gone for four years, but it seemed that the world had changed beyond his comprehension.
“I love funerals,” Augusto said as they walked back to the funeral house.
“Why? They’re a drag!”
“It’s the only time you really get to see the entire family.”
“Well, don’t you miss Abuelo? Isn’t that why everybody’s here?”
“Funerals are not for the dead. They’re for the living. They’re pretty expensive family reunions, but they manage to bring everybody together.”
Henry knew what was coming.
“I don’t want you to display me or do this “velatorio” your grandmother’s been doing for three days. I don’t need anybody to look over my body for a couple of days to make sure I’m dead. When I’m dead I’m dead, and that’s it. Don’t even think about spending thousands on a grave and a casket. What does spending that type of money on rotting flesh do? I want you to cremate me, and hold the largest family reunion you can think of.”
“Okay dad.” He guessed right.
When they arrived at the funeral house, the reception room was already packed full with family members. Henry and Augusto headed to the room where they were watching over Abuelo. Nobody in the family had seen Henry in four years so it took him a good 20 minutes to walk from the entrance of the house to Abuelo’s room.
“¡Henry! ¡Nene, tanto tiempo!” Henry’s aunts, cousins, and all the other females of his extended family greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and some exclamatory remark. He walk through the crows, lips puckered, ready to catch up on all the “¡nene, como has crecido!” and how’ve-you-beens he’s missed in the past four years. When he finally reached the velatorio, he could see his grandfather’s casket at the far end of the room. There were several rows of chairs at each side of the room facing the deceased. They were all empty save for one of the ones nearest to the body, where Henry’s grandmother sat silently watching her husband’s body, and another one on the row where a woman covered with a black veil cried and occasionally moaned with pain.
“Abuela, ¿cómo estás?” he said.
“Estoy velando a Abuelo por si se mueve,” she said as she kept watching her husband’s body without a pause.
The woman in black wailed and raised her hands in the air while calling out for God.
“Who is that woman, Abuela?” Henry asked.
“La llorona del barrio.”
“Why is she crying so loudly?”
“Es lo que hace.”
“That’s what she does? Weird.”
Henry sat silently next to his grandmother and would constantly shift his gaze from his grandfather’s casket to his Abuela who kept her gaze locked on the frigid body. He tried to approach her and hug her, but she wouldn’t move, she wouldn’t shift her fixed look on Abuelo’s body.
“Okay Abuela, keep watching him.” He saw his father talking to his uncle in one of the corners of the room and decided to walk over to them.
“Henrycito, sobrino, cómo está todo en los Niuyores?” His uncle said.
“Things are good. Just studying and taking it easy.”
“I notice you’re wearing Abuelo’s ring. It’s pretty, huh?”
“Yeah, I thought it was cool-looking.”
“We need to discuss that ring. Come talk to me after the service.”
“Okay.” Henry felt slightly intimidated by his uncle’s words.
“Why do we have to talk about the ring?” he thought. “Am I doing something wrong by wearing it?” He began to worry about having upset the family by wearing the dead-man’s jewelry on his memorial service. “Am I dishonoring the dead?” He wanted to take off the ring, but it was stuck on his finger. He tried to pull it off harder, but it wouldn’t come off and would only hurt him.
The ceremony carried on as expected. As each family member stood up to speak his or her peace on Abuelo, Henry couldn’t stop thinking about the ring. It started to weigh on him.
Too much.
After the ceremony was done, Henry walked outside for a breath of fresh air. It was past dusk, and the ground smelled of freshly fallen rain. It always rained in Aibonito. The town and all the mountains around it would constantly be covered in deep fog, usually around sun set. Henry’s uncle stepped outside and saw Henry standing by himself on a patch of grass facing the funeral house.
“You know what that ring is for, Henrycito?” his uncle said.
Henry looked down at the ring.
Turning it in circles, he said: “not really.”
“It was your grandfather’s way of telling the world of his commitment to the brotherhood and his status as a master mason.”
Henry started feeling guilty for taking away such an important family emblem. “I’m sorry. Is everybody mad at me?” he said.
“No, Henry, absolutely not. Why would anybody be mad at you?”
“I’m wearing Abuelo’s master ring.”
“Mason ring,” his uncle corrected him, “and no, nobody’s mad at you for that.”
“What’s a mason, tío?”
“A Freemason is someone like me. We’re part of a worldwide brotherhood of forward thinking men.”
Henry looked at his ring. He remembered hearing a little about Freemasons among his group of “hipster” friends. He remembered all the conspiracies: The new world order, the illuminati, reptilians, UFOs, etc. He decided to take off the ring . He didn’t want to make any commitments with anyone.
It still wouldn’t come off.
“Is this ring yours then?” he said.
“Well, technically, I’m supposed to inherit it from Abuelo. But I think you should keep it for a while.”
“I’m not sure I can be a Freemason, tío.”
“It’s in your blood, boy. You’re the only male of this new generation. You have to carry forth the family name and the tradition. I know you can.”
“I don’t think I can. I’m sorry.” Henry’s uncle felt like he was loosing the kid fast. He paused for a second.
“Look… a lot of revolutionaries were Freemasons. You know about all the revolutions in the Americas right? The Freemasons were there. Our flag, Henry, our revolutionary flag has Freemason symbolism. Our family revolutionaries were all Freemasons…except for you father. But we both know he’s sort of a nut case anyway right? He, he. You know… some of them participated in el Grito de Lares, and the insurrection in Jayuya. Freemasonry has done a lot of good things for this country and has inspired revolutions all around the world.”
Henry was not buying his uncle’s pitch.
“Yeah, but those were bourgeois revolutions. I’m not into that.”
“Well…” his uncle didn’t know what else to say, “…regardless of the revolution, are you not a revolutionary?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Henry said.
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
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