Denton Little's Deathdate (4 page)

Here's what you can expect to experience at your funeral:

You will be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people there. You will see friends you haven't seen in years, including Randy Regan, who moved away in second grade to Colorado. Your family and extended family and extended family's family will be there, and they will shower you with attention and praise and pity and love. Everyone else will shower you with these things, too. You will be the star, but not in a way that you'll be able to fully enjoy.

Your girlfriend will try to get a moment alone with you, but it will only last three minutes before you're interrupted by an oblivious cousin and forced to head back to the celebration. Your girlfriend will seem angry with you, but you'll know she's really just upset about the whole death thing, and you'll promise her that you'll have time alone after the funeral, which you do genuinely want. You will wonder if you'll get to sleep with her during that time alone. You will
wonder if you'll die a virgin. You'll wonder if you're a jerk for thinking about sex right now.

You will be thankful your best friend is there; he is supportive and great without acting like a freak about it, which makes him something of an oasis in the desert of people surrounding you. As expected, you will see almost everyone from your high school class, and it will weird you out, because you can't ever imagine another occasion where you would invite literally every person from school. You'll remember, for an instant, that in less than a month, your best friend will be going through this exact same thing. You will feel bad for him. You will feel bad for yourself. Occasionally, that death threat from earlier will pop into your head, and you will stare around the room in a paranoid fashion, trying to figure out who wrote it. You will search the crowd for your best friend's older sister, both dreading and fiercely anticipating the run-in, as if she were the result of an important quiz you took last week that you honestly have no idea how you did on.

You will quickly realize that one-on-one conversations at your own funeral—or, as many will choose to call it, your Final Celebration—are largely unsatisfying, especially when they're with Willis Ellis, the biggest stoner in your grade. (“Hey!” “Hey!” “I'm so sorry about today, my brother. I'm really gonna miss you.” “Thanks so much, man.” “Always crackin' your funny jokes in class and stuff.” “Yeah, thanks, I'm glad you're here.” “Yeah, of course, dude. How have you been?” “Oh, fine, I guess. You know, school, hanging out, getting ready for this.” “Yeah, yeah, it sucks so much. You going to prom? Gonna be crazy!” “Nah…” “Oh, right, yeah…Sorry, man.”)

You will use the restroom, and, after peeing, you will check out the reddish-bluish splotch on your thigh and see that it has gotten bigger. Or has it? You won't be quite sure; maybe it's expanding, maybe you're imagining things. Ultimately, you will push thoughts of the splotch out of your head so that you can try to enjoy this funeral without having a full-on panic attack. You will have a bizarre encounter with Don Phillips, the vaguely slimy man running the show at the Phillips Family Celebration Home, and he will engage you in a matter-of-fact discussion about your coffin until you kindly redirect him toward your parents and wonder how a man in charge of funerals could be so lacking in social grace.

After the requisite amount of mingling, people will be asked to please sit down in the hundreds of chairs set up in the celebration home's huge ballroom. You will be seated with your family at a table at the head of the dance floor, and the official ceremony will begin. Your family is not very religious, but they are somewhat spiritual, and the service will be conducted by Bert Hemling, an old college friend of your dad's, who is now some kind of respected Buddhist priest or something. Bert will talk about you and what a great kid you are and the story of how, when you were five, for about three or four months, you carried around an eggplant wearing construction paper clothing, which you had named Charles. You will think, This
is a story that gets told at my funeral?
Then things will get deeper as Bert explains that your body will die, but you will not; your energy will never die, and you may be back, even a week from now, in the body of a rabbit or a chipmunk or a squirrel (you will wonder if there's a reason Bert has limited your
reincarnation possibilities to three fairly similar rodents), and even though you know he's talking about you, you will have trouble connecting these concepts with yourself, trouble believing that those ideas will be highly relevant very soon. You also will have trouble embracing the idea that coming back as a chipmunk is a good thing.

People will begin their eulogies. You will find yourself enjoying what everyone has to say about you but not fully recognize the portrait that is being painted. You will know that a certain amount of hyperbole comes with these speeches, but everyone will sound so genuine that you will truly believe you have touched all these lives and that you will be Remembered Forever. And maybe you will. Your girlfriend will deliver the fifth eulogy, and, though she'll be a bit over-the-top dramatic (“This is going to be the biggest loss I've ever experienced”), you'll be glad the crowd gets to see this charismatic girl say such loving things about you.

By the ninth or tenth eulogy, you will find yourself getting antsy, thinking that there should be a limit to how many of these there are; even Millie Pfefferkorn, the sweetly odd girl who lives down the block and who you're barely friends with these days, will take the mike. If you're feeling restless, you can't imagine how everyone else is feeling. As if in response to this thought, your best friend will get up and, like a breath of fresh air, deliver a eulogy that is closer to a stand-up set. (“Do you know this guy actually flosses every day? I've always been so intimidated by that.”)

Then your brother. His eulogy will be sweeter than you expect but will still leave much to be desired; certain parts will seem embarrassing in their lack of specificity, as if this were the mailman and not your brother speaking
about you. Just as it dawns on you that your self-eulogy will be coming up soon, your parents will take the microphone and wreck you. Your dad will, of course, be keeping it together, but your stepmom will be struggling to get out any words, and you will understand for the first time how very hard this will be for the two of them, how maybe you have it the easiest out of everyone. Soon you will be sobbing, and it will occur to you that this is the most emotional you've been since the family dog died five years ago, when everyone sat together in that tiny room in the animal hospital, completely losing it as Dash, already in some far-off place, was injected with a lethal something in front of you. You will remember how you thought at that time that Dash's death was especially painful because you didn't know his deathdate in advance. Since it's so expensive to determine deathdates for animals, your family hadn't the slightest idea when he'd be gone.
If we knew this was coming
, you'd thought,
we wouldn't be so sad right now
. But now, here, you're thinking that maybe knowing wouldn't have made any difference. Your parents will be wrapping up their speech, saying how proud you have made them, how much you will be missed, what an incredible person you are, how happy they are to have known you, and how they are sure you will always be with them. It will be almost too much to take, and you will be focusing all your energy on reining in the sobs that are trying to escape your throat when you will realize you are being called up to give your self-eulogy. You will stand up a little shakily and walk toward the microphone, fumbling in your pocket for your speech, which you will realize is not there. It will not be in your left pocket either, or in your back pockets, and you will
then remember exactly where you left it: on the dresser in your room. You will stand at the microphone, staring into the faces of almost everyone you have ever known, your mind swimming with fragments of your speech, and you will prepare to speak.

Or, at least, that's what I experienced. Your funeral might be different.

As I stand there about to eulogize myself, I spot Taryn with her parents in the second row of chairs on the left, and on the other side of her is Phil, that toolbox track star she used to date before me. And—it's worth mentioning—the guy who took Taryn's virginity. She says they only slept together twice, but that's two times too many, as far as I'm concerned.

She doesn't necessarily look happy to be sitting next to Phil, who is for once without his trademark fedora, but she hasn't moved to a different seat either. And Phil is leaning toward Taryn and laughing about something. At my funeral. Nice. If I didn't know his deathdate was many years from now, I might contemplate killing him. Murder wouldn't work, but I could at least put him in a serious coma.

Okay. It's time for me to talk about myself to all these people.

“Hello, hey, hi, everybody.” I notice a bunch of my
elementary school teachers about seven rows back. Mrs. McGeehan, Mrs. Pond. That's really nice. “Thanks so much for being here. This is obviously an incredibly weird day all around, and it's, uh…it's just…” Even the parts of my speech I remembered two minutes ago are now nowhere to be found in my brain folds. All I can remember is that I wanted to be sorta angry. But that's not helpful. “It really means a lot to me that you all are here. I wrote a whole thing out, obviously, because this is an important day and these are my last words, so to speak, but…um…I left it on my dresser in my room. At home. Whoops. So bear with me—”

“I can run home and get it for you! I'll go!” My stepmom is already up out of her seat, headed toward the exit like a crazy lady.

“Mom, no. Please don't, I'm fine,” I say into the microphone.

“This is important!” She continues her bouncy run away from me. I have no idea how we've so quickly gone off the rails.

“My mother, everybody!” I say, presenting her, trying to work with this moment, as if it's a bit we had planned together in advance. There's mild laughter from the crowd, but mainly confusion. “Mom, honestly, I think I remember most of it.” A lie. “Please don't leave right now. During my funeral.”

I seem to have said the right thing, and my stepmom walks back to her seat.

“Yeah,” I say, refocusing my attention onto everyone else, “my mom loves me.” Big laugh from the crowd. The tension has been defused, and we are back on track. And
of course it's a big laugh; these people are probably ready to laugh at anything even slightly resembling a joke. That's why Paolo's eulogy went over so well (except for the joke he made about getting all of my coolest Blu-rays once I'm dead, which I found a little depressing). I am feeling confident. “And I love her.” The crowd gives a quiet sitcom-style “Awww.”

“And I love my dad. And I love you guys. And I love Maggie, my favorite lunch lady.” Another nice laugh. I can't see Maggie in the crowd, but if I could, I'm sure she'd be shaking her sixty-something-year-old head back and forth and smiling like,
Oh, Denton, what'm I gonna do with you?

“And I love the school lunches, for that matter! I will miss them most of all.” Huge laughs. I'm on fire. “Like, everyone's always complaining about school lunches and how much they suck, but can we just agree that they have a certain charm?” I have no idea where I'm going with this, but there is yet more laughter, and I'm enjoying it. “I mean, honestly, everyone's always complaining about everything. Like, the stupidest stuff. Like, please, let's just take this in for a second: I am going to die tomorrow. So could you not, like, complain about all the homework you have? Or that your computer's really slow? Like, can we have some perspective on this?” This is a close approximation of a section of the speech that I had written, except here I think I'm saying the word
like
too much. “People are like, ‘Oh man, my life sucks. I didn't get a part in the spring musical.' And I'm like, ‘No, MY life sucks because tomorrow I won't even HAVE a life!' ” I'm expecting this to get a huge laugh, but there is only silence. “Right? Right?” I am struck by the sudden realization that comedy and anger may, in fact, be
closer together on the map than I thought, as I've found my way from one to the other surprisingly easily. Many faces in the crowd seem to be saying,
You poor bastard
.

“I, uh…Sorry, sorry. I thought that would be funny. That wasn't in the speech I wrote. Maybe you should have run and gotten it after all, Mom. No, please sit down, don't actually get it.” My stepmom sinks back into her seat. “But thank you.

“What is there to say, really? I mean, I don't want to die. Who ever wants to die?” My attention is diverted to a man in his late forties standing alone in the back of the room. He's shifting back and forth from one foot to the other as he stares at me. “Well, I guess suicidal people wanna die, when they're depressed and stuff. But that's a chemical thing happening in their body that's not their fault.” That man is kind of freaking me out. Do strangers often show up at random funerals? Is that a thing? “I know not everyone believes that, but it's what I believe.” What am I even talking about? I need to ignore that dude and get back on track. “So…yeah. I guess my point is, I've had a good life, and I want all of you to have good lives.” All of a sudden, I fully grasp the idea that tomorrow I will be nonexistent. It takes my breath away.

“I won't be here tomorrow. Please remember me. Remember to live. I don't care if your deathdate is in a week or seventy-five years from now, please appreciate the people in your life.” I'm spouting weird Hallmarkisms that don't even make sense, but I truly believe what I'm saying. “I appreciate the people in my life. I appreciate my amazing parents. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for being the best. And I have a great older brother.” I find Felix, sitting right
next to my parents, and he gives me a tiny brotherly nod. “He is smart and funny and…even though he's busy a lot, he always makes time for me.” Sorta. “And I appreciate that.” Felix smiles.

“And I appreciate my friends. Paolo, thank you for being the best friend a dude could have. You always crack me up. I'm really sorry you'll be dead in a month, too. Maybe we'll hang out in the afterlife. Or wherever. As chipmunks. We'll be the new Chip and Dale. Not like the male dancers. I mean like the…cartoons.” That got weird for a second. “Or, you know, maybe we won't be reincarnated at all. Maybe we'll go to some place with lots of other dead people, where we can see everyone we've been missing. Like, I'll see my grandma Sarah. And Mima. And my great-grandparents. And maybe I'll even get to meet my biological mother. Who would obviously never be as great as you, Mom. Anyway, I have no idea, but the point is, Paolo, you rock.”

“GAY!” someone shouts.

“Uh…I, uh, also want to thank all the guys on the cross-country team,” I say as I watch three adults beeline toward the seat where the “GAY!” came from. “You guys are the best. I don't know what I'd do without you. Running with you guys was always so fun and great.”

Fun and great?
I'm listening to the crap coming out of my mouth as I'm saying it, and it's true enough, but it's the exact shit I promised myself I would never say.

And yet. I can't stop.

“Oh, and Taryn! My girlfriend. Pretty, awesome Taryn. Pretty and awesome and pretty awesome, too.” I smile at her. “Wordplay,” I acknowledge. I pretend not to notice that
as I directed my attention toward Taryn, Phil was leaning over to snicker something in her ear. “You are…simply…the greatest girlfriend that ever was. I very like you very much.” Taryn is smiling, tears running down her face. “Correction: I very love you very much. Yes, that's right! I said it, folks! The L-word! All we need is that, right?”

I've never been less in control of my words.

Maybe this is why everyone's self-eulogies always suck so much; maybe it can't be helped. Maybe everyone is suddenly gripped by a love for everything and everyone, by an overwhelming desire to hang on for dear life. I am everything I don't want to be up here, and this makes me angry. I rebel against my urge to keep repeating how beautiful life is.

“And, Phil,” I continue, “I just want to say that I don't like you. I have this reputation for being such a nice guy, a really good guy, so people think I'll just put up with lameness. But I really don't want to. You're a tool. You were the worst part of being on the cross-country team, and I hope you excluded yourself from that nice thing I just said about everyone else on the team. Because it didn't include you. You suck.”

That felt kinda good.

“And to the guy who yelled out ‘GAY!' earlier—you know, during my funeral—I'm sorry your penis is so small. I really am.” Laughter. Applause. “I'm sorry for everyone in this high school who's derisively said anything like that to me or to anyone. Unlike me, you will live, but your lives will be much sadder than mine.”

This feels great but also dirty, like maybe this isn't the
way I should be saying goodbye to the world. I don't care. If I have to die tomorrow, this is what I deserve today.

“And, Mrs. Donovan, if you're out there, I gotta say, you are mean. You're a mean lady and a terrible teacher. I think I actually know less about calculus because of you. We talk about how much you suck a lot, but we would never say anything to your face because we are terrified of you. So, there it is. You could consider therapy, maybe? I don't know, just spitballin' ideas here.”

Somebody on the side yells, “Woo!”

“I don't want to be a dick, you guys. In a way, I'm glad for the mean people. Adversity makes us who we are, you know? But I just want to be real about it. I want us all to be real. The realest people that ever were. Really. Because life is now. These moments are all we have. You know?” I'm getting freakin' deep.

“Because all this…I mean, the SATs are not real.” I catch a glimpse of my parents, who are looking at me as if I just produced a shockingly huge fart. “I mean, they're real, they're fine, you should probably take them, but are the SATs what life is about? No! I sure as hell didn't take them!” I really wanted to, actually, just to see how I would do, but then on the testing day, I accidentally drove to the wrong testing center, and by the time I made it to the right one, it was too late.

“What is real is us. We are real. Friends are real. Love is real.” And just as I say that, I finally spot Veronica in the crowd, standing amongst all the folks in the back behind the chairs. There she is, in her red Friendly's waitress uniform. We have this moment of direct eye contact, and a
chill goes down my spine. That has to have been some kind of sign. Right as I mention love, I find Veronica?

“You're real, Denton!” somebody shouts.

“Yeah, Denton!”

I look back to where Veronica was standing and she's no longer there. Seeing as I can't even remember basic details about what I did last night, I'm not sure I have any right to be telling these people how to live. Probably time to wrap this up. Way beyond time.

“So, um…thank you. Seriously. Please stick around for the dance party. Otherwise…see you never! Denton Little OUT!”

I've flung my arm up in the air triumphantly, and now it's just hovering there, and it suddenly occurs to me that maybe you're not supposed to applaud at funerals, or maybe no one wants to applaud, and maybe I should leave the podium before the crickets get too loud.

But then the crowd erupts, with all of my friends and classmates spontaneously jumping to their feet, total standing ovation. They chant my name. My parents look appropriately sad and happy and everything, but I also see in them a whiff of disappointment, as though they maybe expected my self-eulogy to have gone a little differently. Paolo catches my attention, wildly gesturing and pointing behind me, and for a split second, I think he's warning that someone is trying to kill me.