Page 6 of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

But that was over now. The finality of it hovered around me. The ride felt good. It helped me clear my head before I had to do the whole sendoff thing. It was very tempting to keep driving past the church, to outrun the ghosts and the whispers that awaited me there.

But I couldn’t. There were obligations—unpleasant yet necessary.

I pulled into the chapel parking lot on my Harley, the rumble of the engine cutting through the quiet. As usual, people looked my way. I knew what they were thinking. They thought it was disrespectful to be making such a racket at a funeral. I could see the curiosity, the disapproval, and the caution. One old lady was literally clutching her pearls. As if I wanted her cheap ass necklace. I purposely revved the engine just to piss her off.

The frowns made me laugh. Like the noise of my bike was going to wake the dead.

If only it could.

I felt the people watching me as I cut the engine. A couple of men in suits exchanged glances, their judgment written all over their carefully pressed collars. I ignored them. Gary Jacobs would’ve loved the spectacle. He was not one to conform.

I swung my leg off the bike, leaving my helmet hanging from the handlebars. I took in the scene. The chapel was the typical picturesque building. All white with a big cross on top. It felt wrong for Gary. He wasn’t the type for quiet corners and polished pews. He loved a good beer garden and the occasional biker rally. Hell, in his day, Gary would’ve rolled up to his own funeral on his old Harley if arthritis hadn’t forced him off it. The thought made me smirk. Gary was a kickass dude. I was going to miss him.

I walked toward the front of the church, picking up snippets of conversation. Some were pitying Gary. Talking about his final days. As if they knew. I knew none of them had gone to visit Gary.

Others were talking about what they were going to be doing next week. That was life, right? Gary was gone but life went on. In a week, everyone would forget him. Their own lives would be front and center again, like nothing had happened. It irritated me, the superficiality of it all. But Gary wouldn’t have cared, not really. He had lived his life his way, loud and without regrets. He would want us to do the same.

As I approached the entrance, I saw one of Gary’s oldest friends, Rick. He wasn’t in the best health either.

Rick’s shoulders were hunched. Despite his frailty, his eyes lit up when he saw me approaching. It was strange that it was the old crotchety guys that seemed to get along with me most. I wondered if that meant I was a crotchety old bastard at heart.

“Kannon!” he called out, his voice gravelly but warm. I walked over to him. We exchanged a brief, firm handshake.

“How you holding up, old man?” I asked, clapping him gently on the back.

Rick shrugged. “I’m not the one in the coffin, so I guess I can’t complain.”

“Yeah,” I replied. The understanding between us didn’t need more words. We both stood there for a moment, just taking in the situation. Neither of us were the touchy feely type, but we both felt the loss. Gary had been gone a while but had only just recently died.

There was a difference.

I pulled open the door and stepped inside. The picture of Gary just inside the doors stopped me in my tracks. It was one I hadn’t seen before. He was smiling, glasses a little crooked and wearing one of those button-ups he always swore made him look “respectable.” He looked alive, like he could walk through the doors at any moment, cracking some dry joke about how we were all wasting our time crying over him.

I took a moment to look at the man I considered one of my good friends despite being old enough to be my father. He was like a father to me. The man used to give some of the best advice. In the last years of his life, even though he wasn’t always coherent and didn’t really understand what year it was, his advice was still sound.

“Gone too soon,” I murmured, pulling the flask from my jacket. I raised it in a silent toast to the man who taught me how to rebuild an engine, throw a punch, and keep my word. I took a swig, the burn in my throat grounding me, but my moment was interrupted.

“What are you doing?” A sharp voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

A wiry kid in a too-tight suit rushed over, swiping at the flask like it was a live grenade. He jammed it back into my jacket pocket, eyes wide and disapproving. “You can’t do that here! This is a chapel.”

I stepped back, sizing him up with a sneer. He visibly shrank under my gaze. “You always grab things that don’t belong to you?” I asked, my voice low.

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Drinking isn’t allowed in the chapel. It’s disrespectful. This is a funeral.”

I gave him a dry look. “Gee, is that what it is?”

“Sir, you’ll need to leave if you aren’t here for the funeral. We don’t want to disrupt the mourners.”

I rolled my eyes, not the least bit bothered by the geek trying to be a boss. “Did you know him?” I asked, tilting my head toward the picture of Gary.

The kid blinked, caught off guard. “No, but⁠—”

“Then piss off.”

His mouth opened, then closed before he scurried away like a mouse escaping a cat. I shook my head and chuckled to myself before walking deeper into the chapel. I sat near the back, my usual spot at gatherings like this, where I could watch without being watched too closely.

I knew I wasn’t like the rest of these people. I wasn’t wearing a suit and tie. Gary would laugh at me if he saw me wearing something like that. If I believed in ghosts or heaven, I would be worried he would laugh at me from his ghostly corner of the universe.