Page 12 of Frazier

Entering the living room with the men, she sat on the couch with Frazier and the others. Quietly, one by one, they left, leaving only Mark and Jamie there to watch over grannie when she took her last breath. There was no doubt in any of their minds that she’d not be here long without her mate Alford.

Chapter 6

The entire town turned out for the funerals. Frazier hadn’t realized until today how far-reaching his grandparents had been to the community and beyond. There were other rangers from other parks there that told him how either his grandmother or grandfather had helped them in some way that put them where they were today. One particular story still had him smiling a little, even hours later. David Clancy had been the storyteller then.

“You and your brothers had gone off to go fishing with your granddaddy. I was a mean little shit back then. Tormenting people and animals until I ever got caught or bored. I was at your house, and I had already seen where the six of you were gone, so I found me a stick and was tormenting that old raccoon that lived up under your porch. You remember her, Fraz, don’t you?” He told David that her name had been Bonny. “That’s right. Bonny. Well, she was getting pissy with me on account of me poking at her with my stick when your grandmammy came out there. All she did was put out her hand. I knew better than to mess with her. So I handed over the stick. She went and broke it over her knee. But she hesitated just enough where I was fearful that she was going to use that stick on me like I had been Bonny.”

David had been a terrible child right up until one summer. After that, he was about the best kid around to have in your corner. He was kind to animals too. Taking his little sister to school and making sure that she had her lunch money. David’s father was a drunk, and a mean one at that and he never did anything for his family but died young and left them alone. Frazier thought he heard that the man had fallen off his porch, drunker than anything and had frozen to death. No one put up much of a fuss about it, and the Clancy family never had the police pulling up in their yard again.

“Your Grandmammy, she asked me if I’d ever seen a baby possum before. I told her no. Then I asked her if they were as ugly as their mammy? Boy, don’t you know that she smacked me hard enough to knock me to my ass? I stayed right there too. Then she tells me that all babies are beautiful if you take the time to get to know them.” David shook his head as he continued his story. “Won’t you know it, Fraz, she called Bonny out from under that porch and had her sit right on her lap. Then she told me…well, she told me how I was a good boy that just nobody cared enough to tell me that.”

David looked away, and Frazier wiped at his own tears. He knew what had happened after that. His grannie would spend the next two years tutoring David on his reading and math. He would just show up about supper time, eat supper with them, work on his studies and then go home. His clothing would be clean along with anything that he might have brought over for his little sister Kimmy too. After a few months of David joining them, Kimmy started showing up as well, bringing more laundry and going home with a sack of food to feed their mother. David hugged him before he finished his story.

“I’m a good vet because of her taking the time to show me that all babies are beautiful. Your grandmammy had a heart of gold, I tell you, Frazier. Kimmy is a doctor too. Got her a good husband and nice family living in a good clean house. I wish every day, every single day, that I’d been able to show your grandmammy how much she meant to me.” Frazier said that he had. “How do you figure? I got me a good education and never looked back.”

“Do you do a good job, David? When you’re working with your clients, do you treat them right? Do your wife and children know how much you love them? Every day? Do you pay it forward? What my grannie did for you, do you help someone else in the same way?” He said he did. Several times a day, even if it’s to only help someone get their pets healthy. “Then you thanked her. That’s all she would have wanted, David. For you and your sister to make sure that you helped anyone and everyone that needed it just like she did for you and Kimmy. Who I heard just last week performed heart surgery on a child for free because they didn’t have the money to get it done otherwise. That is my grannie’s legacy, David. The one that you just told me about. Thank you for that. You’ve made my heart lighter with your story.”

Frazier thought of that first night. The night that his grandda had been killed. And his Grannie had gone off to bed. He’d been lying in bed beside Amelia when he felt his grannie’s passing. It was just after midnight, and his heart shattered in his chest just as she took her last breath. Getting up, he knew that Amelia was awake, so all he said to her was that he had to go find his brothers. She told him that she loved him and he told her that he loved her too.

Mark was the first brother that he saw. He’d been sitting on the porch swing moving back and forth, crying softly. When the others showed up, they, too, sat on the porch with them. Frazier wanted to go into the house. To see if it were true that she’d died with grandda. But he didn’t. This way, he told himself, without looking, he could pretend for one more minute that she was still with them. Mark cleared his throat before speaking to them in a hushed tone.

“I’ve not called anyone yet. I…I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t.” They heard a rustling in the yard beyond what they could see with the porch light on. Mark stood up first and cautioned them. “Don’t anyone move.”

As the bears came into the light, dozens of them, it looked like none of them made a move toward the porch where they were. There were families of them as well as single bears that looked to be younger than a year old. The first bear, who seemed to be older than any of the others, bowed his head at them and wandered slowly off into the woods. For the next forty minutes or so, each bear that came into the light did the same thing, as if they too were hurt that the two people who had lived here as long as they had had passed onto the great bear mountain in the sky.

None of them spoke of what they’d just witnessed. He doubted that if they had told the story to anyone that there would be one person that would believe them. Hundreds of bears, black and brown, came that night and through the next morning to pay homage to their grandparents. Now here they were on the last day of calling hours for the same people that the bears had loved. People were here to do the same.

Others had similar stories like David’s to tell. Most of the people he knew in passing. Others simply came by because they knew one of them. Tomorrow morning they were going to lay them to rest in a private ceremony on the land where other family was lain, including his parents.

They’d had to open up the high school to use it as a place to lay out his grandparents for the showing. There had been so many flowers and gifts taken to the funeral home that first day that it became necessary to find them a bigger venue. The only thing that they did differently to grannie and grandda’s wishes was to have an extra few hours of calling hours. Grannie and grandda had thought that they’d outlived anyone that would care that they passed on. They both had been so very wrong.

After the ceremony on the hill, they met at Mark’s home again. There were hundreds of plates of food. Tupperware filled with cakes and cookies. All of them with a small piece of tape on them with the last name of the person that had brought them.

Plastic glasses to use along with napkins and plasticware. So many crockpots plugged in he did worry for a bit if they were going to overload the house. The trays of vegetables were nice. Homemade dips were with them. He also noticed that there were buckets of chickens from the local chicken place. Gallons of tea, both sweet and unsweet. Mark said that he’d told people to come back here to have some food, and it seemed they brought some for everyone.

Walking around the room where all the planters had been put, he and Amelia read the cards that were with them. Again, he didn’t know some of the names, but others, like the President of the United States, he was surprised the man had found out. All the cut flowers had been donated to the church where they’d gone to be redone and sent to nursing homes.

It was Dexter that came up behind him this time. They’d been hugging each other all morning, and it felt like a good way to tell each of them that they had their back. Dexter then asked him if he could talk to him about something. They made their way out to the back deck and sat down.

“I’ve given my notice to the park. So have Mark and the others. I don’t—no, that’s not it, I can’t work there anymore. It’s just too much.” Frazier said he’d given his notice the morning that grandda had been killed. “Yes, Mark told me. I can’t go to work there anymore when the tourist are armed better than we are. Not that they should be, but it’s a different world out there than it had been when we started. Violence is the first thing that some people jump to when things don’t go their way. I can’t…every time I think of seeing my grandda there on the ground because some idiot’s card wouldn’t work, I just can’t do it. It’s just too much for my heart to take.”

“I understand. I really do.” They didn’t say anything for several minutes, and it seemed all right for them both. “Dexter, what are your plans? I’m sure you’ve thought this through all the way to the end. We’re going to be living for a great long time, and we can’t just give up on things because they’re harder now. I mean, that’s what I was just thinking about.”

“I might go back to the Park someday. But for now, I need to get my own heart working. I feel like I’ve had all the stuffing taken out of me. If not for Sunny, I’m not sure what I’d be doing today.” He knew that feeling as well. “We’re going to try and have a child. Right away. I don’t know what Mark and you have planned, but I want to bring children into this world and bring them up on this mountain. Show them everything that we learned while children here at the feet of the two most wonderful people in the world.”

“Dexter, what is really wrong?” He knew his brother well enough to know that he wasn’t saying what was really wrong. Whatever it was, he was more than just a little upset about it, and Frazier could wait until he was ready before he told him to chill. “You’re acting like the world is against you. I don’t think it is.”

Dexter got up and paced a bit. The air was turning chilly, but it didn’t bother either of them. It was the fact that his brother was wearing shorts that told him his anger was making him hot. As Dexter stretched his neck twice and popped his shoulders, he finally sat down in the chair again and looked reasonably calmer than he had before.

“I don’t want to live here anymore. I want to get off this mountain and live in a city.” Frazier didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. “I hate it here now. I mean, I don’t even want to go into town to be around anyone anymore. Frazier, I’ve never felt like this before in my life, but I want to grab my gun, go into town and start shooting people who are arguing about stupid shit. That’s not like me.”

“No, it’s not.” Not sure where this was coming from. The violence was so palpable right now from his brother he asked him what Sunny had said. “You’ve spoken to her, right? I’m not saying that she’d change your mind or anything, but you’ve told her how you feel, haven’t you?”

“No. I mean, she knows that I’m pissed off, but I’ve not…she’ll be pissed off at me and tell me that once I’m calmer, it’ll go away. The need to run around like a lunatic, I mean.” He asked him if he wanted the feelings to go away. “Damn it, Frazier, I want you to yell at me and tell me that I’m stupid or something. I don’t want you to try and see what’s in my head.”

“Now you’re being an idiot.” Dexter got up and started pacing again. “You wanted me to talk you out of leaving, didn’t you? So if it didn’t work out, you’d be able to blame me for this.”

“No.” He stood there for several minutes before speaking again. “Yes. I guess I did. I really don’t want to leave, but I also don’t know if I’ll be able to take living here without Grandda and Grannie.”

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