After stopping by the Register of Deeds office in Gastonia to buy certified copies of Brenda's death certificate I went to Shelby.
I dropped by the hospital to see Brenda's old friend Vernon. He's got a bad infection. Going back briefly into caregiver mode I moved flowers so he could see them and asked somebody to raise his bed so that he could eat the food they brought just before I left.
Returning downtown I parked on the square across from the Methodist church where I would attend a funeral in a few hours and walked to the Shelby Cafe for lunch. Everything reminds me of Brenda now so as I sat in the new part (where the old Shelby Newsstand used to be, where I used to buy science fiction novels) and remembered other times when we were in this place. Both of us liked the pre-gentrified version best. Her favorite food, before she became a vegetarian was hamburger steak smothered in onions,
I went for a walk to kill some time before the funeral.
I walked past the place where I first saw Brenda. It was probably 1952; she would have been 12 and I would have been 13. It was in front of the old Junior High school on Saturday afternoon. Brenda and her cousin Carol had probably been to a movie and were walking home to Brenda's house on Blanton Street (where she and I would live 10 years later). I was with Pete Panther. He and I used to hang out at Carol's house. Maybe we were waiting for her, knowing that she was going to a movie. I had never met Brenda. Years later neither she nor Carol remembered the encounter. But I do. If the word had been in my vocabulary I would probably said that she was exquisite. Not voluptuous and blond like my dream girls. Simply lovely. She was vulnerable and shy and sweet too. I did have enough sense to realize that even if I didn't know how to say it.
(Where I first met Brenda 57 years ago.)
I walked through the cemetery, a pretty place which was on my Shelby walking circuit even in less morbid times. Although Brenda will never be there I asked her out loud when passing her parents or friends if she had stopped here for a visit. I concocted a theory in which spirits or at least the remaining points-of-view are at the instant of death free to visit anywhere and anytime.
After walking for an hour I went back downtown to the church. Charles, with whom I traded Hardy Boy books 60 years ago, was having a funeral for his wife Cynthia. They too had been married 48 years and she too had suffered from emphysema. I have only been in Central Methodist a few times since my teens. It is still a lovely place. As the well-dressed members of Shelby's upper class filled the place I remembered sitting in a pew beside my father hoping that Tiny Peck, a popular pretty girl with substantial breasts, would be in that day. I learned years later that my father had been ogling a woman (maybe two) in the choir - and perhaps being ogled back.
Although the Christian parts of the service made no sense (according to this theology Cynthia will have everlasting life and Brenda will not), the personal parts, remembering Cynthia's love of her family and of music were touching.
When the service was over, people were directed downstairs to a reception. I passed through a maze of rooms remembered now in dreams of dark, complex places. I quickly got to Charles and told him what I had come to say - that I knew what he was feeling. He seemed to appreciate that. Then following the instructions of the man standing there I banged open a sticky door to the outside and made my way back into the light.
After going by the funeral home to conduct some final business I returned to Mount Holly.
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