Jumping the Fence, Part 2

“Why don’t you tell me why you plant chrysanthemums while Grandpa’s getting buried?”

We were in my garden. I’d ditched my uniform for brown overalls and a white shirt, both mud-stained. I was lifting the flowers from their pots, and planting them in neat orders. He sat on a bench I fashioned from an old chair, I not wishing to ruin his Sunday suit, looking at the journal inquisitively.

“Why? I like to think of it as honoring death with life.I can’t stand a funeral; too somber. I’m just gonna cry away. Therefore, I’m going to live my life with a tribute to his life by giving life. Make sense?”

“No.”

I chance a glance at him, and was off-taken by what I saw. His irises seemed to widen as he sat, head stooped, looking at the journal’s pages one by one, flipping amongst them with energy, scanning all possible words. That’s when he stumbled upon the page of utmost importance, the one in which I wrote, making sure to copy the original hidden ink, the word of Florida. He looked at it, tentatively marching across each letter, as though swept in a trance. I was unsettled; however, I threw it aside as the natural curiosity of a child who gets to view the man whose life he has never experienced before, being born about the time the man went sick.

He turned his head up as I went back to planting my flowers delicately. I was admiring my handiwork, satisfied with my tribute. I knew of these flowers purposes in memorializing death, and this I felt suitably appropriate. Too, it represented a positive air, the combination of my sorrow and joy of the world. I reiterated this every time someone dear to me died; a few other such beds lay strewn about my garden.

“Aunt Marge. What a silly lady. All she cares about is that fat paycheck so she can give her dog treats, pedigrees, and a bribed talent show award. I wonder if she’s heard of the real world?”

I nodded, ignoring him, swept up in thought. The part of me that listened agreed; all she cared about was her dog. She only cried for a dead old man whose money she was sure to get.

“Great Uncle Thornton. Fooey! Locked up in that little mansion of his, he wouldn’t care if his brother died. He has no need for the guy who’s too optimistic. This's all for the money to afford his luxurious lifestyle.”

I nodded again. More of my brain began to respond, my thoughts inked with a bit of confusion. Great Uncle Thornton was quite an inclusive, introversive person. I still ignored Jeremiah, but I momentarily wondered when he had met the man before. Of course, his truth rang proud.

“He’s nothing like my cousin, though. I’ve heard the fat little baby gets his weight in gold as gifts every year. They’ve spoiled him to a rotten nothingness, haven’t they?” He asked the last sentence as a rhetorical question, I identified at once, “I’m sure he feels fine breaking everything in the world, because his parents will give him something new in response. No wonder they’re drooling over the funeral.”

I nodded slowly, less instinctively. His cousin was a few years older than him, and so his parents would've barely let Jeremiah play with the kid, since he wasn’t a peer. Unless he’s been spying on his family, I almost wondered aloud, becoming more unsure of what he was talking about. Yes, everything was so, so true; why was it so, so wrong? “It was like he’d known them”, I wondered.I dismissed it, although, in the corners of my mind, a trickling insanity grew into a creek, then a flood. I’d met him frequently before in family gatherings; he was just a year out of learning how to speak! I supposed that maybe I’d just been a bit distant from my family; so disconnected and treated with contempt that I was either not invited to most events, or did not bother to come, unlike him.

“Even my own parents are greedy! Dad was barely watching the funeral, ‘cause he was looking at his fancy Rolex the whole way through, and Mom couldn’t help but stare at a mirror! That is, until she yanked me away from you.” He sighed.“Sometimes, I feel like the only one who cares, except present company; all the rest of them are just too eager to hoard everything Grandpa owned. Well, maybe except for her. Great-Aunt Theodora. She’s beautiful and thoughtful and caring and kind and loved her husband with all her heart. She’s an amazing darling; it’s true! I lo-, like her, with all my heart.”

He stopped, dazed, making small mumbling sounds from the corners of his mouth. I stared at his young, rosy face, and my eyes widened. The pieces of the puzzle finally fit together in my head, each connecting and colliding in order as I reviewed my boundless evidence. I was surprised, for I knew that it had been in my face this entire time, and I had never bothered to look, so distracted was I by honoring a grandfather’s death, until now.

A young child.

New Island.

Florida.

He formulated a gaze upon his eyes that suggested warmth, love, comfort, looking down at my stammering face, like someone congratulating someone else for his or her effort. His legs moved up and down as he spoke. His precociousness, his voice … all made sense. Too, his stare was inked with surprise, almost as though he had told me a secret long ago and expected me to have remembered it by then. He was right; I should’ve.

“Now did you really think your ol’ Grandpa would lay down and die like that?”

I bit my lip. Hard. He just smiled, his front teeth slightly poking out. I had nothing to say; he had no way to respond. My chrysanthemum bed suddenly felt purposeless. He was alive, and I knew he was going to stay alive for an incredibly long time. He’d jumped over the fence dividing life and death, choosing that, rather than die and not be moaned, he would live and let them achieve their greedy means, thereby having his traitorous family destroy themselves and leaving him the sole survivor. What a genius he was.

“Why don’t you go help me plant these chrysanthemums? A life has gone away, you know.”

He smiled, leaving the journal on the bench, and joined me in my craft, not caring that he could get his clothes dirty, for it did not matter. He was at peace.