Chapter 37 thirty-seven

"I knew this was going to happen," Goldman said.That's when the trouble started, and Rachel's father went on to say, "I knew when she married you, and I said to her, 'You're going to suffer a lot, some of which you won't be able to bear.' Look at these, Look at this—this mess." Louis watched his father-in-law slowly, and Goldman acted like a vicious slanderer in a cap.Then Louis looked instinctively toward the door, where Rachel was supposed to receive condolences by the shelf in the afternoon, but Rachel wasn't there.During the afternoon condolences, there were fewer people, and about half an hour later, Louis went to the front row and sat in an aisle chair, his mind blank and tired and sleepy.He thought it might be because of the beer he drank.Maybe his brain was going to rest, and maybe that was a good thing, maybe after 12 or 16 hours of sleeping on it, he could comfort Rachel.

After a while, with a nod of his head, his eyes caught sight of hands hanging between his knees, and the humming of people behind him sounded reassuring.When the four of them returned from lunch, Louis was relieved not to see Rachel's parents, but he should have known they couldn't be away for long. Louis now faces his father-in-law and asks, "Where's Rachel?" "With Mom, where she's supposed to be," Goldman said in the tone of a successful man who had just closed a big deal, his breath heavy with booze.He stood before Louis as a district attorney stands before a man under trial, a criminal, and he was a little unsteady.

Louis began to panic, and said, "What did you say to her?" Louis could tell from Goldman's face that he had said something to Rachel. "It's nothing, it's just the truth. I told her that's what happened to her when she disobeyed her parents and married you. I told her—" Louis asked incredulously, "You told her that? You Didn't really say that to her, did you?" "Well, there's more," Goldman said. "I always knew this or something like that was going to happen. I knew what you were the first time I met you." Already." Leaning forward, he continued, smelling of alcohol, "I've seen through you long ago. You high-spirited charlatan, you tricked my daughter into marrying you stupid bastard, you Turned her into a housemaid who washes dishes all day, and you got her son killed on the highway, like a — like a chipmunk."

Most of these words didn't enter Louis's head, and he was still thinking about how this stupid little man could-- "Did you tell her that?" Louis continued. "Did you tell her?" "I really hope you go to hell and rot!" Goldman said, and many people turned their heads to follow his voice.Tears began to well up in Goldman's bloodshot brown eyes.His bald head gleaming in the light, he went on: "You turned my good daughter into a scullery maid - ruined her career - robbed her - made my grandson Died tragically on a country road." His voice faded into a high-pitched growl: "Where were you when Gage was playing on the road? Sitting slumped thinking about your stupid medical articles? You stinky dog Shit, what are you doing? You shit, murderer of children! Murderer—"

There they were, in the east room near the front of the coffin, and there they were, Louis saw his arms outstretched, saw the button of his shirt flash, his fist on Goldman's mouth.He felt the old man's lips being crushed, and that feeling was disgusting, like the feeling of a fist hitting a nose worm.But that was not enough, Louis felt that the hard dentures in the old man's mouth hadn't fallen out yet. Goldman staggered backwards, put his hand on Gage's coffin, knocked it sideways, and a vase full of flowers fell and shattered.Someone screamed, and it was Rachel, struggling to break free from her mother, who was trying to hold her back.The people there, maybe 10 or 15 of them, were all choked up in fear and embarrassment, and Louis was secretly kind of glad that Chad wasn't here, that Steve had sent him back to Durham.Louis didn't want Chad to see this.

Rachel screamed, "Don't hurt him, Louis, don't hurt my daddy!" Haughty Goldman shrieked, "You like to beat old men, don't you?" He grinned blood-stained mouth, "Do you like to beat old men? I'm not surprised at all, you rascal. I'm not surprised at all." Louis faced Goldman, and Goldman slapped Louis. Although it was a bit clumsy, he slapped Louis on the neck like chopping wood. Louis was not prepared at all, his neck went numb, and then For two hours he had a sore throat that made it difficult to swallow.Lewis was thrown backwards, and he fell to one knee in the aisle.First the flowers fell, Louis thought, now it's my turn, what did Ramonds say?Hey-ho, let's go!He thought he was about to laugh, but he didn't, a moan of pain escaped his wounded throat.

Rachel screamed again. Goldman, bleeding from his mouth, went to where his son-in-law was kneeling and quickly kicked Louis in the waist.A pain ignited like fire, and Louis put his hands on the rug to keep himself from falling to the ground.Goldman yelled excitedly in a rough voice, "You can't even beat an old man, son of a bitch!" He kicked Louis again, this time not in the waist, but on Louis's left buttock superior.Louis groaned in pain, and this time he was kicked onto the carpet.His jaw hit the ground with a thud, and Louis bit his tongue. "Come on!" Goldman yelled, "I should have kicked your ass the first time I saw you come around my daughter, you bastard. Come on!" He raised his foot and kicked Louis's right ass again. one time.The old man was crying and laughing, and Louis saw for the first time that the old man was unshaven, a sign of sadness.The undertaker rushed towards the two of them, and Rachel broke away from her mother and ran towards them, screaming.

Louis rolled awkwardly aside and sat up.His father-in-law kicked him again.This time Louis grabbed his shoe with both hands, gripping it like a football in his palm, and Louis pushed back hard. Goldman yelled loudly and flew out diagonally.He stretched out his arms for balance, but landed on Gage's coffin.Louis thought dizzily, The Lord of the Worth just fell on top of my son's coffin.The coffin fell from its pedestal with a click, first to the left, then to the right.Then there was the sound of the lock snapping, and even amid the screaming and shouting of the crowd, and amidst Goldman's roar, Louis heard the snap of the lock.

The coffin didn't really open all the way, revealing Yiji's poor battered body.It was clear to Louis that the reason they hadn't been hit by the coffin was that the coffin fell on the bottom first, not on the sides.Had the side landed first, the coffin lid would have fallen off.However, the moment the lid came off the coffin and closed again, Louis saw a flash of gray stuff inside, which was the gray clothes he bought for Gage, and a little pink, which might be Gage's hand. Louis sat on the floor, covered his face with his hands and began to cry.He had lost interest in his father-in-law, in everything.At this moment, Louis wished he was dead.Suddenly an incredible vision flashed through his mind: Gage laughing in Mickey Mouse's ears, shaking hands with a weirdo at Disney World.He saw it all clearly.

One of the pillars of the bier fell and another leaned against the altar.Goldman, lying sprawled on the scattered flowers, was also weeping, with water pouring from an overturned bottle.Some of those flowers were crushed, some were messed up, exuding a stronger floral fragrance. Rachel screamed over and over again. Louis did not respond to his wife's screams.Gage's image in Mickey Mouse's ears faded away, but before he did he heard a voice saying that there would be fireworks later that night, and Louis sat there with his face covered so that no one would see him, To see his tear-stained face, his loss, his guilt, his pain, his shame, his cowardly thought of dying to escape.

The funeral director and Rachel's mother helped Rachel out.She was still screaming, and later, in another room reserved for those who were particularly grieving, Rachel became eerily silent.Although Louis was a little dizzy, he was still sane and able to control himself. This time he personally gave his wife a sedative, but he insisted on letting everyone leave, leaving only the husband and wife. Once home, Louis took his wife upstairs, put her to bed, and gave her another shot.Then he covered his wife with the quilt and pulled it up to her chin.Louis looked at his wife's pale face and said, "Rachel, I'm sorry. I'd give anything to get that back." Rachel said flatly and strangely, "It's okay." Then she turned and lay on her side, not looking at Louis. Louis was about to ask the old saying, "Are you okay?" But he swallowed it.The question was so unreal, it wasn't what he really wanted to know, and he ended up asking, "Do you feel bad?" "It sucks, Louis," Rachel said, followed by what might have been a laugh, and then, "Actually, I suck." There seemed to be something more to say, but Louis couldn't.Suddenly he hated Rachel, hated Steve, hated Mrs. Dandrich and her husband with the pointy throat, hated everybody.Why did he have to come to comfort them?What kind of shit is this? Louis turned out the lights, left his wife, and found himself unable to comfort his daughter. For a frantic moment he thought it was Gage in his daughter's dimly lit room, and it occurred to him that everything that had happened during the day was a terrible nightmare, like a dream he'd gone into the woods with Pascoe. Same, the thought flashed through his weary mind for a moment.Shadows in the room helped him, save for the flickering light of the TV that Chad had moved upstairs to let Ellie pass the time.Elle has been here a long, long time. But of course it wasn't Gage, it was Allie, who was now not only clutching a picture of her pulling Gage in a sled, but sitting in Gage's chair.She moved Gage's chair from his room to her own.It was a small chair with a canvas seat and a canvas strip on the back with "Gage" written in crayon.Rachel mail-ordered four of these chairs, one for each of the family, each with their names written in crayon on the backs. Gage's chair is too small for Allie.She filled almost the whole chair, and the canvas base was concave downwards, looking dangerous.Ellie holds the photo in her hand and puts it on her chest, staring at the TV, where a movie is playing. Louis snapped the TV off and said, "Ellie, it's time for bed." Ellie got up from the chair and folded it, obviously wanting to put it on the bed as well. Louis hesitated, trying to say something about not letting her get the chair, but finally said, "Do you want me to tuck you in?" Allie replied, "Okay." "Do you—do you want to sleep with Mommy tonight?" "In no mood." "Surely you don't want to?" Ellie smiled and said, "Yes, she always pulls the quilt." Louis also smiled at his daughter and said, "Okay, let's go." Instead of putting the chair on the bed, Ellie opened it up and placed it at the head of the bed, and Louis got the absurd impression that this was the smallest psychiatrist's consulting room in the world. Ellie put the picture on the pillow, undressed, put on her nightgown, picked it up, went to the bathroom, put it on the sink, rinsed her teeth, washed her face, took her own pills, and took Get the picture and go to bed. Sitting next to Ellie, Louis said, "Ellie, I want you to know that as long as we all continue to love each other, we will get through this." Every word seemed to be uttered with great effort, and Louis felt exhausted after he finished speaking. Allie said quietly, "I'll try to pray, pray to God for Gage to come back." "Ellie, God wouldn't do that," Louis said uneasily.Again he pictured Church crouching on the lidded toilet, staring at him with those blurry eyes as Louis lay in the bath taking a shower. Allie said: "That's what he did. In Sunday school the teacher told us about Lazarus. He died and God brought him back to life. He said, 'Lazarus, come out.' The teacher said if he just said 'come out,' maybe everyone in that cemetery would come out, but Jesus only wanted Lazarus." A ridiculous sentence blurted out from Louis' mouth: "Ellie, that was a long time ago." Allie said: "I'm going to have everything ready for him, I have his picture, and I'm going to sit in his chair." Louis grabbed his daughter's hot hand and said, "Ellie, Gage's chair is too big for you to sit on, and you'll break it." Ellie said, "God help it not break." Her voice was serene, but Louis saw two half-moon halos of darkness under her eyes.Seeing his daughter hurt him so much that he had to turn his head away.Maybe when Gage's chair broke, she'd begin to understand more clearly what had happened. Ellie said: "I want to take the photo, sit in his chair, and eat his breakfast." Gage and Ellie eat different oatmeal for breakfast. Once Ellie said that Gage's porridge tasted bad. Eat to death.If there was only Gage's Coco Bear oatmeal in the house, Allie sometimes ate a hard-boiled egg—or nothing at all. "I'm going to eat lima beans, even though I hate them, and I'm going to read all of Gage's picture books, and then I'm going to—I'm going to—you know—prepare everything...in case... " She was crying loudly now.Instead of comforting her, Louis brushed the hair from his daughter's forehead back.There was something maddening about what my daughter said.Keep everything as it is, make it seem like Gage still exists, don't let him disappear, remember what Gage did, yes Gage, what a boy.When Gage's death no longer pained Ellie, his death wouldn't matter.Perhaps, Louis thought, Ellie understood how easy it was to let Iki die. Louis said, "Ellie, don't cry. This will pass." Ally cried for another 15 minutes, which seemed like a long, long time.She actually fell asleep crying, but when at last she did, the clock in the silent house below struck ten. Louis kissed his daughter and thought, Ellie, if you want Gage to live forever, let him live.Maybe neurologists say this kind of thinking is sick, but I stand by it.Because I know that day will come, maybe this Friday, when you forget to take that picture and I'll see it on a bed in an empty house while you're out riding your bike or in the field behind your house Walk or go to Cathy's to make clothes.Gage isn't with you because he has a high fever.Suddenly it was as if it was 1984, and things from the past came back. Louis left his daughter's room and stood on the landing for a moment, half-concerned about going to bed. He knew what he wanted, so he went downstairs and drank. Louis made up his mind to get drunk.There were five cases of beer downstairs, and Louis took one and put the cans of beer in the refrigerator.Then he took out a can, closed the refrigerator door, and opened the can of beer.Church heard the sound of the refrigerator door closing, came quietly and awkwardly from the pantry, and looked up at Louis questioningly.The kitten didn't get too close to him, maybe because Louis kicked it too much. Louis said to the cat: "There is nothing for you to eat. You have eaten a box of cat food today. If you want to eat, go catch a bird and eat it." The kitten stood there, still looking up at him.Louis drank half a can of beer in one gulp, feeling that the alcohol had hit his head all at once.He asked the kitten, "You don't eat birds and mice at all, do you? You just kill them." Obviously seeing that Louis would not feed him, Church walked slowly into the living room.After a while, Louis followed the cat into the living room. The words came back unconsciously in Louis's mind: Hey-ho, let's go. Louis sat in his chair and looked at Church again.The kitten was lying on the rug by the TV cabinet, watching Louis warily, perhaps preparing to escape if Louis suddenly got angry and tried to kick it. But Lewis held up the beer can to the kitten and said, "For Gage, for my son, he could have been an artist or an Olympic swimmer or the President of the United States. What do you think, dumbass?" Church looked strangely at Louis with those dull eyes. Louis gulped down the remaining beer, stood up and went to the refrigerator to get another can. After three beers, Louis felt a little calmer for the first time of the day, and by the time he'd had six, he thought he might actually be falling asleep in an hour or so.A thought came to Louis suddenly and naturally, as if it had been waiting in his mind for a long time: When are you going to do it?When are you going to bury Gage in the Meek Mike graveyard over there at the pet cemetery? Immediately afterwards, another sound came in his mind: Lazarus, come out. Then came the daughter's sleepy, bewildered voice: the teacher said that as long as he said "come out," maybe everyone in that cemetery would come out. Suddenly Louis felt a chill, and he hugged himself tightly.He suddenly remembered that when Ellie came back from the first day of school to tell him and his wife about the school, the son fell asleep on his lap, and he said he was going to put Gage to bed. When he carried the baby upstairs, There was a dire omen in his mind, and now he understood.As early as September last year, he had vaguely known that Gage was going to die, and he already knew that the Lord of the Worth was close at hand.Maybe it's nonsense, maybe it's superstition—but it's true.He had known for a long time that his son was going to die.Louis shakes his hand, spilling beer on his shirt.Church looked up wearily, wondering if that meant Louis's cat-kicking was about to start that night. Louis suddenly remembered a question he had asked Chad, when Chad knocked over two empty beer bottles on the table with a shake of his arm, and one bottle shattered.Chad said at the time: You stop talking about these things, Louis! But Louis did want to talk about these things—or at least think about them.Pet cemetery, that place over there.There is a fatal appeal to this idea.Louis couldn't resist.Church was killed on the road, and Gage was killed on the road.But Church was revived again, lying here on his stomach. Although it has changed and become a bit annoying, it is here.Elle, Gage, and Rachel all developed a growing dislike for the kitten, for killing the birds, and indeed, biting a few mice so bloody that their guts came out, but It is the nature of cats to hunt and kill small animals.Church hasn't become heinous, and in many ways it's still as good as ever. A voice whispered: Think about it more rationally, it's not as good as it used to be, it's become ghostly, that crow, Louis - remember that crow? "God," Louis said aloud in a trembling, distracted voice that was so weird he couldn't recognize it as his own. Oh God, yes, yes, of course.If ghosts or ghosts were to be mentioned, this Church was a hell of a thing.What is Louis thinking?He is deceiving himself.Instead of thinking rationally, he was simply deceiving himself. What is the truth?You want to know the truth so much, what is the truth? The truth is that Church has never been a real cat since his resurrection.It looks like a cat and moves like a cat, but it's just pretending.It is difficult to see through the disguise, but one can feel that it is not real.Louis remembered Miss Charlton's visit one evening, the night before Christmas.We sat and chatted after dinner, and Church once jumped on Miss Charlton's lap, and she immediately pushed the cat to the ground, making an instinctive sound of disgust. It wasn't a big deal, and nobody said anything about it.But—it does happen.Charlton has noticed the true face of the kitten.Louis finished another can of beer and walked back to the fridge to grab another, thinking how awful it would be if Gage came back to life like this. Louis opened the lid and drank in big gulps.He's drunk again now, very drunk, and he'll be dizzy again tomorrow.He could write "How I Went to My Son's Funeral with a Hangover"; another "How I Lost Him at a Critical Moment" and countless others. Drunk, indeed.Louis remembered now that he suspected that the reason he was drunk was to be able to think about that crazy idea in the cheese and wine.Anyway, there was a fascination to that thought, a magic to it, yes, above all—a magic to that thought. Chad's words echoed in Louis's head again: People do that because people are controlled by it.People do that because that cemetery is a mysterious place.People want to tell people this secret...they make up all kinds of reasons...seems like good excuses...but mostly people do it because they want to or because they have to, Louis , these things are secret things... Men's hearts are harder... Like the dirt on the old Mi'k Mike graveyard.A man reaps what he sows and reaps what he sows... what he does he reaps Louis began to recall other things Chad had told him about the Meek Mike cemetery.He began to sort out and analyze those words, just like preparing for a review before taking a big exam. That dog, Spot.Chad said I could see all the marks where the barbed wire had scratched it, but the wounds were hairless and the flesh seemed dented. that bull.Morgan buried his award-winning bull at Meek Mike Cemetery, which he had sledged all the way up the hill...and shot him two weeks later.The cow went bad, really evil, but the only case I've heard of was a resurrected animal that went bad.Men's hearts are harder.It really gets evil.I have only heard of this case.Mostly people do that because once they've been there, those people belong there.The flesh seemed to be dented.A man reaps what he sows, and reaps what he sows.I buried the cat and brought it back from the dead.So it preys on mice and birds, and that's your place too, a mysterious place.This place belongs to you and you belong to it. It got really evil, but that's the only instance I've heard of. Louis, what do you want to do next?Do you want to go to that place again when the wind is high and the night is dark?Climb those stone steps again?Do you want your son to just die like that or see what happens when he comes back from the dead? Hey-ho, let's go. gone bad...the only animal...flesh-looking...a man...is yours...his... Louis's mind wandered aimlessly, with scattered thoughts.He poured the rest of the beer into the sink, and suddenly felt sick, and the house seemed to spin. At this moment, someone knocked on the door suddenly. For a long time, what seemed a long time, Louis thought it was just a hallucination in his head.But the knocking just kept on going.Suddenly Louis remembered the story of the monkey's paw, and felt a surge of fear.He walked to the door unconsciously, pulled the latch with trembling fingers, and opened the door thinking, this could be Pascoe, standing at the door in sports shorts, and came to warn me again with a miserable face: don’t go there.How did you sing an old song?Baby please don't go, baby please don't go, you know I can't love you enough, baby please don't go... The door opened, and standing on the front steps was Jud, his thin white hair matted by the cold wind. Louis wanted to laugh.Time seems to be rewinding, and it's Thanksgiving again.Soon they will be burying Elle's kitten in a plastic bag.Oh, don't ask what it is, let's go and have a look. "Louis, can I come in?" Chad asked, taking a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and popping one in his mouth. "I'll tell you what, it's late and I've had a ton of beer," Lewis said. "Ah, yeah, I can smell it," said Chad.He struck a match, and the wind blew it out.He put his hands around the fire and polished another, but Jud's hands shook and the wind blew the match out again.He took out the third match, and when he was about to polish it, he looked up at Louis who was standing at the door and asked, "I can't light a match, Louis, will you let me in, or not?" Louis stepped aside to let Chad in.