IN MEMORIAM

Dick Cockburn: 1953-2022. “The greatest man in the world,” the obituary says, “Sometimes a prick, but always there for you. The best husband, father, son. Dick will be greatly missed. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to his daughter’s vacation fund.”

     “This is a joke, right,” I say when Trish brings page 12 of the local times to my locker. Nobody reads the paper anymore so the editor probably doesn’t either.

     “It’s real,” Trish says.

     “Probably some bored townie wrote it in,” I say.

     “Look here,” Trish says, “There’s a link to a GoFundMe for his daughter’s semester abroad, and here, his service was just the other day. They buried him at this cemetery, just a few miles from my house. We gotta check it out.” 

     I cross my arms, as if I won’t give in. 

     “We gotta prove that Dick Cockburn was a real man,” Trish says.

     I pull up to the graveyard at twilight. There are only a few other cars in the lot, one being Trish's hand-me-down jeep from her brother. She springs out of her car with a six-pack of Seagram's Escapes. 

     “What the fuck, Trish,” I say.

     “Dick Cockburn would want us to,” Trish says as she holds up the drinks. One of the cans tips sideways, and she catches it inches before it would've impaled itself on the gravel.

     “Mr. Cockburn wouldn’t care,” I say as Trish rights her six-pack. “He's dead.” 

     Trish just grabs my hand and leads me to the patch of cemetery where the earth is freshly turned. 

     Some woman draping a gravestone with mums purses her lips at us, but Trish tugs me along.

     “We gotta hunt down Dick,” she says, skipping between gravestones, kicking one for good measure.

     “What the fuck, Trish,” I say again. She pretends she doesn’t hear me. 

     “Found it,” Trish says as she squats down to read the epitaph. “1953-2022. That makes him…69 years old. Dick, you hilarious motherfucker.” 

     “You can’t control when you die,” I say.

     Trish smiles and hands me a citrus paloma.

     “This feels weird,” I say.

     Trish snaps open a canned margarita for herself and sits her bottom down right on top of Mr. Cockburn’s gravestone.

     I make a face. 

     “I’m sitting on Dick,” she says. “You get it?”

     “Yeah, Trish,” I say. “I fucking get it.” 

     I chug down my paloma as Trish laughs like she’s said the funniest thing in the world. She raises her can, and a bit of fermented berry spurts out, running down Mr. Cockburn’s gravestone into the uprooted earth. 

     “There you go, Dick,” Trish says. “Drink up, old boy.”

     “Trish,” I say.

     “What,” Trish says. “He seems like the type who’d want a taste.”

     “He’s dead,” I say. “All you’re doing is softening the ground around skeletons.”

     “No,” Trish says. “No way Dick has decomposed yet. He's still down there, in one piece. Skin and all.” 

     I make the sound my cat makes when it chokes up a hairball as Trish raises her can to her lips.

     “What do you think he was like,” Trish says. Her breath smells like fizzy summer and bellyaches.

     “I don’t know,” I say.

     “I think—no, I know he was smart,” Trish says. “And clever. Dick was a good man. He had a daughter, for crying out loud.”

     “Yeah, a daughter who wrote his obituary as a cash grab,” I say.

     “Dick was the class clown type,” Trish says. “I mean, he got by with the name Dick Cockburn. You’d at least change your first name if you cared, but Dick?” Trish holds her hands up like a crown on her head. “Dick was a legend,” Trish says. “We love Dick.”

     “We love getting home on time,” I say. My skin is prickling, and the sun has disappeared over the treeline at the edge of the cemetery. 

     “Trish,” I say. “Should we go home?”

     Trish isn’t listening. Her eyes are the shape of stars.

     “Dick was truly the best,” Trish says. “He told off people who clap when the plane lands. He gave up his seat on the bus. He told his daughter to go to Spain, and he brought his wife flowers every Friday.”

     “How do you know where his daughter is studying?” I say.

     Dick, Dick, Dick…”Trish pats his gravestone. “You were a good one, Dick,” she says while tipping her drink sideways and sloshing more to the ground.

     When the trickle ends, she crumples the aluminum and reaches for one of the remaining cans in her six-pack.

     “Another?” Trish asks.

     “I’m going home,” I say.

     “But you haven’t even finished your paloma,” Trish says. “And besides, we have to honor Dick.”

     I get up to walk to my car. Trish grunts and grabs the six-pack that's now two short and follows at my heel.

     “Wait up,” she says. “Why are you leaving?”

     “I have to go home,” I say. “Curfew.” 

     “Tell me why you're really leaving,” Trish says. 

     I unclench my fists. My fingers are sticky with citrus and sweat. 

     “You can pretend all you want,” I say.

     “What”? Trish says.

     “Mr. Cockburn has a daughter,” I say. “And it’s not you.”

     “What?” Trish says.

     “Dick is not your father,” I say.

     “I know”, she says, her voice low like the bottom of a barrel.

     The six-pack droops in her hand. Trish blinks several times, and I think she might cry.

     “I’m sorry,” I tell Trish.

     “It’s okay,” Trish says, shrugging. “You’re right.”

     We pass the older gravestones and the fresh mums under a heavy moon. There's hundreds of dead people around, but there's a lot of life that was lived across this cemetery. Gobs of rule-breaking and fun-having and dreams.

     “Trish,” I say.

     “Yeah,” Trish says.

     “There's a lot of men in the world,” I say. “They’re not all great guys.”

     “I know,” Trish says. 

     “But Dick?” I say. “Dick was a great guy. The best.”

     “The best,” Trish says. She smiles.

     “We were lucky to know him,” I say. “If only through the paper.” 

     “We were the luckiest,” Trish says.

     Trish hands me a colado for the road, and I hug her and don’t let go for a while. The way I think a guy like Dick Cockburn would hug his family if he wasn't six feet under. 

     I put the can in the cupholder of my car and pull up Dick’s daughter’s GoFundMe. I transfer twenty bucks and snap open the colado, putting my foot on the gas. Curfew was half an hour ago, and my dad is gonna kill me.