Free Dead Boys by RICHARD LANGE Page B

preacher did the best he could with his send-off, being a stranger. He told a few stories Whitey had fed him, like the time Bud took up a collection to buy José’s kids presents when José got laid off right before Christmas, and how he once gave a whore his only pair of shoes, then walked around barefoot for a week because he said he needed a lesson in humility.
    Toward the end of the service a man slipped through the door and stood in the shadows at the rear of the church. He stayed only a few minutes, was gone before we’d raised our heads following the final prayer. Whitey insisted it was Bud’s brother, the only member of his family to make an appearance, but I don’t know about that. With a life like Bud’s, the possibilities were endlessly exotic.
    W E ALL MET up at the doughnut shop later. Everyone was on the program except Bill and me, so the two of us kept stepping outside to guzzle bourbon between cups of coffee. Nita had made chicken and rice, and someone brought a couple of supermarket pies. The radio was on, and the urn containing Bud’s ashes had a table to itself. Pretty soon Ray Ray and Dennis set up their pieces for a game.
    Whitey seemed old that night. His hand trembled when he lifted his coffee. Various people sat down across from him and tried to get him talking, but he just nodded or said, “Oh, really?” never picking up his end of it. Even when Bill and I played the video game, the noise of which Whitey always claimed gave him a migraine, he couldn’t muster the energy to cuss us out. My guy had iron fists, and Bill’s shot fire from an amulet on his chest. We fought in a ring in the middle of a desert.
    Whitey followed me when I stepped outside for a smoke. A line of people waited to get into the nightclub across the street. We watched a couple of pretty girls jaywalk to join it. The door opened, and the music and laughter that spilled out were louder than the traffic. I wondered what the fuck was wrong with me.
    “Youngblood,” Whitey said, pointing at my cigarette. “Those things will kill you.”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “Give me one,” he demanded, and I handed him the pack.
    “I’ve got a job for you,” he said.
    “I have a job,” I replied, and it was true. I’d been working at U-Haul for six months.
    “Someone’s got to deliver Bud’s ashes to his daughter. It’s what he wanted done.”
    “His daughter?”
    “She moved out here from Florida a while back. Her and Bud only met once, and it didn’t go so well, but it’s what he wanted done. She lives in Downey with her husband and kid. Won’t take you an hour.”
    Family shit. I hadn’t spoken to my own mother in ages.
    “You were his best friend,” I said. “I’ll drive you.”
    “I’m not up to it.”
    “One of the other guys, then.”
    We turned to look in the window of the doughnut shop, at everyone hanging out. “Who?” Whitey said. “José? The man has a goddamned tear tattooed on his cheek. Ray Ray? You think I’m going to trust this to a dude who forgets to put his teeth in half the time? Or Bill?” At that moment Bill was standing in the corner, doing math problems in midair and laughing to himself. “Get up in the morning, shower, shave. I’ll spring for a haircut and gas,” Whitey said.
    I turned back to the nightclub, thinking again that I should have been there instead of at the doughnut shop. I didn’t dance, but that wasn’t a problem. You could sit at the bar, buy a girl a drink. It worked that way, too. Whitey put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. The booze felt like it was chewing a hole in my stomach. When the traffic signal switched to green, everything started moving at once.
    I LEFT BUD ’s ashes in the trunk of my car that night. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but after splitting another pint with Bill, I got a little squeamish. My grandma used to tell me ghost stories when I was a kid. Then, after I was asleep, she’d sneak into my