Free Atticus by Ron Hansen Page B

it has been already two days.”
    Atticus heard a phrase from holy Scripture, Lord, by this time he stinketh. He looked around for a hand tool and a hunched, old Mexican found a claw hammer for him to pull the finishing nails from the top with, but when he took it from him Atticus felt his back so softly touched by another he hardly knew the owner was there. And he stared up at Cipiano as he held his hands in prayer at his chin, his face a wreck of sorrow. “Está feo, Señor Cody,” he said, and Stuart translated, “He is ugly.”
    â€œLe falta la cara.”
    â€œThe face is missing.”
    â€œHicimos todo lo posible.”
    â€œHis people did what they could.”
    â€œEs mejor recordar su hijo que verlo.”
    â€œCipiano says it is better to remember your son than to see him.”
    Atticus held the hammer and knelt there, thinking how he’d feel if he did what it was better to have done. And he fought against Cipiano’s wishes and used the hammer to pry up ten finishing nails and tilt up the coffin lid.
    But it was too awful; he gave it just a few seconds. A hot blast of horrible stink forced him back with a hand over his nose and mouth, and he only had a quick, hideous glimpse of Scott before he let the coffin lid fall: his blond hair in chaos, his teeth gray and clenched as if he were biting hard on a stick, and half his face just a stew of skin and bone, the other half green with huge swelling.
    Atticus stood there, his hands at his sides, as the funeral parlor’s carpenters nailed down the pine again, and then he helped the Mexicans hoist the painted coffin and ferry it out to the station wagon and slide it into the open rear. The old Dodge was so low- slung with the heavy weight that iron rang off the cobbled paving when Cipiano gently eased the car toward Cinco de Mayo. And then Stuart and Atticus strolled the four blocks to the parish church, Atticus keeping his hands in his pockets and his pink face tilted up to the sun. They had fifteen minutes until the funeral. Stuart fought a wink as he said, “Isn’t Renata the sultry number.”
    â€œShe’s a lovely woman.”
    â€œOh, none of that! She’s a siren!”
    Atticus shot him a fierce glance and said, “I got other things on my mind.”
    â€œI have offended your courtliness, haven’t I.”
    Atticus failed to reply.
    Stuart’s face changed and they walked in silence for a few minutes. And he asked, “How old are you, Atticus?”
    â€œSixty-seven.”
    â€œI shall be sixty-four in May. And I fear I shan’t be much older.” Stuart stopped by the party-colored cart of a man selling paper cones of green ice and asked, “Will you permit me?”
    â€œOkay.”
    Stuart held up two fingers, saying “Dos,” and passed one cone to him. The green was peppermint and the ice was a nice pain to his teeth, but only after he’d chewed up the greater part of it did he wonder if the ice water was pure.Stuart sipped at his and tipped his nose toward a pink church that was trumped up with European lacework and Gothic belfries and spires. “Such fraudulence,” he said. “La parroquia. Architectural gumbo.”
    A five- or six-year-old boy offered to polish his shoes, but Stuart stepped aside and said, “No, no me gusta.” The hurt boy looked at Atticus, but he shook his head.
    Stuart said, “Renata hates Cipiano; he finds too many reasons to touch her. Not that I blame him.” He looked at the jardín just across from the church. Wide laurel trees shaded the sidewalks, and green flower beds circled the great white gazebo in the center. Young teenaged girls in the kinds of white dresses one sees at First Communions were strolling in groups of four or five while boys hunting novias hung back and talked about them. Stuart asked, “Are you in love, Atticus?”
    â€œWas. With my wife. And I got grandkids