Studio Time: Forty Nine

Unfinished Business - knowing when to hold them, and knowing when to fold

Sandy Point

Rafe settled against a palm tree in one corner of the cemetery and true to his commitment to these people, stayed quiet and respectful.  He'd parked his bike in a nearby field, walked in and tried to find someone in charge to explain why he was lurking around.  There wasn't anybody in charge.  Failing that, he claimed he was here to get background for a piece he was writing on Jimmy and that made everybody happy.  No one cared anyway as long as he didn't make a scene.   It was Sandy Point after all.

Jimmy Breaux was buried in an old cemetery on the far east end of the island.  It was a quiet little gathering in a garden at the foot of the high and open arch of Gate Rock, the last gate on the last island if one was inclined to be romantic about it.  The short service was attended by locals who drifted in and out, Rayne and Duff, Jimmy's sister Remy and Cooper himself.

And there was the scene they'd worried about - a woman with a black umbrella.  She wore a cocktail dress, bizarre pink sunglasses and twirled enthusiastically among the grass and wildflowers and whatever people left on the ground including a toy horse.  He surreptitiously took a couple of photos.  

Rayne attacked.  She literally, physically shoved her.  Duff stood nearby and watched, apparently content to allow her to handle the situation as she pleased, at least so far.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? He’s dead you stupid bitch!  Take your idiotic sunglasses and get out of here!”  Pink Sunglasses Woman wandered around a few more minutes trying unsuccessfully to furl the umbrella but she did leave.

Slim didn’t show.  

Cooper arrived after the service was over and hung out over in the corner with Rayne and Duff.  Duff and Cooper spoke briefly.

Two teenage girls wearing black lace brought candles.  One of them cried and the other one silently and vigorously threw flowers off the cliff into the water.

And then there was Gemma Wilson.  Rafe had expected her to approach him but apart from a nod in his direction, she didn’t.  She’d been in desultory conversation with the drummer in Jimmy’s band who awkwardly put what looked like a beer bottle near the grave.  No one else from that dismembered band dropped by.

Remy had been quietly arranging flowers next to the little guitar Rayne brought as tribute when she gently lifted a piece of paper she’d left by the flowers and began to read aloud.

I will consider your narrow self, aslant against

my chest in grief, in grieving, overwhelmed. Yes, I will

consider the yellow dog, his

royal cheek

and his dances. A yellow dog comes only

once and is himself: brilliant, final, and entire.

Rayne went to her and they held onto each other -  the pale sky and the red flowers and the two women grieving over the same man.  When she stepped away Duff pulled her into a long quiet embrace out on the edge of the cliff, comfort certainly, maybe reassurance that he was going to stick around.  At that point Cooper approached in what was probably an effort to leave without attracting attention.

Cooper nodded in acknowledgement then stopped instead of walking toward the cars.  “I’ve never been here before. That's some rock. The whole place is heavy on symbolism isn’t it.”

Yes it was.  It was an enormous natural symbolic gate, a door through rock and flowers and light and water to whatever the family believed lay beyond it.  If Jimmy had a spirit he would probably kiss his sister on the cheek and fly out that gate in the rock carrying his guitar up with him.

Spirits slid through that hole in the rock from the other direction too.  A dead woman might stand on the other side of the death hole, someone he hoped never to meet again in any life anywhere.  The fact that he put her there didn't mean she couldn’t look back at him.

"You okay?" Despite what else he thought about the man, Coop was empathetic and generally kind.  Rafe shook off the shadow.  "Early death, that's all."

He looked across the garden and found Gemma Wilson staring directly at them.  It was a moment of disconcerting confusion, a plunge from one dimension to another, and for a split second it looked like she emerged from the rock itself.  She stood there by herself, her expression smug, capturing them with it. Whatever the hell was going on she was one happy woman and she wanted Coop to know it.  Cooper had been avoiding her since he arrived but he met her gaze now and pushed back.

Then he abruptly muttered about going for his car, turning his back on the woman.  Rafe pulled himself together and asked, “Something going on with her?”  He knew it was going to come up one way or another, she was pressuring him about whatever it was, and he had to grab for the opportunity before he lost it.  Gemma was not going to jump him blind if he could help it.

“Not anymore.” Cooper looked at him with a flat expression, voice hard, absolute, inflexible.  He was certain of himself, as Cooper Stanfield always was.  “It’s done, finished.”

His naivety was fucking breathtaking.  In what world did he think anything was done, complete, consigned to a place on the other side of a gateway never to return?

"Coop, nothing’s ever finished.”

**

Millwood

“Hello Gemma I just bought the studio you want. This seems like a good time to finish all this business you started don’t you think?  Let’s talk.”

“I brought muffins.”

~
Poem:
I Will Consider the Yellow Dog - Fran Lock