Fiction Goodbye, Mr. McIntosh January 2007

by Jacqueline Irwin

The wind was blowing and made a rustling sound in the tops of the trees. The sound of the cawing raven tore through the silence over and over again.

My mother and I arrived at the church well before the ceremony began. We drove our enormous rental car, a Lincoln Town & Country, up the freshly paved asphalt driveway  which was shiny from the rain. It was a steep incline and when we finally reached the peak and were able to see over the hood of the car, the resplendent white church with its enormous steeple and stained glass windows stood before us like a cathedral in Heaven.

I maneuvered the car into a parking space. The white lines separating the spaces seemed to have a luminous shining glow like the lines of a landing strip on an airport runway.

My mother and I giggled nervously as we walked up to the doors of the church that extended from the floor to the ceiling. There were two boy scouts, one positioned at each door, who pushed open the massive doors, granting us entry to the inside of the church.

My nervous laughter was instantly swallowed when I saw the back of my friend’s and her mother’s heads, both draped in black lace scarves, sitting in the second row of pews. Their bent heads looked so small and so sad. They were the only two in the church and they looked so alone.

I swallowed a lump the size of an apple down into my throat and a rim of hot tears burned my eyes.

I must be strong for my friend, I thought.

Colleen’s husband Michael approached. “Go see her. She’ll want to talk to you.”

The lump in my throat was so large I could hardly breathe and no words would come out. If I couldn’t even say one word to Michael, how was I going to say anything to Colleen and her mother?

I turned to my mother who was standing at my elbow, and then I looked back to see those two bent heads.

My knees were shaking as I made my way down the carpeted aisle. The pews blurred in the corner of my eyes making it look as if I were passing beside the furrowed rows in a field that was bare of any crops.

I tried to take a deep breath before I reached the second pew but my lungs felt as if they were being crushed. I gasped for breath.

Colleen and her mother were kneeling and praying. My friend looked up and beckoned me to kneel next to her. I couldn’t believe it when I looked into her eyes. She was kneeling 10 feet from her father’s body that lay in an open casket, and she didn’t look like she had shed a tear.

If she can do this, so can I, I thought. “I’m so sorry. What can I do for you?” I asked.

“We’re going to be okay,” she said.

If it were my mother and I kneeling in the front of a church praying for my father’s soul, I think that would be the last thing I would say. At that moment I felt so sad for her knowing that she would never be able to speak to her father again. How sad it would be for him to miss watching his grandchildren grow up and how empty their home would feel during holidays and his birthday.

We sat in silence for a moment. I knew if I said anything I would start to cry.

“Go see him. He would want you to say good-bye,” she said.

Mr. McIntosh was a dad so opposite from my own. I always looked at him with a sense of awe. He was highly educated and made buckets-full of money. Colleen was an only child and was showered with the finest of anything and everything she might need. Mr. McIntosh had no intention of letting his daughter become anything less than what he had become.

I loved going to Colleen’s house on the weekend to study just to see him help her with her homework. She was in every AP class. When she got her books he scoured them first so that he could brush-up on his knowledge of the subject and could then provide her with any assistance she might need. One night at dinner, father and daughter labored over writing a sonnet.

Of course, I was tongue-tied and unable to help with a single syllable, but between the two of them they were able to come up with prose that would have impressed William Shakespeare. Of course, she earned a 4.0 all the way through high school and college.

Colleen’s life was so different from my own. When Colleen walked into the front door of her house after school and dumped her books in the entryway her mother rushed out, picked them up, and guided us to our afternoon snack. I guess the thud in the entryway was some sort of signal for Mrs. McIntosh to jump to attention.

Colleen’s mom had plastic runners in the hallway and in high traffic areas, but on more than one occasion we came home to see her deep cleaning the carpets with her own personal steam cleaner. When she wasn’t cooking or cleaning she was ironing.

Growing up, Colleen lived the life I could only dream of, and I loved slipping in to share in the attention she commanded.

I guess I knew I was about to break down and cry so I got up, walked around the end of the pew, and approached the open casket. There were two more boy scouts who stood at attention, one positioned on either end of the coffin. I saw the one closest to Mr. McIntosh’s head sneak nervous, curious glances out of the corner of his eye every so often.

The casket was made of mahogany and was polished to a shine that glimmered with the colors of the stained glass. I could see the inside before I could see Mr. McIntosh and it looked so plush and luxurious I felt like he would at least be comfortable for all of eternity in it.

Slowly I walked up to the casket. I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to see him, but then opened them because I knew I had to. Mr. McIntosh was wearing a blue suit and a red and blue striped tie. Around his shoulders he wore his Boy Scout sash that was covered in medals and badges. He had a ring on each hand. On his left ring finger he wore his wedding band, and on his right he wore the signet ring from his fraternity.

The look on his face was sad, yet defiant, like he was angry because he wasn’t ready to die. I suddenly remembered an incident that happened long ago when I went  on a trip with the McIntosh’s to a cabin.

A raven that cawed incessantly was perched on the rail of the porch overlooking the woods.  The trees and dried brown pine needles on the ground had a slight dusting of snow indicating the first signs of winter. The wind was blowing and made a rustling sound in the tops of the trees. The sound of the cawing raven tore through the silence over and over again.

Mr. McIntosh tried shooing the bird away. I hardly noticed what a racket the bird was making until he started making a bigger racket than the bird. “Shoo, you bird,” he shouted as he rushed out onto the porch.

The bird only jumped and flew a few feet in the air before it landed on the railing time and again like he was taunting Mr. McIntosh.

“Oh, Jack. Leave the bird alone. He’s not bothering anyone,” said Mrs. McIntosh.

“Well he’s bothering me,” he said.

There was a gun that looked something like my brother’s bb gun sitting by the fireplace. Mr. McIntosh strode across the cabin and picked it up.

“I wonder if this thing is loaded,” he said.

“Oh, Jack. Put that thing down. You’ll hurt yourself,” complained Mrs. McIntosh.

“I’m just going to scare that raven away. Don’t worry. I don’t think it’s even loaded,” he said as he shook it.

By now Colleen and I had stopped our card game and sneaked slowly to the window so we wouldn’t scare the bird away. Mr. McIntosh slid the sliding door open, but the bird just taunted him cawing his darn head off, bending his skinny black legs each time he let out another caw.

Mr. McIntosh lifted the gun to his shoulder and aimed. I know he said he was only going to scare the bird away, but he fired and hit the bird in the wing.

Black feathers sprayed into the air and the bird spiraled to the ground.

“Oh Jack! What have you done?” screamed Mrs. McIntosh.

“I was only trying to scare him. I didn’t mean to hit him,” he said.

Colleen and I raced out onto the balcony. The bird was hopping in circles with its wing held out at a crooked angle. He looked right up at us and cawed one more time before he haphazardly hopped and fluttered into the woods.

I had the same feeling in my throat when I realized the bird was certainly going to die as I did looking down upon the man who I thought I had so much respect for.

“Good-bye Mr. McIntosh,” I whispered.

I turned to walk back up the aisle. Colleen and her mother were still kneeling with their heads bent down praying. I walked past them. The tears that had swelled filling my lower lids made the colors in the stained glass dance and sparkle in my eyes. I blinked hard and the hot teardrops rolled down my cheeks.

The two boy scouts standing at the doors must have seen me coming and noticed my momentum building. They swept open the doors and I rushed outside. The cold breeze washed over my face and I inhaled the fresh air deep into my lungs. Tiny drops of rain sprinkled onto my face cooling it as if I were a child running through sprinklers.

I looked up at the tall deep green pine trees that surrounded the church and noticed that there was a lone raven in the branches of one of the trees. He looked down at me and let out a series of caws, bending his legs with each caw, as if he were shouting the news.

Rest peacefully, Mr. McIntosh. °