A Brilliant Death Read Free Page B

his dad up front?” Duke asked.
    “Yeah, that’s the fat man,” I whispered.
    “Why is he staring you down?”
    “Because I’ve been ducking him ever since Travis died.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s a horse’s ass, and he has questions that I can’t answer.”
    “Two good reasons,” Duke said.
    The day after the accident, Frank told Snookie and Urb to tell me that he wanted to talk.
    “About what?” I had asked.
    “What else? The fight,” Urb said. “He cornered us at the Coffee Pot. He said he wanted to know what you and Travis were fighting about before the crash.”
    “What’d you tell him?”
    “I said I didn’t know,” Urb said.
    “Me, too,” Snookie added. “I didn’t want Big Frank breathing down my neck.”
    They both had lied. They had been there and knew perfectly well what we had been fighting about.
    “I’ve already explained it to the police and my parents, and I don’t want to talk to Big Frank.”
    “I figured you didn’t, but I wasn’t going to tell him that,” Snookie said. “That guy scares the ba-jeesus outa me.”
    I didn’t like Big Frank Baron. Never had. He had been a miserable father to Travis, who everyone around Brilliant had referred to as “the orphan” because Frank paid him so little attention. Travis had practically raised himself, and his dad was never there for any of the important events in his life. He was not there when Travis won the conference cross country title, or the district wrestling championship, or the Jefferson County Oration Competition, which he won for a critical analysis of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men . I don’t think Big Frank ever made a single parent-teacher conference. He could not be bothered, and I despised him for the years of abuse—a lifetime, as it turned out—he had heaped on Travis. And, frankly, like most other people in town, I was terrified of him, too. You really didn’t want to piss off Big Frank Baron.
    As I took my seat, I could feel his eyes on me, but I avoided his glare. I looked at the service bulletin and pretended to mutter to Snookie—anything to avoid looking up.
    As the organist finished the last strains of Amazing Grace , I saw Big Frank turn around in his seat. I took a breath and looked toward the front of the church as Reverend Horvath stood before the congregation and in his booming voice said, “Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Psalms. Thirty-nine: four.” He smiled faintly. “Let us pray.”
    The lower sanctuary and the balcony were full. Nearly all of the Brilliant High School class of 1971 was in attendance. Even Margaret Simcox, who had fought with Travis nearly every day for twelve years of school, sat amid our classmates, sobbing. Travis, I thought, would love this. I half expected to look up in the balcony and see him taking it all in, gleeful, his brows arched, that lopsided grin consuming his face.
    Reverend Horvath spoke of how only God could make sense of such a tragic death. I wasn’t paying much attention. Nothing Reverend Horvath had to say was going to make me feel any better about losing my friend. Ever since the accident, people kept approaching me like I had lost a member of my family. And, in a way, I had. They offered their condolences, but ultimately they wanted to know if I thought our fight had caused Travis to commit suicide. No, I told them. It had been an accident. That’s all. The fight had consisted of Travis popping me once in the nose and the two of us falling into a heap in Mrs. Robinson’s peonies. Actually, he also gave me a head butt when we hit the ground, but that was all. I didn’t even hit him back. In the six days since then, it had grown to a battle of Biblical proportions. I was tired of the questions and tired of the waiting. I just wanted it all to be over. The organ music was a drone in my ears, and Reverend Horvath’s words had no penetration. After the final prayer,