A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Dave Eggers

  I throw and throw, into the gray. I know I will slip and fall into the lake and die. Oh the irony! Just like that one woman, who was throwing her mother’s or husband’s ashes from a cliff and a wave came over the cliff and took her, too. Maybe it was a sister. No waves here. I will simply slip and dribble off, into the lake. I have to shake out of the bag the last bits of the cremains. I should keep some. I could keep just a few bits, as souvenirs. Souvenirs! What kind of asshole— What a fucking sick dickhead, souvenirs, thinking of souvenirs. I shake out the bag. I do not like to have to shake out the bag, like shaking a goldfish out of a baggie. Can the ashes swim? Do they dissolve? I am done and sitting down and my breath, quick and heavy, is visible, because it’s fucking cold all of a sudden with me not moving. The water undulates, so slowly, is hundreds of feet deep and there are a million fish right there eating the ashes. There is no difference between the sky and the water, and I can feel the water rising around me, and I am already under the water, and all of the water is inside something larger, and I look at my feet to make sure they are secure because I am inside something living.

  I drive to the church. It’s only a few minutes from the beach, straight through the heart of town, past the library and the barbershop.

  I park and walk toward it, the air damp, cold.

  The door is open. It is about eleven. I open it a crack and peek inside, sure that this must be a mistake, that this church cannot be open at this hour.

  Inside all the lights are on, though dimly. I walk slowly inside. The church is empty. I stop in the glassed-in back area designed for latecomers, wailing babies.

  The church glows red. The nave is tall and white, and in the center is hung an almost-life-sized Jesus, cast in gold, crucified, suspended by wire. So many times I had worried about the Jesus, that the wires would not hold, that it would fall, would land on the priests, the altar boys. I was much more comfortable when the priests were off to one side, during the reading of a psalm or liturgy. When one would stand in the center, right under, doing the consecration, lifting that chalice over his head, oh that’s when I was sure it would fall—it was just so precariously hung, just those two thin wires.

  This church is so small. I look out over the pews and the church is tiny. The pews are so low, and there are so few rows. It was never so small before. I walk into the church’s main chamber. Up the center aisle, on the red carpet.

  I walk to the first pew, where I had sat the last time I was here. I had been in the front row and had been turning around beforehand, waving to a few people as they came in. I was sitting with Toph and Kirsten and Bill and Beth. We were huddled together in the pew, on its near end. We had been to the church, but had never sat so close to the stage before. My mother sat us in the middle, or the back, and we were thankful, because then the priest and his coterie could not tell if we knew the words we were supposed to know.

  I sat in the pew, holding Kirsten’s hand, playing with Toph’s, dizzy, wearing my blue blazer, waiting for the service, all the glory. I had known for months what it would be like, had pictured it, the whole thing. There would be light. It would be day. There would be light through the high stained-glass windows, prismatic—no, the light would be direct, direct, clear, wide, golden. The crowd would be endless, the church full like it is at Christmas, at Easter, the side aisles overflowing, the entire town there almost, all of the relatives, her brother and sisters from out East, the cousins, my father’s enormous extended family from California, all her former students, all the other teachers, all my friends, Bill’s, Beth’s, high school, grade school, college, Toph’s, their parents, the grocers, the doctors, nurses, strangers, admirers, everyone in their overcoats, their dark deep colors, silent and reverent, the back entry area crammed, overflowing. Oh but others would be outside the church, a hundred on the steps, in the courtyard, wrapped around the building, down the street, a thousand or so, waiting just to—to know that they were there, to validate, to help prove— In the church the service would start but priest after priest would stand and begin to speak but then would be overcome and would have to give up, would shuffle to their red velvet chairs, yield the podium to the next and then would weep, shaking, their faces resting in their long-fingered hands. We would be there, in the first pew, the beautiful and tragic Eggers children, soaked in blood, stoic, as a hundred or more would stand before us and speak of her, all the gifts she granted them, and her life would be recounted in glorious detail, every moment, all the holding together and sacrificing and—

  Then the ceiling would go. The barrel vaulting would rise, and the entire roof would quietly unhinge itself and lift up, would rise straight up, and disappear and the church’s huge wooden cross-supports would fly up and away, and would quickly get so small, tiny in the rich blue sky, and would become birds. The church would double in size, would triple, the space expanding, suddenly taking in all those waiting outside, and then become bigger, would take in everyone she had ever known, millions, all with their hearts in their two hands, offering them to her. The angels would come. Thousands, slender, winged and bird-boned, descending and circling, all with sharp, small eyes, and they would be laughing, full of mirth, why not, this was happy, happy. My mother would be there. No coffin, no remains, but her, ephemeral, huge, her head as big as the nave, the angels moving around her, tiny by comparison, her hair, her original hair, feathered up huge the way she liked it, before she lost it, replaced by the darker, tighter curls. And her squinty smile, all the crinkles at the corners of her eyes, smiling to see us all there, knowing all those she had touched were there, that they were giving back, giving at least this much back. Oh such a celebration. And we and she would all be so happy not to see her as some embalmed thing, some rubbery and gruesome thing, but instead as this wonderfully glowing bright visage, above us all, and she would be first smiling the big closed-mouth smile she smiles, then that big small-toothed smile she smiles, then she would be laughing, someone would say something funny and she would laugh that way she laughed, silently, crazily, out of breath, it was so funny whatever someone said, who said that funny thing? Who? Maybe I said it, maybe I said it, maybe I said it and made her laugh like sometimes we could, really bust her up, so that it was just killing her, this laughing, her eyes struggling to stay open, to see, because when she laughed, my mom almost immediately teared up, and had to wipe her tears with the side of her forefinger— Oh that’s when you knew you had really said something funny, when she would be crying, wiping her eyes, you had her then, you really wanted that, there was no greater thing, no achievement so great, so stirring, you tried to play it casual, deadpan, but you were so proud and thrilled, watching her, you wanted her first to say Stop! Stop! because you were so funny but you would continue because you wanted her to laugh more, to really laugh until she would have to rest, to half collapse on the kitchen counter while you were sitting at the table after school, Oh you’re awful! she would say. Stop! Oh but to see her laugh you would say anything, and she so loved a good laugh at someone’s expense—Bill’s, Beth’s, yours, her own, and at that moment everything would be wiped away, all the times you feared her or wanted to run away, or wondered how she lived with him, protected him, you wanted only her laughing like she did when she was on the phone with her friends—Yes! she would shriek, Yes! Exactly!—

  then afterward she would sigh, breathing heavily and say Oh that’s funny. God, that’s funny. That’s what she would say, and she would say something like that as the church walls disappeared and the nave evaporated and the angels flew faster, elliptically around her and we would all be feeling vibrations from it all, or they were all inside us, too, moving elliptically, or through our blood and there would be music, ELO maybe, Xanadu maybe, did she really like it or just tolerate it for our sake? She would hum along a little, move her fingers back and forth a bit and Oh we would have such a time! Then she would have to go. She would have to leave but not before saying goodbye, See yoooo! she would say, raising the last part, a high note, faux formal
ity, and then turning from us to touch the small golden cheek of that golden, broken, and crucified Jesus, suspended in the air—the nave gone but it still floating, the golden thing, she would touch it gently with the back of her tanned, ringed hand, that lucky bastard, and then she would be gone, and we would all collapse right there, in the opened church, and sleep for weeks and weeks, dreaming of her. Oh it would be something, something fitting, proportionate, appropriate, gorgeous and lasting.

  I stand up and walk to the podium—it was a hundred steps that day but now only two. Then I had a piece of paper, I had brought it, the one from under the couch—I had tried to recopy it onto a better sheet of paper then ran out of time—and I put the piece of paper on the podium and looked up and over the—

  Where were the people? It was not a crowd. It was a scattered thing, a few here, a few there. Everyone loved her; where were they? Everyone of course knew and loved my mother, everyone, but where were they? This could not be, would not do, a life and then this, this forty people. Where’s the woman who cut her hair— Laura? Was she there? Is she here? All the volleyball women? Did they come? There’s one, Candy, but— Where is her family? Where are her sisters? There is only Uncle Dan, who has come, he says, “to represent the family.” And the cousins? Her friends?

  There are some here, but my God there were so many more! This is the crowd that was at my father’s. It should not be the same crowd, the same number! They were not the same, these two lives. Where are the people from town? Where are the parents of her former students? Where are my friends? Where are the world’s people to honor her passing? Was it too gruesome? Are we too vulgar? What is happening? All she put in, all she gave for you people, she gave everything for you people and this is— She fought for so long for all you people, she fought every day, she fought everything, fought for every breath until the last, sucking everything she could out of the air in that brown living room, gasped again and again, it was unbelievable, yes, she grabbed at the air, grabbed for us and for you, and where are you?

  Where are you motherfucking assholes?

  XI.

  Black Sands Beach is only ten minutes from San Francisco. It depends where you leave from, of course, but from anywhere near the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s ten minutes, maybe fifteen, which is weird, considering how raw and remote-seeming the place is, exotic even, its sand actually black, about five hundred yards of it, from one bracketing cliffrock to the other.

  On the bridge, Toph is making cow sounds at the people walking, because it brings us both to tears. He is leaning out his window mooing.

  “Mooo.”

  He has the window all the way down.

  “Mooooooo.”

  The tourists are not hearing, it doesn’t seem, because the wind coming over the bridge from the Pacific is wicked and relentless, as it always is, and the tourists, couples and families, all under-dressed in T-shirts and shorts, are being abused by the gusts, are barely staying upright.

  “Moooooooooo.”

  Toph’s not even trying to make it sound cowlike. He’s just saying the word—it’s just a person saying Moo. He does a few where he kind of barks it, angry-like, but in monotone.

  “Moo! Moo!”

  It’s hard to convey why this is funny. Maybe this isn’t funny, but we’re dying. I can barely see; it’s killing us. I try to drive straight, wiping my eyes. Wispy clouds hurtle over us, cotton pulled apart by children. For the last group of tourists, he does a little stutter thing with the mooing.

  “I say, I say, I say,” he says, “I say, I say, I say”—he pauses for a second, then does a quick “Uuuh,” then:

  “Moooooooooooooo.”

  The bridge ends, the torn-cotton clouds breaking up immediately, then it’s clear, Easter blue, and we’re on 101, but just for a second—two exits and then we get off at Alexander, then come back under 101 and up the Headlands drive. As we climb with the road, right away above the Golden Gate, the clouds are suddenly below us, rolling through the bridge, fleece pulled through a harp.

  We did not go to the test. An hour ago we skipped the city’s mandatory high school test, the one Toph had to take if he sought admission to Lowell, San Francisco’s vaunted public high school. A week ago we had gone to the school administration building, a white colossus on Van Ness, to sign him up.

  “I know we’re late but we’re hoping to sign up for the test.”

  “Who are you?” said the woman behind the counter.

  “I’m his brother. His guardian.”

  “You have guardianship papers?”

  “Guardianship papers?”

  “Yes, something proving you’re his guardian.”

  “No. I never got any papers.”

  They needed something.

  “Like what?”

  “Like guardianship papers.”

  “There’s no such thing as guardianship papers.”

  I was guessing.

  The woman sighed.

  “Well, how do we know you’re his guardian?”

  I tried to explain, but had nowhere to start.

  “I just am. How can I prove this?”

  “Do you have a will?”

  “What?”

  “A will.”

  “A will?”

  “Yes, a will.”

  “Oh Jesus. This is incredible.”

  I thought of the will. Beth had the will.

  “The will doesn’t stipulate anything.” I lied again. The problem with the will was that in the will, I wasn’t even listed as the guardian; Beth was. It was a technicality, something we had all decided on that winter; Beth and Bill would be the executors, be listed officially, and I wouldn’t have to be involved in the money, the paperwork. This had come up before, the guardianship thing, the proof—where is the proof?—and always I had been afraid of being found out. All this time, a fraud!

  “Well, without guardianship papers, or a will, we can’t do anything.”

  I had brought all his school records, school notices to parents, letters proving our residency, both of our names above the address. We are a team. We have been a couple for years— The woman was unimpressed.

  “Why would I lie about this?”

  “Listen, a lot of people from out of town want their kids to go to Lowell.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’d come down here and pretend my parents were dead to get him signed up for a goddamn test?”

  Another sigh.

  “Listen,” she said, “how do we know they’re even dead?”

  “Oh God. Because I’m standing here saying so.”

  “Do you have death certificates?”

  “This is disgusting,” I said. “No,” I said, another lie. 1 “Any notices, obituaries?”

  “You want me to bring you an obituary?”

  “Yeah, that would work. I think. Wait a second.” She turned and conferred with a man behind a desk. She turned back to us.

  “Yeah, that would work. Bring an obituary.”

  “But I won’t have time...”

  “For both of them.”

  Always proving this! Always reminded, never more than a few words into conversations, arguments, this fucking story— that’s why I lie, make things up, why at this point, when making appointments with the dentist, whoever, I just call him “my son,” as cruel as it feels coming out—

  I called Beth from a pay phone. We only had twenty minutes until the office closed. Beth drove down with both the obituaries, little paragraphs about each of our parents in the Lake Forester, and the will, with two minutes to spare. And we placed them on the counter, on top of Toph’s birth certificate.

  And now, a week later, on the day of the test, as hundreds of kids are scribbling graphite into meaningless ovals, we’re driving through the Headlands, on the way to the beach. It was only a few seconds ago that we actually realized that we were missing it—

  “Oh Jesus,” I said.

  “What?” he said.

  “The test!”

  He put his hand o
ver his mouth, expecting me to turn the car around, scramble like we always scramble, think of excuses; he was so used to it by now, the rushing, me banging the steering wheel in traffic, swearing at the windshield, the knocking on windows when doors were locked, the exceptions begged—

  “Forget it,” I said. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  It doesn’t.

  We’re leaving.

  Two days ago we decided that we’re not staying in San Francisco, and so we won’t be applying to Lowell, won’t be needing that school, anything here, because we’re leaving the city, leaving the state, in August will get up and fly out of California and will go back—actually, farther, over Chicago and to New York. We’re leaving again, amid all the tongue-clicking and head-shaking, we have to leave even though we’ll see a little less of Bill and Beth, we’ll move again—

  “I think it’s good to move around, see stuff, not get stuck,” Toph says, and I love him for saying that. He knew I needed him to say something like that, and there isn’t a chance in the world I’ll ask him if he means it.

  San Francisco was getting small, and everyone is dying. The summers are getting colder, and the falls aren’t what they used to be. The kids in the Haight are younger all the time, more of them than before, sitting all day, all night at Haight and Masonic, with the sticks, the hacky sacks, nowhere to go in those stupid floppy reggae hats. And the drive to work was getting unbearable, the repetition too sad, especially at night, when after putting Toph to bed, locking the door, I would go back to the office—the drive just harrowing, the routine—I had even changed routes, had started driving down Geary, all the way down, past the prostitutes, a change of pace, and it was diverting for a week or so, all the cars slowing down, stopping, the cops hunting, laughing—but then even that was a routine, and so we have to leave, because the people are pissing on the streets, during the day now, anyplace, all the time people are pissing on the streets, defecating on Market Street at noon, and I’m getting sick of the hills, always the hills, the turning of wheels to park, and the street cleaning, and those fucking buses attached to the ropes or wires or whatever, always breaking down, those motherfucking drivers getting out and yanking on that rope, the stupid buses just sitting there, in the way, everything just sitting there, stuck, in the way—