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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmThat afternoon, between three and six, the final rite of Gage’s funeral had taken place at the Ludlowhouse. This was the rite of food. Steve Masterton and his wife had come with a hamburger-and-noodlecasserole. Charlton had appeared with a quiche. “It will keep until you want it, if it doesn’t all geteaten,” she told Rachel. “Quiche is easy to warm up.” The Dannikers from up the road brought a bakedham. The Goldmans appeared—neither of them would speak to Louis or even come close to him, forwhich he was not sorry—with a variety of cold cuts and cheeses. Jud also brought cheese—a largewheel of his old favorite, Mr. Rat. Missy Dandridge brought a key lime pie. And Surrendra Hardubrought apples. The rite of food apparently transcended religious differences.This was the funeral party, and although it was quiet, it was not quite subdued. There was rather lessdrinking than at an ordinary party, but there was some. After a few beers (only the night before he hadsworn he would never touch the stuff again, but in the cold afternoon light the previous evening hadseemed impossibly long ago) Louis thought to pass on a few little funerary anecdotes his Uncle Carl hadtold him—that at Sicilian funerals unmarried women sometimes snipped a piece of the deceased'sshroud and slept with it under their pillows, believing it would bring them luck in love; that at Irishfunerals mock weddings were sometimes performed, and the toes of the dead were tied together becauseof an ancient Celtic belief that it kept the deceased’s ghost from walking. Uncle Carl said that thecustom of tying D.O.A. tags to the great toes of corpses had begun in New York, and since all of theearly morgue keepers had been Irish, he believed this to be a survival of that old superstition. Then,looking at their faces, he had decided such tales would be taken wrong.Rachel had broken down only once, and her mother was there to comfort her. Rachel clung to DoryGoldman and sobbed against her shoulder in an open, let-it-all-go way that had been so far impossiblefor her with Louis, perhaps because she saw them both as culpable in Gage’s death or perhaps becauseLouis, lost in the peculiar half-world of his own fancies, had not encouraged her grief. Either way, shehad turned to her mother for comfort, and Dory was there to give it, mingling her tears with herdaughter's. Irwin Goldman stood behind them, his hand on Rachel’s shoulder, and looked with sicklytriumph across the room at Louis.Ellie circulated with a silver tray loaded with canapes, little rolls with a feathered toothpick pokedthrough each one. Her picture of Gage was tucked firmly under her arm.Louis received condolences. He nodded and thanked the condolers. And if his eyes seemed distant, hismanner a little cold, people supposed he was thinking of the past, of the accident, of the Gageless lifeahead; none (perhaps not even Jud) would have suspected that Louis had begun to think about thestrategies of grave robbing. . . only in an academic way, of course; it was not that he intended to doanything. It was only a way to keep his mind occupied.It was not as if he intended to do anything.Louis stopped at the Orrington Corner Store, bought two six-packs of cold beer, and called ahead toNapoli’s for a pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (226 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM
file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm“Want to give me a name on that, sir?”Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, Louis thought.“Lou Creed.”“Okay, Lou, we’re real busy, so it’ll be maybe forty-five minutes—that okay for you?”“Sure,” Louis said and hung up. As he got back into the Civic and keyed the engine, it occurred to himthat although there were maybe twenty pizza joints in the Bangor area, he had picked the one closest toPleasantview, where Gage was buried. Well, what the hell? he thought uneasily. They make good pizza.No frozen dough. Throw it up and catch it on their fists, right there where you can watch, and Gage usedto laugh— He cut that thought off.He drove past Napoli’s to Pleasantview. He supposed he had known that he would do that, but whatharm? None.He parked across the street and crossed the road to the wrought-iron gates, which glimmered in the finallight of day. Above them, in a semicircle, were wrought-iron letters spelling PLEASANTVIEW. Theview was, in Louis’s mind, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. The cemetery was nicely landscaped onseveral rolling hills; there were long aisles of trees (ah, but in these last few minutes of fading daylight,the shadows those trees threw seemed deeply pooled and as blackly unpleasant as still quarry water) anda few isolated weeping willows. It wasn’t quiet. The turnpike was near—the drone of traffic came on thesteady, chill wind—and the glow in the darkening sky was Bangor International Airport.He stretched his hand out to the gate, thinking, They’ll be locked, but they were not. Perhaps it was tooearly to lock them, and if they locked them at all it would only be to protect the place against drunks,vandals, and teenage neckers. The days of the Dickensian Resurrection Men(there’s that word again)were over. The right-hand gate swung in with a faint screeing noise, and after a glance over his shoulderto make sure he was unobserved, Louis stepped through. He closed the gate behind him and heard theclick of the latch.He stood in this modest suburb of the dead, looking around.A fine and private place, he thought, but none, I think, do there embrace. Who? Andrew Marvel? Andwhy did the human mind store up such amazing middens of useless junk, anyway?file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (227 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM
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