The Book of Joe

church. “He’s doing it for his parents.”
    “Maybe. But still, this doesn’t feel like him at all.”
    It’s been three days since Wayne’s death, and we are still doggedly referring to him in the present tense, unwilling to allow his inevitable shift into the past to occur.
    We are the first ones here, and the sound of our footsteps on ancient stone tiles echoes in triplicate off the high arched ceilings of the foyer. We walk through a low arched doorway and into the church proper, making our way through the rows of empty pews to the front of the sanctuary, just below the raised altar. I gaze around the cavernous chamber, taking in the stained glass windows, the exposed wooden ceiling beams, the molded crucifixes that adorn the ceiling on either side of the vast iron chandelier. “Do you know what?” I say.
    “This is the first time I’ve ever been in a church.”
    “Really?” Carly says. “This is actually my third time. One wedding and one funeral.”
    “Aren’t we the heathens.” We’re speaking in hushed tones now, even though it’s just the two of us in the vast chamber, two neophytes overcompensating with exaggerated deference.
    “We’re not heathens. We’re lapsed Jews.”
    We sit down in one of the forwardmost pews, the wooden bench creaking under abused vermilion upholstery that has absorbed decades of baby puke and the discarded remnants of illicit candies and gums. “Nothing like being in a church to make you feel the Jew in you,” I say.
    Of course, it’s not as if the Goffmans have ever been devout practitioners of Judaism anyway. The only time I can recall seeing the inside of a synagogue was on the occasion of Brad’s Bar Mitzvah. He stumbled through some blessings over the Torah in the Reform Temple on Churchill, and then we had a party. There were little matchbooks and mints with his name on them, the table centerpieces were miniature basketball hoops with Styrofoam basketballs, and there was a seedy-looking DJ with a perm, still languishing in denial over the death of disco. I suppose that if my mother hadn’t died before my thirteenth birthday, I would have had a Bar Mitzvah too, but she did, so I didn’t. According to Jewish tradition, as I understand it, this means I’ve never officially become a man.
    The doors swing open behind us, and we turn to see Wayne’s parents enter, escorted by Father Mahon, a burly, amiable priest who’s been with Saint Mike’s for over thirty years and is known to Catholics and heathens alike for his theatrical, old-school umpiring style in the Bush Falls Little League. Another two couples that I don’t recognize but presume to be relatives from out of town follow the Hargroves down the aisle. I nod in greeting to Mrs. Hargrove and am perfectly content to leave it at that, but Carly steps forward and shakes her hand somberly, leaving me no choice but to follow suit.“Mrs. Hargrove,” she says, “I am so sorry. We loved him so much.”
    Mrs. Hargrove nods and then looks at me, her eyes aggressively probing mine like a retinal scan, daring me to evince the slightest glimmer of judgment. Her hand is limp and dry in mine, a small dead animal wrapped in tissue paper, and I nod once and recite a perfunctory condolence. Wayne’s father’s handshake is hard and clammy, and he holds on for an extra second, forcing me to look him in the eye. “Thank you, Joe,” he whispers, his voice hoarse and unsteady and, I realize now, so much like Wayne’s. “Thank you for everything.”
    His eyes well up with tears, and for one terrifying moment I worry that he’s going to pull me into a grieving embrace.
    Mrs. Hargrove, clearly not happy with the direction this is taking, clamps her hand firmly on his arm and leads him forward toward the front row. “Pull yourself together, Victor,” she admonishes him. “For heaven’s sake.”
    Brad and Jared join us a few minutes later. Brad is wearing suit pants and his Cougars jacket, and Jared is wearing a navy suit without a tie. He’s pulled his hair back behind his ears in a miniature ponytail for the occasion, and his eyes look slightly puffy, as if he’s been crying. Brad drops Jared off at our pew and then steps forward to offer his condolences to Wayne’s parents. When he walks back to our seats, I see him discreetly brush a tear from the corner of his eye and feel another one of the inexplicable rushes of affection for him that have been catching me by surprise ever since I got to the