fools x tony stonem [completed]

fifty four

Tony, Sid and I returned Chris like Jal had told us too, driving him back to the funeral home then swiftly sliding the coffin back into the hearse before leaving without being seen by anyone. We all decided we were still going to attend the funeral, even if it went against Chris' fathers wishes.

We stop by my house on our way to the graveyard. My mum said there was some mail that had been dropped off for me earlier, and I knew it was my exam results. I ran inside, grabbing the envelopes she had left for me off the table and shoving them into the pocket of my coat.  I hopped back in the car. We drove to the grave yard in silence.

It was a lovely day but everyone's moods were dreary. The rest of the group was waiting, standing on top of a hill that over looked the cemetery. I stood between Tony and Maxxie, watching as Chris' coffin was being carried over to an opened grave. The funeral goers wore black, mourning for a boy they hardly even knew, a boy they never appreciated despite all his brilliance.

"I am the resurrection and the life," the priest speaks, reading from an opened book as Chris' coffin is lowered into the grave. "He who believith in me, though he were dead, sayeth the Lord, yet he shall live. Deliver your servant Christopher..."

"I've been thinking about what Chris would've wanted me to say today," Jal voices among us, standing at the front of our group. "The advice he'd give me, which would be something like, 'you know what babe? Fuck it.'"

"He'd say, 'these guys know all about me. Tell them about someone different,'" Jal tells us. "So I thought Id say something about a hero of Chris'. A man called Captain Joe Kittinger."

All of our eyes are glued to the funeral at the bottom of the hill, but our ears only listen to Jal.

"In 1960, climbing into a foil balloon, Captain Joe ascended 32 kilometers into the stratosphere. And then, armed only with a parachute, he jumped out. He fell for four minutes and 36 seconds, reaching 714 miles per hour before opening his parachute five kilometers above the earth."

I felt a lump form in my throat as I suppressed the urge to cry.

"It had never been done before and has never been done since," Jal continues, her voice cracking as she choked back tears. "He did it just because he could... and that's why Chris loved him."

Jal speaks so loud and so beautifully, that even the people in black that stand at the bottom of the hill can't help but look.

"Because the thing about Chris was he said yes. He said yes to everything. He loved everyone. He was the bravest boy... man, I knew. And that was... he slung himself out of a foil balloon everyday. Because he could. Because he was. And that's why... and that's why we loved him."

I don't realize I'm crying too until Tony pulls me into his side, wrapping and arm around my waist as he runs his hand up and down my side, an attempt to comfort me.

"Ashes to ashes," the priest says. "Dust to dust. In sure and certain hope of the resurrection, to eternal life."

We all turn our heads, looking out into the horizon as pink fireworks shoot into the air, something that we had planned for a celebration of Chris' life. They were big and beautiful, and so loud they could be heard from miles away.

He would have loved them.

They begin covering the coffin with soil. We all watch the beautiful sparks that fill the sky above us.

***

After the funeral when the sun had finally gone done, we find ourselves sitting around a bonfire, sipping from beer cans and rolling spliffs. I sit beside Sid, who stares at a post card in his hand, one that was sent from New York.