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by ED DeBLASIO
Hugh O'Brian took a deep breath as the car pulled up to the little funeral parlor. He knew that the others in the car were watching him out of the corners, of their eyes, to see if he'd begin to break down, begin to cry. But he took a deep breath and clenched his fists and he had a hard time not shouting out, "There aren't going to be any tears or any breaking down, folks— because Mary isn't dead, Mary couldn't be dead, Mary couldn't really have died just like that and left me!" The car stopped. "Hugh," his mother said, softly, as she took his arm. "Hugh . . .
we're here."
The tall, eighteen-year-old. boy didn't move. Instead he stared out the window to his right, at a highly-polished plaque on which somebody had carefully and coldly chipped out the words: Undertaker — Day and Night Service. "Hugh," his mother said again. The boy fought back the tears as he nodded, finally, and opened the door. The others remained in the car while they watched him walk very slowly to the door of the funeral parlor, open it, stand rigid for a few moments and then go inside. Two girls were standing in the lobby, their eyes red, their hands clutching at their pocketbooks, as Hugh walked in. One of them came over to him. "I'm sorry," she said.
"I'm sorry, honest." Hugh looked at her. He tried to smile. He tried to say, "What are you sorry about? What's wrong with everybody, anyway?" But instead he took another deep breath and the heavy smell of carnations from another room, a room not too far away, nearly choked him and he walked past the girl without saying anything. The next few steps were the longest he'd ever taken in his life. And then suddenly, without any warning, he was standing in the doorway leading to the big room with the carnations and the other flowers — and
he saw her.
"Mary?" he called, as though by some miracle she might answer him. "Mary?" he called as he ran across the room and past the people who were seated silently in the neat rows of bridge chairs which fanned out from the back wall. "Mary?" he called as he grabbed the sides of the smooth white coffin and stared down at the girl he'd loved so much. "It's Hughie, Mary. . . ." he said, his voice breaking. "I got the telegram that you wanted to see me . . . and now I'm here, Mary . . . I'm here." Finally, he cried. Mary was dead and, without shame, he stood there and looked down at the beautiful, almost-smiling face and cried, until someone came over to him, took his arm and led him over to a chair where he could sit and cry some more and take a long last look at his girl and remember . . . "I remember," Hugh says now, "how I met Mary, that first day of school in Winnetka, 111., when the teacher assigned us to seats and Mary's was at CContinued on page 92)