Bearing A Pall For A Pal

Early Sunday morning, November 23rd, 1997, I got a phone call from the Buinickas household. Michael John Buinickas, my best friend since 1966 and Boy Scout buddy since '65, had keeled over dead the night before at age 46. No warning, just getting ready for bed as usual, keeled over dead. Later in the day we had funeral information, round trip airline tickets to Baltimore Washington International Airport for Tuesday afternoon, a hotel room for two nights, and a rental car reserved.

Using my newly acquired technology, the internet, I printed out a map from the airport to the funeral home. I also printed a map to the hotel, which was near the airport. I was hugely impressed with myself. And that newfangled internet thang.

Monday was a blur. I was in shock. This was the first (and so far the last) time that someone I really cared about had died. I must have made arrangements to be off work Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday were Thanksgiving Holiday days at F/X Scenery And Display. I was Mister Dependability at FX, so I got the time off, no problem. They'd all heard about Michael B. for years anyway.

We flew to Maryland, arriving mid-to-late afternoon. By the time we had our rental car it was time to just go straight to the funeral home, about ten miles away in Bowie. It was getting dark as we arrived, and there was a pretty big crowd for the viewing. The family was happy to see us. Mister B. said "Ah, there's my other son!" Even Michael's Aunt Helen corralled us for a long time. Afterward we were invited to Michael and Kathy's house in Odenton for something to eat, and we were hungry. During our time there Kathy buttonholed me in the kitchen and asked me to be a pall bearer. I said I'd be honored. Always a pall bearer, never a pall. Then we made our way in the late evening all the way to Linthicum to the hotel. It was hard to find in the dark, but we got there. I didn't sleep much.

Wednesday morning we headed out to the church, and I hung out in the pall bearer marshalling area. While I waited, a troop of Boy Scouts filed by. I almost lost it. Michael's dad had been our Scoutmaster, we served three years together, the last one as cooks for the troop. Then years later Michael had taken over the Scoutmaster position. Many of our favorite stories were Boy Scout stories. My mind drifted away with the wind of time. I tried mightily to hear and remember the instructions we pall bearers were given, but it entered my brain as if Charlie Brown's teacher were saying it. I went where they pointed, carried my share of the load, then just sort of stood there at the front of the sanctuary until one of my co-bearers indicated where I should sit.

The only thing I remember about the service itself was brother Bill Buinickas telling us about Michael, and how it had long been Michael that cemented the family together. I look back on that now in light of the fact that Kathy and their kids have fallen out from the rest of the family in recent years. I've had to reconnect with Mike's sister to hear any news from that side.

After the service we hoisted him up and carried him to the Hearse. Then we were released from duty. Carmen and I saddled up the rental car and got in line behind old old Uncle Nick and Aunt Helen, who doddered their way back through Odenton to the Episcopal church where the Boy Scouts had been meeting for many long years, where I spent Sundays and more during the first fourteen years of my life, and where my mother's best friend is buried.

After the graveside ceremony, there was a luncheon at the Elks Hall in Crofton. We got separated from the herd somehow, drove to Crofton and had to ask directions to the Elks lodge. When we got there, there were many tables nearly full of family and friends. We hardly knew any of them except the immediate family, so we found an empty corner by ourselves and prepared to have some lunch. We had no more than sat down with our plates, however, when a member of the immediate family appeared behind us. They had seen us crouching in our corner, had pity on us, and invited us to sit with them. It seemed fitting to me. I had lived with them several summers and many weekends, mowed their lawn, washed their cars, washed their dishes and shared their meals since the sixties. I had been a best man, an usher and a driver at three of their weddings. Mr. and Mrs. B asked us when our flight back to Orlando was. It was Thursday afternoon at five or so. They invited us to Thanksgiving dinner at their house, also in Odenton. I told Carmen she was in for a treat. I'd done Thanksgiving with them several times.

After the luncheon we went to Glen Burnie, where I had lived and worked from 1971-76. We saw a movie (Starship Troopers) did a little shopping, checked out the Montgomery Ward store where I'd built displays for four years, and had supper at a seafood restaurant that hadn't been there back then.

We slept in awhile at the hotel, showered dressed, packed up and checked out. Thanksgiving at Buinickas Central was everything I knew it would be: turkey, ham, golumkes, perushkis, kielbasa, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, stuffing, cakes, pies, ice cream, coffee, yummy yummy! But the most memorable moment came when their cat, banished from the long extended table of twenty five participants, hurled a stream of vomit directly at the center of everything. Priceless.

About three thirty we said our good byes to all the clan. It was the last time I've seen most of them. I miss Bill most of all. We were brothers for many years, until he moved to Illinois, got married and had a family of his own. I reconnected with sister Margaret on Classmates.com a year or two ago, and get my news through her. Kathy stays in touch pretty well. After all, we were best friends once removed since 1969. She came to Orlando to visit us back in 1998 or so. Carmen and I visited her in the fall of 2000, soon after Michael's first grandbaby was born. We stopped by to see Mr. and Mrs. B. at Buinickas Central for an hour or so. That's the last I've seen of them. Sometimes I get a hankering to just show up on their doorstep as in days of old, and see if my place is still set at their table.