The flowers were laid on top of the casket. Simon's mother, red-faced, with puffy cheeks and whipped hair, whose eyes refused to show the embarrassment she felt toward the black people standing around her, stood there, unable to look into their Christian faces, so she wiped her nose instead. She turned around and briefly stared and wondered what they were thinking abut her and her beloved son, Simon.
     Mrs. Saith wondered about her absent husband, her community's complacence over the two deaths and the dirty money that had paid for the funeral. What about her child? She looked at Simon. He was eating a sticky bun, the "reward" for leaving the dead animal, a squirrel, under Mr. Saith's car. But Simon was not thinking of that. No, Simon was very, very upset about being pulled away from the game he was playing. Only to be pushed into a suit and out the door.
     Simon's father had stood at the window, barely able to acknowledge his lame-duck son. Even the black people at the funeral glanced sideways, their voices whispered of his legend. They had given him more admiration than the equally strange man standing at the back. Simon ran his fingers along the ice cold structure of Naomi's deep brown face. She laid there in the casket with a Bible and a sheet of prayers. Even the preacher looked into the little boy's beady eyes and refused to ask God for Simon's redemption.
      The preacher did not know that the little boy, blond hair, blue eyes, would need to be almost drowned in order to save him. For there were no signs except for the twitch of an erratic smile. But Simon's hands waited and waited for the fallen angel in front of him to wake up. He even went over to the casket and whispered, "I love you, Naomi. Wake up, Naomi. You dirty bitch, you. I said wake up!" But that wasn't to be. Mrs. Saith watched the boy and between weeps carefully recalled her story to the newsreporter of how Simon had caused the death of Naomi.