I slouched on the basement couch, watching Saturday morning cartoons and letting the cold cereal Mom had made me take downstairs get warm and soggy. Wile E Coyote ran out over the edge of a cliff. Would he look down and fall? Why yes, yes he would.

I couldn't sleep, I wasn't hungry, and in the two weeks since Donna had broken up with me I'd done nothing but go to work and hang out on this couch feeling sorry for myself. Jackie and Hyde had started hanging out at the Pinciottis' just to get away from me. Fez and Kelso had quietly vanished. I guess I wasn't much fun to hang out with. Besides, they all had their own things keeping them busy. Fez and Hyde were pulling extra shifts at the hotel, Jackie had midterm tests, and Kelso was seriously getting into his Police Academy courses. Their lives were going on. No one was lost in the bitter ashes of regret but me.

I heard the door to Hyde's room open and close, and I looked over my shoulder automatically. I had to do a double take to check I'd seen what I thought I'd seen: Hyde was walking out into the basement wearing a black suit, like he was Secret Service or something.

This sight struck me as the most bizarrely funny thing I'd seen all month. My spirits lifted an inch or so off the floor, and I managed a sardonic grin. "Nice suit. Who died?"

He slipped his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. "Remember my friend Randy?"

"Yeah, I remember him beating me up," I said. "What about him?"

"He died. Funeral's in half an hour. See you later." Hyde started for the door.

"What!? Crap, I was joking, I didn't think someone had actually died-" Open mouth. Insert foot. Oh my God, was I ever a dumbass. "Hyde, wait!"

He stopped with his hand on the door to the driveway. "What?" he said, sounding just a little impatient.

"Is Jackie going with you?"

"What the hell for? She's never even heard of him."

"Yeah but..." I raked my hand through my hair. I was floundering here; I knew there were important things I should be saying, but I didn't know what they were. "You should have someone to go with."

Hyde raised one eyebrow at me. "It's a funeral, Forman, not the prom. I don't need a date."

"You should have someone with you," I insisted. Christ, nobody should have to go to a friend's funeral alone. "I'll go."

Hyde hesitated, then nodded. "OK, man," he said. "Hurry up and get dressed. If you're not in my car in five minutes, I'm leaving without you."

I've never thrown on a suit so fast. Inside the five minutes I was sitting in the passenger seat of the El Camino, knotting my tie.

In the car, I didn't know what to say. "How did he die?" I blurted out.

Hyde just grimaced slightly, keeping his eyes on the road. "Wrapped his car around a tree Wednesday night."

He didn't say anything else, and I let the silence stand.

It turned out the funeral was at the Baptist church at the other end of town. I'd never been in it before. The church was about three-quarters full when we got there. Looking around, I realized how different this was from the funerals I'd been to before: there was almost no gray hair in the crowd.

We slid into a pew near the back. I looked at the piece of paper a man had handed me at the door. "Funeral Service for Randolph Cook," it said at the top. It had a list of hymns and readings, kind of like for a normal church service. It had a thick black border.

I looked over at Hyde. He was sitting back, his expression dead neutral. I noticed his copy of the program was crumpled in his fist.

The organ started to play, and everyone stood up for the immediate family to come in. There was a woman about my mom's age with tears running down her face, a pale girl about my age in a black dress, and a grim-faced boy who looked like he was maybe 12 and had never worn a suit before.

The minister called us all to prayer. Then there was a hymn. The books in the pews were different from the ones I was used to, but the hymn was one I knew: "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." I stood up and sang along with everyone else. Beside me, Hyde stood but didn't sing, didn't even pick up a hymnal.

When the minister started what sounded like a sermon, I tuned him out. After 18 years of church it was an automatic reaction. My mind started to wander, and I started thinking about the fact that I was at the funeral of a guy I barely knew and didn't like - and who was my age. Had been my age.

I started imagining what my own funeral would look like if I died tomorrow. It would be kind of like this - more young people than old. Mom and Dad and Laurie would sit in the front row. Mom would weep uncontrollably, Dad would probably sit there looking angry, and Laurie - who knew? She might cry, she might laugh.

Then there'd be my friends. Hyde, Kelso, Jackie, Fez. And probably a bunch of people who knew me a little from school, who'd had classes with me or something - they'd come. I think a death at our age is so shocking, so out-of-the-blue, that people who barely even said 'hello' feel like they need to come and say 'good-bye.' That was the only way to explain why so many people from school were here in the church. They couldn't all have been real friends with Randy. He was a loser and an asshole.

Donna would come to my funeral. Yeah, I'd left her for last, because she was the one who actually hurt to think about. What would she do if I died tomorrow? Would she feel sorry that she'd broken up with me? Would she wish that we'd had a couple more weeks of being happy before the end? I let myself imagine it for a moment: Donna in a sexy black dress, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief and saying to Hyde, 'I didn't realize how much I loved him until he was gone.'

Shit, what if Donna died tomorrow? Then I'd be the one wishing I'd done something differently before it was too late. The last time I saw her, I yelled at her and turned my back on her and told her to leave. I think I had a right to be angry and hurt - I was still angry and hurt - but I wished I could take back some of the things I'd said. I wished I hadn't told her that being gay was unnatural and wrong. I didn't even believe that bullshit, I just knew that most of the people around us believed it. Hell, I'd got beaten up a couple times in high school when rumors were going around that I was gay. In fact, Randy-the-dead-guy was one of the ones who'd spread the rumors and beat me up. I'd never told Donna the whole truth about that. I was afraid now that she didn't know what she was getting into - she didn't really understand the danger. Not like I did.

"I now invite Frank Green to come forward and say a few words in memory of his friend," said the minister.

I recognized Frank from school, and from the time he'd helped Randy beat me up. Today his scraggy blond hair was slicked back, and he wore a dark blue suit that looked a little too big for him. Standing at the front of the church, right in front of the closed coffin, he looked out at all of us and cleared his throat. "Um, hi," he said. He pulled a sheet of loose-leaf out of his jacket pocket and unfolded it. "Randy was, like, my best friend." He glanced at Randy's graduation photo, which was standing on top of the coffin. "I've known him since we were kids," he read from his notes. "He had a great sense of humor and he always was there for me. He made some mistakes, but he was a good guy. I miss him." Frank's voice cracked; it didn't sound like he was going to make it through the speech without breaking down. He crumpled the paper, and said "Play it now," to someone I couldn't see, off to the side. "This was his favorite song," Frank managed to say.

There must've been a stereo up there somewhere, because all of a sudden the church was filled with Mick Jagger singing "Paint It Black." I felt my eyes tearing up. I think it was the strangeness of listening to the Rolling Stones in a church that got to me - that, and thinking about Donna again.

I looked over at Hyde. He was perfectly Zen - no sign of emotion at all.

After the service, there was a reception downstairs. We stood in line, waiting to give our condolences to Randy's family. I remembered going through that at my grandparents' funerals - the long blur of people I barely knew telling me how sorry they were for my loss.

Hyde was in front of me in line. When he got to the family, Randy's mom greeted him with a wavering smile.

"Steve," she said, "You're all grown up."

"Hi, Mrs. Cook," he said. "I'm really sorry." And he hugged her. It was a real hug, raising her to her tiptoes, and it looked like she squeezed him tight in return. He said something else to her, too soft for me to hear. They held on for what felt like a long time. It really hit me: they knew each other, they had this whole history together that I didn't know about. She even called Hyde by a different nickname; no one I knew ever called him 'Steve.' This was a part of Hyde's life I'd never had access to.

"Wherever Randy is, I know he's glad you came," Mrs. Cook said when they let go.

Hyde shrugged, and said "Take care, Mrs. Cook."

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said, feeling like an impostor. Mrs. Cook shook my offered hand, and thanked me, but I don't think she saw me at all.

Meanwhile, Hyde was facing the 12-year-old boy. "This sucks, Billy," he said. "Don't let it ruin your life."

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said to Billy.

"Hi Diane," Hyde said to the pale-faced girl.

"Hi Steve."

"You know where I live. If you need anything else, call me," he said quietly. She nodded.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said to Diane.

As soon as we were away from Randy's family, Hyde headed for the exit without a word. I followed him out into the church parking lot.

"Heads up, Forman," he said, and tossed his keys to me.

"Huh?" I fingered the keys, warm from his pocket. "You want me to drive the El Camino?"

"Yep." He stood there calmly, hands in his pockets, waiting for me to go ahead and open the car door.

While I let us into the car, I tried to guess what was going on in his head. That was never an easy thing to do with Hyde. But, OK, we'd just left his friend's funeral. He had to be sad, right? Any normal person would be sad. He didn't look sad, but he'd just told me to drive his car, so that had to mean...something. He didn't trust himself driving.

"Home?" I said.

"Yeah."

I pulled us out onto the road carefully, getting the feel of the car. I'd never driven the El Camino before.

"Um, how are you doing?" I asked after what felt to me like a long awkward silence.

Hyde shrugged. "Fine. You?"

I shrugged too. "Feeling kind of weird about stuff. I started thinking about life and death..."

He kind of snorted. "At a funeral? That's original."

"I think I should drive down to Madison tomorrow and try to make things up with Donna. I mean, what if one of us died? I wouldn't want our last conversation to be a fight."

"Gonna beg her to take you back?"

I shook my head. Of course, he didn't know the real reason that she'd broken up with me. "No. I'm going to try to be friends again. It worked before."

"Sort of."

"Yeah, well." Enough about me. "Seriously, Hyde, how are you doing?"

I heard an exasperated sigh. "Fine. Could you just shut the hell up for a few minutes?"

"OK," I agreed, and then proceeded to not shut up. "Do you remember what my mom did after grandma died?"

"No."

"She baked. She baked like crazy. It got almost frightening. She used up all the flour in the house. She baked instead of eating, instead of sleeping, instead of watching TV..."

"Sounds like Kitty, all right."

"The point of this story is, she was pretending she was fine, and she really wasn't. We were all doing it - my whole family. And then we got together and admitted that we were sad, and we hugged, and we felt better."

He gave me a funny look. "Even Laurie?"

"Well, no, not Laurie. I don't really consider her family..."

He snickered.

"You do get my point, right?"

"I don't want to talk about feelings, Forman."

"But you do have them, right?"

In response, he reached for the dashboard and turned on the radio. He kept turning the knob 'till the volume was so high I felt the steering wheel vibrating. Then he sat back with his arms crossed, wearing a thin smile, and let Alice Cooper do all the talking for us.

***

Back in jeans and a t-shirt, and holding a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream, I knocked on the door to Hyde's room.

"Who is it?"

"Me. Can I come in?"

"Sure, whatever."

He was lying on his back on the cot, wearing nothing but white boxers and his sunglasses. The suit was hanging from a pipe in the ceiling over at the edge of the room.

"I brought you some ice cream."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "It's kind of cold for that."

"It's mint chocolate chip," I said, making my voice all singsong.

He sighed, and sat up. "What's this about, Forman? Are you still trying to be supportive or something?"

I swallowed. There was something about the way his abs moved as he sat up that made me feel tingly...and that was in the class of Things That Are Not Appropriate To Notice. Especially now. "I just had some ice cream. Thought you might like some." Of course I was trying to be supportive, but the only way to do that for Hyde was to trick him into thinking I wasn't doing it. Or something. It was complicated, anyway.

"Well, I don't."

I shrugged, sat down on the cot and started eating it myself. I'd lied about already having some.

Hyde stood up, and searched around on the floor for pants to put on. He found a pair of brown cords. I caught myself staring at him getting dressed. I looked down at the ice cream before he could notice.

"What do you want, Forman?" he asked, sounded slightly pissed. I looked up; he'd pulled on a Pink Floyd t-shirt, too, and now he was glaring down at me. "Do you want me to tell you how sad I am, ask for a hug, and spill out a bunch of funny, wistful stories about when Randy and I used to hang out together? Do you want me to cry, so you can feel like you're helping me through some fucking stage of grief?"

"Ummm," I hesitated. I guess I'd been vaguely imagining something along those lines.

"I'm not sad, OK? I'm angry."

"OK." Wow, Hyde just admitted to having a feeling. That didn't happen every day. I sat up straighter and let the spoon rest in the ice cream. "Why?"

"How do you think Randy drove into a tree at 50 miles per hour on a clear night?" Hyde didn't exactly raise his voice, but he sounded... tight.

"Um, he fell asleep?"

"He was fucking drunk. And he had his girlfriend in the car with him."

"Damn," I swore softly. "Was she hurt?"

"Not badly, she was wearing her seat belt. She was at the funeral. The tall brunette who sat up front with Randy's family."

"Diane."

"Yeah. Remember the phone call at seven a.m. Thursday?"

"No." I didn't wake up 'till 7:30 on work days.

"That was Diane, trying to find someone to drive her home from the hospital."

"Why'd she call you?"

He shrugged. "She couldn't get hold of anyone else."

"I can't believe you didn't say anything on Thursday." I put the ice cream down and stood up, face-to-face with him. "If I hadn't seen you walking out the door to the funeral, you wouldn't have told me about this at all, would you?"

"Why would I?"

"Because - because Jesus, Hyde, I'm your best friend!"

His expression sort of tensed for a moment, but he kept the calm mask on. It had to be a mask - he'd said he was angry. "I said I don't want to talk about this, Forman. Why don't you just get out of here?"

He wasn't going to get rid of me until I was sure that he was OK. "Know what scares me?" I said, stepping in closer and speaking softer. "What if you hadn't stopped hanging out with Randy? What if you'd been in that car?" I hadn't even realized I was thinking it until I said it, but as soon as I did, I felt all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

It was always so hard to read his eyes through the sunglasses. "If it wasn't for your family, I might've been," he said, quiet and tight.

I hugged him. I don't think he wanted me to, but I needed it. He stood stiff at first, but then he put his arms around me and returned the hug. While we stood here, he whispered, "Thanks for coming with me to the funeral."

"You're welcome," I whispered back.

We broke apart, and he tugged his shirt straight. I felt like we'd just done something important, but I wasn't sure what.

"I've gotta return the suit," he said. "See you later."