"Gravity Wants What It Wants"

“Grab hold, T.J.,” his father told him as the men eased back the coffin so that Pappy could stare into the camera with the rest of them.
“You men hold on,” said the picture man as he took his position behind the camera. T.J. was surprised by just how heavy the coffin was. Surely he must be getting a disproportionate share of the load, he thought.
About 30 people gathered around. T.J. clenched his wet right hand around the sharp corner of the coffin. He caught another quick glimpse of his aunt’s bottom. His eyes darted around to make sure no one was looking.
“All right, now. All right, now. That’s good. Everyone hold it right there, now,” said the Jew.
Sweat streamed down T.J.’s forehead, sending his glasses sliding down his nose as the coffin weighed down on him. He clinched his thin fingers more tightly, trying to find his grip, but it was like trying to hold onto an oil-soaked piano. Gravity wants what it wants.
“Hold it right there!” said the camera man once more.
Just take the goddamn picture, T.J. thought.
He glanced out the lone open window, hoping for some type of divine intervention. A blond-haired girl, about his age, obliged. She was holding something. She looked a little scared, peering in like the blacks often did before knocking. Then she was gone.
A barb shot through T.J.’s right hand like a snakebite. He recoiled, sending the coffin tumbling onto the floor with a splintering crack amid yelps of shock from the women in front. One of the babies shrieked from all the noise.
Pappy’s corpse plopped at the feet of the children in a most unnatural position. The children clambered over the body and clung to their mothers like frightened monkeys.
T.J. looked down at his right hand. A tiny splinter protruded from the webbing between his index finger and thumb. He pulled it out and popped his bleeding hand into his mouth. He peered up at his father. Granite.
His father motioned for the other men, mostly T.J.’s uncles, to hoist the body back into the coffin. T.J. stepped forward but his father shook his head and shooed him away. T.J. slunk backward, seeping into the crevices.