Jonathan Seidler - Its a Shame About Ray

When Ray dies, were locked in our house for seven days. Were not allowed to shave, listen to music, go outside or do anything apart from sit mutely in a self-imposed fog of grief, which in Hebrew is called Shiva. We pick through the mounting pile of lasagne other peoples aunts keep leaving by the front door.

Shiva is hell for the extrovert. Forty-eight hours in, the four of us are already well on the way to losing it. Our ages span a decade from oldest to youngest; three boys named for ancient Talmudic figuresJonathan, David, Zacevenly spaced by two and a half years and dressed identically for much of our childhood, and a baby sisterZara, named after a Spanish fast fashion brandwhose conception we are assured was not an accident. In addition to being a tight sibling unit who look like babushka doll versions of one another, the four of us are each very loud, opinionated and hyper-social. Were simply not programmed to stare vacantly into space, doing nothing. Eventually Zac, who is studying undergraduate psychology, proposes we watch a stupid movie like The Fast and the Furious to get outside of our heads. This escalates into a full escapist saga as we move through the entire Fast & Furious franchise, developing quasi-spiritual relationships along the way with Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Ludacris. Our family is torn apart by grief but saved from insanity by souped-up cars, hole-riddled plots and a criminally underrated hip-hop soundtrack. The rabbi who comes to counsel us on day three remarks on how well we are all doing, given the circumstances, and we dont have the heart to tell him that while we havent left the house, things remain extremely high octane in our heads. Were tearing through the illegal street racing worlds of Los Angeles and Tokyo as we live vicariously through another family that rides or dies for one another, no matter what.

Sacred texts are really just stories we tell each other, codified through conversation over thousands of years. In Judaism, the Old Testament is diced up into five segments of real scripture before we bow out and hand over the torch to the new guard. Fast & Furious makes it to seven films before the wheels really start to fall off, but even the demise of the groups metaphorical Jesus in Furious 7 doesnt stop them meting out ever more grandiose biblical battles (see: F8: TheFate of the Furious, 2017). They have their own Midrash meta-commentary too, in the form of Hobbs & Shaw, an entirely uncalled for spin-off in which Jason Statham and The Rockpreviously mortal enemiesjoin forces to pummel bad guys and save the world from bioterrorism or whatever.

Evidently, the Fast & Furious franchise has all the elements needed to start a religion, including a cyclical collection of parables based around the ancient mores of betrayal, redemption and tank tops for both genders. Vin Diesels Dominic Toretto is a modern-day Moses, shepherding his flock through one last job before they call it quits and settle in the promised land, which always happens to be one film away.

Naturally, his foil is our blue-eyed, genetically blessed Christ. In July 2013, our dad was no longer alive, but Paul Walker was still with us; our generations Brando who never got fat or had any memorable lines. Fast & Furious is an ensemble deal, and if you study the historywhich naturally, I have in some detailit was actually Diesel who needed to be coaxed into joining what would become the longest continuous car race of his life. But it is Walker who steals the show. He is American exceptionalism on a plate: white, blond, preposterously ripped and somehow able to traverse Black and Hispanic neighbourhoods without attracting any serious suspicion. Paul Walker says what he needs to say with his endless-ocean eyes, which is good because very little of what he says could be considered actual dialogue. Walker spends most of his time on screen as an undercover LAPD cop called Brian OConner, who is adopted by the very crime family he is assigned to infiltrate and eventually bring to justice. He is Judas and Messiah both, a perfect deity shimmering against the exhaust fumes of a hotted-up Nissan Skyline under the relentless Californian sun. He is also undeniably the worst policeman in cinematic history.

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By the time weve kicked Shiva, not only have the four of us watched every Fast & Furious film currently on the market, but we have also spent hours looking up random facts on Wikipedia about the franchise. We are fully immersed, marvelling at such modern-day miracles as the first films US$200 million box office haul against a measly budget of $38 million, and the titanic rise of Dwayne Johnson after his franchise debut in Fast 5, resulting in him becoming one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. David confirms another chapter of the Fast saga is in production, one in which the crew will apparently return to the United States to avenge the half-sister of a minor character from four films ago. We take bets on the net worth of Vin Dieselborn a very boring Mark Sinclairand discover he has now amassed more than $220 million. We have holes in our black socks, we have thick beards and unwashed hair, we have stiff knees and sore backs from sitting on the floor, and we are sad that this brief moment in time is over.

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When Ray dies in July, I am technically the only one around, the only one available. Both of my brothers are in Europe, as are my grandparents. My sister, Zara, still a teenager, is in school. The whole thing is incomprehensible, so I do not try to understand it. Instead, I become a grief robot. I book flights. I cancel credit cards. I organise the funeral, wakes, obituaries. I call his friends. I do not cry once, not because it isnt expected of me, but because I dont yet have it in me. I am hard, made of cool marble, impenetrably tough for the first time in my life. I buy an expensive black suit.

It is easy to manage magnitudes when you treat everything as business. I insulate myself against feeling anything by approaching difficult situations with the indifference of a hedge fund manager who could probably lose a million or two just to make a point. I doubt theres a guide to dealing with death that advocates becoming a ruthless ninja, but it helps when faced with hundreds of well-wishers attempting to project their grief onto you, using you as a sounding board to explain how they are coping. If you let even one of these people in then it can easily flood the whole system. So I dont.

In that first week I am always on the move. I answer the phone day and night. I am uncharacteristically unflappable, and people notice. Around day four it becomes clear that the family has started fretting about the fragile, unsustainable state of my mental health. There are heated conversations in other rooms about medication and mood monitoring, but I dont care.

Paul Walker dies in November the same year. That he goes out in an explosive car crash is almost too eerie and brutal to believe, and for months the cast of what will be released eventually as Furious 7 debate what to do with their half-finished capstone to the holy scripture, and how to give their saviour a fitting send-off. It turns out it was already written. As Dom has relentlessly barked at his crew throughout the franchise, the most important thing in life will always be family, so this film is finished with Walkers uncannily lookalike brothers stepping in to complete his scenes, Walkers face rendered over theirs. Its an uncanny spectacle, bringing the dead back to life through CGI and body doubles. This Paul pastiche is a holy spirit from the next world, reincarnated in his own flesh and blood. To cinemagoers, the experience is nothing short of biblical.