Cemetery Street by John Zunski (free ebook reader for ipad .txt) 📕

smoke.
“Russell,” I cried as he approached.
“If it ain’t James Mo-ison.” Russell shook my hand. “I hear you gone off and got yourself in loads of trouble. Boy you got to watch them telephone poles, they always going about jumping out in front of good folk.”
After some small talk Russell said: “It’s colder then an Eskimo’s clitty, let’s get us some anti-freeze.”
“Not allowed to, you know, my condition,” I said.
“Your condition?” Russell stared at me from behind his sunglasses. “You’re a pup, pups don’t got no conditions. C'mon, just a little juice to keep ya loose.”
“Ah,” I hesitated.
“What them there doctors don’t know can’t hurt ‘em.” He clapped my back. “Let’s us have one for old times sake.”
I followed Russell to his apartment.
“What’s this I hear about that old girlfriend of yours?” Russell slammed a half-empty bottle of Ten-high on the coffee table.
“Shannie?”
“No you fool, not my Butterfly - she ain’t really your girlfriend anyhow.” I recoiled. “I’m talking ‘bouts that Jenny Wade character. Yeah it’s a good thing I bailed you out of her hell. That’s be life sentence waiting to happen there, wooo-eeee. I know fellows do softer time in the penny.” Russell took a swig and passed the bottle: “I hear she got her ass knocked up.”
“I heard that to.” I took a belt of bourbon. I winced as it burned its way down.
“And that Burn punk…”
“Rex?”
“Yeah, him, he got himself in trouble with the man. He knocked off a pizza joint.”
“No shit?” I laughed.
“Yeah shit. See what happens when get yourself knocked out. The world happens.” A salvo of phlegm riddled coughs interrupted him. He took a belt from the bottle. “Ah, good for what ails ya boy,” he pounded his chest. “Yeah, looks like the dumb ass be spending some good time on the inside.”
My head spun. Russell’s voice faded in and out as he cackled. I passed out.
“Never figured you for such a light weight,” Russell said as I came to. My head ached, I struggled to sit up. The bourbon bottle sat empty on the table.
“Take you time boy. Don’ts go standing up too fast,” Russell instructed.
When I found my legs, Russell’s apartment seemed alien to me. The stale, damp air constricted around my lungs. I needed to escape. Russell’s voice crackled like a distant AM radio station. “Russell, do you know where I live? I don’t know where I live. I forgot where I live. I don’t know where I am. Where the fuck am I? Can you take me home? Please, I don’t know where I live!”
“Get hold of yourself boy, I’ll take ya home.” Russell’s voice slithered through my panic. My claustrophobia faded as we stepped out into darkness. The fresh air chased the residue of Russell’s apartment from my lungs. A semblance of calm returned.
“Where you going? This way boy,” Russell said. When we crossed Main Street he told me to lead the way. “If you screw up, I’ll tell you.”
I walked, once familiar landmarks rushed around me. I felt dizzy. I tried to mask my increased breathing.
“Relax boy, you ain’t going to be lost again.”
Despite his reassurance, I felt a like stranger in a strange land. As we came to Cemetery Street, Russell asked me: “which way boy?”
I looked up and down Cemetery Street, its streetlights casting a pall in the winter night. I knew that I lived next to a cemetery that was at the end of Cemetery Street. I was confused about if it was uphill or downhill. It’s uphill, it’s gotta be uphill, I told myself. I looked down Cemetery Street and noticed Lucas’s funeral parlor. Though I knew better, I started towards Lucas’s.
“Where you takin’ that ass of yo’s?” Russell asked.
“Home, I live by the Cemetery.”
“Yeah you do and the Cemetery be the other way,” Russell pointed up Cemetery Street.
“You sure?”
“Sure as Clinton is a Democrat and bush is something I wanna eat.”
“Huh?”
Russell chuckled as he relit his cigar. The tip glowed in the dark. With the finesse of a connoisseur he exhaled into the night. Cigar smoke curled skyward. “It’s up the hill boy.”
“Yeah but, there’s Lucas’s. Lucas’s has to be close to the cemetery. My house has to be that way.”
“Do me this favor and trust crazy ole Russell, he knows where he’s going this time.” I watched him from the middle of the crosswalk as he tapped his way onto the sidewalk. “You coming or do I have to get Butterfly to pick you up?” he called, his back to me.
I floundered after him. We walked in silence. At the old piano factory I said,” You know she blames me for his death?”
“Who blames you for whose death?” Russell asked.
“Flossy blames me for Count.”
“That’s the plum craziest thing I heard all night. That’s nuttier than you thinking up is down and all.”
“It’s true,” I paused. The familiar purr of Shannie’s GTI sauntered down Bainbridge Street. I watched the turn signal click off as she eased Saphix towards home.
“Yeah, she’s something else,” Russell said nodding towards the Volkswagen. “She’s my girl, the apple of my eye,” Russell chuckled. “I can’t believe I still crack myself up. I’m the funniest man I know. Apple of my eye, I’m blind,” he said as if his blindness was breaking news. Shannie’s brake lights flashed before going dark. I caught glimpse of her under the street light before she slipped into the night.


Chapter 18 Promises

Watching Russell tap his way down Cemetery Street, I realized moments of contentment are fleeting. Uneasiness and insecurity rose like the full moon nosing over Fernwood. Before turning to my darkened house I admired the Ortolan’s home – its warm light bathed the frozen ground. I understood why my father spent so much time there. Even now he bathed within that warm glow. I retreated into my father’s blackened house.
Ellie curled up on my bed as I gazed at the Ortolan’s house and the moon-washed cemetery. Peering through bare tree limbs I searched the graveyard for my grandfather’s and Count’s graves, never imagining the news Shannie would break the following morning.
Shannie was quiet most of the ride to Lenape Valley. “I’m not going to Atlantic City anymore,” she hesitated, concentrating too hard on the road. “At least for a while.”
“Why not?” I hoped that my enthusiasm didn’t betray my expression.
“It’s for the best.”
My eyes wondered along her arm as she downshifted. I loved the aloof finesse which she operated. “I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry? I know you can’t stand her.”
“Okay… WOOOOOHOOOOOO!” I hooted. “SCORE.”
“Don’t patronize me!” Shannie fell into silent concentration. “Just James,” Shannie broke her silence as she pulled into the Rehab’s parking lot.
“Yeah Bug?”
“Ahhh, never mind,” she brought the car to a rest.
“What?”
“Forget it okay.” She avoided my gaze.
“If you insist.” I reached for the door. She grabbed my hand. Her touch was clammy. “Promise me, promise you’ll never leave me. I almost lost you. I couldn’t live if I lost you. Promise you’ll never leave me; promise you’ll always be here. If I lost you it would kill me.” Her pale green eyes searched for a promise lurking somewhere within my soul.
If I was smart, I would have asked her to marry me. Instead I said: “I’m here, I’ve always been here. You always leave and I always wait. That’s not a promise Bug, that’s the way it is.” I slipped my hand from her icy grip and stumbled through the rest of my day.
A couple of weeks later, Shannie wrote in my birthday card:

If our eyes are the gateway to the soul
Our memories are its gatekeepers
Out of memory comes meaning
Out of meaning – warmth
Out of warmth – Love
Out of Love – Us

Beyond anyone - I remember you.

We grew as close as ever over the following months. Not as close as I’d like, there wasn’t a prayer of repeating the magical night in the Sheesh Mahal. She laughed off my innuendoes. As February ground into March, I was reminded daily how platonic our relationship was. I would have been better off with ice cubes instead of testicles, at least my eyes wouldn’t be making love with Shannie every time she bent over. At least she wasn’t bumping uglies with anyone else, I consoled myself.
A few weeks later, Linda and I were standing outside the rehab. She kept me company while I waited for Shannie, my ever-dependable ride. Linda is a sweet person, but dull and tedious - even for someone in my condition. She railed about not having a second date since college. “I don’t have problems meeting guys. They don’t want to go out after a first date.”
I shrugged.
“Guys are pigs. They expect to get something on the first date. When I don’t give it to them, I don’t get asked out again. Hell, they’re lucky to get a good night kiss.”
“Not even a cheap feel?” I asked.
“I’m not that kind of girl,” Linda snapped.
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I counseled. Good advice from someone who was never on a real date. If priests can be marriage counselors, I was within bounds.
“There has to be a real gentleman out there somewhere.”
She had a point, we are pigs. I’ve banged two chicks, got one knocked up, but I’ve never been on a date. Steve Lucas probably gets more than me. My old man, since coming east was working on number two. I’m a bigger loser than Steve Lucas. I’m a bigger loser than Linda. Christ, she’s not even a loser, she turns down getting laid. I’d take any piece that came my way. When I realized Shannie got more pussy than me, real self-loathing set in.
The GTI’s purr sliced through Linda’s prattle and my mental masturbation. “Are you getting some of that?” Shannie teased as I shut the passenger door.
“Very funny,” I retorted.
“Ugh oh. Did someone shoot you down?”
“Shut up Shannie!”
“Be that way. I just got the best news in the world, you’re not bringing me down.”
“The miserable half-breed called and wants to kiss and make up.”
“Fuck you!” Shannie punched my arm. “Take that back you prick!”
“Don’t start.” I resisted rubbing my arm. For her size, Shannie brought the heat. She didn’t punch like a girl.
“Don’t start? Don’t you start asshole. What the hell’s your problem? Dickwad!”
“I don’t have…” I began.
“Shut up!” Shannie yelled.
“…a problem,” I continued.
“Shut up!”
I turned away. Linda was watching. I waved as Shannie pulled away. We drove into another uneasy silence. Even the radio knew to be quiet. The silence allowed me to pay homage to the shrine of my wretchedness. Shannie mistook my silence as self-righteousness, she never understood my level of self-contempt.
“If you’re not going to ask me about my good news, I’m going to tell you anyway,” Shannie said.
I glanced from the floor towards Shannie. Don’t you know misery loves company? I thought. Good news meant I was closer to losing her, especially if it had anything to do with Genise.
“Princeton Law accepted me. I’m going to Princeton. I start this fall.” Despite our spat, her enthusiasm bubbled over.
“Really?” I mumbled, inadvertently unenthusiastic.
“Really,” Shannie chirped.
“That’s great,” I droned in an uninspired monotone. “I’m happy for you.”
“You know, why can’t you be happy for me? Geezus Pete, this is the biggest thing that ever happened to me and you don’t give a shit. Just forget it, Okay?”
“I said I was happy for you,” I protested.
“Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit,” Shannie pounded the steering wheel. “Your words say one thing, your tone says