Cemetery Street by John Zunski (ebook reader color screen .txt) 📖

little girl?” I asked - my heart racing.
“The monumental one,” Count answered.
Splayed across the rocks, soaking up the sun, Shannie spoke. “Translation from moron-ese: Dingleberry means she whom the monument honors. By the way, she wasn’t little. She was eighteen-nineteen.”
“She jump or something?” I asked.
“You could say that,” Shannie said.
“She was thrown off!” Count said. “Murdered. Killed in cold blood.”
“Who?” I repeated.
“Angel Wind!” Count answered.
“That’s not her name, Jackass.” Shannie sat up: “Geneva Galetto, Galatchi, Ga - something Italian. She was from Tunerville. Her family couldn’t except that she killed herself and took their frustrations out on the world.”
“You lost me,” I said.
“She was raped!” Count declared.
Shannie ignored Count. “Her two brothers, biceps bigger than their brains, took matters into their own hands. Armed with baseball bats they killed thirteen people and blinded a fourteenth.”
“Bullshit,” Count argued.
“They set fire to the house to cover up their handy work.”
“Bullshit,” Count repeated.
“They got away with murder!” Shannie countered. “Thirteen times over!”
“More bullshit,” Count insisted.
“Is it?” Shannie leapt to her feet. “Tell Russell it’s bullshit, see what he says. You know better. He’d crack you with his cane. Go ahead, ask him. You don’t have the balls! Think its bullshit? Tell Russell it’s bullshit!” The veins in Shannie’s neck bulged; her face flamed. I stepped back. “I’ll tell you what’s bullshit,” Shannie turned to the monument. “This is bullshit!” She picked up the painted stones surrounding the monument and threw them into the river. I waited for Count to stop her. We watched the candles go over next. She was about to heave the white cross, the centerpiece of the monument, when Count decided enough was enough. He wrapped Shannie in a bear hug.
“Let me go you rat bastard!” Shannie struggled to free herself. Count managed to pin Shannie’s arms to her sides. Feet flailing, Shannie repeatedly kicked at Count’s shins. “Let me go!” Her wails angrier than my mother’s ever were! Count loomed over her, repeatedly telling her it’s okay, it’s okay.
“Let me go,” Shannie cried. “Let me go,” she repeated, her voice trailing off.

Recently I found the courage to ask Russell about the tunnel and Indian Point business. I returned to Beyford for my father’s wedding. The day after the wedding I slithered into JD’s Tavern.
Still dressed in his tux, Russell’s ass was parked on the same stool as that afternoon fifteen years ago. I again tracked down Russell for information that could bring me closer to Shannie. Three other patrons hunched over their beers. The television pleaded with the uninterested patrons to stay tuned for a once in a lifetime half-time spectacular. Russell, isolated in his own world of stale cigar smoke, peered aimlessly into the dark side of his sunglasses.
“Happy New Year, old man!” I said plummeting into Russell’s stratosphere of cheap tobacco.
His thick lips turned upward, his stubble the color of the early January sky. “James Morrison,” he coughed. “I never expected to see you here.” Laughing at his own joke, Russell fell into a coughing fit.
“You better change out of that thing before they charge you double,” I said.
“Boy,” he said, pausing to inhale his cigar. “These here tweeds never looked so good as they do on this old fool.” He tugged a pant leg.
Across the bar, a patron yelled to the television: “Fuck the new millennium!” He threw his mug at the TV. “What’s there to be happy about?” The drunk’s mug missed the television and shattered against the Saint Pauli Girl’s breasts. She continued smiling. The other patrons guarded their beers. Russell’s laugh was crusty. “You tell ‘em Ralph.”
“Fuck you and your fucking tuxedo, you old bastard,” the drunk slurred. Russell laughed more. “What’s the new millennium going to bring you?” the drunk slobbered. “More of the same. You’ll still be in chains! You’ll always be in chains! You dumb old bastard. You’re as stupid as the rest of them,” he cried.
“I’s going to be free, free at last,” Russell laughed, falling into another phlegmy coughing fit. He motioned for another shot. The miserable bartender obliged.
“Fuck y’all,” the drunk bellowed. He jerked out of his stool, sending it to the floor with a crash. “Burn in hell. All of you!” He stumbled out the door. “Happy Fucking New Year,” the miserable bartender uttered.
A couple of shots later, as the bourbon burned down my throat, I asked Russell, “What really happened?” He turned towards me, sunglasses staring into my eyes. I told him about the day on Indian Point. How Shannie demolished Angel Wind’s monument. The old man trembled. “It’s true,” he mumbled. Russell’s hands limp in his lap, his head hung low. “I didn’t rape her; we were in love. I still love her. After all these years, I still love her.” He grabbed my arm - his grip tore through my sweatshirt. “You carry the same cross. Till you’re an old man, you will love her. And you love her boy, you hear! Always love Shannie. Love her a little more each day! To the day they plant you in the ground, you’ll carry her cross. Yes you will.” He let go of my arm.
A long silence ensued. I decided to leave. Rising, I patted his back and wished him a happy new year. Russell spoke: “Geneva was with child when her two brothers did Satan’s bidding.” I sat back down. “She was with my child. She lied about the father. When her brother’s shook down the impostor, they came back and beat her. Beat her unconscious. When she comes to, they beat her till the truth come out. Then they beat her till the baby come out. Then they throw her off Indian point. You know why? She disgraced the family. They say she laid with the beast. And then they tell everyone the niggers did it! The niggers raped their sister!
“They said she jumped off Indian Point. And then they goes and built that sham monument. Their family still maintains that farce. After Butterfly did her thing, they built it again. The sham will outlive the truth.” I wanted to say it wouldn’t; that the truth always prevails. I didn’t, I would have felt foolish.
Russell continued. “On Christmas Eve, a foggy one, the reaper, in the form of those two brothers came for my family. As we slept, they broke in, swinging their baseball bats at anything that moved. Screams filled the house. I don’t know how many of my family they killed before they got to me. I know they didn’t kill all of ‘em; they save ‘em for sport. Busting their knees, keeping them alive. When they gets to me, they bust my knees, only they gag me and tie me to a kitchen chair. On the table in front of me, they took to raping my sisters - one by one. And when they were spent, they raped them with whatever they could find. When they finish with my family, they drag me outside. They set the house on fire. As it burn, I hear my family’s cries. They say they’re doing the honorable thing. The screams of my family fill the night, they tell me they’re righting a wrong; they tell me because of my evil fourteen people are dead. They say killing me let me off too easy; that they hope I live to be an old man, that I live with the evil I wrought. When there are screams no more, when the heat of the fire burn the tears from my face, when the last of my family is dead, one brother says, just so you don’t forget, we’re going to make sure this the last thing you’ll ever see. The other, he grab a tree branch, light it afire from our burning house and burn my eyes out.” Russell took his sunglasses off, revealing ancient scars.
I turned away, grabbing the padded armrest I studied the grime atop the bar. Our silence roared. The miserable bartender kept his distance. A tremor lurched through me as, less than a block away, a freight train rumbled across the Main Street crossing. “Don’t you go worrying about old Russell.” Placing a leathery hand on my back, he continued: “You have your own crosses to bear. Yes sir, You have your own.”


Chapter 10 A Decade’s End; Another’s Beginning

I rang in New Year’s 1990 with Jenny Wade. I was miserable. Shannie was with Beetle. Since Shannie’s eighteenth birthday, she spent a lot of time with Beetle. I prayed for a second dead Beatle.
“You don’t mind if I spend New Years with Beetle?” she asked – told me, at her birthday party.
What was I going to say? “No,” I answered.
“You’re the best.” Shannie kissed my cheek. I wanted to jump out a window. “You’re coming to Laurel Hill? It wouldn’t be New Years without you.”
“Of course,” I replied. New Year’s Eve day was better than nothing. I bared my canines at Beetle, who hovered behind Shannie like a dragonfly. “Why don’t you come along?” I asked the Queen of the unshaven.
“Gotta work,” Beetle’s voice rattled like coal down a chute. Freckles carpeted her face like shell holes a battlefield. Dark rings sagged beneath her eyes. Thin lips hid teeth the color of nicotine. I never knew Beetle’s age; Shannie never told.
“Too bad,” I basked in my momentary victory.
“Too bad my party is girls only.”
What guy would go? More importantly, what was I doing for New Years? I wasn’t going to spend it with Diane and my father. I’d rather mope on the couch. That brought another dilemma – what if, when I finally moped to my room, I spied Diane and my father ringing in New Years in her bedroom?
Desperate, I called Jenny Wade. As Jenny’s phone rang, I resolved to make Shannie as green with envy as Beetle’s teeth. “Hello,” Jenny’s voice squirmed through the telephone.
“What are you doing New Year’s Eve,” I asked.
“I’m supposed to go bowling - with my parent’s,” Jenny answered.
“Oh joy,” I mumbled.
“Why do you wanna know?” Jenny snapped.
“You want to hook up.”
“Like, go out?” Jenny asked.
“Uh, like, yeah.” I stumbled. My stomach knotted. “I don’t bowl.”
“You can learn. It’s fun,” Jenny said.
“I don’t want to learn.”
“Oh,” Jenny paused. “I guess I can stay home. I’ll act sick or something. Then you can come over. Like they’ll be gone all night – they won’t be home till like six in the morning.”
“Sounds cool,” I said. Since seventh-grade Jenny had a thing for me. Jenny’s dream was my nightmare. The idea of spying my father in Diane’s bedroom kept me from canceling. I should have quit while I wasn’t far behind, life would have been less complicated.
If I don’t piss her off, I’ll get my dick wet, I thought walking to Jenny’s. I almost missed my chance. I never saw the car’s headlights. The screech of brakes and burning rubber startled me. I stared into glaring headlights. “What the fuck is your problem?!” the driver yelled. I flipped him off and ran into the night.
Breathing heavy, I knocked on Jenny’s back door. I barely stepped inside when Jenny knocked me to the floor. Five years of pent-up passion unleashed itself. Jenny’s tongue forced its way past my lips. Who was I to protest? I got what I wanted with zero effort! Bear always said: “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” Bear never said anything about getting more than you bargained for.
The cold kitchen floor contrasted Jenny’s hot breath; gooseflesh tickled my spine. Jenny’s breath worked down my neck, I smiled - wishing Shannie was eating her heart out.
As Jenny slipped me inside her, I thought of Shannie. Then it