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

Traffic piled up behind the GTI.
“Nowhere,” I mumbled.
Behind her, drivers honked horns. “Hop in,” Shannie motioned with her billowing mane. “I’m going there myself.”
“Nah, I’ll walk.”
“I insist; get in!” she said. More car horns.
“You’re pissing people off,” I smiled.
“You better get in,” Shannie reasoned.
“No. I’ll walk.”
“COMEON!” Someone yelled. Another car drove around our roadblock. “Asshole,” its driver yelled.
“Turd Blossom,” Shannie retorted. “Just James get in, you’re ruining their day.” I crossed Bainbridge and jumped in. “Nothing personal, let’s really piss him off.” She leaned across the seat and kissed me on my lips.
“FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, GET A ROOM!” the driver screamed. More horns blared. We kissed until we heard a car door slam. The driver was out of his car coming towards us. Shannie threw Saphix into gear and sped away.
“You’re a nut,” I laughed, gazing at her profile. As we scampered along tree lined streets sunlight fell through budding leaves and the open sunroof, showering us in golden light drops. When Shannie shifted gears, I noticed a ring on her finger. Shannie rarely wore jewelry, she never wore rings. I assumed the worst.
“You excited?”
“About?” I grumbled.
She peered at me over oval sunglasses. “Geezus Pete you forgot!”
“Forgot what?”
“Next Weekend, first jump course?” I stared at the ring as she slid the GTI into fifth gear. Shannie’s hair danced in the wind, adventurous strands waltzed through the sunroof. “You know, jumping, Stan’s ashes.”
“I have a lot on my mind!” I peered at the passing countryside. A lone tractor tilled a field. I wished I was the farmer – his worries couldn't be as bad as mine, I thought.
“Like what?” Shannie chided.
“Who is he?” I asked, ignoring Shannie’s question.
“Who is what?” She asked.
“Your boyfriend. Who is he?” I sat up.
“Huh?” She asked slowing for a stop sign.
“You heard me,” I repeated.
“Are you serious?” she quipped - accelerating the GTI.
“As serious as a heart attack!”
“Are you smoking crack?” She responded.
“You never wore a ring before. Someone gave it to you.”
Shannie evaluated me from behind her sunglasses. “I’m busted, Steve Lucas,” she said straight faced. “I know its weird. He’s so good. In so many ways. It’s hard competing with his sisters but someone has to do it.”
“That fucking Brutus.”
Shannie turned to me. “I thought your family was idiot proof after your mother left. FYI - I wouldn’t fuck him, not even with Jenny Wade’s fat ass.”
My face burned. Fucking Marcy, I thought staring at my reflection in Shannie’s sunglasses.
“I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t want a boyfriend. I don’t need a boyfriend. If I wanted one you’d be him. But you’re too big of a pain in the ass; so I do without.”
She loves me, I thought. I smiled.
The rest of the afternoon, Jenny Wade was an afterthought – for a few hours Shannie occupied my mind. That night, it occurred to me that Shannie never told me who gave her the ring. The thought wasn’t going to keep me awake, my worries were history. Under my pillow rested my bachelor’s ransom. Unwittingly, Shannie solved my problem.
We spent that afternoon on Indian Point. We couldn’t be at Indian Point without mentioning Russell. In a heartbeat, I knew Russell was the man. I remembered Shannie telling me: “When in doubt; seek Russell out.” Like an omen, an eastbound freight lumbered across the trestle towards the darkness of the tunnel.
In the darkened hallways above Wally’s, pipes clanked and mice squealed. I held my breath as I walked. The place stunk. No wonder Russell smells like rotten eggs, he lived in a science project gone wild.
“Who be there?” Russell’s voice seeped under his door.
“It’s me, James.”
“James who? I don’t know no James,” Russell growled.
“You know me. James, James Morrison.”
“Don’t know ya,” he coughed. His voice billowed like smoke from burning tires.
“Yes you do, Come on, open up. It’s James. James Morrison. You know Shannie’s friend.”
He didn’t answer. I pressed my ear against the door. Inside his feet puttered to and fro. A greasy film clung to my ear as I pulled away.
“Russell? You okay?” I asked.
“Oh, that James.” When he opened the door, the smell of pot embraced me. “I thought it was those pain-in-the-asses Jehovah’s Witnesses again. You know, telling me all about the wrongs of my ways. Telling me they can offer me salvation. I always told them they want salvation, come smoke a lid with me, that’ll salvatate ya.”
Russell’s stoned, I thought, awed. I never knew he partied. It was hella greatness seeing him high. “Come on in boy. Ain’t often I get visitors who ain’t trying to save my ass.” As I entered Russell’s hand flew up against my chest. “You ain’t trying to save my ass, is ya?”
“Hell no,” I said.
“That’s good, Cause I’d rather laugh with the saints, than cry with the sinners.”
“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints,” I corrected.
“You wouldn’t be busting a blind man’s stones now, would ya?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I’ll take you word for it,” he coughed.
“Actually, I was hoping you could save my ass.”
“Now that’s a different story. Take a seat boy.” He motioned for me to sit on his couch. Calling it a couch was generous – it’s legs were gone and chunks of cushions missing. Like its owner, it had seen better days. The couch, like a three legged dog with bad breath, was one only its owner could love. In front of the couch sat a coffee table, it’s top littered with roaches – the joint kind - cigar butts, ashes and beer cans in various stages of use. A candle burned in the middle of the table. “Tell me boy, how can I save yo ass?” Russell sanded, his voice contaminated with sawdust.
“Well I, um, got, um, I knocked someone up.”
He scowled. If his eyes could see they would have burned a hole in me. His hand tensed on his cane. “It ain’t my little Butterfly now, is it?” he asked. His cane rose off the floor.
“No!”
“Good. I wouldn’t want to beat you senseless with my cane here,” he said. Russell stroked the cane like a golfer his favorite club. “We wouldn’t want anything bad happenin’ to our Ms. Shannie now, would we?”
“No sir,” I intoned.
“I’m glad we see eye to eye.” Russell fell into another chorus of coughs. “Gotta change my brand,” he said pounding a fist against his chest.
“Yeah you should.”
“You didn’t come here to discuss my health now, did you?” The old man asked.
“No sir, I didn’t.”
“Good. Now, who is she?”
“Who is whom?” I asked absentmindedly.
Leaning forward in his seat, Russell said: “Cut the shit Junior. You came to me with a problem. If you want my help, you’ve gotta tell me who’s your problem, or you can walk yo ass right out that door and let me be. Them the rules, you don’t like ‘em, lump ‘em.”
I fell back into the couch. So much for Russell being a fool, I thought.
“Jenny Wade,” I exhaled.
“The Wade’s from Church Street?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Oh boy,” Russell whistled. “You know how to pick ‘em.”
I shrugged.
“You could have knocked up a good Irish-catholic or Chinese girl or something - you had to knock up a Sicilian. Oh Peter, Paul and Mary.” Russell fell back into his chair. The noise of Main Street drifted up and across the room. “Boy, never cross a Sicilian.” Russell fumbled for a cigarette among the butts and roaches. After lighting it, he took a deep drag: “What she want to do about it? She want a keep it?”
“No,” I answered.
“How much she shaking you down fo?” Russell exhaled a plume of smoke.
“Three hundred bucks.”
“And you don’t have it,” Russell’s glasses studied me.
“You broke the code.”
In the apartment above a couple began arguing, a baby wailed. Russell paused, maybe listening to the argument, maybe considering if he should bother. Years later, Russell told me it was the argument that made his decision. He imagined the couple to be me and Jenny Wade.
“If I help you?” Russell said between his separated incisors.
“You’d be the shit,” I smiled.
“I’m already the shit,” Russell shot back. “How you going pay me back?”
“Uh, like I’ll get a job,” I spouted. “Yeah, I’ll get a job!”
“You better,” Russell inhaled his cigarette holding the tar and nicotine in his lungs - considering me with sightless eyes – before exhaling. “This here the deal. I get you the money you need - I take it you need it yesterday…”
“Tomorrow,” I interrupted.
“Like I was saying – here’s the deal: I get you the money; you pay me back in full with a little bit interest say by, mid-June.”
“What kind of interest?”
“Nothin’ steep, enough to keep you honest,” Russell smiled, a sly smile.
“What’s enough to keep me honest?”
“Boy, how’s I see it, you in no position to negotiate rates.”
“I’m not negotiating, I’m asking.”
Russell laughed. A glass shattered against an upstairs wall. The wife screamed obscenities. I shivered – I thought of my mother.
“Ten percent,” Russell laughed.
“Ten percent! That’s robbery.”
Russell roared: “Boy you is silly. You don’t know a bargain when it bites ya. That’s thirty dollars. Get money on the street and see what you pay.”
Who was I to argue? I agreed to Russell’s terms. When June arrived I handed Russell an envelope, he handed me back thirty dollars. I knew better than to listen to Steve Lucas. The future mortician/con artist advised. “He’s blind, he won’t know how much you give him. Short him thirty.”
“You’re an asshole.” We were in Steve’s room spying on his sisters. They were working on their early season tans.
“Last time I looked greenbacks aren’t printed in braille. Look,” he nudged my arm. “Look at Marcy, she’s going to do it; there she goes, there she goes, there they are,” he cried. In the yard below, Marcy bared her tits to the wind. “Ain’t she bustluscious? I mean she’s gotta have the best rack you’ve ever seen.”
“She’s you’re sister.”
“She’s not you’re sister,” he quipped.
“You need help,” I said while focusing on the best rack ever.
After meeting with Russell I felt better than a private audience with Marcy. My worries were over!
The next morning Jenny Wade waited for me at the corner of Bainbridge and Cemetery Streets. “You’ve got the money?”
“At least say Good Morning.”
Jenny held out her palm.
“We were supposed to meet in front of the Junior High.”
“And let you slip through my fingers.” She paused – then added. “Slime ball.”
“Why so bitter? It’s a beautiful morning.”
“Cut the shit. Where’s my money? Do you have it or not?” Jenny hissed.
“What do you think?”
“You better have it asshole, or this will be your sorriest day. You’ll wish you stayed in California.”
“You think?” I stared her down.
She stared up at me, trying to snarl. I walked past her towards the High School.
“Yo asshole! If you know what’s good for you, you’d stop!” I stopped. My back facing her. “Listen Douche Bag. For you sake, I hope you have the money, especially since that big goon friend of yours isn’t around to protect your ass anymore.”
“What are you going to do?”
Jenny shoved me. I stumbled but kept my balance. I reached inside my jacket for the envelope. Jenny watched too many mob flicks, when she saw me reach inside my pocket she stepped back.
“Here’s your Goddamn money.” I held the envelope in front of me. As she reached for it, I lifted it out of reach. By