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

for calling him Cunt. God, I remember that. Jesus, he was so pissed. Everybody was afraid of him. I remember when he kicked another kid’s head into a locker. He was mean. But he was cool, way cool. You had to know him.”
“Stay.” Shannie yanked Ellie’s leash. Ellie pulled hard against Shannie’s grip. Wordlessly Shannie encouraged me to continue.
“We used to play football right here. God, I can remember the day he clobbered me. We were racing or something and he blindsided me,” I babbled, the words racing off my tongue. “Freight-trained me, God how that hurt; my head hurts thinking about it.”
Shannie led me towards a gaggle of tombstones aside the main body. “Oh my God,” I laughed. “Do you remember when we lost that body?” My words couldn’t keep pace with the avalanche of memories. “Or the time he got arrested? That was too much. Who were those two girls that left him out in the middle of nowhere?” I laughed, my eyes blurred with tears.
Shannie stopped. Directly in front of us sat a modest granite tombstone. “Do you remember how he died?”
“Who?” I asked.
“Count,” Shannie answered.
An invisible hand slapped my face. “He’s dead?”
“Read the tombstone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told you in Valley Forge."
“Really? I think I forgot. I mean I thought you meant someone else.”
“Who?” Shannie questioned.
“Like, I don’t know,” I answered, fidgeting. “I just didn’t think you meant him,” I avoided Shannie’s gaze.
A silence fell between us, broken by the prattle of passing traffic. I felt as raw and gray as the November day. “Don’t you remember any of it?” Shannie asked.
“Any of what?”
“How Count was killed?”
I shook my head. “Maybe, but, I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
We walked back towards Shannie’s house. From the side porch of the old church an elfish woman stared at us before slipping back inside. It wasn’t until I was in bed at the rehab did I realize the woman’s name was Flossy and that she was Count’s mother. Although exhausted, sleep was elusive, when it finally came it was deep and dreamless.

The next time I saw Cemetery Street was Thanksgiving. I was excited about the visit not only because it interrupted my daily torture, it was my first overnight stay away from rehab. We had dinner at Shannie’s. I stunned everyone by asking to say a prayer. “God is good, God is great, now Diane get your ass over here and fill my plate.” We laughed.
After dinner Shannie emerged from her room with a sand-colored binder containing Count’s letters. Only Shannie seemed not to notice as I slid out of my chair and waddled into the television room. I stared at the dark television screen imagining the horrors Count must have faced as I caught bits and pieces of Shannie’s oration. I questioned why someone as revered as Count died while someone as useless as myself survived. I remembered it was my fault that he joined the army.
The next day as the sun sunk, Shannie and I made our way down Main Street. I was returning to prison. As the GTI passed JD’s tavern the railroad crossing lights sprung to life. Shannie accelerated, she wanted to beat the gates. “Stop, I want to feel a train again.”
Since moving to Beyford I’ve felt a primordial excitement over an approaching train; I can’t explain it other than it’s simply pleasing. Many times in my hooptie - even in the dead of winter - I’d roll down my window as a freight approached. Whether it’s the glaring headlights or the deliberateness of the horn – its blast stating that if you know what’s good for you, you’d clear the way. Or maybe it’s just the shear power of the engines; I respect anything that makes the earth tremble.
Shannie nosed up to the gate as it bounced to a rest. I rolled down the window. I smiled to the train horn’s blast and the engine's determined rumble. I knew the freight was an eastbound and that it was moving slowly, probably a coal train headed to Cromby.
“What are you doing?” Shannie asked as I climbed out.
“Want a better look.”
“Don’t do anything stupid!” Shannie commanded.
Ignoring Shannie I stepped up to the gate. The monster’s lights sliced dusk. The ground shook under my feet. My skin vibrated over my bones. “Don’t worry,” I said to Shannie.
I ducked under the gate and gimped onto the track. The tension of the recent past vanished in the face of the closing freight. In the seconds I challenged the advancing monster, I came closer to understanding Shannie than I ever had. Complete freedom and calm overtook me; I never felt such peace, at least while conscious. I was in complete control of my destiny. I was the only force that determined if I lived or died. The engineer didn’t have a vote. Shannie had no say, nor did the handful of horrified witnesses. I began laughing, quite uncontrollably. I glanced at Shannie, waving to her. Her face was wracked with terror. She was shouting, unheard over the train’s roar. In that moment she aged beyond what she lived to see. Smiling, I faced the train once more before stepping to my left and out of its path. Ignoring the curses of the engineer and the gawks of drivers, I laughed as my hair was rustled in the freight’s blast.
I turned and watched the freight’s blinking tail light slink into the falling darkness, its presence as fleeting as my experience of freedom. I gimped towards the awaiting Shannie. The color had yet to return to her face. “Never thought I meet you on the wrong side of the tracks,” I said opening the passenger door.
“Are you insane? What the fuck is your problem?” Shannie cried.
She may as well of been a stranger sitting next to me in a taxicab. She was no longer my best friend or the only person I’d ever fall in love with. She had forgotten. The sacred memories that even I remembered were lost to her.
“Thanks for trusting me Shannie,” I grumbled.
Shannie burst into tears. She bawled and bawled. When she pulled it back together, she slipped the GTI into gear and we rode wordlessly into darkness.

I was surprised to see Shannie at the rehab the following evening. “Wanna go for a walk?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“I got bad news,” Shannie said when we were alone in the elevator.
Distracted by her fragrance, she smelled so clean and fresh with the slightest hint of coffee. “Really?” I nuzzled up to her.
“James, stop it,” she said pushing me away. “Do you remember Jerome?” Shannie asked.
“Who?”
“Jerome, you know, the kid from Atlantic City.”
“Atlantic City,” I aped. “The only thing I remember is that bitch. Denise - the devil incarnate - Beelzebub.”
“Genise.”
“Whatever.”
“No it’s not whatever. I’m not going to let you sleaze James. Say it. Ga-niece. Ga-niece.”
The elevator slid open and a nervous man and woman stepped in to hear me say: “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not a Sped?” Before we exited I continued: “Repeat after me, James is not a Sped. James has a brain injury.”
Dispelling the notion that blondes can’t walk and chew gum, Shannie shook her head and rolled her eyes. When the elevator’s doors swooshed shut Shannie said: “Jerome is dead. He was killed, shot to death.”
I paused for a second. A faceless image gathered in my brain before dissipating. I resumed my gait toward the front door. Outside the brisk November air embraced us.
“Do you remember him?” Shannie’s breath dissipated into the starlit night.
I shook my head.
“Try James.”
“What do you think I’m doing? You think I like not remembering? I’m sure I knew him. I’m sure I should be upset. I’m sure I should be a lot of things. I just can’t remember. Okay? Jesus Christ cut me a break.”
The one thing I did remember was that some of my supposed friends - well there really was only one in particular - had abandoned me. Since my accident, I hadn’t heard from Steve Lucas. “I have a hard time getting upset over somebody else when my supposed friends are no where to be found.”
“I’m here. Diane and your father are here. If Count was alive he’d be here.”
“What about this Jerome kid? If we were friends why didn’t he visit? What about Steve Lucas, I remember that rat bastard, I know who he is, where the hell is he?”
“Jerome had no way of getting here,” Shannie answered.
“He could have hitched a ride with you. The bitch did, I remember her in the hospital. He could have come with her. What’s the difference? You probably coerced her to come.”
“Whoa Captain Vocabulary, they’re teaching you well in language therapy.”
“Fuck you Shannie.”
“You must be acing profanity 307.”
“You know, if you’re going to be an asshole, leave me alone?”
“That’s a good idea,” Shannie snapped. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Whatever,” I mumbled.
“By the way, Steve Lucas is away at college. He’s worried about you. He plans on spending some time with you over Christmas break.
I felt sick watching the GTI crawl through the parking lot and into the night. “Everything all right?” the night watchman asked as he came outside to catch a smoke.
“Can I bum one?” I asked.
“Sure,” he extended the pack to me.
“Thanks.” We smoked in silence. When I finished I thanked him again and shuffled to my room. I twisted and turned in my bed. I switched on the television and when Saturday Night Live failed to lull me to sleep, I looked for the notepad with the Ortolan’s phone number. I called Shannie.
“Hello,” Diane answered groggily.
“Diane, it’s James, is Shannie there?” I asked.
“James, do you know what time it is?”
“It’s late.”
“No, she isn’t here.”
Did she go to the beast’s house?” I continued.
“The who’s house?” As Diane spoke, a familiar voice crawled over Diane and through the phone line.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Who’s house?”
“Who’s in bed with you?”
“None of your business!”
“Is it who I think it is?” I persisted.
Diane hung up.
I searched the notepad for my phone number. I dialed the number. I hung up when the answering machine picked up. I dialed the Ortolan’s number only to slam the receiver down before it rang. I glared at the phone. My father’s banging Diane Ortolan. My father is fucking the mother of my girlfriend - the love of my life. The humanity! Sleep didn’t come easily that night.

I have a thing for my shrink, Krista. Maybe because she reminds me of Diane - always in control of her thoughts and emotions, sure of her opinions. Did I mention her eyes melt me? Maybe I have a thing for older women. Whatever it is, I hang on her every word. She had to know she could look at me crooked and send me reeling. “You judge yourself way too hard. Relax, go easy on yourself. You’re a delightful person. You have a wonderful personality.”
“It’s your job to say that.”
“No, I’m saying that because it’s the truth.”
“If I’m such a wonderful person fix me up with your daughter!”
“Absolutely not,” she said without batting an eyelash.
“Why not? You tell me that I’m a delightful person, I have a great personality.”
“A wonderful personality,” she corrected.
“Whatever. The point is if I’m the wonderful person you say and not the brain damaged Sped that I really am, why wouldn’t you set me up with your daughter?”
“Because my daughter is two years old.”
My sessions with Krista were always eventful, especially when she brought up