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

my father sleeping with Diane.
“How do you know that I know that they’re sleeping together?”
“Diane approached me,” Krista answered.
“So? What’s the big deal?”
“Why don’t you tell me.” Krista leaned back in her chair, evaluating me from behind her reading glasses.
“Like I said, what’s the big deal? My father’s knocking off a piece, so what?”
Leaning forward in her chair, Krista rested her arms on her desk and locked her fingers together. “You’re full of shit. In the two weeks since Thanksgiving you haven’t made any progress in cognizant and remedial therapies. You’ve regressed in math and reading skills and your RA’s say you’ve withdrawn emotionally.”
I fell into my seat.
“James, I’m considering not recommending you for release from inpatient status before Christmas. Clue me to what’s up.”
“You’re the expert. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you…”
“Spare me the bullshit, Okay. If nothings wrong why am I here? I’ll tell you why I’m here, I’m a goddamn sped. I’m brain damaged, and I’m never going to be right again.”
“You finished?” Krista implored.
I nodded.
“Thank you. I was going to say there’s nothing wrong with you outside of the brain injury, which means something’s bothering you.”
“Oh Jesus Christ, here we go.”
“I’m not Jesus Christ, I’m Jewish.”
I laughed and laughed at her comment. A symptom of my brain injury was inappropriate laughter. When I returned to earth, I forgot what we were talking about.
“So, what’s bothering you James?”
Smiling as I puzzled, I said: “I can’t remember.” I burst into another fit of laughter. During our next session Krista asked if either Jerome’s death and/or the discovery that my father and Diane’s were seeing each other were the underlying issue of my setbacks.
“I don’t remember this Jerome kid. Shannie acts like I was friends with him. Maybe I was, I don’t remember.”
“Tell me about Ellie,” Krista beseeched.
“My dog Ellie?”
“Yes. Tell me about Ellie.”
“She’s my girl,” I smiled. I told Krista how Ellie out willed me over sleeping arrangements. “But, what, what,” I stuttered, losing my train of thought, “what does Ellie have to do with that kid, Godamnit, I can’t remember his name.”
“Jerome,” Krista replied.
“Yeah that. What does my dog have to do with Jerome?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know,” I said with a huff. “Doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Does your father like your dog?” Krista inquired.
“I think so,” I hesitated. “Yeah,” I answered with more confidence, remembering how he delighted in Ellie following him around or how I busted him slipping her table scraps. “He likes her more than he’d admit.”
“How so?” Krista pried.
“I think, I think he’s lonely. You know, ever since my mother bolted. Yeah, he’s lonely. I mean, besides his job, he doesn’t talk to people. I think, yeah, he misses my mom. He never talks to anyone except Diane. Yeah, I think he needs to get laid.”
Krista laughed. I enjoyed watching her neck as she threw her head back and how the ends of her hair curled forward not quite reaching the sides of her neck. I laughed because she laughed. I liked making Krista laugh.
“Maybe he isn’t lonely. Maybe he doesn’t need to get laid.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you tell me.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Give it a try,” Krista implored. “Imagine playing a game, its name is reasons why your dad doesn’t need to get laid.”
“My mom cut his balls off,” I said.
“That’s one. Give me another.”
“Um, he’s celebrate.”
“He’s what?”
“He’s celebrate. You know, like a priest.”
“Celibate,” Krista corrected.
“Whatever. He is catholic. I remember going to church as a kid. I don’t remember going after my mom left. Come to think of it, maybe he isn’t celebrate.”
“Celibate.”
“Whatever.”
“Any others?”
“He’s a bigger jerk-off than me.” I blushed as the words slipped off my tongue. “Any more?”
I hesitated, knowing the only other answer. The blush of embarrassment gave way to the flush of anger.
“Yeah, that.”
“What?” I played dumb.
“That thought. The reason you’re angry. Tell me, what are you thinking?”
“You’re the doctor, why don’t you tell me,” I rubbed my temples.
“I’m a doctor not a mind reader,” Krista said.
Sinking further back into my chair I complained that I didn’t feel good.
“Stick with me James,” Krista ordered.
“I’m ignoring you now,” I said.
Leaning forward in her chair, her weight shifting onto her arms, Krista looked ready to pounce. “Could it be you’re angry. Do you blame him for your mother? Or maybe, you’re jealous. Is that it?”
I pulled my knees up to my chest to hide my nakedness. I rocked back and forth in the chair. Krista’s sharp words were replaced with a maternal gaze. We sat in silence.
“James,” she said breaking the silence. “It’s okay. Those feelings are natural.” I heard Krista stand. I imagined her gliding over the carpeted floor. I felt her hand upon my arm. “James, take this.” She handed me what I thought was a pillow. I hugged it. When I noticed a teddy bear buried into my shoulder, I punched it before whipping against the far wall.

I was discharged from inpatient status the week before Christmas. I learned it wasn’t that big of deal. I slept at home, but I still spent eight hours a day, five days a week at the torture chamber. It would be months until Lenape Valley Rehab gave me my walking papers, and even then a facilitator would visit two or three times a week. It would be two years before I escaped the facilitator’s talons. I saw Krista weekly until 1999 when I moved out west.
The day I was ‘discharged’ no thoughts of future therapies clouded my mood. I was the happiest man on earth. I was beaming as Shannie, Diane, and my father escorted me out of the Rehab’s front door into the brisk December sunlight. Shannie’s description of the freedom she feels the first twenty minutes after checking into a hotel room best fit my mood - the world held no ills. After going out for breakfast, we headed to the dead end I knew as Cemetery Street.
Steve Lucas visited that day. The five of us sat around the Ortolan’s kitchen table. I was silent as spoken memories flew like snowflakes in a blizzard.
“Speaking of Count, how’s his old man and Flossy doing?” Steve Lucas asked.
“I see Bear here and there. Flossy who knows? She turned into a recluse,” Diane said.
“I saw her,” I said breaking my silence.
Four sets of eyes turned their attention to me. “When did you see her?” my father asked.
“When Shannie showed me Count’s grave. She was on the side porch staring at us. It was spooky. She didn’t wave, did say anything - she just stared, and when she knew I saw her, she stomped into the house.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Shannie asked.
“I thought you noticed her. You notice everything,” I said.
“Didn’t see her,” Shannie said.
“I think she blames me?”
“Why?” Diane asked.
“I don’t know. But I feel it,” I answered.

Steve Lucas spent a chunk of his Winter Break with me. Although he never said, I think he regretted doing so. He learned the craziness a traumatic brain injury can cause, like the night I imitated Nancy Kerrigan at the King of Prussia Mall. The mall was packed with Christmas shoppers. Frustrated with the crowd, I started screaming “Why me? Why me? Why me?” while drooling like an idiot. People got out of our way. I felt like Moses after parting the Red Sea.
He learned how fast I could succumb to fits of fury – an innocent comment could set me off on tirades that Steve said were reminiscent of my mother’s. Two days after Christmas, Linda, one of my occupational therapists, stood talking with me outside the rehab when Steve pulled up. “You getting any of that?” Steve questioned as I closed the passenger door.
“Getting what?” I was in a bad mood.
“Jesus Christ Morrison, you’re not that out of it. You’re tapping it.”
I didn’t answer.
“Who cares is she’s carrying an extra hundred, it’s all pink on the inside.” I tried counting to ten. “You don’t want some of that? Wow, that mangy blond of yours is putting out.”
Without a word I punched him, sending his head into the side window. “If you ever call Shannie a dog again I’ll kill you!”
Steve’s hands never left the steering wheel. “What the fuck is your problem? I meant Ellie you asshole.”
“Whatever.”
Two days later - Shannie’s birthday - I erupted on Steve again. Diane, Shannie, Steve and I were sitting around the kitchen table. Steve asked, “Any one see Jenny Wade around lately?”
“I heard she’s really round lately.” Shannie inflated her cheeks.
“She rode one too many poles,” Steve Lucas laughed. He stared at me.
“Man, why do you have to bring that shit up?”
“What stuff? Oh, that stuff,” Shannie snickered.
“You can’t leave it alone can you? You have to blab it to everyone! Dickwad!” My voice rose an octave.
“Calm down, you’ll give yourself a stroke,” Diane snapped.
I reached for my coffee cup. Shannie pinned my arm to the table. If she was a second slower I would have launched the cup at Steve. “I didn’t mean anything by that brother,” Steve Lucas said. He was a sage, he understood my memories were returning.
Unlike Steve Lucas, I rarely snapped on Shannie. Not even later that winter when she raked me over the coals after Mr. Miller broke his hip. We were walking down Cemetery Street when we witnessed his fall. I exploded into a fit of laughter, even as he writhed on the ground. “Are you insane? Wait, I already know the answer,” Shannie snapped as the ambulance drove away. She turned and walked home.
“I hate to see you leave, but I love watching you walk away,” I cried.
“Asshole.” She flipped me off before slamming her front door.
The Miller’s never forgave me. I earned their scowls until the day they died. I didn’t care, they never visited me in the hospital.
I shuffled into Fernwood. I wandered up and down the rows of tombstones until I found my Grandfather’s phony grave. I stood admiring our ruse when Bear startled me, “What was all that ruckus?” Bear stood next to me.
“Old man Miller broke his hip.”
“What a shame,” Bear shrugged.
“God how I miss him,” I nodded at the headstone.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Bear said. I spied him looking in the direction of Count’s grave.
“How do you deal with it?” I asked.
“It seems I don’t have a choice. I gotta deal.” He ran a hand over his head.
We stood in silence, the frigid breeze and the echoing expressway our only company.
“You know he’s not buried here,” I nodded at my grandfather’s headstone.
“I wish I could say that about my boy,” Bear patted my back. “Oh how I wish I could say that.” I watched him walk away, his head down as if counting blades of grass. He disappeared into the maintenance shed.
From the old church’s porch Flossy glared. I managed a half-hearted wave. She answered with a continued stare. Mustering my courage, I moved towards the old church. She disappeared inside, slamming the door behind her. I retreated across Fernwood. I wandered past my house and down Cemetery Street. I wanted to talk to Russell.
Beyford is a small town, it’s almost impossible to get lost - I managed. Till this day, I have to think about right and left. I’m better with cardinal direction. I meandered around hours before finally finding Main Street and Russell’s column of cigar