Cemetery Street, John Zunski [read any book TXT] 📗

thoughts. If that isn’t bad enough the whole things suppose to be private, but do you mean to tell me he doesn’t recognize our voices. It’s bullshit No wonder our priest always wears a shit eating grin.”
“Like he cares about your erectile dysfunctions,” Shannie quipped. My face burned. “I think its cool and I’d like to try it.”
“Convert.”
She stuck out her tongue at me. I returned the favor.
“You have thrush.”
“Do not?”
“What’s that white stuff? Papal duty?”
“Up yours Shannie.”
“There’s something else you can confess about. Let’s see,” she began counting my sins on her fingers. “By the way,” she said when she finished my rap sheet, “better brush up on your Hail Mary’s, Our Father’s, and your tongue every morning and night.”
She was right. Later in church, after the priest gave me penance, I knelt in horror as I tried to remember the words to Hail Mary. I was okay until full of grace. I couldn’t even remember the freaking words. Okay God, I’m fucking doomed. I squeezed my hands harder together as I closed my eyes and bowed my head.
I finished and looked up. I was met by the accusatorial stare of the Joseph statue. I broke out in cold sweat. A frown overtook his face. Joseph’s voice, sounding like Ole Luther, the bitter bartender at Giorgio’s. “You can’t even say a Hail Mary.” He snapped his tongue in ridicule “Instead of wasting all your time beating off to you neighbor’s mother maybe you should study the catechism you little piss ant. Learn to beg forgiveness with dignity.”
When I told Shannie of my experience, of course omitting the beating off to Diane part, she told me I was my mother’s son.
“What’s that suppose to mean?”
“You’re full of guilt. By the way, when were you ever in Giorgio’s? And why?”
“The day my grandfather came to town, we stopped there for a drink,” I lied.

Knowing Grandfather’s reputation as a lady’s man, Shannie and I thought we’d witness sparks. We tried our hand playing cupid. When we brought the idea up with Diane she dismissed it. “He seems wonderful, but he’s not my type.”
“What do you mean he’s not your type?” Shannie protested.
“Yeah. He wrote a book,” I chimed in.
“Just because I like a book doesn’t mean I’d like the author.”
“How would you know if you never met him?” Shannie persisted.
"Don’t you think he’s a little too old for me?” Diane replied.
“He doesn’t act old,” I countered.
Shannie and I knew it would be a challenge. We agreed that the tension between our mothers dampened any spark. I didn’t tell Shannie Ms Horne might have something to do with Diane’s lack of interest.

Once my mother got resettled, Grandfather returned to being the social butterfly. He visited Beyford’s taverns regularly. There he struck up a friendship with Russell. “There are some characters in this town,” he said over dinner before Christmas.
“Daddy you need to stop going to those places. There full of freaks and derelicts.”
“So sayeth the uninformed.”
“You’re an educated man, what could you find fascinating with a bunch of drunks?”
My father lowered his head over his plate as if studying the molecular makeup of mashed potatoes. He stacked his arms in front of his plate guarding it from the oncoming storm. Grandfather brought his napkin to his mouth as he finished chewing. He peered over his glasses at my mother. “Mary Beth Alison, of all the stereotypical things you could say.”
“It’s Morrison, daddy,” she interrupted.
Grandfather folded his napkin and placed it atop his plate. He cleared his throat. “You may bully your way with your husband and frighten your son into submission, but those shenanigans won’t work with me.”
“All I’m saying there’s better way to spend your time.”
“I see I wasted a lot of good money putting you through school. You’ve mastered pseudo elitism.”
“You know, I really resent your remarks.”
“So what. What makes you any better?”
“I don’t believe you.”
"Answer the goddamned question,” his voice rose.
“I would never carry on in public.”
“That’s right,” Grandfather said rising. “You keep it behind closed doors.” He slipped into his army coat. “I’m off to laugh with the sinners.”
I tried not to smile.
“I’ll pray for you,” she yelled after him. “Can you believe him?” mother complained to the room. “Three weeks ago he almost lost me and now he has the audacity to say such things.” Turning to me she continued, “I never met such a self- centered person.”
I shrugged and retreated to my room.

My Grandfather was eulogized as a revolutionary. “A man before his time, a pathfinder for succeeding generations,” the young Californian ‘minister’ touted, “daring to jump head first while his peers timidly tested the waters.” My mother groaned at this comment, considering the way he died, I didn’t blame her. “Let us take solace that brother Stanley lived an active and adventurous life, full of many climatic events.” Many of the solitary women who populated the church bowed their heads. Among them I noticed the flight attendant I met at the Philadelphia Airport. “Your Grandfather was a wonderful man,” she said after the service.
“Who the hell was that?” mother bemoaned.
“Mrs. Abernathy, you know, his neighbor before he moved,” I lied.
“Really. I thought she was blonde?”
“I think she dyed her hair.”
“He touched so many wives, ah, lives,” the minister flashed a toothy grin from behind the pulpit. He spread his joy selflessly. Never finding the need to boast of his good fortune, he shared it with generous deeds, quietly going about helping those in need, always putting those knees, needs, in front of his. The world will be an emptier place with the passing of brother Stanley.” After blessing my grandfather’s urn the minister called on me to receive his remains.

“I love the sky; I refuse to be buried,” Grandfather announced at breakfast one morning.
“Daddy, what are you talking about?”
“You know damn well.”
“Do you have to bring it up now? Just once, I would like to eat in peace.”
“James, listen to me. When I kick the bucket, don’t let anyone put me in a box and throw me in a hole.”
“Keep James out of this!”
Grandfather set his utensils on the table. “He’s the only one with enough guts to do what I want.”
“That isn’t fair daddy,” mother protested. “He’s only a child. He shouldn’t have to hear this.”
“Life isn’t fair. And he is old enough. Give him the credit he deserves.”
"God forgive me for talking like this, but you shall have the proper sacraments and if that includes burial, burial it shall be.”
“God may forgive you, but I’ll be damned if I will.”
“You’re incorrigible. I’m doing what’s proper.”
“Mary Beth. Take what you think is proper and shove it up your ass.”
“Why, I never,” she gasped. I sniggered; dad grinned.
“Maybe you should.”
The Saturday before Christmas Grandfather took me shopping. Over lunch he again brought up the subject. “James, please, please don’t let her bury me.” Fear filled his eyes. “It’s written in my will, but I know your mother, she will take the ashes and bury them. I don’t want my ashes in the f-ing ground. Promise me you’ll help me? You’re the only one I can trust.”
“What can I do?” I asked.
“Use your imagination. Just don’t let her bury me.”
I looked down at my French fries. After a moment of tense silence he spoke, “When you’re old enough I want you to throw my ashes out of an airplane. I want to have one last jump.”
“Are you going to die?” I asked. Fear filled my expression.
A smile washed over his face. “Of course I am.”
“What? Are you sick or something?”
“Sick of the East Coast and the cold weather.”
“Then why the big deal?”
“It will happen someday, you need to know what to do when someday comes. Your mother thinks you’re still a child. She’ll use your age as an excuse not to talk with you about death - that’s her problem. You’re twelve, you’re going to be a teenager next month. I think you’re old enough. You need to know its inevitability.”
“I know everyone croaks.”
“Good. And when I do, It’s your job to make sure I get my wishes.”
“Why me?” I protested. “Why not dad?”
He sat back in his chair and looked me in the eyes. “Your father doesn’t have the balls.”
I laughed. “… like I do?”
He leaned forward. “You may not know it, but you’re a tough little bastard. What I’ve seen, you do a damn good job standing up to her. If you have any trouble you can always count on your neighbors.”
“The Ortolan’s?”
“They’re good people. And that friend of yours, Shannie, she has spunk.”
“Yeah she does; she’s a trip.”
“I know she does. She would make a father proud.”
“Granddad,” I ask on the way home.
“It’s Stan; I hate being called Granddad. I call you James right? I don’t call you Son-Son, Grandson. I could call you Pissboy.”
“Mom would throw a seven is she heard me call you Stan.”
“She would, wouldn’t she,” his eyes gleamed.
“Fucking A,” I said.
“Fucking A,” he laughed.
As we pulled onto Cemetery Street I told him I didn’t feel like going home yet. “Let’s get a cup of coffee,” he said.
“Why don’t you want to be buried when you die?” I asked Grandfather after we settled in at the diner.
He replaced his cup in its saucer and leaned back against the back of the booth. “You ask the damnedest questions,” he peered at me over his glasses.
“Sorry,” I tried not to squirm in his stare.
“Don’t be. I’ve been dying to answer it forever.”
We giggled at his pun.
“The dirt and mud.” He took off his glasses, as he spoke he cleaned them with a napkin. “I spent lots of terrifying times crammed into foxholes and slit trenches. I’m too familiar with the smell and taste off mud and dirt. I still can’t stand the smell. It brings back lots of bad memories; memories of buddies whose foxholes were their graves.” He replaced his glasses.
I was silent. The clatter of silverware and chatter spoke for me.
“Your friends, the cemetery people.”
“The Lightmans.”
“Yeah them. They’re wonderful people but I don’t like being around them.
“Why not?” I asked. I imagined them best of friends.
“They smell of the grave. They have that earthy odor - that oppressive, moist,” he paused searching for the right word. “Decay, the smell of rot. It’s on them, it’s on their clothes, it’s part of them. It makes me edgy. I imagine being in my box and hearing the worms working their way through my casket.”
“You think too much. Everyone knows that when you’re dead, you won’t be able to hear the worms. You won’t be able to hear anything. You’ll be dead.”
He smirked. “How do you know?”
“You’ll be dead.”
"How do you now a dead person doesn’t hear anything?”
“I never met a stiff who complained about loud music.”
“Good point.” He sipped his coffee. “If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it does it make a sound?”
“What does that have to do with the price of apples in New York?”
“James, if your not there, how would you know? We don’t know until we experience it.” He changed the subject and didn’t mention it until we pulled into the driveway on Cemetery Street. “James thanks for listening to the ramblings of a crazy old man.”

“I don’t believe you Just James,” Shannie said on the other end of the phone.
“I saw him with my own two eyes,”