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

to her breast. She wiggled in my lap. I squeezed her breast as I stared at the back of her white bubble helmet. My hard-on strained against my jumpsuit. Then we were airborne. Shannie guided my hand off her breast and gave it a tiny smack.
Pete Condra told Sergeant he was “hooked.”
Shannie asked Sergeant “Does the size of a guy’s feet indicate his endowment?”
He responded with a vacant stare. “I guess all the blood rushed to his ass,” Shannie said later.
“OPENING THE DOOR,” Pete yelped as the plane leveled off and made its approach. “GOGGLES ON, THERE’S GOING TO BE A WIND BLAST.” The wind rushed over us as the door slammed against the underside of the wing. Relief from the heat was immediate. With his hands on Sergeant’s shoulders, Pete leaned over him and stuck his head out of the door. “CUT!” the jumpmaster yelled to the pilot. “FEET OUT,” Pete patted the jumper on the shoulder. Sergeant leaned back and placed his feet on the small step outside the door. “HANDS OUT!” the jumpmaster ordered. Sergeant’s hands went out of my view. “HANG STRUT,” Pete yelled out the door. I looked past Pete, Sergeant Slaughter was hanging, his feet dangling in the breeze. “GO!” Pete Screamed. “GO!” the jumpmaster repeated.
Sergeant Slaughter hung on for dear life.
“YOU GOTTA LET GO! WE CAN’T LAND WITH YOU ON STRUT!”
He refused to relax his grip.
Pete grabbed the Jesus handle, leaned way out and hammered Sergeant’s hands. The jumper fell off the strut. I watched Pete lean further out of the plane, his ass was almost out the door. The static line clanked against the fuselage. Pete’s face reappeared in the plane with a wicked smile on his face. “CHESUS CHRIST,” he lisped. “THAT WAS THE LAZIEST OPENING I EVER SAW. WHO WANTS TO BET CERGEANT HAS A LOAD IN HIS PANTS.” The pilot lurched the plane, slamming the door shut.
Pete turned to Shannie. “YOU’RE NEXT KIDDO,” he said patting the floor. “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FIGHT ME LIKE CHARGENT CHLAUGHTER? he asked. “YOU’RE HOOKED DOLL.” Shannie tugged the line, testing it.
I moved behind the pilot and grabbed hold of his seat. Pete kneeled behind Shannie. Rubbing her shoulders, he gave her words of encouragement. As the plane made it’s approach he popped open the door. Imitating the jumpmaster, Shannie stuck her head out the door.
“CUT!” Pete cried.
Shannie climbed out. My position behind the pilot afforded me a good view. Shannie hung from the strut. “KEEP THAT SMILE; I WANT TO COUNT YOUR TEETH.” Pete yelled into the wind. “GO!” She was gone, lost to a sea of gravity. The jumpmaster again leaned way out of the plane to the chorus of the clanking static line.
“BEAUTIFUL! ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!” The proud teacher exclaimed.
“YOU’RE IN THE CAT-BIRD’S SEAT,” Pete yelled to me as he tapped the floor in front of him. “No matter what,” Pete told me as I slid next to the closed door. “Do not touch those pedals with your feet!” In front of me rudder pedals moved back and forth like the keys of a player piano. My heart raced as I glanced at the pilot. I never felt so alive, beads of sweat danced over my body. “YOU’RE HOOKED,” the jumpmaster yelled handing me the static line so I could give it a reassuring tug. Pete’s hands worked my tense shoulders as he said, “Take your time, don’t rush, don’t get ahead of me. When I yell cut; don’t exit! Wait till I tell you. Understand?”
I nodded.
“After your feet are on the step, slide your hands up the strut to the marks. When I tell you to hang strut, slide your feet off the step and give me a big, juicy smile.” I could only nod, my heart was trying to escape my chest. My face and arms tingled “James, just remember to look up. I want you to tell me how many fingers I’m holding up. Got it?”
“Got it,” I repeated.
“Good. I don’t know about you, but I need some air.” I looked down as he opened the door. The wind stole my breath. I struggled not to hyperventilate. The jumpmaster leaned over my right shoulder and stuck his head out the door. His hair danced as he looked for the spot. When we were over it Pete’s tapped me. “CUT!” he yelled, bringing his head back into the plane. “Make him proud,” the jumpmaster said patting my back. “Feet out.”
I leaned back, took a deep breath, and stuck my feet out the door. The force of the wind surprised me. I planted my feet hard on the small wooden step. If I survive, I will never do this again. I’ll stay on the ground where I belong, I thought. I took another deep breath, grabbed the strut and pulled myself out the door. The prop blast rolled over me like a breaking wave.
“HANG STRUT!” Pete yelled.
I slid my feet off the step. I hung, the wind shaping my body. I looked at Pete.
“GO!”
I let go.
Poof! The next thing I knew I had a canopy. I laughed and laughed. Especially when I heard the radio crackle, “Jumper One, if you need assistance wave your hand.” Sergeant Slaughter, expensive French jump boots and all, flared his chute too late and landed hard, shattering his right ankle.
“I heard him scream like a banshee, and I was a thousand feet up,” Shannie said later. Not letting opportunity pass, Shannie approached the injured Sergeant Slaughter, his leg strewn across his buddy’s car seat. “You never answered my question,” Shannie said twisting her hair. “Is it true what they say about men with large feet?”
“Yeah,” he grimaced.
“Great, then go F yourself.”
Under canopy, I didn’t have Sergeant’s problems. I released my Grandfather’s ashes and watched them fall away. After drying my eyes, I marveled at the feeling of being suspended under a flimsy piece of nylon. The ride was too short, the ground approached too quickly. I glided over the pea pit and flared, the ends of the canopy tightened, the center of the canopy filled with air and I stepped to the ground as if stepping off a two-inch step. I exhaled as my canopy fell to the earth. Rest in Peace Stanley Alison, I thought.


Chapter 8 Miss Dead America

My mother made good on her threats and filed a lawsuit against The Reverend Floyd Meaks, Pastor of the Shepherd of the Hills Non-Denominational Church and Krass Brother’s Funeral Parlor seeking untold damages, at least untold to me, for permanent and debilitating physical and psychological injuries including, but not limited to, physical incapacity brought about by gross negligence and questionable business practices of the above mentioned.
“They caused me untold humiliation, permanent physical injuries and psychological trauma. I’ve been scarred for life,” she argued. The bandanna she took to wearing became her campaign’s flag. “Those charlatans at the funeral parlor will have to flip burgers for a living, and that preacher should be defrocked.”
“Your mother should run for chief-prosecutor of The-Idiots-Court,” Shannie commented after hearing of my mother’s pending legal action.
“She’s a litigious lunatic,” Diane said.
“She’s a suit short of a full deck,” Count said.
“If you croak, have your mother call Katzenmoyer’s! They’re Jews; they have the good lawyers,” Steve Lucas told me.
“If your mother would have listened to Floyd, none of this would have happened,” my father told me as we played catch with a football.
When I repeated those sentiments, I had to dodge a second glass. “Jesus Christ! Who’s side are you on?” she wailed as the glass shattered against the kitchen wall.
“She’s not a litigious lunatic. She’s a certifiable lunatic. She should be committed!” Diane said upon hearing about mother’s latest outburst.
Even the Lightman’s broke their silence, “You know,” Bear quipped seeing my bandanna-clad mother working in our garden. “I bet that funeral director wished the coffin did her in. Hell I’d bet he’d give your dad a two-for-one deal.”
“That’s funny, my dad said the same thing.”
I enjoyed my friend’s insults; their comments reassured me that it wasn’t my fault she acted the way she did. At the same time, those same insults made me feel defensive. After all, she was mourning her father.
When I told Shannie my feelings she told me to stop being an apologist. “Don’t enable her,” Shannie said precociously. When I argued that my mother was: “in a lot of pain,” Shannie countered: “That’s no excuse.”
“Go easy on her,” I argued. “She just lost her father.”
“At least she had a father!” Shannie snapped. “You know why I can’t stand her? She doesn’t realize what she has. If you don’t wise up, you’ll be just like her!”
During the long hot summer of 1986, I sought out Count’s company. I would much rather argue who was a better front man for Van Halen: David Lee Roth vs. Sammy Hagar. I was all for Sammy Hagar, Count was a DLR man. “Hagar can’t hold Diamond Dave’s piss bucket,” Count said.
During one of our evening trips to Wally’s, David or Sammy was the farthest thought from Shannie’s mind; she fretted about the inevitable retaliation against the United States for bombing Qudafi and the Libyans. “He’s not going to do a thing. He’s toast!” I bragged. “You heard it here,” she cried, “Qudafi is not going to sit back and let us rain bombs on his family without some American paying for it.” Two and a half years later, when the Pan-Am jet was blown out of the sky over Lockerbee, Shannie said, “I smell a camel!”
“You worry too much about that shit,” Count told Shannie in June of 1988, prior to Count’s departure to basic training. We were sitting in the maple tree overlooking the junkyard. “I’m telling you, peace is breaking out all over the place. The Cold War is over!”
“And I’m telling you, it’s not the Russian’s that we have to worry about, they have their hands full with Afghanistan. If I were you, I would be preparing for a warmer climate.” Shannie was more concerned about Count’s and my future than we were.

In the summer of ’86, I was preparing to enter eighth grade at Beyford Junior High; Shannie was entering the accelerated studies program at the Chester school – a private school she’d been attending since she was eight. She had her eyes on Ursinus College, the same school at which Diane was a tenured professor.
I wasn’t a horrible student – failing wasn’t a concern, neither was being valedictorian. Like everything else about me, I was painfully ordinary. Even on my report card, I was straight C, except for algebra: I finished with a B.
Although it was waning, the one thing that didn’t make sense was Shannie’s interest in Steve Lucas. Why did she have any interest in a geek like Lucas? She was Mensa material, Steve Lucas wasn’t Community College material.
I would never be mistaken for Mr. Popularity. Despite being in town a year, I still had more friends than the funeral director’s only son. I was of opinion the only reason anyone would bother themselves with his presence was that he had two hot older sisters. Janice, a recent graduate of Beyford High, who was entering her freshman year at Ursinus, and was unanimously voted best chest in her yearbook. Marcy, sixteen, like Shannie was also attending the Chester school, and like her older sister, had a great rack.
Rumor had it that the sister’s were exhibitionists who flashed their younger brother’s friends. I wish I could say I had the good fortune of being victimized. Because I wasn’t, Count busted my balls: “You’re the only guy I know who could be in a room full of tits and