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

clothes. I looked out into the sun-drenched afternoon before bolting down the steps and out the front door.
My mother screamed - the earth shattering variety that could wake the dead - a dangerous proposition in this neighborhood. I snuck back into the kitchen. “Jesus Christ, I’ve been poisoned. Call the ambulance! Joe, do something!” My mother leaned over the sink and spat up black goo.
My father put a finger into the pie and brought it to his nose. He tasted a small sample: “It’s mud. One of our warm-hearted-the-world-is-a-better-place-neighbors left you a mud pie.”
“Call the police!”
“You should be arrested for not knowing the difference between chocolate mousse and mud,” he gloated.
“I’m choking and you’re insulting me! You probably had it delivered!”
Their yelling faded as I made my way to Shannie’s front door. I was about to knock when I heard a loud whistle. “Hey Just James, over here,” Shannie’s voice teased.
I looked in the direction of her voice. A scattering of trees stood in her yard. I walked towards them.
“You’re getting warm.”
At the edge of the house I stopped and looked around the corner.
“Colder.” I continued towards the first tree. “You’re hot, absolutely scalding.” I looked up. Shannie sat perched in the branches. “You’re parents always this entertaining?”
“My mom is on the excitable side,” I answered.
“Twice in a day. Wow.”
“Someone left her a mud pie. She took a bite out of it and thought someone poisoned her.”
Shannie laughed. “I should have put Ex-lax in it.”
“You did that?”
“Is the pope Catholic?” Shannie asked. I chuckled. “It was one of my better ones. I usually don’t use sprinkles and M & M’s.”
I laughed.
“I like to make friends with the neighbors. Most of them move in with no intention of moving out, it’s only proper.” She climbed down and jumped from the lowest limb. She landed a little heavy and fell to her knees. Getting up she brushed the dirt from her pants. “We have a long day ahead of us Just James. I have things to show you.”
“This is yours,” I handed her the comb. Shannie smiled. I melted.
Shannie Ortolan was thirteen going on thirty-four. Shannie was cultured. “If your mother was a history and a political science professor, you would be up on things,” she said.
We walked Beyford’s tree lined streets. Shannie asked endless questions. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke. I learned that she was a good listener and found myself wishing my parents paid as much attention.
“Here it is,” she said, nodding at the huge stone building guarding the corner of fourth and Main. “The most important place in town. If Wally’s doesn’t have it, it doesn’t exist.” I followed her up the three steps. Peeling paint bespeckled the old wooden doors. A bell jingled as we stepped inside. “Hi Helen,” Shannie said to the old lady behind the counter. “I brought you a new customer. This is James, he just moved to town. He’s from California.”
“Hello James, nice to meet you,” The old lady crooned. I thought she said: “Hlwoe Chames Nigch ta meetch ya.”
“James, this is Helen.”
“Hi,” I said shyly.
“Got to go, have to show James the goods.”
Out of Helen’s earshot, I asked Shannie what was wrong with the old lady’s voice.
Shannie thought for a second: “She’s Pennsylvania Dutch.”
Shannie was right, Wally’s was a wonderland. It had everything. Over the years, I spent hours haunting the aisles, doing my share to wear out those old oiled hardwood floors. It even had a lunch counter where the town’s old cronies parked themselves. The day Wally’s burnt down Beyford mourned.
“Ah, here we are, the important aisle,” Shannie said.
My eyes lit up, I never saw such a candy selection. “Jesus,” I mumbled.
“What’s your poison?” she asked. “Me, I love Pixie sticks! I’m the Pixie stick monster! Me want Pixie!” Shannie growled. After filling two paper bags with enough candy to make our dentists cringe and their accountants smile, Shannie continued the tour.
At the bottom of Main Street, the hill that is Beyford leveled out at the railroad tracks into flat ground that ran towards the Schuylkill River. As we approached the tracks the crossing lights came alive and the gates began to lower. “Let’s go Just James,” Shannie ran.
“What are you doing?”
“Come on, follow me. Run.” Shannie ducked under the dropping gate. The train’s horn cried. “Come on Just James.” She stood in the center of the crossing.
I froze. “Run James!” she shouted. I ducked under the gate and ran onto the tracks. The train’s horn screamed. I looked to the right and saw the huge blue engine bearing upon us, its headlights glaring in the sunlight. I ran past Shannie.
“SHANNIE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I yelled from the far side. She stood on the tracks, staring down the train.
She smiled at me before refocusing her attention. “SHANNIE, GET OFF THE TRACKS!”
Shannie screamed as I moved for her. “STAY THERE!” The train’s horn bellowed. I jumped up and down in terror. I wanted to pull her off the tracks but I knew it was too late. “SHANNIE!” I screamed.
“FIVE, FOUR, THREE,” she counted before stepping off the track and standing next to me.
“Two. One.” The blue Conrail engine roared through the crossing. The engineer shouted something; Shannie waved her middle finger.
“Are you crazy?” I shrieked.
Shannie didn’t answer, but stood with her eyes closed and her head tilted back, her long hair dancing in the wind. When the last car rushed past, she opened her eyes and smiled. “Thanks Just James,” she said.
“For what?”
“Trusting me,” she answered.

We stood on the Schuylkill River Bridge trading candy and watching fisherman below. The afternoon sun smiled upon us. Tree’s shadows swam in the river. An occasional car passed over the bridge unnoticed.
“No,” she said.
“No what?” I asked.
“I’m not crazy,” she looked into my eyes.
“Okay,” I switched my gaze back to the fisherman.
“Why don’t you like being called Jim?”
“Would you want through life as Jim Morrison?”
She shrugged, “Why not?”
“It’s overrated.” I hung over the bridge rail and spit. I watched my loogie tumble before splashing in the river. “Hey look its Jim Morrison, it’s the American Poet, live and in person, back from the grave. It gets old fast.”
“Yeah but you’d look cute in leather pants,” Shannie chided.
I blushed.
“At least you don’t look like a blonde Medusa,” she tossed her hair with a free hand. I smiled at the river.
That night, I sat in my room gazing at Shannie’s house. A naked woman walked across the room, her breasts leading the way. Wet lanky hair kissed the small of her back. As fast as the show started, it ended. She turned off the light and disappeared into darkness. The woman was Shannie’s mom.
When I met her I blushed. So much for tweed jackets and elbow patches, I thought. She bucked my idea of a college professor’s wardrobe. She wore a pair of cutoffs and a small top buttoned at her cleavage. That my eyes were at her chest level made for a great summer of viewing - I was never accused of staring.
Besides the skin show, she was the coolest mother ever. She took Shannie and me on adventures. Day trips to the Jersey Shore, hiking on the Appalachian Trail, overnight camping trips, she even took us to Live-Aid. Shannie’s mom insisted on being called Diane. When I called her Mrs. Ortolan she said: “That’s my mother’s name.” Even Shannie called her Diane.
The Ortolan’s house was like the library of congress - books were everywhere. Each room hosted at least one bookshelf, even the kitchen. The only room that didn’t have one was the bathroom. “I hope you put the seat back down, we’re not used to having a man in the house,” Diane said, delighting in seeing my face turn red as I scampered back to the bathroom.
Because of my blushing problem, Diane tormented me. I would have died if she ever learned why I blushed so much in her presence.
Unlike me, Shannie was nearly impossible to embarrass - she got flustered when anyone paid her a compliment. This would be a valuable tool for me.
Around Shannie my mother was pleasant but wary, on guard that the daughter of that wanton women would corrupt her son. She disliked Shannie; she despised Diane Ortolan.
My father adored Shannie - that they held conversations drove my mother bat shit. It infuriated her that a thirteen-year-old could hold my father’s attention, especially since she couldn’t.
My mother’s feelings manifested themselves when she tried her hand at gardening. Her idea was to plant a seed, water it once, and expect the hanging gardens of Beyford. She didn’t realize the work involved and became good at raising weeds. Diane, on the other hand, possessed a green thumb, and won numerous local gardening events. Her yard was so colorful it made the rest of Cemetery Street seem black and white. She boasted having over a hundred varieties of flowers in her beds. “Something is always blooming,” she crowed. My mother once said Diane was trying to lure a hundred varieties of men into her bed.
One evening I was walking through the kitchen when I heard my mother groan. “Look at that, disgusting!” She was spying Diane pruning her flower beds. Diane was forever in a pair of cutoffs and a skimpy top.
“Mom, where do babies come from?” I asked.
“A woman’s body,” she answered her attention still upon Diane.
“How does it get there?
The color drained from her face. “A pill,” she stammered.
“How come when I asked you for a little brother you never took a pill?”
“Because your father and I didn’t want to have another baby.”
“But you do now?“
“Yes, we do.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we’ve changed our minds.”
“Why?” I repeated.
“We’re ready for one now.”
“How come?”
“Because we are.”
“Because why?”
“Jesus James,” my mother snapped. “Because we want this one.”
“Oh, like I guess you didn’t want me.”
“Of course we wanted you.”
“Really. Because I know you had to get married because of me.”
“Yes. This is true. But if I had to take a pill to get pregnant wouldn’t I have wanted you?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I scrambled out the door, satisfied with her explanation.
I found Shannie in her backyard, sitting facing the tree line. “Hey. What’re you doing?” I asked. She didn’t answer. I watched her sift dirt. “Earth to Shannie, Earth to Shannie, come in please.”
She noticed me when she sat down the sifting box. “Hi Just James.”
“What’re you doing?” I repeated.
“Making a present for our new neighbor.”
“What’s the present?”
“A mud pie.”
I laughed. “Who’s the new neighbor?”
Shannie shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Who’s moving out?” I asked.
“No one. The new one is moving in tomorrow morning.”
“No one is moving out but someone is moving in?”
“Yep.”
"I’m confused.”
“There’s nothing to be confused about,” she added water to the ingredients.
“Is someone moving in with you and Diane?”
“Nope,” She quipped.
Scratching my head I asked: “What gives?”
“Count told me there’s a funeral in the morning.”
“Who’s Count?”
“He lives in the cemetery. I’ll introduce you. Anywho, don’t you think it’s proper to leave a gift?”
“So you leave the stiff a mud pie?”
Shannie scowled at me. “Yep”
“You’re weird Shannie.”
“Remember when you told Diane and me you were afraid to move next to a cemetery. Thinking zombies were going to get you. That’s weird! I’m just giving a grave-warming present.”
“You’re still weird.”
“Whatever.”
“Sounds like bribery,” I gloated.
“When I’m dead and gone, I hope someone cares