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

for the house key. I chuckled realizing how many times I wished that I had the key. Emboldened by the irony, I slithered into Shannie’s bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.
It was still dark when I awoke. I rolled onto my side snuggling under Shannie’s blankets. I gathered her comforter to my nose. I inhaled. Lingering behind the fresh scent was an echo of a memory. I rolled over. A blue hue glowed from her alarm clock: 5:30. I slid out of bed and rummaged through Shannie’s drawers. I searched for a letter Shannie told me about years ago. I smiled when I came across it. My hands trembled holding Shannie’s self-addressed envelope.
I opened the envelope. On a piece of parchment paper was a hand drawn map – a treasure map - of her back yard and the nearest section of Fernwood, each detail drawn fastidiously. An X loomed centered in the offset between a tombstone that belonged to Joseph Meneget and the last elm tree on the right side of the Ortolan’s property line. “7 paces from the tombstone; 6 paces from the elm,” Shannie’s cursive read.
I hijacked a flashlight and shovel from Diane’s basement and slipped outside. The first hints of daylight kissed the sky as I found the tombstone. I located the offset’s center and began digging. The early-morning sky faded from black to purple to gray by the time the shovel unearthed Shannie’s treasure.
“You must really miss her,” a frail voice said behind my back.
I leapt to my feet from a sitting position. My eyes slammed against their opposite temple and my heart bound up and down my throat like a yo-yo.
“I know how you feel,” the voice continued, “I miss my baby terribly.”
“Flossy?” I struggled to regain my composure.
“You’ll always miss her. I really thought the pain would lesson with time. It never goes away. It keeps me company on my daily trips. I bet you don’t know that I walk through the cemetery every morning. It’s the best time of day. You can feel God’s touch. And when I feel his touch, I go visit Jr. I visit him every morning. Rain, snow, don’t matter. I visit my baby every day,” she said proudly. “He’s never too far away ‘cause he’s in the hand of God.”
She spoke as if we were old friends meeting on the street, not a bizarre chance meeting in a predawn cemetery. Her words were her first to me since Count’s death. She was completely at ease; she was completely in her element. For the briefest of moments she made me understand, that the world outside of Fernwood was diseased.
“I gotta go now,” She patted my arm as she shuffled by. “You wish good tidings to your father and Diane for me you hear. I won’t be able to attend that wedding of theirs, but I’ll be thinking ‘bout ‘em.”
I turned and watched Flossy meander through Fernwood, zigzagging about the tombstones waiting to feel the touch of God.
I filled the hole and retreated with Shannie’s treasure in hand, once inside her bedroom I opened her personalized time capsule. Still smiling after years underground, a faded Papa Smurf doll greeted me, its fur dank. Under him rested two sealed envelopes. Shannie’s print labeled each. The first read PICTURES; the second was addressed to Shannon Lynn Ortolan. “Do not open prior to my thirtieth birthday!” The instruction ordered.
Smiling, I once again obeyed, opting instead for the photographs. I was met by a smiling twelve year old Shannie, caught forever beaming thanks to her school’s photographer and her foresight. I doubled checked the lock on her bedroom door before sliding the picture into my wallet. I carry it today, guarding it with a weird sense of paternal pride.
Tears welled as I flipped through the others. I kept all of them, filing them in my backpack. In Missoula they serve as permanent reminders of previously forgotten memories. Mission accomplished, I curled up under Shannie’s blankets and drifted into a restful sleep.

As the world made last minute preparations for Y2K and Diane and my father made last minute preparations for their wedding, I slipped away to visit Shannie. It was her birthday and I had a special gift for her. A light snow fell as I made my way through Laurel Hill. I almost expected to see Shannie sitting atop her headstone, doodling in her sketchpad.
At her headstone, I closed my eyes. If I didn’t read it this entire nightmare might end and when I awoke, Shannie would be lying in my arms. I’m unsure how long I stood like this, swaying like another tree in the breeze.
There was no waking from this nightmare. A single snowflake told me so as it slid down the front of her headstone and crashed to the ground. Countless others rested atop her headstone. I watched the flakes accumulate like memories. When I grew tired of watching, I ran a hand over the smooth granite, wiping away heaven’s frozen tears.
A breeze rustled the trees, their bare limbs swaying to the sound of her voice. I turned quickly, praying she would be sitting on the sandstone bench, like she was thirteen years ago - Indian style, her wild mane speckled with snow flakes. I imagined her gaze staring across the dozing river, past the distant rushing traffic, into eternity. Only snow, dusted atop the bench met my gaze.
“Happy Birthday Bug,” I whispered. “I have a surprise. It’s your favorite.” Careful not to spill a drop, I poured the steaming coffee on the ground in front of her stone. “How did you guess?” I watched the snow evaporate. “Yes, you’re right. Of course I remembered. How could I forget? ” I tell her.
“If eyes are the gateway to the soul,” she wrote after my accident. “Our memories are its gatekeepers. Out of memory comes ritual. Out of ritual - meaning, out of meaning - warmth, out of warmth - love, out of love.”
“Us,” I whispered to the wind. “Beyond anyone – I remember you!”
“I didn’t forget,” I stroked the polished granite’s face. “It’s your recipe,” I confided as I placed a mud pie atop the coffee soaked soil. I retreated to the bench and sat casting my gaze out over the sleepy river and past the rushing traffic, listening for the echoes of her laughter in the wind.

The following day I again trekked down the Schuylkill Expressway, this time passing Laurel Hill on my way to Atlantic City. As angry as I thought I was with Genise, I felt obligated to visit her. Diane gave me directions to the cemetery and Genise and Jerome’s gravesites. I stared blankly at Genise’s grave. I thought of our afternoon. I remembered what she told me of Shannie’s expectations. I remembered her smile, her freckles, and her stricken expression as I betrayed our secret. I walked away. At Jerome’s grave, I remembered little, other than guilt for not being able to attend his funeral.
I decided to drive by Genise’s apartment in Lower Chelsea. This little corner of the city, tucked along the Intra-coastal waterway could pass for a ghost town. I parked my father’s car and stood on the sea wall across from Genise’s old brick apartment. A strong wind whipped across the bay stinging my face. I gazed across the water towards the setting sun. Although beautiful, I preferred the aesthetics of a Bitterroot sunset - mountains are wondrous, mysterious things. I jumped off the sea wall, climbed into the car and headed for Beyford. As I left Atlantic City I caught my last glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean in the rearview mirror.

On New Year’s Eve day as Diane took leave for a few hours to visit Shannie, my father and I watched the world greet the new millennium on the same television Shannie, Diane and I witnessed the opening of Desert Storm. There’s irony for you, I thought.
“Nervous?” I asked my father.
“Nope,” my father lied. “What’s there to be nervous about?”
“It’s only your wedding day,” I chided.
“Second time’s easier. Anyway, I’m not marrying the wicked witch of San Francisco.”
If you only knew how envious I am, I didn’t say; instead I opted to watch Sydney, Australia greet the new millennium. I’d give the world if today was Shannie and my big day.
“You know,” my father spoke. “I could have told everyone that this Y2K hype was much to do about nothing. Do you know that in the computer world it’s a status symbol if you have to work tonight. What a crock of shit. Serves ‘em right,” my father laughed. “I’d rather get married than sit in a stale, fart smelling office sipping cheap coffee. Idiots.”
“You are nervous,” I reproached my old man. “I never heard you talk so much.”
“Maybe excited,” my father snickered.
By afternoon the house was host to a flurry of activity. I escaped for a walk down Main Street and across the hallowed tracks. I spent the last day of the century much the way I did my first day with Shannie, eating candy while watching the river from atop the Main Street Bridge.
The wedding was elegant in its simplicity. The parlor which once saw Ms. Dead America laid out in her full splendor was again awash in candlelight. I stood next to my father as I watched Russell - himself dressed to the aces - escort Diane down the short hallway from her bedroom to the parlor. “This ole nigger never look so good,” Russell chortled as we celebrated Diane and Joseph’s marriage, the New Year, another decade, the turn of the century and a new millennium.
“To new beginnings,” Diane toasted at midnight.
“To new beginnings,” the small party replied amidst the chime of crystal.

New beginnings couldn’t start soon enough. With Diane and Dad departed for their honeymoon, I had to endure another full day of Beyford. I managed with the help of Russell. The two of us drank away New Year’s Day in JD’s tavern. When we finally closed JD’s, I walked Russell home. Still dressed in his tux, the old man invited me to his apartment. “Come on up boy, lets light one up for old time’s sake.”
“I’d love to old man but I got an early flight,” I lied.
“Ah come on. I got some good shit.”
“I can’t. I don’t want to miss my flight.”
“I see says this blind man,” Russell chuckled. “Well you take care of yourself boy, you hear?”
“You too old man.” I hugged him and watched him climb the stairs. He didn’t look back. “I love you, you old shit,” I whispered as Russell disappeared.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Steve Lucas cried. “Morrison how many times do I have to remind you about the first rule of working in a funeral home? Never! Ever! Never sneak up on the living, you never know who has a skull saw or an embalming needle in their hand.
“I don’t work here anymore,” I reminded my ex-employer.
“Shit, that’s right. I never noticed you were gone,” Steve smiled placing an embalming needle on the table before shaking my hand.
“Well, I’m out of here. Just wanted to say see ya and remind you that my offer still stands.”
“I’d love to come and visit you and your slack-jaw yokel friends. Maybe I could spike their moonshine with a little formaldehyde. It’s the only way I’ll ever be the life of a party.”
“Who says I have any friends?”
“What was I thinking?”
“If I did they’d hate your guts. Either way, come on out, I wouldn’t mind showing you around.”
A pregnant silence fell over us before I announced I had a flight to catch.
“Yo James,” Steve called after me.
“Yeah?”
“Listen, you know, don’t feel like you have