Cemetery Street

"NOOOO!" I screamed. I yanked the answering machine from the wall and threw it across the room. "NOOOOO!" I repeated. The answering machine exploded into pieces.

"YOOOOO What's the fuck is going on down there?" my father yelled from his room.

I stared at the shattered pieces, "Count's dead."

My father ranted his way down the stairs. "JESUS CHRIST JAMES, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?"

"Count's dead," I mumbled.

His voice grew closer with every word until his breath clawed my back.

I turned. "Count's dead," I mumbled to his angry face. "Count's been killed! HE'S FUCKING DEAD!" I yelled at my father. I shoved him. He landed on the floor. "THEY FUCKING KILLED HIM!" I moved towards my father.

"How? What happened?"

"He's dead," I said. From above, I saw my leg cock back to kick my father.

"James! Get hold of yourself." My father scrambled to his feet. "You definitely got your temper from your mother," he said later.

The front door shook under a barrage of knocks. "JAMES!" Shannie's cried "JAMES!"

I opened the door. Shannie's untamed hair framed bloodshot eyes. We fell into each other's arms. For days Shannie and I didn't leave each other's company. It seemed weeks before we didn't feel the need for each other's assurance. It would be weeks before we'd learn when Count would make his final trip home.

Like the night we learned of Count's death, I felt a longing for Shannie's companionship. Sliding out from beneath my covers, I made my to the Ortolans.

Despite having no love lost for the deceased, his death was an ordeal for Shannie and myself. A self-inflicted gunshot sprayed the elder Lucas's brains across the embalming room. Someone had to clean it up. "It's not like there's a suicide clean-up service in the Yellow pages," Shannie said. In 1997, there wasn't. "Somebody has to clean up the mess. It would be a crime if the family had to."

Oh Christ, I thought.

"Nothing wrong with a little anesthesia," Shannie said yanking the GTI's parking brake. We stepped into JD's Tavern. We watched television, slugged shots of bourbon and tipped mugs of beer. "I need a smoke," Shannie said. I watched her glide to the cigarette machine.

"Listen, Marcy's home, Janice is on her way. I don't want Marcy and Steve coming down stairs. I want to be incognito as possible. Deal?"

"Deal," I said.