Cemetery Street

"I think your brains fell out. First you tell me you want me to be your pallbearer and now you like Steve Lucas. Oy Vey!"

"Yeah, so?" she asked.

"If I had a thing for Steve Lucas I'd need a pallbearer too, because I'd jump out a window."

"Is that so?" Shannie put her pencil down.

"That's so." I answered watching Shannie stand and stretch. I admired her breast development. Thank God for warm weather and T-shirts, I thought. She walked past me. She busted me checking her out in the sliding door's reflection. "Would you like anything? - to drink!"

"I'm fine," I blushed as she disappeared into the house. I peeked at her sketch. An ornate casket rested on the shoulders of the pallbearers who were dressed in black tuxedos, their faces somber and colorless, their hair slicked back.

"What's up with the doom and gloom?" I asked when she returned to the deck.

"Wait and see."

***

"Your Grandfather has flipped," mother complained. "He insists on calling late every Sunday night. Doesn't he realize people work Mondays?"

"You don't work," I reminded her.

"What do you call looking after slobs. It ain't a vacation." In her convoluted way, bitching was a compliment. She was ecstatic they we're on speaking terms again. Plans were in the works for her to fly to California when the phone rang earlier than normal one Sunday.

I rushed to answer the phone. "Mrs. Morrison. Mary Morrison please," an indifferent voice droned.

"Mom it's for you," I was hoping it was grandfather.

"Who is it?" she took the phone from me.

"A salesman." I shrugged my shoulders.

I was about to sit and watch TV when I heard a loud thump. The noise woke my father who napped on the couch. "What the hell was that?" he asked.

"Mom?" I called.

She didn't answer.

"Mom," I yelled running into the kitchen. "Mrs. Morrison, are you Okay? Can you hear me?' the salesman's voice called from the phone. "Oh Jesus, Mary get up," my father bemoaned as he shuffled into the kitchen.

"I think she passed out," I said into the phone.

"Is this Mrs. Morrison's daughter?" the voice asked.

"No!" I snapped. "It's her son!"

"Sorry. Listen, is your mother breathing?" the salesman asked. My father emptied a glass of water on mother's face.