10

 

        We slipped over the crumbling concrete wall where some accident had broken it, leaving the graves inside exposed to the street.

        “This is crazy, Puck,” I said, when we had settled onto the leaf strewn ground inside, the smell of the rotting leaves making the place all the more haunting to me. “We can’t spend the night in here.”

        “We won’t have to if Red Ball gets off his duff and fins us something better,” Puck said, moving again, like a cat, his legs slightly bent, his free arm loose as if he could react to any unexpected attack. “Besides, I’ve slept here before – plenty of times.”

        In spring or summer maybe, but it’s getting cold,” I said. “The air feels like it’s getting ready to snow.”

        But the air also had a sweet scent to it, from the stirred up leaves, and the recently dug graves. Someone had even mowed the grass, although winter was upon us.

        “Stop whining and follow me. It’s not safe for us to stay this close to the wall.”

        Puck’s sneakers still squished from the river water because he had refused to take the gaudy clothes Red ball’s girls had given him, he claiming he would stand out like a pimp if he did.

        Puck knew his way around the cemetery, leading me down a narrow path through private family plots, some which dated back to the Dutch and the founding of the city in the 1700s.

        Puck kept looking back over his shoulder at me, and at the gap we had come through.

        “Hurry,” he said. “We don’t want anybody seeing us.”

        I hurried, but I was not as familiar with the landscape, and I kept stumbling over things in the dark, drawing curses from Puck who urged me to stay quiet.

        The cemetery had a lot of ground-level markers, stones implanted for the unimportant souls who could not afford to mark their passing with anything more significant -- paupers compared to the grand style in which the prominent families went to their end. Numerous important families from the rich history of Paterson had planted their bones here, reserving walled in sections or full glass-doored above the ground facilities.

        Eventually, Puck brought me to a place where several huge willows formed a canopy on a small hill and while nearly all of the spidery limbs were bare, they were so numerous that they provided protection from the cool air and any body looking in from the street.

        While Puck refused to light a fire, he did pull out the bag of dope Red Ball have giving him, claiming we would get high and not have to worry about the cold.

        Then, opening the bag, he let out a howl.

        "That son of a bitch!"

        “What’s wrong?”

        “that mother fucker gave me acid.”

        "Acid?"

        "LSD."

        “So?”

        “Do I wanted pot or downs, not a head trip.”

        “Why don’t you just throw it away?”

        “Like hell I will.”

        “Then what are you going to do?”

        "What do you think? We're going to take it."

        "I don't want any of that!"

        "Keep your voice down," Puck hissed. "Kids might think we're ghosts. But the cops won't."

        "I'm sorry."

        "You're always sorry. I don't understand what your problem is."

        "LSD scares me."

        "Hell, everything scares you."

        "I've heard talk," I said.

        “From who? Your uncle, Charlie?”

        "Leave my Uncle Charlie out of this."

        "Why? You're the one who's always bringing him up."

        "Because he's dead."

        Puck blinked. "When did this happen?"

        "I don't know exactly. We got a call from the Department of Defense. His unit was overrun in Vietnam. I found out about it after I got home with the car to night. The whole family is freaking out."

        "So that's why you were brave enough to come out with me."

        "I couldn't stay in the house like that."

        "And being with me is better than being with a bunch of sobbing ass holes?"

        "I wouldn't put it that way."

        "How would you put it?"

        "Let's say I don't think the family cares as much as they let on."

        "That's too bad. Hold out your hand."

        "I told you I didn't want any."

        "I don't care what you want. I need to get high and I'm certainly not going to trip out while you sit there straight as a Buddha. Hold out your hand."

        I did what I was told and Puck dropped several tiny purple pills into the palm of my hand.

        “You want me to take them all?”

        “I want you to put them under your tongue and let them melt," Puck said.

        "But I don’t want to..."

        "Do it!"

        I stared down at the pills in my hand, then with a sigh, I put them all in my mouth, letting them settle under my tongue as if I was an oyster and they were grains of sand destined to turn into pearls over time. They tasted vaguely metallic, though they also had a taste that reminded me of paper paste from grammar school.

        "What now?"  I asked.

        "You'll see."

        "See what? At least give me a clue as to what I should expect."

        "I couldn't describe it even if I wanted to," Puck said. "But you should always try and do things you've never done before."

        "Is there anything you haven’t tried?”

        "I haven't died. Yet.”

        I was about to respond when something – perhaps a twig – snapped in the wooded dark beyond the canopy.

        “What was that?” Puck growled, yanking out the pistol I thought was useless.

        Someone coughed in the dark.

        "Come on, asshole, show yourself,” Puck said, aiming the pistol in the direction the cough came from.

 At first, only a shape showed, a foot-dragging, limp-shoulder shape, emerging from between two pale grave stones, as gray and grim as the graves behind which he had hidden. The features of his face and clothing were sanded smooth by darkness. Not until the man neared, could I smell the stench of alcohol and that gut-wrenching smell of life on the street I recognized from the bums I had met around town. He was an old man, so haggard and stooped. He already seemed on death's doorstep.

        "Who the hell are you?" Puck snapped.

        "Nobody, mister," the old man said.
        “What are you doing here?”

        “Just sleeping on somebody’s grave.”

        "Here?" Puck snapped. "Why don’t you got to a shelter like the other bums?”

        The old man answered with a shrug.

        A flash erupted from the muzzle of Puck’s pistol, followed by the roar.

        The bullet struck the bum square in the chest, spinning him around, weak arms failing at the air as his sluggish feet stumbled over a grave mark causing him to reel to the right in a strange and pathetic dance.

        The second shot hit the bump in the side, interrupting the old man’s attempt to regain his balance. He felt sideways onto the flat face of a gravestone, seemingly pinned to it, his dark shape sketching out a human silhouette as a stream of red flowed out onto the stone.

        This allowed Puck to take more careful aim.

        The third shot exploded the bum's head. The darkness and grave stone backdrop showed only the gray mass as it boiled out the other side of the dying man’s head, splattering  blond, brain and bone against the stone’s inscription, a mass that dripped down the stone face like a misshapen slugs.

No moan came from the bum.

He no longer had a mouth with which to moan.

That last shot had removed most of his face, shattering jaw and nose, leaving only a black hole in their place.

        The smell of street evaporated -- replaced by the pungent scent of spent gun powder and the sticky sweet odor of blood.

        The scent flowed over me as if I floated in blood,  each breath drawing it into my lungs so that what was outside of me was not inside of me, and I  began gagging over it, vomiting it out again. I retched and retched again, as the echoes of the three shots died in the distance but I could not expel it again.

        The runs of the bum’s body fell into a heap at my feet, a soggy mass of blood and brain I no longer recognized as human.

        Puck did not puke, He just eased towards the damaged body, his pistol hanging limp at his side as he stared down into the oozing flesh. He seemed to be searching for something important among the ruins, something rising of steam. Perhaps he was looking for the escaping spirit.

Where did the life go? How did it get away so unnoticed? Why did the man's eyes -- which remained frozen open in their moment of horror -- show a sense of intelligence even when the heart had ceased? They were the same eyes. It was the same wreck of a man. Yet staring down, Puck merely frowned over the differences.

        I stared, too, even as a retched, as that single moment of horror stretched into an eternity, those wide eyes staring at me, filled with the flash of Puck’s firing weapon, filled with the memory of the impact as the bullets stole his life away.

        When the sounds had diminished, I found my voice again and yelled,  "Why the fuck did you do that?"

        "Keep your voice down," Puck hissed. “The cops'll hear you.”

        "Fuck the cops," I said.” You just killed someone and you expect me to stay calm."

        "I killed a bum."

        "That's still somebody."

        "No," Puck mumbled. "It isn't."

        Another wave of nausea rolled over me so I had no more energy to argue, retching again, my vomit falling over the ruins in a man a dreadful show of disrespect.

        "Come on, come on, stop staring at it," Puck said. “No reason to go into a bad trip over it. Let's get out of this place. Someone’s bound to have heard the shooting. We shouldn't have come here."