Tombstone (2 page)

Jerald beamed.
 
“Friday, mom.”
 
Fridays were the absolute best.
 
Mom and Aunt Gertie brought him to the club, and while they picked up their paychecks Jerald got a soda with extra cherries from the bartender.
 
If some of the mannequins were not being rented, he got to sit near them.
 
Their shiny suits made their pointed boobies stand out, and they stood completely still on their treacherously high heels and never spoke.

Even though Jerald had seen his mom in
her
super-hero costume, for a while he had thought the other women were statues.
 
One of them winked at him, and Jerald was thrilled to be a co-conspirator in their game.
 
Now he knew their secret, and he was mesmerized watching the frozen women holding drinks or ashtrays and stuff for customers.
 
He wondered if the men sitting beside them knew that they were really alive.

Gertie finished changing into jeans and a sweater, and she took Jerald’s hand to lead him to the car.
 
She and Suzanne shared an apartment, and Gertie liked the normalcy of watching the boy.
 
When they got home, his little hands would rub her shoulders and help her work out the kinks left over from hours of positioning.

In a way, Gertie had been right.
 
Stevie
had
recognized the value of the seasoned pros.
 
Although she and Suzanne were eventually demoted to don the black latex suits representing the last stage of their employment at the club, over the years while other girls were kicked to the ally, she and Susanne held a precarious hold on Room Five.
 
They protected their position with a vengeance, because after Room Five their lives at the club would end.
 
They would be left to fend for themselves on the street, and be forced to fight the spiraling downward fall to the gutter.

Susanne was busy making preparations.
 
She found a wealthy old geezer at the club who had just begun dating a new mannequin named Bethany.
 
The girl had been hired a month ago and worked the front floor.
 
With superior seductive skills, Susanne diverted his attention away from the inept younger woman.
 
Bethany was a druggie, and she would never be able to stay focused enough to be promoted to work in the back.

One night while Susanne was on a date, Jerald was woken from his sleep by a piercing scream.
 
The little boy sat bolt upright, searching through the darkness and trying to wake up.
 
His skinny chest heaved in fright, and, wearing only his pajama bottoms, Jerald grabbed his aluminum baseball bat.
 
He mustered all his bravery, melded with a ten year old’s recklessness, and ran to the living room to rescue his wailing aunt.
 
He knew it had been his Aunt Gertie screaming, because his mom was spending the night with ‘Mr. Money-bags’.

Two policemen were standing at the door and Aunt Gertie was sobbing.
 
They said that Susanne had been shot.
 
Her killer was a girl who had gotten fired from the club earlier that night when Stevie caught her high on drugs.
 
One of the policemen told them that from what they could gather, the young woman was screaming that she was jealous, because Susanne had a back room at the club and had stolen her boyfriend.

Jerald sank to the floor with a fixed glaze in his pale blue eyes.
 
His whole world caved in, causing a fissure in his sense of reality and opening the dark secret door in his mind.
 
Jerald refused to accept that his super-hero mom was gone.
 
He listened to the news reports, refusing to believe they were talking about her.
 
Jerald recognized the picture of the woman who had shot her.
 
Even without the mask, he remembered Bethany’s green eyes.
 
She was a mannequin that worked in the front room of the club, and she had hissed at him when he winked at her.
 
Bethany told him that his mother was old, and that she belonged in the ally.
 
Jerald had avoided her after that.

A few days later, Jerald stood by his mother’s grave, silently staring at the big brown box with the brass handles and roses carved into it.
 
Suddenly, he was terrified, and he twisted his hand out of his aunt’s grip and ran up to the coffin, screaming.
 
His
mom
was in there… and they were going to bury her.
 
What would happen if she woke up?

Heavy gloved hands covered his and they pried him away from the lid.
 
“Come on, son.
 
She’s okay.
 
It’s my job, son.
 
I promise you, Susanne is fine.”
 
The graveled voice was working at being gentle, and Jerald felt the man’s strong hands pulling him away.

Jerald’s eyes filled and he looked across a sea of gray cement pillars pushing up from the grass.
 
“I won’t be able to find her,” he sobbed.

“Yes, son.
 
Yes, you will.”
 
The man looked at Gertie.
 
“You didn’t tell him?”

“How the hell could I?” she cried.
 
“He’s never heard about you before.”

“That wasn’t my fault, Gertie.
 
Susanne should have told me.”
 
Jerry had no idea that the one night stand after the club had closed had resulted in a child.
 
“I want my time with him, Gertie, but I can also see how much losing you would tear him up.”

Jerald peered up in tearful confusion.
 
The man was tall, with dark wavy hair like his own, except that his had little gray in it.
 
He stared at the work clothes the big man was wearing, and then he turned towards the small backhoe parked over by a tree.
 
A million thoughts were going through his mind.
 
This guy?
 
Was this guy his dad?
 
And…and
he
was going to bury his mom?

The man could see the fear on the boy’s face, while tears washed down his cheeks.
 
His heart gripped when he thought of Susanne’s beautiful glassy blue eyes.
 
“Gertie, come take the boy’s hand.”

The man took Jerald’s other hand in a strong leather grip that was somehow calming.
 
They walked a short while, and then the man squatted down.
 
“Look,” he said, and he pointed to carvings on a headstone.
 
There were little angels etched into the rock, with words that had the name and dates and how the woman was a beloved wife and mother.

The man rose and led Jerald to another one.
 
This one had two names on it, circled by rings made from carved flowers.
 
The dates were different, and the man explained, “Sometimes a husband or wife passes first, but when the other one joins them, we can keep them together.”
 
He showed him several more.
 
Some people were very old when they died, some were very young, and the stones marked their lives so they would not be forgotten.
 
Jerald could see that this was true, because there were flowers sitting on the grass beside several of the headstones.
 
“I’m making one for your mom, son, so you’ll always be able to find her.”

“You’re my dad,” Jerald said.

“Yes, I’m your dad,” he agreed.
 
He brushed a gloved hand over Jerald’s head.
 
“I’m so sorry.
 
I never knew about you.”

Jerald looked up in defiance.
 
“How come you left my mom?” he demanded.

The man laughed softly.
 
Jerry had two dates with Susanne before he told her that he was a gravedigger.
 
As had happened many other times with women, she found his occupation morbid.
 
He knew better than to argue, and he certainly could not change what he did, so they ended their short relationship.

Jerry had never forgotten the beautiful blonde, and he knew what a difficult decision it had been for Gertie to tell him that he had a son.
 
Susanne was independent, and it had cost her dearly to take care of Jerald on her own.
 
The love for her showed in the young boy’s face, and it was obvious that no matter what faults Susanne had, she had done a good job by their son.
 
Susanne tended to be self-centered and impetuous, and Jerry was overwhelmed when he learned that she had chosen to name the boy after him.
 
Instead of a flat brass plaque marking her grave, Jerry was designing the headstone for Susanne from a unique marble slab he had kept covered in his studio for years.

Gertie had always known who Jerald’s father was, but she respected Susanne’s wishes not involve him with her son.
 
Susanne clung to Jerald as if their relationship was a tenuous lifeline, making the rest of her world a necessity that was bearable.
 
When she died, Gertie knew she could not raise the boy by herself.
 
Her heart was breaking when she placed the call to Jerry, knowing that she risked losing the boy as well as her best friend.
 
“Are you going to take him from me, Jerry?” Gertie asked.

“No,” Jerald cried, and he pulled away from the man and hugged his aunt, his thin shoulders heaving with his sobs while she ran her fingers through his hair.

“What room are you in, Gertie?” Jerry asked in a hushed voice.

“Five… with one foot in the ally.”
 
Gertie began crying softly again, when she realized Suzanne would no longer be there to help defend their position.

“It might work out for all of us if we all just kinda’ stay together,” Jerry suggested.
 
“I gotta’ big enough place, Gertie, and you could do worse.
 
It would certainly be the best we could do for the boy.”

Gertie left the club and they moved into the caretaker’s house with Jerry.
 
The man showed Jerald a stack of notebooks he kept on a shelf by the fireplace.
 
They contained the obituaries of every person he had buried and made a headstone for, and Jerald calmed considerably about living on the edge of the graveyard.
 
He would walk up to the graves and introduce himself, and tell the person he knew their past.
 
It seemed less frightening knowing the person beneath the ground had families and jobs, and accomplishments they had managed while they were alive.
 
To Jerald, the dead were still in a twilight area where he could know them.

Jerald put fresh flowers on his mom’s grave every day, and he spoke to her while he groomed the weeds from beside her memorial.
 
Living in the cemetery isolated him from having many friends at school.
 
It was just too creepy for them to accept, and the tall brooding boy with the unnaturally pale blue gaze seemed better suited walking among the tombstones rather than the halls of their school.
 
Jerald did not mind.
 
Due to his mother’s profession, he had always been alone… except for his mom and Aunt Gertie.
 
Now, he had a father, and his dad began to teach him how to engrave headstones.
 
By the time Jerald was in high school, he could etch them almost as well as his dad.
 
After Jerald graduated, it never crossed his mind to do anything else.

Sometimes, Aunt Gertie walked through the cemetery with him, and when they talked about his mom she would tell him that Susanne had also been an artist.
 
Gertie never would have told him that if she had known what Jerald would do next.
 
On his eighteenth birthday, he went back to the old club.
 
Jerald wanted to see what the mannequins in the torn outfits did in the back rooms.

A big black man named Jude guarded the hall leading to the mysterious area.
 
Jerald was surprised at how much he had to pay him just to be put on a waiting list.
 
Jude told him to sit at a table, and he would tell him when it was his turn.

Jerald’s eyes widened when he watched the fully covered mannequins approach at the bar.
 
The men would hand the woman money that she tucked into a small rubber pocket on her hip.
 
His eyes followed them being led over to tables, where their hands were curled around drinking glasses and they stood silently immobile.
 
Jerald’s eyes narrowed when some of the men ran their hands over their chosen mannequin’s thighs and bottoms.
 
One man even stood to cup two pointed breasts.
 
The woman never moved or made a sound, and her eyes focused through the thick smoke on some distant dream on a far wall.

Jude watched his new customer’s initiation to the club and he smiled, shaking his head.
 
It was unusual for such a young man to request room five, and he decided that maybe it was all the kid could afford.
 
It was over an hour before he walked up to Jerald.
 
“You get fifteen minutes.”

Jerald walked down the dark corridor, passing doors until he reached room number five.
 
His hand was sweating when he turned the knob, and he glanced down the dimly lit hall and saw the flashing white of the big black man’s teeth while he nodded slightly and smiled at him.
 
Jerald took his look as a challenge, and he walked in and closed the door behind him.
 
There was a woman in a familiar shiny black latex suit, five feet in front of him and lying on her side on a stage lit in muted blue light.
 
Jerald licked his lips nervously and walked slowly up to her.
 
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen… next to his mom and Aunt Gertie.