A Graveyard for Lunatics

I displayed the gin.

He grabbed it. ?Now help me up on my cross and get the hell out!?

?I can?t leave you here, J. C.?

?There?s nowhere else to leave me.?

He drank most of the pint.

?That?ll kill you!? I protested.

?It?s painkiller, kid. When they come to get me, I won?t even be here.?

J. C. began to climb.

I clawed at the worn wood of the cross, then hit it with my fists, my face pointed up.

?Dammit, J. C. Hell! If this is your last night on earth?are you clean!?

He slowed in his climb. ?What??

It exploded from my mouth: ?When did you last confess!? When, when??

His head jerked from south to north so his face was toward the cemetery wall and beyond.

I surprised myself: ?Where? Where did you confess??

His face was fixed rigidly, hypnotically, to the north, which made me leap to scramble up, seizing the climb pegs, groping with my feet.

?What are you doing?? J. C. shouted. ?This is my place!?

?Not anymore, there, there, and here!?

I swung around behind him so he had to turn to yell: ?Get down!?

?Where did you confess, J. C.??

He was staring at me but his eyes slid north. I swiveled my gaze to fix it along the great stretch of crossbar where an arm and a wrist and a hand could be spiked.

?God, yes!? I said.

For, lined up as in a rifle?s sight was the wall, and the place on the wall where the wax and papier-mache dummy had been hoisted in place, and, further on across a stone meadow, the facade and the waiting doors of St. Sebastian?s church!

?Yes!? I gasped. ?Thanks, J. C.?

?Get down!?

?I am.? And I took my eyes away from the wall but not before I saw his face turn once again to the country of the dead and the church beyond.

I descended.

?Where you going!?? said J. C.

?Where I should?ve gone days ago??

?You stupid jerk. Stay away from that church! It?s not safe!?

?A church not safe?? I stopped going down and looked up.

?Not that church, no! It?s across from the graveyard and, late nights, open for any damn fool who drops in!?

?He drops in there, doesn?t he??

?He??

?Hell.? I shivered. ?Before he goes in the graveyard nights, he first goes to confession, yes??

?Damn you!? shrieked J. C. ?Now you are lost!? He shut his eyes, groaned, and began the last positioning on the dark pole in the midst of dusk and coming night. ?Go ahead! You want terror? You want fright? Go hear a real confession. Hide, and when he comes in late, oh so damn late, and you listen, your soul will just shrivel, burn, and die!?

Which made me clutch the pole so hard slivers stung my palms. ?J. C.? You know everything, don?t you? Tell, in Jesus Christ?s name, J. C. tell before it?s too late. You know why the body was shoved up on the wall and maybe the Beast shoved it there to scare, and just who the Beast is? Tell. Tell.?

?Poor innocent stupid son-of-a-bitch kid. My God, son.? J. C. looked down at me. ?You?re going to die and not even know all the reasons why.?

He stretched his hands out, one to the north, one to the south, to grip the crossbar as if to fly. Instead an empty bottle fell to break at my feet.

?Poor sweet son of a bitch,? he whispered to the sky.

I let go and dropped the last two feet. When I hit the ground I called up a last time, dead-bone tired: ?J. C.??

?Go to hell,? he said, sadly. ?For I sure don?t know where heaven is??

I heard cars and people nearby.