Chapter Seven: Street of Tombs

 

Chapter Seven: Street of Tombs

 

 

“I catch the paper boy,
But things don't really change.
I'm standing in the wind,
But I never wave bye-bye.”

 

-Bowie, again

 

In which Frank consults a map.

 

At the Akashic Library of Records, located above and outside of the space-time continuum, everything that has ever happened, everything that ever will happen, every variant on everything that could have happened, or happen still, or even un-happen, is available in storybook format. Library membership is free and open to all. There is a lending maximum of three.

The universe is a novel—a complex network of stories, intersecting, continuously evolving.

Every event that has ever been witnessed, the whole amazing (and pathetic) history of humanity, from the discovery of reliable fire-making procedures to the nerve-wracking halving of the atom, can be read and re-read by all. Free from the constraints of time, conscious souls can trace out the pathways of all creation and experience anew all the joy and tragedy of human existence.

Everyone has a story.

Frank entered the great Library in a dream, wearing his favorite Star Was t-shirt and Reebok running shoes from two decades past. These things had turned to dust, long ago, and he was glad to have them back, if only for the duration of the dream.

He opened a book about a man named Elvin who used to drive the school-bus in the Sprague area. The guy was nobody. He was a boring old drunk who died of liver failure when he was fifty-five. The book of his life was 2,211 pages long, including thirty pages of photographs.

One time, Elvin ate a pound of hot walnuts and acquired night vision. He went to his grave convinced of it. Whenever he told people that walnuts had allowed him to see in the dark, they thought he was drunk again, or on fucking drugs. The book confirmed that Elvin had been correct.

“Imagine that,” Frank muttered,

He could smell candy floss and cinnamon cookies creeping up on him.

...

 

The ghost of his unknown sister told him, “Gia is going to die. You need to know that it's coming.” But what could he have done about it? She gave him a cookie.

It was just a dream. The burned-up girl, offering sweets and a dire warning.

“Why? How? How will it happen?” Frank demanded.

“I don't know,” said the ghost.

“What good are you? Do you know anything?”

“I know some things.”

“Who killed Alice Little?”

“I don't know.”

“When is Lump going home to her mother?”

“I don't know.”

“What happened to the minister, Marlon Sunday?”

“I don't know.”

“See? You don't know much at all.”

“But I do know Gia is going to die. You need to prepare.”

...

 

Frank had to bury his mother.

He figured it ought to be twice as easy as burying his father.

Smaller service, smaller turnout.

While he shaved he sang a few lines of a song Francis used to sing:

 

Oh, what a pity,

She's only one titty,

With which to beat the drum...

 

He nicked himself. Brand new blade. Typical.

 

Oh, what a pity,

She's only one titty,

To feed the baby on.

 

The poor little fucker,

Will never play rugby,

Never be big and strong.

 

Next up:  Maresy Dotes and Dozey Dotes.

He thought he'd like to visit the spa at Rebowken, up north, after the funeral.

Get rested. Get reset. Get the lead and demons out.

...

 

In July, another one of Discord's famed orphans, Gabriella Talia Valens nee Marvello, Gia's older sister, living in Prince Edward island for the past twenty-three years, had decided to admit herself to the psych ward of Charlottetown's finest hospital. She was overwhelmed by her life, particularly a crushing divorce from Ennio Valens, her husband of fifteen years, a man who was already living with a new girlfriend, a young blonde with plastic tits, somewhere in Texas. Gabby telephoned Gia to say, “This is it. I'm either going to eat razor blades and die screaming, or I'm going to lock myself away in a care facility.” Gia implored her to do the latter, which was important because she had a teenaged daughter  to keep in mind.

Kayla Valens was 15, and generally hated everything.

“Her father, that black cunt, fucking grease-ball lunatic, wants nothing to do with her,” Gabby said. “I'm taking Xanax, Percocet, Flufloxinol, Adderol, Gabapentin, Gluhyprin, and two different sleeping pills. I can't live like this. Kayla can't take care of herself, she's too fucking stupid, and Ennio won't have her—he acts like he never fathered her, never knew her in the first place. He accused me of sleeping around, way back when. It's horrible. It's ugly. It's disgusting.”

Gia said, “You have plenty of other sisters who can help out.”

“No, you're the only one, Gia. The others won't even return my calls. And no one's heard from Mary since she ran off with that Pakistani fellow. Nice guy, but you know he's probably a terrorist. Crazy as fuck. And that leaves me with nobody. If Mom and Dad hadn't left us like that, in the lurch, Kayla might have grand-parents she could rely on. But we don't live in that world.”

“Frank and I can have her for a time. She can fly here.”

“I already checked the cost of a plane ticket. Pisimatum is the fucking sticks, the end of the line. I could fly Kayla to Jamaica and back for less money than it costs to go to where you are. Isn't that insane? It's twelve-hundred dollars to land at Sawanoko airport, and that means you and Frank got to drive six hours to pick her up.”

“Whatever we need to do.”

“But still there's the issue of the plane fare, and I'm already bent over backward with legal fees. I'm going schizo over this shit. I need my rest and relaxation at the hospital—otherwise I'm a goner—but I can't have that unless I know that Kayla has someone to take care of her. I already checked with Bible camp, and they're fine with her, but camp only lasts two weeks. And even if I double-enrol her, that still only takes us to August, and nobody knows exactly how much time I'm going to need. It could be six months.”

“Six months?”

“Gia, please. You haven't seen Kayla since she was small. You were still with CW. Kayla remembers him. She talks about Uncle Casey all the time.”

“Casey is ancient history, Gab.”

“The point being, you're my family, and you're Kayla's family, and we live on opposite sides of the biggest democratic landmass on Earth—according to the Wiki. We don't have anyone else. It's us girls and that's it, mostly. If you take Kayla, you'll be saving my life, and the longest you'll have her until is Christmas.”

“But there's the plane fare, too, right?”

“Yes. (Cough.) It's twelve hundred.”

“You're going to have to do better than that. Find a seat sale.”

...

 

There's a hole, there's a hole,

There's a hole at the bottom of the sea.

...

 

Gia said to Frank, “It's nine hundred dollars.”

Frank said, “This is why we aren't going to Mexico this year, isn't it?”

“Don't think of it that way.”

“What's a better way to think of it?”

“Doing the right thing, maybe.”

“Doing the right thing?”

“It's family, Frank. Gabby is my sister and Kayla is my niece.”

“I wouldn't know beans about nieces and such. I'm an only child, technically.”

“Well, I'd say my mind is pretty well made up.”

...

 

The kid was a tumor, a skid-mark.

...

 

She was Kayla Anastasia Valens. Frank thought she looked like a lump, and so he decided to call her Lump, but only in the secrecy of his own whispering thoughts. He also thought she was an idiot—and she was a tremendous idiot—and so he called her the Idiot, as well, but even more covertly than he called her Lump.

...

 

Frank and Gia were planning Dora's interment and Lump was standing at the top of the stairs, eavesdropping. When Frank came out of the bedroom he had to say “Excuse me” three times before she would move out of the way and allow him to pass. She was smack in the middle of the awkward pubescent phase, chubby and man-like with gangly, long legs; and not terribly interested in getting clean. Her hair was a tangled, knotted mess, and her eyes were yellow and tinged with bloodshot.

“Can I have cereal?” she asked, after he squeezed by.

“Of course. I don't think you need to ask for cereal,” he said.

“Is it okay if I call you Albert, instead of Uncle?”

“Please don't call me Albert. My name is Frank.”

“Thank you, Frank. Can I have some breakfast cereal?”

“I already said you could.”

“I think there are angels in my bedroom, hiding in the walls.”

“That's awfully interesting—”

At that moment, Gia came out of the room with an armload of damp towels and musty jeans, bound for the laundry room. She said, “Excuse me, Kayla,” and the girl attempted to step out of the way but lost her footing on weak, wobbly ankles and fell headlong into the trim of the bathroom door. Nothing broke, neither bone nor wood, but Lump launched into a crying fit that included twenty-some uses of the f-word.

“Fucking Auntie! Fuck! My head! Fuck! You cunt! Fuck! You fucking fuckers!”

She was like a hysterical, androgynous lumberjack—half sized and furious.

Frank thought about all the bills that had vanished out of his wallet, all the change that had vaporized off his bureau, all the new scratches in his DVD movies, and felt a comfortable warmth wash over him. If Lump had been Gia's daughter rather than her niece, if her presence in the household had been long-term instead of temporary, he figured he would have jumped out of the relationship long before the wedding.

Just speculation. Entirely theoretical. He couldn't know it for sure.

...

 

CW, the former Mr. Gia Marvello, was in huge trouble with the coke- and meth-dealing pimp named Berk. Owed him almost thirteen thousand dollars for stolen dope. Berk was affiliated with the Corsairs and CW was affiliated with no one. After smashing CW's face through a marble counter-top, Berk told him, “If you don't have the cash by September first, I'm going to cut three toes off your left foot.” And, unfortunately for CW, it came to that.

Berk had always been a remorseless monster, but now, at the age of forty-six, he he was afflicted by early-onset Alzheimer's disease—didn't have a clue about it, wouldn't know if he did have a clue—and so he was the most dangerous motherfucker in the whole territory.

After the toes came off, Berk gave CW another two weeks to gather the necessary funds. More violence was promised. CW hatched a plan and waited in his apartment for Berk and his boys to arrive. He was wearing a tee shirt, borrowed from the drawer of an old gentleman who brought it all the way from the nineteen-sixties, that said, “Help! The paranoids are after me!”

Berk showed up early, as was his custom. He was dark and bald, with a coiled snake tattooed behind his left ear, and wore expensive clothes. Two men, barely more than kids, accompanied him. Not bikers, these. They were punks with sunglasses and crappy attitudes. (Berk hired them from somewhere, wasn't sure precisely where, figured they must have been Rinpoche's boys, from the After Hours club.)

CW cried real tears when he said, “My wife is a millionaire,” and this caused Berk to laugh himself silly. He said, “If you think I'm that stupid, I'm going to have to hurt you even worse than I originally planned. You aren't married, Casey, and no decent woman would have you. I was only coming for your other toes. Maybe I should take a whole foot.”

CW said, “She's my ex-wife, I mean to say, and she's very rich. Very fucking rich. And I can prove it. All you need to do is check her out for yourself. If I'm lying, kill me. Otherwise, I know how we can get her money from her. I finally figured it out. It's a beautiful plan.”

“What do you mean, you finally figured it out? You told me the same story last month. You dumb fucking junkie. You told your wife was an heiress. And when I asked you why your millionaire ex-wife wouldn't spend a paltry thirteen grand to save your toes, you couldn't answer. Do you not remember the conversation? You were screaming it while Tiny Bobby worked the pliers.”

“I can answer, this time. I know the answer, Berk.”

“You'd tell any lie to save yourself.”

“Yes, I would, but I'm not lying.”

Berk didn't care, didn't listen, didn't hear a word.

...

 

People were trying to stir shit, all around.

Gia received a handwritten letter from Frank's ex, Tracy, on Friday:

 

So you stole my man. Good luck with him you bitch.

He's a lazy asshole and a prick. He's going to spend all your money on drugs and booze.

He will cheat on you.

Good luck you bitch.

Why did you steal him from me you slut? You are a slut and a whore.

You fuck every guy in town and you deserve to get beat up.

You told lies about me and said I was psycho.

I am not psycho you slut you bitch.

This is not a threat. I should kill you because you stole my husband that fat lazy prick.

Fuck you!!!

I would kill you you slut.

Stop telling lies about me!

 

She filed it in a pile with eight others, arranged chronologically by the postmark.

The grammar was atrocious.

Tracy had been harassing her for some time, now. Never in person, of course. Sometimes electronically, but usually in handwriting—which was so stupid and self-incriminating that it barely seemed real. What fucking idiot would do that? Gia supposed she should involve the police. She thought she might be chastised for tolerating these threats for nearly three years and only now deciding to do something about them. She wondered if the woman was more crazy than stupid, or the other way around. How did Frank put up with her for two years? What could they have had in common?

That was a bit of a problem, on its own.

What had Frank seen in the woman?

...

 

Her own ex was on antibiotics for blood poisoning. He was probably carrying Hep C, too. Doctors had removed a big, black cock from his face. Berk's boys grafted it there, Thursday night—thought it was the funniest thing ever. The deadbeat preacher Marlon Sunday was stone cold dead and didn't need his dick anymore, and Berk thought it would be a fancy addition to CW's pocked, meth-bit face. He laughed about it for three hours afterward.

He wrote it down on a page in his notebook—

 

Stitched preacher's cock to C-Wayne's face. Funny shit. Laugh myself to death.

 

Berk found himself using that notebook a lot, lately. A few memory issues. Sometimes he forgot to put on underwear. But his father had always warned him about how forgetfulness went hand-in-hand with ageing. Who'd have guessed the old man knew what he was talking about?

He told CW, “If you talk to the police, I'm going to wear your large intestine like a hat. I'm not even joking. I'm going to pull your shit-tube out of your ass and put it on my fucking head.”

His mind was gone. He wasn't kidding. It sounded like a great idea.

He recorded it in his notepad. He also wrote:

Dip him in molten steel. He will be like a statue.

Police wanted to know who performed this atrocity on him, but CW declined to answer on the grounds that any story he told would be self-incriminating, on some level. It was then pointed out to him that the severed penis that had been sewn to him had to have belonged to someone, at some point. “So let's just say that this crime is essentially a missing persons case. That's no little thing. Some fellow is walking around without his dick. Worse, that fellow is dead, and all we have is his DNA on your head. What would you say to that, Casey?”

CW hit sweat mode and told the cops, “Let's just say that I was assaulted. Somebody, I don't know who, a person with a grievance, probably a criminal, tied me to a wooden chair and stuck that thing to me. I sure didn't stitch it to myself! And I don't know where it came from, or who it came off of, or none of that stuff. Talking is fucking dangerous in Discord!”

All he could think about was Berk pulling his colon out of his ass.

The fucker'd do it, too, he knew. He didn't say another word.

He was released shortly before 11:00 PM, Friday, without cash or a safe place to sleep. The police figured he'd be beating down their door before the weekend ran its course.

“Come back when you're all ready to throw someone under the bus, Casey.”

...

 

Dora Burczyk got a bug in her brain and tumbled down her staircase on Thursday afternoon, breaking her neck and right hip at the bottom step. She wasn't discovered until Friday afternoon, when her next door neighbor, Mrs. Verona Shipton, entered her home in order to return two pie pans.

The police officer who spoke to Gia on the phone surmised that Dora did not suffer much, or for long. Her head was facing nearly backward, like the little girl in the first Exorcist film.

She was 71.

...

 

 

The statue of Perseus had already been defaced. Someone had spray-painted “B-B-B” in messy red letters, over the dedication plaque.

Old Berk, the former Coach Berkowitz, found CW there, in Hector Park, on Saturday morning. “I've been giving a lot of thought to the stories you told me, Casey,” the lecher said from behind the wheel of a rusted, yellow El Camino. “You should get in the car and we'll talk about it some more. It's all fine. For the next two hours, I promise I won't bite you. I won't pull your ass inside-out. I won't even fuck you there, this time.” CW did what he was told. He didn't think he had a choice. Berk was a vicious, cruel bastard, and there was no escaping his long clutches.

Berk showed him his .357 magnum revolver. It was long and black, heavy like a fifteen-inch pipe wrench, with a pattern of rust not altogether dissimilar to that of the El Camino.  He boasted, “I've killed eleven people in my life, Casey. And I killed nine of them with this beauty, right here—my most favorite plaything in the whole world.” CW gulped, not because he'd never seen a murder weapon before—he'd seen plenty—but because he'd never known someone so likely to use it with so little warning or provocation. (That was about to change.)

Berk said, “I'm probably the scariest fucker you've ever met, but there's one guy who almost as scary as me, and he happens to be my very good friend.” And he took Casey—like a sheriff escorting a convict—to visit that exact person. It was Jim Codeman, living two floors above Main Street. It was a loft, looking out over Discord's shopping district.

Codeman was a Corsair by blood ritual, and was as connected to the dark world as Berk, but he was a madder dog, a looser screw, and many of the other Corsairs, even the out-of-towners, had better sense than to work directly with him.

The kind of guy who would rather gouge eyeballs out than negotiate a fair re-payment plan. Cut from the same cloth as Berk, but more frayed around the edges. Better memory, less squeamish.

Seriously fuck-your-mother crazy. CW had heard of him, almost like the Boogeyman. In fact, the only guy as scary as Codeman, in the whole Ghost River region (apart from Berk, of course) was Sasquatch—and between the two of them, Sasquatch and Codeman, one was a fucking lumberjack's fairy tale.

Berk told Codeman, “I've been busting his body, inflicting all kinds of grievous pain upon this cocksucker, over a debt that can never, ever be paid. He'll simply never have access to that much cash. But it's the principle of the thing. I'd like to think there's order in the universe.”

“Order? There's no such thing as order.” Jim Codeman had the face of a rusted barbecue grill, and wild, greasy hair to match. He nodded. He said, “There's a middle ground. Somewhere between getting all paid up and cutting some fucker's throat. You need to know where to draw the line.” Then he told Berk what a dandy he'd become. Called him a faggot.

“You and your pretty clothes. A real Dapper Dan. You must like it from the back way, eh, Berk, you fuck-brained shit? And who's the deadbeat you've brought along? He looks like a real pussy.”

If it was anyone else talking, Berk would have stomped him. Codeman got a pass, though—not only because he was a fellow Corsair, but because he could be counted on to see a job through, no matter how messy. A real go-getter, and he was utterly unafraid.

“Anyway, this is CW,” Berk said, clearing his throat. “He has some information.”

Codeman invited Berk inside and gave him a bottle of warm beer.

No refrigerator in sight.

Berk always hated entering Codeman's place because it stank to high heaven of cigarettes and piss. A roach-infested hovel, strewn with filthy clothes and dirty dishes. And the only place to sit, a ratty old couch, was now occupied by an unconscious, naked, brown woman. Codeman was a ruthless sociopath and a filthy, filthy human, and Berk tended to feel like a Catholic saint compared to him. He enjoyed that feeling. It was like being closer to God.

Berk chose to remain on his feet. He pointed at the floor and ordered CW to sit there.

He told Codeman, “I wonder if you'd like to help me out with a project. Very simple. I want you to look at some numbers for me. Feasibility, and all that.”

Last time they worked together—Berk hired Codeman to threaten a scrupled prosecutor—Codeman went too far, got too violent, and charged three times more than had been agreed upon. Said prosecutor ended up in a wheelchair, for life, and Berk's little brother went to prison, anyway.

Codeman said, “You want to rip someone off. I can tell. It's your aura. All green and shit.”

“Yes, but not one of our people. A side job. Totally off the beaten track.”

“You want to shake down one of the straights? Another lawyer piss you off?”

“It's kind of like a ransom situation—”

“I don't do ransom, Berk. It never pays out.”

Still, Codeman had the bottom line to consider. There was some good money and good dope at a crack-house across town, and he'd had the idea to go in, guns blazing, and take it all for himself, but it would have made him an outcast among his own people. On the other hand, Berk's little schemes, while often sketchy and speculative, were at least far less dangerous. And Berk could always be counted on to pay real dollars up front.

Berk kicked CW in the thigh, close to the knee, and made him yelp. “This punk, this fucking junkie owes me a lot of money—stole a whole bag of uncut dope from one of my mid-level dealers—he says his ex-wife is worth a couple million.”

“Lots of people are worth a couple million, Berk. You think they leave it lying around the house? You think they go to the bank and withdraw a million dollars in twenties just to give to you? Merry Christmas, pimp. If you think that, you are a very stupid person. The lawyer you hired me to beat up—he was a millionaire, too, but you don't see me wearing a new Rolex. You can't just go around taking money from random squares. It doesn't work like that. There's a hierarchy.”

“This is different, Jim. The guy has the inside track on his wife. He knows her favorite color, her middle name, her lucky numbers. Technically, the bitch owes me. Her husband has a debt, and that means it's her debt, too.” Berk was able to convince himself of any ridiculous notion because his brain was riddled with pocks and holes.

“You said it was his ex-wife.”

“Divorced people have to share the debt load.”

“You might as well walk up to the next black suit you see, stick a gun to his head, and tell him to hand over his wallet. You might get a hundred bucks and a credit card. That's better than you're going to get with a ransom situation.”

“It's not technically a ransom situation.”

“You said it was like that. What is it if it's not that?”

“She just needs to pay her husband's debt. Plus interest. And extra charges.”

“You need a strong arm.”

“Right now, I only need a detective.”

“I like to be the strong arm. My detective skills are, umm, unpolished to say the least.”

“I just want you to check the situation out. Maybe this little fucker is lying to me. Maybe the wife is bankrupt. Maybe she's not worth it. Maybe she's untouchable.”

“Nobody is untouchable, Berk.”

“I just want you to have a look-see, Jim.”

“You're out of your mind, man. That's why I like you. You're out of your mind, but you pay me Jezus-size piles of money to do shit for you. I shouldn't complain.” He popped half a Mandarin orange in his mouth and sucked it to pulp.

Berk kicked CW once more, just for pleasure. He pulled on the junkie's ear until it turned Crayola red, and said, “Everything that Mr. Codeman needs to know about your wife, you make sure he knows about your wife. If she stands up to pee I want you to tell him so. Absolutely everything.”

“Yes, sir,” said CW.

Codeman went over to the naked brown woman on his couch and began to slap her awake.

“Time to go. Get the fuck up. Let's move, sister. I won't tell you twice.”

CW suspected his own days were pretty well numbered.

End of an era, so to speak.

...

 

Codeman took Berk aside and said, “Listen—I know of a score, myself. I have these guys, Keech and Pony, and there's a little shindig at Dozy's place, a crack-house. A guy named Randal is holding a big bag of snow and he also has—”

Berk said, “You suicidal motherfucker! I don't want to hear about it.”

“It's just an idea.”

“It's an idea that will get you killed. It's an idea that will get me killed, just for knowing.”

“Maybe we could be top dogs in this town, Berk.”

“Go fuck yourself, Jimmy. Get it out of your head.”

...

 

Berk said, “As for this other thing, I'll be in touch.”

Codeman said, “How soon?”

“Real soon. Keep your Sunday open.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. And don't go doing anything stupid in the meantime.”

...

 

People were talking, talking, talking.

Someone said that two of the dead girls that were found were Asians.

Someone said that one of the dead girls was actually an adult woman.

Someone said that two of the dead girls were completely skinless.

Someone said that Alice Little definitely wasn't among the dead girls.

Someone else said she definitely was.

...

 

On Saturday afternoon Frank went to Samo Funeral Home to begin making arrangements for his mother's burial. It was kitty-corner to the United Church on Main and French Street, and had been for as long as Frank could recall. Half the local corpses went through Samo and the other half went through Field's, and there was no reason to favor one over the other, except that Dora was already at Samo. All Frank had to do was make sure the old girl was buried at Pharsalus cemetery, beside Francis, in a matching casket, in hopes that her ever-agitated soul might finally find peace.

He parked his truck on Trousse-Puteyne, in front of the lot where the record store used to be, and beheld something truly amazing, something he wouldn't have guessed: Two long columns of glorious marble crypts, not just nine, but ninety, or a hundred and ninety, or more, stretching from Main Street in the west to Piebald Street in the east. A whole avenue given over to tombs—six blocks worth of  old-time sepulchres. The sign at the intersection indicated this was called Street of Tombs, and Frank had most certainly never driven down it. Was it possible that these monuments, polished and ornate, decorated with swords and shields, votives, and statues of the infernal gods, crypt after crypt, had been obscured, all these years, by a record shop?

“My Christ,” gasped Frank.

Yellowed autumn leaves breezed along the cobbled stone lane.

There were arches and columns, concrete angels with their wings spread to heaven, iron gates, and looming monuments of polished marble. Less the Street of Tombs than the City of the Dead.

Mrs. Farmer and Mrs. Fischer, two old lesbian teachers who shared a toy poodle, both clad in red felt coats, out for a brisk weekend stroll, came walking up to Frank, quite unreserved, and Mrs. Fischer said, “Poor Frankie, that's a boy. You have our deepest sympathy at the passing of your mother. What was her name? Gladys? Winona? Dora? I never could recall, not even when you attended my homeroom class. It's a real shame when our parents die, isn't it?”

Frank's mouth was dry and he managed only to nod.

Mrs. Farmer asked, “Where are you going to put her earthly remains?”

“Pharsalus,” Frank managed, nearly stuttering over the Ph.

“Way out there? Are you kidding? It's a twenty minute commute on the best of days. Winter plays havoc on that road. Why wouldn't you keep her closer to home? What's wrong with Street of Tombs?” Mrs. Farmer stretched out her arm, indicating the beautiful melancholy of the avenue, radiant and grey, both at once.

“My father is buried at Pharsalus. That's where she wants to be.”

“All of Discord's best are buried on Street of Tombs,” said Mrs. Fischer. “All of our mayors and ministers, going back to the end of the nineteenth century, are buried here. Doctors, judges, teachers and Carolingians. Lex Poetilia, John Quay, all of the Audets. And your mother bled blue for this town, Frankie. Discord is in her very bones.”

“It's true,” Frank agreed, only because he had nothing better to say. “But, as I said, my father is down at Pharsalus.”

“If you want to get her into the Street of Tombs, for the best results, talk to Danny Douglas at City Hall. He's a wiz with the paperwork. He'll get you set-up before you have time to sit down. Very efficient. He might be British. Or Tuscan.”

“Thank you.  Danny Douglas at City Hall. I'll keep it in mind. I'll see him.”

“After lunch but before dusk. He's busy, very busy, but awfully efficient.”

 Mrs. Farmer placed a loving hand on Frank's shoulder and regarded him for a moment, her aged eyes turning glassy and gentle. “Be a good boy, Frankie Burczyk.”

Far be it for Frank to disrespect two old coots like Mrs. Farmer and Mrs. Fischer, but after they departed, and when they were further down Main Street, two blocks to be safe, he slipped across the intersection and into the small baby-blue building that was Samo Funeral Home. There he met Mr. Kyle Samo, mortician and up-seller extraordinaire, more ancient and decrepit than any two of Discord's grade-school teachers, and who didn't quite know what to make of Frank's confusion.

Frank asked him, “Hey Mr. Samo, hello. The street across the way—uhh, the Street of Tombs— has this always been here? Why haven't I noticed it before?”

“Mr. Burczyk, I don't know how you can live in Discord for most of your life and not have noticed Street of Tombs. It's integral to this community. It's a very sacred place.”

“I've never seen it before today. Before yesterday.”

“That seems highly unlikely.”

“Doesn't it?”

“Have you come to see about your mother? She's here.”

“Yeah. I need to bury her.”

...

 

Frank examined some of the graves on the former French street before heading homeward. None of them were dated. The epitaph on a tomb decorated with lions and ravens said:

 

Here lies Ronald Groat. He hopes that his daughter will learn to be chaste.

 

On a tomb made of granite, adorned with lambs:

 

Twin girl babies. Their mother hopes they are at peace in the world of shadow.

 

On a tomb decorated with pillars, and depicting chariot races:

 

Gerry Mundy lived seventy years and never lied, thieved or murdered. He enjoyed a fair challenge. He hopes his nine sons will mourn him and follow the example of his life.

 

Frank thought he should have checked in on his mother more often than he did, maybe been more patient with her. The autumn sun was like fire across his face. He thought that a once-a-month visit was, maybe, less than Dora Burczyk had required. She just got crazier and crazier, left to herself. But also, uncle Joey checked in on her, from time to time, and she had cousins living in Sprague. Somewhere nearby, someone was have a wood-fire barbecue party—Frank could smell the sauce and willow-smoke. Awesome. He imagined a scene in which his mother was arguing with ghosts, possibly the spirit of Francis, right before tumbling down the staircase. He imagined that she was sputtering delusion and insanity right up until the moment the lights went out.

He came to a white stone crypt that said:

 

To the gods of the hearth and to the memory of Ingrid Gruszka, nee Bjola.

She lived 63 years, 5 months, and 4 days, and mothered three daughters.

Most of the time she was crazy as a loon.

Her estranged husband, Jarek Gruszka, erected  this monument for her.

He hopes they will come to agreeable terms in the life after this one.

 

He supposed Ingrid Bjola was one of his mother's relatives.

...

 

Frank's t-shirt said—

 

I believe in the Nayarit Fire-serpent.

...

 

At home, Gia read the schedule to Frank.

“Tomorrow, Sunday, we we're to drive up to the Rebowken spa. That will be your birthday present, sweetie, and God knows you could use a spa day. We're not going to Mexico this year, so Rebowken is going to have to suffice. And then there's Bob Scieszka's candle party on Monday night—he called to confirm that we're coming. I told him we'd be delighted. You can never have too many candles, especially if the power goes out. Kayla has a bit of a date on Tuesday, but you don't need to worry about that, and then we have your mother to bury on Wednesday. I'm not so sure that day isn't too early. Wednesday? Don't you think there are relatives who live far away and need more time in order to travel?”

Frank nodded, then shook his head. “I mean, no, I don't think there are people who need time to travel. It's a lot of time and energy. This is going to be a tight-knit affair. Just a few of us, maybe uncle Joey, out at Pharsalus, and we'll have some sandwiches.”

“Do you think it's enough?”

“It has to be enough. We aren't doing more than that.”

Lump came into the room with a platter of baked debris. She had made him a cake, a birthday present, of sorts, belated, but she'd eaten two thirds of it, herself, and what was left was a crumbling mess. He thanked her, all the same.

She said, “Sorry for your mom.”

“Thank you again, Kayla,” he said.

“Auntie said your mom was mental.”

“That's not an official diagnosis.”

“Do you like the cake?”

“It looks very appetizing, yes.”

“I can finish it, if you don't want it.”

“I have no doubt that you can. And you should.”

“Are you sure?”

“That would be excellent. I don't want it, at all.”

She was wearing a Hustler t-shirt, pink letters on black cotton. The magazine that treated the world to clinical close-ups of rectal warts, introduced pissing cowgirls, and showed how to fit an eleven-inch phallus into a pre-natal birth orifice, had launched a line of clothing for teen and pre-teen girls. And their mothers were buying it up for them. Frank had to shake his head.

“What?” said Gia.

“Nothing,” said Frank. “Quite a bit of nothing.”

In order to free up room inside of her mouth to eat the cake, Lump removed a giant, pink wad of gum from her mouth and stuck it to the back of her left hand. Frank was instantly reminded of one of his father's little rhymes—

 

A gum-chewing girl and a cud-chewing cow

Are somewhat alike but they're different somehow.

Ah, yes! I know now—

It's the intelligent look on the face of the cow.

...

 

His brain went to the past, then to Mexico, the sweet place, then to the present, to the Street of Tombs, and back to the long-ago, again.

His Science class met with Gia Marvello's Science class, and a third Science class, all 00 level, inside the Loewen theatre, for a lecture, film and demonstration about atoms and bombs. It was February 29, a Tuesday, and the afternoon would be the longest and most mind-numbingly boring Tuesday afternoon in all of human history, Frank was sure from the outset. The presenter, one documentarian named Ross Linklater, opened by asking the eighty-head crowd, “Do you ever think about the end of the world?”

It was mere rhetoric.

Frank, do you ever think about the end of the world?

Gia and Frank had sat together for the three-hour ordeal. It was the last time they did. Before June dawned, before May ended, Gia's parents died in that horrific train accident. She never came back to high school, and left Discord immediately after the funeral. As quick as snapped fingers.

Like that.

Went with the wind.

Frank thought there should be a straight line that ran through it all, a strand of connective tissue, an umbilicus, full of logic and why, that would make some sense of this small lifetime.

...

 

In bed, Saturday night, Frank asked Gia, “Have you ever been to the Street of Tombs?”

She rolled her eyes around and replied, “I think so. Where is it?”

“It's near the French street, rue Trousse-Puteyne, one block over.”

“Maybe it sounds familiar. I can remember passing through.”

“It's all graves. It's hundreds of fucking graves.”

“I probably wouldn't go to a street like that.”

“Yes, but Discord is not so big that you shouldn't be completely familiar with the street I'm talking about. We pass it three hundred times a year. You know where Vinyl Gigi was? It's right out the back door.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don't know, Frank. I'd like to sleep.”

It was beginning to seem to Frank like he was losing his marbles.

“I might be insane,” he told himself. “That shit is hereditary.”

Gia told him, “Sshhh.”

He wondered if Mrs. Farmer and Mrs. Fischer, the old lesbian teachers, were ghosts. Hadn't they died a few years ago? Car crash? Something like that? It sounded to him like a real story, but he allowed that it might have two different teachers. Then he shuddered, realizing he may have stepped into the shadow universe of the departed and conversed with phantoms—

Gia said, “I can hear the gears grinding in your brain.”

Frank said, “I'm sorry. I'll try to switch it off.”

...

 

Sometimes cats end up in the laundry. It's true.

...

 

Frank nodded off.

Next came the crash and crackle of a lightning wave—

Chakka-doom!

Rain was good. Rain and thunder.

Chakka, chakka-doom!

He was dreaming again, absolutely.

He had friends waiting for him, about half a mile distant. Not real friends, not true ones—more like acquaintances. Companions. Comrades, united against the Apocalypse. There were three left: Dr. Mark Land, Jimmy Pigdick, and Nigel Ford, guys he hadn't seen in decades, but now they were here in nightmare-world. The fourth, a man Frank had never known before, Gary Bee, was dead—deader than shit. And Bob Scieszka, another pal since high school, was missing in action.

M.I.A., they say.

Every time Frank closed his eyes he saw Gary Bee die again.

Gary Bee. Barry Gee.

Gary Bee, arms and legs akimbo, tongue wagging out to the side—so zany and Don Martinesque—flying wild, karate-style, tracing the form of a stickman running on air, teeth bared like someone touched a cattle prod to the tip of his dink—

His body hit the floor in two equal-sized pieces, bloody and dead.

Stupid fucker.

He didn't feel sympathy for Gary Bee—no chance of that. The man was a beast, a criminal. What Frank felt instead was remorse for the whole, miserable human condition. The species, itself.

The race, as some folks called it.

He found a Bible.

Inside the Good Book's front cover was a yellow, flower-rimmed decal that read:

This Bible has been presented to Taylor Scott on the occasion of his Baptism.

Under that was a date.

“Such a terribly long time ago.”

Frank didn't know Taylor Scott from John Doe, but that was hardly the point—

A chunk of sheet lightning bounced toward the dark horizon.

No point in dwelling on the present state of affairs.

With nowhere else to go, nowhere better to be, Frank Burczyk allowed himself to drift away.

...

 

Gia was dead.

The world was done and Gia was dead.

More lightning—

 

Craacckkk!

...

 

After things went bad, after marriage and Mexico and Mexico redux, after a series of lesser events and greater horrors, he found himself alone in a squalid shack, doors bolted shut, in the darkness, trying desperately to be silent.

Stone cold fucking dead fucking quiet.

He had heard this voice of pure terror—Gary Bee coming apart at the waist, chain making short work of sternum and viscera—the truest of all demon screams.

These sounds had only recently begun to abate in his mind.

Gary Bee squealing the monster squeal.

Not the rusty pipe-thread squeals of a rubber daikaiju, or the throaty droid-gurgles of the foley artists hacking phlegm into a didgeridoo, but the real monster noises—long, piercing shrieks full of pain and horror.  The whining of the wet blade riding the bar.  Hell and terror roaring hot on the night wind. Chainsaw meeting tissue.

His lungs still burned from so much running. The worst horror, designed to make him curl up into a fetal ball and slice his own wrists, there was nothing else to it.

Coax a man into blowing his brains out.

He hoped to run into someone who might explain it all. A private dick in a cave, somewhere, who just happened to have all the answers. The answers to everything. The guy who could say, “They're called that because X,” and, “They come from a place called Y,” and, “All they really want from us is Z.” Yes, it would be most helpful to meet the man with those answers.

All they really want from us is Z.

Something (just a rickety old ladder) scraped against the outside wall of the shack and Frank yelped. He held the Bible close to his chest the way an old-time gunslinger might have cradled his trusty Walker Colt. This was a Bible he'd found on the shack's gravel floor, half-mildewed and damp with dirty rainwater. He didn't believe one word of the so-called Good Book, but it made for a fine comfort blanket. Like a bulletproof vest or an iron shield.

Don't care how scared and stupid I look.

Gia liked books. Gia even liked the Bible. But mostly, Gia liked books.

That was enough.

Frank felt cheated. For both of their sakes, Gia's and his own, he felt like the universe had sold them short. Pulled the plug. Bailed.

Fucked us over.

There was no one who felt good about the end, of course. Feeling cheated was particularly selfish—ridiculous—possibly insane. Who didn't get fucked over? Everyone got the same shaft.

Every. Living. Thing.

Goodnight, ladies.

...

 

He awoke, startled and cold. The clock said 3:36 AM.

He'd never known anyone called Gary Bee and he was glad for it. It meant the dream couldn't possibly be real, neither a memory, nor a glimpse into the future nor a view of the twisted present.

“Just relax,” he told himself.

...

 

Emathios is Love.  The trail did not lead to the butcher's block, after all.

...

 

 

Frank blinked and tumbled back into dreams.

The rain let up just a bit, and he came out of the shack and ran down to Grainger Street, behind the train station, where Dr. Land had told him to come. “We're going to regroup, and Pigdick knows somebody who can get us a vehicle. A truck or a van. Nice.”

Nobody's ideas were any good. Frank only wanted to get to Rebowken, in the north, at the northernmost tip of the Ghost River. That's where he almost had this motley group headed, originally, back when there was something like cohesion—but now it was all about Pigdick fucking around, fucking things up, looking for Asian women to assault.

It was the Irons building, at 325 Grainger, off Stovel Ave. There were lights glowing on the second floor. Frank took the stairs and found the group he'd disconnected from, plus others. Nigel, Dr. Land, and Pigdick were present, as was Bob Scieszka—who'd gone missing back in Discord—and a young woman called Fab. (“Just Fab, thanks.”) And the somebody Pigdick said he knew turned out to be two somebodies—a husband and wife named Danny and Rhona Smear. They were short, overweight, bespectacled, and covered in black tattoos, like geek bikers who might have been too related to be legally wed (outside of Tromso, that is).

Dr. Land knew Frank was coming, had watched him sneak up Grainger, and made everyone wait. Danny Smear had some things to say. He was something very much like the omniscient nerd Frank had been dying to meet.

“Guns on the table,” Rhona told Frank as he entered.

Frank set his down among thirteen others. He noticed a man in a wheelchair, Kirk Wexler, sitting quietly in a darkened corner of the room. Hooked up to an oxygen tank. Breathing in gasps.

The place was a slum. All the furniture was gone except for the kitchen table, two spindle chairs, and a dirty mattress on the linoleum floor. The smell in the air was piss, tobacco and vinegar. The sounds from outside—wind and screams—rattled the dusty windowglass.

Dr. Land introduced half the group, “We are Jimmy Pigdick, as you know, plus Nigel Ford, Mark Land, that's me, and this is Frank Burczyk.” Danny Smear introduced the rest, “Me, Danny Smear, my wife Rhona, that's Fab, Kirk, and Bobby S.”

Scieszka winked and grinned at Frank.

Thought you were fucking dead, you prick.

Danny Smear continued, “The guillotine, the thing you call the wave, is an ill-conceived defense system called WADC-6. Stabilized lightning as a perfect rectangle, bounces up when it meets or tries to go to ground, bounces down off the charged ions in the atmosphere. Constantly moving, cuts through wood and stucco and tissue, deflected by concrete and steel. If there's anyone present who didn't already know or deduce these things, please raise your hand.”

Only Bob Scieszka did. Frank assumed he was kidding.

“We know that the WADC-6 will slice a person into two or six or twenty pieces. But it's also true that being too close to one, not actually touching it but still being affected by its electromagnetic field, can cause a man to be turned inside out. It's true. And it's also true that persons who appear to survive after having a limb sliced off will succumb to whole-body gangrene within hours.” Danny extended a hand toward the man in the wheelchair. “Mr. Wexler, here, was present at Don Bradford General when the the WADC-6 was revealed to the world, and the wee bit extra we've gleaned is courtesy of his keen observation. Fastidious, Kirk. Really awesome.”

Rhona turned on a laptop computer and waved for all to gather round the seventeen inch screen. There was a digitized graphic of the planet Earth, but distorted outward in points so that it looked something like a blue-green starfish. She said, “Last known satellite imagery suggests that the world has been warped, somehow, probably at the quantum level, maybe, in theory.”

Frank reminded himself the woman was no scientist.

“Explain further,” Nigel Ford said.

“This model is to scale,” Danny said blankly, blinking his eyes dramatically, imagining that he was talking to a roomful of lesser minds. “That means our world is no longer a sphere. It's like a dog's chew toy. The kind of abomination you find in a child's nursery. It's not possible that it exists, and yet it does. The world warped like this without a single techtonic plate slipping or cracking, which means that matter itself has become malleable.” The morons on television tried claiming the same thing on September second—that the planet was remodelling itself—and then the airwaves went dead before noon on the third.

“How about the streaks in the sky?” Frank asked.

“I haven't gotten to that yet,” said Danny Smear.

“I'm not talking about the ghosts, and I'm not talking about the blobs that have begun to pop up. I'm talking about the lines. Streaks on glass. You all know what I'm talking about. They're there all night long, and the sun illuminates them like icicles in the morning. You say the world is warped like a spiked ball, but those streaks are plumb straight, and the horizon looks the same as it ever did.”

“What are you saying, Mr. Burchard?”

“I'm Frank Burczyk. I'm saying the world isn't warped at all. If it was, the sun wouldn't rise in the east, same as ever. We'd have mountains where there used to be valleys. We had a few bouts of bad distortion last week—it was like tumbling through a spin cycle for everyone who's still on this side of the grave—but you're letting that taint your reasoning. The world is still just a ball. The ability to observe it through a forcefield is what's become warped, my friend. If a satellite sees an image like that one, I'd say it's because the satellite is looking through frosted glass.”

“But all readings and measurements support what the satellite senses.”

“Then sense itself is what's been warped.”

Pigdick shouted, “Who's retrieving all this satellite footage?”

Dr. Mark Land smacked his hands together and said, “Bingo, bango!”

“There's more,” said Rhona Smear. “Lots more. If you look at the way the world seems to be slipping into the red spectrum—”

“Bullshit,” said Frank. “We've already heard this crap. You're twenty seconds from mentioning hell. You're thirty seconds from demons and angels. It's more of that evangelical Jezus pocky!” He turned back to Dr. Land and said, “When I saw the warped Earth model, I had half a gram of hope, but it was only fleeting, as it turns out. Science turns quickly to voodoo, around here.”

Rhona Smear slammed the laptop shut. “If it's not the devil then what is it?” she demanded. “What kind of entity gets into your mind like that? Destroys you from within? If it's not the devil then you better give me something I can work with.”

“It's not the devil.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know. Because there is no devil.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Gia says there's no such thing.”

It was the best answer he had.

They ended up sitting around, the nine of them, waiting for dawn to come, talking in two- and three-person groups, accomplishing nothing.

Bob and Frank sat together, sharing a six-pack of canned beers, with Dr. Land seated nearby, in earshot, chatting with the cripple, Wexler.

Frank asked, “How did you get here, Bob? I lost you at the river.”

Bob said, “I thought I was done for, it's true. Current got me and I thought I was gone with the ghosts. Never was a strong swimmer. But I let myself go with it, and came to shore about three miles downriver. After that, it was just remembering your plan. To go to Rebowken.”

“Rebowken is north. Clearly, we aren't there. This is west.”

“Yes, well, Fab was my tour guide. What can I say? She's the boss.”

Dr. Land leaned closer and whispered to Frank, “Still with the Rebowken stuff?”

“It's where I'm going, doc, regardless.”

“We're a very small, very fragile group, Frank.”

“One that contains criminals, too, let's not forget. Rapists and such.”

“Convince me about Rebowken. Convince me, man.”

“Not now.”

Pigdick was paying attention from across the room.

Later.

Pigdick went to Danny Smear and said, “You promised a vehicle with ample seating. Lots of gas and in good condition. What have you got?”

Danny nodded toward Fab, sitting cross-legged against the wall beside Rhona. He said, “She can take us all if we squeeze it. Might be the only working V6 in the hemisphere. There's unlikely to be a second bus for the tardy kids.”

Pigdick announced to the room, “We roll out at sunrise. All of us.”

Frank smirked about that. “I'm the boss of this dream, fuckers.”

He got the idea that there was an upstairs compartment in his brain, that if he could spring the trapdoor from inside he could access the upper levels of his own mystic ether. He recalled that one of his girlfriends, one of his long-ago girlfriends, perhaps Pam Cockman, had told him, “The souls travels out through the top of the head. That's the doorway, the escape chute. It's not the eyes. It's right up there, at the top of your noggin.” Made pure sense, now. He could feel it—cool and minty.

...

 

The long-standing story, the one he shared with Gia at the outset of the relationship, he knew was not entirely true: “My father had a  daughter, by a wife that preceded my mother. Both the wife and daughter perished in flames, in a terrible blaze, and Dad remarried barely more than a year hence.” Even so, he continued to think of his unknown sister as mostly char-broiled.

At 5:39 AM, she interrupted a dream about mysterious lightning streaks in the sky in order to deliver a message from the Universe. She was fully grown now, even though she died before she turned three. Grown, and covered in alternating patches of burn-black and peach-white tissue, with fire-red hair and lightly freckled skin. She met Frank in a field of China-white orchids and told him that life would certainly kill him, and hard, and that he'd never find peace for Gia's soul.

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Be specific!”

“Wheels in motion, wickedness at work,” she said.

“What can I do?”

“What can you do?”

“I'm asking.”

“Life turns on a dime, Frank.”

“Yes, please, tell me—“

She contemplated briefly, then gave a short, cryptic instruction for how to change future events—magic words?—but he forgot these almost immediately after waking.

Like Pompey, two millennia before, he came to two conclusions about this visitation. Either it was nonsense—nothing but an illusion of the mind, planted there (probably) by his mother—which meant there was nothing to worry about, or it was real. And if it was real, then it demonstrated that the dead were very much in control of their faculties, were able to communicate fluently, and continued to grow and develop in the universe, in which case death was not a thing to be feared in the slightest.

Was there a third possible option? (Yes.)

If so, it went right past him.

And who listens to their dreams, anyway?

...

 

In the morning he made French toast.

Gia and Lump sat at the kitchen table. Gia was reading Friday's newspaper and Lump was staring at the floor. Frank was about to say what he'd dreamed, last night, because he recalled chunks of  it vividly, but Gia yawned quite audibly and then said, “I had the strangest dream last night.”

“Did you?” said Frank, feeling slightly upstaged.

“It was all catacombs,” she said, looking up from her paper, using her hands for emphasis, “and it was under an ancient city. Egypt or Babylon, maybe. Or even Paris. And these were tunnels that had been carved in soft basalt, or pumice, and they just went on and on, down into the bowels of the planet. It was dark, pitch black, but somehow I was able to see in front of myself. Maybe I was carrying a torch, or a flashlight.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Frank. It sounded kind of familiar, too.

“Maybe it wasn't me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, it was my dream, I was the dreamer, but I'm not so certain it was me down there in those tunnels. Maybe I was you. Maybe I was dreaming that you were down there, and I was seeing you as myself, through your eyes. You know what I mean?”

“Kind of.  But where were you, then?”

“I must have been somewhere else.”

“I see.”

Frank dropped two pieces of fried bread on the Idiot's plate, then turned back to the stove and started on two fresh pieces. He said, “I had a dream, too.”

“What was it about?” Gia asked.

“It was me and some random guys. There was lightning. The world was over.”

“The end of the world is all tomato bisque, remember?”

“I do.”

Lump chimed in with, “I need thirty bucks.”

Gia said, “I gave you forty dollars on Wednesday.”

“I spent it. Now I need money to go to the movies this afternoon.”

“But we're going to Rebowken for the day.”

“I don't want to go there. I want to go to the movies.”

“Young lady, you—”

Spinning around, Frank said, “I'll give you thirty dollars for the movies. No problem. No need to make a stink about it. If you don't want to go to Rebowken, you don't want to go to Rebowken. Let's not have all this anger and animosity about it.” He thought he'd rather have two of his teeth bashed out with a hammer than ruin the day by dragging the Idiot along.

Gia knew exactly what he was up to.

“Cool,” said Lump. “I might not be home until after midnight.”

Gia said, “Oh, really?”

Frank thought, “Please don't come home at all.”

He had a beautiful picture in his mind's eye of a diesel tractor smashing through the kitchen wall and rolling right over the fucking kid.

Pretty sweet.

...

 

He yelled at Lump to bring her laundry and dirty dishes downstairs. There was a bad vibe in the air. Gia was in a particular mood, enraged by everything. Everyone wanted Lump to get her fucking shit together.

“I can't do laundry if she won't bring it down,” Gia said. “And we're down to just three forks in the utensil drawer. Have you looked in the utensil drawer? Do you know where all the forks went? I can assure you that they're up in her room, buried under mountains of plates, bowls, and jeans.”

Frank didn't need convincing.

He found Lump awake, stoned on whatever. Her eyes were heavy and dull, mostly hidden by her dirty hair—that nouveau shit look—and she was lying on top of her unmade bed, diddling out a tiny melody on Frank's Yamaha keyboard.

“Can you take your laundry down, do you think?” he said.

“I think I have a medical disorder,” she replied.

“No kidding. What's happening?”

“I don't know.”

“You should talk to your aunt.”

“I don't know.”

“Do you have pain? Are you bleeding? Is there a discharge?”

“No—nothing like that. I just feel a bit off.”

“Is it your nerves? Are you anxious about life on your own?”

“Life on my own?”

“Someday—you'll have to support yourself, someday.”

“I find myself counting things.”

“Counting what things?”

“During the night I counted the tiles on the floor of the storage room. There are one hundred and eleven, which includes all the partial pieces, too. And there are thirteen black towels in the upstairs bathroom closet. I can't stop counting stuff.”

“You're high, that's all. You're fucking stoned.”

“I'm definitely not.”

“Please bring down the laundry and dishes when you have the chance.”

“Fuck.”

“Your aunt gave you cash. Just do it.”

“I'm going out.”

“Sure. After your chores.”

“Okey dokey, Frank.”

“We'll be home later tonight.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Idiot. He wished he could kill her with his thoughts.

Blue fucking murder.

...

 

He checked a city map.

Sure enough, the Street of Tombs was there, from D-5 to H-5.

“Fuck me cross-eyed.”

...

 

Heading up Main Street to take the north exit to Rebowken, Frank made a point to stop at the Street of Tombs in order to get Gia's opinion on the whole thing. The old Do You See What I See-bit. He parked the truck facing east. There seemed to be more tombs than before, plus monuments, gold and marble, of gods and heroes, some as tall as the statue of Perseus in Hector Park. It was like a Latin virus, spreading outward.  Frank said, “What do you think about this?”

Gia's face tightened with concern, but she said, “It's pretty. I always like it here.”

“So, now you're familiar with this, are you?”

“It's the Street of Tombs, Frank.”

“You told me last night that you weren't sure.”

“I was tired—I didn't know this was the street you meant.”

“Because long streets full of graves are common in Discord?”

“You know what I mean.”

“And you're telling me it's just always been here?”

“Me and my girlfriends came down here on a few Friday nights to smoke cigarettes and drink our parents' wine. Before the disaster, you know? Those were good times. My memories get fuzzy after that. Scratchy, you know, like on a defaced photo. But, yeah, it's always been here. It predates the spa, I'm pretty sure. ”

“I can assure you I never saw these tombs before Friday.”

“You're stressed, honeybum. Your mother just died.”

“Don't say that.”

“Okay. I won't. But you're not thinking clearly. I don't blame you, at all. I know how it feels. Do you really think this place appeared overnight, when nobody was looking?”

“Is that an option?”

“No, I don't suppose it is.”

...

 

He realized that no explanation would suffice. Not today.

There was no possible twist or trick that would make everything make sense.

“Only insanity,” he told himself. “That's the big reveal. This is all merely a construct of my sick, depressed, depraved mind. No other logic works.”

...

 

“Your mother would like it there,” Gia said.

“The Pope would like it there, too,” Frank said. “And the Queen.”

“Yes, but what is Pharsalus going to cost?”

“It's not that bad. Twenty thousand, is all.”

“You said you wouldn't go a dollar over fifteen—“

“Fifteen thousand for the tomb, itself, but there are upkeep charges. Custodial things, taxes, and the like. Think of strata fees. It's what Mom wanted.”

“Your mother is dead, though.”

“That's the point, isn't it? It's her money, after all.”

“The nuttiness doesn't end, does it?”

“Seems not to.”

...

 

Frank said, “If this all turns out to be a dream, I'm going to be very annoyed.”

...