This is part II of Gail Burp’s story, as it follows her first short story in this collection in The Closet.

This story will be featured in an upcoming collection of short stories entitled Short Songs, featuring characters from the Rise and Fall of Skye Wright series.

     Driving up to the cemetery gates, Gail was wondered if she should have brought Molly with her.
     She stopped at the cemetery office, getting out her cell phone where she had noted Scritch’s real name.
     At least she hoped it was his real name. She had contacted his ex Tangent, who gave her a name that Tangent herself was unsure of.
     “You were his girlfriend and you’re not sure of his real name?” Gail had blurted.
     “Naw, I always knew him as Scritch. I only kinda remember his real name because I went to th’ DMV with him once.”
     Gail did her best to push the recent memory of the aggravating phone call out of her mind as she walked into the cemetery office.
     She got a pointed stare from the round faced woman in a burgundy pantsuit when she walked in. The pantsuit simply stared at her as she walked up to the desk.
     “Heya, I was wondering if you could tell me where the gravesite for…” Gail double checked her phone. “Donald Boyle?”
     “Boyle?” asked the pantsuit as she leaned into her computer.
     “He was buried like, about a week or two ago.”
     Pantsuit squinted at her computer. “There’s a Donald Bowers who was interred last week, but no Boyle.”
     “That’s probably him.”
     Pantsuit looked up from her computer. “Probably?”
     “I knew him by a nickname.”
     “I don’t suppose the nickname’s on the marker by any chance?”
     “I kinda doubt it. But who knows?”
     Pantsuit showed her the location of what she hoped was Scritch’s final resting place. It took some time to drive around the cemetery, weaving around its various sections, until she got to the Verde Lawn.
     Getting out of her car, she surveyed the wide lawn. Most of the markers were flat plaques on the ground. Some sections had small headstones and raised plaques, and larger headstones were at the far end of the lawn.
     She slowly walked along the row of plaques, reading the names carefully. A few of the markers had small American flags on them. Some of them had fresh flowers.
     Walking around, she felt a twinge, a short and pointed spike of pain that went through a spot on her forehead.
     It felt like the beginnings of a headache.
     She kept walking, looking over the grave markers, taking note of names and dates. She was surprised at how old some of the graves were, some having been buried in the eighties and seventies.
     A dull ache throbbed through her temple. She winced at the pain as she wondered what could be causing a sudden headache. She almost never got headaches, and the onset of one was distressing as it was unusual.
     Another ache, worse than the last one. She stopped walking long enough to squeeze her eyes shut, trying to drive out the pain.
     Squinting down the row, she saw what looked to be a fresh grave. Her doubts about whether she had the right name dissipated when she saw the plot.
     His grave had several patches on it, a circle A patch and a Stiff Little Fingers patch. There were also several bottle caps from such libations as Olde English 800 as well as a full can of Iron City beer placed just above his marker.
     Crouching down, she read the plaque. He was thirty three years old when he passed. Gail could not recall if she ever knew his real age, but she always assumed he was around the same age as herself.
     She took out her latest CD and a Dynamite Chicks sticker and laid them on the ground. “The sticker is from Molly. You remember her. You were at my wedding. Her band is getting really popular. Sometimes I think they might get bigger than me.”
     She stayed crouched down, looking at the marker, trying to let her thoughts and feelings seep in. She eventually sat down, cross legged, by the newly disturbed dirt.
     She tried to imagine Scritch under the ground. She had been through it before, too many times, trying to summon feelings when yet another one of her friends had left the world far too early. She often felt like a traitor, or a lunatic, when she could not summon the genuine pain of a loss, banging her head against her a cold void while trying to feel anything. After a while, she wondered if it was just her psyche trying to keep her from facing too much at once, throwing up roadblocks to keep her from going mad with grief. Or maybe she was just getting used to it, having to face yet another sudden abscence in her tribe from yet another overdose, suicide, or motorcycle accident.
     She leaned down, feeling yet another sting in her forehead. “I’m wondering if I should be worried,” she said to the grave as she tried to imagine Scritch listening to her, “that Molly’s band will become more popular than me, that she’s gonna rocket past me.” She leaned down and put her hand flat on the grave. “I’m wonderin’ if I’m just acting like a rock star, just being a jealous bitch, or if I got reason to believe it’ll change things. And maybe not for the better.”
     She felt her heart rise into her throat. “Mostly, I just don’t want to fuck this relationship up. I’ve given Molly enough reasons to try and bail on me. I think… when I think about it, I just… I really don’t want to lose her.” Gail dropped her head. “She’s not like the others. She’s really not. She’s one of a kind.” She lifted her head and looked right at his plaque. “I could give you a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t be with her, and after I explained all of that, I’d tell you she’s the perfect woman for me.”
     Gail’s eyes fluttered. She became quiet as a wave of fatigue suddenly hit her. She kept her hand on his grave for a few long moments.
     She felt her heart drop.
     Feeling cold and still, she stood up. She looked around, wondering who else was coming to visit his final resting place. She half hoped someone else would come along to pay their respects, that someone else would walk up and at least be another presence, as the emptiness of the air pressed in around her.
     Looking around the vast cemetery, she could not see another soul.
     A wave of pain shot through her skull. She winced as she put a hand to her head, wavering for a moment.
     Then it hit her.
     The memories came flooding back.
     Her mind had completely pushed it out, but the pain had just brought it back. When she was a child she was constantly getting headaches. They were always very painful, skull-splitting headaches. She was always taking aspirin, sometimes sneaking them from the bathroom because her parents quickly grew irritated if she ever complained about anything, even about such a thing as an ongoing health problem.
     Gail marveled at how she could have completely forgotten such a significant part of her childhood. She could only assume it was her psyche trying to protect her, having washed away such ongoing memories to insulate her from her past.
     She crouched down again, closing her eyes to try and drive the pain away, trying to concentrate on her task. Taking out her phone, she started playing the Devotchkas song Oi! Toy.
     “I know this was one of your favorites,” she said as she held out the phone.
     As the song played, she kept trying to let his loss sink in. As much as she tried, she could not embrace his absence. She was not sure why, if it was a block put up by the same psyche that had blocked out a vast stretch of her childhood.
     As the song ended she wavered on her feet. She stood up quickly as a sharp pain went through her gut.
     It coincided with her head, which felt another painful throb. Her eyes were twitching from the pointed aches as she wondered what was wrong with herself, why she was suddenly feeling ill.
     She crouched down again to adjust the sticker and the CD so they were aligned with the other punk offerings crowding Scritch’s plaque.
     Standing up again, the discomfort had become consistent throbs. A dull pain kept beating her head as aches kept shooting through her stomach, going down into her lower gut.
     Looking around once more, she spotted a jogger on the other side of the lawn. She could not see anyone else anywhere in the yawning cemetery.
     She kept wishing she had asked Molly to come along.
     She thought about another outing to visit him as she slowly walked back to the car.
     As she reached for her car door a spike went through her gut, sharp enough to make her wince and cross her knees.
     “What the fuck”! She blurted.
     Her head wavered under the weight of the throbbing pain going through her forehead.
     Her whole body shuddered right before she froze in place, as it all came rushing back, all at once.
     The dark looming figure, crushing her against her bed. The smell of his body, and her guts twisting up as he forced himself inside of her, causing her limbs to feel as if they were on fire before going completely numb.
     She held onto the car door handle as she bent over, more from the unwelcome rush of the memory than from the pain.
     She had forgotten the headaches, as well as the twisting pain in her gut… the stinging, aching, and sometimes searing pain she felt after his assaults, the ones she felt after it had happened.
     Then it hit her, all at once, as if someone had dumped a cold bucket of water on her.
     Casting her gaze over the vast lawns with their rows of graves, she realized her father was buried there, only a few lawns over from Scritch.
     Her bones turned to ice as her mind reeled. She was not sure how she had not realized it earlier, how she had not thought of it before she had even come to the cemetery.
     So much changed for her when he passed on, the day her mother called to let her know that his lung cancer had finally taken him out. She felt a rush of relief as much as she felt hatred. It was an event that had struck her down to her core, and she told nearly no one that her father was dead. She did not want to hear the “Oh, I’m so sorry,” since it meant that she would just have to clarify that it was not a time of mourning for her whatsoever.
     Her brother had insisted on sending her the details of her father’s burial, being as her younger brother’s chief superpower was that of epic denial. He had always avoided the subject of their father’s abuse and violent nature, refusing to ever speak to her about the subject. It was one of the reasons she had not spoken with her brother in years, and still had no desire to do so.
     She looked to her car and then looked towards Scritch, far down the row of plaques. Her mind washed over with a roil of thoughts and then went blank as she looked towards the section where her father’s grave was most likely located.
     She caved in to the inevitable. She knew if she did not look for it at least once, it would haunt her just enough to become an issue, one that would nag at her enough to be its own overriding problem.
     She left her car to walk towards the lawn, the section that was crowded with headstones.
     Her skin stood on edge when she entered the forest of headstones. She kept her arms tightly crossed as she looked over the elaborate and semi-elaborate headstones, going through the large, medium, and small headstones, some of them plain, some of them ornate… all of them displaying their own unique status
     Her eyes ran over the headstones as she concentrated on the names, bracing herself every time she read another stone tablet. Many of the gravestones were old, and some of the lettering had worn down, forcing her to squint.
     Finishing one row, her eyes started to blur as she began reading the second row headstones. Some of the headstones had death dates going back to the eighties, the seventies, and sixties. Some headstones displayed the names of several people, married couples buried on top of each other.
     As she started the third row she was beginning to wonder if she had the right lawn. She contemplated that she was in the wrong section altogether as she tried to recall her brother’s long lost phone call, a call which she ended quickly, much to her brother’s dismay.
     All at once, her skin became cold as her heart skipped a beat.
     She knew it was his marker when she saw the name Jonathan on a headstone that was not nearly as old as the other graves.
     She noted his death date as she looked over his large and elaborate headstone.
     It was as if the large carved monument was mocking her. The man who beat and violated her, was rewarded with a grand and eloquent marker, while her good friend, the friend who supported her and had defended her and her friends without even being asked, had to be satisfied with a small metal plaque.
     Her eyes glazed at the name on the headstone. Jonathan. It was a foreign name. His friends called by his nickname, Torque, the name he got from working on cars and motorcycles, first at garages, and then at his home garage when he had devolved to the point where holding down a regular job was impossible for him.
     Thinking back, Gail could not recall a time when she had ever called him by his name. She habitually tried to avoid talking to him at all when she was a child, deferring to her mother whenever she needed or wanted something. She discovered at a very early age that it was completely unpredictable, how her father would react if she approached him or talked to him. He could have been friendly, indifferent, angry, and occasionally violent, and it did not even matter what she said or why she approached him. His wildly erratic moods were completely indifferent to any kind of context.
     The only time she ever called him daddy was when she pleaded, when she begged him to stop hitting her or forcing himself on her.
     The sharp pain came back, cutting across her gut like a knife.
     Her eyes went up and down the headstone as she felt her bones harden. She felt as if she weighed nothing.
     He was gone.
     He was really gone.
     Looking down, she let out a long breath as she felt her ribs unfurl as her whole body shuddered, as if a lifelong burden was lifted, as if she had been holding her breath for most of her life.
     The image flashed, for a moment… what she would do if he was there, if he was suddenly alive and was standing right in front of her.
     She had burned her bridges with him years ago, when she ran away from home as a teenager. She even avoided speaking to her mother for years, just so that her father would not find out where she was and what she was doing. She avoided her family up until her band Hop Skivvy started making real waves in mainstream music and she could no longer realistically avoid contact from her mother or her brother.
     She shook as she imagined attacking her father, with flailing fists, with whatever blunt object she could get her hands on, and tear at him in a fit of unresolved rage. She had visions of getting her friends to help her exact her revenge, knowing what Skye, Roach, and Miranda would do to him once they found out what he had done to her.
     Her eyes shook. She knew they wouldn’t try to kill him, not as she could easily imagine herself trying to do so.
     A throb went through her head. She looked down at the ground in front of the headstone.
     She pulled down her pants and slipped down her black panties and squatted down. She relieved herself on his final resting place as if working on an instinct.
     She stood up and pulled her panties back up.
     “Hey!”
     It was a man’s voice, calling out just as she started to pull her pants back up.
     He was tall and stout, wearing a dark suit and a tie. He had a receding hairline and a serious bulldog face. She could see a middle-aged woman and two children in the background, all dressed up and standing by a grave.
     She wondered why she had not noticed them before.
     The man walked up to her as she let go of her pants, letting them fall down around her ankles. “What’s the matter with you?” he barked. “You can’t desecrate a grave like that!”
     “Sure I can,” said Gail with a cold voice. “He desecrated me.”
     “What are you talking about? I should call the police!”
     Gail let her arms drop to the side and stared back at the man as she felt her eyes go blank.
     “For God’s sake, at least put your pants back on! What’s the matter with you?”
     Gail looked down at herself.
     “I’m asking you again,” barked the man, “What’s the matter with you?”
     Gail felt her eyes vibrate in their sockets as her limbs tensed up. She pushed her pants down and stepped out of them, exposing her long, pale legs. She stepped towards the man with nothing more than her skimpy black panties covering her lower half.
     The man stepped back, holding up his hands as if he was trying to defend himself. Gail’s eyes became wide as she held up her hands, making them look like claws as she let loose a throat-scathing scream.
     The man’s eyes became wide as he froze in place, his face pale with panic. Gail took in a deep breath and shrieked again, shrieking even louder as she lunged at the man who turned and ran.
     Gail jumped up and down, waving her arms around as if she were a demented marionette, continuing to scream as loud as she could. The man and his entire family started running back to their car.
     As they quickly clambered into their black sedan, Gail dropped her arms and watched them drive away.
     She stood in place, her arms ather sides, as the car sped off.
     She put her pants back on and calmly walked back to her car.
     She sat, looking over the hillside of flat, metal grave markers, wondering if a police car might come combing through the cemetery soon.
     She got out her phone and texted Molly. “We need to organize a memorial for Scritch. Some kind of club or show and make it really fucked up.”
     Molly texted back a few minutes later. “Sounds good. We should get in touch with Crease.”
     “Fuck that bitch. I’ll organize it without her,” texted Gail as she got back in her car.