Cemetery Crawl

Kevin rested his back against the wrought iron fence and stared up at the
orange and red swirls in the sky. He frowned. Next to his feet on the cracked
sidewalk lay his backpack. He had grown tired of carrying it when the wait
exceeded 30 minutes. Hands in his pockets, the right desperately clutching his phone.

Vibrate, he pleaded. Vibrate, you stupid bitch phone.

But the phone remained lifeless in his pocket. Kevin continued to stare up at the fading sky and weighed his options. He could call someone in the group. Jacqueline, maybe? He had always gotten along best with her. Well, besides Josh.

No, he decided after a moment. They either come or they don’t. And if they don’t, well, to hell with them, he’d simply have the adventure on his own.
He took one hand out of his pocket and raised it behind his shoulder, so his
fingers could wrap around one of the fence pickets. The touch of iron on his
palm felt good, cool. It reminded him of many hazy nights of debauchery they’d had since meeting in college. He scanned the area in front of
him. There were twelve different cemeteries in the neighborhood and he could count three in his sightline alone, not including St. Patrick Cemetery No. 1, which stood behind the wrought iron bars he was resting upon. That was supposed to be the first stop of the night. He gripped the picket harder and swung to the right, turning into the fence, so he was now
facing St. Patrick’s. He looked in with an excited longing as he saw the numerous tombs
rising proudly out of the ground of the graveyard, each one soaking in that magical glow
that only New Orleans sunsets could produce.
We should be in there right now, Kevin thought with growing frustration, we
should be in there telling the first story, basking in the glow and the morbidity and the
fun, just like we do every year.
Well, maybe not every year, his mind corrected him, taking him back to a
previous crawl years ago, when everyone had shown up on time except for Josh. After a
while they all just assumed Josh had decided not to show up, so they started without
him. But then, as they made their way through the first cemetery, Josh popped out from
behind one of the headstones with a terrific roar and scared the crap out of them. Kevin
could still picture Sara jumping three feet back, smacking her head right into Robert’s
drink, spilling it all over his shirt and pants, causing Josh to let out his trademark donkey
laugh. God, that was a fun crawl.
Maybe his friends were all inside there now, he thought hopefully, hiding behind
the tombs, waiting for Kevin to come in and surprise him. But of course, he chided himself, that was just wishful thinking. His friends weren’t hiding from him, they weren’t here at
all, they were late. Perhaps on purpose, he thought. Perhaps, despite their promises,
they didn’t want to come this year after everything that had happened.
The thought hurt his heart. He decided to go over his story again. He already
knew it backwards and forwards but he needed a distraction before his mind took him to
a dark place.
And what better distraction than the tale of a lifetime? It had taken months of scouring
the libraries, digging up old newspapers, and sifting through endless record books to find
the perfect story. Not to mention the additional three weeks of preparing and rehearsing
to make sure he could nail the delivery. But he had it now, and damn it was good. It
would blow the whole group away, he had no doubt about that.
The ending was his favorite part. He could see it so clearly in his mind. It was
1864, and the bloody and battered Confederate general Winfield Joseph Cody was
making his way through the murky swamp water, burning with fury. His men had left him
for dead, the mutinous bastards, but he didn’t die so easy. And now it was time to exact
his revenge. He came upon their secret swamp house around midnight, and waited
patiently in the dark until the sounds of drunken merrymaking from inside quieted. Then he entered the swamp house with his trusty hatchet in hand. He came
upon the first slumbering man he saw and slowly lifted the hatchet up above the traitor’s
head. A bloody smile drew upon the general’s lips and the hatchet seemed to move all
on its own…
“Everything okay, Kevin?”
Kevin came out of his trance to find Robert and Jacqueline approaching him,
smiling. Jacqueline’s smile was kind and delighted, while Robert’s was more of a
mocking smirk. Kevin looked down and realized he was no longer leaning against the
fence but in the middle of the sidewalk, his legs spread in a strideful stance, the fingers
and thumb of his right hand touching each other, forming a circle holding an imaginary
hatchet. He blushed. He had been acting out his thoughts again, which he had always
done, but seemed to be happening more and more these days, and he didn’t know why.
“Do you want us to leave?” Robert said in a tone of feigned concern. “If you’re
having a private moment, we can always come back later.”
Kevin lifted his middle finger towards Robert, but could feel his face growing hotter.
“Oh, shut up, Robert,” Jacqueline reproached her boyfriend. “Clearly, he just got
bored because we took forever to get here.” She turned to Kevin, still smiling warmly.
“We didn’t mean to take so long, we got held up at the house.” She took her eyes off him
to look over the area. “The rest haven’t arrived either?”
Kevin shook his head, grateful to get off the subject of his weird behavior.He opened his mouth to ask Jacqueline if she had heard from the other two,
when he noticed something that gave him pause. Backpacks. Neither of them were
wearing them. His own was still resting against the fence, filled with the requisite
materials for the night. What he was seeing was totally a breach in proper Crawl
Protocol.
“Where are you guys’ backpacks?” He asked with more anger than he meant to.
Jacqueline gave him a pained look while Robert remained unreadable.
“We decided,” Robert began, “that perhaps it would be in poor taste to include
that element in the crawl this year.” He put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “You
understand.”
Kevin fought the urge to smack the hand away.
“Hey, guys.” A tiny new voice announced itself behind him.
Kevin turned to find Sara. He was so surprised by the sight of her that he almost
did a double-take. Sara had always been one of the more hippy-dippy members of the
group: vocal about her spirituality, the power of Mother Earth and all that, but now she
looked like a full-blown flower child in a bad movie about the sixties. She was wearing a
tan sundress that was covered in multicolored roses. Her feet were strapped in pale pink
Birkenstocks and her face was mostly hidden under too-large pink sunglasses and a
floppy purple hat. All she was missing was a damn flower in her hair. But at least, Kevin
noted, she was wearing a backpack. Thank god for that, even if it was made of some
Organic free range fair trade hemp product.
“Sara!’ Jacqueline squealed. “You look amazing!”
Sara thanked Jacqueline while Kevin doubted her words. Jacqueline and Kevin
both loved Sara, but they did enjoy playfully mocking her wardrobe. This seemed like an
insincere display to him, which wasn’t like Jacqueline at all.
After greetings were made, Kevin gave Sara the news. “Jacqueline and Robert
didn’t bring their backpacks, they thought it’d be a bad idea this year.”
He was hoping to get some sort of outcry from Sara over this, but instead she
nodded understandingly. “Yeah, I get it. I actually considered that too, but then I thought, ‘Ah what the heck, that’s what the cemetery crawls are all about.’ ”
“Exactly!” Kevin replied, again with a bit more venom than intended.
“Well, I mean,” Jacqueline spoke up. “I’m sure there’s enough to go
around if we change our minds…”
“No, Jackie, don’t let him guilt trip you. We’re doing the right thing.” Robert said.
Kevin waited for Jacqueline to call out Robert for referring to her as Jackie, something
she had always hated, but to his surprise she remained silent.
“Did somebody say a cemetery crawl! Oh shit! Let’s get twisted!”
The familiar voice echoed down the street towards them. Kevin saw Chris’s head
bob up and down in the distance. The fifth and, now, last member of the group had
arrived.
“Who’s ready to have some fucking fun tonight!?” Chris continued to bellow
unnecessarily as he approached the group.
“Chris, you mind not broadcasting that?” Robert asked. “You know very well
we’re not supposed to be doing this.”
For once, Kevin agreed with Robert. Not that he cared about people knowing
what they were doing. Sure, technically the cemeteries were closed at night, which
meant, technically, they were breaking the law. But this was New Orleans for Christ’s
sake, and things like that were never enforced in this city. Hell, half of the cemeteries
didn’t even bother to lock the gates after sundown. No. What annoyed Kevin was Chris’s
never-ending quest to be the loudest and most boorish brute in any gathering. Chris was an
aspiring comic who did stand-up in the clubs and bars in the city. Kevin had seen his act
numerous times. It seemed very obvious to him that Chris’s comic hero and influence
was the large, dead namesake comedian, Chris Farley. But this Chris
was not a fat man, and it seemed he tried to make up for that by being twice as loud and
crass as necessary.
“Sorry, oh fearless leader,” Chris replied to Robert. “I forgot how serious this
was.”
“It’s gonna be serious if we end up in jail tonight,” Robert shot back.
“Alright, alright,” Jacqueline interjected, “let’s not start out this way.”
“Yes,” Kevin agreed, “this is supposed to be fun.”
“And a remembrance,” Sara added.
“Yes,” Kevin responded. “Of course. That too.”
A silence fell upon the group. Kevin recognized the silence. It started eight
months ago and seemed to follow them everywhere, casting a pall of nothingness on
everything.
“OK, so let’s get this thing started,” Chris said abruptly. “Who’s going first?”
“You are, idiot.” Kevin said in such an unnecessarily severe tone that it managed
to get a laugh from everyone.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Chris answered back. “Just messin’ with you guys. Keepin’
you on your toes.” He lifted his hands above his head as he said this last bit, shaking
them wildly like those dancing balloon men in front of car dealerships.
“Alright, Chris.” Robert said. “Lead the way.”
“Certainly, sir!” He said, performing another round of crazy hand gestures.
“Follow me, people!”
The heavy iron gate creaked open like a sound effect from a horror movie, and
Kevin felt a surge of adrenaline pump through him. A return to the good times, he
thought, glancing around his group as they sneaked into the graveyard. They had all
met in college eight years ago. Aside from Josh, all of them were transplants, hailing
from one coast or the other. They became a clique over time, as things tend
to happen in college. They had all talked about moving out of New Orleans after
graduation, going on to live glamorous lives in larger cities that held more opportunity.
And yet, they continued to live in this silly swamp well after school ended. This place
had a hold on them like flypaper. The real world could wait another year. And then
another. And another. Some of them got jobs as bartenders or waiters, others indulged
in more serious fare like paralegal work, but thanks to the infrastructure of the city, none of
this affected their social lives much. And of course, no matter what, they never missed
that one night in October, when the cemeteries became their playgrounds.
Chris led them down the main thoroughfare of the cemetery before turning off
one of the narrow alleys that were wedged in between rows of tombs. Kevin
imagined the lids of the tombs popping off as he passed them, and zombies
with rotting flesh coming out of their enclosed stone cages to attack the
uninvited guests. Kevin’s hands gripped the air, holding a shotgun that wasn’t there,
ready to fire, with no qualms about putting the undead down for good with one blast to
the head.
Chris stopped at the end of the alley and reached into his backpack, pulling out a
flashlight. He ran the light over a couple of headstones before stopping on one that was
particularly chipped and cracked. The words engraved on the stone were sparse and
gave little information. It read:

                  Timothy Grant
   Born 1945 - Died 1983

To Kevin’s surprise, Chris retrieved a piece of paper from his pocket and began to it read
aloud.
“Here lies Timothy Grant, also known as the bathtub killer. From 1975 ‘til his
death in ‘83, he would pick up girls at bars around the city, drug them, and then while
they were in a comatose stupor, drown them in a bathtub that he had set up in his
garage. In journal entries the police would later find, he claimed he would drown them so
he could wash off the stench of their “evil female tendencies,” so they could go to
Heaven as pure as any man. He died October 13th in 1983, when an officer responded
to reports of odd smells coming from under Timothy’s house. He caught Timothy off
guard, who immediately pulled a revolver out of his pants pocket and fired at the officer.
The officer was hit in the leg and shoulder, but was still able to squeeze off three rounds,
each one hitting Timothy in the chest. Timothy Grant was pronounced dead by the time
backup arrived. Nine corpses would later be discovered buried under his house, all of
them young women.”
Kevin fumed as Chris read his story. He couldn’t believe it. What a waste of a
great story. The lazy bastard, he hadn’t even bothered to memorize it. Kevin had
worked on his for months, and this jackass couldn’t even recite his off the cuff? And
where were the jokes? He was a comic after all, right? Hell, he would have preferred
Chris’s usual loud and obnoxious style over this dull and lifeless one. And this was the
story that was supposed to set the tone of the night? Good God.
And what about the rest of the group? He wondered. Generally, it was
encouraged to jump in with a quip or a joke when someone was performing. Impressions
of the people were also welcomed. But they all just stood there solemnly, as if they had
actually known Timothy Grant and his victims. Not even Jacqueline said anything, and
she lived for mocking awful men who treated women like shit. But she, and everyone
else, had remained silent. Not a good sign. He prayed that the next step on the agenda
would lighten the mood.
“Alright Chris, so what do you got for us?” Kevin said, clapping his hands
Together.
“Well,” he replied as he opened his backpack. “Considering that ol’ Timothy here
did his naughty business in the bathtub,” he took out a bottle of clear liquid, along with a
number of plastic cups, “I went ahead and got some authentic bathtub gin.”
“Gin?” Jacqueline said with a grimace. “Ugh, glad I’m not drinking then.”
Kevin shot her a mean glance, and she made a face of regret. Robert caught this
interaction, and narrowed his eyebrows at Kevin.“Better take it easy on the gin, Kevin, you don’t want to mess yourself up like that one year.”
This got a chuckle from the group, and Kevin knew they were only seconds away
from Robert retelling the story for the millionth time. So he jumped in first, telling it before
Robert could. At first he did it just out of spite, depriving Robert of the pleasure, but once he
got into it he started to enjoy himself. It had been four years, right after
Graduation, and it was the last stop of the tour. Josh had just finished up a story and like Chris, he had also chosen gin as his drink, as that was the drink of choice of the man in his story.
But before handing out the shots, Josh tried to convince the group that a double shot of
gin was in order. His argument was sound, Kevin remembered, because the man in
question had been a farmer, a farmer who had killed his own lawyer with a double barrel
shotgun after losing his case against the county, thus losing his farm. Double barrel
meant double shots, as Josh put it. None of the others would go for it, but Kevin was
never one to back down from a challenge, and so he and Josh indulged themselves.
And that’s when Cemetery Crawl history was made when the two of them vomited at the
exact same time, all over everyone’s shoes.
The cemetery erupted with laughter as Kevin came to the dramatic conclusion. A
broad smile formed on his face. For the first time that night, he was having fun. Maybe
this night would work out after all.
“Alright, onto the next one,” Robert said after the three that were drinking
finished their gin. “Sara, I believe you’re up.”
“Yup!” She squeaked. “Follow me people. Put on your hiking boots, we’re going
all the way to Saint Patrick Cemetery No. 2!”
This was a lame joke of course, as St. Patrick Cemetery No. 2 was adjacent to
St. Patrick Cemetery No. 1, no more than a two minute walk. Kevin never much
cared for Sara’s corny jokes, but now he was especially annoyed. Not so much at the
joke itself but at what it implied. The best part of the Cemetery Crawl was usually in the
journey itself. That’s when the best times were had. Like when Josh came across that
raccoon and tried to wrestle it. But if Sara’s turn was any indicator, these guys would be
picking cemeteries right next to each other for the whole night, as if they were trying to
get this over with as fast as possible. The jerks.
“Easy, Kevin.” He heard Jacqueline say from behind. He came out of his trance
and looked down and saw his hand was in a fist, a fist that had probably been punching
the air in front of him a few seconds ago without him even realizing. Stupid. He felt
Jacqueline give his shoulder a squeeze, which made him feel better. She knew his
quirks better than anyone else in the group and seemed to appreciate them more than
anyone else, as well.
“We’re gonna have a great time,” she told him. “I just know it.”
They entered the sequeled Irish Cemetery and immediately hooked a left under
Sara’s guidance. They came to a stop between two extravagant mausoleums. Or at
least, they had once been extravagant. The ravages of time and weather had chipped
away at them, rendering them lost relics of a forgotten era. Each stood a
good ten feet high with their own crowning ornaments: one had a full-sized buck deer,
made of granite, the other had an entire flight of stairs going into the air, presumably
towards Heaven. Kevin had passed these mausoleums countless times since he moved
into the neighborhood, and he always marveled at them. What other city would have
such monuments to death?
“So, I know this is against the rules and whatever,” Sara said as she took off one
strap off her backpack and swung it around her body so the opening faced her, “but I
was thinking I could mix it up a bit, and we could all have a drink before I tell the story.”
The suggestion was met with intrigued nodding, and Kevin began to feel excited.
Had Sara found the story behind one of these amazing mausoleums? He had tried to do
that in the past but had always failed. Perhaps she had succeeded where he had not.
Either way, she must have something pretty great up her sleeve if she was willing to
dismiss Proper Crawl Protocol. Perhaps her story would be just as great as the one he
would be telling. If so, that would turn this year’s crawl from a disaster to possibly one of
the best in its history. His hope only grew when she brought out from her backpack
three different types of liquor.
“Bourbon, rye whiskey, and, get ready for it, absinthe,” she told them as she lifted
each bottle up. Having bartended for a short time down in the Quarter, Kevin already
knew the drink before she said it. Sazerac. A drink similar to an old fashion that had
been invented in New Orleans. A staple of the city, in fact.
The group made an audible exclaim of approval, with even Robert chiming in.
“Way to go the extra mile, Sara,” he told her. Then pausing for a moment before
looking toward Jacqueline, “What do you say, Jacqueline?”
Kevin watched her as she pretended to mull it over. “Well, she’s been lugging
those bottles around the whole time, so it’s seems rude not to indulge.”
Kevin could have kissed his hippy friend right then.
Jacqueline aided Sara in the mixing of each drink carefully, while the others
discussed the last time they had a Sazarac. It had been a while for all of them.
When they clinked glassess, Kevin toasted Sara a hero while she blushed. And
then, while the rest of the group enjoyed their drinks, the hero began her story.
“For the last few months, I’ve been struggling to find the right story. During
my research, nothing seemed to appeal to me. I decided to come here and take a walk
through the cemeteries one Sunday morning, hoping for inspiration. My walk led me right
to this spot, in front of these two grand mausoleums. I took a moment to appreciate the
wondrous sight, and I accidentally dropped my bottle of water. When I bent down to pick
it up, I noticed a flower. This ordinary but beautiful white flower growing in the grass. And
as I looked at it, this strong wind suddenly came and ripped the flower from its roots, and
I watched it die. But then, fly away. It flew up and out of the cemetery, and out of my life.”
She stopped here, giving a look to the others to indicate she was done.
Kevin bit his lip.” Are you fucking kidding me?” he wondered. “All that build up for a
goddamn flower?”
“That was very nice, Sara.” Jacqueline said. Kevin gave her a wild look as if to
suggest that they must have listened to two different stories.
“Yeah, I enjoyed it, too.” Chris added. “It was different. And it was, I don’t know,
hopeful.”
“What’s hopeful about a dead flower in the wind?” Kevin exclaimed.
“I’m so glad you guys feel that way,” Sara said, ignoring Kevin’s question.
“Because I feel that flower represents me. You see, I’ve decided I’m going to move. I’m
leaving New Orleans. For a while now, even before Josh, I felt stuck here, stagnant.
Doing the same things the same way. And now I feel like the wind has come to rip me
away from what I’ve come to know, to someplace different. And like that flower, I hope it
takes me to interesting places.”
Nobody spoke after this. What was there to say, Kevin thought, she wasted her
story on the death of some random insignificant flower that she saw as a sign for her to
leave the city she’d lived in for eight years. What do you say to that?
“That’s great, Sara,” Robert said. “I’m really happy for you.”
“Yeah, that’s super awesome.” Jacqueline added.
“Very cool, excited to see where you’ll end up.” said Chris.
“Well, Congratulations. ” Kevin said, feeling compelled to say something. “To be
honest, I’m just surprised it’s you leaving first and not these two.” He pointed at Robert
and Jacqueline. “I guess Jacqueline’s love for this dysfunctional haven is still too strong
for even Robert to break.” Kevin watched Jacqueline look to the ground, and then
noticed Robert staring him dead in the eyes.
“Actually, Kevin,” Robert said, “Jackie and I are moving to Houston in about nine
weeks. We weren’t planning on announcing it during the crawl, but… we leave in
January.”
Kevin’s eyes moved back to Jacqueline, begging her to tell him this was not true.
But her eyes held no good news.
“Yeah,” she finally spoke up, “you guys know Robert and I want to raise a family
in the future, and you have to admit, New Orleans isn’t the best place to do that.”
“Statistically speaking, it’s one of the worst,” Robert piled on.
Kevin visualized his fist going through Robert’s face, punching a hole right
through that stupid arrogant brain of his, and his body dropping to its knees.
“Well, this is funny,” Chris blurted out. “I’m actually moving too, after Mardi Gras. To Los Angeles. You know, more opportunity for comics over there and all.”
For the second time that night, Kevin thought he might throw up. That feeling
only intensified when he realized everyone was staring at him now, as if they were
expecting him to complete this idiotic chain of statements of abandonment. Instead, he
turned mean.
“So that’s it, huh? One dead friend and we all tuck our tails between our legs and
run away?” Kevin waited for someone to reply, but when it became clear no one would, he
crossed his arms and looked away from the group.
“Kevin, please.” Jacqueline pleaded. “Don’t be like that. Houston isn’t even that
far away. We can come-”
“No, Jackie. Don’t baby him.” Robert interrupted. “If he can’t handle this as an
adult then that’s on him.”
Again, Kevin put his middle finger on display.
“Okay, guys, let’s just stop all this fighting,” Chris said with a sigh. “Who’s next?”
“He is,” Kevin said through clenched teeth, looking right at Robert. “And yours
better be good, Robert, because I go after you and I can promise you that mine is going
to completely destroy your story in every way. It’ll be so good, you’ll be embarrassed you
wasted our time with yours.”
“That’s great, Kevin.” Robert retorted before addressing the group. “All right guys,
we’re going to Holt!”
The walk to Holt cemetery was a quiet one. Kevin led the charge, even though
technically it should have been Robert to do so, it was his story. But no one else in the
group dared to bring this up. Kevin seemed to have checked out.
In his own mind, Kevin had become a general. Much like the Confederate
general in his own story, he was dealing with a mutiny. Oh yes, that was undeniable. A
mutiny that seemed to be leading to the end of their group, an end of the Crawl, an end
of an era. And he simply couldn’t allow that. As a general, as a leader of men, it was up
to him to pull his men back to the light. No hatchet would be used, just a brilliant
reminder of why this city was like no other city, and why they couldn’t leave it. Kevin
knew his story would be enough. If he performed it well enough, it would be enough to
pull them back. The general would win this one.
By the time the group reached Holt cemetery the collective mood seemed to
perfectly match the aesthetic. Holt was one of the poorest cemeteries in the city,
possibly the state. Its crumbling conditions had even become part of its attraction. It was
a cemetery that contained generations of the city’s poorest blacks. The tombs
themselves were actually below ground, but only a few feet, making the surface
of the area look like a field of playground sandboxes with crosses sticking out of them.
The group hadn’t visited Holt in a few years because most of the destitute people buried inside
had died so long ago, so retrieving information on them had proven
exceedingly difficult. But Robert seemed to know exactly where he was going. Kevin
crooked an eyebrow, suspicious about whatever he was planning. To his surprise,
Robert lead them to a grave that looked fresh, complete with a shiny metal cross with a
name and date engraved:

Andre Gales
Born 1994- Died 2017

“Here lies Andre Gales,” Robert began. “He died a young man. He was born into
poverty over in the Ninth ward, into a family that never had much in the way of
opportunity or luck. His father’s best friend was the bottle, and his best punching bag
was his wife. Andre dropped out of school after the fifth grade, and soon joined a gang.
He spent the next ten years in and out of jail. On a cool summer night of this year at the
age of twenty three, he got into a fight with a stranger in a bar at four in the morning,
pulled out a knife and stabbed and killed the stranger. He fled before the cops were able
to arrest him. Three months later, he was shot and killed by a security guard while trying
to rob a convenience store.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kevin blurted out. The rest of the group let out a noise of surprise.
“You took us to Josh’s killer’s grave?!”

“Don’t be silly,” Robert responded. “You know perfectly well that Josh’s killer has
never been found. I’m simply telling a story that’s remarkably similar. And you wanna
know why, Kevin? Because these stories are a dime a dozen in this town. This city, this
dysfunctional fucking city, breeds hopeless people with every new generation, and they
go out and live tragic lives because they have no choice. And people like us don’t care
until it finally affects us. That’s the problem. That’s the problem with us. That’s the
problem with the city. And that’s the problem with this cemetery crawl. We ignore the
tragedy at our feet so we can morbidly celebrate the spectacular stories. Honestly, in
what other city would this seem even remotely okay other than New Orleans? In what
other city would this not be considered incredibly disrespectful? Which is what this is.
This is sick. This city is sick. And if Josh’s death isn’t enough to clue you in on that fact,
then I don’t know what to tell you. Just keep being drunk and disgraceful.”
Drunk and disgraceful. Kevin let the words stew around in his brain while Robert
continued his little speech. “Now, while I have no drink to offer, I do have a request. That
we admit as a group that the cemetery crawl is not- ”
A tight fist cut off the rest of Robert’s request, and his head shot back from the
impact. Kevin felt like he was watching himself outside of himself. Somewhere in the
distance he felt the hot pain of his knuckles and heard the faint cry of Jacqueline. He no
longer felt in reality, but he also knew this was no daydream. He had actually
punched Robert. The punch had not created a hole through his head, unfortunately, and
Kevin prepared for impact as Robert charged at him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” His first blow landed directly into Kevin’s
stomach, knocking all the wind out of him. The second was a left hook that landed flush
against his right eye, which made his feet give out from under him. Robert towered
above him, seemingly contemplating a third strike, before Chris jumped between them
and Jacqueline pulled her boyfriend away.
“He started it!” Robert shouted at her. “He always starts it!”
“You started it!” Kevin countered from the ground. “You’re trying to ruin
everything!”
He held his stomach in great pain; breathing did not come easy. Chris bent over and
tried to calm him down while Jacqueline did the same for Robert. Sara stood at a
distance, not looking at anyone in particular, trembling terribly. Kevin tuned the world out
and lay down full spread on the pavement. His eye felt like it was dangling out of its
socket, and his stomach seemed to be vibrating with pain. He closed his eyes and
pretended he was somewhere far away.
“Kevin,” he finally heard a soft voice come out that he recognized as Chris. “Are
you okay? Robert, Jacqueline, and Sara left. They got an Uber. I think the night
may be over, Kevin.”
“Nothing’s over,” Kevin said, “before I tell my story.” He turned over on his belly
and put his palms to the ground, pushing himself up in a slow, painful manner. Once on
his feet, he suddenly smiled and no longer seemed to notice Chris.
Kevin looked around, still smiling, as he realized that punch had sent
him four cemeteries back, past the Masonic cemetery and the two St. Patrick cemeteries, all the way to Metairie Lawn, right in front of the general’s grand mausoleum. What a great
stroke of luck. And as he looked around, he saw his friends had returned to him, even
Robert, who was smiling at him the way he used to back when they were in college.
Back when they both enjoyed fun in the same way. Hell, even Josh was there. And he
was busting balls the way he always did, making everyone crack up. And at Josh’s
behest, Kevin began his story. And the entire group became enchanted, waiting at the
edge of their seat to see what would happen to the general and his traitorous men. Once
he was done, they demanded an encore, a cemetery crawl first! And so he gave them
one, and as he retold the story for the second time, he felt the loud energy in the group.
An energy that seemed to scream: this is the best city in the world, and we can live here
forever and always have fun.
Somewhere in the distance, Kevin heard the faint sound of Chris calling out to him.

The End