"Many people cannot refrain from picking up stones of a slightly unusual color or shape and keeping them, …. without knowing why they do. It is as if the stone held a mystery in it that fascinates them.
Men have collected stones since the beginning of time and have apparently assumed that certain ones were the containers of the the spirit of the life-force with all its mystery.”
- CARL GUSTAV JUNG
After a morning of defensive procrastination, Mark drove his girlfriend Cindy to an old cemetery so she could experience the Great New Orleans Snowfall of 2008. The freak weather gave him the day off while she was preparing for art finals. They descended the urban trench marking the white road as the green sedan crossed into the oncoming lane. Slush splattered between the driver’s side tires and the curb.
St. Louis Cemetery was fortified by 8-foot stone walls that shined in the noonday sun. The glossy perspiration trailing to the sidewalk. Beyond the gates’ threshold, soft layers of frozen rain enveloped the white tombs and grey statues. Mark bent over Cindy bracing her down the pathways of stone. She had light green eyes against a dark complexion and Irish curls. Cindy moved ahead of him, veering between above-ground tombs. The structures so close together the frost shaped a canopy. They breached the narrow passages between cold rock and religious vandalism: Xs chiseled and drawn next to beads, candles, and other offerings.
The diffusion of sunlight spread over the yard, the canopy dripping like a subterranean ceiling. An insulated hoody and lime jacket kept the broken layers of snow from soaking Cindy’s skin. As she dodged ahead of Mark more slush slid off the peaked crypts. His brown suede jacket became ridiculous with discolored wet splotches. He clenched it tighter over his snug cable-knit sweater, a bleached sunhat pulled tight to his scalp.
They entered the inner courtyard where the tombs were less suffocating and the view above them opened into a hovering vortex of evaporated ocean. The entire cemetery looked like a faded shipwreck: snow for sand, New Orleans the seabed. Cindy’s soggy sneakers passed against a derelict mausoleum where a black stone had been left and accidently launched it from the snow. With a clack the stone struck a stout pyramid and ricocheted into a depression on the ground, spinning until gravity caught up with it. She picked up the black stone and let it roll to the center of her palm. Snowflakes gathered like little crystals caught against the relic and her body. The weight of coldness heavy in her hand, she saw it was chipped. To feel the cold smoothness and find the rough, broken edge was jarring. Cindy’s mouth twisted to the corner of her face.
Mark was paces behind her leaning against a speckled mausoleum. Black streaks of rusty time ran frozen between the cracks of broken plaster. The ancient roots of trees had displaced the pathways and the Spanish moss obscured the sky. He noted the terribleness of the place and resolved never to let Cindy talk him into this again.
“Mark,” she held the stone up to his chin, “look at this.”
“Put it back Cindy-Lou,” he said.
Cindy’s green eyes glared and she shoved the stone into a jacket pocket.
“C’mon let’s go,” Mark said.
Cindy toed back, turned and raised her arms to the sky, spinning as she said, “You don’t get nostalgic here?”
“You talkin’ ‘bout that super warm Halloween when we jumped the gate?”
“We were so tore up I nearly let you fuck me,” she said.
Mark squinted and cocked his head, “I thought we did?”
“Ha – haah,” Cindy rolled her eyes and swiveled away from him.
Mark squinted at his wristwatch and rubbed his eyes, “put it back before we freeze to death.”
“Why do you think we came here, dude?” Cindy circled the tombs deducing the worth of any other trinkets that were there, “I need some voodoo for my project.”
“I’ll get some clay and you can make your own voodoo,” Mark said.
Cindy pushed passed him watching the ground.
“I do mixed media, Mark. You know this.” She said.
He followed her, brushing the slush walls with his sleeve, “I just don’t want to bring home any curses.”
“You’re a curse,” Cindy said.
“What about your camera? I just thought you could do pictures instead.” Mark’s cheeks were red and vapor trailed from his mouth.
“I thought you wanted to leave,” Cindy said giving him a ‘the-fuck-do-I-care’ look.
The car skirted the weathered roads as traffic roused mobile again. Cindy reclined in the passenger seat admiring the stone. Her thumb caressed the jagged edge as Mark tugged his seat belt. It kept scraping his neck so he unbuckled it. Cindy rested her legs on the dash and they both sighed, finally warm. The oldies station played a fuzzy pop song and they were silent for a few moments. Cindy’s eyes followed the turn to their apartment but Mark drove passed it.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she said.
“Yeah I know,” Mark said, “I got turned around looking at all the snow.”
He took a right on red and maneuvered through a medical parking lot.
“Christ,” Cindy said to herself as she took her feet off the dash and held her knees to her chin, “Jesus Christ.”
Mark took her exclamation as criticism and steered violently passed doctors’ suites.
“It’s not you,” Cindy said, “I’m gonna have a panic attack.”
“You what?” He swerved into a narrow alley for delivery trucks.
“Just get me outta here.” Her eyes were closed. Tears broke and she covered them.
He huffed and took a left. They were back on Claiborne Ave albeit the right direction this time. The car smelled like stale cigarettes. Mark didn’t smoke anymore and was very sensitive to the stench so he cracked a window. A book bag and clothes were askew in the back seat. A set of stapled papers began to rustle. Mark checked the rearview mirror but didn’t see anything to tend to Cindy’s tears. He watched her face anxious for an explanation.
+ + +
Mark helped Cindy up the slick stairwell and unlocked the apartment door. He began to ask her again, but Cindy waved him away. She hurried straight to the bedroom, into their bathroom, and shut the door. Mark went to the right of the apartment where the kitchenette was and rinsed out a glass. The light from the refrigerator illuminated the particles of dust that hovered over unopened bills and dirty plates. He mixed a drink and moved across the room to the large windows that were opposite the door. Mark opened the blinds and sat on the love seat facing a laptop upon a stack of books. He would’ve watched some videos but someone had turned the computer off and he didn’t feel like waiting for it to boot back up. Mark sipped his whisky and coke trying to hear if Cindy was still crying.
“Babe?” He took a long pull and exhaled with a satisfied hiss, “you all right in there?”
He could hear water running for a few moments and then it stopped. Dragging herself Cindy emerged, eyes puffy and looking at the floor. Mark took several fast sips and watched her. She did not say anything. He tapped his foot restlessly. She moved from the door frame and Mark extended his arm expecting her to sit next to him. Instead she sat at the bar that separated the kitchenette from the rest of the room. She was hunched over holding herself. The thumb of her right hand rubbing the cracked part of the black stone. She looked peaked and swayed on the tall barstool uncomfortably.
“Are you gonna throw up?”
“Please shut it for a second,” Cindy said.
Mark looked out the window, shaking his head so Cindy would see. He took another long sip from his glass and held it to the light. The three cubs were just corners of dissolving ice now.
“Already drinking?”
“What does it matter?” Mark said. He admired the amber reflections in his glass. He sucked what was left with a slurp, stood up slowly and moved passed Cindy almost brushing her. “You want one?”
“Hell no,” she said looking up for the first time, her lip snarling.
Mark put his glass down hard and poured more whisky, “Please tell me what the fuck I’m missing.” He slid the whiskey bottle against the wall carelessly so Cindy could see what a bitch she was being.
“I’m trying,” Cindy said.
She watched his back as he took ice from the freezer and poured what was left of the coke into his glass. She kept rubbing the stone. She wondered if she could rub it smooth in a few years.
“All right,” Mark said. He crushed the can with his hand and chucked it in the trash bin. Taking a swig, he noted how much stronger this drink was. He mouthed a silent OWW, and smiled within. He was buzzing good,
“I’m all ears, babe.”
+ + +
Outside Mark leaned against the cold stone wall of a neighboring building. He had filled an insulated coffee thermos with crushed ice and whiskey. He took a long drag from one of Cindy’s smokes and nearly reeled. He flicked the cigarette into the street where it vanished in the white. He shoved his hand in his jeans and gulped the drink. The cigarette and whiskey gave him a rush of warmth and the icy air kept his nausea at bay. He switched hands and let the other hand hide not necessarily getting warmer. Mark had decided it would look good to excuse himself. That showed he was in control of his emotions. Another part of him felt like trashing the apartment – maybe even shake her a little bit but that would be wrong. She had obviously kept this secret buried deep. Had she told one of her girlfriends? Probably, but what did it matter? She really seemed like she had completely forgotten about it until that moment he pulled into the parking lot where, apparently, an abortion clinic was tacked on behind a gynecologist’s office.
Mark was pretty drunk now. With a slight lean he looked like a junky scarecrow on Magazine Street. His sunhat drenched from the snow, his sweater bulging from below the last button of his jacket. Cindy was a good chick. Yes, he was pissed that she had done it without telling him, but so what? That kid would be 2 or 3 by now. Mark had thought of dumping Cindy’s ass at least once a month for the past year.
What would raising a kid with her have been like, he thought. Goddamn, if anything she saved my fucking life.
His self-righteous rage transmuted into gratitude and lovey-dovey discharges of dopamine. Then a rattle of ice hit the lid of his cup.
Out of whiskey. Goddamn. Need to get upstairs before I end up like my dead kid.
Mark shifted his weight to the other leg.
Jesus, Mark. Don’t ever think that again.
He had a rotten feeling that he wasn’t done processing this, but for now he was grateful for Cindy.
I am resolved to be a good man for my woman, he thought.
With a hooked finger he let the thermos dangle while the other fingers burned against the frozen handrail. He pulled himself up the stairs.
“Ooooh, I love mah woman,” he sang, “I am resolved no longer to mean her – be mean to her – be a shit head.”
He laughed.
Cindy was in bed facing the wall with her back to the door. She heard Mark try to quietly shuffle in.
Good. He thinks I’m asleep.
Mark’s heavy jacket landed in the corner of the room, his shoes pushed each other off and his pants hit the floor with the clank of a belt buckle still attached. His teeth were chattering as he slid under the sheets. Mark was naked and stunk. He wrapped his cold legs around Cindy. She was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and sweat pants. Maybe he would be asleep soon and she could leave. There was nothing here she wanted except that expensive Canon camera her dad had bought her last semester. His chin jabbed her shoulder and the whiskey/cigarette breath was overwhelming. She pulled the covers over her nose.
What was he thinking? Had he just gotten drunk so he wouldn’t have to think?
“I love you, babe,” Mark said. “I love you so much.”
He continued to mumble love, love like a warbled Van Morrison record.
Cindy was wide-eyed now. She looked at the black stone on her bedside table next to a smudged glass of water. That chip bothered her so much. She thought about leaving the stone behind but she feared it really was some kind of voodoo fetish that Mark could use, even subconsciously, to call her back. She took the stone and pushed it deep in to her soft pockets. His grip loosened and she shifted away from him.
I will leave him tomorrow, Cindy promised herself, but for now I will just sleep. Sleep in my bed one last time.
She watched the street lamps burst bright outside the bedroom window. The snow was like black tears in the electric orange light. Her thoughts dissolved to black gulf waters, mountains of cloud that broke into wisping snowfall streams. She dreamt of levees freshly blanketed by sticky precipitation. The tide licking the abyssal hill clean. With a twitch, her right leg jumped and the stone shifted, waking her. Her fingers touched its cold smooth surface and she clenched her fist around it, bringing her arm to her chest the stone resting in the notch of her neck.
One last time, she promised and fell back to sleep.
Text, illustration, and photographs by J. Alec Hawkins, April 2017.
