Tombstone Read Free Page A

ended their short relationship.
    Jerry had never forgotten the beautiful blonde, and he knew what a difficult decision it had been for Gertie to tell him that he had a son.   Susanne was independent, and it had cost her dearly to take care of Jerald on her own.   The love for her showed in the young boy’s face, and it was obvious that no matter what faults Susanne had, she had done a good job by their son.   Susanne tended to be self-centered and impetuous, and Jerry was overwhelmed when he learned that she had chosen to name the boy after him.   Instead of a flat brass plaque marking her grave, Jerry was designing the headstone for Susanne from a unique marble slab he had kept covered in his studio for years.
    Gertie had always known who Jerald’s father was, but she respected Susanne’s wishes not involve him with her son.   Susanne clung to Jerald as if their relationship was a tenuous lifeline, making the rest of her world a necessity that was bearable.   When she died, Gertie knew she could not raise the boy by herself.   Her heart was breaking when she placed the call to Jerry, knowing that she risked losing the boy as well as her best friend.   “Are you going to take him from me, Jerry?” Gertie asked.
    “No,” Jerald cried, and he pulled away from the man and hugged his aunt, his thin shoulders heaving with his sobs while she ran her fingers through his hair.
    “What room are you in, Gertie?” Jerry asked in a hushed voice.
    “Five… with one foot in the ally.”   Gertie began crying softly again, when she realized Suzanne would no longer be there to help defend their position.
    “It might work out for all of us if we all just kinda’ stay together,” Jerry suggested.   “I gotta’ big enough place, Gertie, and you could do worse.   It would certainly be the best we could do for the boy.”
    Gertie left the club and they moved into the caretaker’s house with Jerry.   The man showed Jerald a stack of notebooks he kept on a shelf by the fireplace.   They contained the obituaries of every person he had buried and made a headstone for, and Jerald calmed considerably about living on the edge of the graveyard.   He would walk up to the graves and introduce himself, and tell the person he knew their past.   It seemed less frightening knowing the person beneath the ground had families and jobs, and accomplishments they had managed while they were alive.   To Jerald, the dead were still in a twilight area where he could know them.
    Jerald put fresh flowers on his mom’s grave every day, and he spoke to her while he groomed the weeds from beside her memorial.   Living in the cemetery isolated him from having many friends at school.   It was just too creepy for them to accept, and the tall brooding boy with the unnaturally pale blue gaze seemed better suited walking among the tombstones rather than the halls of their school.   Jerald did not mind.   Due to his mother’s profession, he had always been alone… except for his mom and Aunt Gertie.   Now, he had a father, and his dad began to teach him how to engrave headstones.   By the time Jerald was in high school, he could etch them almost as well as his dad.   After Jerald graduated, it never crossed his mind to do anything else.
    Sometimes, Aunt Gertie walked through the cemetery with him, and when they talked about his mom she would tell him that Susanne had also been an artist.   Gertie never would have told him that if she had known what Jerald would do next.   On his eighteenth birthday, he went back to the old club.   Jerald wanted to see what the mannequins in the torn outfits did in the back rooms.
    A big black man named Jude guarded the hall leading to the mysterious area.   Jerald was surprised at how much he had to pay him just to be put on a waiting list.   Jude told him to sit at a table, and he would tell him when it was his turn.
    Jerald’s eyes widened when he watched the fully covered mannequins approach at