"Do you remember what we used to call him?" Shannie asked. A stuffy silence filled the air as I tried to remember. "Come on, let's take a walk," Shannie said. "He was a soldier," Shannie told me as the three of us trudged into the cemetery. The smell of burning leaves hung in the air as Ellie sniffed about a tombstone.
"Count!" I nearly shouted. "We called him Count! He broke a kid's leg once for calling him Cunt. God, I remember that. Jesus, he was so pissed. Everybody was afraid of him. I remember when he kicked another kid's head into a locker. He was mean. But he was cool, way cool. You had to know him."
"Stay." Shannie yanked on Ellie's leash. Ellie pulled hard against Shannie's grip. Wordlessly Shannie encouraged me to continue.
"We used to play football right here. God, I can remember the day he clobbered me. We were racing or something and he blindsided me," I babbled, the words racing off my tongue. "Freight trained me, God how that hurt; my head hurts thinking about it."
Shannie led me towards a gaggle of tombstones aside the main body. "Oh my God," I laughed. "Do you remember when we lost that body?" My words couldn't keep pace with the avalanche of memories. "Or the time he got arrested? That was too much. Who were those two girls that left him out in the middle of nowhere?" I laughed, my eyes blurred with tears.
Shannie stopped. Directly in front of us sat a modest granite tombstone. "Do you remember how he died?"
"Who?" I asked.
"Count." Shannie answered.
An invisible hand slapped my face. "He's dead?"
"Read the tombstone."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I told you in Valley Forge."
"Really? I think I forgot. I mean I thought you meant someone else."
"Who?" Shannie questioned.
"Like, I don't know." I answered, fidgeting. "I just didn't think you meant him," I avoided Shannie's gaze.
A silence fell between us, broken by the prattle of passing traffic. I felt as raw and gray as the November day. "Don't you remember any of it?" Shannie asked.
"Any of what?"
"How Count was killed?"
I shook my head. "Maybe, but, I don't know. I don't think so."
We walked back towards Shannie's house. From the side porch of the old church an elfish woman stared at us before slipping back inside. It wasn't until I was in bed at the rehab did I realize the woman's name was Flossy and that she was Count's mother. Although exhausted, sleep was elusive, when it finally came it was deep and dreamless.