Cemetery

I am on the old porch again, scanning the bushes for a pair of yellow eyes. Beneath the omnipresent rumble of cars and trains shuttling around the nearby VA hospital, every now and then the faint rustle of lumbering claws appears, before disappearing again. Then the frantic search begins. As a child, I never left the safety of the porch, knowing whatever creature patrolled the bricked-in enclosure was roughly my size. I squint my eyes, looking for an outline in the darkness. Nothing except the lush complexion of tangled weeds stares back at me. I shudder, and leave the comfort of the enclosure.

The streets are flushed with garbage. Some of it loose, tumbling in the wind like so many artificial tumbleweeds. Others stuck like tartar between the lip of the curb and the gutter— routinely kicked from the curb and packed in by rain. A crow settles in and gets picking. His buddy watches from the lamppost above, accompanying the meal with a few coarse notes, lamenting the wet air, keeping watch. I stand watching them for a while, curious what prompts them to switch shifts. Every now and then, the watchbird’s chatting is cut short by an approaching car, and the feasting one scrams, returning shortly. I watch their ceremony unfold for a couple minutes before noticing the meal— a squirrel, now split open, its open casket of concrete being lined with the bushy fur of its tail. I stop watching after that. The air is thick with the distant ocean.

Navigating the streets, it seems not a whole lot has changed. The occasional regrettable vacancy. An ambitious development. More jarring and immediate than the background of constant moving vehicles is the work of the builders. Drills drill, hammers go ham and it sounds as if there is always the boop-boop-boop of a truck backing up. It’s hard to remember the last time I looked up and didn’t see the heads of cranes peeking over the crest of the skyscrapers. Not a whole lot has changed, in that this city seems to always be changing. I feel a relic, a keeper of the old blueprint— quite old. The wind snakes through the buildings and hisses in my face. I wrap my jacket tighter and press on. 

Some streets were suspiciously empty: others packed to the brim. I avoid the crowds, traveling through a labyrinth of my own making. I pass the old State House, where I used to gaze inside and wonder, stopping to read the inscription on the side for the fiftieth time. How many must die to warrant the title of Massacre? It always seemed dramatic— and just as this train of thought picks up where I left it— the granite tiles, peppered with gum and cigarette butts, turn deep red. The air cloys with the sickly smell of fallen bodies. A cemetery not too far away begins whispering to me. There are many cemeteries in this city— they’ve had a few centuries to fill them. 

The headstones are cracked and faded, some of them sunk so deep into the ground that only their foreheads are visible. Most of them have either a skull or an angel, sometimes both. Here and there are small clusters of them— families. The stones of the children are puny, nearly buried by the years. I hold their names in my mouth, and get a taste of the short sweetness of their lives. Were it not for the distance, I might have tasted some tears to go with them. The stones watch me. Their presence works a spell in the air so that whoever moves through them must move slowly, while the rest of the city blurs into a quilt of busy-ness. A dirt path guides me deeper into the sanctuary. I meander, meaning to turn around after each stone, but each in succession adds a name to my repertoire, another face in this changing city. I reach a grassy ledge where the path ends, and stare at the grass below. A few scattered stones here and there, but no way to tell what’s grass alone, and what is “the uncut hair of graves.” It all looks the same. Looking up this time, instead of cranes and the usual intrusion of metal, the white tip of the church is the only pin dropped in the sky. The bells aren’t moving at all, but I hear them ring.

My shoes slap the sidewalk descending to the waterfront. The roar of cars driving over the bridge mingles with the songs of seagulls. I approach the rail, scanning the land on the opposite side of the harbor, imagining my other self there, scanning me back, marveling at the sleek jungle set behind me. The sunlight is bold, prompting an arm to shade my face. With my other hand on the rail, I stroll along the waterfront, watching the gulls dance with the sun and spray. One of them lands on a buoy, bobbing gently, resting its wings. I envy the thought and take a seat myself, diverting my attention from the birds to the humans, also caught up in their little sunlit dance. Some of them hustle with bags full of objects of business, others stroll so vacantly one would expect them to stop moving at any moment. Some pass with a sandwich or burrito in their hand, and as quickly as the smell of melted cheese drifts across my nose, it’s gone. A man with a spotted white t-shirt and an awkward gait also drifts, smelling fouler than the breath of seagulls. Some families, visibly torn by the pressure to enjoy their time out, are making their way to the aquarium, a couple blocks out of sight. I feel a thread tug at my chest, suggesting to follow. 

Stepping into the lobby of the aquarium floods me with memories of a childhood I had forgotten. The wide open space and vaulted ceiling magnified every footstep and excited sound. I remember being that excited once, not even to be at the aquarium necessarily, but to be in a space this vast— to stretch my arms up and still be so hopelessly far from the ceiling. A couple of oversized crustaceans hang from thick wires above. Inside even further, the penguin enclosure welcomes visitors immediately. About a dozen of the fellas hang out on the rocks, while a few attract the bulk of the attention by swimming. I used to squeeze my way through the throng of folks and press my whole body against the glass, wishing I could swim with them. Once I never left, and my family made it around the entire aquarium before I noticed how much time had passed. Something about the miniature world behind the glass— like a train set, or a snow globe— made me want to live there, though there was neither sun nor any change of season. 

 The rest of the aquarium is how I remember it, or at least, how I expected to remember it. The sucker fish made its offensive public display, the octopus hid in a cave, likely overwhelmed by its limbs, and the starfish felt calloused and cold when I reached in the water to touch it. Moving around wistfully, I soon became tired and warm from the wet air and mass of bodies. I find a door leading to a balcony overlooking the ocean. A neat little stream of water independent of the sea rushes a few feet below the balcony, an ornate exhibit of modern engineering. Where the stream retreats back into the building, an albatross is perched, patiently waiting for some food to come swimming by. Heartbreaking. How long does it wait? I don’t stick around for the answer. I have done enough waiting of my own to know the answer: too long. Fed up with water, and now noticeably hungry, I leave the waterfront, wandering toward another hub of memories— Chinatown.

Most of it looks more unfamiliar now than it did even then— the dressed-up corpses hanging in the windows, the occasional fish-tank luring tourists inside, the dilapidated public housing for the elderly, a nearby methadone clinic, and a coffee shop on nearly every corner. The usual smell of garbage was lightly garnished with the faint, sweet smells of hot meals. Passing a sewer grate was particularly pungent. A stranger squawks for my attention but I keep moving, remembering what my father told me. You look friendly, he said, and others will take advantage of you. Eventually I reach the dingy little coffee shop I am searching for, aptly called “Coffee Shop.” Their “Big Buns”— stuffed with pork, egg, water chestnuts, and a couple other flavorfuls— used to be as big as my head. Cheap and effective, my father and I would eat here once a week, just the two of us. Mom didn’t like venturing into Chinatown very often, even if Coffee Shop was on the outskirts. She didn’t like going anywhere very much.

The kind woman behind the counter stuffs my plastic bag with a couple of sponge cakes— she was always doing stuff like that. I thank her and wave goodbye, walking determinedly toward the one location I have yet to visit. The peripheries of my journey start to darken, like the sky as the bottom rim of the sun disappears behind the horizon. Darkening, but still plenty of light by which to navigate. Shoving through a sudden gust of wind, crossing the intersection where I first took the stairs down to the subway, the same set of stairs I first climbed when our family moved here so many years ago. I look up at the same crooked buildings I looked up at then. This time, garish scaffolding blots the view, set up to catch crumbling bits of building. So much falling apart. I follow the panicked flock of pigeons swooping from the architectural pockets down toward the grass, taking a seat on a bench beside them. The air clots with the sounds of perpetual motion. I sit very still, unnoticed. The sun is now gone, the grass whistles, and the night sky, tinted orange from the glow of the city, hold a big pair of yellow eyes.