Catharsis

Set for his shift, a man just shy of sixty came out of the shed, rake in hand and with dirt on his trousers. He lit a lantern and headed on his way down through the rows of headstones. He’s a simple man with a simple task: keep the grounds clean and be out by dawn. As simple as any other night on the job.

At the gate of the west entrance, tires scrape against the gravel as a car pulls past. It stays for a moment, not daring to move; moments later, the engine turns off, and the headlights flicker, leaving nothing but the ever-absorbing darkness to return to the grounds. Inside the car sits a woman, no, a girl, no older than twenty but with what seems to be a lifetime of fighting weighing her down. She stares out into the graves, eyes showing nothing but a yearning for something lost. That look is common in a cemetery, but her late arrival? Not so much, the groundskeeper thought. Still, he kept to himself and let her be.

The girl had finally stepped out of her vehicle, moving at a pace seen only on death row. Each step taken took longer than the last, and only three paces in she stumbled across an epitaph; with no true promptness, she looked at the weathered stone. 

A true friend, she read. She wondered how many “true friends” were in the cemetery; even so, the three words were enough to send her into her own idea of defining the phrase.

§§§           §§§           §§§

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in there,” a blonde girl said to her. 

Tommy Grose’s house was the place to be on a Friday night. The music was loud, lights were flashing, and people were moving with such vigor you’d have thought they were on fire. 

“No, it’s fine. I was actually on my way out.” With the words came jolted movement. She didn’t have balance, it seemed. 

“Whoa, hey, are you okay?” 

“She’s fine, just too much to drink. I always tell her she’s a lightweight, but she doesn’t listen, do you Sarah?” a boy replied, Sarah’s boyfriend-to-be at the time. 

“Tommy, I don’t think she’s doing so-”

“JJ, she’s fine. I’ll just take her up to my room to come down.” It wasn’t uncommon for someone to overdrink at a Grose party, but the way he was fighting for her to stay just didn’t sit right with JJ. Progressing forward, she steadied Sarah.

“It’s Jennifer for you. You know, I think I’m just gonna take her home, let her sleep it off instead. That won’t be a problem for you, will it Tommy?”

His jaw tightened, still wanting to keep her there. But the crowd was focusing on the three of them now, so he let her take her home. As she grabbed Sarah’s arm to hold her upright, kids resumed their partying, knowing that nothing of substance would take place, and Tommy turned to get another beer in frustration of what had occurred. Sarah, now safely in the back of JJ’s car.

“I didn’t drink. Not much, not enough,” she had slurred. While pulling out of the driveway and towards the street, JJ looked back to see the girl half asleep, still fighting to keep hold; she knew that she had some to drink, but she’s never looked like this.

“Who gave you the drink?” she asked.

Barely conscious, a fraction of a whisper was heard uttering, “Tommy.”

§§§           §§§           §§§

The groundskeeper head to the east lot. The town kept a nice front, so his work never took much time. Just as he bent to pick up the lonesome wrapper among the grass, his watch flashed 1:42 AM. An hour already? Maybe he didn’t make as good with time as he had thought. Nevertheless, he continued on. Before grabbing the next piece of trash, he looked back to the girl, just over the west hill; she was now gazing at the post marking the meet of Bly and Stonewall, two lots that look nearly identical to those who don’t spend each of their nights roaming the land. She continues through, passing over headstones with names fading with age. Continuing along, she notices the headstone of one Rosalind DuBois, in particular. As quickly as the last, another memory came.

§§§           §§§           §§§

High school, senior year, Mrs. Chapman’s class. Not typically her favorite, but made tolerable by her classmates. 

“Okay, we finally made it through Streetcar, have only a month left of school, and finals are approaching; this year I want you guys to come up with a literary thesis. Research a response and provide me and the rest of the class with your findings in full. It can be on anything you want, but I get to choose who you work with. Just as a heads up, I chose these based on class interactions: no easy buddy-buddy work here.”

Half of the class looked as deadpanned as they had for the entirety of the year, the other almost excited. Still, as the pairs were read and people were split, fate had decided to bring the two together once again. JJ and Sarah were paired for the final.

“I’m not good at this,” Sarah started. Day one had begun and immediately there was concern.

“Now I could be wrong, but I’m going to say that you aren’t. And even if you are, I’m not. Not ‘not good’ at it, I mean.”

A smile was produced. While it was true that they had limited time ever truly interacting with one another, JJ never failed to make Sarah smile. It seemed like just her mere presence was enough to reassure her, despite the lack of foundation for it. Regardless, they took what they had and got to work.

§§§           §§§           §§§

The girl had finally made it to a tree. Facing it directly, she took one step back, turned to the left, and counted off three headstones until reaching her ultimate destination. Flower in one hand, she sat gently down in front of the grave, tracing the letters with her other.

                   JJ Gerard

      02/13/2003 — 05/01/2021

            “Where would we be, we wretched people, 

    without the generosity of our betters?”

Alone she sat, and alone she wept. “I miss you. God, how I miss you, JJ,” she croaked. Bringing her knees to her chest, she continued to cry. What looked like one thousand emotions and testaments had started to seep out. In actuality, it wasn’t. It wasn’t one thousand emotions. It wasn’t one thousand testaments. It was one singular, awful memory sprung from what was the best.

§§§           §§§           §§§

“Alright, let’s applaud Sydney and Tanner for their take on specters in the fictional world and bring up the next group. Sarah, JJ, you’re up,” the teacher proclaimed. 

There was a pause. Sarah had gotten up, but JJ was nowhere to be found. Presenting wasn’t exactly a strong suit of Sarah’s, let alone doing it alone. Panic ensued. Before anyone knew what was happening, she had bolt from the class into the hall.

Stunned, the class stared through the teacher. Left with nothing else left to do, she went to grade the next group up. Just as she was calling their names, the door shot back open, bringing a different face: JJ’s.

“I’m sorry I’m late, doctor’s appointment. I didn’t miss presenting, did I?”

“You did, but Sarah didn’t present your findings either,” the teacher responded. A confused look fell to JJ’s face. Sarah wasn’t in the room, she thought, so how could she have presented it?

“Okay, that works, hopefully, if we can still show our project?”

“You can, but I recommend finding Sarah. She ran out of the room mere seconds before you entered.”

Hearing this was all JJ needed; she knew the girl had awful anxiety over public speaking and the two had spent many nights working on a fix for it. It wasn’t enough to get rid of it completely, but they had a system that had seemed to work well. Part of that system included a fail-safe of knowing where to look should Sarah bail, but that was just another drop in the pail of how they played off each other. 

Entering the library, JJ head for the second table in the nonfiction section. The library wasn’t large to start with, but this was the section they had first worked at and proved to be a comfortable place to return to. Sure enough, Sarah was there, sitting against the shelves, head in hands.

“Hey, what happened?” JJ asked, nothing but care in her voice.

“I couldn’t do it,” she received. “I couldn’t keep doing it.”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to do it. We thought of this before even starting, right? I’ll do the presentation and say I couldn’t find you, that you got sick or something. No worries”

Looking up, Sarah came to match JJ’s ocean-blue eyes. She thought maybe that was what was calming about her; those eyes. She quickly let go of the thought, as it wasn’t just her eyes that provided a sense of grounding for people; it was everything about her. Her stature, never backing down in the face of adversity. Her confidence, always reassuring people when they couldn’t do it themselves. It was the way that no matter what you did or what happened, that you were okay with her. She was okay with JJ. She was okay at this moment. She would be okay in the next. That simple month of work brought on by a teacher who had thought they didn’t interact, was all that was needed to bring Sarah to peace. 

If only it could have lasted.

Just as the two returned to class, they heard something.

There was a bang. Then another. An announcement came over the speakers: “LOCKDOWN. LOCKDOWN. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REMAIN INSIDE YOUR CLASSES. I REPEAT, LOCKDOWN, LOCKDOWN.”

Hearts stopped. The teacher guided as kids barricaded the door when a third shot was heard. Outside of the door was the culprit, quite literally death at their doorstep, but the firing didn't commence. The shooter was another student, Morgan Jeckles. She entered the classroom with everyone stopped in their tracks. Suddenly, one stood up: JJ.

Sarah practically shot from the ground herself, but was held down by the teacher reeling over the fact that she failed to grab JJ too.

“Morgan, what are you doing?” she asked. As common as her words before, JJ spoke with a sense of stillness. Her hands were visible, slowly being raised in the air to show no sense of threat to Morgan.

“JJ, come on. I’m not here for you.” She started towards the teacher’s desk but was blocked by JJ once again.

“I know, but as far as I see I’m a target too. And I know you don’t want me as one. I know you aren’t going to hurt me, and because of that I know you aren’t going to go after anyone here, out there, or anywhere else.”

Police were on their way. Most of the class was still under some form of protection, but Morgan’s disdain was growing with the friction from JJ. 

“Get out of my way, JJ. This isn’t your fight.”

“Isn’t it though? This is my school, my class. You’re one of my friends. I’m not about to risk you getting into something any worse. You don’t want to hurt anyone, I know that. So just come on, just put the gun down. Give it to me or put it down. Come on,” she pleaded. Every word brought her a step closer to Morgan when all of a sudden

“POLICE! Exit now or we will enter the room!” 

With a shot of distraction, JJ went to grab the gun. Morgan returned her gaze to her friend as the two jockeyed for position over the weapon. Vision blurred. Sounds merged. There was shouting, police were closing their stance, and in a single shot the gun had fired and everything fell; Morgan looked directly at JJ, eyes full of shock and fear. Everyone knew what would happen next, and in a time of pure blitz JJ looked at Morgan and choked out a single word: Run.

Police enter. Morgan isn’t anywhere to be seen. JJ seems to turn around in slow-motion as her classmates rise to greet her. A chorus of ‘how are you’s,’ ‘are you okay,’ and ‘don’t do that again,’ flooded everyone’s ears, but JJ continued to push past to turn and sit against the blackboard on the floor. As she did, she lifted her shirt, exposing a bullet wound straight through her stomach

Sarah’s stomach lurched. Kids crowded, the teacher called for help, and the police tried to assist. It was pointless; JJ looked to each face solidly but without many words.

Some faces fell, others filled with questions; those realizing what had happened knew that there wouldn’t be much chance for recovery. Those who didn’t? They prayed for hope. 

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” she choked out, still somehow embodying serenity with each syllable. Sarah couldn’t respond, she didn’t know what to do. Nobody knew what to do, and at this point, there wasn’t really anything anyone could.

‘I just want to hold her,’ Sarah thought. ‘A chance at life, she was only eighteen, she shouldn’t have been shot. She saved us and hurt herself...this isn’t happening.’

But it did. Medics came, couldn’t do much. JJ’s last bits of life left with her halted breath while her hands held that of the girl she loved. Her protector, her friend, her anchor, was gone. That was it.

§§§           §§§           §§§

    “I’m sorry for interrupting ma’am. Are you okay?”

    The groundskeeper had tapped her shoulder, waking her up from sleep.

    “What?” she replied, groggily. “What time is it?”

    Before he could answer her question, the sun did it for him. She looked up to see daylight, clear skies, leaves of such a burning orange among the trees and a gentle elderly man above her.

    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t plan on falling asleep.”

    “That’s alright. Grieving hearts fall steady on these grounds, it seems. I hope I didn’t disturb you too much with my cleaning.”

    “No, no, I didn’t even notice any presence with me.”

    Those words came with melancholy, a defeated feeling that only one thing could satiate, but that one thing wasn’t the groundskeeper. 

    “Well, I’m glad to hear I wasn’t imposing. You know? I’ve worked this shift for the past twelve years and I have never known someone to stay so dedicated to what they lost.”

    “I don’t know about that. This is only the first time I’ve come here in over a year. That’s not really dedicated,” she responded, now almost ashamed of herself.

    “People know what they can and cannot tolerate; your devotion doesn’t equate with your physical presence. But no, I wasn’t referring to you here; I was talking about the blonde girl.”

    That caused Sarah to perk up in her place.

    “Blonde girl?”

    “You see, when you work here for such a time, you gain the trust of the land and the spirits on it. Just because you might not have felt a presence doesn’t mean she wasn’t right there with you. And by the looks of it, she was just as content staying passed your falling asleep. Quite the bond you two must’ve had; that’s dedication.”

    She nodded her head, unsure of what really to say. Thanking the groundskeeper for waking her up, she went for her car. Every turn brought another memory of a happier time; JJ smiling, telling a terrible pun, or just being with her fully. One night of remembrance next to her resting place was all that was needed for catharsis. As she entered her car, another flood of happy memories came, and another, and another. 

    That night might have been filled with more reflection than desired, but knowing that JJ was there brought peace to the girl’s heart, just as it always had before.