Cemetery Gates

It’s funny how much more you like people after they die. Sad might be the word most folks use, but let’s be honest: only truly realizing how much you want someone in your life long after that’s a physical possibility is hilarious. Ironic might be the word most folks use, but if irony weren’t funny, it would be considered tragedy.

Jemma’s story is not a tragedy. She died doing what she loved best: being a condescending bitch. Maybe she'd still be here if she had just listened when the truck driver told her his semi couldn’t make the full turn with the limited space she gave him at the stoplight. Instead, she pressed him to try it, refusing to put her Mini Cooper in reverse and allow him enough space to turn.

“You’re the truck driver; shouldn’t you be able to gauge how much room you need at a stoplight? Why would you turn here if your semi’s too big to go down this block?”

They say the accident was pretty swift, and she probably didn’t feel much pain. I suppose the time between the head coming fully detached from the neck and when it goes flying down the freeway would be a short time frame. And man, did that thing fly! She was always the best batter on her softball team. These words seem harsh and may not paint me in the best light but trust me when I say they killed at the funeral. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Not long before her consensual beheading, we hadn’t been talking. It wasn’t because we had a fight, but just because she was annoying and I needed my space. She never understood that my workday was from 9-5, Monday to Friday, the same as it had been for the decade prior. She’d text me endlessly in the morning, sharing only memes you’d find funny if you were a 45-year-old white woman with a drinking problem—and I'm only 35. Not everyone’s sense of humor is the same, but she’d get so damn pressed if I didn’t respond with the appropriate number of laughing-crying emojis. To her, that number was 20; to me, it was 0. You can see the chasm in taste we were facing. Plus, she kept trying to get me to go to Sunday brunch with her, no matter how many times I told her I needed Sundays to decompress from a weekend of binge drinking and brace for the horrors of the work week, the root cause of my weekend warrior lifestyle.

I started to notice us slipping; our interests weren’t aligned anymore if they had ever been. Who we were in college doesn’t exactly jive into adulthood. But we kept our relationship on the thin strings of fond memories and unfulfilled promises we held each other to for the future—a girls' trip to Seattle. Matching tattoos of an inside joke neither of us could remember the impetus of. And, most importantly, a picnic at her favorite cemetery in Brooklyn.

Jemma was not a notorious fan of the macabre, so her particular fascination-that-border-lined-on-obsession for Green-Wood Cemetery seemed out of character. I remember inquiring as to why she took such a keen interest in this endeavor, and her obtuse response was one mentioning a recent breakup in front of Basquiat’s grave that led her to reflect on her love life and her relationship with death. Maybe I should have questioned this more; I hadn’t even known she had been dating anyone at the time, but I rolled my eyes and regarded it as another of Jemma’s fleeting flights of fancy. Like her obsession with becoming a snow bunny that lasted for one trip in which she immediately face-planted and broke her nose on the Green Circle.

I, for one, avoid graveyards at all costs. I’ve skipped out on numerous family burials for this reason. Wakes and viewings I can handle; it’s something about watching a body descend into the unknown, praying quietly that the last breath has been gasped, as being buried alive is a fate worse than death. Literally, I suppose. Thankfully, the fashion in which Jemma opted to exit this mortal plane meant she was cremated. No dropping below the soil and causing me permanent anxiety about her current and forever state. Somehow, a fiery transformation into rubble doesn’t get under my skin all that much.

Suffice to say, I wasn’t as keen on picnicking amongst the tombstones, but I always promised Jemma I’d sacrifice a Saturday afternoon to eat charcuterie just past the cemetery gates, eschewing our shared hatred of Morrissey but acknowledging that some songs by The Smiths have crept their way into our top ten lists. I guess we did share some things in common, after all.

Now here I am, driving into Brooklyn, an activity I hate almost as much as thinking about being buried alive. I’m toting a cooler bag with a bottle of rosѐ and some overripe strawberries. A self-help app told me that taking myself out on dates is good practice. My horoscope said I should go someplace unexpected. A spiritualist advised me that to find peace, I need to spend some time in a quiet space. As far as I know, the dead don’t talk too much. The bottle of rosѐ is likely ill-advised, but I need to have some part of this I might actually enjoy.

Scanning the whole of Green-Wood, I can see why Jemma felt such a pull to this place. It’s breathtaking, barely as spooky as my mind allowed me to believe. I clutch my cooler bag tight to my chest as the leaves crunch under my heels. I didn’t look online to see whether I could bring food and drink into the cemetery. Do people kick folks out of graveyards? I know of groundskeepers, but is there such a thing as cemetery security? My tarot card reader didn’t mention anything about getting arrested in a graveyard, and I feel there must be a card that can be pulled specific to that scenario.

I’m wandering aimlessly, seeing if any of the tombstones call to me. It feels rude to just pick whichever one I happen to be near when I get tired. Maybe someone will pull me in its orbit, beckoning me to sit for a spell.

That’s when it hit me: Basquiat.

In addition to not researching the food and drink policy here, I also didn’t think to research a map of where certain graves are—is that even a thing? A roadmap for the dead? I’m sure there’s something in the gift center, but it feels even more unsettling than the cemetery itself. I don’t need any souvenirs for my time spent here. To find it, I’ll just have to keep my eyes peeled, closely studying every headstone, keeping my eyes on the ground.

My pace is quickening. I will find this Basquiat headstone if it kills me, which would be so fitting that I could only wish Jemma would have outlived me to see it. If she enjoyed that kind of thing, I can’t remember if she was a fan of that layered humor. It’s not exactly meme-able.

I’m getting closer. Don’t ask me how I know that I can just sense it.

Despite its size and grandeur, the cemetery is eerily quiet today. I guess Wednesdays aren’t big for visiting with the dead. And maybe it’s not so much a sensation, so much as the fact that I’ve finally spotted the only other person in the entirety of the historic cemetery. Likely an artist hoping to conjure up some inspiration from her hero, I’m sure people do that. I creep closer, trying not to intrude, and hoping her stay would be short enough for me to indulge in my mostly-liquid lunch.

And yet…

There’s a familiarity to her. Something in the confidence with which she’s holding herself upright. Her hands in the pockets of her bright red jacket, doing very little but still commanding the attention of the spirits that might be lurking. This isn’t someone hoping inspiration will rub off on her—she’s demanding it.

It almost feels… like I know her.

I feel faint, I don’t know what’s coming over me. Like the walls are closing in, but there are no walls. We’re outside. Is the air getting thicker? My knees are like a fawn’s, who’s still learning to walk, thin and buckling beneath me. What does the sky sound so damn loud? What the hell is happening?

She’s facing me now.

“W-what—” I stammered.  

“Really. Now you come?”

Jemma’s shooting me that look I’ve seen so many times before, one of disappointment mixed with malice.

“How? Is this real? Are you a—” I fumble over my words.

“Ghost? Since when do you believe in ghosts?” Jemma responds with a patented Jemma eye-roll.

“I don’t. I don’t think I do, at least. But… are you? Is that why you’re here?”

“Why would I be here? If I were a ghost and I could go anywhere, why the hell would I hang out in a graveyard? Also, in case you forgot, I was cremated. Because of the, you know…” Jemma takes her thumb and crosses her neck with it, sticking her tongue out.

“I don’t think that means you’d still be… like that… in the… you know, afterlife.”

“Since when do you believe in the afterlife?”

“I don’t… maybe…”

“Man, death has really changed you.”

“I didn’t die.”

“My death, Jesus, keep up.”

There’s that Jemma charm I missed so much. The world always revolved around her, I guess it still does.

Come to think of it, my world stopped when her life ended.

Until this moment, this decision forced me to get in my car and drive to Brooklyn to sit by the grave of an artist I barely know with a wine I don’t particularly enjoy and out-of-season berries; I hadn’t been doing much of anything. Jemma’s death hit me in ways I couldn’t put properly into words. Maybe we hadn’t hung out in, what had it been, four months? Maybe our text messages fell off, a sea of jokes I didn’t find funny and attempts and plans I didn’t want to do, but Jemma was still Jemma. And there was a comfort in that maybe-someday.

Until that maybe-someday became a never.

I lost count of the number of times I read and re-read those unanswered texts from her. I found humor in the countless memes she DMed me on Instagram. I looked through old pictures, even the ones she tagged me in on Facebook that I didn’t particularly like of myself. When she died, I realized I lost my life, too—not that my life collapsed when she left this world, but that it was the first time I realized it. My weeks of work and unwinding from work bled into weekends of trying not to think about work and then preparing for work. I lost sight of who I was and what was important to me, grasping for a way out of the norm but denying anyone with which I was close to hand me that lifeline. How could they? They’ve always been there; they couldn’t be an escape.

But knowing that I had those options always meant I had a safety net. Folks to turn to when I lost my way.

Instead, I left them as just that, options. Rather than invest my time in the people who cared about me, I turned to the fail safes—a bowl after work. A nightcap before bed. Gin and tonics at my local dive until the walk home became bearable. I replaced my social life with social numbing. I blamed everyone else for not sharing my interests when, in reality, I left no room for anyone to come in to share anything. Those maybe-someday far-off plans became my escapism, and I’d let dreams of doing them carry me into slumber before the horrors of capitalism and living paycheck-to-paycheck drowned any thoughts of a life filled with brunches and travel.

When Jemma died, so did my dreams, but I would never give her the satisfaction of knowing she held that kind of power over me.

“So, why now?” Jemma inquired.

I didn’t know what to say. None of it felt like it mattered. Surely, she’d laugh at my attempts at finding peace in her absence with astrology and divine inspiration. She’d revel in how badly I’d unraveled and the lengths to which I was grasping to handle my grief.

“Because I knew I’d enjoy it more without you,” I replied with a smirk.

“You cunt. And are you?”

“I am now.”

“You know, we could have made this our thing. The spooky bitches who drink wine in graveyards. We could have had shirts made up and everything. Spirits with Spirits, maybe? But you and your ooh hanging out in cemeteries is sooo creepy. If only you’d had tried it just once, you might have liked it.”

“Hey, Jemma?”

“What?”

“Will you shut the fuck up for once?”

And with that, she’s gone.

Time to park my ass on the leaves next to Basquiat. Screwing off the cap of the seven-dollar bottle, I leaned my head back to take in the sun just peeking behind the clouds. Taking a swig directly from the bottle, I let the soft bubbles and the balance of tart and sweet dance around my tastebuds. It wasn’t bad, Jemma’s favorite wine, I had to give her that. And being alone with people from all walks of life who, most importantly, couldn’t talk back, was strangely comforting.

Maybe this wasn’t our thing, but it could be mine. Maybe I’d even try it without booze.

Maybe.

Walking back to my car, swinging the now half-empty bottle by my side, I feel at peace for the first time in forever. Suddenly the problems of the work week and the ills of the world don’t feel so suffocating. It’s almost as if there could be more to life than Monday to Friday. I could make room, I just had to try it out for once.

It feels good to finally fulfill a promise I made to my best friend. And it makes me realize why I stayed friends with her for so long: I enjoyed her company, even when I didn’t want to admit it. I hope she can’t hear what I’m thinking, whatever she is. I don’t want her to hold this over me when we do see each other again.

I suppose I might never stop missing Jemma in her entirety, her head-attached-to-her-body completeness, and all the things that made her so very Jemma. The emptiness I feel in her absence might outlast the friendship itself.

But I won’t miss those bad jokes she’d text me all day. I won’t miss the constant haranguing me about brunch. I won’t miss her tone of voice when she knew she was right, even if I do miss seeing her face when she realized she was wrong.

And I definitely won’t miss the muffled screams I keep hearing from below the fresh dirt patch in front of the shiny headstone near the cemetery entrance.