BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

CHAPTER 33-CONVERGENCE

BRIAN’S POV


in a boy’s dream

He fucks you every night in your bed, and you’re only thirteen years old, but you don’t care about the age difference because you love him. Sometimes it seems like too much and it makes you cry, but he doesn’t know. You don’t cry because it hurts or because you want him to stop; you cry because you know it’s going to end, that when you wake up in the morning, he’ll be gone. When he kisses you, he never complains about your braces; when he looks at you, you’re always handsome. Sometimes after he fucks you, he gets up to go to the bathroom—just walks out your bedroom door, down the hallway, and into your bathroom completely naked. Once, your father passes him on his way to your room and doesn’t even say anything to him…

“Why are you still up, Sonny Boy?”

The bendy light that clips to your bed frame—you reach up over your head and turn it off, hiding your body from him. “I was reading,” you lie.

“School tomorrow,” he says, passing your visitor in the hall once again, just as oblivious as the first time. It scares you—the darkness, not your father-- because when the light goes off, you can really see yourself—your body—all grown up.

Before getting back into your twin bed with you, your invisible friend holds the sheet up over your body, as if he can see it better in the darkness as well, “You’re all leg, you know that?”

“Yeah.”

He laughs and you make room so he can lie back down beside you. He’ll leave as soon as you fall asleep.

You spend all day in school the next day with this gnawing thing in your stomach which feels like hunger but isn’t. It’s emotion. You ignore it.

……

You’ve told no one about this, and the one time that your mother walks into your room after you’ve gone to bed, he shoots her before you can even scream at her for invading your privacy. She bleeds like a fountain of raspberry lemonade in your doorway but still makes you breakfast the next morning. Every day when you come home from school, the sheets have been changed.

It doesn’t take you long to realize the evil truth about things like this—that love is like money—the more you get the more you want. A human without ambition—physically impossible. So you decide to find him, to see him in daylight.

He doesn’t go to a school like yours; he goes to an Academy, and you’re so skinny that you can hide behind an ancient tree when the bell rings and watch him come down the front steps with his friends who are all bumming cigarettes off of him and then he smiles that smile you saw the first night he climbed in your bedroom window. His best friend is the star of the football team, and (as he’s always telling you), “A total fag, but in the closet.” Sometimes you stare at the door to your closet and wonder what he’s doing in there.

So as he walks down the steps of the school laughing and joking with a girlfriend, you get brave and pop out from behind the tree and he sees you at the exact moment you say, “Hey.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He’s not smiling anymore.

“I thought that…”

“You thought what?”

“…That, like, maybe we could hang out.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he asks you.

“No,” you tell him, but you don’t sound very convincing.

He tells his girlfriend to fuck off for a minute and walks closer to you which makes you back up and when you do, you back into the tree and it’s lowest branches slither forward wrapping around you and pinning you against the trunk for your lover’s perusal. You feel panicky and hard; beads of sweat scream as they wiggle free from your pores and plummet to the ground. A button pops off your Izod shirt and lands in the grass.

“Listen to me,” he says, “Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not fucking you. I’m molesting you. You’re a fucking kid.”

“I know.”

“Basically, I’m raping you every night.”

“I know.”

He shakes his head at you like you’re an idiot, and you start to feel something like shame in the back of your throat, so you swallow it. It burns.

And then his backpack is on the ground next to him, and he’s gotten as close as he can get to you and your eyes flit to the right for a second, and you can see a crowd of his friends watching him (not you), and then you look in his blue eyes again, and they’re closing and his hand is on the outside of your jeans, running down the path of your fly, and he whispers in your ear, “I’m not your lover; I’m not your friend; I’m just the guy who wants to suck your cock and fuck your tight little ass and break your heart. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

“You need help.”

……

The tree doesn’t let go of you until he’s put a sidewalk between you, and when it does, you pick up your backpack and start walking away, with only one glance over your shoulder to see him with his friends, having clearly forgotten all about you. And right when you can feel yourself about to fall apart, a car horn honks—a squeaky honk, like a clown car—and you look down on the road and there’s a shiny black Volkswagen Beetle, and a guy leans across the front seat, pops the door open for you and yells,

“Yo, Boss Man, come on!”

So you walk down the hill, almost slipping on the grass and get in the car, and there’s a guy in the backseat with a little wooden table and a deck of cards and he keeps telling you to ‘find the lady, find the lady’ over and over. And when the driver floors it, it’s not a Beetle anymore, but a hearse with a V-8 engine flying sixty miles an hour down some residential street only to barely come to a screeching halt in front of a woman holding a clipboard, wearing wiry glasses, and holding her hand out like she’s directing traffic. The hearse lurches forward when it stops, but the woman remains steadfast. You heart is in your throat.

“Get out of the car,” the driver tells you. You feel betrayed all of a sudden. Ejected.

“Looks like you found the lady,” the magician says, like he’s proud of you or something.

And right when you’re about to ask what’s going on, your door is being opened for you by the clipboard lady who you now realize is a doctor in a nice, crisp white jacket who’s smiling at you, “Come with me.”

*********************


I’m not crazy,
I’m just a little unwell

“Where are we going?” you ask her as the hearse speeds away.

“Somewhere nice,” she says, securing a straight jacket around you. She tells you it’s top of the line, made just for you. And then she holds onto your arm and the two of you walk down the street, right on the yellow line, and the day is bright and the sky is clear and it’s about seventy-two degrees and she smells like rubbing alcohol. You walk for a long time and all of a sudden it’s nighttime and you’re walking through downtown Pittsburgh and she stops with you across the street from a nice hotel that you’ve seen commercials for on TV. There are tons of teenagers filing inside in their Sunday best, music blaring, girls laughing in that way they do when they’re a little drunk.

When she tugs on you because it’s time to leave, you look back at the hotel for as long as you can until you can’t see it anymore, and then a minute or so later, she stops in front of Babylon. There’s a huge line waiting to get in, but the doorman is the guy who was driving the hearse and he waves her in. He holds the door for both of you, but you get an uncomfortable feeling…like he’s forgotten who you are.

The music is deafening, but no one inside seems the least bit concerned about a man in a straight jacket. Something hits you in the back. You turn around to see who threw it and it’s the Three Card Monty character from the hearse, standing on top of the bar. He’s juggling hacky sacks on one foot.

The entrance to the backroom is bolted shut and the woman escorting you goes behind the bar and gets an axe and every man in the place clears space for her as she rares back, smashing the bolt with strength she shouldn’t have and then kicks the door open in her four hundred dollar pumps while you stand there completely useless. There are guys everywhere inside---getting fucked, getting their dicks sucks—all wearing straight jackets just like you.

Again, her hand is on your arm, a gentle tug, and you feel this kindness dripping off her as she walks with you through the tunnels. The floor is slanted, just like the hill in front of his school, you think, and you swallow because you can feel yourself going lower…

and lower…

and lower…

and something about this tells you this can’t be right.

She stops at a door-- at a hidden door-- takes keys out of her coat pocket, and unlocks it for you, “This is your room. Someone will be here shortly to help you.”

*********************


I am shielded in my armor,
hiding in my room

You step inside, completely confused because you’re back in your own room, and you try to turn around and tell her there’s been a mistake, but she’s gone, the door has been closed and has dissolved into the wall. Your bed is there and the sheets are a mess, so you figure your mother must really be dead, but you want to lay on them anyway because they remind you of him. Your pants have disappeared, too, so you lie in your bed wearing nothing by a straight jacket, feeling like you’re going to cry, awash with a sadness unlike anything you’ve ever known.

And then you see her, a little girl, bright-eyed and cross-legged on the end of your bed, a big book in her hands, a look of naive hope on her face.

“Will you read to me?” she asks.

“Why?” Your voice sounds low and tired and almost sick.

“Because you need to go back to sleep,” she says.

You tell her you can’t because you don’t feel good-- realizing then how much pain you’re in—that your muscles ache with regret. You tell her that you can’t because your arms are strapped to your body, that you couldn’t even use them if you wanted to.

But your excuses do nothing but incite her, and, still smiling, she turns around and slides off your bed on her stomach and walks over so that she’s standing right in front of your face, laying the book on the bit of mattress between the two of you.

“I’ll turn the pages,” she says. “Just read.”

As you begin to read, as the pages turn with the help of her sticky fingers, the paint peels off the walls of your room, the carpet rolls up as if allergic to the floor, the closet door closes and then folds in on itself. You look at her face, but she isn’t afraid; she isn’t phased that the ceiling’s getting lower and lower, that the blades of your ceiling fan are coming dangerously close to both of you.

“Keep reading,” she says anytime you pause. “Keep reading and you’ll fall asleep.”

“The book’s almost over,” you tell her in some sort of protest. You feel like the child now, the one with no control.

The legs of your bed fail, sending your mattress to the floor with a thud and still she tells you to keep reading so you do.

……

“This is the last page,” she finally tells you.

But then, that’s not what you want; it’s what you fear.

“Start over,” you demand.

……

But she won’t. And it isn’t her fault; it simply can’t happen. Can’t be done. She closes the book instead and leans forward to kiss you goodnight, painting your cheek with a candy-coated whisper, “Wake up, Brime Kinney. You’re ‘sleep.”

*********************
JUSTIN’S POV


don’t throw away your basic needs-
ambiance and vanity

You’d hoped that fucking Brian’s rarely plowed ass would help you kick this weird feeling you’d been having since arriving back in the city, but all it really did was leave you exhausted and give Brian a well-spent ass--neither of which were really a problem in the grand scheme of things. Actually, that was kind of what was bothering you. As you tried to reconcile the events of the last couple of days, you constantly had pieces left over that you had no fucking clue what to do with. Like—

while Alan was making scheduled runs to the surface to secure food for an entire community, you were trying to align yourself with Brian’s garbage disposal so the two of you could stage a coup d’etat and overthrow the rest of the appliance mafia…

and…

while Alan actually lived on a tightrope, pulled dangerously tight between the levels of society, you’d always had this idea in your head that that’s where you lived, on the fringe--in your great big house with your gorgeous, successful partner and your days virtually free of responsibility…

and…

while you wanted to smash your easel into a million pieces when your inspiration was stuck in traffic somewhere and never had the fucking decency to call to let you know it was going to be late, Alan was lining his pockets with it and breathing new life into it in a place you were never really sure (until that day) really existed.

……

Brian had fallen asleep after you fucked him, his head on your chest, so you lay on your back, fiddling with his hair, staring at the ceiling fan spinning slowly over your bed. When he woke up, he stared at you for a second like he had no idea who you were. “I fell asleep,” he mumbled, pushing up on his arms for a second as if that was the only way to out run the fugue.

“You were napping,” you said, smiling at him, but he didn’t see your smile because he was looking over his shoulder at the ceiling fan like it’d just tapped him on the shoulder and screamed, ‘BOO!’ at him or something.

“I was dreaming,” he countered as he faced you again, correcting you as he lay back down, his momentary confusion seeming to wane.

“I fucked the shit out of you,” you pointed it.

……

“Was that comment really necessary?” he asked, the tip of his index finger drawing tracing a tiny path around your nipple.

“Necessary? Well, no, I guess it wasn’t necessary but…”

……

“But what?”

……

“Well, it’s just that…I can’t apologize for it since that’s against our policy and all that.”

“Oh, I see.”

And then he pinched your nipple and when you complained, he feigned ignorance.

……

And then Brian’s leg—the one that was lying in between yours--started to move like he wanted something, and he began to take an interest in your body again, and you were starting to get interested in the interest he was taking when his head suddenly popped up off your chest, “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That music.”

“What music?” You couldn’t hear anything but traffic and the occasional elevator.

“You really don’t hear anything?”

You lifted your head up off your pillow as if that would make some big difference and stared at the door. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Really?”

“Really. Why? What is it?”

“It’s unmistakable. I’d know that sound anywhere.”

“What? What sound?” Now he was just pissing you off.

……

“The Bionic Twat Hallelujah Chorus.”

……

……

……

“You know now that you mention it, Brian, I thought I heard something while I was fucking you, but all that begging you were doing…maybe that was drowning it out.”

……

……

“I have taught you well, young Grasshopper.”

“Wax off.”

*********************


that’s great,
it starts with an earthquake

Sometimes life feels like little more than constant preparation—to go to school, to graduate, to get a job, to fall in love, to settle down. Granted, your milestones had been modified by certain unique circumstances, and though some of them had been life-altering experiences (to say the least), there were many others that were nothing more than continental drifts, drifts that couldn’t even be measured until they were several years in the making.

At that point in your life, you were just starting to understand that life wasn’t a series of earthquakes and aftershocks at all; it was much more akin to clouds floating aimlessly above your head—varying in frequency, consistency, shape and movement. They were so high above you, you were rarely conscious of them.

……

Brian was tired after your adventures in and out of the sheets that morning and after standing under the spray for a minute or so, he switched places with you and leaned against the far wall of the shower closing his eyes. He opened them when he felt you leaning against him, your soapy hand washing his chest. He stopped your hand and pulled it closer to his face.

“There’s still red paint underneath your nails,” he said.

“I know. It’ll wear off.” He released your hand, and you resumed your previous activities.

……

“You looked like you were having fun with it.”

“I was,” you agreed. It’s really weird, though, not like anything I’ve ever done.”

“Not the kind of thing they teach in art school, huh?”

You laughed, “No, not hardly. But it’s amazing. I mean, that he and Alan could make those reproductions with spray paint. It blows my mind.”

“It reminded me of that game Operation,” he said. And then he pretended to be holding something between his fingers as he recited the game’s catch phrase, “It takes a very steady hand.”

“Yeah, really. Not exactly something I have,” you laughed.

……

……

……

……

Brian took the soap out of your hand, rinsed himself off and shut off the water. “We should get dressed and go.”

*********************


the space between

People always say that college is the best time of your life, that although you go to get an education, the real lessons you learn are about growing up, being on your own, learning about responsibility, consequences, relationships, dealing with success and failure. But you didn’t exactly go to college.

No. Instead, you came to New York City to be an artist, to make it big, make friends, make mistakes, to prove to yourself that you could do anything you set your mind to, and to quietly rape the place for inspiration that would hopefully last a lifetime. And when you left, you were convinced that that was exactly what you’d done.

Mission accomplished.

……

You might as well have been in the cab by yourself as you and Brian rode back to Daniel’s, the proof of your connection to him evident only through your hand covering his on the seat between you. As you got closer to Daniel’s place, you spoke,

“You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to, Brian.”

“It’s fine.”

……

“It doesn’t feel fine,” you said, your voice quiet, trying to engineer privacy.

“Just tired.”

……

……

“Did I upset you or something?” you asked.

He turned his head, looked at you, and lied right to your face, “No, of course not.” And then he squeezed your hand—like his affection was some sort of consolation prize he was kind enough to award you.

……

And then it dawned on you that leaving the city wasn’t the end of something, it was the beginning. The years spent earning and learning your way on these streets weren’t the conclusion of anything; they were a training ground…for something.

Mission accomplished?

It’d only just begun.

……

It’s hard to understand how you can hear silence inside a taxi cab navigating its way through some of the busiest streets in the world, but you can.

And so there you were--you and Brian--being driven by someone you didn’t know, virtually stuck in traffic, staring out opposite windows, creeping ever so slowly toward the same destination.

*********************
LEO BROWN’S POV


the television’s just a dream

In the AfterDeath, everyone is a rock star. Every arrival is announced and anticipated, every departure honored and mourned. And while that sounds a lot like life, the experience was much more communal in the AfterDeath—everyone’s actions, past and present, affected everyone else’s—and then, of course, there was the revolving door to contend with, but first…

“He’s the one, Leo. He was my false alarm.”

There was little time for elaboration because the end of Ruth’s sentence brought something new to the AfterDeath, something you’d never experienced before in this bizarre place: darkness.

The televisions had all gone off, and although you’d never bothered to investigate the light source in your new home, whatever it was had abandoned all of you—except for Ruth. She was standing in a spotlight, a soft, quiet light, all by herself.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Alan asked. You couldn’t see him, but you could feel him next to you. You could feel all of them, everywhere.

But Ruth was walking forward toward something only she could see, and once she spoke, everyone else could see it—or rather him--, too.

Jason.

As Ruth got closer to him, the circle of light enveloping her widened to include Jason and then you looked up at their faces. Ruth’s hair was finally dry; Jason’s was finally clean and he was smiling. He kept smiling as she spoke to him, “You were murdered, Jason. I came to get you because you were murdered.” It was a painful thing to admit, but still, you could hear the relief in Ruth’s voice as she said it, as she breathed the truth into her lungs.

“I don’t have much time, Ruth. Things are happening very fast,” he told her.

You’d understand later that though a dead man could often see and feel the events below, he was at a loss to control them.

Ruth hugged him, told him that she didn’t want him to go, that, “I don’t even feel like I got to know you.”

“You know everything you need to know,” he told her. And when he said that, she released him and turned toward you—you thought—but, no, she was looking at Alan, her arm reaching out, expanding the light to the tips of her fingers as she took his hand and pulled him closer to her. “They killed you, didn’t they, Alley?”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You’re all grown up now,” she said as she really looked at him. “You’re a man. A grown man.” She repeated herself as if doing so would convince her she was right.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Alan whispered.

“I’m so proud of you,” she told him.

“For what?” he asked.

She didn’t answer him right away, and instead, they just stood in the light, holding one another for a long time while everyone else looked on, until the neon light of the diner began to flicker, slowly coming to life.

“Shit,” Jack said, and the minute he stepped behind the counter, the fluorescents sputtered off and on above his head, finally glowing with a buzz that felt like an intrusion. You could smell breakfast cooking.

“You were happy,” Ruth told her son, gifting her answer to him while the sound of sizzling bacon was starting to commandeer your senses. “You were really happy.”

“Yeah, I was,” he admitted. “I had a great life.”

*********************
ALAN HARPER’S POV


hanging by a moment

Death was just one thing after another, not the eternal rest you fantasized about when life got too complicated or your body got too weary. The concept of taking a ‘dirt nap’ was truly a falsehood; there was no shuteye in this place. But there was plenty of irony. To anyone who saw you while you were alive, you were just another homeless guy in New York City, but you never really felt that way because you had a home. Hell, you had a family. But this new place didn’t feel like home. It felt like one of the many train stations you’d slept beneath for all those years—busy and transient. You wondered if you’d ever get used to it.

In the moments since the lights had gone off, since your mother had removed her hand from the screen Justin had occupied, taking the light with it, she’d changed. The aura of sadness that had hovered around her since you arrived was dissolving, turning into something else that felt different…something hard to define. So you closed your eyes as she held you and tried to focus, to let it come through you so you could understand it.

Compassionate determination.

And then she spoke to you, but not out loud, just quietly through the channel you were sharing, Your sister, she’s in trouble.

I know.

And then your mother started to cry, but they were Harper’s tears soaking both of you, arriving with a penetrating sensation of loss…not just grief…real loss…

….loss

…lost.

……

And then you were interrupted, a reminder that you weren’t alone. It was Jason.

“Ruth, I’m leaving now,” he said, and it was then that your eyes began to play ping pong—from Jack and his clanging pots and pans to your mother and Jason in your illuminated huddle—back and forth, back and forth.

“Where are you going?” Ruth asked him.

“Don’t know. I never know.”

“You’ve done this before?” you asked.

“Six or seven times, lost count.”

……

Were it possible, everyone in the AfterDeath would’ve sold their soul for a front row seat to what happened next: a Re-engagement, a bona-fide invitation to watch death’s revolving door. But they don’t sell tickets to those events because there’s little warning of their occurrence and they’re rarely the only thing happening at the time. Were the AfterDeath subject to a productivity analysis, it would no doubt come away with accolades for spiritual multi-tasking.

Jason’s Re-engagement was no exception to this trend. He said little as he prepared himself, which basically consisted of him lining his feet up on some imaginary ledge until he felt they were in the right place, and then he spoke to you, which was apparently extremely rare in these situations. “Alan, come here.”

Your mother let go of you, and you walked up to Jason, nervous but not really afraid. “What?”

“Pay attention. This will probably be the only time you’ll ever see this.”

“I am.”

“No, I mean the only time until it’s your turn.”

“You mean I’m going back?” you asked him, suddenly paying much more attention to what was behind Jason, or rather below him—rooftops, city streets…Chicago?

“You were murdered,” he said with a smile, “That’s an automatic do-over.” He looked so happy that you half expected Bob Barker to walk out in a midst of shredded, pastel confetti towing your brand new pop-up camper complete with a sexy prize-model wearing a bikini and a sash that read: Being Murdered Rocks!….

……

(And then you heard you mother, talking to Leo, “I let him watch way too much television.”

“Five hundred years ago,” he said.

You turned around and snapped at both of them, “I’ve been living in a tunnel, thank you very much.”)

……

“When?” you asked Jason. “When will I go back?”

“Don’t know. You’ll know when it’s time.”

“How? A bat signal or something?”

“It’s hard to explain, but you’ll be done here. You’ll just know.” You weren’t sure if you believed him or didn’t believe; it was all so strange, and then he added, “But hey, you never know; maybe I’ll see you around.”

And with that he left and you watched—spellbound—as the laws of gravity applied to him—and only him--again, his arms out stretched as he fell back, a trust-fall into the universe, a vanishing crucifix plummeting into his new life. And then everyone was standing right behind you, all of you awe-struck in unison.

“I think that’s only the third one I’ve ever seen,” your mother told you. “And I don’t want you to leave.”

“I’m not leaving for a long time, okay?”

“I know it’s my fault that we never had the chance to spend much time together, but I thought that now, since—"

“Mom, it’s going to be a long time before I leave this place. Trust me.” And just to prove it to her, you went and stood on the very ledge Jason had fallen from, spread your arms out and fell backwards, landing flat on your ass. “See? There’s nowhere for me to go.”

“Alan Harper,” she scolded you, “You just gave me a heart attack.”

“Oh well,” you told her, “Good thing you’re already dead, huh?”

……

Dawn was beginning to break—as if it was actually morning--and your mother seemed tired, walking over to the picnic table to sit down.

You were so caught up in Jason’s spectacle, in the revelation that you had a future, in becoming a son to your mother again, that you didn’t notice the sheer terror on Leo’s face. He was shaking, walking back from Jack’s window with a tiny fortune cookie on a dinner plate.

His order was up.

*********************
LEO BROWN’S POV


come doused in mud,
soaked in bleach

There had to be some mistake because you didn’t recognize the name on the wisp of paper inside the fortune cookie. Chris was with you because at the last minute Jack pulled you back, staring at the nine inch television screen in the kitchen, studying it, and then announcing, “Two man job. Chris, go with him.”

“Aw, fuck. I don’t want to do this,” he bitched at Jack.

“It has to be you,” Jack said.

Chris grabbed the paper out of your hand, read it, and declared that he didn’t—quote, “Know who this motherfucker is either.” And then he stared at you like what the fuck are you waiting for?, and the two of you started walking in the general direction everyone always walked in. Chris made idle conversation, which was usually best because you never knew how long you were going to have to walk…

“So, explain to me how you can be a fag and be fat. I thought fags were more concerned about watching their figures than women are.”

“I watch plenty of men’s figures. Just not my own,” you told him.

“Freak,” Chris said, but he laughed for some reason.

“Look, I’m rich beyond my wildest dreams. Doesn’t matter what I look like, anyone will bend over for money.”

(The dead seem to have an affinity for speaking about themselves in the present tense. It’s annoying when you first arrive in the AfterDeath, but everyone gets used to it eventually and affords each other that sliver of denial as a souvenir of their former life.)

“Ha, I wouldn’t,” Chris said.

You laughed, “Whatever you say.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” he warned you.

“Don’t worry,” you told him, “I’m not usually attracted to the mangled.”

……

It wasn’t very hard to find your pick up location, Chris explained, because typically you just gave in to the forward tug until you came upon someone ‘who wasn’t from these parts.’ But that’s not what happened on your first pick up. On that errand, you came upon not one but five people waiting to be picked up. And they weren’t standing still behind an existential velvet rope waiting for a ride, they were lying everywhere, as if their bodies had been catapulted into the AfterDeath. And they’re eyes weren’t open. And they stank.

“Maybe they’re not dead yet,” you whispered to Chris.

Chris thought about that and then held his arm out as if holding you back from crossing the street and approached one of them, kneeling down and listening for a heartbeat. “Nothing,” he said, after a few seconds. “They’re dead.”

“Okay, that solves one problem, but how are we going to get all five of them back to…our place?”

“We’re not,” Chris said as he began to walk over and around the bodies, staring at them like he wished one of them would just sit up and shout, ‘I’m ready. Let’s go!’

“We’re not?”

“We were given one name. We’re taking one back.”

“But what about the others?”

“Someone else will come for them. They have nothing to do with us.”

So the two of you would go back with one, but you still didn’t know which one. When you pointed this out to Chris, he was standing over one of them, a guy in the very back, pointing down at his face, “He’s our guy.”

“Are you sure? You said you didn’t know him.”

But Chris was kneeling again, fishing through the corpse’s pockets until he found the guy’s wallet. He opened it and showed it to you to prove to you that was right. “See?”

You looked at your fortune and then back at the Kansas driver’s license. Chris was right; they were a match:

CODY BELL.

……

“You know this guy?” you asked.

“Yeah, I know him. On ‘three,’” Chris said as the two of you flung his body to the front of the group, “I just never knew his name.”

*********************
ALAN HARPER’S POV


he liked to get shit-faced and keep the pace with thugs

You were sitting at the picnic table, having taken Leo’s place because Vic, Emma, and Sandra needed a fourth for Bridge, when you saw Leo and Chris returning with what looked a giant sack of potatoes flung over Leo’s shoulder. “Oh great,” Vic muttered when he saw what you saw, “We got a live one.”

The smell arrived before Leo, Chris and the thing did, making Emma pull her flower-printed turtleneck up over her nose, muffling her response, “Vic, stop it. That’s the oldest joke I’ve ever heard.”

“My heavens,” Sandra complained, “That’s the most putrid smell in the world.”

But no one was paying any attention to of the resident fag hags by then because Leo and Chris had made it all the way back and were dumping their pick up on the ground in front of the televisions. The women got up and moved away, but you and Vic did the opposite, trying to see who or what had joined your group.

Vic started talking to Leo and Chris, trying to place the guy’s face, to figure out how he knew him, but you were on the ground beside him, trying to figure out why he wasn’t moving, why he was the only dead person in the AfterDeath who actually looked dead. It didn’t take you very long to solve the mystery, “His body’s frozen solid.”

“We know, Einstein,” Chris said. “We carried him.”

“He wasn’t alone,” Leo told you. “When we got there, there were four other bodies, just like his.”

“Wanna know why?” you asked them.

“Sure,” Chris said, the way you tell a four-year-old that you believe him when he says there are monsters under his bed. “Enlighten us.”

“Meth. Probably exploded pretty fucking close to him. Look at his hands. That’s why he smells. He’s gassing out.”

“Why’s he frozen?” Leo asked.

“The explosion didn’t kill him. They were icing him, trying to cool him off, bring his heart rate down. Didn’t work.”

“Well, then his ass can lay here and thaw the fuck out then, can’t it?” Chris asked.

But Leo had other concerns, “Do I still have to do the thing?”

By that time, Jack had wandered up to see what all the commotion was about and told Leo, “Yeah, you have to do it right when they get here.”

“Okay,” Leo said, picking up the remote control, “But I feel kind of stupid doing this to a guy who’s not even awake.” He bent down and laid the remote on Cody’s chest and then stood back up, “Cody Bell, welcome to the AfterDeath. I certainly wish we’d met under more pleasant circumstances—"

“Dude, that is not what you say,” Chris said, interrupting him.

“Shut up,” Leo said. “Let me get this over with.” And then he continued, “We hereby officially inform you that you are dead. In recognition that I have dutifully informed you that you’ve crossed over, please accept this remote control.” Leo stopped, looked at everyone in the circle, and then said, “I guess we’ll just take that part for granted.”

Everyone nodded.

“Okay, so this remote control activates all nine televisions. There may be things that you want to see and things you don’t want to see, but, regardless, you will only see what you need to see.” And then Leo breathed a huge sigh of relief. “How’d I do?”

“You brought a tear to my eye,” Jack said, “And that hasn’t happened since yesterday when I was chopping an onion.”

“You’re a miserable fuck, you know that, Jack?” Leo said.

“Can I get that stitched on my apron?”

*********************
CHRIS HOBBS’S POV


and we don’t know
just where our bones will rest

Perhaps it was factually true that you’d led a privileged life—a good family, the best schools, winning teams, occasional scuffles with the law easily swept under the carpet, a good job, a beautiful wife, a darling baby boy. But if that was all true, then it was also true, by default, that you’d fared less well in the AfterDeath.

Immediately after your arrival in the existential waiting room, you’d watched as your wife, Meredith, visited your grave every day for the first week with your son, Ryan, bundled up in her arms. If the ground was dry, she’s often sit down on the grass with Ryan in her lap, until it got too cold. She’d leave something behind every time—a flower, a message from a friend. Once, by accident, she left Ryan’s pacifier.

The second week she came by herself, on her lunch hour. She’d sit on the edge of your tombstone with her gloved hands in her lap and stare at the sky. She was back at work; Ryan was back in day care.

The third week she didn’t come at all until Friday, only that time she brought Duncan with her, one of your best friends from high school. He was holding her hand. They walked the stretch of grass in front of your grave a couple of times and before they got back into his car, he kissed her. The scene you’d been witnessing for three weeks no longer felt like a cold November day in Pittsburgh. Everything was warming up.

That night, when he was fucking her in your bed—it wasn’t the first time. There was nothing new about it, not a hint of nervous energy, and then you realized that all of the bragging Duncan did about the women he was ‘dunkin,’ well, the pun was at your expense.

And Ryan learned to walk and to talk and Duncan became ‘Daddy.’

The last time you saw Meredith on television was the day she opened the results of Ryan’s paternity test. She and Duncan were married by then, and she was alone in the car.

Ryan was your son.

The disbelief flooding Meredith made you furious. It wasn’t the answer she wanted. You wondered if she’d ever tell Ryan about you, or just let him grow up thinking Duncan was his father.

And thus ended your feature presentation.

……

When the douche bag you were standing over coughed and opened his eyes, his first words were, “Where the fuck am I?”

And so you told him with the hospitality that you were so utterly famous for, “Well, I can tell you this: you’re sure as hell not in Kansas anymore.”

*********************
ZEEK ZIRROLLI’S POV


and she was

After exiting the tunnels, you traded your father’s gun for a hot shower and a tray of chicken parmesan which practically burned your legs through your jeans as you held it on your lap during your cab ride back to Dan’s place. Amelia flung the door open when your foot cleared the top step, announcing your arrival, “Z is here, Daddy!”

She held the door open for you which really wasn’t necessary, but you thanked her anyway, jumping in your skin when she subsequently slammed the shit out of it once you were inside. “Amelia, take it easy,” her father told her. “You need to calm down.” Sam was on his hands and knees in front of Dan’s television, cords and equipment littering the space around him.

“Need help?” you asked him after sitting the food in the kitchen.

“I’m just hooking my PC up to his television so we can watch the footage when everyone gets here.”

“Cool.”

……

“Where’s Doc?” you asked Sam.

“Upstairs with Harper.”

“Okay if I go up?” you asked.

“Absolutely.”

……

When you entered Harper’s studio, Amelia was on your heels. Harper was sitting, one knee up, one knee down in a chair while Daniel folded the futon back into a sofa. When she saw your face, she smiled and then braced herself for the bundle of energy running towards her. “Mommy!” You smiled back and then sat on the futon while Amelia used Harper as a jungle gym. “You were ‘sleep for a long time, Mommy.”

“I know.”

“I drewed pictures with Dr. Car-ride.”

“I can’t wait to see them.”

You told Daniel that there was an entire pan of chicken parmesan in his kitchen, and he shook his head, “Your parents do too much.”

“They’re Italian. They can’t help it.”

“Please thank them for me,” he told you.

“Already been done.”

Daniel walked over to Harper and spoke to Amelia, “Do you want to go to the bakery with me to get some garlic bread?” At the mere mention of an outing that involved food, he had Amelia’s full attention. “The one you like, where they have the pink people cookies?”

Amelia jumped off her mother’s lap, “Gingerbed?”

“Yeah. Your favorite.”

“Okay.”

“Go find your shoes,” Harper told her, and Amelia quickly vanished, returning seconds later in her little black shoes placed squarely on the wrong feet. Dan fixed them for her, and her feet were all ready to go just in time for them to get cold.

She’d changed her mind.

“You don’t want to go?” Dan asked.

“Is it time for Brime Kinney?” Amelia asked.

“After we walk all the way to the bakery, get the bread—" Daniel began.

“And the pink people cookies.”

“Right, and the cookies and walk all the way back, then he’ll be here.”

Amelia pondered that for a few moments, and then agreed, “Okay. You can have a gingerbed, too, Mommy.”

“Oh, thank you. Make sure it’s a big one,” Harper told her.

“Yeah,” Amelia said, “’Cause you took a good nap.”

*********************


you’re waiting for someone to push you away

And they were down the stairs, saying good-bye to Sam, the door closing behind him and you were alone with Harper for the first time in years. She came over and sat next to you on the futon, wearing worn out pajamas, her hair dull and straight, her face tired and sad. She looked nothing like the girl you used to know.

Nothing at all.

But when she leaned against you—hesitantly, as if unsure that it was okay—she felt like the same woman you’d known, so you relaxed a little, watching your arm move off the back of the futon and fit around her shoulders as if it wasn’t even connected to your own body.

“I’m really glad you came,” she said. “I’ve missed you; you know, all the crazy stuff we used to do.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

……

……

“Doc taking good of you?” you asked.

“He says I’m in shock,” she said, her voice calm as she wrapped a strand of her hair around her finger and then unraveled it to start all over again.

“That what you think?”

She looked up at you then and it made you remember the first time you met her, how her eyes were the color of caramel. But that day their color had started to fade, making you feel like you had to look at them even longer to really see it.

When she answered you, the serenity in her voice lasted only until the last word, “I think I’m going to shatter into a million pieces.”

And then she did.

Her body shook in your arms as if it was trying to distract you from the fact that she was crying, her teeth chattering as if that could cover a sob. And the harder she cried, the tighter your held her, like maybe you were trying to push it all back inside her, but that wasn’t it—it was just that you didn’t know what to do. You no longer felt like the guy who could come to the rescue.

This wasn’t a busted radiator or an insubordinate techno-fridge; this was a broken spirit.

Your toolbox was empty and useless.

*********************
DANIEL CARTWRIGHT’S POV


where did all the blue skies go?

Amelia hop scotched all the way back from the bakery, one hand holding yours and the other clasped around a white bag of gingerbread cookies. You’d only stopped her when it was time to cross a street, carrying her then because her impulse to walk when it said ‘WALK’ was a little too honed. But then you’d set her back down on the ground and she’d take your hand and begin hopping again. It made for a long trip but much needed exercise.

“I’m a good hopper,” she told you.

“Better than a bunny rabbit,” you told her.

“Yeah, ‘cause the Easter Bunny, he can’t hop as good as me.”

“He can’t?”

“He’s fat and his feet are too big.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, I knowed the Easter Bunny.”

……

When you and Amelia got back to your place and stepped inside the front door, you immediately felt like something wasn’t right. There wasn’t anyone downstairs, but you could hear voices upstairs and see the door to the studio cracked open a couple of inches, sunlight trying to squeeze through.

“Wanna give a gingerbed to Mommy,” Amelia said, handing you the bag so she could navigate the stairs on her own. You followed her, the caution mandated by her pace seemed fitting for some reason. When you got to the top of the stairs, Amelia took the bag back and pushed the door open, and then both of you saw things that truly upset each of you: different things, different reasons.

You saw Harper sitting cross-legged on the futon, sobbing uncontrollably, flanked on either side by Sam and Zeek, with Justin kneeling on the floor in front of her holding her as she’d fallen forward into his arms from the weight of her tears. Sam was crying, Zeek was almost catatonic, and Justin—well, you didn’t know; you couldn’t see his face. Brian was standing in the far corner of the studio, a vacant expression on his face, and he wasn’t looking at Harper; he was watching Justin. His eyes briefly moved from Justin to you when you walked in, but it was a reflex—the way you look in your rear view mirror when someone honks their horn. His expression didn’t change.

And while you were processing all of that, Amelia had burst into the room with her own agenda and was halfway through her offer of, “Mommy, do you wanna a gingerbe--?” when she saw the six foot tall totem pole in the corner and froze like a tiny statue carelessly decorated with the indigenous icing of the pink people cookies.

“You’re ‘upposed to ring the door bell,” she said to Brian.

He smiled a little, sort of, but not really, and then somewhere in the universe a lid-less blender filled to the rim with the collective feelings of the last three days was plugged in, set on HIGH, turned on, and left to hurl emotional shrapnel in every direction...

Because Brian didn’t notice the way she’d looked down at her shoes, or the way she’d pressed her lips together because they were quivering, and he didn’t know to factor the sugar and anti-nap quotients into the equation, not the mention the stress of the last few days, the change in her routine. The signs were all there in black, white and pink.

And then they began to sparkle and flash and make themselves known by way of a high-pitched, category five meltdown...

“YOU’RE….’UPPOSED….TO….TO….TO….RING…..RING….THE…DOOR….DOORBELL.” Amelia could sob with the best of them. (Truth be told, she could put Harper to shame, but at the time, such a comparison was inappropriate.)

“She needs a nap,” Sam said.

“I do not,” Harper said.

“Honey, I’m not talking about you.”

Harper asked Amelia to bring her a cookie. No such luck. Amelia was no longer concerned with the welfare of the Pink People Cookies. Indeed, she had thrown the bag across the studio, and the odds that there were any survivors…probably not so good. She was more interested in lying on her back, smacking her feet on the floor and screaming.

You’re a trained professional, but, please, one a time. Group therapy has never been your preferred method of treatment.

……

Finally, Justin asked Brian to, “Come over here,” which meant that Brian had to step into the fray, but he did so anyway.

“What?”

“Go tell her that you’ll go outside the front door and knock, so she can answer it. She wants to be the one to let you in.”

“Okay,” Brian agreed, responding as if it was a covert military operation and Justin was his commanding officer.

He walked over to Amelia’s screaming presence and started to tell her, “Amelia—"

“Brian,” Justin said, “Bend down. You’re like a skyscraper to her.”

So Brian bent down, “Amelia.” She sucked in a sob and got quiet, staring back at him. “How about if I go downstairs, and go out the front door, and knock, and then you can open the door?”

She sat up, stood up, and watched Brian like a suspicious hawk as he walked out of the studio and started walking down the stairs, like maybe he was just going to walk out that front door and never come back. But when she was convinced that he was indeed going to fulfill his promise, she wiped her face with her hand and looked at you, “It’s time for Brime Kinney, Dr. Car-ride.”

“Okay.”

And then there was a nice, solid knock on the front door, her tear-soaked face sporting a Christmas morning smile.

“Amelia,” you asked, “I’m busy right now. Could you answer the door for me?”

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m ‘upposed to get the door.”

And then the five of you sat in the studio, smiling at one another, as you listened to her awkward footsteps down the stairs. Even Harper was smiling.

There was another knock, more solid and a little louder than the first, and Justin laughed, “He’s not very patient. They’re evenly matched in that department.”

And then you heard the door open.

“What took you so long?” Brian asked her.

“Brime Kinney is here!”

The occupants of the studio applauded.

“May I come in?” Brian asked.

She’d apparently denied his request, “No, do it again.”

*********************


you better take a fool’s advice
and take care of your own

While Amelia had Brian trapped in her never-ending game of in-and-out, Justin had you trapped in the kitchen. Everyone was hungry; it was well past lunchtime, and while you were trying to toss salad, Justin was doling out plates, silverware, and advice,

“I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to watch that footage right now.”

“She says she wants to watch it, Justin.”

“Well, I may want to eat an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies, but that doesn’t mean I should.”

Damnit, I should’ve gotten something for desert.

“What happened while I was gone?” you asked.

“All I know is that when we got here, everybody was upstairs, and Harper was completely hysterical. I’ve never seen her like that.”

“Well, what set her off?”

“I don’t know. She couldn’t even tell me. She couldn’t even talk.”

“Okay, look,” you told him, “Let’s just have lunch, let everybody relax, and play it by ear. Okay?”

You could tell it wasn’t the answer he wanted, but he agreed. You’d forgotten how insistent Justin could be.

“Time to eat,” he called, exiting the kitchen so he could set the dining room table.

……

Amelia sat next to Brian at lunch, but it was Justin sitting across from her who noticed when she was falling asleep into her plate, and it was Justin who got up and carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed, and it was Justin who helped you clear the table and clean up the dishes, and it was Justin who suggested that maybe everyone would like to play Scrabble afterwards, and it was Justin whose idea was shot down immediately by Harper who told him to, “Stop buzzing around here like an insect and sit down. I want to watch the footage Sam took.”

And it was Justin who sighed when he sat down on the sofa next to Brian with his arms crossed over his chest. And although he was very, very quiet about it, you heard Brian, “What’s your problem?”

“Nothing.” Which quite clearly meant shut up.

But when Sam got everything working, got it bright enough to see what everyone wanted to see, it was Brian who got up about ten minutes in and asked if you had anything for a headache.

“Sure,” you said. “In my bathroom, medicine cabinet. Anything you want.”

“Thanks.”

“You don’t feel good?” Justin asked.

“Headache.”

Whereas it takes Amelia at least three minutes to get up your staircase, it took Brian all of three seconds. He took the steps two at a time.

*********************
BRIAN’S POV


shakedown dreams walking in broad daylight

Daniel’s bedroom was like the rest of his home, nothing but white--off-white, cream, egg shell, ecru, ivory—you name it. If there was a hint of purity associated with it, it was in his house. His bathroom was white, the inside of the medicine cabinet was white, the ibuprofen you were swallowing—white, white, white. Justin’s painting hanging over his bed…

Not white at all.

In fact, the only color in the doctor’s entire place was in the artwork adorning the walls, and the majority of that was Justin’s. You didn’t notice that at first, you’d peeked when no one was looking. Yet all of Justin’s work hanging in Daniel’s home was abstract. There wasn’t one piece with a recognizable face or object in it. It was all chaotic. And for some reason, this made you feel better.

The wingback chair in the corner of Daniel’s bedroom overlooked the street. It, too, was white. You made yourself comfortable, kicking your shoes off and stretching your legs out over the matching ottoman.

Daniel reminded you of Debbie; he was a person with no boundaries. Anyone and everyone was welcome in his home and could stay for as long as he wanted. It didn’t surprise you that Justin landed here; it was what he was used to. Doors were always opened for Justin, and even when you were telling him no and refusing him time and again, you had this tendency to slam the front door in his face and leave the back one wide open. The only person you needed to fool was yourself, and, quite frankly, that’s never been that difficult.

Maybe that was why you didn’t feel uncomfortable being there either.

……

Although you’d never met Harper before and didn’t know much about her, it made you sick to see her being destroyed from the inside out. The incomprehensible despair in that room, you could feel yourself trying to push it away and felt equally horrified when Justin immediately walked right up to it and put his arms around it and tried to talk to it, to reason with it, to maybe give it something it wanted. And you just don’t do that; you don’t try to pacify something so horrible. You get rid of it—at all costs.

But Justin doesn’t run from things; he never has. And now that you were married to him that meant that you weren’t to run either.

It was something you’d never even considered when you thought about spending your life with him. You’re twelve years his senior and had spent so many years waiting for him to stand firmly with you on equal ground…or what you thought was equal ground.

You let your head rest against the back of the chair and made yourself stare out the window. And although you could feel yourself start to relax a little, your eyes refused to close.

*********************


it’s only the frame that holds me together

“Brian?” Your head turned toward the door at the sound of Justin’s voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He walked over and you moved your feet off the ottoman so he could sit down.

“You still have a headache?”

“Kind of.”

His hand was resting on your thigh as you’d propped one leg back up on the edge of the ottoman, the tip of his index finger tracing the seam of your jeans.

“Sarah just called,” he said.

“She did?”

“Your phone was downstairs.”

“Oh. What’d she want?”

“She and Nate are in town. She wants to come over and meet Harper, get to know her a little bit before she sings at Alan’s funeral.”

“Is that okay with Harper?” you asked.

“Yeah. I think it’ll help her process this actually. They’re on their way.”

And then he leaned forward and said, “C’mere,” in the way people do when you have a big piece of fuzz in your hair, only you didn’t have any fuzz in your hair, he just wanted to kiss you, and then he more or less ended up in the chair with you, halfway on your lap, half falling out of the chair, so you held onto him because it was a really, really nice kiss.

The kind that doesn’t so much scream fuck me but just feels like love you.

And it lasted for as long as it needed to and didn't need to go any further because it was what it was. And when it was over, when he was smiling down at you with his hand on your face, you made him a solemn promise,

"Keep this up, and I might just let you in my gingerbed tonight."

He busted out laughing.

*********************
SARAH ROCKFORD’S POV


and in my hour of darkness
she is standing right it front of me

The doctor’s home felt so sterile when you walked inside, but the doctor himself seemed affable and very kind. The place felt small, though. When you mentioned this to Nate, he pointed out that the two of you lived at a ski resort, so your perspectives were a little skewed. He was probably right. When you finally met Harper, you felt an immediate connection to the young woman. She was a melancholy beauty, her features valiantly battling a storm.

The two of you retired to her studio with a bottle of wine and talked for over an hour. You’d made the right decision to come to the city a few days prior to the funeral; this girl needed something more, something different than what she was getting. And when you put it all together, the entire picture of Harper’s life, you excused yourself for a minute, went downstairs and very politely asked Dr. Cartwright (who was preparing a cheese and cracker tray for you and Harper in the kitchen) to, “Get all of the testosterone out of the house. Think you guys could make yourselves scarce for a few hours?”

After insisting that you call him Daniel, the doctor smiled, laughed, and said, “Sure, no problem.”

You thanked him and took the tray back up the stairs, shutting the studio door behind you.

And once you knew they were gone, you knew you’d done the right thing.

This was clearly women’s work.

Lyrics taken from the Dave Matthew’s Band Crash Into Me, Matchbox Twenty’s Unwell, Paul Simon’s I Am a Rock, Collective Soul’s December, REM’s It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), the Dave Matthew’s Band The Space Between, REM with Natalie Merchant Photograph, Lifehouse’s Hanging By a Moment, Nirvana’s Come As You Are, Everlast’s What It’s Like, Talking Head’s And She Was, Vertical Horizon’s Everything You Want, the Smashing Pumpkins’s 1979, Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me, Don Henley’s New York Minute, the Talking Heads’s Burning Down the House, Kenny Rogers’s If I Were a Painting, and The Beatles’s Let It Be.