Me & Death Read online

  She sighed deeply.

  “You lost more than your ankle on the stairs, Jim.”

  I thought back to what Tadeusz had told me. You’ll see people you need to treat better, he said. Who was he talking about? Cassie? Ma? I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand at all.

  Denise suggested we go across the hall and get a drink. I said sure. I didn’t want to look at any more TV just now.

  The vending machines crouched side by side like football linemen. I wanted a Coke and a chocolate bar, but the only drink in the soft-drink machine was ginger ale, and the candy machine was out of everything except Junior Mints.

  Denise got a coffee for herself and showed me how to swipe my day pass to get my snack.

  She took a sip and sighed. “Coffee’s always too cold here,” she said.

  I wondered why a ghost would want coffee at all, whatever the temperature.

  One of the fluorescent lights was off – it flickered and buzzed overhead. Irritating. We went back into the hall. I ate a mint. It was chocolate-coated, and I’d eat dog food if it was chocolate-coated – but it tasted pretty bad.

  Man, this hotel sucked!

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Fourteen years.”

  As long as I’d been alive.

  There was a battered couch by the wall. We sat down on it, releasing plumes of dust into the air. Denise talked about how she died, after giving birth to her first child. Pretty dramatic story. Last-minute cab to the hospital. Fainting. Mess and doctors everywhere. Shouting husband. Pain. More pain. A tiny, coughing baby. Weakness. Cold. And then oceans of blood.

  Yeck.

  “I held my son as I died,” she said. “It was so sad. I was filled with such regret at all the things I wouldn’t see.”

  She sniffed a little. I took a sip of ginger ale.

  “What kind of things?” I said.

  “Everything! I’d miss him teething and crying and going off to kindergarten, and picking me a bouquet of dandelions, and learning how to tell time. I’d miss him scraping his knee and falling in love, and going off to soccer practice, and graduating. All sorts of things.”

  She sighed.

  “You sure your baby was a boy?” I asked.

  She glared at me. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Just a joke.”

  “I don’t joke,” she said.

  I took a sip of ginger ale.

  “I’ve never spoken to him,” she said. “Never told him I love him. Do you think he knows, Jim? Does he realize that his mother loves him more than anything else in the world?”

  She had been pretty tough down on the street, calling me a piece of crap. Now fat tears rolled down her face like trucks down a rainy highway.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I’ve never seen my dad. Never spoken to him. I’ve asked Ma about him a few times, and she says different things. Sometimes she’s poetic, sometimes forgetful. Once, she said he was like a sunset – red and fiery and headed for the horizon. Another time she told me he got real sick after I was born and had to go away. I asked her what was the matter with him. With who? she said. Dad, I said. What about him? she said. I want to know what was wrong with him, I said. You want a list? she said. I told her it was okay, and that I was going to bed.

  Does he love me? I’m going to say: No.

  Denise was on her feet. “I can’t take it anymore. It’s been hours. I’ve got to see him,” she wailed. “I’ve got to see my boy right now.”

  She dropped her empty Styrofoam cup and hurried down the hall. I followed.

  “What happens to me?” I asked. We were at the top of the wide staircase leading down to the lobby.

  “Don’t move, Jim. A Grave Walker will come for you,” she said.

  “A what?”

  But she didn’t answer.

  She’d called that old guy in the lobby a Grave Walker. The guy I wanted to beat up. Was he coming for me? I hoped not.

  The front door of the hotel was open, and a vivid blue rectangle of sky dominated the gray of the lobby. Out there, and a long way down, was my body. It was a weird moment. What am I saying – the whole day was weird. But that moment at the top of the stairs, looking at the world outside – that was among the weirdest.

  Denise raced down the stairs and across the lobby, drawn back to Earth by her ties to a boy the same age as me.

  CHAPTER 8

  Before Denise reached the door, two people entered through it into the hotel. First was a bearded guy. I didn’t notice much else about him. The girl beside him, though, grabbed my attention with both hands.

  I took a step down and sat on the top step to watch her. She was older than me. But not much older. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. Her hair was damp, worn shoulder length and pushed carelessly off her long angular face. She frowned now, worrying away at her wide lower lip. At this distance I couldn’t make out much about her eyes, but I imagined them to be deep and dark. She wore a dressing gown open over her hospital gown. She looked like an elf queen – maybe what’s-her-name from The Lord of the Rings only without the goofy ears.

  I’d seen her before. She lived in my neighborhood. But I’d never noticed her. Maybe dying brought out her natural whatever it is. Or mine. She looked hot, I tell you.

  She got her day pass from Orlanda at the front desk and walked across the lobby, head high. I stood. She was near the foot of my staircase now. She looked up, saw me, and stopped. So did the awful music playing in the background. I’d been trying to ignore it ever since I arrived at the hotel – headache-making stuff you’d expect to hear over the phone while you were on hold. Anyway, it vanished now, leaving only a breathing silence, and me, and the girl.

  I took a step and almost lost my balance. Ironic, after that childhood scene I had just witnessed. I grabbed the banister to steady myself. Kept walking. The girl smiled and pushed her hair back. Her dressing gown had blue teddy bears on it.

  We met at the bottom of the stairs. I stopped. I was drawn to her like a needle to a magnet … but I didn’t know what to say.

  She spoke.

  “You’re in color too!” Her voice was husky.

  “Uh, yeah.” I took a breath. Seemed like I’d been holding that last one in for a while. I noticed the awful music again.

  “You know what that means?”

  “Yeah. I’m here visiting. You and me, we’re not going to die.”

  “Well, not today.”

  We laughed together. Her breath smelled spicy. I was close enough to see her eyes now. Dark like her hair.

  The bearded guy put a hand on her arm. “We have to go, Marcie,” he said sadly. “It’s time for your vision of sorrow.”

  “Give me a second,” she said, without turning her head.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Yeah, she was hot, but she was also someone else going through what I was going through. It was like she was proof that what was happening to me was real. Not a dream.

  “Marcie, eh?” I said. “I’m Jim. From the neighborhood. You know.” I pointed at the floor. “Down there.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen you on Roncy.”

  She hesitated and then held out her hand. I took it. It was soft and warm. I can’t tell you the last time I shook a girl’s hand. Never, I think. I didn’t know the right time to let go. She was the one who finally pulled away. An awkward moment, and yet at the same time not.

  “So you’re sick, huh?” I said, gesturing at her gown.

  “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I’m in the hospital. Some kind of high fever. I got up to go the bathroom and passed out. You?”

  “Car ran me down,” I said.

  “Bummer.”

  We laughed again. There was a kind of click inside me. I don’t know what else to call it. It seemed to go all down my back. She felt it too, like she and I were following the same thought along the same set of nerve endings. How do I know she felt it? Good question.

  “I thought I was dreaming,” she said. “I mean … f
loating up to the sky and finding a hotel. That sounds ridiculous. But if it could happen to you too, then maybe I’m not dreaming. Know what I mean?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  The bearded guy grabbed Marcie’s arm. “Time to go,” he said. He had a nasal voice. I didn’t like him. She protested, but he was stronger. He pulled her upstairs. The soles of her bare feet were dirty, I noticed. After a few steps she stopped struggling and went along with him. Denise had been stronger than me too.

  A little kid stood about spitting distance away from me, staring at me quite openly, the way they do.

  “What’s your problem?” I said.

  He didn’t answer. His thumb was in his mouth with his first finger curled around the top of his nose. I figured he was interested in me because of the color thing. I was alive and he wasn’t.

  “Beat it!” I said.

  He shivered but didn’t beat it. Just kept sucking his thumb. His gray curly hair hung wet and limp in a modified Afro. He wore camper-style shorts and knee socks. He was scared. And there was something … off about him too. Why didn’t he run away?

  The lobby was empty. Just me and the dust and the carpeting and this creepy kid. I went right up to him, thinking to scare him off. He took his thumb out of his mouth and made a mewing sound, like a cat.

  Stopped me dead.

  I hate cats. This little kid sounding just like one – out of no place like that – scared the crap out of me. I froze. I thought of the cat I had kicked onto the street. Which made me think of my friend Raf, who liked cats. Which made me think of the last time I’d seen Raf, under the dash of the big white Lincoln. What a screwup!

  I couldn’t move, not even when the kid reached up to take my hand in his. I didn’t want to touch his spit-sticky fingers, but I had no choice.

  “I’m Wolfgang,” he said. “It’s time for your second vision, Jim.”

  He dragged me past the staircase to the elevator.

  CHAPTER 9

  There was room for both of us in the elevator – barely. It was one of those sloooooow ones. Lots of creaking and whining. Took us a long minute to get to the third floor. I kept thinking we were going to get stuck.

  When Wolfgang let go of my hand, I wiped it dry.

  His hand wasn’t the only wet thing about him. His face ran with sweat, and the collar of his T-shirt was darker than the rest of it. When he shifted his weight, I swear I heard squishing sounds from his shoes.

  He trembled a lot. As the elevator hitched and groaned its way up, I’d look down at him, and he’d have his thumb in his mouth and his eyes closed. And he’d be shaking. Tadeusz had said that ghosts were tied to Earth. That’s why they were staying at this pathetic hotel. Pretty clear that Denise was here because of her son. I wondered what tied Wolfgang. Did he feel sad because he never got to grow up? That didn’t sound right. When I was his age I didn’t regret anything. What have you done wrong by the time you’re six?

  I asked him if he was a Mourner. He shook his head.

  “Grave Walker,” he said without taking his thumb out of his mouth. Sweat dripped from the ends of his hair.

  The elevator stopped, finally, and we got out. The third-floor hall had spiderwebs and peeling wallpaper. Bare lightbulbs hung from the ceiling. Wolfgang’s room was the one after 314 and across from 315. The number on the door was 31. I figured that the 6 had fallen off. He swiped his card to open his door and led me in.

  “You play Extreme Moto-X?” he asked.

  “The video game? I used to.”

  It’s a real old one. We don’t have a system at home, but Jerry lets Raf and me play the ones in his shop.

  “Take a seat.” His voice was creaky, like a door that needed oiling. I guess he didn’t talk much. He went to the TV for the controllers.

  There was no seat. Just an unmade kid’s bed, with a torn sticker of Daffy Duck on one side. The TV was on the far wall, maybe two paces from the bed. Not a big room.

  The walls ran with damp. The air smelled sweet and rotten – unwashed clothes mixed with mildew and farts. I tried not to breathe too deep.

  He plunked himself down on the bed and put my controller beside him. I sat cautiously. Had the sheets ever been changed?

  Extreme Moto-X is a motorcycle race across a lame 2-D desert. The screen splits for two players. I was the bike on the left. I tried out the controller. Thumb-sized joystick, two buttons. B button was a skid control, I remembered. Okay then. I took a breath, shook my shoulders loose.

  “The A button is jump, right?” I asked.

  Wolfgang nodded, intent on the screen.

  3—2—1—GO! The flag came down.

  When the race started, the desert disappeared, replaced by my neighborhood. The graphics were a little better, and I recognized Wright Avenue west of Roncy, down the street from Wright Avenue Elementary School, where they might, at that very moment, be wondering where I was. (Or not. This wouldn’t be the first day I’d skipped.)

  I was expecting something like this to happen, but I got that stupid lump in my chest again. I never thought I was so emotional.

  Like most streets in my neighborhood, Wright Avenue featured tall skinny houses leaning together, neat front lawns, cars parked like dominoes. My school was coming up on the north side – an old brick two-story. This was an early fall afternoon, the leaves just starting to turn color. Smelled like September. Fresh, you know? Even the dust smelled fresh.

  I could see the back of another Moto-X cycle on my half of the screen. Wolfgang was ahead of me. Without thinking, I pushed the little joystick forward to accelerate. This was my past here – with my future on the line – but it was also a race. The bike skidded, so I pushed B to correct.

  “Faster!”

  I looked over. Wolfgang leaned forward, gripping his controller.

  Fine. I’d show him. I pushed the joystick all the way forward and started to catch up. He swung left. I stayed straight, then saw I was about to hit a pothole. I pressed A, and the machine jumped in the air … and in a bump and a flash I was through the TV screen, careering down Wright on an actual Harley-Davidson Ironhead Chopper, neck and neck with Wolfgang.

  I experienced a moment – a second really – of complete, total all-over awesomeness. Wow! Oh, wow! Then I saw the pothole coming up faster than I could steer. There was no A button on my motorcycle. I hit the middle of the pothole, lost control, and crashed the bike, flipping over the handlebars to land on the sidewalk in front of the school. Wolfgang stopped next to me and got off his bike, laughing at my spill. The moment he let go of his bike, it disappeared. Mine was gone too. Pretty cool, I thought. I got to my feet, unharmed. This was the past, after all. I wasn’t really there.

  We bounced toward the school like astronauts in zero g. Passing through the main floor window was as easy as pushing aside a curtain. We were in a classroom. “Grade one,” said Wolfgang.

  “I know.”

  We stayed at the back. It was the end of the day, and the kids were clustered on the carpet for story-time. I could smell the white glue, chalk, Magic Marker, and then, faint as hope, a whisper of perfumed soap. Miss Macrow’s smell.

  My first-grade teacher sat tall and straight in her story-time chair, holding the book so that the kids could see the pictures. She had long black hair and eyes like wet stones. Her dress went past her knees. Her hands were clean. Her voice had steel in it.

  “What a bunch of losers!” sneered Wolfgang. Funny, coming from him. He was about the same age as the kids in this class.

  I noticed a boy quietly picking his nose in the back of the crowd. A big kid, with brown hair cut close and sloppy clothes. My grade-one self. He stared vacantly, not very interested in the story about the soldier who helped a witch find a tinderbox. He slid himself forward, rubbing his sock feet on the carpet to pick up static electricity. When he touched the bare neck of the little kid in front of him, there was a spark. The little kid started to cry. Jim smiled broadly.

  Wolfgang nodded approvingly. “Nice going.
” A lot of whispering and squirming on the story-time carpet now. A concerted movement, a general drawing away from the crying kid.

  Is there someone in your life you hate for no reason? Their voice makes you want to throw up, their smile makes you want to punch it? Everything they do drives you crazy? You know someone like that? Me too. Lloyd. I hated his high pants and double-knotted running shoes. I hated his limp ginger hair and his long eyelashes. I hated the way he moved and talked. I hated the way he breathed.

  He was the kid in front of Jim. His pale, round, firstgrade face was squinched up, and his legs were twisted under him like a couple of pretzels. A stain darkened and spread across the story-time carpet underneath him.

  Hey, Lloyd peed his pants! yelled Jim.

  Lloyd closed his eyes.

  Peed his pants, peed his pants. The class laughed.

  “Is this why we’re here?” I asked Wolfgang. “Is it Lloyd?”

  “Huh?”

  “Is he the one I’m supposed to remember?”

  I was thinking back to what Tadeusz had said about these memories showing me who I should treat better. I still thought Lloyd was a ween, but I guess I had been a little mean to him. Wolfgang didn’t know what I was talking about. He shrugged.

  Quiet! Miss Macrow was on her feet. Quiet, all of you! She said all of you, but she was glaring at Jim. When he shuddered, I felt an echo of his fear myself. Wolfgang felt something too. He stopped laughing abruptly and put his thumb back in his mouth.

  The beautiful, sweet-smelling, caring teacher knelt beside Lloyd and put her arms around him, ignoring the pee on the carpet, and Lloyd sniffed onto the sleeve of her blouse.

  CHAPTER 10

  The bell rang. We drifted out through the wall as easily as we’d drifted in. The fall afternoon was all around us, coating us with golden light. And here was Maq with his hair blowing all around his head. I’d recognized him back in class. He looked like a sunset from the neck up, had these big fat rays of red hair coming out from his head in all directions.