Me & Death Read online

“Yeah.”

  She coughed a couple of long, rumbly ones. Sounded like an old car starting in the rain.

  “Can I ask you something then, Jim?”

  “Yeah.”

  I was sitting up in bed with my knees raised under the covers. She pushed her chair forward.

  “What’s it like, dying?” she said. “Joanne Solarski from the pharmacy ran to the house and told me you were dead. Everyone said so. But you’re alive – you came back. So tell me, what happens? Are the stories right? Did you see an angel, Jim? Did you move toward the light? Tell me.”

  I’d never heard her talk like this. Mostly it was Don’t bother me now, or Has anyone seen my teeth? Here she was, sounding really interested.

  “I didn’t die,” I said.

  “Something happened to you,” she insisted. “You’re different, Jim. Saying you were glad to see me, just now. That didn’t sound like you at all. And you’ve been smiling. There – you’re doing it now. You didn’t used to smile this much. Were you touched by an angel?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I saw a TV show about a soul who couldn’t rest until she showed the cops where the missing child was. Do you have a mission like that, Jim? Someone to save?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I bet you do. Who’s Marcie?” Peering at me.

  “Marcie?”

  “You’re smiling again. She’s someone, isn’t she? Marcie. You called that name out when you were sleeping.”

  I tried to think back, but I was missing a connection. Wires in my brain hanging loose.

  “It was probably a dream,” I said.

  She stood up, checking her purse for cigarettes. “Well, I got to go. You look weird with no hair, Jim. Like a ghost, you know? Like you’re not here. That’s what Cassie thinks. She won’t visit, because she doesn’t think you are really you.”

  “What?”

  “I told her you were in the hospital, but she won’t believe me. She is sure you’re dead.”

  My crazy sister.

  “Well, bye, Jim.”

  “Bye, Ma.” I struggled to my feet. Stood awkwardly beside my bed. “Thanks for coming by.”

  “There you go, saying thanks. Something happened to you, Jim. You’re not the kid I used to know.”

  CHAPTER 19

  As the days went by I continued to act strange for me. Like saying thank you to the lady with the train-whistle breath who brought me my meals. I’d open my mouth to make fun of her, and then I’d catch myself and say thank you instead. Or like when Chester dropped his cane on the way to the bathroom and slowly toppled, like a tree cut down by a lumberjack. I was going to laugh, but instead I hurried over to help him. That seemed like the right thing to do, and yet it didn’t fit the me I remembered.

  Or when I found my mean nurse crying, and I was sympathetic. We were outside, me with a smoke I’d borrowed from Chester’s pack and her with her cell phone. She was sitting by herself on a low stone wall, staring down at a text message, sniffing and swallowing. I went over and sat beside her on the wall and put my hand on her shoulder.

  She snapped the phone shut and took off her glasses to wipe her eyes. And I patted her shoulder and said, “There there.”

  I am not kidding. There there, like I was her dad or something.

  She didn’t tell me to put out my cigarette. She sniffed and said I was a good kid. And that men were shits.

  “You’re right about that,” I said.

  Turned out she was upset because her boyfriend had just dumped her. “I should have known when he called me Zelda baby last week. Zelda baby! He tried to cover it up, saying he thought he was phoning his sister, and her name is Zelda. But he doesn’t have a sister. He’s stupid.”

  “I’ll say.”

  She patted me on the cheek. Her hand felt soft. With her hair a bit messed up, and her glasses off, she looked okay. “What’s your name if it’s not Zelda?” I asked.

  Bertha, she told me.

  “Bertha.” I was going to say that’s a nice name, except it isn’t. I mean, it really isn’t. I didn’t know what to say next, but it didn’t matter because I let out this giant fart. Hospitals are big on bran muffins and stuff like that, and … well, there was no smooth way to pretend it didn’t happen. The fart ripped the air apart and then rumbled on and on, like a long thunderclap. We froze, both of us, like statues, and there was just the noise and gas.

  And we laughed and laughed. Bertha was crying, she was laughing so hard. I felt awkward, but sort of pleased, you know, for taking her mind off her troubles.

  I was not used to feeling like this.

  Bertha fanned the air. “And I thought your cigarette smelled bad,” she said, still laughing. “You’d better go back inside, Jim.”

  I had a visitor that afternoon during the soap opera. Chester was in his bed, and I was in the chair with my feet up. We had the TV angled so we could both see it. We’d been watching Life After Life all week. Chester was really into it.

  The knock came near the end of the episode. I turned. A woman in a kerchief and sunglasses stood in the doorway.

  “I’m looking for Jim, the young man who was run over,” she said.

  “That’s me.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “Come on in, ma’am,” said Chester. “Sit on Jim’s bed there and watch the end of the show with us.”

  “Really?”

  I lifted my feet off the bed. She took a step forward. “Well, if you’re sure.”

  She took off her glasses and sat neatly, her plastic shopping bag in her lap. She watched with a frown on her face, like she was studying the soap opera in film school.

  INT. OFFICE BUILDING – NIGHT.

  RAVEN WORMCAST (32), a dangerous beauty, is moving through a darkened office with the aid of a flashlight. She is dressed in black turtleneck and jeans. She opens a filing cabinet and flips through the files until she comes to one marked BRICK McCOY.

  RAVEN (mutters)

  Oh, Brick. You poor, innocent fool!

  Now where oh where is that alibi of yours …

  She opens the file, finds a paper marked AFFIDAVIT, and reads …

  RAVEN

  Aha!

  She removes the affidavit, replaces the folder in the filing cabinet. She crosses to the shredder, turns it on, and feeds in the affidavit.

  RAVEN (gloats)

  Now you have no defense, Brick. They’ll find you guilty. If only your sister could testify … But she can’t! She can’t!!

  RAVEN laughs maniacally. Cut to –

  INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT.

  TINTORETTA McCOY (26) slumps in a wheelchair. Her face is beautiful, her body completely paralyzed. She is alone in her room. Tears trickle down her face. ROLL CREDITS.

  “That Raven is something else,” said Chester. “What a hellcat!”

  “Sure is,” I said.

  “What’ll Brick do for an alibi now?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “The girl in the wheelchair is Brick’s sister,” he explained to the lady in the kerchief. “Her name’s Tintoretta. She could give him an alibi for the time of the murder, but her evidence might not be alleged in court because she can’t talk.”

  “Allowed,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “You said alleged. You mean allowed. Her evidence might not be allowed in court.”

  “Oh, yeah. She talks by blinking her eyes, ma’am. One blink for yes, and two for no. Like this would be: no.”

  He blinked twice.

  “I see,” said the woman.

  “Alleged, eh?” said Chester with a sidelong glance at me. “Jim here is awful sharp. I have trouble keeping up with him.”

  He struggled up from the bed and said he was heading outside for a smoke. Normally he’d have a nap now, but he was giving me some privacy. He was okay, Chester.

  I stayed in my chair. The lady got to her feet, faced me.

  “I came to say I’m sorry, Ji
m,” she said. “I’m the one who ran you over on Tuesday. Do you remember?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh.” She sniffed. “Oh, dear. Well, it was my fault, and I wanted to apologize. I’m not normally an aggressive driver, but I was upset, and I didn’t look where I was going. As a matter of fact, I was on my way to the hospital. Not this one – St. Joe’s, in the west end. My daughter, Marcie, was dying.”

  Something was tugging at my memory now, like a dog worrying at the blanket, trying to pull it off you. “Marcie?” I said.

  “I took her in with a bad fever, and they kept her overnight. I went home in the morning to change, and they called me to say she’d fallen and was unconscious. When I ran you over I was hysterical. I was afraid I’d killed you and that my daughter would die before I got to see her.”

  She twisted the plastic handles of the shopping bag, remembering.

  “Marcie got better, but I was still worried about you. I’ve been calling the hospital every few days. When they told me you were out of danger, it was like I got my life back too. I wanted to see you and say I was sorry.”

  She opened the bag on the table next to my bed. Inside were grapes, black, firm, and round.

  “Marcie loves grapes,” she said. “I thought you might too.”

  I had a good feeling about this lady. It’s like when a song starts on the radio. You don’t recognize it from the intro, but you know you like it.

  “Can you forgive me, Jim?” she said.

  My head and hand and body hurt, I had a hole in my throat, and I couldn’t remember the past three days. But I had this feeling about her.

  “Sure,” I said.

  CHAPTER 20

  Late that night I woke up with Bertha standing beside my bed.

  “Are you all right, Jim?” she whispered. “You were moaning.”

  “Uh,” I said.

  I’d been dreaming of a dark-eyed girl who fed me grapes and offered to show me her underpants if I could say her name. Only I couldn’t think of her name. Now I was awake, with a tent pole between my legs. I was lying on my back and the sheet was the tent, if you know what I mean. I was embarrassed. My dick wasn’t, though. It moved on its own under the sheet, like it was saying, Ta-da!

  “I’m glad you’re awake, Jim,” she said. “It gives me a chance to say good-bye. I’m changing my rotation. Starting tomorrow I’ll be upstairs in the neonatal unit. You’ll be going home soon, and I won’t see you again. I’m going to miss you.”

  We shook hands. Her palm felt soft and smooth. So soft.

  Ta-da! said my dick.

  I closed my eyes in embarrassment … and found myself thinking about the kerchief lady’s daughter. The girl who’d had the fever. She’d been the one in my dream! She had striped underpants. And she loved grapes. And she’d kissed me. How did I know these things about her? Somehow, that’s how. I didn’t understand, but I knew they were true.

  “Marcie,” I said.

  “What?”

  I opened my eyes. I was still holding the nurse’s hand.

  “It’s Bertha.” She jerked her hand away. “My name is Bertha.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was thinking of someone else.”

  She folded her arms across the front of her uniform.

  “Oh, Jim! You’re just like all the rest of them. You’re talking to one girl and thinking of another one.”

  She turned to go.

  “Wait, Bertha,” I said.

  “Don’t Bertha me!”

  She yanked open my privacy curtain on her way out so that light streamed in from the corridor.

  Ta-da! said my dick. Stupid thing had no sense of timing. I shifted under the covers, turning awkwardly onto my side.

  Another dream came later that night – not a good one. I was staring out a window into the dark. Something scary was approaching from behind. I couldn’t move, not even to turn and face it. The thing came closer and closer. I could feel its moist breath on the back of my neck. Whatever it was gave a strange, soft, mewing cry. I forced my head far enough around to see two eyes glowing in the dark. Then all of a sudden I was running, and the eyes were following me. They turned into car headlights. I fell, and the headlights were on top of me. I woke up gasping.

  I had twisted the covers round my feet. Straightening them out, I saw movement. What was it? I leaned over the bed but couldn’t make anything out. There was a faint smell I hadn’t noticed before. Not a hospital smell. This was more like home: rotting food, sweat, fear. Yeck.

  I shivered and remembered a phrase of my ma’s. She’d be sitting in the kitchen with a drink and a smoke, and a sudden shudder would pass over her, like wind on grass.

  “Someone just walked over my grave,” she’d say.

  CHAPTER 21

  I stayed in hospital another week. Dr. Driver came by with her tape recorder again, but I couldn’t tell her much more about the accident. I remembered chasing Lloyd, but not why. She asked if Lloyd was a friend of mine. I said no. I asked her when my memory would come back. She told me not to get too frustrated. I’m not frustrated, I told her – just forgetful.

  All this time I was noticing that Chester was going downhill. I mean, we’re all going downhill all the time, but that week Chester put on some serious speed. By Friday, he couldn’t do anything without gasping for breath, his mouth hanging open like a dog’s on a hot day. Our nurse (a new one named Sam, with braces and squeaky shoes) gave him a breathing kit and a wheelchair and took away all the cigarettes.

  “One of those packs is mine,” I lied. I knew Chester would want to have an emergency supply.

  “You’re too young to smoke,” Sam told me, pocketing them and squeaking off to the nursing station.

  “Thanks … for trying,” Chester wheezed. Talking was hard work for him.

  I put a finger to my lips. Reaching under my mattress, I pulled out a battered pack. He laughed long enough to worry me.

  “You’re … holding,” he whispered, when he was through coughing.

  “Yeah.”

  A couple of hours later he rolled his chair over to my bed.

  “Jim.”

  “What?”

  He dropped his eyes to my mattress.

  “You want to go to the smoking lounge?” I said. I was talking about the bathroom down the hall. It was our usual place.

  He nodded.

  “You sure?”

  “Please, Jim.”

  I figured he was old enough to decide if he wanted a smoke. And I didn’t want him to beg anymore. I pushed him down the hall. His wheelchair had a basket at the back for his air tank and a pole for his drip. He didn’t talk. He was too busy breathing.

  Not a big room, the bathroom. He sat in his chair, I got the toilet seat. “Careful,” he said, pointing to his air tank. “This is oxygen. Burns … like gasoline.”

  He always said that.

  I waited for him to turn it off, then lit up for both of us.

  “I’m glad you don’t tell me I’m stupid,” he said. “I know I’m stupid. I’m eighty-three, and I been smoking since I was your age. That’s … a long time. They say I don’t stop, it’s gonna kill me. I say I’m almost dead now. What are they saving me? A month? A week?”

  It took him a long time to get this out.

  “A day?” He took a drag, coughed.

  “Come on, Chester, you’ll make it. When I was in my coma, I was almost dead. And I came back.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a kid. You’re not supposed to die. Me, I’m due. When that angel taps me on the shoulder, I ain’t fighting.”

  That afternoon Dr. Driver came to give me a last look over before letting me go home. She checked my eyes, the back of my head, and my fingertips. Her hair was in its usual ponytail. Her skin smelled clean.

  I was trying to watch our soap opera, but the doctor kept interrupting. Friday is a key day for a soap, got to set the story up for the weekend. Yesterday the judge had decided to admit Tintoretta’s evidence to support her brother Brick
’s alibi. Today we were in court.

  “Pay attention, Jim.” Dr. Driver grabbed my chin, turned my head to face her. “You’re not better yet,” she said. “We cleared up the bleeding in your skull, and you’ve been stable for more than a week, but it’s still delicate in there. I want you to take it easy when you get home. Lots of rest. No strenuous exercise. I’m going to give you some pills. They make the blood thinner, so you’re less likely to have a seizure.”

  I’d been sneaking glances at the TV over her shoulder, but I came back to her then.

  “Seizure?” I said. “Like I’ll spaz out? Start rolling on the floor?”

  “You hurt the back of your head, Jim. That’s the vision center of the brain. I want you to pay careful attention to your eyes when you get home. If you start seeing strange things – flashing light, for instance – go to the hospital at once.”

  She gave me a school notebook with a spiral binding. “This is for you. It’s a memory book. Bits and pieces about the accident should start coming back to you soon. I want you to write them in the book. Any memory you get – a flash, a picture, a feeling – put it down. It’ll help you.”

  I took the notebook.

  “I don’t think anyone’s ever given me one of these before,” I said.

  She reached into an inside pocket in her white coat. “Can you promise to take your pills, Jim? Take one every day. I should give them to your mom, but I figure you’ll be looking after yourself. These are free samples. Do not sell them – they’re no good to anyone but you. When you run out of pills, come back and I’ll give you more. Make sure –”

  She broke off. Chester was propped up in his bed to watch the TV, but his head had fallen off to one side and he was gagging. His skin was the color of a cloudy sky. He fumbled at the breathing hose, like he was trying to pull it out.

  “Nurse!” The doc leaped over my bed, ran to Chester. “Nurse!”

  She pulled the privacy curtain so that I couldn’t see Chester’s side of the room anymore.

  Sam the nurse hurried in pushing a cart. After her came a tall doctor who didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. He stopped to glare at me before gliding behind the curtain.