Me & Death (2 page)

“I’m what they call a Mourner. Kind of a ghost.”

“So I guess I’m a little scared,” I said.

“Good!”

“Good?” I said. “What’s good about it?”

“I want you scared, Jim. You’re a piece of crap, and I want to frighten you.”

CHAPTER 3

H
e took me by the arm and led me away from the crowd. We stood on the sidewalk by the public library, in the shade of a maple tree.

“Look at me,” he said.

I rubbed my arm. It was cold from where he touched it.

Tadeusz held his hands away from his body and turned around like a fashion model.

“How do I look?” he said.

I shrugged. I didn’t want to upset him.

“You remember what I used to be, Jim? I was the king of Roncesvalles, wasn’t I? I was like the Godfather. I could walk into the Krakow Restaurant and get the table at the window any time I wanted. There was a hostess who would save it for me. Jolanda. She’s still there. I …” A spasm crossed his face and he looked away. “Point is, Jim, I’m not the king now. Do I look like a king?”

I shook my head. His body was sunk in on itself, like a rotten piece of fruit. His trademark suit flapped and bagged around his shrunken paunch. Of course the blood and bullet holes didn’t help.

And he was ghostly in color. Suit, shirt, shoes, hair, eyes, skin – all as gray as fog.

“You look pretty bad,” I said.

“Do you know what a ghost is, Jim? A ghost is a guy who was a piece of crap when he was alive.”

“But you weren’t!” I said. “You were the bomb. I thought you were the coolest!”

“I lied, I stole, I hurt people. I let them down. I was a bad guy, Jim.”

I struggled with this. “Yeah, but you were a
good
bad guy,” I said.

He smiled sadly. “I like you, Jim,” he said. “You remind me of me, when I was young.”

“Thanks.”

“Shut up. Pay attention to what I say. You do not want to be a ghost. Ghosts are in pain. That’s why we’re hanging around. Do you want to be like me when you die, Jim? Staying at the Jordan Arms, and wandering up and down Roncesvalles for years and years – maybe forever? And sad. That’s what Mourners are – sad ghosts. I’m so sad I’d kill myself if I wasn’t already dead.”

He coughed – a long, racking one.

“Sorry, Jim. It’s like there’s something stuck inside me and I can’t get it out.”

Truly he was a changed guy – the Tadeusz I remembered did not apologize for anything.

Traffic on Roncy was stopped. Cars idled in the heat of a summer noontime. The nearest one was a Civic with blacked-out windows. It vibrated from the bass beats inside.

I thought about being Tadeusz like he used to be. I imagined myself driving a cool car, getting out of it to beat people up, driving away again. I’d sleep late, play
pool, start fires. Raf and I could hang out together in our own place, so he wouldn’t have to live with his dad and I wouldn’t have to live with Cassie. Cap and Sparks would ask my permission to do things.

It’s good to be the king. But Tadeusz wasn’t a king now, sniveling and coughing up his lungs. It would
not
be great to end up like him.

“You have been given a gift,” he told me. “A great chance. Come with me.”

Tadeusz led me back to the front of the Pontiac. No one noticed us. One guy turned around and looked right through us.

“Here you are, Jim.”

A boy’s body lay on the ground with his legs under the front of the car and his eyes closed. I knew his face from the mirror in the bathroom at home. The body was mine.

“You’re lucky,” said Tadeusz.

“Because I’m going to die?”

“Because you’re not.”

Lying-down-me was breathing, I noticed. But I was clearly unconscious. The Pontiac driver was on her knees beside me, weeping. A whole bunch of old people were shaking their heads and talking about how awful the traffic was these days.

Old people drive you crazy.

“You sure I’m going to make it?” I said to Tadeusz.

He nodded. “You’re in a coma.”

Lying-down-me had a rip in his shirt – like I did. His cheek was bloody. And (reaching up and having my
hand come away red) so was mine. Huh. I wiped it on my pants.

“That’s my great chance? A coma?”

“You’re going to have a near-death experience. In fact, you’re having it right now.”

I noticed a woman floating in midair. She wore a hospital gown, kind of billowy, and a cap on her head. She looked sad and anxious – like someone’s mom. She hovered about telephone pole height, peering down at the scene of the accident.

Tadeusz noticed her too. He waved.

“That’s Denise up there. She’s going to take you to the Jordan Arms for the day. Pay attention to her, Jim, and to everything else that happens to you there.”

“Uh-huh. What is this Jordan Arms? Sounds like a bar.”

I was still staring up. You don’t see flying women every day.

Tadeusz grabbed my shoulder. “I’m serious, Jim. You’ll get a chance to watch your past there. You’ll see the people you’ve let down and hurt. Remember those people when you wake up in the hospital. Treat them better. Change! Don’t be such a piece of crap. Or you’ll end up like me.”

It was like his hand was dry ice. My shoulder burned, it was so cold.

“You are standing in wet cement, Jim. All the fear and anger, all the sadness in your life ties you down. When you die the cement sets, and you’re trapped. Today
is your chance. Learn from the past, so you can climb out while the cement is still wet.”

He turned to go. I rubbed my shoulder, trying to warm it up.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Sounds like what you’re saying is that you want me to be
nice
to people. Is that it? Is that the great secret?”

He looked back. “I wish I had known, before I died. I wish I had had your chance, Jim.”

“Yes, yes, but …
nice
?” It sounded so lame. “Nice?” I raised my voice. “Saying please and thank you? Helping old ladies? Using my napkin?”

He was gone, skimming through the crowd with his feet barely touching the pavement. I had to laugh. Tadeusz used to collect his rents with a baseball bat. He’d beat people up for exercise. One time Raf saw him push a kid through a storm door. A little kid – smaller than me, Raf said. She ended up on her back on the sidewalk, covered in bits of window glass. And now this super-tough guy was begging me to be nice. It was just, well – funny. I laughed and laughed.

CHAPTER 4

D
enise touched down beside me with a gentle bump.

“You’re Jim.” Gloomily.

“Yeah.”

She peered at lying-down-me, checking his face against mine. Nodded to herself, like I was a parcel she was signing for.

“Yeah, that’s you. I’m Denise.”

“I know.”

She frowned.

“
You know
,” she said heavily. “Yes, you do. You know a lot for a crappy little kid. Do you know how you became a piece of crap?”

“Hey!” I said.

“Well, let’s find out.” She took my hand, and we floated away like balloons.

Maybe
floated
is the wrong word. We moved upward slowly, with pauses, like a roller coaster going chunk, chunk, chunk up that first hill. It was a little queasy-making. I’ve never liked rides much.

Her hand was as cold as Tadeusz’s. I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t. She was stronger than me. I gave up. We were getting too high to jump anyway.

They weren’t moving my body, I noticed. Someone had backed the Pontiac off me and covered me with a blanket, though.

“You had a bad accident, Jim,” said Denise. “But you’re not dying.”

“Yeah. Tadeusz explained. You’re going to take me to the Jordan Arms. I’m supposed to pay attention to you because I’m stuck in concrete.”

“What?”

“Forget it. Something he said.”

We were at rooftop level now and still rising. An ambulance was making its way slowly up Roncy. Lloyd stood on the curb with his mouth open. Little ween. Wait ’til I got hold of him. I was in a coma now, but I’d be back, and then he’d get his.

My pants started to slip. I grabbed them with my free hand.

Higher than the apartment buildings, and still rising. Cars looked like dots. We floated side by side, not looking at each other, like you do in an elevator with a stranger, both of you watching the numbers change in silence.

“You sure this isn’t a dream?” I said. “I’m flying.”

“Do you often fly in dreams, Jim?”

“Sure. Don’t you?” I laughed at myself. What a dummy. “ ’Course you fly in dreams. You’re in this one of mine.”

“This isn’t a dream,” she said with a sigh. “I only wish it were.”

What a Gloomy Gladys.

I wondered how she died. She wasn’t that old. No wrinkles. Her hair was gray, but that was because she was a ghost – it’d be dark if she were alive. Her skin was midway between light and dark. Her gray hand was cleaner than mine. Like a teacher’s hand. Polish on the nails.

We slowed to a halt, hovering like bugs or helicopters. I could feel her disapproving of me. I’m used to that – most people disapprove of me. Teachers, store owners, streetcar drivers. My sister. I’m used to it, but I don’t like it. I opened my mouth to tell her to shut up when I noticed a jet flying right at us.

From the ground, jets look like they’re taking their time, but up close they really move. This one had been a speck on the horizon a few seconds ago, and now it filled the sky. As it roared beneath us, I saw into the cockpit. Two guys in shirtsleeves, one of them fiddling with a dial, the other one drinking coffee. They didn’t see us, but we must have made some kind of turbulence because the plane shuddered as it went by and the guy spilled his coffee. I laughed. The plane sped away, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

Denise made a fist with her free hand and began swinging it in front of her. Blind, flailing punches.

“What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer my question. Below us, the wind drove one puffy white cloud into another one. They looked like two billiard balls. When they hit, I half expected the target cloud to move off at a ninety-degree angle, like a
billiard ball would. Didn’t happen. They came together to make one rounded cloud with a point at the top, like a big white teardrop. The horizon bent away into the distance.

Denise was still punching the air. “Come on. I know it’s around here somewhere,” she said, a hint of exasperation in her voice.

“What is?”

Her left fist made a hollow knocking sound.

“This.” She felt around and grabbed a piece of sky. I didn’t know how – it was all blue to me. But she found a piece to grab on to and pulled. There was a creaking sound, and a door-sized section of blue opened in front of us.

“Welcome to the Jordan Arms,” she said gloomily.

She pulled me through the door in the sky and shut it behind us.

CHAPTER 5