10 Things to Do Before I Die (6 page)

A Very Grim Confluence of Conversations

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mr. Singer. It’s—”

“Burger! How are you?”

“Well, actually …”

“Your buddy Mark isn’t home right now. He’s out With Nikki.”

“Yeah, I know. I Wanted to talk to you.”

“Me?” Mr. Singer laughs. “Why? What did Mark do this time? Try to buy me a dog?”

“No, um … I have a medical question.”

He sighs. I can hear the TV in the background. I probably should have Waited until the news Was over. Oh, Well. It’s too late now. Besides, I’m desperate.

“I’m not a doctor, Burger, remember?” Mr. Singer tells me. He’s told me this many times before, and We both know it. “I’m a hospital administrator.”

“But you’ve given me good advice in the past,” I point out. (It’s true. When I Was twelve, he correctly diagnosed me With a stomach virus that my parents believed Was appendicitis.) “I Was just Wondering: Is it possible that I have Ménière’s disease?”

“Ménière’s disease?” He laughs again and takes a swig of beer. “You know, Burger, I always pegged you as a clown but never as a hypochondriac. But in answer to your question, no. Well, yes, it’s possible, but very unlikely. What are your symptoms?”

“I feel like the room is spinning. I have a Weird ache in my side. I have tinnitus.”

“Tinnitus, huh?” He takes another long pull from the bottle. “Big Word.”

“I looked it up.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, Burger. I’ve just been sort of grouchy lately. I don’t mean to be supercilious.”

Super-What? I eye the dictionary on the floor, but it’s too far away.

“Let me ask you something,” he says. “Is the ringing louder in one ear?”

“Yes! It’s louder in my right ear! The intern at St. Vincent’s asked me the exact same thing. Oh, congratulations on your new job there, by the Way.”

“Thanks. But Wait, you say you Were at St. Vincent’s? And they didn’t tell you What Was Wrong?”

“No, see, the intern Went to look for a doctor, and she told me to call my parents for consent, but I can’t call my parents—I mean, I can call them, but they can’t come give consent because they’re in Denver—so I just … um, I sort of left.”

Silence.

“Mr. Singer?”

“I’m here. Sorry.” He doesn’t sound so grouchy anymore. “Listen, Ted, I think you should go back there.”

Ted? I swallow. The Singers don’t call me Ted. Well, Mrs. Singer does, but she and Mr. Singer got divorced six years ago, and she moved to Florida—so I hardly ever see her. Mr. Singer calls me Burger. Like his son does. Ted is bad. Ted is a no-no. Mr. Singer Would only call me Ted if he knew something Was Wrong.

“Why should I go back there?” I ask.

“Hey, come on, don’t Worry!” he says With a big laugh. (That same fake laughter the intern gave me.) “Just go get checked out. I’m sure it’s nothing. And by the Way, your parents don’t have to be present to give consent. They can do it over the phone. But if you can’t get in touch With them, I’d be happy to do it.”

I glance at the computer screen. It Whirls like a pinwheel. Now that the sun has set, its dead White glow provides the only light in the room. “If it’s nothing, Why do I have to deal With it now?” I’m having difficulty catching my breath. “Why can’t I just Wait until my parents get back?”

“I’m sure the hospital just Wants to rule some things out.”

“That’s exactly What the intern said!” I gasp.

“Right,” he confirms With utter calm. “They just Want to perform a couple of examination procedures… .” His voice trails off for a moment. “Hey, are you Watching the news right now?”

“No. Why?”

“Something happened at that diner you guys always go to. You know, the one on Seventh Avenue? The Circle Eat?”

The spinning computer screen freezes before my eyes. “What?”

“Yeah, it’s on channel two. Are you near a TV? You should really check this out. It’s live… . It looks like there are tons of cops there. Wait. They’re hauling some guy away. Hey! He looks a little like you—”

BZZZT!

It’s the front door buzzer.

“Ted?”

“I gotta go,” I mutter. “I’m sorry, Mr. Singer. Thanks. Bye.” I hang up.

BZZZT! BZZZT! BZZZZT!

The buzzing is very insistent. It has an odd effect: it turns my limbs to gelatin. A thought has occurred to me. Yes, as I sit in that dark, terrible bedroom (practically a tomb!), a horrid Worst-case scenario has materialized: Leo ran off to get a real gun. And then he returned to the diner to shoot Mark. And now the cops have come here to tell me that my best friend—

BZZZT!

“Whoa!”

Vertigo sends me toppling to the floor.

Ouch.

I bang my side. It’s cool, though. I’m coping. For the first time ever—despite my condition—I’m confronting trauma head-on. I stagger down the hall and through the pitch-black living room into the foyer, collapsing against the Talk button.

“Hello?” I Whisper.

“Burger!”

Thank God. It’s Mark’s voice, blaring from the White plastic speaker. But it’s so distorted I can barely understand him.

“Dude, We have to talk!” he says. “It’s Mark and Nikki! You’re in trouble!”

Trouble? I stand there, numb and frozen.

“Burger? You there?”

I lift a shaky arm and press the button again. “Yeah, Mark, I’m here.”

“You have to let us up, dude. Now! I don’t Want to freak you out, but see, Leo really flipped his lid—and—and—”

Mark is stammering. He never stammers. I’m the one Who stammers.

“Leo poisoned the fries!” Nikki Wails. “You’ve been poisoned, Ted! You’ve been poisoned!”

Epiphany

I surprise myself.

I’m super-relaxed. I’m beyond super-relaxed. I’m Zen-like. I’m pretty sure I know Why, too. Denial is the first stage of “the five stages of grief.” (Or so my psych teacher taught me.) The great thing is, knowing I’m in denial doesn’t even detract from its soothing, medicinal relief. Mark and Nikki are fairly impressed. They must have been expecting me to freak out. They’re certainly freaking out. But I’m slouched comfortably on the living room couch as they pace in front of me.

“Leo came back,” Mark starts in. “Like, twenty minutes after you left.”

“He told everybody he synthesized some sort of poison at home,” Nikki says.

“See, he got kicked out of graduate school. He Was there for chemistry—”

“He got kicked out the Week before he Was fired—”

“He said it Was the same kind of poison that occurs naturally in blowfish—”

“You know, that poison sushi? It’s colorless and odorless—”

“He mixed his own homemade stuff into his last batch of fries—”

“It makes you sicker and sicker, and it only takes twenty-four hours—”

“Twenty-four hours! After that, your body just shuts down and you die—”

“There’s nothing you can do! Doctors can’t even help—”

Jeez. I can’t tell Which one of them is talking anymore. They’ve started shouting. Their voices are a jumble, bouncing around between my ringing ears.

Unfortunately, I feel the denial Wearing off quicker than I Would have liked. Now I’m entering the second stage of grief. And if memory serves correctly … Actually I don’t remember What the second stage is. Forgetfulness?

Mark and Nikki stop pacing. They draw the same deep, anxious breaths.

“I really think you should come With us, Burger,” Mark states. “Just come back to the hospital. Get yourself checked out. Okay?”

“But you just said there’s nothing the doctors can do. Right?”

“That’s What Leo said,” Nikki argues, her voice quavering.

I blink at her. I’m at a loss. I ask myself: Do I really Want to go back to St. Vincent’s?

No. No, I don’t. Even though I’ve been poisoned … Poisoned! Holy—

Forget it. I’m calm. And I have to milk this calmness for all its Worth. Calm, calm, calm. If I go back to St. Vincent’s, I’ll definitely lose Whatever tenuous grip I have on the calmness. I’ll have to deal With that obese security guard again, for starters. No calmness there. Then I’ll have to sit in the Waiting room. Yikes. Then I’ll have to call my parents to secure their permission to get my stomach pumped, or blood transfused, or Whatever. And if I can’t get in touch With them, my best friend’s father Will have to sub as my legal guardian, Which means he’ll have to grant permission to some random surgeon (Who I’m sure Would much rather be at home in the suburbs having dinner With his Wife and kids) to perform Whatever desperate “procedures” can be done to save me When there’s no chance, no chance at all… .

Ugh. Who Would Want to spend their last hours like that? Not me.

“Burger!” Mark shouts at me. “Come on, dude. This is your life!”

“My life?” I echo blankly. “My life?”

It is my life, isn’t it?

That’s When it hits me. My God.

He’s right. Until he said the Words, I didn’t even look at it that Way. I only looked at it in terms of the sniveling coward I am… .

Mark is a genius. More than that.

He just triggered an epiphany.

Now I know exactly What needs to be done. Exactly. I mean, really; it can’t get any more perfect, right? I have a list, don’t I? Mark posed the question himself, before he even knew I Was poisoned: “Have you ever really lived, Burger?” NO! Of course not! It Was a sign! A sign from above! Because now I have a chance, an opportunity—a single, glorious, twenty-four-hour period to be brave, like Mark—to make up for my mistakes, my laziness… .

Yes, it is MY LIFE. It’s truly mine. For the first time ever.

And death Will be my catalyst.

I’ll bust loose. I’ll forget everything. I have to. I owe it to myself. I’ve followed the same stupid nonroutine every single day, ever since I can remember. Obsessively! Compulsively! Without fail! I hang out at the Circle Eat, I hide in my bedroom With my guitar, I daydream While I play along to Shakes the Clown, I avoid Rachel … and so on and so on. It’s all evasion, all nothingness. And best of all, I can milk this sudden hysteria; I can use it to quash the panic about What’s really happening: that I’m about to head off to that Great Gig in the Sky—

“Ted,” Nikki Whispers. “You’re scaring me. What are you thinking right now?”

“I’m thinking that I don’t Want to think!” I exclaim, sounding frighteningly like my parents.

Neither she nor Mark says a Word.

“Hey, don’t be so glum,” I add. I leap off the couch. “Buck up, you guys. If What you’re saying is true, that I’m gonna die, then What’s the point in dwelling on it? I need to start getting busy. Now, bring on the list. I’m serious. Let’s finish it, okay? Ay-sap!”

The Second Big Fight of the Last Day of My Life

Before either of them can respond, I dash back to my room for my knapsack.

Whoa. Not a good idea. Leo’s synthetic poison makes dashing very difficult. By the time I reach the door, dashing has degenerated into stumbling. I decide to crawl. What the hell? I collapse to the rug and make my Way toward the knapsack—I can see the thing, right by my bed—got it! Now all I have to do is fumble through the open pocket… . There. The napkin. I grab it and prop myself up on my elbows, gritting my teeth once more to help fight the dizziness:

BURGER’S SPRING BREAK

Lose virginity.

Jam With Shakes the Clown.

PARTY With Shakes the Clown.

Get back at Billy Rifkin.

“I have to finish this list,” I Whisper aloud. “Then I have to do everything on it.”

“Ted?” Nikki calls from the living room. “Are you okay?”

“Be right there!” I shout.

I force myself to my feet. I Walk—very slowly and cautiously—back down the hall toward the living room. I use the Walls as a crutch. And in the process, something else extraordinary happens. Somehow I manage to see those Walls for the first time. I really, truly observe the Walls of the Burger family apartment. Framed photos are everywhere, like a plague: dozens of them, hundreds, maybe even thousands. It’s just …

I’ve never noticed them before. Not like this. I mean, how often do you really take a good, objective look at your own home? How often do you step back and soak in the place you’ve lived your entire life? But death has given me a new perspective. If I felt my life flashing before my eyes back at the diner, When Leo pulled the Water gun, Well, now it’s happening outside my mind and in real time. My life is literally flashing before my eyes. Frame by frame.

And not just my own. The lives of every person my parents have ever met: every friend, every client, every casual acquaintance—even Mr. Hammurabi, the deli guy across the street— they’re all included, too, somewhere.

I pause in front of a part of Wall space dedicated entirely to me.

So many pictures …

There I am, holding my electric guitar right after Mom and Dad unveiled it for my eleventh birthday. There I am, strumming it happily. There I am, sticking my tongue out at Mom as she yells at me to stop playing so I can Watch an important commercial.

And sure enough, there I am again, one picture away, in front of the TV.

There are even several shots of Rachel and me. She’s Wearing the same infinitely nice smile in all of them. My eyes grow misty. Now I finally understand Why my mom and dad mount so many photos on the Wall. Each represents a perfect, illustrative moment. The display is like a trailer for the movie of their lives. And now my own personal trailer is about to be yanked from theaters—

“Ted!” Nikki shouts.

She’s standing right in front of me. I nearly fall over. She loops my arm around her shoulders and escorts me back to the sofa, the Way a medic might escort a Wounded soldier away from battle.

Mark has started pacing again.

“You gotta call your parents, dude,” he says, stroking his chin, distracted. “You gotta let them know What happened. This is bad. I mean, this is really bad, you know?”

I nod. “Yeah, I know it’s bad.”

“So?”

“So What’s the point of calling them? I mean, seriously. They’re never around When I need them. They’re never even around When I don’t need them. They’re just never around. Even When they are here, they aren’t really here. You know? They’re so Wrapped up in each other and their Work that they don’t see anything other than themselves, or their agenda, or their pictures on the Wall … and if you Want to know the truth, you guys are more of a family to me than they are. I’m not kidding. I spend more time With you. I learn more from you. I—”

I shut up.

Mark and Nikki are both staring at me. Their lips are trembling.

What the hell did I just say? Now I know for sure the poison is taking effect because something is Wrong With my brain— something other than What’s usually Wrong With it. I’m never this open or honest or analytical. Whatever. I can’t afford to think too hard about that kind of BS right now. The clock is ticking.

“I mean, Why do you think I ran to get this?” I continue, just to fill the silence. I Wave the napkin in front of them. “I have to make the most of What little time I have left! I have to live it up!”

“I know you do, Burger!” Mark yells at me. “That’s Why you need to get off your ass and come With us and stop being such a moron!”

I scowl and lean back in the sofa, exhausted for some reason. The vertigo isn’t so bad now. Neither is the tinnitus. Maybe anger mutes the poison. But I’m angry because I realize that I shouldn’t be angry at all. Mark and I aren’t arguing; We’re agreeing. He’s right. We both are. I need to get off my ass and stop being a moron.

“Mark, I’m sorry,” I apologize forcefully. “But We’re gonna finish this list. You told me I had to. Remember? You even told me I should live the next twenty-four hours like they Were my last because my parents are away. Well, now they are my last.”

“Burger, that Was a joke,” he breathes.

“I know. And that’s the Whole point. It’s time to make this joke as funny and as cool and awesome and meaningful as We possibly can. So let’s figure out ten things for me to do, and then let me start doing them.”