Denton Little's Deathdate (6 page)

“You wouldn't have played Scrabble with me?”

“Did we play Scrabble last night?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.” I'm not enjoying this game. “I mean, I wouldn't have…made out with you last night? And I'm sorry.”

“Made out with me?”

I see Paolo nearby, trying to get a read on what's happening.

“Yeah, I—I think I did. I mean, I know we did. I…remember something.”

“Probably hallucinations from all that drinking.”

“Does alcohol make people hallucinate?”

“You tell me.”

“This cryptic thing you're doing isn't very cute. I mean, I'm not sure if you heard, but time is kinda valuable for me.”

You know how sometimes you think you're saying something witty and appropriate and it's only when you see how someone responds that you start to question whether it was either of those things?

“Denton,” she says, disgust written all over her face. “I'm sorry your deathdate is tomorrow, I am. Because I
think you're a good guy. Or I used to anyway. But you've got a lot of growing up to do.” And she walks away.

It's my turn to be pissed. “Well, great! Thanks! When will I do that, Veronica? Huh? I don't have time to do any growing up! I don't get that time!”

Veronica turns around. “Calm down, D. I'll see you at your Sitting.” Then she continues to walk away.

“You know, you're only one year older than me, V! College has made you really pretentious.”

She stops in her tracks, turns around, and walks back to me. I'm excited to hear what she's going to say next.

“By the way, Denton,” she says, leaning in so close that I can smell her girlness blended with the smell of the french fries she'd been serving that afternoon, “we didn't make out last night. We slept together. Okay? We had sex. Remember? You drunk idiot.”

I'm without words.

“So. See you later.” And she is gone.

Paolo sidles up beside me. “Man, I know what it means when she gets that look. How much money do you owe her?”

It's a surreal feeling when you realize you are everything you've always tried so hard not to be. I never wanted to be a lying, cheating, sleep-around type of dude. I thought I was a romantic; a writer of sweet notes; a buyer of hilarious, well-thought-out gifts; someone who wanted to wait to have sex until it was Really Right. But whether I've been this way all along or whether I have death to thank, this much is indisputable: I
am
an asshole. A non-virgin asshole.

“Wait, so seriously, do you owe her money?” Paolo asks.

I'm not sure if I should tell him about me and Veronica. There are two ways to think about it. Either
Oh, I'm gonna be dead soon anyways, so I might as well not tell Paolo that I boned his sister
. Or
Oh, I'm gonna be dead soon anyways, so I should just tell Paolo that I boned his sister
. Maybe he'd cheer me on. But there's bound to be some weirdness, and I don't want that in these last hours.

“Oh, uh, well, yeah. I owe her ten bucks.”

“Ten bucks?” Paolo says. “V's freaking out like that over ten bucks?”

That is kinda low. “I mean twenty bucks. Twenty-five bucks.”

“Still. Calm it down, lady.”

“Yeah. Totally.”

We stand side by side, taking in the festivities celebrating my death.

“So this is a trip, huh?” Paolo says.

“I don't think it's fully hit me yet.”

He puts his arm around me, hand on my shoulder. “Wherever you go, I'll be there in a month. Just remember that.”

This is cold comfort to me. Because, really, where are we even going? In spite of whatever I said during my self-eulogy, I've never fully been able to embrace the idea of the afterlife as this place where dead people can all hang out together and have fun.

“So if you forget anything,” Paolo continues, “your toothbrush, phone charger, whatever…just let me know, and I'll be able to bring it for you.”

“Oh, cool, thanks, good to know. I'll leave a little duffel bag you can put all the stuff I forget into.”

“Sweet, I love duffel bags.”

“Me too.”

If someone overheard our jokey conversations, they'd think we were idiots. But what we love to do is have conversations where we're talking
as if
we're idiots. It's a subtle, but key, difference.

“Actually, could you lend me a few of your duffel bags?”
Paolo asks. “I won a couple new ones on eBay yesterday, but I'm gonna need some backups.”

“Absolutely. I'll lend you my duffel bag press as well so you can make your own. It's great for emergencies.”

“Oh, that is gonna change my life. Thanks, dude!”

I laugh. Paolo laughs.

“Duffel bags,” I sigh.

“Duffel bags.”

We sit in this moment that suddenly feels representative of our entire friendship. It's sad. I don't want to sit in it anymore.

“I should get back to Taryn. She's—”

“I think Taryn will be okay without you,” Phil says, appearing from behind Paolo's shoulder like he's been waiting for the perfect opportunity to interrupt. His trademark fedora is back.

“Oh. Thanks for the input,” I say. Whatever this is, I'm not in the mood for it.

“Great speech, Little. Really appreciated all the nice things you had to say about me. Right, Tooch?”

Another one of our cross-country teammates, Eric Vertucci, stands nearby. He's generally a nice guy—except for when he's around Phil—so he seems confused about how to respond. He settles on a quick bounce of his thick eyebrows.

“Look, Phil, I…” It was much easier to call him a tool when I was standing at a microphone in front of tons of people.

“What's the big deal?” Paolo says. “He called you a tool because you're a tool.”

“Nobody asked you, dick-lick!” Phil gives Paolo a little shove.

“Come on, stop!” I say, sounding even to my own ears like a whiny little kid.

Phil gets all up in my face. His breath smells like tuna fish.

“Like you're gonna do something about it? A wuss like you?”

I say nothing. I wonder how Taryn dated this guy for three years.

“I know you were aiming that PB cup at me. Too bad you have the throwing skills of a three-year-old girl.”

Can't argue with him there. “Get out of my face,” I say.

“You know that once you die, Taryn and I are getting back together? Right?” How painfully insecure does a guy have to be to say this to someone who is about to die? “Where do you think she was just now, when you couldn't find her? She was with
me
.”

Whether or not these things are true, my predominant thought is that I've never punched a human being before (although that makes it sound like I have punched animals) and this might be a good time.

I ball my fingers up into a fist.

“Yo, Lechman,” Eric Vertucci says, hands on Phil's shoulders. “Not here, man.”

Phil looks around, notices various concerned, disgusted faces, maybe hears the judgmental mumbles. (“No class whatsoever.” “Geez, it's his funeral, dude.”)

“Yeah, okay.” Phil takes a couple steps back. “Not here.” He adjusts his fedora.

I go to straighten my tie and realize I'm still wearing many novelty necklaces.

“You're lucky you're dying, Little.”

“And you're lucky you can run fast,” I say, trying my best to quickly assemble some kind of comeback.

“You threatening me?” Phil takes a step toward me.

“No, no, I meant it like, since you have no other skills or talents to fall back on in life.”

“What?”

“It didn't fully make sense, never mind.”

Phil stares me down a beat longer. “See you soon. Let's hit it, Tooch.” He saunters off.

Well, somebody just shot to the top of the Death Threat Suspect List.

“Sorry, dude,” Eric Vertucci says, lingering a moment longer before following Phil. “Bye, I guess.”

“Oh man!” Paolo says. “You were way too nice to that guy in your eulogy.”

“Yeah. I was seriously about to punch him just now.”

“Ah, I thought so! Man, that would have made my life.” Paolo awkwardly punches the air twice. “Who's the dick-lick now, dick-lick?”

“You think all that stuff he said about Taryn is true?”

Paolo takes way too much time to answer. “Nah, dude, he was just talkin' smack.”

“Hmm,” I say.

“Honestly, I'd be more worried about that whole ‘See you soon' business.”

This is all kinds of disturbing. I don't want Phil to be the reason my life ends.

And I certainly don't want him anywhere near my rapidly approaching Sitting.

I know different people and cultures have varying approaches to death, so in case you don't know about the tradition of the Sitting, here's the deal: whilst waiting for death, you sit. You generally end up in a room of your house, probably the family room (ideally not the living room because the irony of that is too hilarious and stupid), where you're joined by your immediate family and whoever else has been invited: cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, girlfriends, best friends, and so on. Everybody communes and celebrates and waits for something to happen.

And something always happens.

Heart attack, stray bullet, seizure, fallen bookshelf or tree, stabbing, tornado, tumble down the stairs, strangling, drug overdose, fire, aneurysm. Not to mention the basics: old age, cancer, pneumonia, other fatal illnesses. People have gone to great lengths to try and survive, but you just can't. This guy, Lee Worshanks, in Pennsylvania, spent years working on what he called a Safety Room, the perfect place in which to spend his deathdate: ideal temperature, rubber walls, dull-edged furniture, the works. When the Big Day rolled around, the room's complicated security system somehow malfunctioned, and Lee found himself locked out. After hours of failed attempts to get inside his perfect room, he went a little nuts. He ended up electrocuted by some kind of circuit panel in the basement. So pretty much every possible variation on death in a house has happened to at least someone in the past few decades.

But you don't know what that variation is, and you
don't know when in the day it will happen. That's why the Sitting has always seemed insane to me. Who would ever want to be sitting in a room with their family for twenty-four hours straight? How is that anybody's idea of a happy way to die?

I asked my stepmom a little while back if we could do my Sitting on a beach somewhere, and for a second, it seemed like she was going to agree. But then she must have envisioned a terrifying land shark chomping off my head, because she shot me down hard-core. I sorta get it.

Being in your house inspires some blind hope, a feeling that nothing bad could actually happen in that sacred space of familiarity and comfort. It's a healthy delusion, giving you the false sense that you have some control over your fate.

Not only that, but there are some places where you're straight-up not allowed to be on your deathdate. Airplanes, for example. Sometime in the first few years after AstroThanatoGenetics went public, people began to realize that it was ludicrous to allow someone onto a plane on the day they were going to die. Suddenly the odds of that plane going down go way up. Even though the deathdated would be the only ones killed, there'd be plenty of potential for others to be injured, paralyzed, maimed, traumatized, etc., so the airlines in the US banded together and created a no-flying-on-your-deathdate policy.

Insanely enough, the number of plane crashes in the country dropped dramatically. There have still been exceptions involving the undated or tourists (the US, UK, and Germany are the only countries in which learning your deathdate is mandatory), but all in all, it's a smart
policy. And a nice demonstration of why a Sitting makes sense.

Though there's danger aplenty at Sittings, too. There's the story where the woman sat for a while with her family, then went outside to get a quick breath of fresh air, her husband accompanying her as a bodyguard of sorts. They weren't outside longer than two minutes when a drunk driver swerved onto the sidewalk straight into them. And this was a sunny weekday afternoon. She died in the hospital three hours later, and her husband, whose deathdate wasn't for another
twenty-one years
, went into a coma that I think he's still in to this day. So. Yeah. You understand why you might err on the side of not leaving home at all.

But ultimately to Sit or not to Sit is a very personal decision.

Since I'm dying young, it means, technically, I still answer to my parents. And it's hard to argue with your parents. At least, it's hard for me to argue with mine. I feel bad; they're losing a son. I don't need to add the worry and anxiety of not knowing where it'll happen.

So that is why I will be having a Sitting.

But I'm not looking forward to it.

“Yo, dude, wanna head back to the dance floor?” Paolo asks. “Danica's dancing alone, which is clearly her inviting me to jump on it.”

“Clearly.” I should get back to Taryn, but I feel compelled to give my splotch a peek, see how my death is progressing. “I think I'm gonna take a quick jaunt to the bathroom, so I'll just meet you over there.”

“Oh, I gotta go, too. I'll come with you.”

“But I think it's a one-person bathroom.”

“I'll just wait by the door. What's the big deal, you gonna rub one out or something?”

“No, no.” I haven't told anyone about my death splotch yet, but Paolo may as well be the first. “I…uh…well, yeah, just come with me. It's not a big deal.”

“Okay…I don't want to see your junk, if that's what this is about.”

Alone in the bathroom, I nervously unzip and lower my pants.

It's worse than I imagined.

My entire right thigh down to my right knee looks like it's been soaked in wine, and the electric red dots are everywhere. I run my hand up and down my thigh, and the cavalcade of dots rearranges itself in perfect formation. I peek under my boxers and see that the splotch extends all the way up my right hip, narrowing to a sharp point, like some jagged stalagmite.

“Stay calm, Denton, stay calm,” I say quietly. “It doesn't hurt, it's okay.”

“You all right in there, brozer?” Paolo asks.

“Eh” is all I can manage through the door.

“Should I come in?”

“I dunno,” I mumble.

“Whoa, shit, man, has the dying started? The door's locked, lemme in!”

“Okay,” I say, starting to raise my pants and go for the handle.

There's a karate grunt, followed by a loud bang against the door.

“Ow,” Paolo says.

“Are you okay?” I open the door and usher Paolo quickly inside.

“I was trying to kick it down,” he says, shaking the pain off his foot. “In case you were dead.”

“Thanks, man. But this is what I was freaking out about.” I show him.

“Oh wow, yeah.” I can tell he's trying to downplay his reaction, but he's shocked and fascinated by what he's seeing. “Did you fall or something?”

“No. I noticed it this morning. I have no idea. Have you ever seen anything like this?”

Paolo is looking closely at my leg, and even though it's in the most clinical, doctorlike way, I can't help but hear in my head the shout of “GAY!” from earlier.

“No, definitely not. I mean, maybe it's some sort of weird STD?”

“No, it's definitely not an STD,” I say, maybe a bit forcefully. But holy crap, is it? Did Veronica give me some rare disease that's going to be the thing that kills me? Did we even use protection last night? I have to believe I would have used a condom, even drunk. Right? Moron, Denton, moron!

“Ease up, Sparky, I was joking.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say, trying to conjure up a chuckle.

Sweaty DJ's voice reverberates on the other side of the door: “Everybody, let's get out here for one last song for Dante, really show him our love now.”

“Last song,” Paolo says. “Shit, we gotta get you out there.”

Amazingly enough, one of my favorite songs of all time starts playing, but I can't fully take it in.

“Okay,” I say, “but…do you think there are STDs like this, though?”

“I don't know, dude, maybe. Wait, why…? Did you have
sex
?”

“What?” I've been caught off guard, and I'm doing a terrible job of playing it cool.

“Oh my good golly, DUDE. You had sex? Last night? I thought you and Taryn didn't have sex!”

“Quiet down.”

“But you totally did!” Paolo says in a loud whisper. “You be stealthy! Oh man, that is amazing. Congrats! I'm so happy for you guys.”

“Yeah, well…”

“And it happened at my house, I'm honored.”

“Right. Um. It wasn't…”

“It wasn't at my house? Where did you do it? You guys are crazy!”

“No, no, it wasn't…”

“It wasn't good?”

I want to tell him that it wasn't with Taryn, but the words aren't coming. I haven't lied yet, though. Not exactly.

“It's never good the first time. Never. When I did it with Jasmine that time, it was like mice stuck in glue.” He gives an exaggerated shiver.

“Ew, what?”

“It was bad, dude, so don't worry. But this thing on your leg, huh? Maybe Taryn did STD you, I don't know.”

“She didn't STD me, okay?”

“What's with those dots?”

“I don't know. They move,” I say as I show him.

“Whoa, cool! Can I try?”

“I…No, stop stroking my leg.”

Someone knocks on the door. “Dent…?” asks Taryn. “Are you in there?”

My attention is distracted, because right as she knocked, the splotch began to expand before our very eyes.

“Whoa,” Paolo says.

“Oh, hey, Tar,” I say. “I am. Sorry, I'll be out in a sec.”

Like a bloodstain in the movies, the death mark blossoms down my calf in a way that would almost seem beautiful if it wasn't so damn freaky.

“Is…Paolo in there with you, too?”

“Um…” This would be a stupid thing to lie about, as it will be pretty obvious once the door opens. “Yes. We were just…chatting in here.”

“Oh,” she says, five long seconds later. “Well, we were all out here worried about you. Want to join us? I wanna dance with my boyfriend at his funeral.”

“Of course, of course,” I say. I pull up my pants. Paolo is still staring at my leg, mesmerized.

“That was incredible,” he says.

We come out of the bathroom to find not just Taryn but my stepmom and dad, too.

“Hey, guys, sorry about that,” I say. “We weren't making out in there or anything.”

Taryn's face changes to one of surprise and mild shock. “What? Why would you be making out in there?”

“What did he just say?” my stepmom says to my dad.

“Oh. I thought…” I seem to have misjudged the situation.

“It's okay, Denton,” my dad says, with a look of such compassion and understanding it would break your heart. “We're just glad you're all right.”

“Yeah, no, I know, but really, we were just talking in there. About movies.”

“Lots of cool movies out right now,” Paolo agrees.

I don't want to tell my parents about the splotch yet. It would only make them worry more. (I realize that's absurd, considering I'm dead either way. But.)

“Okay, so…I think Taryn and I are gonna…” I gesture to the dance floor.

Taryn is giving me a playful look with squinty eyes that is also kinda serious, like,
Who are you?

“Yes, fine,” my stepmom says, waving us off. “Go, go, but, Dent, people are starting to leave and they want to say goodbye to you, so make sure you do.”