The End or Something Like That (12 page)

After our visit with Dr. Ted Farnsworth, everything seemed different.

It was the same, but different.

She could feel death coming.

It was on her visage.

He knew.

She knew.

Why didn't I know?

I stood on the sidewalk with thousands of people pushing past me.

Thousands.

It was spring break time but I'd never ever seen the strip like this.

Not at eleven in the morning.

Not in this heat.

A group of guys in suits. A silver-painted cowboy. Forty-five band kids. Ladies in Bermuda shorts with pink sunglasses. A man yelling that the world was going to end. Babies crying. A woman walking dogs.

In the middle of all this I stood.

Ms. Dead Homeyer had been there. Right in front of Paris Las Vegas. In a sombrero.

And now she was gone.

Did this mean I was doing the right thing? Was Ms. Dead Homeyer going to come back? Sing more Fun in my ear?

I waited to see if she would reappear. Come tell me what to do.

But she didn't.

Instead I was scorching my neck and I needed to move. I turned toward Circus Circus and almost ran straight into a tall man wearing tall pants, who had a mole the size of Texas on his face.

I gasped.

He swore at me. “Get out of the way.”

But I was frozen.

“You going to get out of the way?” he said.

It was Kim's uncle Sid.

Kim's dead uncle Sid that I said I'd never want to see naked.

Ever.

He went around me and disappeared into the crowd.

•

At least he wasn't naked.

Sometimes it feels like my whole life before she died was a dream.

•

Sometimes it feels like I'm floating.

•

Floating down a river and an alligator says to me, did you know hippos are more dangerous than me?

And I say, what about sharks?

And he says, sharks will bite off your legs and I say, yes. Yes. They will.

Nothing made sense now.

I walked down the street.

And walked and walked.

Was that really Uncle Sid? Or was I hallucinating?

I had to focus. Get to the seminar. He would explain. Dr. Ted Farnsworth would explain. There was nothing in the book about this, nothing even close.

All these people.

People everywhere.

I walked slowly, trying not to touch anyone, which was impossible.

A lady handed me a flyer with a lady on it that I stuffed in my pocket. I knew what it was and I didn't want to even look at it, but I also didn't want to throw it on the ground with the thousands and thousands of other pieces of paper.

A kid was crying about a sucker.

And then I saw a woman who looked like my mom's Jenny Craig counselor, the one who died of cancer.

Was it her?

I couldn't be sure. I'd only seen her a few times.

Like twice.

But it looked like her. It looked exactly like her. She was laughing with other ladies at a café table.

I kept walking.

Things were slowing down and then speeding up. People coming near me. Their faces animated and huge. Then shrinking. Like I was in a fun house.

Did I recognize them? Had I seen them before?

But then the strip always felt like this to me. Surreal and odd.

Now it was just more complicated.

A man with a cane and suspenders who looked like our old neighbor Harry who'd had a heart attack, and Mom and Dad had to help clean out his house.

But it wasn't him. It didn't even look like him. It wasn't him.

Or maybe it was.

What if everyone
was
dead? What if that's why I didn't like it down here? Maybe all along, the strip was for walking dead people.

Was I dead? Did I die on that bus? Did I die last night? At Ms. Dead Homeyer's funeral?

Was I going to be stuck on the strip forever?

I stopped for a second to catch my breath. I tried to not think about the swirling around me but it was impossible.

Everyone laughing, talking as loud as they could, across the street, the Cheesecake Factory with a line of dead people waiting to get in and stuff their faces.

Then there was a car.

A low rider Cadillac with one side higher than the other.

Rap music blaring and a man, a huge man, driving. One arm on the steering wheel, the other out the window.

Fatbutt.

•

I was going crazy. I was going completely crazy.

•

Just then a man dressed as the Statue of Liberty knocked into me and I dropped my orange.

I had almost forgotten I had it until it fell and when I saw it hit the ground, a panic came over me.

I needed that orange.

I needed it.

The orange was real. It was hard and real and if I peeled it, I could eat it.

And if I ate it, and the juice would go down my throat and into my stomach. If that happened, I could not be dead. Right?

I chased after it, weaving through people.

It kept rolling and rolling and rolling, like it had a life of its own.

Flip-flops, boots, sandals, tennis shoes, and the orange rolled on.

And on.

And on.

Until finally, after more than half a block, it rested at the toe of a pair of green Pumas.

I looked up.

It was the zitty boy. From Ms. Dead Homeyer's funeral.

A reunion.

I took a breath.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said.

I grabbed the orange and stood.

We both stared at each other. I thought I should be scared of him. That this meant something but for some reason I felt a calm come over me. A calm that I needed.

“You gonna eat that?” he said.

I looked at the orange in my hand that I was gripping a lot harder than I realized. Squeezing.

“I don't know.”

“I think you should.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Okay,” I said.

And then me and the boy from Pal's mortuary became friends.

We were in front of Treasure Island, me and the kid from Pal's.

He sat down right there on the pathway up to a pirate ship under a sign with sexy girls that said:

COME SEE THE SIRENS OF TREASURE ISLAND!!

Be enchanted by the beautiful temptresses as they lure a band of renegade pirates with their mesmerizing melodies of seduction and danger!!!

Free shows nightly!

Parental Guidance suggested—strollers not permitted.

“You're sitting here? On the sidewalk?”

“There's nowhere else to sit,” he said.

And it was true. There were no benches on the strip. They didn't want you to rest or relax or talk. They wanted you to go inside and lose all your money and get drunk. Or stand and watch temptresses lure men into seduction and danger.

I sat next to him.

“I've been waiting for you,” he said.

It was a weird thing to say.

“You have?” I said, trying to sound fine about that.

“Yep.”

“Why? How did you know I'd be here?”

He shrugged. “I don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“I just knew.”

I wiped the sweat from my upper lip.

“You didn't remember me,” he said.

“You mean from the funeral?” I said.

He shook his head. “No. Not from the funeral.”

“From when?”

“From before,” he said.

I was confused. The first time I'd seen him was outside Pal's.

“I don't know you,” I said.

He started untying his shoes and then tying them back up. Untying again.

I watched him. He was doing it slowly, with precision.

Ms. Dead Homeyer had played with her shoelaces, too. What did it mean?

Then he said, “I know you.”

I came out of my trance. “What?”

“You're Joe Anderson's sister.”

My heart pounded.

“You know Joe?” I said.

He nodded. “And I know you.”

“How?”

He looked at me.

“Who do you think I am?”

I stared at his face. His zits. He
did
look familiar. Sort of. Barely.

I had no idea.

“It's okay,” he said.

“It's okay?”

“Yeah. It's okay.”

“Then who are you?”

He sighed. “I'm kind of famous.”

Now I was really confused.

He pulled out of his pocket a crumpled brochure of New York-New York casino.

It had been opened and reopened so many times the edges were white and looked like they were about to tear.

What?

“Look,” he said. He unfolded it. There was a schematic of the roller coaster. He'd circled areas and there were figures and diagrams and notes all over the place.

I stared at it. And then I realized.

“No,” I said.

He laughed.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You're Baylor?”

I could see his face now, his smiling face in the obituary.

Baylor Frederick Hicks, the boy my brother had bet on. RIP.

One time a boy called me.

He said, “Hey.”

I said, “Hey.”

•

And then he said nothing.

•

For a long, long time.

•

At first it was a little romantic, maybe.

But then it was weird.

And then I knew it was a prank call or something worse. A murderer.

Right when I was about to hang up, he said, “Emmy.”

He sounded nervous.

“Hi,” I said.

“Are you okay?”

Was I okay?

“Yeah,” I said.

“Is this a good time to talk?”

Who was this? Who could it be?

“Yeah. Sure.”

Then he said, “My mom heard from your mom that Kim is pretty sick.”

“What?”

He said it again, “Your mom told my mom about Kim.”

“Who is this?” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. This is Skeeter.”

Ugh. Skeeter.

He kept talking. “I just wanted to tell you that I know and that I'm sorry and I don't know. I know we don't really hang out but I thought I'd just call and I, it's probably stupid . . .”

His voice trailed off.

Skeeter had called me one other time in my life and that was when Kim accidentally took his hoodie when we were in elementary school and we'd played night games at the park and he was scared his mom was going to kill him.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

And that was it.

He looked different. Very different.

His hair was bigger, his face was bigger, everything felt bigger.

In the obituary picture he looked like a little boy. A scared little boy and this kid did not seem scared at all, not one bit. But it was him. I could see it now. It was the same person.

Baylor Frederick Hicks.

I was confused.

What am I doing, Kim? Where am I? What is happening?

But of course, she didn't answer back. Didn't send a thought or a feeling. Nothing.

He started fiddling with his watch. A purple Swatch.

“I can't get this dumb thing to work,” he said.

I said . . .

He said . . .

I said . . .

He said, “Do you know how to work this?”

He held the watch to my face. “Uh. No.”

“Ugh,” he said.

Then I said, “You're dead?”

“Yep.”

He kept fiddling, put the watch back on. I sat there. So many questions were crowding in my head, I didn't know where to start so I said, “Does it hurt?”

The same question Kim had asked Dr. Ted Farnsworth.

He looked at me. “Does what hurt? The watch?”

“No. Being dead.”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh. Nope. Not now.”

He took the Swatch off again and studied it.

Something started to build in my stomach. Something small that grew into a full-blown ache.

“Am I dead?” I asked.

He looked at me. “What?”

“Am I dead? Is everyone here dead?”

He laughed. “No.”

“No?”

“No. But there are lots of dead people.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. There are lots of dead people everywhere.”

I felt numb. “There are?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are there dead people everywhere?”

He thought about it for a minute. Then he said, “I think they're all trying to figure something out. Doing things. Watching people. Finishing stuff.”

I swallowed. Kim could really be here. She could be on a gondola in the Venetian or looking at sharks at Mandalay Bay.

He put the watch back on and there are dead people everywhere. Trying to figure something out. Did Kim need to figure something out?

“Do they stay here forever?” I asked.

“No. They leave.”

“When?”

He shrugged. “I don't know yet. I'm still here.”

“Why?”

He was quiet for a minute. “I don't know.”

“Oh.”

My head started to pound and I felt a little dizzy.

“Are you okay?”

I swallowed. “Uh. I don't think so.”

He nodded. “You don't have to be okay.”

I looked at him. “What?”

“You don't have to be okay,” he said again. “Most people aren't.”

And I said, “Thank you.”

Once when I was bored, I googled Axl Rose and Slash and I don't even care and I don't listen to Guns N' Roses, but one day Skeeter said to me, “Axl Rose has a lot of hate.”

We were sitting at the same table we always sat at and not talking when he just blurted it out, like it was a crucial piece of information. He said, “Axl Rose has a lot of hate.”

I said, “Who is Axl Rose?”

And he told me that Axl Rose was the lead singer of Guns N' Roses and the band was supposed to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but Axl won't come because Slash will be there.

“Who's Slash?”

“The guitarist. The original guitarist.”

“Who's Axl?”

“The singer.”

“And why won't he come?”

“Axl won't come because Slash would be there.”

“Why?”

“They hate each other.”

“They hate each other? But they were in the same band.”

“Yep. Best friends for a bit. But not anymore.”

“Why?”

“A bunch of reasons. Axl actually used to live with Slash and then he slept on Slash's grandma's couch and when the grandma wanted to sit on her couch, you know, she couldn't.”

I stared at Skeeter. “Why are you telling me this?”

He said, “Here,” and he put his headphones in my ear and I listened to “Welcome to the Jungle.”

When the song was over I took off the headphones and said, “Never do that again.”

“You loved it.”

“No. I didn't love that song.”

“You did.”

But I didn't.

Maybe I did.

I googled Guns N' Roses and fight and Slash and Axl Rose and now I know everything.

This is the kind of really important thing I would like to discuss with Kim.