Me & Death (8 page)

Would Jim actually have punched her? I don’t know. He wanted to. But at that moment the parked car beside him came to life with a cough and a rumble, and an extremely familiar head popped up from the driver’s side of the front seat. Jim’s scowl dissolved into a grin.

Hey, Rafal, what are you doing here?

Raf leaned across to open the passenger-side door.

Want to come for a ride, Jim?

’Kay
.

The anger melted inside me. Jim got in. Morgan and I drifted through the rear fender into the backseat. The motor roared, and the car spun away from the curb. Rafal steered up Sunnyside and along High Park Boulevard to the park itself, about a million acres of green in the west end of the city. The dashboard clock said 5:17. The park gates were open. We drove in.

Rafal is my best friend, even though he’s a year older than me and goes to high school. He’s short and wide but
tough with it, all corners. He almost always has a grin on. I remember him fighting with Sparks once, in the back room at Jerry’s. Sparks is bigger and stronger, must have knocked Raf down a dozen times, but Raf kept bouncing back onto his feet, smiling like anything. Sparks got so upset he grabbed a bowling ball out of a box of junk and threw it. A bowling ball! It was the first thing he could put his hand on. Raf ducked and the ball smashed a window. (Jerry kicked Sparks out of the shop for a week. Crazy but cool, that’s Raf.
Never let them see you mad
, he says.
When my old man is hitting me, I just smile. Drives him bananas
.) Thinking about Rafal made me feel awful. What had happened to him last night? What had I done?

Back to the memory. There’s a network of lanes running through High Park. Raf pulled off to the side near the main gates and asked Jim if he wanted to drive. Jim’s eyes lit up like fireworks. They traded places, clambering over each other and laughing. When Jim put his foot down, the car stalled. He went to restart it, but there wasn’t a key. A tangle of ignition wires hung down from under the steering column.

You boosted this car!
said Jim.

Rafal’s eyes quirked up. His grin was sudden and vivid, fork lightning in the night sky. He took a flashlight from the pocket of his ski jacket and fiddled under the dashboard.

“You start with the ignition wires,” I explained to Morgan from the backseat. “Strip the ends and connect them. There’ll be a shock, but …”

“This isn’t my past, kid,” he said. “I don’t give a damn.”

When the dash lights came on, Raf turned to the starter wires, connecting red to brown. There was a spark and the engine turned over. Since the car was in gear when it stalled, it kicked forward.

Give her some gas!
Raf shouted.

’Kay!

Jim steered into the park. The autumn twilight was spooky. Deep shadows, dark colors, a sense of foreboding. Bare tree branches met overhead, like clasped fingers. A lonely kid trudged ahead of us. The cloth overcoat flapped around his bony figure. His hair blew in the wind.

I know that guy
, Jim told Raf.
And I hate him
.

Then … give her some more gas!
shouted Raf.

Jim sped up and aimed the car right at Lloyd. I could feel his anger running like flame through my own body. I know how this scene ended. I didn’t run Lloyd down, but … was I trying to? Or was I maybe using him as a way to get back at Cassie? It occurred to me that this last vision had had a lot of anger in it.

Lloyd had seen the car now, but he hadn’t got out of the way. He stood, poised between fears – which way to jump?

Morgan was leaning forward in the seat. “Exfluncticate the boy!” he shouted, shaking a rough scarred fist. His other hand went to the hilt of his cutlass. “Exfluncticate him!”

A raccoon ambled into the road ahead of us, humpbacked and heedless. Raf grabbed the wheel, pulled it
down. The car jumped the curb and crashed into the underbrush on the near side of the road.

(So that’s how it happened! I knew I’d crashed the car, but the details were hazy.)

The air was full of noise. Jim and Raf were shouting. Branches knocked against the windows as we rushed past.
Foot off the gas!
Raf said. And then my name, over and over.
Jim! Jim! Jim!

“Jim!”

Tadeusz’s voice. I blinked. High Park, Raf, the stolen car, and my past had vanished. I was back behind the Oasis bar, smelling lime and cinnamon and treading on broken glass. Morgan and Tadeusz stood across the bar from me. The TV was back on the news channel.

“Time to go, Jim,” said Tadeusz.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The place was starting to get to me. It was so very full of unhappiness.

“Great!” I said. “I can’t wait to get out of here.” I was thinking of what I’d do when I got back home. The changes I’d make. The people I’d be better to, so that I’d never ever ever
ever
run the risk of ending up back here when I finally did die.

Morgan laughed so hard he spilled his drink.

“What’s so funny?”

Tadeusz clasped his hands in front of him and looked at the floor.

“
What?
” I said.

“I’ve got horrible news, Jim,” he said.

CHAPTER 15

“
I
’m
what
?”

“Dying,” said Tadeusz. He was looking at me now.

Big, fat concerned expression, which went so oddly with his wise-guy suit. He needed a shave.

“But you said I
wasn’t
dying. Remember? You didn’t say anything about dying – just told me to pay attention. And I’ve been doing that.”

“You were supposed to wake up in the hospital. But something is going wrong down on the street. Your body is reacting badly.”

“What do you mean, reacting badly?” I was talking fast now. “How badly? What’s wrong with my body?”

“I don’t know, Jim. I’m not –”

“You don’t
know
?”

“I’m not a –”

“You’re a
ghost
, Tadeusz. You’re immortal. You know the future enough to warn people. What’s wrong with me?”

“I’m not a doctor,” said Tadeusz calmly. “All I know is what I hear from the front desk. It seems that your vital signs have suddenly started dropping and that you are going to die soon. I’m very sorry.”

“I feel fine,” I said to Tadeusz. “Same as I did when I arrived.”

“Sorry,” he said again.

Morgan snorted.

“You shut up!” I told him. I leaned over the bar and knocked the drink out of his hand. But that only made him laugh harder. “Hellfire!” he cried. “Aren’t you an angry sunket?” He bent to retrieve the glass.

I wanted something to focus on. There was a framed photo graph on the wall behind the bar. Cowboy, cowgirl, horse. The three of them looked like they belonged together. They were natural, regular folks – and yet special too, with their hats and guns and stuff. They were like a perfect family. I squinted to read the writing at the bottom of the photo.
Happy trails to you
…

I turned back to Tadeusz. “So … will I get a chance to change? The whole point of me coming here for the day was so I could learn stuff. Pay attention, you said. And I have! I know I’m a piece of crap, just like Denise said. I’m full of sadness, and fear. I’ve let a bunch of people down. I’ve been angry and mean. But I want to change. I don’t want to be a piece of crap anymore. I want to say sorry to Maq and Lloyd. And Raf. I want to see Marcie again. I want to talk to Cassie!”

I came around the bar and put my hand on his cold arm. “Please, Tadeusz. I don’t want to die now. I don’t want to end up here. I don’t …”

I stopped. I was staring at my hand. Was it my imagination or had my skin changed color? I am not a dark guy, don’t take much of a tan. But I had never seen
my hand so pale, so silvery, so … gray. Was the dragon shirt as bright as it had been? To be honest, it looked a little faded.

No. No. No!

“How much time do I have?” I asked Tadeusz.

“Not much.”

“Hours? Minutes? Do I have time to talk to anyone? You know Cassie actually saw me and Morgan as ghosts! I’d like a chance to talk to her. Or Marcie.” I was panicking, thinking of all the people I wanted to see.

He shook his head.

“Please, Tadeusz! Please. One minute with Marcie. That’s not much to ask? Do it for a fellow Roncesvaller. A guy from the old neighborhood!”

“Jim,” he said gently, “everyone here is from the old neighborhood.”

Morgan tossed his empty glass in the bar sink, where it rattled around.

“Come on, kid.” He got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“You?” I said. “You’re going with me?”

“Hellfire! Of course I’m going with you. I wouldn’t miss it.”

He belched.

“I need to be there,” he said.

I remembered how Denise was drawn to her son by her own regret. How Wolfgang was drawn to Lloyd’s fear by his own.

Morgan was tied to Earth too.

I waved to Tadeusz from the doorway.

“Good-bye, Jim.”

Morgan pushed me into the hall. His hand on my back felt like a blow. “Good-bye, huh?” he said. “More like
Au revoir
!”

In the elevator on the way down, I thought,
I’m dying
. I thought,
I’m dying
. I thought
, I’m actually dying
. I thought
, Crap crap crap
.

Orlanda was still at the front desk. She took my day pass and pursed her lips at me. “Not so very colorful as you were, Jim,” she said.

I felt anger sloshing around inside me. She leaned closer, so that I felt the cool self-satisfaction coming off her skin.

“Not so snooty, are you? You remind me of a whipped puppy.”

“Yeah, well, you remind me of SHUT UP!”

The words popped out before I could stop them. An instinctive reaction. Too bad, because this would have been a perfect opportunity for me to apologize for being sort of mean to her about the mailbox.

Orlanda’s mouth had dropped open like an oven door. I tried to smooth things over and show how I had changed.

“Nice, uh, tonsils,” I said. “So clean and shiny. You must be very proud.”

Idiot!

Morgan dragged me to the door, kicked it open.

“You told
her
,” he said. “Reminds me of shut up. Ha! That was the beatenest thing.”

I sighed.

After the horrid drab gray of the hotel, the sky looked like it had just been washed. So bright it hurt my eyes.

“Ready to die, kid?”

“It just seems so
unfair
to me, you know?”

“Well, it seems SHUT UP to me.” A wide grin. “Did you smoke that? Like what you said to Orlanda? You’d make a cat laugh.”

He stepped into space, dragging me after him.

CHAPTER 16

W
e dropped like stones. So much faster than the way I had gone up with Denise. Looking down was like one of those satellite projection shots that start with Earth from space and end up with a view of the inside of your mouth where gingivitis germs are giving you bad breath. In our case, the shot steadied and slowed when we were approaching street level. A traffic jam stretching up and down Roncesvalles. Two police cars blocked the intersection at Wright Avenue. Between them stood an ambulance with open rear doors. Morgan and I dropped onto street level, joining the crowd of gapers, chatters, yawners, and tsk-tskers.

The paramedics were rolling a stretcher toward the ambulance. Morgan and I moved closer. No one could see us, and yet people got out of our way. Maybe they felt Morgan’s heat. One woman took out a handkerchief and mopped her face as we passed.

It was my body on the stretcher, all right. My shirt, my blood-stained face.

I wanted to shake my unconscious self awake. I wanted to fight someone. I wanted to cry.

I could hear people in the crowd asking one another what happened. They weren’t all speaking English, but I knew what they were saying anyway. It was like I was
watching a dubbed film. (Seriously cool. Too bad there were no ninjas. I love those films.)

I saw Cap and Sparks standing on the edge of the crowd, sipping coffee from paper cups, laughing together. Not very nice guys.