Suicide Girls In The AfterLife (5 page)

Chapter 13

   From the hall, we watch Katina bounce on a king-size bed, exclaiming, “It’s a water-bed! Oh my God, you guys have to see this.” Then she bounces off the bed and disappears from sight.
   Smiling innocently, Lucy says, “See? Nothing to be afraid of. I know I have a bad reputation, but it’s really quite undeserved.”
   “Whatever you say, pal,” Lithia snorts as she enters the room in search of Katina.
   “Don’t go in there!” Ago calls, too late. He gives me a helpless look. “We’re screwed now.”
   “Don’t be such pussies,” Lucifer says, waving us into the room after him. “I won’t bite.”
   Ago, Jane 62 and I stand in the hall, debating with looks alone until I say, “Well, fuck it. I’m not leaving Katina in there.”
   I go inside and find Katina gazing out the window on the far side of the room. She glances at me and says, “Check this out.”
   Joining her, I look out to see the moon. Not riding high in the night sky, as one would expect, but right below us, as though the hotel is on the moon. Dusty white craters of every imaginable size make up what should have been a lush green lawn lit with garden lamps.
   “Like the view?” Lucy asks from behind us. “If not, I can change it.”
   “That won’t be necessary,” I say. “We’re not staying. Come on, Katina.”
   By now Lithia is seated at the little dining table, tapping her cigarette into a crystal ashtray, while Jane 62 and Ago are examining framed photographs decorating one wall.
   “Is this when you were little?” Ago asks, pointing to a random picture.
   Lucifer peers over Ago’s shoulder and grunts without interest.
   Curiosity gets the best of me and I join them at the wall. Sure enough, there are photos of a young man who can only be Lucifer, at least how we know him at the moment. “Why are you standing with your arm around that big worm?” I ask, pointing.
   “Ah.” Lucy has wandered into the bathroom, but now comes out again, shaking pills into his hand from a brown plastic bottle. “That’s me with my dad.”
   “Your dad?” Ago balks. “You mean…”
   “Yep. The one and only.” At our disgusted faces, he says, “Oh, he takes on whatever shape amuses him at any given moment. That day it was a giant worm.”
   We puzzle over this for a few seconds until the pills draw my attention. “What are those?”
   He shakes the bottle at me. “Xanax. Want one?”
   “I do!” Katina trots over, holding out her hand.
   At my suspicious look, Lucifer says, “Doctor prescribed, I can assure you. Don’t look so amazed. Is it so shocking that I fight a battle against depression and anxiety just like everyone else? Do you have even an inkling of what it’s like to be me? Of the pressure I am constantly under?” He absently hands the bottle to Katina and then moves back next to Ago to gaze at the photos and shake his head sadly. “I used to be his favorite, you know. He used to say I was his most beautiful angel, and I was too.”
   “Save the pity party for someone who’ll fall for it,” I say. I give Katina a worried glance, watching her dry swallow a couple pills, but then I shrug it off. She’s already dead. What harm could really come to her?
Which brings me to a question that has been lingering in my mind since I woke up in that river of ice. “Are we ghosts, Lucy?”
   He turns away from the wall of photographs, his expression blank. “I beg your pardon?”
   “We’re either ghosts or zombies, right? I mean, we are dead, but at the same time, this feels exactly like being alive.”
   “I’m not dead,” Jane 62 pipes in. “At least, I don’t think I am.”
   “I’m dead,” Lithia says. “Deader than ten day old dog shit is what I am.”
   “How should I know what you are?” Lucy says. “Do I look like some all-knowing, all-seeing son of fucking God to you?”
   Lithia makes a clucking sound with her tongue. “Why so snippy, demon beast? Sounds like jealousy to me.”
   “Don’t call me that! And I’m not jealous of anyone!”
   “Sounds like you are.”
   “Well, I’m not!”
   “Stop bickering,” I tell both of them. “Shit, it was a simple question. Sorry I assumed you would know the answer, Lucifer.”
   “He doesn’t know shit,” Lithia says, sneering behind her cloud of smoke.
   “Fuck you!” Lucy snaps. He looks furious, but not the kind of furious where you’re struggling not to murder someone. The kind of furious where you’re struggling not to cry.
   “My,” Lithia taunts. “So sensitive.”
   Lucifer ignores her and snatches his pill bottle out of Katina’s hands. “Gimmie that. I need it more than you do.”
   Several seconds pass, all of us afraid to say anything. Except for Lithia, that is. She just goes right on snickering to herself.
   Finally, once Lucy has taken a few more pills, he appears to calm down and gives me a serious look. “You’ll probably have to ask Jay what you are.”
   “Jay?” I raise an eyebrow.
   “You know….Jay!”
   Scratching my head, I open my mouth to speak, but Katina interrupts. “Jesus!” she blurts. “Jesus fucking Christ!”
   “You got it, sister,” Lucy says, flopping into an arm chair, his face bored. “But I’d leave out the ‘fucking’ if I were you. You’ll ruin his whole day if you say that to him.”
   “Him?” I ask, not knowing if I’m getting the concept of what they’re talking about. “Who him?” Everyone looks at me like I’m retarded. “Okay, fine. I just wanted to be sure.”
   “Where can we find Jay?” Ago asks the devil.
   Lucy waves his hand impatiently toward the ceiling. “He’s where he always is, up there somewhere, where else? He would never soil his reputation by coming down here to visit the damned, even though they could certainly use an uplifting word or two now and then. Much more so than those fat old farts sitting pretty in their fucking marble Jacuzzis.”
   “He’s here?” I ask. “In the hotel?”
   “Of course! You think he’d miss all this fun?” Lucy laughs dryly at the prospect.
   “I want to meet Jesus!” Katina exclaims excitedly, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Can we? Please?”
   I look at the others, who all shrug. “I don’t see why not,” I tell her.
   “Sweet,” Katina says. She’s grinning from ear to ear until her eyes fall back to Lucifer sitting in his chair, numbing out on Xanax. “Why don’t you come with us, Lucy?”
   Four mouths open, screeching protest, but Lucy sits there calmly, his eyes vaguely amused. He doesn’t speak until we’re all finished with our objections and then he says, “Why, thank you, Katina. I think I will join you. I haven’t seen Jay in quite some time, now that I think about it.”
   “You’re just trying to spite us,” Lithia growls at him.
   He gives her his winning smile, his black, black eyes flashing with mischief. “That’s exactly correct, old woman. Exactly correct.”
   

Chapter 14

   Lucifer leads our little parade out to the stairwell that we never would have found on our own, simply because it didn’t exist until he wanted to climb it.
   We go up several flights in silence, except for Lithia’s huffing and puffing. When we arrive at a door marked 8th, Lucy swings it open and gestures us all forward. “After you,” he says with a bow.
   I’m a little leery—who knows where he could be leading us—but Katina marches right through like she owns the place. Like it’s not the devil inviting her through, but a cute misunderstood boy. I suppose, in his own way, that’s exactly what Lucy is.
   With thinly veiled trepidation, the rest of us follow Katina out into the hall and I sigh with relief. The place is sparkling and clean, a lush white carpet that looks as though it has never been walked on before beneath our feet. Brass lamps with frosted glass globes sit on expensive mahogany tables, glowing bright and welcoming. From somewhere, music is playing and the song sounds vaguely familiar but I can’t quite place it.
   “Come along, my little piggies,” Lucy says, starting down the hall. “Follow the big bad wolf.”
   We oblige, treading quietly, as if we’re trying hard not to disturb the patrons of this five-star hotel, lest they discover our presence and have us thrown out like the bums we are.
   The music swells the further along the hall we travel and then it finally comes to me: the Beach Boys, singing “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
   Lucy stops directly in front of the door where the music is coming from and raps his knuckles against it loudly. He looks at us and smiles, looks at the unanswered door and frowns. He raps again, harder this time. “Open up, Jay. You have visitors.”
   The door across the hall opens instead and we all turn to see several nuns peeking out at us. One of them spies Lucy, makes the sign of the cross and hisses something in Latin. Another one immediately begins singing along with the Beach Boys, clapping her hands in time with the beat, completely oblivious to us.
   “That’s the Singing Nun,” Lucy tells us. “The Flying Nun is in there too.”
   “You’ve gotta be shitting me,” I say.
   “Swear to God,” he says dramatically.
   One of the nuns pushes past the other two and joins us in the hall. The sight of her makes us grimace: blood flows down her face, streaming from her bloodshot eyes. Lucy jerks a thumb at her. “The Bleeding Nun.” Then he pounds on the door with his fist. “For fuck’s sake, Jay, open the fucking door!”
   The door opens abruptly and a young bearded man peers out at us, followed by a cloud of smoke. I sniff and look at Ago. “Mary Jane,” I say and try not to laugh.
   “Jesus!” Ago says, his own nose wiggling.
   “Hey, how ya doin’, man?” Jesus smiles cheerily. I notice his eyes are even more bloodshot than those belonging to the Bleeding Nun.
   “These kindly folks would like to have a word with you, Jay.” Lucifer says patiently.
   “No shit?” Jesus looks at us with his brown cow eyes. “Well, come on in!” He steps aside, taking a toke off the joint he’s holding. As I pass him, I can’t tell if I’m surprised by the way he’s dressed, or completely unsurprised.
   He’s wearing worn out leather sandals (no surprise), torn dirty jeans (a bit of a surprise), and a tie-dye T-shirt with a big pot leaf on the front (a pretty big surprise). His shirt is decorated with various pins: smiley faces, more pot leaves, The Grateful Dead. His wrists are decorated with hemp bracelets and around his neck are several long necklaces, colorful beads glinting in the sunshine of his room.
   “Sorry the place is so trashed, guys,” he says once we’re all inside. Even the Bleeding Nun has come in, trailing silently behind the nearly-silent Jane 62. Jesus starts throwing stuff around the room, clearing off the furniture for us to sit. He tosses clothes, comic books, a dirty pair of sneakers, empty soda cans, pizza boxes. All of it goes straight into a pile on the floor at the foot of the bed, which he promptly sits on, facing the TV. He takes another toke and points at the television which is playing a video game. “Mario Kart, guys,” Jesus says smiling, speaking loudly to be heard over the Beach Boys. “Anyone wanna race?”
   Lucifer rolls his eyes. “I told you, Jay. These people want to ask you some questions.”
   But Jesus isn’t listening. He’s started a new game, racing Mario around the track, trying to catch up to Luigi. After a moment, he says, “Yeah, there’s some cold pizza over on the…the…” He trails off, concentrating. When his little cartoon car crashes, he laughs like a child and smokes more of his joint.
   Lucy clears his throat and says, “They want to know if they’re ghosts or zombies, Jay.” He speaks to Jesus as though the guy is a complete idiot and I’m starting to see why. I think he’s toasted a few of his brains cells in the last 2,000 years or so.
   “Just say no,” Ago murmurs.
   “Jay?” Lucy says, louder. “Can you please stop doing that for a minute?”
   “I’m listening,” Jay insists. “Kinda.”
   “Well, which is it?” Lithia demands. “Ghosts? Zombies? Spirits? None of the above?”
   Jesus looks around the floor for an ashtray to stub out his roach. Once that is accomplished, he looks up at the rest of us with those earnest brown eyes and says, “That’s a pretty existentialist question. I mean, who are any of us, right, man? Maybe you’re not even here. Maybe I’m not even here. See what I’m saying?”
   Katina has moved to the window and looks out. “Sunflowers,” she says softly. “An endless field of sunflowers.”
   None of us are interested enough to look out with her. Instead, I look down at Jesus and say, “That’s not really helping, Jay.”
   “Or,” he continues, as though I didn’t speak. “Maybe you’re the whole world. The whole universe. Did you ever think of that?” He pinches his thumb and index finger together to signify something very small. “Maybe the entire solar system exists only in the pupil of your eye.”
   I’m beginning to feel a headache coming on and have no idea how to respond to the son of God when he is spewing such nonsense.
   “Are you sure you’re Jesus?” Lithia asks suspiciously.
   Jesus laughs and resumes his game.
   “This whole thing is starting to get on my nerves,” Ago says. “I think I liked Purgatory better.”
   “Fuck that,” Katina replies, finally turning away from the window. “If I’m stuck here, I at least want to be stuck on one of the higher floors where we can eat something other than opera pie.”
   Now convinced that our question won’t be answered after all, I’m inclined to agree with her. “We may as well see what we can see. Evidently, we have nothing but time anyway.”
   “I’m in no rush to get where I’m going, if you know what I mean,” Lithia says in her cracked voice. “They can be renovating Hell till the cows come home for all I care.”
   “The renovations are almost finished,” Lucy tells her with a smile. “I’m looking forward to it myself.”
   “I’ve been hearing that for as long as I can remember,” Lithia says, clearly not intimidated.
   I say, “So, I assume we still have to take the stairs, right?”
   “It’s not as impressive as you think up there,” Lucifer says. “The lower floors are where the fun is at.”
   “I’m sure you would say that, but why don’t you just humor us for a minute.”
   He sighs loudly and pouts out his lower lip. “Jay should take you. I hate it up there.”
   We all look at Jesus, who has just lit up another doobie and is stroking his wispy beard in a thoughtful manner. He shrugs and says, “I’m down with that.”
   

Chapter 15

   So, our parade has yet again increased, this time by two. Despite an endless stream of complaints, Lucifer has decided to tag along and he and Katina bring up the rear, whispering.
   Ago and I follow Jesus up a flight of stairs, while Lithia, Jane 62 and the Bleeding Nun trail behind us. Jesus begins humming “Stairway to Heaven,” then laughs uproariously at his own joke. The rest of us chuckle politely but I know the others, like myself, think the messiah is a major dork as well as a hopeless stoner.
   Eventually, the stairs end and we all crowd onto the small landing, waiting for Jesus to open the door. He places his hand on a highly polished gold knob and say, “Okay, you guys ready?”
   There are a lot of groans but I say, “Yep, we’re ready.”
   Jesus opens the door with a flourish and then steps back. Ago and I pass over the threshold first, completely astounded. The others follow us through and I can hear soft gasps behind me. We stare in silence for what feels like an eternity.
   And then, Lithia’s voice: “What the hell is this? A joke?”
   I blink at the vast whiteness of where we are. A bright blinding nothing. Absolute emptiness. When I turn around, I see my companions and not one other thing. We’re standing on air, it seems, and the door we just passed through no longer exists.
   “I told you it was boring,” Lucy says.
   “This is it?” Katina asks. Her voice is on the verge of breaking. “This is Heaven, where all the fucking good rich white people go? What the fuck?”
   Everyone begins to talk at once, except for the Bleeding Nun, who stands silently, the blood on her face the reddest thing I’ve ever seen against all this white.
   Suddenly I remember when I first met Salvadore and we began our trek to the Virgin City. When we first emerged from the electric forest—all that white space that crept up behind us with every step, wiping out the road, the trees, the sky. Everything.
   I remember staring into that vast white space and struggling to see something—anything—and then I did. I saw some fleeting movement, too fast, too blurry to identify as anything but a trick of my imagination.
   I saw something because I was trying to see something.
   Looking around again, I see the faces of my companions and now they’re all silent, staring at me expectantly. “What?” I say.
   “What?” They all reply at exactly the same time, in one single voice.
   My voice.
   Stumbling back a step, I shake my head. “What’s going on?”
   Again, they all repeat my question, all their lips moving simultaneously, all their voices mine.
   I look hard at Katina—young Katina, so much like myself when I was her age—and watch in fascinated horror as her head begins to melt like hot wax, her features slipping right off her face and dribbling down her neck and shoulders.
   All of them are melting right before my eyes, each one of them a bubbling mass of flesh colored goop, their clothes melting right along with them and puddling on the floor of nowhere.
   Jesus is the last to go and as I watch, his face doesn’t exactly melt, but morphs into mine. A masculine version of me, but still very clearly me.
   “We were all you,” the Jesus-me says. “Every facet of you that ever was.”
   “That can’t be,” I say, my voice undistinguishable from his. “No. No, no.”
   Jesus-me begins to melt just as the others had and I quickly turn away, concentrating on the white. I know there is something in all that nothing, something alive and moving and if I just try hard enough I’m sure to see it. If I just concentrate…
   My headache worsens but I see something, a brief flittering of silver light. I screw my eyes shut and open them again, focusing hard on the spot of silver.
The single dot of silver begins to bloom, spreading out and at first I think it may be a star. But then it grows fingers, long and spidery, reaching up and up and then the whole thing resolves into what is unmistakably a tree.
   A sparking electric tree.
   Once I’m able to see the tree, the rest of the forest is easy to create. I think and it is: it’s as simple as that.
   I suppose I could have thought up anything. Maybe a city or a farm. A snowy mountain with a big lodge atop it, smoke curling up out of its stone chimney. A vast blue ocean and a warm welcoming sun.
   I don’t know why I created the electric forest but as soon as it’s completed, I know that I made a mistake.
   I know I have to try again, go back to the beginning, but I don’t know how. Erasing things is not as easy as creating them, though I try hard to do exactly that, to no avail. I can’t undo what I’ve done.
   The rain is just starting to fall and there is a river of ice up ahead. I know because I put it there.
   It seems important that I reach it before the black sky breaks open and electrocutes me where I stand.
   And so I run.