To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis

by Watkins, Andra

  “Beer’s powerful enough.”

  He made casual work of pulling a foamy pint.

  “You want food?” Bubbles frothed onto the sticky wood in front of me as he slid the beer my way. They turned liquid, puddled around the bottom of the glass. I studied my drink and made him wait. Weakness meant letting the Bartender guess what I was thinking.

  I picked up the slick glass and downed it in one long draught. Foam sloshed in the bottom when I set it down in a sloppy ring. “I think I’ll just get right to my next job. You know I can’t abide it here.”

  Firelight flickered behind his eyes.

  “Suit yourself. You got any money left this time?”

  I rooted around in my damp jeans, my shirt pockets. In the front slot of my black leather jacket, I found a single note. Crisp. Clean.

  I unfolded it slow. Tasted bile. Thomas Jefferson studied me from the face of a two dollar bill. I stared back into those familiar eyes while the Bartender laughed.

  “I got new tricks, too. You ain’t the only one can change things up.”

  Glasses crashed into the flagstone floor as I leaped over the bar. When I grabbed him, the front of his shirt was soft in my fingers. “Why is it always goddamn Jefferson? You know he abandoned me, right? At the end? He was happy to let everyone think I killed myself. Never even sent anyone to try and suss out the truth. I worshipped him like a father, and he let me go down in history as the ultimate prodigal son.” My voice caught in my throat.

  He shook free of me and stepped back, his boots crunching through shards of glass. “I don’t make the rules here, Merry.”

  “Rules. I’ll never figure out the rules in this place.”

  “Hey, don’t blame me for your predicament.”

  My nostrils flared against the stench of spilled alcohol and smoke. Even as I balled up my fist to hit him, I knew he had me cornered. Boxed in. It wasn’t his fault I couldn’t get things right.

  His eyes softened. “You seem to be in a hurry, and I didn’t want you to run off without your two. That thing is supposed to be your good luck charm.”

  “These scraps of funny money haven’t made any difference the last seven or eight assignments.”

  “A dozen, Merry. You’re up to an even dozen.”

  I slumped onto my stool. Thumbed through the pages of my journal. A word here. A scrap of letters there. No hidden message to guide me past the obstacles of Nowhere. To help me avoid the same mistakes. Every Nowhere appearance was new. I couldn’t remember them once I failed. Who I met. What I saw. No matter how I arranged what I managed to save from my other outings in Nowhere, I couldn’t make sense of the remnants of twelve times tried.

  Twelve times failed.

  “So, this is number thirteen. Can I just go ahead and skip this one? Have another drink?”

  “You been around long enough to know that ain’t how it works.”

  “Goddammit. I know how Nowhere works. I just can’t seem to make it work for me.”

  I closed my eyes and relived the moment Nowhere found me, when I looked into my own dead eyes being covered over with the dirt of a hole that was too shallow to hold me. It was a pauper’s burial. An unmarked grave. I was barely cold.

  That was when I saw it: a chunk of black leather. It stuck out of the ground at the head of my grave. I pulled it from the dirt, and when I opened it, I read these words:

  Remembrance is immortality.

  Make people remember your story your way.

  Come to Nowhere.

  My story was already in tatters. Newspapers trumpeted the supposed details of my apparent suicide. Two men who knew me best—William Clark and Thomas Jefferson—supported that tawdry version of events. Faced with a sensational story, no one cared about the truth.

  With one muttered yes, I stepped through a portal. Woke up in a New Orleans bar.

  The clink of ice teased me back. The Bartender stirred a sulfur-tinged cocktail and pushed it my way. “Seconds aren’t allowed, but I’m feeling charitable today.”

  Liquid heat lit up my nostrils. “What is it?”

  “A Thunderclapper. Of all my customers, I thought you might appreciate it.”

  An homage to the pills members of the Corps of Discovery took for every conceivable ailment. We called them ‘thunderclappers’ because they gave us the runs. Clark was always partial to them. I had to smile at the memory of him, running off to empty his bowels behind a rock. Afraid he wasn’t going to make it.

  I raised the glass and sucked the mixture down. Fire ripped through my gullet. Erupted behind my eyes.

  The Bartender smirked while I coughed up smoke. “Think of it as a cleansing fire. Erases what’s come before.” He paused. Leaned his burly frame over the counter and touched my sleeve. “You know this is your last shot, right?”

  “Thirteen is my last chance?”

  “Yep. You fail this time, you get to be a bartender. Your life will be erased from human history. Nobody will remember you, and what’s worse, you won’t remember you, either. You get to live forever, though. Slinging booze you can’t drink in a room you can never leave.”

  I looked at his weathered face and wondered who he’d been. What was his story?

  How would it feel to forget oneself? To never again close my eyes and see the sun set over the Missouri? To fail to hear Clark’s laugh whisper through the trees? To be Nobody?

  I wiped my brow with the back of my hand. Whispered my plea. “Tell me. Tell me how to finish this. Please.”

  He pushed a button on the cash register, and the drawer popped open, a fat wad of bills on one end. He picked it up and tossed it from hand to hand. “I had my own failures, Merry. That don’t mean I can remember them. I’m just here to do my good deed. To lubricate your ego a little and send you out again.” He stopped and slid the cash across the bar. “This ought to be enough to see you to the end.”

  “Five hundred? That’s too much.”

  He flicked his eyes to the door. A rattle crescendoed through wood and glass. “Not in 1977, it ain’t.” He swabbed the bar with a stained towel. “Look, Merry. I got another customer coming. Don’t keep making the same damn mistake, all right?”

  I grabbed his grimy t-shirt. “What mistake? Tell me.”

  But instead, he shook free of me. Leaned over and took something out from under the counter. “Here. You lost your hat, and you’ll be needing another one.”

  I looked from it to the two dollars crumpled in my other hand. Jefferson’s stare launched me into the streets, patrolling like a lunatic. Searching, seeking the unknown someone who could save me. Rewrite my story. Release me from Nowhere to find whatever was next for a broken soul like me.

  And so it began.

  Again.

  FOUR

  New Orleans

  October 1977

  Six Months Later

  I knew Mommy would be mad when I tore my best dress at the zoo. She might even be mad enough to kill me. Aunt Bertie helped me sneak past her when we got home. It was hard to be invisible going up two flights of stairs in Mommy’s house with her ladies everywhere.

  Maybe the Wonder Twins could give me the power to be invisible to Mommy. Sometimes, I liked to pretend I was a Wonder Twin. One twin was the me that had to live with Mommy, the me everybody could see. But the real me was the other twin: the invisible one who lived with Daddy for the last six months, since the divorce. She didn’t wear dresses and sit up straight and always be quiet and look pretty. She was the me I wished I could be.

  Anyway.

  We made it to my room without being seen. Aunt Bertie left me to take off my dress. She waited in her room for me to bring it to her to fix. The front hem was shredded, and part of the right sleeve pulled loose when I fell. Plus, all the dirt.

  Bertie left me with a kiss on my nose. She told me she could sew the tears on my dres
s and wash it before Mommy saw. I made a real mess, though. I hoped Bertie kept some voodoo in her sewing kit with her needle and pink thread. Bertie could do anything, but I wondered if she could make this better.

  Mommy didn’t like mistakes. Especially mine.

  I held my arms out straight at my side and fell backwards on the bed. The cool blow of the window fan felt good on my naked skin. I closed my eyes and remembered the freedom of running through the dirt underneath the branches of the oak trees. I didn’t even care when I tripped over that root and fell. From the ground, the sky was so pretty through the twisty limbs. I wanted to stay there forever.

  Instead, I had to put on another scratchy dress for Mommy.

  I dragged myself to my closet and touched the fabric and lace that made up my dress collection. They were all selected by Mommy to “highlight my fair hair and clear complexion.” Blech. I wished I was ugly. Mommy always wanted me to be perfect, especially in front of her men, but being perfect all the time wasn’t any fun.

  I liked looking at the colors, though. Pale pink. Easter egg purple. Grass green and tulip yellow. Lots of blues, like the picture of a coral reef I saw in geography class. Blue was a brave color, the color of adventure. When I wore it, I was powerful in spite of the stiff lining and tight elastic. Mommy liked frills and everything clean. I wanted to wear Levi corduroys and play in the dirt. But Mommy always had to be happy, or she made sure I was miserable.

  I pulled out an especially flouncy one, the color of the late fall New Orleans sky. It reminded me of how good I felt when I fell at the zoo. I wrapped it around me. It had pearly buttons down the front and a Peter Pan collar edged with lace and pouffy sleeves with more itchy elastic.

  I sat down at my dressing table and studied my ratty blonde curls. A few squirts of No More Tangles and some tugging with my Marie Osmond comb, and I made my hair go back to the tight rings Mommy liked, the ones that framed my face like Cindy in those Brady Bunch re-runs.

  I licked some spit on my fingers and scrubbed a spot of dirt on my cheek ’til it was clean and red. Mommy said she could zero in on dirt like a spotlight followed a true performer. She was proud of it, too, especially when she shined her light on me.

  Three knocks rattled my door just as I finished. Bertie stuck her brillo pad hair through the crack, her lips already glowing their usual evening red. “Miss Nadine is chomping at the bit, Child. I stalled her as long as I can do. You need to hurry up.”

  “You didn’t tell her about my dress, did you?”

  “You think I want to see you beaten into next week? I told her some awful boy spilled his Coca-Cola all over you on the streetcar, and I ordered you to go straight up to your room and change to spare her tender eyes the sight.”

  My Sunday shoes echoed all through the house as we walked down two flights of stairs, clunk-clunk on wood and tap-tap-tap on marble. All six doors were closed on the second floor. Most of Mommy’s ladies rested during the afternoon, because they were up most of the night. Entertaining, Mommy called it.

  My stomach tied itself in a knot when I saw the black-and-white checkerboard floor at the bottom of the stairs. It was the only path to Mommy’s office, past pictures of almost-naked ladies from a long time ago. My face always turned red when I had to go that way. When I was littler, I got a chair from the dining room and drew more clothes on them, but Mommy got real mad. She made me stay in my room for most of a whole week that time.

  The door to Mommy’s office was open. Bertie took my hand. “Just let me make sure she’s ready for you.” Her dark skin jiggled as she went to the doorway and looked around the room. With a smile of relief, she turned back to me. “She ain’t here. Why don’t you wait for her? Sit there, and be real pretty when she comes back?”

  Bertie blew me a kiss and left me in Mommy’s office. I crawled into her cushiony chair and made it spin like the merry-go-round at school by pushing off the front of the desk with my hands. If I spun fast enough, maybe I could disappear.

  When I started getting dizzy, I sat still and looked at the things spread out on top of her desk. It was a roll top, almost always closed when I came in there. I picked up a black book with “Appointments” on the front and slipped Mommy’s big silver ring with the blue Indian stone on my finger.

  And that was when I saw Mommy’s special cards.

  My mommy liked to play rounds of cards with some of her men. Two nights a week, she’d set up tables in her parlor, get several of her ladies, and play her games. Aunt Bertie always put me to bed early, those nights. She had to play, too. Mommy’s rules.

  Mommy had different rules for me. Sometimes, Mommy or Aunt Bertie played Go Fish with me, or Old Maid. Mommy even let me yell when I told her to go fish. I got so excited when I was winning. Like it was my one-and-only way to beat her. She’d smile and draw her card and tell me to never forget what it felt like to be the underdog. Acting like the underdog would get me far in life.

  I didn’t understand, but this was Mommy; she didn’t explain.

  One time, I snuck down to her office. Late. I knew she played cards with grown men different from the way she played with me. But everybody was shut up in the bedrooms by then, playing cards of a different kind, I guess.

  Anyway.

  That night, I was looking for a deck of cards to play solitaire. I played for hours sometimes, but Mommy didn’t let me keep cards in my bedroom.

  I opened her desk drawer, and I found a deck in a pretty ceramic box with jewels glued on top. When I turned them over, every card had pictures of me on one side with scribblings and notes on the number sides. I was younger in the picture, but I remembered posing for it. Mommy made a big deal out of how I looked that day. I stacked the cards and hid them under my pillow in my room.

  The next morning, I found Aunt Bertie in the kitchen. I spread the cards out on the table and asked her why she and Mommy played with cards that had pictures of me.

  She scooped them up and stacked them back together, really neat, even though her hands shook. “Child, don’t ask me about these cards again. Ever. I mean what I’m saying. Lawsy mercy. I need a cocktail to go.” She wobbled when she left me to take them back to Mommy’s desk and put them back just like I found them.

  I never saw those cards again until the day I tore my dress at the zoo. They were magnets I had to pick up and shuffle, more worn around the edges than last time. One by one, I turned them over and read the numbers and words on the backs. Mr. Devereaux $100K. Mr. Carnell $475K. The Sugar Daddy $500K. The last one had red stars around my face and the words “the winner” written in cursive. When I tilted the chair closer, I almost fell on the floor at the bark of Mommy’s voice.

  “Emmaline Cagney. Whatever are you doing, pilfering through my private things?”

  Mommy’s nasally voice filled the room from the open door. I dropped the card on the floor and rolled the chair on top of it. Maybe she didn’t see.

  She sashayed into the room, her shiny white robe flying around her. Aunt Bertie came in and planted herself next to the door, her black eyes not meeting mine. Mommy walked up to me and squeezed my arm hard enough to leave a mark on the skin under my sleeve.

  “Get out of my chair.”

  I slid to the floor, and she sat where I’d been. She ran her red-tipped hands around the desk, touching each object. When she was satisfied that everything was where it should be, she turned back to me. Her face wore that smile. The fake one.

  “Come closer, Emmaline. Stand under the light here.” She took my chin in her hand, and her brown eyes drilled into me. I fought to stand still, to not squirm, because Mommy hated it when I got all “ants-in-my-pants.” She said it wasn’t ladylike.

  “Is that dirt on your face, young lady?” Mommy squinted at my clean face for what felt like a solid minute before releasing me. “No. I must be imagining the hideous grime that was there earlier.”

  My stomach jumped
into my throat. “Earlier?”

  “Emmaline Cagney. Your mother is not stupid. I saw you and Bertie, you in that pretty pink dress that cost me fifty hard-earned dollars. It was ruined.” She turned her glare to Bertie. “And not by a mishap with an obnoxious boy and a spilled Coca-Cola on the streetcar.”

  Bertie shriveled like her roses in the summer heat. I wanted to run to her.

  “But Mommy. Bertie saved me. I fell and—”

  “Emmaline, I am NOT in the mood for products of your hyperactive imagination this afternoon. I will deduct the cost of the ruined dress from Bertie’s nightly fees until I am repaid.”

  Bertie’s jaw clenched. I tried another Wonder Twin power, the one where people talked with their minds. I looked at Bertie and thought really hard. Please be quiet please be quiet.

  It must have worked, because she didn’t say anything. She just stood there and looked at the floor. I smiled a little and wondered how I did it.

  Mommy rotated back to me. “At least, you are presentable enough. A man is coming around in five minutes for a nice tea and a visit with you, Emmaline. Bertie, you may leave.”

  “But—”

  “Your fees for the week, Bertie. I’ll have them all if you do not vacate the room this instant. Leave my child with me.”

  The door clicked shut, making the room even darker. Mommy liked “mood” lighting.” Whatever that meant.

  Anyway.

  Mommy’s makeup glowed under the lamp on her desk. She pulled me to her and hugged me close in her arms. I closed my eyes and breathed in her flowery perfume. I wished Mommy’s embrace could protect me from everything bad, even from the bad things she did. When she held me, I always believed she was a good mommy who loved me back. If I thought it enough, maybe I could make it true.

  She squeezed me, and her voice tickled my ear. “I’m going to have to stop letting you spend so much time with Bertie. Her example doesn’t aid in your proper development, I’m afraid.”

  “But I love her, Mommy. She’s so much fun.”

  “Ah, yes. Fun.” She turned me to face her. One red fingernail stroked the side of my face.