Two hours left.
I DIDN’T LEAVE a last will and testament that said Mike could have my stuff, so it used to get my goonies in a twist every time I saw my vintage Heather Locklear calendar on his wall, and for a long time I couldn’t come here after I got my chip installed because I’d swear myself a skull-melting headache. Now, though, I can handle it pretty good, which is why I was okay going to Mike’s for good-byes.
Also, I thought looking at Heather would help me relax, and Mike has her on July these days, which is pretty much awesome. Heather’s a collector’s item, which is more than I can say for Mike. He still lives with my aunt and uncle, which was definitely not our plan for total world domination.
Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t lost my edge in rehab, but the guy could use a haircut. It was pretty sweet having long hair in the back and short in front when we were kids, but you need to have the hair in front to make the hair in back make any sense. It’s business in front, not bald in front.
Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if the arrow had gone in Mike’s head instead of mine. Maybe I would’ve been the fat thirtysomething with wizard hair, still sawing logs on the lumpy twin bed in my old room.
Doubtful, though, because I was always the brains in the operation, and Mike was the balls. He got all the girls. Well, both of them, but that was two more than I ever had. It seemed like alls he had to do was snap at a girl and say, “Ever rode so fast on a skateboard your whole world blurred?” and the females would line up.
Crystal was the first and they went out forever. Like four months. He used to give me the play-by-play of their dates. Mike and Crystal broke up before I died. He’d started dating this girl named Cori, who was way out of his league and he knew it. But she thought he had nice eyes and she was always looking into them and talking with him about doing better in school and how they could work with animals together or something totally uncool like that.
He had sex with her four times. Twice in one afternoon when her parents were at work. And then she baked him chocolate chip cookies afterward. It still cuts me a little bit when I think about it. I was mad at him because he didn’t deserve sex and cookies any more than I did.
Mike and Cori were actually supposed to be at a movie the day he shot me, only I told him it was her or me, and he agreed to blow her off. And then the thing happened and he felt guilty because I was dead and he’d stood her up, and she dumped him, and after that he went through a real bad time with the drugs, and as far as I know they never talked to each other again, but Cori has a kid with a bent thumb exactly like his and I think if he’d known about it, he might have called her instead of dropping out of high school, rotting away in his Metallica shirt, and only working enough hours at the Walmart to buy gas for his Chevy.
He really drives one and it also is a piece of Chevy. If I were him, I’d paint it so the door matched the rest of the body. You can tell the door’s pink and the body is maroon even when it’s dark out.
I decided to hang out with Mike until it was time for group, make it kind of a long good-bye. If I was having my last night ever outside of Hell, I wanted to spend it with him. The truth was, I was scared out of my head and I wanted to be with the guy who’d been my best friend. Maybe it’s because we were blood relatives, but I’d never met anybody I liked so much in the afterlife, which, when you think about it, is kind of a big deal. I know I was only in the rehab part and not full-frontal paradise, but if the people you hang out with every day on Earth are better than the ones you’re stuck with for forever, it makes you think real hard about your idea of Heaven.
I was gonna miss Mike when I was gone for good.
There was so much to remember about us, mostly stupid, which is sort of the best kind of stuff. The dirt bombs we chucked at cars. The tree we fell out of when we were trying to build a fort. The beer we stole from my dad that one year on the Fourth of July when we were trying to burp the Pledge of Allegiance.
When you miss someone, they leave a person-shaped hole behind in the world that nothing can ever fill. If you don’t keep thinking about them, the edges of the hole shrink and fade. You can’t let go or the last of them disappears.
And it wasn’t just Mike I’d miss. It was Heidi. I’d miss her too. I already did, and I could almost hear her telling me to find her and save her, even though it was too late and she wouldn’t want me even if I did find her. The hole she left was so big I could dive inside. Its edges were sharp enough to shred me.
It was that feeling, that torn-up sort of missing, that made me finally call Howard. He was my enemy. But if there was any chance … Maybe he’d found her and kept her safe. Even if he didn’t have her, maybe he’d just feel sorry for me and use his giant brain to help me look for her. I’d give him anything he wanted. Anything. I couldn’t stand Hell, knowing I hadn’t done everything possible.
My time with Mike was up. I left him a message as best as I could, just in case. I had this feeling it’s what Heidi would’ve wanted me to do. I went MacGyver with a Scrabble set, some shaving cream, and his old, messed-up Rubik’s Cube with the stickers peeled off. Told him what I thought he needed to know to have a happy life. It took it out of me to manipulate all that matter, but I couldn’t stick around till he woke up. Chances are, he’d think it was someone flasking with him anyway.
But maybe, just maybe, he’d believe.
Howard didn’t pick up until the seventeenth ring.
Jerkbox. I know he has caller ID. He was all bragging about it this one time when we were polishing Gabe’s chariot wheels, which was supposed to be a punishment for us whizzing on them, which I only did because Howard told me if you made the yellow water on solid gold, your hair would stand up straight. That’s something I’d only ever been able to do with toothpaste.
When he finally did answer, he used a girly voice that tricked me for a minute, so I hung up because instinct sort of took over. Me, girls, and phones have never mixed.
Then my skull phone rang and I kind of freaked out. I was standing outside of Mike’s house and I jumped behind the garbage cans that he never puts back in the garage. I might’ve knocked one over, which is a super-hard thing when you’re trying but amazingly easy when every nugget of your soul is splitting in two on account of panic.
I was lathered up because (1) I didn’t have caller ID because Howard wouldn’t share, and (b) was it Howard calling or Gabe? Also, (c) I will never get used to the ringing in my head. NOT COMFORTABLE AT ALL.
I manned up as best as I could even though the stuff in the garbage — foot fungus cream and a crusty bottle of Rogaine — made me almost want to cry for the lameness of Mike.
“Hello,” I said, using my voice of not caring.
“Hey, asshole,” Howard said in his normal voice. One other thing? He reprogrammed the swearing sensor so he can say whatever he wants. He likes to lord that over the rest of us, and the reason so many of the other guys follow him around all the time is because he promises he’ll show them how to upgrade too. I’m not falling for that.
“Howard,” I said. “What’s up?”
“What’s up, my fairy princess? What’s up? Jesus, man. You called me.” I could hear him breathing.
I almost told him it had been a wrong number, but then I would have been back where I started and it wouldn’t have fooled him anyway.
“I need your help.”
He didn’t talk for a long time, but I could hear him crunching and swallowing. I could imagine nasty pizza roll crumbs and sauce all over his face, which is still reddish from the carbon monoxide he killed himself with in his parents’ garage.
“Howard,” I said. “Come on. I need a favor.”
He belched. Then he started laughing.
“You need my help? This better be good, Handcock.” Howard always used my last name in conversations because he thought it was funny to put a d in the middle where one doesn’t belong. Pretty rich coming from a guy whose last name is Lipschitz, a name I can’t even say without feeling
the thunder of the Lord in my sinuses.
I wanted to hang up, but if I did, I had no idea how I was going to fix things with Heidi, if I even could. Group would start in about an hour, and by then, her time would be up for sure.
“I’m serious, man,” I said.
“I’m listening.”
I told him what had happened at the pond and everything after. The sun was coming up all around me and I got this pinching feeling in what used to be my heart. It’s not that I’m a sucker for pink skies or anything, it’s that part of me knew it was my last sunrise. They don’t have them in the nine rings of Hell. No sunrises. No sunsets. They also don’t have clocks that would help you measure the time passing. Hell is all about stuff not changing. It’s part of the punishment. If people won’t change, let them not change forever and see how they like it.
Howard only interrupted me once, when he heard about Megan Bingo.
“You were holding out on us, Handcock,” he said. “Guys would have liked to see that.”
I could sometimes be a real idiot. I flicked my arrow so that I’d stop getting distracted by the color of the sky and get my head in the game.
“C’mon, man,” I said. My head felt like I’d dunked it in gas and shoved lit matches into my ear holes. “Sorry about that. You know you’re supposed to be watching your own soul. I didn’t want to give you the temptation.”
“I got a cam on mine,” he said. “I only shoop in when the kid’s about to get in major trouble.”
A cam. Howard would have been rich if he’d stayed alive. That had to burn. Before we died, computer geniuses were the dorks who dreamed of inventing robot girlfriends because the real thing wouldn’t go near them for a million bucks. Over the next few years, those guys became zillionaires with hot chicks in their basements. Live ones. Who didn’t charge.
“So Heidi’s soul is wandering around by itself,” Howard said. “I knew she’d popped loose when I saw her in the mall. Thought you maybe did it on purpose, you dirty dog. Followed you guys to her place, but then she disappeared. I sent her a few messages, but she didn’t answer.”
“Messages?”
“I hacked her soul once when you weren’t paying attention.”
“What do you mean? Do you have her?” I wanted to reach through my skull phone and grab his throat and squeeze like there was no tomorrow, because there wasn’t. “C’mon, Howard. Give her back.”
“I don’t have her, asshole. But I’m gonna get her right now.”
“Where is she?”
“Her dog’s dead and the body is missing,” he said. “And you still have no idea where to look for her soul?” He laughed at me again, and I got so mad it felt like he’d broken a rack of pool balls in my skull.
“That’s why I’m asking you for help.” My voice sounded stupid, like someone about to cry.
“More like begging.”
“Yeah, fine.” The words took a long time to work their way out of my mouth. “I’m begging you.”
The sun was all the way up and the sky was a lighter shade of blue than my favorite jeans, which I wish every day I’d been smart enough to die in. People were doing their thing, driving their cars slowly through the slushy streets. A noisy brown bird, the same kind that had been at the pond the day Heidi died — the day I killed her — sat on a bare branch yelling at me. It sounded like he was saying, “See? See?” Sort of like he expected me to be stupid, like my old man and everyone else did.
“I always knew you’d beg me for something,” Howard said. “But I figured you’d want me to reprogram your sensor so you could swear again. I had no idea it was going to be this good.”
It took everything I had not to tell him off.
“There’s only one place she could be, you dumbshit.”
Only one place? But where?
“And this is exactly what I’ve been waiting for, so thanks,” he said. “It’s going to answer a question I’ve been wondering about ever since I got here. A little experiment with a lost soul, in the name of scientific and philosophical exploration. Best thing you could’ve given me. Enjoy your trip to Hell, buddy.”
I felt emptiness in my head and knew Howard had hung up. The bird was still telling me I was an idiot. I stood and kicked some of the garbage I’d been sitting in. I was mad enough that an old StarKist can rolled across the sidewalk and landed in the gutter.
I gathered up my feelings enough so I could chuck a rock at the bird, and I got a memory of the time Xavier and I were taking a walk around the pond. Rehab has a nature section in it because delinquents are supposed to be soothed by green stuff. There’s a heart-shaped lake in the middle, with a path that goes all the way around — kind of like a better version of Heidi’s pond, now that I think of it.
Xavier picked up a rock, and I first thought he was going to clonk me with it so I sort of turtled my head into my shoulders, but he didn’t hurt me. He threw the rock into the water and said, “What do you see?”
I squinted for a minute, thinking maybe I was going to see the Loch Ness Monster, which would be awesome and totally the sort of thing that should be in Heaven. Or maybe he’d managed to hit a trout on the head and stun it, and it was going to come floating up, and an eagle would come screaming out of the sky and grab it in its claw, which would have been weird because that was totally going to be the art on the cover of Mike’s and my first album: This Is Free Lunch.
“What do you see, Jerome?” he asked.
I took a long time to answer. Truth? I didn’t see anything. The rock sank. The end.
“Water?” I said.
“And what is the water doing?”
How was I supposed to know? It was being wet. Water doesn’t do much unless you’re thirsty or you have balloons that you want to fill and drop from the roof.
“I dunno,” I said. I kicked some pebbles, but they stopped short of going into the pond. “It’s not complaining that you threw a rock at it?”
Xavier shook his head and put his hand real light on my shoulder.
“Look at the ripples,” he said. “The rock caused all those ripples. They start out as a small ring, but given enough time, they’ll reach out and travel all the way to the edge of the lake. Do you see yourself in that?”
“Which one is supposed to be me?” I asked. “Am I the rock or the ripple?”
Xavier laughed at me. Tears came out of his eyes and he squeezed my shoulder like it was a roll of soft toilet paper.
“What’s so funny?” I yanked my shoulder away from his hand. I hate it when people laugh when you’re not trying to be funny. That’s against the rules of jokes.
“Sometimes,” he said, “you help me see things more clearly. We are all the rock. We are all the ripple.”
At the time I thought, well, glad one of us is seeing things clearly, because I am totally confused, and then I realized another thing that would have been awesome to hit: a mermaid, especially if I knocked her clamshells off.
But now I think I understand what he was getting at. I was the rock. I made the ripples. Even when the water in the pond was frozen, I created ripples. I’m also a ripple because what people do affects me.
It sort of figures that the day I learned that the things I do count for something was the last I’d have a chance to make a difference. With the handbook gone, I had a choice. I could confess to Xavier and Gabe and write my ticket to Hell. Or I could try Howard one more time. There was a chance he was bluffing. Or maybe he’d take pity on my soul.
It was my last hope for saving Heidi. My last chance for saving myself.
Knowing Howard, it didn’t count for much at all.
Appendix G: The Ten Commandments for the Living
I. THOU SHALT HAVE COURAGE.
Fifty minutes left.
HEIDI’S EYES FLEW open. What time was it? How long had she slept? Was she too late? She swung the cone around and found the clock. Almost eight A.M. Her heart lurched. She’d slept two hours, and her head still felt wrapped in a blanket of fog.
“Jerome?” she said. No one answered.
She couldn’t see Jiminy’s paws, but she could feel them pressed against the mesh of the cage, just as she could feel every inch of him merged with her soul: his paws, his legs, his fur, his little tail. She had never been so close to him or missed him so much. He was always happy, even when he was chasing squirrels and cars without catching them. He never thought about looking stupid, as far as she could tell. He didn’t mind being his size. He was just happy to be alive in the bright, smelly world.
Maybe that was the key to a good life — the acceptance of things as they are. She wished she’d known this earlier, when there was still time.
She didn’t have much left, maybe an hour or so, if the handbook was right. As strange as it was, she was glad to be inside Jiminy’s body. It was partly the familiarity of it, and the hope that she’d be able to restore him to it, sparing her family a second death in as many days. But there was something more. It felt almost as if it was offering her some protection against the universe’s desire to reclaim her soul.
That said, it wasn’t easy staying inside. It took all her energy just to hang on. How on earth did Jiminy manage? A terrible thought struck. What if the same rules applied to animal souls? What if Jiminy only had twenty-four hours before he disappeared forever too? She had no more time to waste and couldn’t spend her last moments in a cage, not when she might still make a difference for Jiminy and her family.
It would hurt, balancing on her broken front leg while she used her other paw to slide the cage open. It would be worse landing on the floor below. But she wasn’t going to wait for anyone to rescue her. She’d escape. Find Jiminy. Bring him back home, back into his body, back to her family. If possible, she’d see to it that Megan got her Vincent Lionheart. After that, if there was anything left of her, she’d find Jerome and make him introduce her to his soul rehab counselors. They sounded like teachers, and teachers were almost always helpful.
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