The End or Something Like That

by Ann Dee Ellis

  •

  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.

  • 60 •

  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.

  • 61 •

  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.

  • 62 •

  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.”

  • 63 •

  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.

  • 64 •

  Five pirates walked past us.

  I wondered how you got to be a sexy pirate at Pirate Island. I wondered if they were dead sexy pirates. I also wondered if Gabby should try out.

  I looked at Baylor. I had two big questions for him. The first one was about me. The second one was about Kim.

  “So you said you knew me?”

  “Yep. We met. Lots of times.”

  I stared at him. We hadn’t. We didn’t. I would remember.

  “When?” I asked.

  “At your brother’s games.”

  “Joe’s games?”

  He nodded.

  I racked my brain. No one went to those stupid sophomore games except for parents and bored cheerleaders and sad people who wanted extra credit or liked someone on the team. If this kid, if Baylor Frederick Hicks had been there, I would have remembered. I was sure of it.

  He laughed at me. “You look confused.”

  “I am confused,” I said. Sweat was dripping down my face now and I was getting sunburned. Baylor on the other hand, didn’t seem affected. Maybe dead people didn’t get heat stroke.

  “I was sort of hidden,” he said.

  Hidden? What was he talking about?

  “I’ll show you,” he said.

  “You’ll show me?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

  He stood up. Walked to the middle of the sidewalk, closed his eyes and then, this really happened, then he started doing the robot. Right there. In front of Pirate Island. On the strip.

  He was good.

  Really good.

  Like better than anyone I’d seen.

  At one point he made a motion showing his heart beating, his chest going in and out, his hand mimicking his chest. I’d seen that move before.

  I’d seen it at the games.

  And then I realized.

  “Wait a second. Are you . . .”

  He kept going. Doing a signature moonwalk and then I knew for sure.

  I couldn’t believe it but I knew it.

  Baylor Frederick Hicks was the panther mascot for Palo Verde High.

  • 65 •

  You can love someone you don’t know.

  I know this is true because once I saw a boy at Yellowstone and we both looked at each other across the geyser and he smiled and I smiled and then his mom said, “For the last time, Jared, get in the car!” and he was gone.

  For three years I thought about Jared.

  And before Jared from Yellowstone I loved a real boy. It was sixth grade and his name was Isaac and he always wore shorts, even on the fifth-grade field trip up the mountains.

  He played soccer and one time he accidentally smooshed my sculpture in art.

  So then I accidentally smooshed his.

  He threw some clay at me and I started to laugh. I’m sorry but I did.

  So then I threw it at him.

  Everyone was watching.

  Then we got in trouble.

  Kim said, “You like him.”

  And I said, “No I don’t. He’s so gross.”

  The next day I told him he was a jerk and he said I was a butt, and secretly, deep down, I knew, I knew knew knew that someday we would get married. Or at least kiss.

  •

  But then, and I didn’t really care, but one day, during lunch recess, Kim got a note from Candace Perkins who got the note from Janni Kimball who got the note from Eric Freeman who was Isaac’s best friend.


  It said:

  Kim. Will you go out with me?

  YES NO MAYBE

  From Isaac.

  Me and Kim and Candace Perkins and two other girls read it on the blacktop by the bars, and Candace said, “Oh my gosh,” and Kim was bright red and she looked at me and I didn’t look at her.

  •

  Later she said, “I might say yes.”

  My face burned. “You like him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.”

  We were walking home and I was kicking a rock hard down the sidewalk.

  “Are you mad?” she asked.

  I tried to keep my voice steady. “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I don’t care. I think he’s dumb.”

  She nodded. “You think he’s gross.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  So Kim went out with Isaac for one month and that meant they never talked and he bought her a ring at Santa’s Secret Shop and she got him a Gak ball and one time, on a Saturday night, we had to walk to the park, and she went to the middle of the field while I waited, and he went to the middle of the field while his friend waited, and then they had their first kiss.

  •

  When I got home, I cried the whole night.

  •

  I sat in my closet.

  •

  They broke up the next week.

  •

  I wonder why she didn’t know. How did she not know? We knew everything about each other. Why would she do that to me? But then, maybe she didn’t know.

  •

  Sometimes I buy bags of Cinnamon Bears.

  Or Peach Rings.

  Starbursts.

  Skittles.

  Gummy Worms.

  Sour Patch Kids.

  Runts.

  Red Vines.

  Bags and bags and bags.

  Sometimes I imagine my spine is lined with gummy fruit, and when they cut me open to see how I died, they’ll sit and eat for days.

  • 66 •

  “You are so good!”

  “I’m not that good,” Baylor said, sitting back down next to me. He said that but you could tell he knew he was good.

  “You did the worm on the floor,” I said. “With that huge mascot head on.”

  He nodded. “Yep. That wasn’t even hard.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “Nope.”