The End or Something Like That

by Ann Dee Ellis

  “But Joe never told me you were . . .” I stopped. Then I tried again. “No one ever . . . no one said you were the mascot. Like in the news articles and things.”

  I didn’t say obituary. News articles.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure it wasn’t mentioned.”

  “But wouldn’t that have helped?” I asked.

  I should have stopped talking. I just thought, you know, the mascot was cool. He was my favorite part of Joe’s stupid games. Even Dad made a comment about the panther and that was saying something.

  “Helped what?” he said.

  “I uh, I,” I tried to answer the question. I wanted to say that maybe things wouldn’t have gone so wrong if people knew he was the mascot. Maybe someone would have talked him out of riding the roller coaster. I mean even butthead Tony would have to respect someone who could not only do the robot but pop and lock like a pro all while wearing a hairy black cat costume.

  “I know what you’re trying to say,” he said as a huge stretch white limo passed. “No one knew because the real mascot paid me twenty bucks to do the sophomore and girls’ games for him, but I couldn’t tell anyone it was me. He did all the varsity stuff and practiced with the cheerleaders.”

  I stared at him. “Really?”

  He nodded. “It was my little secret.”

  “But didn’t you want people to know?”

  He shrugged. “I like to dance but not in front of people—especially not at school. I sort of hate people to tell you the truth.”

  I shifted on the sidewalk.

  He hated people.

  I thought about Joe calling him a loser. I thought about fat-face Tony. I thought maybe I hated people, too.

  Did I hate people?

  “Why do you hate people?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m not like everyone else. And people don’t really like me.”

  He got quiet.

  We both got quiet.

  Finally I said, “I like you,” which was so stupid because I didn’t even know him but I always, always loved the panther.

  He smiled. “Thanks. I like you, too,” he said. He hesitated and then he said, “I watched for you every game.”

  My heart jumped. Was he serious?

  The mascot had paid a lot of attention to us. Mom even commented on how strange it was that he kept coming over and shaking our hands. Now I knew it was because of me.

  Or maybe Kim. Kim came to the games sometimes, too.

  “What about the girl with the long black hair?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Kim Porter?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  I sat there for a second. He had looked for me. He was really talking about me. I felt hot and nervous and weird and I wished I could do the robot.

  Then I got a hold of myself. “She’s dead,” I said.

  “What?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Are you sure you don’t know her?”

  I showed him a picture of Kim on my phone and he shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t.”

  A large man walked up and stood right between us, leaning over the rope fence looking at the pirate ship.

  He was eating a gigantic taco.

  I was almost grateful for the break so I could get everything together in my head. Never in all my life had a boy watched out for me. And he didn’t know Kim. Even dead Kim.

  I took a breath and leaned forward so I could see him.

  Baylor waved.

  I waved back.

  The man looked down at me and then looked at ghost Baylor, who he obviously couldn’t see, and then back at me. I didn’t think the man was dead.

  He felt alive.

  And I was alive.

  But Baylor was dead.

  • 67 •

  Less than a week before she died, Kim was supposed to come over and watch Hairspray.

  We watched it once a month and ate popcorn and made Coke floats.

  It was our tradition.

  I was getting everything ready when she called and said she wasn’t feeling so great.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing big,” she said. “Just, you know, sort of nauseous.”

  I drew a circle on a piece of paper. Over and over again.

  “So you can’t come?”

  She was quiet. Then she said, “I could but I’d probably be puking the whole time.”

  I closed my eyes. I hated her heart.

  “Okay,” I said. “Do you want me to come over? Bring you something?”

  “No,” she said. “I just want to sleep.”

  “Okay,” I said, and that was it. I thought that was it.

  But then, Dad talked me into going to Smiths with him to buy some Cheese Whiz for nachos. I wasn’t going to go because I was in my pajamas already and about to watch the movie but he promised me he’d buy me a bag of Starburst Jelly Beans, which I love.

  “And some Twizzlers,” he said.

  “Really, Dad? Twizzlers? You’re going for the big guns.”

  He laughed and so I went with him.

  And then this happened: I was there, in the candy aisle, when I heard them. They were laughing and talking about a party and I heard her.

  I heard Kim’s voice.

  I froze. A boy was saying something. Then she said, “Shut up!” And then there was more laughing.

  I looked down the aisle and they were at the end by the yogurt and sour cream.

  I died. I died right then. It was Kim and Gabby and some guys from school.

  A big group.

  One of them was trying to pick Kim up and she was screaming, and Gabby was holding some other guy’s hand and I pulled my hoodie up over my head and put my head between the Gummy Worms and Peach Rings, adrenaline rushing.

  What if they came to get candy? What if they walked right up to me? What was I going to do?

  But then they kept going, the laughing dying as they moved away.

  And I kept standing there. Cinnamon Bears, chocolate-covered almonds, Bit-O-Honeys. I stood there and tried not to cry. Tried not to cry.

  When Dad found me, I was still in the candy.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Emmy. What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head.

  “Tell me.”

  I shook my head harder, tears streaming down my face.

  “Do you want your jelly beans?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  He put a bag in the cart anyway. And three bags of Twizzlers.

  Then we went home and I sat in my closet and ate all of it at once.

  • 68 •

  The large man standing between Baylor and me ate his taco and then dropped his wrapper on the ground and walked away.

  When he was gone, Baylor said, “You ever tried a burrito over there?”

  I looked across the street. Smashed in between stores and casinos and clubs was a tiny pink stucco building with bars on the windows, a flamingo on the sign that said BETOS TACO SHOP, and a couple of tables on the sidewalk.

  I’d never noticed it before but then I never came down here.

  “So?” he said. “You ever tried one?”

  “No,” I said. “And I don’t think I want to.”

  “You do,” he said. “They’re the best.”

  “They are?”

  “Oh yeah. You’ll see.”

  He stood up.

  I’ll see? I didn’t want a burrito. Actually I did want a burrito. I was hungry. I looked at my watch. One thirty. I had less than an hour before Dr. Ted Farnsworth was going to speak.
>
  “Wait,” I said. “Wait!”

  But it was too late.

  He was already dodging taxis and limos and Girls Gone Wild trucks, running across the street.

  He walked into the taco shop. Just walked in like he was alive and fine and could buy a burrito.

  He walked in and then a few minutes later he walked out and with him was a man.

  Crowds of people moved in front of them, but there was definitely Baylor and a man.

  A willowy guy with a baseball hat and a beard and a big brown bag. He looked confused.

  And nervous.

  He walked toward the light at the intersection. Baylor walked with him, practically arm in arm. The man kept glancing over at me and then quickly looking away.

  The two of them crossed the street. The man hesitated and then started walking toward Pirate Island. I stood up. I don’t know why.

  When he got to me he almost stopped. Almost. But then he kept going.

  Baylor said, “We’ll be right back.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  A lady with a fanny pack looked at me.

  I didn’t look at her. Instead, I kept focused on dead Baylor and his new friend.

  They walked to the end of the block and then the man and Baylor turned around. The man stood there for a minute. I acted like I wasn’t watching.

  Like I wasn’t entranced by what was happening.

  Baylor smiled even though the man clearly was in distress.

  The man started back toward me and I inspected my nails.

  Finally he approached.

  “Hello,” the man said, his voice gruff.

  I said, “Hello.”

  He said, “This may seem strange but . . .”

  He stopped.

  I waited.

  He chewed on his lip. Then he said, “I bought you something.”

  Baylor was beaming.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. He reached into the bag and pulled out a steaming package wrapped in yellow paper.

  “It’s the Texano,” the man said. “I’ve never even tried it but I had this distinct impression that you, the pretty girl sitting across the street, needed a Texano burrito.”

  Pretty girl? Me? Baylor was blushing and I was probably blushing.

  “Did you need a Texano burrito?” the man asked.

  It seemed like he really wanted to know.

  “I mean,” he said, “were you waiting for a Texano burrito?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say but then Baylor mouthed Y E S so I said, “Yes.”

  “Yes?” the man said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “Uh, I guess. I don’t know.”

  He studied my face and I tried to just be calm. Holding a hot burrito.

  Then he said, “Okay.”

  And I said, ”Okay.”

  And he turned and walked back down the street, across the intersection, and into a crowd of people.

  I looked at Baylor. “Could he see you?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “So he wasn’t dead?”

  “Nope.”

  “How did you do that?”

  He shrugged. “I just gave him the idea and helped him follow through.”

  I laughed. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Is it hard?”

  He shrugged and then motioned to the burrito. “Eat,” he said.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Baylor sat down. I sat back down next to him. “You really didn’t,” I said.

  “Take a bite.”

  “You freaked him out.”

  “Take a bite,” he said again.

  I unwrapped the burrito. I was more than hungry. I was starving. Which reminded me that I was in a hurry.

  “What time is it?”

  He held up his arm to show me his broken watch.

  “I sort of have to be somewhere soon.”

  “Take a bite take a bite take a bite.”

  I looked at it. “It’s called the Texano?”

  “It’s the best burrito they make, sort of secret though.”

  No one had ever bought me food before. And never a secret special burrito.

  I held it to my nose like I was on TV.

  “Smells good, eh?”

  “We’ll see,” I said, I guess sort of flirting which is gross. Is it gross? I had never flirted before and never with a dead guy, but then I thought maybe that was good practice.

  I wondered if dead people could kiss. Then I knew I was really gross. But can they?

  “Eat it before it gets cold,” he said.

  So I took a bite.

  Baylor was watching my face and I didn’t want to let him down and I wasn’t going to let him down because it was the best burrito I had ever had, and when I was done chewing he said, “See?”

  And I said, “You’re so right,” and he laughed.

  So I ate a burrito with Dead Baylor Frederick Hicks. We talked about the taco shop and how no one would ever eat there with him.

  “They wouldn’t?”

  “No,” he said. “Not my parents. Not my friends. No one. There’s one up in Summerlin and I’d try to get people to go there.”

  “Where in Summerlin?”

  “By the Las Vegas Athletic Club,” he said.

  I nodded. I knew exactly where he was talking about. Kim would have loved this.

  He kept going. “No one believed me about how good it was because the restaurants look beat down.”

  “It does look beat down,” I said.

  I took another bite. Then with my mouth half full, I said, “I would have eaten there with you.”

  He smiled. “I agree. I think you would have.”

  We talked about doing the robot and how he learned most of his moves on YouTube.

  We talked about the school science fair and how he got the prize taken away because they said he cheated.

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They said it was too advanced. There’s no way I could have come up with it myself.”

  I stared at him. He was smart. And he was funny. And he could dance. But he was also dead.

  “What did you do?”

  He shrugged. “I argued with them and called one judge a buttwipe.”

  “What? You did?”

  “Yep.”

  “What did your parents do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “They work a lot.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  I took another bite and then I said, “I actually really have to go.”

  “Where?”

  So I told him about Dr. Ted Farnsworth. I told him about the seminar. About Kim. About how today was an important day.

  He listened and then when I was done, I thought he’d say it was hopeless. Or tell me Dr. Ted Farnsworth was a joke. Or that it was a waste of my time and I was stupid. I thought he’d say something like that, but instead he said, “I’ll walk you there. You need to hurry,” and he stood up.

  • 69 •

  Nothing would ever be the same.

  Ever.

  I knew it.

  But she didn’t.

  I knew it so bad that I sat in the bathroom Monday after I’d seen them at the store.

  I sat in the first stall of a girls’ bathroom, and I sat there and sat there and sat there.

  I saw Kim in the hallway, she and Gabby were talking and they were waiting for me and I couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t do it.

  So I turned and went the other way.

  I skipped all three classes we had together.


  Kim texted me. And called me and texted me.

  And called.

  Even Gabby texted around lunch. R U OK? Kim is freaking out.

  I sat there in the bathroom stall and memorized the wall.

  Sally Henley is a b.

  Call me!

  U R A SUCKAZ.

  I wondered who wrote U R A SUCKAZ. And Was I a suckaz? What made someone a suckaz?

  •

  I sat there all day and I waited until the janitor knocked on the door in the afternoon to come in to clean it. I waited that long to leave and then when he came in, I came out and he said, “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was in here” and I said, “No one was in here.”

  •

  I avoided Kim.

  •

  Then the next day she collapsed.

  • 70 •

  Baylor walked fast, so fast I had to almost run to catch up.

  It was tricky because we were both dodging people, though I wondered if he could walk through them if he wanted.

  I also wondered why he was so anxious for me to get there on time. And then I wondered if this meant Dr. Ted Farnsworth had been the real thing the whole time.

  Baylor even said, “You should have told me sooner,” and I said, “I tried to.”

  And he said, “Sorry. Sometimes I’m not so good at letting people talk.”

  We wove in and out and in and out until, before I could even think, we were standing under the gigantic Circus Circus sign.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  I felt sick. So sick I thought I needed to sit down.

  “You should go,” he said.

  “You’re not coming?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t think so.”

  I swallowed. “Okay.”

  Then he said, “I want to tell you something.”

  I looked at him, trying to stop myself from shaking.

  He took a long time to get his words together.

  Finally he cleared his throat and said, “I wanted to tell you that I didn’t die because of the loop part of the track on the roller coaster.”

  I stared at him. He stared at me. “Do you understand?”

  “No,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  “This is important. I didn’t die because my physics was off. I died because I had an asthma attack and couldn’t get the restraint back on in time.”