Sally returned a few minutes later with thick stacks of paper bound together with oversized metal clips. “So,” she said. “Here’s how this will work. First you’re each going to sign one of these.” She dropped the papers on the table and pulled two pens from her pocket. “These,” she explained, “are not much different from nondisclosure agreements. The gist of it is, you cannot tell people about this place, and you can’t tell people what happens here, and I am not accountable for what happens to you. I can’t be held accountable for the nature of your experience. For obvious reasons, I don’t want a lot of attention. Not yet anyway. One day I’ll publish and the world will know what I’ve got here, what I’ve built, but until then it’s hush-hush.”
“So you have built a machine, then?” I asked.
She grimaced. “I’m not saying either way until you sign these. These agreements also protect you. They guarantee that when I do publish, you’ll be referred to by a number, and only I will know your identities. At least for the next fifty years.”
“Fifty years?” Annie asked.
Sally nodded. “You’ll be dead or a couple of old geezers by then anyway, so what do you care? This”—she pointed to a paragraph halfway down the page, the print small and dense—“is the clause that guarantees your anonymity for the next fifty years.”
I took the pen and signed the document. I couldn’t imagine telling anyone about this trip, posting about it online, or even telling Fisher or my mother. When I passed the pen to Annie, she hesitated for a moment, as if studying the fine print, before signing her name.
“So, when do we use the machine?” I asked.
Sally smiled. “That would be tomorrow. There are four of you in town right now. I had four here last week, too, and I’ve got another four on their way next week. If you’d like to meet the others, you’re welcome to join us tonight at the Capitol Hotel, about nine p.m. Sort of like a reception, I guess,” she said. “But right now I’m going to talk to you both independently and ask you some preliminary questions. These questions will take about twenty minutes apiece. Very painless.”
She asked us who wanted to go first. We didn’t say anything.
“I’ll talk to you first,” she said to Annie.
She dragged a chair into the hall and instructed me to sit there until it was my turn. I did as I was told, at least for ten minutes or so. Eventually I stood up and wandered down the hall where I saw another open doorway on the left. I wondered if this was where she kept the machine. I was desperate to have a look at it. We knew nothing at all about how it functioned. Maybe we’d sit at a table together and wait for rippling lights to appear over our heads. Or maybe we’d walk through a giant electric hula hoop and find ourselves floating in the ether with an army of dead souls.
I’d almost reached the doorway when a short man with thick white hair, styled forward like the prow of a ship, stepped out into the hall and nearly collided with me. His deep tan skin, the pompadour, his light blue golf shirt, like something a maintenance man would wear at a resort—he put me in mind of a vacationing televangelist.
“Can I help you, friend?” he asked.
I introduced myself and explained that I was waiting for my interview with Sally.
“I know who you are,” he said, in a way that suggested he didn’t like me. “My name’s Martin Strider.” He grinned. His teeth were very white and tightly joined. “I’m the money.”
“The money,” I said uncertainly.
“I’ve known Sally for years,” he said. “She grew up here, in Little Rock, and I was friends with her daddy, and Sally was always very friendly with my daughter RayAnne, bless her heart. Sally was very good to RayAnne, very good, very kind, didn’t treat her any different. We had RayAnne out at the Marcy Free School, for years and years we did, and they helped her quite a bit, but the honest truth is she was never going to be able to live on her own, no matter what, and so she was at home with her momma and me right up until the end. Anyway, I’ve always kept track of Sally and her many accomplishments. She’s like a second daughter. I fronted the money, bought this old Hobby Shoppe for her. It had sat empty for years.”
He jingled the change in his pocket and smiled at me again. Then he asked me if I was excited.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Have you ever used it?”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to say,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But yes, I have, I’ve used it. I won’t even try to describe it to you, but believe you me, this thing works. See how far apart we are right now? That’s how close I was to RayAnne. I’m telling you, I was right there with her again. We were at the fairgrounds together, and she wanted to go on one of the rides, so we did.
“This machine is going to make a billion dollars, I guarantee you, and you’re looking at a man with a thirty percent stake. Never did I ever dream I’d die a billionaire! Never! I’m a successful man, but a billion dollars, that’s just incredible, isn’t it? I’m pushing for a new name. Reunion Machine, in my personal opinion, is a little lackluster. I keep a list of alternatives. The Soul Liberator. The Death-Defier. Ghost-Maker. Astralizer. Anyway, I got others. Plenty of others.
“Listen, this machine is going to change the world. It’s going to totally transform it. Not only will we get to talk to the dead, we’ll know for sure that death isn’t the end. And if we do that, what will there be left to fear? Mark my words, this is the beginning of a huge change in our evolution, and it started right here, in this Hobby Shoppe in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mark my words, they’re going to build statues of Sally one day. Maybe me, too. Forget about the Bill Clinton Airport. You’ll be flying into the Sally Zinker International Airport!”
The kitchenette door squeaked open, and Annie emerged alongside Sally, who seemed surprised to find me talking with Martin.
“I know, I know,” he said, nodding his head up and down, “I only came out here in the first place because he was snooping around.”
“I wasn’t really snooping,” I said quickly.
“I’m gone,” Martin said, and ducked back into the room at the far end of the hall.
Annie plopped down into the chair in the hallway, as if exhausted, and arched her eyebrows at me as I joined Sally in the kitchenette. Sally closed the door behind us and invited me to sit down at the table.
“So you met Martin,” she said. “He’s an old friend. He’s been kind enough to let me use this building, and he’s provided some of the capital so he comes around every so often. I’m sorry if he bothered you.”
“Not at all,” I said.
“Just so you know, I’m recording this conversation.” She indicated the digital recorder on the table between us. “Like I said, this won’t take long.”
Consulting her clipboard, she asked me for my age (35), weight (185 lbs), marital status (married), religious affiliation (nondenominational Christian/confused), and number of children (one stepdaughter).
Did I believe in God? (I wanted to.)
Heaven? (No. Or at least not as a place with fluffy white clouds and halos.)
Angels? (Wouldn’t that be nice.)
The resurrection of Jesus? (I was more comfortable with a metaphorical interpretation, i.e., the Jesus who lives in our hearts.)
Hell? (As the absence of God, maybe.)
The Devil? (No.)
Evil? (Yes. Evil was us.)
Prophets? (There’d been at least a few over the last fifty thousand years, sure.)
Survival of the soul after death? (I laughed uncomfortably. What was with all these questions?)
Witches? (No.)
Astrology? (In the sense that the planets determine who we are? Doubtful.)
Evolution? (Yes.)
Creationism? (The fossil record was real.)
Aliens? (Were they out there? Probably. Were they here at this very moment? Unlikely.)
Ghosts? (You tel
l me.)
Reincarnation? (Maybe.)
Did I believe that God controlled events on earth? (God’s not a micromanager.)
That he observes what’s happening here without getting involved? (Possibly.)
That the Bible is the absolute word of God? (The Bible was written by men about God, not the other way around.)
Did I believe in the existence of parallel universes? (Why not.)
Telekinesis? (Possibly.)
Telepathy? (Did you just ask me that out loud or . . . ?)
“All right,” she said. “What about your dreams?”
“My dreams?” I asked.
“Yes, what do you dream about at night? Do you have realistic dreams or cartoonish dreams or—”
“A mix.”
“Has anyone close to you ever died?”
“My father, earlier this year.”
“Did he appear to you, in any form, in the days just before and after his death?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Have you attempted to contact him since his death?”
“I went to a psychic.”
“And did you make contact?”
Difficult to know, I said, and explained that my father and I had discussed the possibility of a message that might be transmitted after death but had never formally settled on anything. However, the psychic had provided me with Sally’s number, so I was reluctant to call the session an outright failure.
Her face was stoic. “Okay, have you ever woken up to a bright light?”
“A bright light?” I repeated.
“A luminous sphere, for instance.”
I imagined a miniature fiery sun floating over my bed, just a few inches above my body, its heat searing my chest red.
“No bright lights,” I said. “No luminous spheres.”
She asked me if I ever heard voices, inside or outside my head, and if so, if I ever felt compelled to answer these voices. The answer to each of these questions was no.
“What about your sex life?”
“What about it?”
“How is it?”
I wondered how Annie had answered this particular question. If I answered that it was great, and Annie had only said it was okay or decent—or, God forbid, lackluster—what would Sally make of the discrepancy?
“We have a healthy sex life,” I said.
“Any unusual medical history I should be aware of?”
“Well, yes, my heart. It stopped a couple of years ago.”
“I see,” she said, looking up.
“I actually died for a few minutes. Technically. That’s partly why I’m here. I don’t remember any tunnels or lights or anything else. I was just gone.”
She nodded. “I understand. Any pacemakers or—?”
“A HeartNet,” I said.
She grimaced and put down her clipboard on the table. Looking me directly in the eyes, she said, “Mr. Byrd, I’m going to be honest with you now. I’m not sure you should use the machine. Not with a device like that in your chest. As I’ve already told you, there’s a lot I still don’t know about how this works, and I simply can’t say that this would be safe for someone in your condition.”
“So you’re saying I came for nothing?”
“Not nothing. Your wife can still use the machine, if she wishes.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I hadn’t anticipated this. My disappointment must have been obvious because she reached across the table for my hand.
“I understand. I really do. You’ve come here looking for answers, and I’m telling you you won’t get them, not personally. It must be a letdown. For the record, I’m not forbidding you from using the machine. I’m simply advising you that it could be dangerous for you to do so.”
“It could kill me.”
She shrugged. “The Reunion Machine, what it does, is remove you from existence for a tiny, tiny fraction of a second. In a certain sense, it is killing you, very, very briefly. I just can’t make any guarantees that you would survive the process. It’s your decision, of course. Ultimately.”
I nodded that I understood. With that, our interview came to an abrupt end. I thanked her and said I’d give it some serious thought before tomorrow morning.
She wasn’t what I expected,” Annie said. “She reminded me of those ladies with the water-packs around their waists who are always power walking through our neighborhood at night.”
She had one hand on the center console and the other on her knee, and her mood, as far as I could tell, was pleasant. We were on our way back to the hotel. I hadn’t told her what I’d learned about my heart device. If I decided to use the machine in spite of Sally’s warning, I didn’t want Annie to be worried.
We drove back to the hotel and parked the car in the garage. Then we walked downtown toward the river where a crafts fair was under way beneath a giant white tent. I sat down on a bench while Annie shopped. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. To use the machine that might prove life had no end was going to come at a tremendous risk to that same life, which quite possibly would end for having proved it.
I sat there, feeling sorry for myself, while Annie floated through the tents. She returned twenty minutes later with a butterfly broach and a giant clay pot with a silvery glaze that she’d had wrapped in newspaper so that it could make the trip home with us in a carry-on. As she showed me these items, for a brief moment it really did seem like we were simply on vacation together. After the fair we ate lunch at a small sandwich shop down the street.
“If the machine works,” I said, “and you really talk to Anthony tomorrow, what will you tell him?”
She chewed and swallowed. “To be honest I don’t know.” She smiled. “Why, do you think I need some sort of prepared statement?”
“You’re joking, but maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”
She smiled.
“Will you tell him about me?” I asked. “Because he might not take the news well. If I was him, I’m not sure I’d want to know you were married to someone else.”
She considered this. “If he’s really out there, if this is for real, my bet is he already knows about you. I don’t think there will be any use in trying to keep secrets.”
“What about his body?” I asked.
“Body?”
“I thought maybe you were hoping Anthony could help you locate his body. Since it never turned up.”
She put down her sandwich in its basket. “I don’t remember ever telling you about that. In fact, I’m certain that I didn’t.”
“Your brother,” I said.
She dabbed her mouth with her napkin in such a way that indicated she was irritated and that our conversation was over. It was beginning to rain outside now, only we didn’t have an umbrella. After I paid the bill, we waited under the awning in front of the restaurant for a few minutes before making a run for it. The hotel was five blocks away, and by the time we reached it, we were both soaking wet, and I could feel blisters forming on my ankles. I yanked off my shoes and socks and followed Annie through the lobby barefoot.
We took a long nap together on the bed upstairs. When I woke up Annie was on the phone near the door. She was in the middle of a new production at Thrill Arts!, and our visit to Little Rock had not come at an ideal time. As a way of raising money for her prison playwriting program, she was staging one of Crazy Ben’s plays. All tickets sold would go back to the program. I listened to her politely argue with her set designer for a few minutes before rolling over to face her and let her see that I was awake. She didn’t smile at me, and I wondered if she was still irritated about our conversation at lunch.
Once she was off the phone, we decided to walk to the Capitol Hotel restaurant and eat dinner there before we met the other participants in Sally’s study. We strolled quietly, arm in arm, through a light misty rain, avoidi
ng puddles. Music blared at a karaoke bar with neon tube lights in the front windows.
I apologized for asking about Anthony’s body, explaining that my intention hadn’t been to upset or surprise her. I’d simply been curious what she expected of her reunion with Anthony.
“I should have told you, I guess,” she said. “It’s just not something I like to think about, generally.”
“That’s more than understandable,” I said, taking her hand.
When we reached the restaurant, we were seated at a table near the front window. We talked about Fisher and her band, which was busy recording an album. Fisher had been pleading with us to help them invest in a new soundboard, and though we’d yet to make our official decision, we were of course going to do it.
After the meal, we paid our bill and walked through the lobby, admiring its vast ornate columns and vaulted ceiling, and wandered upstairs to the balcony, where people were standing near heat lamps with mixed drinks. At the railing, we could stare down at the lazy traffic on the street below. We’d been here for only a few moments, enjoying the view, inhaling all the cigarette smoke, when I saw Sally seated at a faraway patio couch with a woman in a long green dress and a white sweater. I waved over at them, and Sally motioned for us to join them.
“Jim and Annie Byrd,” she said, as we approached, “this is Willa Flats.”
Willa shot us a look that clearly communicated she wanted us to take our immediate leave, but Sally invited us to sit down in the chairs facing the couch. Without comment, Willa unscrewed the cap from a bottle of water and sipped quietly. She had light brown skin, short dark hair, and a large but attractive face. I guessed her to be roughly our age or perhaps a little younger.
Then Sally waved at someone else at the other end of the bar. A long-faced man came striding toward us. He had gray buzz-cut hair, and his wire-rimmed glasses lent him a vaguely European aspect. He introduced himself as Duke Jones and dragged a chair from another table to sit down by me. We shook hands and made small talk.
The Afterlives Page 25