Suicide Souls

by Penni Jones

  She could be telling the truth but probably not.

  Tony gathers the pill bottles from table and drops them in my lap. I try to open one but I’m too weak. Ernesto takes over while Tony pours me a glass of water. Doris watches the entire scene with her arms crossed. She’s managed to tarnish Dylan’s pretty face with the Doris smirk.

  Ernesto scans the bottles and tosses the benign pills to the side. He opens three of the bottles and dumps their contents into my lap.

  “You have to do this yourself or it doesn’t count,” Ernesto says. One of his breasts presses against my arm to keep me upright. It’s quite soothing.

  “I don’t want her dying on my couch,” Doris says. None of us acknowledge her statement.

  I grab three of the pills and raise them to my mouth. It takes too much effort. I’ll have to grab more at once for this to work. Tony presses the glass to my lips and I swallow. “What was that?” I ask.

  “I think morphine and Norco,” Ernesto answers.

  “Nice,” I force a weak smile. Hopefully I’ll get a decent buzz before I kick off.

  “You have to try to lift the glass yourself this time, okay? If we help you on the fatal dose it might be classified as murder,” Tony says. He’s become much more helpful than I expected.

  I nod slowly and grab five pills this time. I can do this. With my old body I swallowed a full bottle of Xanax. My old body.

  I get it now. What it all means.

  “I’m more than a body,” I say directly to Ernesto’s chest.

  He smiles and says, “I know, Naomi. I know. Now get these pills down you.”

  I put the pills in my mouth and lift the water glass to my lips. It takes more strength than it should. I gag as the pills go down my throat but get them all the way down.

  “You have great tits,” I say to Ernesto.

  He smiles and says, “I know. I won’t be keeping them, though. Not really my style. I always preferred athletic women with small breasts.”

  “Weird.” I’m smiling. I can feel it for a second before my face goes numb.

  “Come on, Naomi. A few more. There are some sleeping pills here. Those will give you the extra push,” Tony says. He sounds honestly concerned. It’s weird.

  I grab as many pills as I can get in my fist. It’s a mix of large and small. Some are green and some are white. I lift the water to my lips. It feels like I’m trying to swallow a tennis ball.

  Darkness creeps at the edge of my vision. I’m almost there. Almost dead again.

  I fumble with the remaining pills in my lap. There are more than I’ll be able to swallow. I grab as many as my fingers will let me. I lift them up to my face. I squint to see what I have. Only two pills. Maybe it will be enough. I place them on my tongue and start chewing in case I can’t swallow them whole. The bitterness spreads across my mouth but it’s not as awful as I would have thought. Maybe my taste buds are already dying. Does it happen that way? Or maybe they’re just numb from the amount of narcotics in my system.

  “You’re almost done,” Ernesto whispers into my ear. The whisper is warm and moist in my ear.

  I feel myself swaying. I try to pick up more pills, but my fingers don’t work anymore. I look up.

  “Where’s D—Doris?” I ask with the little strength I have left.

  Tony and Ernesto look to the open door.

  “Shit,” Tony says.

  “She’s a slippery f—f—fucker,” I say.

  Ernesto stands and gently lays me on the couch.

  “Don’t leave me,” I think I say, but I’m not sure.

  Ernesto bends down and we’re face-to-face. “You’re going to be fine. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  The last thing I see is the attractive couple walking out of the apartment.

  * * *

  Luke

  I’m running again. My old body’s lungs would have given up on me today. Once again, I’m thankful that Andy doesn’t smoke.

  We’re down to four hours. I have to know if I can stay here. And I have to make things right with Naomi. She’s the only friend I’ve had in the last ten years. I’ll never see her again, and I can’t leave things this way. I can’t let her leave angry with me.

  When I round the corner to Dylan’s building, a familiar figure emerges from the front door.

  A young woman screeches, “Dylan Pine!” And the attractive young man waves the woman away humbly.

  The attractive young man is Doris.

  She doesn’t see me.

  I slow my run so I can take her by surprise. I’m only about six feet away from her when she turns. Recognition spreads across her face. She breaks into a run.

  Dylan is fast. Faster than Andy. But I keep running. I can’t stop. It’s too important. This neighborhood is more heavily populated than Rochelle’s. Doris sprints down the sidewalks, dodging tourists and young couples walking their dogs.

  I hear a squish and look down. I’ve landed right in a pile of shit. From the look of it, it belonged to a giant dog or small horse. I want to stop and scrape my shoe on the curb. But I can’t. I keep running, leaving a trail of shitty footprints.

  A group of young women spot Dylan coming toward them and block his path.

  “Oh my god!! Dylan Pine!” one of them shouts.

  Doris tries to dart around them but one of the girls grabs his arm. So rude but also so helpful.

  “Can we please get a picture with you?”

  Doris tries to wrench herself away from the girl and I lurch forward, tackling her, tackling Dylan, on the sidewalk.

  “Is that…?” one of the girls starts to say.

  “Andy Sullivan. Great to meet you.” I hoist Dylan from the ground. He may be faster than Andy, but he’s smaller.

  I pull Doris back toward Dylan’s apartment. I can hear the girls’ phones taking pictures the entire time. It’s going to be a good day for the tabloids. “Where’s Naomi?”

  “Like you care. You’re happy to be where you are. Just admit it,” she says.

  “Sure, I am. I’m not stupid. But I need to talk to her.”

  “It’s too late. Let me go.” Doris tries to wriggle from my grasp. I wrap my hand tighter around her arm. “Ouch. You’re hurting me,” she whines.

  For just a second I think of her as a lady. But it doesn’t last. “Nice try.”

  I pull Dylan toward the apartment building door. It’s locked.

  “I don’t suppose you have a key on you?”

  Doris’ smirk crosses Dylan’s face.

  I tighten my grip and ring the buzzer to Dylan’s apartment.

  “You can let me go. It’s not going to affect you one way or the other at this point,” Doris says.

  “Shut up,” I say. It’s cathartic. I’ve wanted to tell her to shut up since the moment we met.

  The girl from the train and a tall young Black man walk through the door. Bree grabs the door to keep it open.

  I stare at Bree and the man, aware that I’m missing a connection. But what?

  “Why are you here, Bree?” I ask.

  “I’m Ernesto. Stop staring at my breasts.”

  Ernesto. I’m sexually attracted to Ernesto. Is that gay?

  I hadn’t even realized I was staring. I turn to face the man with her, I mean him. This is confusing.

  “Tony,” he says. “Doris’ former husband.”

  “Right.” My brain struggles to make the connections. This could be part of the memory purge, or it’s just been a goddamn confusing day.

  I push Doris through the door, and we all move toward the elevator. The elevator door opens. Doris goes in first, resigned to her fate.

  “Edgar told me you were looking for a young man named Trevor when you arrived,” Tony says.

  Trevor? A face forms in my mind. Then it’s two boys, young teenagers. One of them is me. We’re listening to music in the bedroom with the door closed. Megadeth, maybe? He’s the other boy.

  “Trevor was my cousin.”

  Tony nods and says,
“I was his mentor. He’s fine. In fact, he’s in the house in Connecticut. It’s always amazing to me how suicide souls find one another and they’re completely unaware.”

  “Thank you,” I say and reach for the notebook that I’ve left somewhere in the afterlife.

  The elevator doors open. Ernesto and Tony grab Doris and pull her to the apartment door.

  “Where’s Naomi?” I ask from behind them.

  Ernesto releases Doris’ arm and turns to me. He puts his hands on my shoulders and I resist the urge to check out his boobs again.

  “Her loaner body was dying. She had to kill herself again so she could return to Suicide Soul Station.”

  I pull away from Ernesto and dart around him into the apartment. Juniper’s frail body is collapsed on Dylan’s couch.

  My bottom lip trembles and I choke back the tears.

  “It’s okay. She had to go before it was too late,” Ernesto says from behind me.

  The woman on the couch is merely a shell. I know that. There’s a dribble of vomit and blood in the corner of her mouth. I touch the top of her head. It’s still slightly warm.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper into her ear even though it’s pointless.

  Tony releases Doris by tossing her to the floor.

  She looks around the room and says, “What a bunch of assholes. You can’t make me go back. You know that.” She stands, brushing imaginary debris from her jeans.

  “Yes, we can.” Ernesto grabs Doris by the shoulders and pushes her to sit in the room’s only easy chair. Except it’s Bree pushing Dylan. I sit on the floor next to Juniper’s body. I’m not ready to move.

  “Doris, we have someone who may be of interest to you,” Tony says.

  “I doubt that,” she says. She is no longer the imposing figure she was in the afterlife, but her facial expressions have managed to carry over. I wonder if Dylan’s friends will notice that he’s different?

  “Jennifer,” Tony says. “She arrived a few hours ago. Perfect timing if you ask me.”

  Doris sits silent, defiant. She clenches her jaw and her nostrils flare. She puts her hands on the armrests and starts to push herself up to stand, but Ernesto pushes her back down.

  “Who’s Jennifer?” I ask, tired of waiting for someone to fill in the blanks.

  “Doris’ niece. Probably the only person she ever loved unconditionally.” There is sympathy in Ernesto’s voice. “Jennifer was a young child when Doris died. But Doris has managed to keep tabs on her. And Doris’ brother made sure Jennifer grew up seeing photographs of her aunt and hearing the best stories about her life.”

  “And if you don’t come back with us to face what you’ve done, she’ll go to the Shadow.” Tony is inches from her face. I wouldn’t be surprised if she bit him.

  But instead she turns to me as if she just remembered that I’m here. “Why did you come back?”

  I pull my legs against my chest and wrap my arms around them. “I want to stay. My, I mean Andy’s, girlfriend is pregnant, and he really messed it up. I want to fix it. I want to have a family.”

  Doris releases an exaggerated giggle.

  Ernesto sits on the floor beside me and I accidentally look at his rack again. He notices so I say, “Sorry.”

  He tugs at the front of the dress and says, “You can’t stay unless Doris goes back. Even though you made it to a vapid body, the imbalance will most likely cause you to die. You’ll be overcome with an urge to throw yourself in front of a bus or something equally as sudden and you will have had no idea why.”

  “And I’ll go to the Shadow.”

  Ernesto nods. “Unless?” He turns to Doris and she rolls her eyes.

  “When did you all become such bleeding hearts? It used to be fun, playing around with these hopeless souls. You’ve both done it. Tony, this mess started because of that idiotic game you and the other mentors played. And Ernesto, I’ve never once thought you were relegated to the bookstore because of your good deeds. What did you do?”

  It’s a special talent that Doris has, making people feel bad for doing the right thing. How much did she infect Naomi with her preaching?

  “You don’t have to care about Luke,” Tony says.

  “Ha! That’s a good thing. Because I don’t,” she says. “But why Jennifer? How did she even end up with you?” Her face softens slightly. She looks like she would cry if she were normal.

  Ernesto sighs and stands up. “She was forty-three years old. She quit nursing school years ago to support her husband through med school. She never found the time to go back.”

  “And he left her for a young nurse?” Doris asks. There’s inevitability to her tone. Her niece’s death is a cliché.

  “Afraid so,” Tony says.

  “Wow. That’s messed up,” I say.

  “Did she have children?” Doris asks.

  Ernesto nods and says, “One. A teenaged son. She tried to hold on for him. But the call of Death was too strong.”

  Tears spring from Doris’ eyes. All three of us look at each other uncomfortably. This is an unprecedented occurrence.

  “She could have gone back to school. Forty-three isn’t that old,” she chokes out between sobs. “But this is what men do. They convince you that they love you and take everything you have.”

  Tony bends down and puts his hands over Doris’. “I didn’t take anything from you. I damaged your pride and you’ve never let it go. But you can save Jennifer. Only you.”

  Doris stands up abruptly, knocking Tony back on his ass. “This isn’t fair! This all took meticulous planning. I have the life I want. Finally. I have a replacement.” She points to Juniper’s body. “I should be free.”

  “But you cheated. You had to know there would be consequences,” Ernesto says.

  “I thought you would let me go. All my years of service. All by-the-book. How many souls have I successfully redistributed? It must be in the tens of thousands. And when the mentors screwed things up, I cleaned up the messes. I helped maintain balance, so the wrong souls didn’t go to Oblivion.” She pauses, allowing us time to argue. No one takes the bait. “And instead of letting me go, you chase me down when I’ve finally made it to the life I want and threaten me with the only person who matters.”

  “You threw off the balance when you took too much from those boys,” Ernesto says. “You know that.”

  Doris looks at me and says, “Do you promise that you’ll take care of that pregnant girl? You won’t run off with some floozy once you get bored?” She turns to Ernesto and says, “No offense.”

  “Real funny,” he says.

  I stand up and look Doris in the face, man-to-man. “I promise. I’ll do the right thing.” I turn to Ernesto and ask, “Will I remember to do the right thing? I mean, Andy seems like an asshole. Will I lose all of myself and then he’ll leave her again?”

  Ernesto thinks for a second and says, “You’ve already lost a lot of your memories, yet you still chose to do what’s right. Soon you should start remembering Andy’s life. But you’ll keep what’s best about you.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and says, “We’ll make sure you don’t lose that, Luke. And maybe you’ll even remember a little bit about your experience in the afterlife. Who knows?”

  “Thank you.” Sweet relief. I want to cry. But I can’t in front of this room of extremely attractive people and a dead body.

  “She urinated on my couch. I knew that would happen.” Doris walks over to Juniper’s body and starts gathering pills from the floor and Juniper’s skirt. “Think this is enough?” She thrusts her hand forward. Her palm contains about a dozen various pills.

  “Yeah,” Ernesto says.

  “Can you imagine the tabloid headlines? Juniper Haskell and Dylan Pine committing suicide together in his New York apartment?” Doris smiles. It’s a genuine smile. Kind of weird. “We’re about to make some reporter’s day.”

  “We’ll call the police and the tabloids on our way out,” Tony says.

  “Look at you with the good de
eds, Doris,” I say. “I think you might enjoy doing the right thing.”

  “Fuck you, Andy. I hope you get the clap,” she says and shoves the pills into her mouth.

  Chapter 35

  Naomi

  “Welcome back, slut.” Edgar sits across from me at a small table in the non-café. His suit is crisp and clean again, as if it was never dragged through the mouth of Oblivion.

  “Edgar.” I smile and look down. I’m wearing Juniper’s clothes, but everything else is me. A pink polyester blouse and cream-colored pants. It’s even worse than the stripper dress. I go through the motions of sighing. It’s weird to have my breath gone. I adapted to having it again very quickly.

  Edgar says, “So, what’s going on in meat puppet land?”

  “I don’t really know. The body I was in was dying, so Ernesto and Tony helped me get back here before it was too late. They’re with Doris, but she’s not interested in coming back.”

  “Greg and Luke don’t have much time,” he says.

  “What if Luke doesn’t come back? Won’t he be okay?”

  Edgar frowns and shakes his head slowly from side to side. “Not if Doris doesn’t come back.”

  Greg appears by his side. He looks around like he doesn’t know where he is.

  “Greg!” I stand up to faux-hug him but he backs away. He doesn’t recognize me. The memory of us is gone.

  “You loved me once,” I say though it’s pointless.

  He smiles and nods. “I wish I could remember that.”

  “Me, too.”

  Edgar stands up and says, “Will you two stop being so fucking morose?”

  “Why should we?” I ask. “Things aren’t exactly going well.”

  “True, but why don’t we spend Greg’s remaining time doing something fun?” Edgar beams like he’s just had the best idea in the world. He holds out his hands to us and we form a circle of energy without actually touching.

  There’s a tug and a “whoosh” and then we’re on a giant Ferris wheel. The bench seat is large enough for all three of us. Except there’s no safety bar holding us in. We’re going around at a perfect pace. Not too fast, not too slow. The sky is blue and there is a slight breeze. A real breeze. I’m sitting in the middle. It feels like where I belong.