by Neil Smith
“Johnny Henzel is a curious object, but he is no mistake,” I go on. “You fixed him as best you could. You tinkered with his faulty parts and erased his painful memories so he can cope in his afterlife. And now you want to see how townies react to this boy you dropped into their world.”
The god sprawled on the couch stays invisible.
“Is my theory right?”
No answer.
“Speak up!”
My music box winds down. The goblin stops wobbling.
“Johnny is a test case. If we all pass your test, if we all show mercy and compassion to this boy you fixed, maybe one day you will send us more boys like him.”
I pick up my music box and turn the crank again.
“Townies all say heaven is a second chance. Why shouldn’t we give Johnny his?”
No more music comes out of the music box. I keep cranking but for naught. Darn it. Is the goblin already broken? When I shake the box, I hear something rolling around beneath the platform that the goblin wobbles on. Batteries? No, that makes no sense: music boxes run on cranks, and batteries are not needed in heaven. I take my fake-tortoiseshell letter opener and wedge it under the edge of the platform. With a little elbow grease on my part, the platform springs up.
I peek inside the box.
What the dickens?!
I drop the music box on my desk and push back my chair so fast it almost overturns. I stand there flabbergasted for a second or two before throwing an angry eye at the couch.
“What foul tricks are you playing, you old dog?”
Inside the goblin’s music box, lying side by side, are two bullets.
At seven o’clock in the morning, Thelma and Esther arrive at Curios so we can bike to the Gene together to attend Johnny’s trial. When they knock on my office door, I do not immediately respond. They push open the door and find me lying on the floor in my boxers and an undershirt. I am in an insomniac stupor. My fifth straight night without sleep. I lift a hand weakly to wave to the girls.
I am not strong. Why did Johnny ever think differently?
The girls are dressed spiffily in argyle kilts sewn by Esther. Esther has her hair in a tight bun; Thelma has on her usual beads. When they see the state I am in—unshowered, blurry-eyed, hair on end—they are fretful.
“Oh, honey, you ain’t hunky-dory!” Thelma pulls me up and brings me to the couch to sit.
“You look like death warmed over,” Esther tells me as she pinches my cheeks to add some color. “We can’t have the jurors pitying you. They’ll hand Johnny his butt on a platter.”
“What’s this?!” Thelma yells because she notices cuts on my forearms. During the night, in my despair, I struck myself again and again with the meat tenderizer.
“A scab-healing experiment,” I lie.
“Damn it, Boo!” Esther cries. “Pull yourself together, man.”
Peter Peter arrives in my office to wish me luck at the trial. When my boss hears Esther complaining that I look ghostly, he takes the anti-acne cream from my desk and tells her to dab some on. “It’s flesh-colored,” he says.
Thelma says, “It ain’t my flesh color, honey.”
It is not mine either. It is orangey beige. Still, Esther spreads a thin layer across my cheeks and forehead. It smells of sulfur, which, long ago, was known as brimstone. Brimstone does not bode well for the trial, but I do not tell the others this because they seem pleased now with the color of my complexion.
Peter Peter fetches a long-sleeved T-shirt from his office. It is too big for me, but at least it is not wrinkled. As I slide my scabby arms into it, he loosens his necktie and then slips it around my neck. Thelma drags a comb through my flyaway hair.
Esther rummages in her purse and pulls out an apple as well as a peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich wrapped in plastic. “Eat,” she tells me. The apple is crisp and tart and gives me a boost. When I finish my breakfast, the girls and I prepare to leave for the jail. Peter Peter says he will close Curios today and come along with us, but I try to dissuade him. I have grown fond of our museum: it gives me a purpose in heaven other than helping Johnny. It should not be shut down, but Peter Peter cannot be deterred, and so we all head downstairs. Esther stuffs her sunflower purse into the basket of her bicycle. Thelma suggests biking slowly so I do not sweat my makeup off.
“I assure you I rarely expire,” I say.
I mean, of course, “perspire.” A Freudian slip due to my fatigue and general malaise.
We ride our bicycles into the street. Traffic is heavy today despite the early hour. The sky is blanketed with Johnny’s holy mackerel clouds. Did Zig whip up these clouds as a good omen? Do I even believe in signs from our goddamn god?
Were the two bullets an offering from him? Well, I do not need such an offering. I hid the bullets at the back of my desk drawer in an empty eyeglasses case. I refuse to check if the bullets fit in the little revolver displayed in Curios. Go to hell, Zig! I do not need your little games!
We cycle for a good hour and a half. When we approach the Gene, we are surprised to see the number of townies the trial is attracting. Hundreds of people are crowded on the prison’s front lawn. Dozens of protesters wield picket signs. Gommers, I guess. I try to avoid reading their placards, but I glimpse one that reads, PUT HIM OUT OF OUR MISERY.
While parking my bicycle, I notice a makeshift stage with a spray-painted banner that reads, LOTTERY TICKETS. Tim and Tom Lu climb onto the stage. One of them is carrying a bass drum, which he sets down. They both pick up bullhorns that had been lying on the stage floor.
“Wow, Tim,” Tom says into his bullhorn, “the Grade F is more popular than Jesus Christ.”
“Right you are, Tom. That’s why we’re holding a raffle to assign the two hundred seats available in the Gene’s auditorium.”
“Can we pack everybody in?”
“I guesstimate there are five hundred people here, so I’d say, nope, they won’t all get a seat. Folks have to take a number from our assistants wandering through the crowd. Then we’ll draw numbers out of this here bass drum to see who gets in.”
“Oh, what fun!”
“Now, Tom, don’t be disrespectful. This is a murder trial, after all. It’s serious business. It’s not a play. It’s not The Teahouse of the August Moon.”
“What about official witnesses and victims, Tim? Do they need a lottery number?”
“Don’t be silly, Tom. Of course not. They have the best seats in the house. Front row, center. To avoid the crowd, witnesses and victims should enter the Gene by the side door.”
Peter Peter says he will go fetch a number. He wishes me luck and pats himself on the shoulder.
As Thelma, Esther, and I weave through the crowd, I notice that the jail looks even more dismal than usual, as though another layer of soot settled on it overnight. And the lawn we cross is so infested with weeds that we decapitate dandelions with almost every step we take. I must invent a natural pesticide (maybe using cayenne pepper) to keep the dandelion population at bay.
A long-haired boy with an acoustic guitar strapped to his back ambles up. “Hey, aren’t you Boo?”
I nod uneasily.
The hippie’s face lights up. “How about an autograph?”
“Bug off,” Esther spits.
“I’m writing a song about you and Johnny, Boo. It’s called ‘The Gun and the Damage Done.’ ”
“We’re in a hurry,” Thelma tells the hippie.
“Break a leg, my man,” the hippie says.
An albino girl, with normal eyesight restored by Zig, points at me. “I love you, Boo!” she squeals.
My bodyguards, Thelma and Esther, walk on either side of me. Thelma tells me my story has managed to travel from dorm to dorm across Town.
“But like all stories that spread around heaven,” Esther says, “it’s been perverted in the telling.”
When we reach the side door of the prison, a girl jailer in a purple armband is there to greet us. She checks our names off her list of witnes
ses and then leads us down a hallway to a waiting room where another jailer, the big-nosed Ringo again, stands watch over peanut girl Sandy Goldberg and portal seeker Benny Baggarly.
Benny barely looks up, but Sandy waves and says, “Hello, Thelma. Hello, Boo.” She is still wearing tight braids, which stick straight out from both sides of her head as though she uses pipe cleaners as a support system. “Gosh, I never knew my afterlife would be so busy,” she says. “With badminton finals and this trial, I’m, like, super booked. If you can believe it, I’m even more popular here than I was back home!”
We take our seats. Picture a dentist’s waiting room, Mother and Father, and you will imagine this space. It is even painted the mint green of toothpaste found in America.
Esther whispers to me, “I have another peanut butter sandwich in my purse. Should I slip it to the nutter?”
“Food allergies do not exist in heaven,” I say. “Nobody dies here of anaphylactic shock.”
Unlike Esther and me, Thelma is good at small talk, so she asks Sandy about her badminton tournaments. While Sandy talks about vertical jump smashes and sliced drop shots, another witness is brought to the room. It is Albert Schmidt, the Deborah’s baby-faced manager, whom we met on the day Willa Blake threw herself off the roof of the asylum. Because he is tiny and wears a red bow tie and a straw hat, he reminds me of the little monkeys that played cymbals on street corners in the olden days.
Thelma interrupts Sandy’s description of her trademark shot, a round-the-head forehand overhead. “What are you doing here?” she asks Albert.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure,” Albert tells us. “The warden sent word she wanted me to come.”
“Maybe to talk about sadness and confusion,” I suggest.
Just then, Charles “Czar” Lindblom shows up, his hair oiled back and his jeans ironed with a crease.
“Try not to beat me into a coma, okay?” he says to Thelma and me.
“I should feel sorry for that fella,” Thelma whispers to me. “But instead I want to slap him upside his head.”
Czar sits down beside Benny Baggarly. I wonder if Benny harbors ill will toward Czar with the hauntings exposed as the hoax of a hypnotist. I guess not, since Benny offers him a comic book he has brought along.
For the most part, we sit in silence. I fret about Johnny. Is he waiting in the auditorium where the trial will take place? Is he nervous about the outcome? Will he be happy to see the girls and me?
“When will this Punch and Judy show get started?” Esther asks Ringo, who stands in the doorway shifting his weight from leg to leg.
“Hold your horses, love,” he replies.
Esther says, “Love?! Who are you calling love? I’m not your love, mister!”
Ringo gives her an amused look. “Don’t be such a twat,” he says.
“Twat?!” Esther says. “How’d you like a kick in the nuts?”
“Oh, sod off,” Ringo replies.
“Settle down now,” Thelma tells Esther.
We end up waiting another hour, all of us growing more and more fidgety. Finally, another jailer tells Ringo to escort us to the trial. We march down several corridors and then enter the auditorium, which looks disturbingly like all the other theaters in heaven, theaters where we are entertained by plays, concerts, and dances put on by townies. This trial, I understand, is another kind of entertainment for the audience that has come today. Townies with winning raffle tickets—all two hundred of them—are already seated when the other witnesses and I are led to the front row.
Thelma spots Peter Peter and waves.
“Rest in peace, Boo!” somebody calls out, and Ringo cries, “No shouting! Shouters will be thrown out!”
When we move to our seats, Czar turns to look at the audience. He spreads his arms wide and smiles broadly. I would not be surprised if he took a bow. Esther kicks him in the shin. “Sorry,” she mutters, though I suspect she is anything but.
There are seven empty flip-up seats in the front row. I sit in the middle, with Esther and Thelma on either side. Beside Esther are Czar and Benny. Beside Thelma are Sandy and Albert. Once we are all seated, the audience claps as though we are members of an orchestra tuning up to perform a concert.
In the center of the stage is a heavy padded armchair that looks less threadbare than most of the furniture in heaven. A spotlight is trained on the chair, which is covered in red fabric, a poor color choice because it evokes blood.
Desk chairs are set in a row on both sides of the stage. They will accommodate the warden and the thirteen jurors (one townie chosen randomly from each of the zones). Once we witnesses are seated, they march out from the wings and take their seats behind the desks. The warden is wearing her cashmere-like sweater and her badge (a good sign). As the house lights dim, she nods into the wings, and council president Reginald Washington and jailer Ringo lead Johnny Henzel onto the stage. Members of the audience gasp, though there is nothing unusual about Johnny. He is not dressed in the regular prison garb of orange shorts and an orange T-shirt, but instead in clean jeans and a plain white T-shirt. He looks healthier than the last time I saw him. Indeed, his appearance is heartening, apart from the handcuffs around his wrists.
A few people in the audience hiss as Ringo escorts my friend to the hot seat, sits him down, and then unlocks his handcuffs. I am sitting right in front of Johnny, though several yards away. His eyes blink because the spotlight is on him. With the house lights off, he may not be able to see much of the audience. I wave to him, and I think I catch his eye, but then he looks away. He stares straight up at the spotlight like a boy blinding himself during an eclipse by looking into the sun.
Reginald stands at the front left side of the stage. He sets his notes on a podium and introduces himself by speaking into the podium microphone. “Reginald Washington, president of the do-good council of Eleven for eight years running,” he says. “I hope to win a third term, so if any of you good people are from Eleven, remember this face in next spring’s election.” He gives the audience a smile that looks misleadingly sweet.
Reginald says we are here today for a first in the history of our heaven, a trial at which an accused will be judged for crimes committed not only in the afterlife but also down in America. When he says “down in America,” he glances at me, but I look away. I look at Johnny, who is still staring upward at the humming spotlights.
I feel almost jet-lagged from lack of sleep. Esther and Thelma pat their own knees, which means they are patting mine. Esther takes my CO2 bag from her sunflower purse. “Just in case,” she says, handing it over.
I fold and unfold the bag as Reginald explains the details of the accusations against Johnny. He starts with Johnny’s rebirth and quotes Thelma as saying the newborn was bewildered and in tears. “The accused told the rebirthing nurse he’d been shot in the head at his junior high and endured five weeks in a coma before succumbing to his injuries.”
Reginald adds that Thelma paired him with another newbie killed in the same shooting. “That boy, Oliver Dalrymple, was unaware of the real cause of his death.”
Somebody in the audience shouts, “Boo!”
“No bloody shouting!” Ringo yells into a bullhorn from where he is stationed at the side of the stage.
I watch Johnny, but he does not appear to be listening to Reginald. He looks innocent, as he did on the day during the tornado drill in Hoffman Estates—when everyone else was scared and excited and he sat quietly under his desk and calmly asked to draw me.
Reginald continues presenting what he calls “the facts.” He says he mulled over whether it was wise and safe to send our little group on a journey to track down “the mysterious Gunboy.” “Though I had misgivings, former council member Thelma Rudd pleaded with me to assist this boy in distress who was not adapting well to his new habitat.”
“Baloney,” mutters Thelma. She brought along a Japanese hand fan and is waving it in front of her face. “Reginald suggested the road trip himself.”
&nb
sp; Reginald recounts our trip, including Johnny’s disappearance after we witnessed what Reginald calls “an apparent suicide” at the Deborah Blau Infirmary. He describes the “unprovoked and violent attack” on Charles Lindblom and the “shocking and disturbing revelations” of Sandy Goldberg.
From her seat, Sandy pipes up: “All I remember, everybody, is that there was just two guys killed. A crazy one and a weird one. That’s basically all I got to say.”
Reginald stops his talk and smiles uneasily at Sandy. “Thank you, Ms. Goldberg,” he says. “But no further interruptions, please.” He goes on to mention that the do-good council from Eleven ordered our recapture. “There was an urgent need not only to protect townies from this dangerous boy but also to separate the victim, Oliver Dalrymple, from the killer who cut short his first life.”
“Boo!” a girl calls out.
“Put a sock in it!” Ringo shouts.
Reginald continues: “I interviewed John Henzel several times in his jail cell about the wicked crimes of which he stands accused. It is time I share with you what I learned, particularly in recent days. Mr. Henzel, are you ready to tell us your story?” Johnny stops gazing at the rafters. He lowers his eyes till they are level with the audience. Ringo crosses the stage and hands him a microphone. Johnny turns it on. A squeal rips through the hall, and I jump in my seat. It takes me a moment to realize the noise is from the microphone, not from Johnny.
When the squeal dies, Johnny holds the microphone to his mouth. “I am Gunboy,” he says.
From behind me, somebody whispers, “Kill him, kill him.”
“You’re confessing to your crimes?” Reginald asks.
I can barely breathe.
“Yeah,” Johnny says with conviction.
“When did you discover you were the so-called Gunboy?”
“I’ve always known. Even back in America I knew.”
“You knew down below.”
“Yeah.”
“How?”