Another Life

by Robert Haller

  “I don’t get it! I don’t get it!” she cried.

  It was a new way to play video games. With the guys, we were always shouting at each other and making mean jokes and teabagging each other’s dead bodies on the screen. With Becca, I was laughing until my face got red and tears came down my cheeks. She died about every ten seconds, and every time, she would let out this little shriek and throw her controller down and bury her head in her hands. And then she would pick it back up and say, “Okay, this time for real,” with this hard look in her eyes.

  We stayed up in my room for the rest of the evening. When Rachel came in around nine o’clock, she looked with shock at the controller in her sister’s hands. “Becca, I don’t think Dad would want you playing that.”

  Becca tried to smile up at her sister, but I could see she was nervous. “No, it’s okay, Rachel. They don’t have souls.”

  “What?”

  “They’re just zombies,” I said, trying to help. “So it’s okay to shoot them.”

  Rachel looked at us both and frowned. “It’s time to go,” was all she said.

  Watching them leave, I wondered if Rachel would rat on her sister, and I wondered what her father would do if she did. He wasn’t someone I’d want angry at me. I went back into my room and started playing again, but I felt weird inside, lonely almost. I tried to forget about how much fun I’d just had.

  Now here was Becca, standing in front of me on the church green, her head wrapped in a blue turban, grinning. She held the book in her hands up for me to see. “I checked this out at the library the other day,” she said.

  I read the cover: Rise of the Undead: Slavery, Colonialism, and Zombies in 18th-Century Haiti, by Robert F. Whitehead, PhD. On the cover, a very thin, very old black man stared at me with huge white eyes. I wished she would put the book down.

  “In this book,” Becca said, “he talks about the African slaves that were brought over to Haiti in the seventeen hundreds to work the sugar plantations. This was where the zombie myth originally came from: African folklore. Some of the slaves believed that when they died, their souls would return to their home country—unless they killed themselves, or a witch doctor cast a spell, and then their souls would be trapped in an undead form, forever in the New World, and they could never go back to their homeland. Forced to remain on the plantations for eternity. Zombies.” She smiled at me. “So you were wrong: zombies do have souls.”

  I wanted to smile back, but the black man on the book cover was still staring at me with those giant eyes, and DeShawn was right beside me, listening. I just said, “Cool,” and tried to keep my voice disinterested.

  Becca looked disappointed and lowered the book that I hadn’t accepted from her. She turned to my foster brother, who was still staring at the book. “You must be DeShawn. I was at your house the other day, but you weren’t feeling well.” She noticed DeShawn’s interest in the book and offered it to him. “Here, maybe you’d like to read this. It’s real interesting. I found it while doing research on Haiti. We lived there for a while. I’m moving back when I turn eighteen.”

  This surprised me. I wasn’t exactly sure where Haiti was, but it didn’t seem like any place I could picture Becca living. I had a quick vision of my cousin in her ankle-length jean skirt and orange long-sleeved T-shirt, sitting under a palm tree, a fruity drink in her hand. I figured DeShawn would just stare at her and make her feel stupid, the way he could do so easily to anyone, but instead, he took the book and said, “That’s where my grandma was from.” It was the most I’d ever heard him say about his life.

  “It’s a library book,” Becca said, “but you can borrow it for a while.”

  DeShawn glanced up at her for a second and then opened the book.

  “I didn’t know you were coming to this,” I said to Becca.

  She grinned. “My mom convinced my dad to sign me up late. I’m so excited!”

  I wanted to warn her, grab her by the shoulders and tell her to leave while she still had the chance, but then Jason and Dylan had found us and were looking at Becca, waiting for an explanation.

  I looked at the ground while introducing the guys to my cousin. She smiled and said hi, but Jason just nodded at her blue turban. “You’re in the tribe of Judah.”

  Becca nodded.

  “So that means we can’t talk to you,” said Jason. “Levi is archenemies with Judah.”

  Becca’s smile faded. “Oh …”

  “Yeah,” Jason said, “so you’d better get to your tribe now.”

  I knew that Becca was looking at me, but I kept my eyes on the ground until she had turned and walked away. Jason shook his head. “Newbies.”

  During the first week of VBS, every camper was supposed to choose a verse in the Bible to memorize. Once they could recite it perfectly to a team leader by memory, they went on to the verse after it. The more verses you learned, the more points you earned. Whoever had the longest passage memorized by the end of the program won a thousand points for their tribe.

  That afternoon, Jon Newman had the whole tribe of Levi gather around our tent so we could each tell him the verses we had picked. I didn’t like Jon—he was always trying to give me high fives and telling me that Jesus had great things planned for me. How the hell would he know that? Also, I knew he had a thing for Bethany, which was weird since he was a few years older than her. And yeah, I was a few years younger, but somehow that didn’t seem as creepy.

  “Remember,” Jon said to us as the whole tribe of Levi sat down in a semicircle outside the tent, “no John eleven, forty-five” (the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus Wept.” You couldn’t earn points for two words, three syllables). “And, of course, no Song of Songs.” (Every year some smart-ass kid tried to pick a verse from the “Book of the Bible for Married People,” as my mom called it.)

  While I waited for Jon to get to me, I flipped through the thin pages of the Bible till I found Song of Songs. Everybody made jokes about the book, but I’d never actually thought to look it up. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For your love is more delightful than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out … I scanned farther down the page. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn … Your lips are like scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely … Your two breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle, that browse among the lilies.

  It was weird and a little gay, but reading the words, I felt something moving inside me. I looked up at Bethany, standing on the edge of the circle, scrolling through her phone.

  The breeze was ruffling her hair, and she was smiling a little, like she had a secret, and she didn’t even look up until Jon said her name three times. “Can you help me out?” he asked, trying to smile. I knew that Jon got annoyed with how Bethany didn’t seem to care about being a team leader, but he would never say anything.

  Jon went around the tribe and asked each of us what verse we were starting with, and then checked it in his Bible, and Bethany recorded it in her notebook. “Okay, Molly, how about you?” he asked Molly Thompson, sitting next to me. But Molly wasn’t paying attention; she was looking at the girl who had just appeared on the edge of our circle. We all were. She was dressed all in black—black eyeliner, black hooded sweatshirt, tight black jeans full of holes—and she had a lip ring.

  “Nola!” Bethany rushed over. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just came to see what’s kicking,” the girl said, and when she saw the look of surprise on Bethany’s face, she raised her eyebrows. “Is that a problem?”

  “No!” Bethany shook her head quickly. “It’s just …” She stopped. She seemed to realize for the first time that we all were looking at them.

  “Do we have a visitor, Bethany?” Jon asked.

  “Um, yeah. Everybody, this is Nola. Nola, this is … everybody.”


  Nola nodded. “’Sup?” Then she turned to Bethany and smiled. “What’s with the turbans?”

  “Oh, that’s just so we know what tribe they’re in.”

  “A little racist, don’t you think?”

  Before Bethany could answer, Jon said loudly, “We’re just in the middle of something, Nola. You’re welcome to come join us.”

  “Actually,” Bethany said, “I’m gonna show Nola around first.”

  Jon looked annoyed but he nodded, and Bethany grabbed Nola by the arm and basically pulled her away. I watched as they headed across the field, talking and laughing. I stared after them until I heard Jon call on my foster brother. “Okay, DeShawn, your turn.”

  I was surprised to see that DeShawn was reading the zombie book Becca had given him, and he didn’t even look up at Jon as he answered. “I’m not doing a verse.”

  “Come on, DeShawn,” Jon said, “you need to try.”

  DeShawn shook his head. “Bethany said I didn’t have to.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t have told you that. The rule is, everyone tries to memorize at least one verse.”

  DeShawn kept his eyes on the book and didn’t say anything.

  “What’s that you’re reading?” Jon asked, holding out his hand. “Let me see.”

  DeShawn hesitated a second and then handed the book over. Jon flipped through it, frowning. “I’m not sure this is something you should be bringing to VBS, DeShawn. There’s stuff about black magic in here.” He closed the book and stuffed it under his arm.

  “Hey!” DeShawn cried.

  “You’ll get it back after program,” Jon said. He put his Bible down in front of DeShawn. “For now, I want you to look through this book, and choose a verse.” He smiled. “Okay, man?” Jon reached out to give him a pat on the shoulder, but DeShawn jerked away so fast, Jon’s hand just hit empty air. He kept smiling and moved on.

  Five minutes later, after Jon had gotten around to everybody, he told us to divide up into pairs and start practicing our verses. I teamed up with Dylan. “Where’s DeShawn?” Jason asked me. We looked around our tribe but didn’t see him anywhere. He’d wandered again.

  PAUL

  There used to be cigarettes everywhere. In the kitchen cabinet above the sink and in the drawers where she kept the silverware. Stuffed between the cushions of the living room sofa and perched above the light fixture in the garage. They were stashed away all over the Frazier home, always within arm’s reach. But that was before. Before Jesus, before New Life. When Paul first came home from New York, he had raided his mother’s favorite hiding spots after she told him she had finally quit for good, and found them empty.

  But after two days of working at the church, Paul searched the house again. This time, he wasn’t looking for cigarettes to disprove his mother’s claim. This time, he’d been looking for cigarettes because he badly needed one. His first paycheck wouldn’t come for another week, and Paul was desperate. There must have been one hiding spot his mom had missed when throwing out her stash, one place she’d passed over. He finally got lucky in the basement, when he thrust his arm into the crack of space between the old chest freezer and the wall and felt victorious glee as his hand closed around a soft package. Marlboro Reds—his mom’s brand—and by the look of them they were years old. Paul didn’t care. They were cigarettes.

  Now, in the church basement, in what used to be the boys’ locker room, Paul lay on his back on a bench and counted the remaining cigarettes in the pack. These had to last until his paycheck came. He had already smoked one since coming down here. He should save the rest. But the morning had gotten to him. His muscles were sharp and tense, and he could feel a headache lurking at the back of his temples. He pulled another out of the pack and lit up.

  In a few minutes, he must face them again. Parent pickup time was always the worst. Ten-year-old kids who believed in Jesus and thought they were going to heaven when they died were one thing; adults who did were something else. When they arrived in their minivans and SUVs, when they waved and smiled at him in the parking lot, Paul would marvel at how normal they looked—just your average American citizen. If you saw them at the grocery store or a baseball game, you wouldn’t notice anything different about them, they blended in so perfectly. But now Paul knew better. He had seen their true form, had been let in on the secret, and it was terrifying.

  Sunday had been Paul’s first full day on the job. And on the drive over, sipping his stale drive-through Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, he’d had to remind himself: I am not going to church because of any existential or spiritual crisis on my part. I am going because someone offered me a job, and I badly need one. I understand that any questions I might have about the meaning of life or finding inner peace cannot be answered here. On the contrary, places like this only add to the turmoil and confusion in the world. This is about work and nothing else.

  But within the first five minutes of the worship service, Paul had already begun to second-guess himself. Jon Newman had set him up in the sound booth, erected at the back of the gym, above everyone’s head. It gave Paul a bird’s-eye view of the sanctuary, and although his job was to pay attention to the sound of the band, it was hard not to focus on the congregation. Wide-eyed, he watched a woman in the back row, who looked at least forty, jumping up and down in wild euphoria to the music. She had her arms outstretched, reaching toward the ceiling, her body shaking and moving in a dance that was utterly unrestrained yet somehow devoid of even the faintest hint of sexuality. Her eyes were closed as she belted out the words to the song in a voice that was decidedly off-key, oblivious of how ridiculous she looked. They all were. No one in the room, whether they were jumping up and down, clapping to the beat, or just swaying back and forth in place, ever betrayed a hint of embarrassment or self-consciousness that Paul could see. As far as they were concerned, it was perfectly normal for a bunch of otherwise rational, functioning adults—adults who held down jobs, raised children, voted in elections—to gather once a week in a gymnasium and sing love songs to a being in the heavens whose very existence was in serious doubt.

  Even Paul’s mother, standing near the outside aisle, not jumping around (thank God), but still holding one arm up and singing along with eyes closed, appeared completely comfortable with this scene. And watching her face, so fervent, elated but also somehow serene, it came as a shock to Paul that this wasn’t at all an act for Sharon Frazier. She really believed this stuff. He had to look away.

  Paul didn’t believe in God, but had he been on the fence concerning the existence of the divine, coming to a church like this would have been a very efficient way to push him over the edge from casual agnosticism to militant atheism. Modern evangelicals had probably done more to swell the ranks of atheists than a thousand Carl Sagans could ever have dreamed of doing.

  As the worship band ended one song and dived straight into another, Paul adjusted the bass and wondered what Sasha would say if she could see him now. Ever since the breakup, he had found himself doing this: imagining his ex’s reaction to the ever-worsening situations he found himself in. In a dive bar in the Village, being kicked out at 3 a.m. because he couldn’t pay his tab—what would Sasha say? At his apartment in Brooklyn, drinking the last of the peach schnapps that had for some reason been in the freezer and then watching hours of porn on his phone because he couldn’t sleep, clicking numbly on one video after another, barely even aroused—how disgusted would she be? Back home in Grover Falls, listening to another lecture from his mom about the importance of vitamin D and getting enough sunlight—would Sasha take his mother’s side, or tell him it was okay, he could go back to bed? But here, looking out at this basketball court with a bunch of religious fanatics, mixing the music that made it possible for their cult to function, Paul felt he had reached an all-time low. What would Sasha do? Laugh? Take pity? Or would she firmly and in no uncertain terms remind him of what he already knew: “Paul, baby, I know yo
u’re crazy, but you’re not this crazy. You’re desperate, but you’re not this desperate. You absolutely, positively are not allowed to work here. I forbid it.”

  Well, if his ex-girlfriend forbade it in his imagination, that was that. He couldn’t work here. So there was no point in staying here any longer, was there? He should just leave. But then Paul remembered he couldn’t leave. He’d ridden here with his mom, because his mom had a job and could afford gas, whereas Paul did not have a job and therefore could not afford gas. This was his dilemma.

  So Paul hardened his resolve. He tried to banish all thoughts of Sasha, all thoughts of God or religion, and concentrate only on the reasons here was here: the mixing board before him and the band on stage. Jon Newman, the worship leader, was a short, wide-faced guy Paul had known in high school. His mild appearance did not match his singing voice, which was deep and rough and sounded uncannily like the guy from the nineties band Creed. Jon had been the one to show him around yesterday, and Paul had found him even more annoying than he’d remembered. The guy went on and on about how the Lord was doing amazing things at New Life, and how happy he was with his choice not to go to college but to stay and help out at the church, without once asking Paul about what was going on in his life—not that he would have obliged Jon with an answer.

  It did allow Paul to make the sad observation that while he had gone to school and accumulated a degree and a mountain of debt, Jon had no degree and no debt—and now Paul was essentially the sound technician and roadie for Jon’s band. The rest of the worship team—electric guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums—were also kids who looked no older than Paul. They weren’t half bad, really, it was just the music they chose to play that was terrible. Mixing was second nature to Paul, and he spent the rest of the worship service watching the cute girl on keyboards, who also provided backing vocals, and trying to decide whether she was a virgin.