Dead on Arrival

by Crystal Lynn Hilbert

  “You picked it up on the side of the road.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “The graffiti?”

  “Maybe I put it there.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Tanya 07 fucks free?”

  Aiming for large and intimidating, Max stared at her. “Yeah. So? It’s… what’s it called—artsy.”

  Charlie made that noise that meant she’d found something funny, but wasn’t about to crack a smile lest her whole face break off.

  “Good try,” she told him. “I’m still going to pitch it.”

  Deadlock. They faced each other over the couch like pretty soon they’d be back to back and taking paces. Only, Charlie’d turn first, because that’s just the way she was, and she’d shoot him six ways ‘til Sunday until Max couldn’t even pull his mist together enough to flip her off.

  And he’d be fucked. Probably, he was already fucked.

  “It’s my sofa.”

  Her face didn’t change. “You’re dead. How do I get it apart?”

  It wasn’t about the sofa. Logically, Max knew it wasn’t about the sofa.

  But it was his, dammit. And sure it was fucking ugly, but he wasn’t exactly a pretty bloke either and anyway—his sofa. It was his sofa, in his flat. Only it wasn’t his sofa or his flat anymore, not since Charlie came along and showed her tits to the goddamn landlord down below. And all right, maybe she hadn’t either, but she couldn’t just waltz along and erase him.

  Shoulders down, feet apart, Max watched her. He’d gotten into a fair number of bar fights in his time—felt like this was how most of them started.

  “Lot of history in this couch,” he said slowly. “If you’re gonna throw it out, you should probably know its story, yeah? Hell, you should probably know everything, right? I mean it’s your flat now. You need to know these things.”

  All at once, he leapt over the couch to the rickety desk by the wall. “You see this? This table here? I picked this up off of 52nd Street. It still had the foot when I got it, but I met this fucking gorgeous girl a few days later down at Murphy’s and we went at it so hard, the damn thing broke right off. So we just brought it on over to our lovely sofa here. Right here.”

  Max felt burning up all over. He felt cold on the back of his neck, scrabbling down his ribs until it landed sick and sticky in his stomach.

  Helpless.

  And Charlie stood across the way, staring at him like she couldn’t care less—like he didn’t even matter—and Max knew he couldn’t touch anything. He knew he couldn’t make a damn bit of difference. But it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right—and somehow, all rage and fear and force, Max snatched up the middle cushion.

  “Behold,” he snarled and tried to throw it, but his fingers dissolved and the bloody thing dropped. “My Nasty Cushion. Now, you may be wondering if hers was the only bare lady bottom this cushion has ever seen. Well, you see that console you like so well? I built that, so you’ll want to be rid of it right away, obviously—but when I was building it, this pretty little brunette comes up out of nowhere and asks if she could help. And she certainly helped. She helped here, and here,” he said, shoving the console.

  “And here—” slapping the wall.

  “And here—“ kicking the floor, the table, the little cubby meant to hold shoes. Then, with a flourish, “And finally, the Nasty Cushion.”

  Max spun, glaring around the room for something else to remember, but he’d never had much and most of it had gone.

  “Look, and this, too,” he said, eyes catching on the rug. “This I’ve had for most my life. You wouldn’t believe the many dozens of bare lady bottoms all over—”

  Charlie strode to the window. She threw the pane open and leaned out, searching the ground outside for something. Max wanted to shake her. He wanted to turn her around and make her see him.

  “Oh, and the curtains, too, believe it or not. You’ll have to do away with those, as well, of course. Don’t want any memories of me lingering around. But see, an old girlfriend made them for me, and one time I had her pinned against the wall, yeah, in the middle of things and she reaches up and claws them down and when we ended up on the floor, there was lace fucking everywhere, but eventually we made it back to the Nasty Cushion, you’ll be just tickled to know.”

  Charlie crossed the room, wrenched up the Nasty Cushion and flung it out the window.

  Max stopped talking. He heard the cushion hit the ground below with a muffled thud. On the street someone swore and started laughing.

  Charlie, though, she just looked at him.

  Then, like nothing had happened, she picked her book up off the coffee table and settled into the fancy Papasan chair she’d come with, not a rip or tatter on it.

  Staring at the naked, bandy pocked place on his couch, Max sank down into a remaining cushion and shut up.

  *

  Max seethed. All the bits of him he had left pulled apart and filled the room, a great big black shadow the likes of which he’d had nightmares about as a boy and, all right, actually most of his life.

  He felt awful. Cold to the core, and the ache. Max didn’t know where his arms were. Fuck, he didn’t care where his arms were. He hurt and he wasn’t real and he didn’t want to go.

  She couldn’t make him go.

  From under the bathroom door, he could just see Charlie’s feet.

  “Max, get out. I have to piss.”

  He glared at those feet. Colorless, sockless, about as sensible and boring as a pair of feet could get. Fuck her. Just… He couldn’t. He wouldn’t leave, no, not a damn thing doing. He’d be here forever, sunk down into the blood in the grout, and if they wanted to come get him out, let them tear the damn floor up. And why not, yeah? Tear up everything else he’d ever passed a fond look over. No couch, no kitchen, his bedroom all at odds.

  “Max, come on. I’m not fucking kidding.”

  Max slammed forward. He’d found he could move things a bit if he really concentrated, so he rattled the door at her, flicking the lock in, out, in out, thinking: not dead, not yet, no. Thinking: Try to get in now. Try to get me out. Try to make me leave. You can’t. I won’t. I live here.

  I don’t.

  Depression hit him like a lorry and Max sank down again, found himself in the sink, wet hot breaking over bits of him. Felt like getting fired, this. Like lying in bed and trying to get up and not moving. Felt fucking miserable, was what it felt like.

  Outside, Charlie sighed. She tried the door and it actually came open a bit—he’d forgotten to lock it back. Max shoved the door shut, wrenched the little inside lock-bar into place again.

  She’d come in here, she’d clean. She’d clean him up. She’d take a crowbar to the tiles. Once she started, she bloody well wouldn’t stop. She’d scrub him right out of the damn carpet and tear up the floor there, too. Make them replace the ceiling of the bloke below if that’s what it took, but she’d make him go.

  No.

  He wouldn’t be erased. Wouldn’t let her kill him—he wasn’t fucking done yet. Hadn’t had a chance for anything. Spent his time digging holes and getting drunk and, all right, it wasn’t the best use for a body, but it was his use. He’d done a good job.

  “Is this about the couch?” she tried.

  He’d fucked up.

  Was all he’d ever been, a fuckup. He’d come here in the first place because of it. Needed a whole new continent to start over he’d made such a hash of it. He’d even fucked up dying. Couldn’t even do that right. Where were his lights? Where were the pretty, shiny, lovely things that were supposed to take him to the next life?

  Probably off in a pub, laughing at him. Laughing at the idiot, cuts himself shaving, ends up bleeding his life out into the floor with a swollen up brain or whatever the fuck actually killed him. Because who did that, yeah? Who in the history of the world had ever died from a spectacularly mundane fuckup like his?

  “Look, Max. Knock off the poltergeist routine. I’m not sorry. The thing was awful. It had stains on
its stains. I had to wear hazmat gloves. I think something might have been living in it.”

  Living.

  Max strangled the pipes in the walls, pounding them from one side to the other until the floor shook and the metal burned holes right through him in fucking agony, but he just put his mist back in order and kept on because it was something.

  Living.

  “What the fuck is that? Knock it off! Jesus, I do not want the fucking landlord back here, asking me how I managed to do whatever the fuck it is you’re doing. Max? Max!”

  No.

  Max pressed his whole not-body into it, searing hurt through every fragment and tendril. He’d be loud forever. He’d be here forever. She couldn’t erase him. She couldn’t just make him go when he’d had a whole fucking life ahead of him and now just this, just burning himself over and over again on the pipes in the wall, but if that was all he had then shit, he’d do a fucking fantastic job of it.

  The handle on the door jittered. He pushed back against that, too. This was his place now. His stain. She’d kicked him out of the bedroom, put her pretty yellow bed right over his spot and told him to get the hell away. She’d spilled salt in the stain and called it an accident, but it kept him away and she wasn’t sorry.

  The two feet under the slot in the door padded off with an irritated rush of mumbling.

  She wasn’t sorry. No one was sorry. No one gave him a passing thought. He’d just flickered out, just stopped and he could have been brilliant, could have been anything. But in the end, his whole life just came down to a flat full of shit and how much of a discount it’d take for someone else to deal with it.

  Max closed his eyes and sank into the dark.

  Then, the whole door came off.

  He startled, tried to grab it back, but Charlie tossed it down on the floor and pointed the screwdriver at him like a gun.

  “Get out.”

  He looked at her. Beautiful girl, gone gray around the edges. Her mouth looked like someone’d stapled it together.

  “You hate me?” he asked.

  The screwdriver lowered. “I have to pee, Max. And you’re haunting the toilet.”

  Slowly, Max glanced around. Pretty sure he’d turned the light on at some point. He could feel the bulb pressing warm against his… midsection, wherever his midsection had ended up. But no light came out past him. The whole bathroom swam with dark, just one big ocean of unhappy shadows.

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  Charlie seemed awfully gray for such a pretty girl, he thought. Piece of work like her, she should have been all bright colors and flirting. Not with him, of course. Pretty things like her never gave him a second glance. But she should have been a whirlwind of life and love and everything that made existing worth existing for.

  Maybe she’d fucked up somewhere, too.

  “Is this about the couch?” she asked again. “Because you can pick out the next couch, if you want. I don’t care what it looks like. I just needed that plague sponge out of here.”

  Exhausted, Max sank down onto the floor. A flicker of light peeked out where he unwound from the light fixture a little. Then, the bulb smoked a smidge and pop, dark again.

  Charlie surprised him. She sat down too, cross-legged in front of the door and she still had that way of looking at him, but he thought maybe she did see him.

  “I like your shelves. I’m keeping them.”

  Max wanted… hell, he wanted so much he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. Just… not this.

  Charlie looked like she wanted to touch him. Leaned forward a little like she might even try.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Charlie.”

  But he didn’t know… didn’t know how to even begin. So he stopped. And they just sat there, awkward, the two of them existing together in the same space for a while before someone knocked on the front door. Charlie growled and grumbled, but went to go open it. Probably grateful to be away from him. Max stayed where he was, listening to Charlie be antisocial in the hall.

  “Okay, I guess,” he heard her say, heard the door squeak open, and he’d always meant to fix that, so it figured he never had. “But I’ve had the place for a couple months now. Most of his shit’s gone.”

  “That’s okay. I just needed… I don’t know. Some way to say goodbye, I guess.”

  Shit, that voice. Max flew out of the bathroom like a fish on a hook, smack into Charlie’s back. She jerked when his not-body hit hers, but her eyes stayed fixed ahead, watching the girl she’d let in.

  A pretty little blond with pretty little else wandered around the flat with big wet blue eyes and Max felt something as close to terror as he’d ever managed in his whole time on this earth or floating just about it.

  “Why did you let her in?” he hissed. “Don’t let her touch anything!”

  Charlie ignored him. “Are you looking for something? I’ve still got a couple boxes of his shit. Mostly just silverware and tacky jewelry.”

  And his pretty little ex-girlfriend smiled, looking like a perfect widow. He’d been so enchanted with her once, wondering what the hell it was she’d seen in him until he realized she’d not seen much of anything.

  “That’s very kind of you. I’d hate to be a bother; I’m not actually looking for anything. But it’d be really nice to see his things.”

  “Charlie, please,” he tried again, felt like falling through the cracks when his ex turned to look and looked through him. “I know you’re peeved about the toilet, but get her out of here.”

  And Max knew better than to touch Charlie. She’d put a whole variety of metal objects through him when he forgot her distaste for contact. But all of a sudden, he couldn’t not touch her. If he let go, he’d go. He’d be gone.

  Because May was here. Here. And if May was here, looking for things to remember him by, then he really had died and gone. If she walked on his carpets, looking around at things that weren’t his anymore, pawing through the cardboard boxes of all his worldly remains for some trinket of his to keep or sell, then fuck, it wouldn’t get better.

  Well, of course it wouldn’t get better. He’d died. Max knew he’d died. He’d sat on the bed next to himself, listening to the answer phone tell him he’d wasted his life and he knew that, he did. But May…

  “Jesus, Charlie. Come on,” he begged and he had her arm and he knew better, he did, but he had to have something. “Please, don’t let her take bits of me—I’ve hardly got any left.”

  And Charlie still didn’t look at him, but something changed in her face. He couldn’t have said what, except that he’d known her for a while now and had long memorized the multiple threat levels of her frustration. Her mouth didn’t look so tight, in any case. She still looked about as gray as a living person could get, but she put a hand back and brushed the outline of his arm.

  It could have been a threat. Charlie was good at grabbing him by the mist—something about her being so fucking crazy all the damn time—but he felt better. Because she’d touched him. She’d reached out a hand and it hadn’t gone through him. He existed.

  Charlie walked into the kitchen and he followed.

  “What the hell, Max?” she hissed once out of May’s earshot, crouching down to dig through the under-cupboards.

  Out in the living room, May crouched down to peer through a vent in the wall.

  “That’s my ex.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “What’s she doing here?”

  “Am I psychic? She said she misses you,” Charlie snapped, with her head under the counter. “Maybe she does. God only knows why. If she wants you that badly, she can have you.”

  He grabbed her arm without meaning to, just needing her in a way he didn’t have words for, and Charlie must have understood. She stopped digging, sat back on her heels and looked at him. Max’s fingers slipped away.

  He didn’t know what to say, so he told her the truth. “I don’t want to disappear. I’m not ready.”

  For the size of a second, Charlie looked at
him like he’d seen her look at a broken down dog out the window once. Like her cold gray rock of a heart might actually have been breaking. But then, with her usual perfect timing, May walked into the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt any… oh,” she trailed off, looking around with wide doe eyes. “Were you talking to someone? I thought I heard a guy.”

  Picking up the cardboard box, Charlie got up from the floor and plopped it down on the table. “Just me grumbling at the pipes. They’re leaking again. Anyway, here. This is all he’s got left.”

  Max could have hugged her. Would have, really, had he been assured it wouldn’t earn him a fork to the ribs. He grinned so hard he lost his shape, expanding into mist.

  “Thank you, darlin’,” he whispered, congealing to the left of her ear.

  Charlie ignored him. As he’d known she would. But right there on the table, was the cardboard box. Full of his shit, yeah, but shit he’d gotten at thrift shops and picked up on the sides of roads. Cutlery. Plastic cups. An old chain with an ironic four-leaf clover. Ridiculous quarter-toys from those gumball machines. A crumpled old shirt from a band he’d never been to see. A pretty decent ball of rubber bands.

  Nothing important. Not the things he’d built. Not the music he’d left or the pictures he’d taken, none of the pretty bits and bobs he’d collected that hadn’t been important enough to ship back home. Of all the things he’d left behind, Charlie offered May a card-board box of junk.

  Tracing the dark lines of permanent marker where Charlie’d written Max’s Shit on the side, May almost smiled.

  “Were you and Max… I mean, did you know him?”

  “Before he died? No,” she said, caught the slip a second too late and grimaced.

  But May just smiled. “I guess you would kind of get to know a person, sorting through their stuff,” she said and then, looking up. “His parents didn’t want it? I mean, I saw you still had his TV and all, that’s why I ask.

  Charlie shrugged. “Probably costs too much to ship.”

  “Yeah,” she murmured.

  May turned her attention back to the box, slender fingers picking through the mess. He couldn’t read her face, but then he never could figure her out. The things she wanted, the things he’d done wrong—all mysteries.