Being Dead

by Vivian Vande Velde

  So I was headed home—with an extra twenty dollars beyond my seventy-five cents in tips and what I'd have to pay DeMarco for the next edition. I was feeling real pleased with myself but not so cocky that I wasn't keeping an eye out. Some of the bigger boys think that jumping a newsboy is easy pickings. And I was also keeping a lookout on the street because in New York people always drive like crazy, and that's not even counting that yesterday's paper told about some guy who'd lost everything and figured life wasn't worth living anymore and had run his fancy car into a light pole.

  So there I was, looking left and right on the sidewalk for toughs, and on the street for crazy drivers, checking out what was in front of me, and being alert to what was going on behind. The one direction I didn't think to look was up.

  I heard a long drawn-out yell, and I had time to look up and see a guy above me, who seemed to be trying to claw his way back up the air to whatever window or roof top he was felling from. Which left him aimed rear-end-first at me.

  And it was a big rear end.

  I pick myself up off the sidewalk. There isn't any "Oh! I wonder what happened," or "Who could that possibly be lying on the sidewalk looking so much like me?"

  My momma didn't raise no dummies.

  I know right away that I'm dead.

  There's a guy that looks to be about two hundred and fifty pounds lying on top of me, and he's dead, too. Even though I can see him lying there motionless on the sidewalk, at the same time I can see him sitting up, shaking his head as though to clear it "Is it too late to change my mind?" he asks. His sitting-up self's mouth moves. His other self continues to lie there. He looks like a double exposure, like a picture where someone forgot to advance the film. I must look the same, lying on the sidewalk beneath him, standing on the sidewalk several feet away, watching.

  From somewhere else—from all around us and from inside us—a Voice says, "Welcome, Johnny. Welcome, Stewart."

  The air is sparkly, the way it is sometimes when there's a sunny morning after the first snowfall of the year. Not that there's snow—not in October—or sun, either, for that matter. There usually isn't. We're talking New York here. But the sky is as bright and blue as some kid's Crayola drawing, and even though people are screaming and pointing and beginning to gather around, none of that bothers me, because the world is just so peaceful and beautiful.

  The Voice says, "Welcome home." It's a nice voice. It's a voice like one of those classy radio announcers, friendly • and calming and soothing. Sort of like Lowell Thomas, only not so full of himself.

  Even though there's just die Voice, I have the impression of arms held wide to welcome me.

  Stewart—I'm assuming the fat guy's name is Stewart, since the Voice is right about me being Johnny—Stewart has to elbow his way out from die crowd of people ringing around where our bodies are. Though one or two of them glance around at his passing, looking momentarily puzzled, most of diem seem unaware of him.

  "Me, too?" Stewart asks. "Am I allowed to come, too? Even though ... I ... you know..."

  The Voice finishes for him, "Jumped. Yes. All who wish to come may."

  This is a nice thought in theory, but I can't help but look at Stewart in a new light "You jumped?" I ask.

  Stewart hesitates, as though worried this might be some kind of test "I changed my mind," he says, "halfway down."

  "You landed on me," I protest.

  "Sorry," Stewart says.

  "'Sorry'?" I repeat. "You jump out a window, flatten me, kill me, and all you have to say for yourself is 'Sorry'?"

  Stewart still looks like he thinks this is a test. "I'm very sorry?" He phrases it like a question, like he's wondering if that is the answer that will satisfy me.

  The Voice takes Stewart's side. The Voice says, "Mistakes in judgment happen."

  I cross my arms over my chest and glare at Stewart.

  "I'd lost all my money," Stewart tells me.

  "Yeah?" My mother and me, we keep our money in an old jar under a bunch of towels in the closet—all twelve dollars and thirty-five cents of it—so there won't be any losing that, unless somebody breaks in and steals it.

  The Voice says, "All that is over now. You are coming home, where there is no money, no pain. This is what you were created for."

  And I know the Voice is right—I have a sense of a place more wonderful than Coney Island, better than talkies at the movies, more glorious than Christmas morning when someone you love is about to open the present you got for them that you know is the one thing they want most in the world.

  But even with all that, I remember the extra twenty dollars in my pocket. Sure. Now money doesn't count My family, which is me and my mother and my little sister, Rosie, we never had any money, even before my dad decided to go back to Ireland three years ago—from where he was supposed to send back for us, but he must of forgot. I'd always figured we weren't likely to ever get any money, and I just couldn't see that things were going to be all that different, depression or not. Then, in one moment I get as much money as my mother has been able to save in three years.

  And the next moment, Stewart happens.

  I find myself muttering, "It isn't fair."

  "There, there," the Voice says soothingly.

  "It isn't fair," I repeat.

  The Voice waits. I just stand there thinking I didn't make any choices, I didn't make any mistakes—except for not looking up, of course.

  "Are you saying," the Voice asks me, but not unkindly, "that you'd rather stay here and sulk?"

  I think about it.

  And because the Voice has spoken not unkindly, I answer, "Yes. Please."

  "You may change your mind at any time," the Voice assures me. "When you're ready, you will be welcome home."

  I nod to show I understand.

  "How about you, Stewart?" the Voice asks.

  And I see Stewart start to follow the Voice. They are taking a path that I can't actually see, but I can somehow sense. What I sense is raspberry ripple ice cream, which I know sounds strange, but anyone who's ever been dead would know exacyly what I mean.

  And then they are gone. And I have to decide where I should go.

  Not home, I think. I can't bear the thought of inflicting my dead self on my family. But I'm sure I'll think of something.

  Just as Stewart left without a backward glance, I turn away from the me that's lying on the sidewalk beneath Stewart's considerable bulk.

  And who should I see but that scum of all scums, DeMarco. He's probably coming to check up on me. He does, that all die time—sneaks up to spy on his newsboys to make sure we aren't cheating him. Us cheat him. Right. DeMarco always tries to gyp the newsboys who are new enough or dumb enough not to watch his every move. "Yeah, yeah," he's famous for saying, "I gave you three dozen papers," when he's only handed out thirty, or Sunday papers without the comics—which some people wouldn't mind, but a lot of them buy the Sunday paper just to get the comics.

  Now DeMarco passes right through me, which is a sensation like standing in front of a huge fan that turns on full blast and then a second later turns off. He never even slows down. No glimmer of recognition from him that there's anything there.

  "Stand back. Give us room here." DeMarco is always one for shouting orders and throwing his weight around—even though his weight isn't much: DeMarco is one of those skinny, nervous guys that's through-and-through mean.

  He pushes at the crowd. Some of these people are standing around because they wish there was something they could do to help, though there clearly isn't. Some are curious, wanting to be close enough so they can be the big shots later on, saying, "I was there, I saw everything, this is what I know happened..." Others need to be there because they know it could have been them. These are the ones who will go home and say, "If I'd been walking a little slower..." or, "If I hadn't stopped to pat the dog..." shaking with relief that it wasn't them. DeMarco shoves all these people aside, and when one of them objects, saying, "Hey—" DeMarco flashes his card that says
PRESS, and no one is suspicious enough to take a closer look and see that DeMarco is a newspaper seller, not a newspaper reporter. The pass is only meant to get him into the newspaper building. But the card gives him respectability, even among the would-be big shots, and the last of them part before him.

  I'm not sure what to make of all this, since I've known DeMarco for three years and I've never seen him be concerned about anything besides DeMarco. But here he is kneeling in the grit of the sidewalk where some of the more helpful of the bystanders have rolled Stewart off me. Not that I get all misty-eyed about this or anything—I figure DeMarco has to have some angle.

  DeMarco grunts when he sees my body. "One of our newsboys," he says in his attempt at a sentimental voice, which I don't believe for a moment "What a waste, what a waste."

  He bows his head solemnly for a moment in what might be prayer but is more likely so no one will notice his cold, calculating eyes.

  I get a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach, excepting, of course, that I no longer have a stomach.

  "Poor tyke," he says. "His mother will be devastated."

  Tyke? Tyke? Like I'm some toddler still in short pants.

  And then he does what I've somehow been afraid he'll do, though I'm not sneaky enough to have ever guessed it: He reaches into my body's pocket.

  "That's mine!" I yell. Of course nobody can hear me. "Put that back!" I yell, anyway. I try to snatch the money away, and my hand passes straight through it. I'm close enough to see DeMarco's eyes widen in surprise, but it's not from sensing me; it's because he's seen how much I have. He knows I wasn't selling enough papers to be carrying this amount of money.

  "Excuse me," one of the bystanders says, hesitantly, at the sight of DeMarco pawing through my pocket.

  "It's quite all right," DeMarco says. "This is the money he collected for the newspaper. Let me just get this straightened out before the police and the ambulance get here. You know how those people are—the money'll disappear and then his poor mother will get stuck having to pay for the papers." He shakes his head to show how disgusted he is at the thought of this.

  The crowd murmurs gullibly.

  DeMarco gets a pair of money collection envelopes out of his pocket and puts the majority of the money in one and makes that disappear back into his pocket fast. On the other envelope, on which he scrawls my mother's name, he puts forty cents. Forty cents! All of the money is mine because DeMarco makes us pay for our papers up front: I've already paid for what I've sold, and I'm not likely to be needing to buy the next edition. But here he is, looking all sad and gooey over that envelope with the forty cents. And then, as though coming to a great humanitarian decision, he mumbles like he can't help how sentimental he is, "You know, the poor woman could use the extra," and he gets one dollar from his own pocket and slips that into the envelope for my mother. One dollar. In place of more than twenty. A few of the bystanders wipe tears from their eyes at this poignant generosity. I try to kick DeMarco, but my foot passes through him.

  "This is not fair!" I shout.

  One of the bystanders looks up, not at me, but kind of/sort of in my direction. And she has a quizzical, listening expression on her face.

  "He's stealing my money!" I shout directly at her since she seems more inclined to hear me than the others.

  She can hear me. I can tell by the way she glances around. But what she's glancing around at is the other people. And she can tell they have heard nothing. She's looking at DeMarco, and her eyes go to the pocket where he's put the envelope with the dollar and forty cents for my mother. But then she looks around again, sees no one else is suspicious, and she looks away.

  "He's stealing money from the dead!" I shout. And my words stir her to action.

  She hunches her shoulders, sticks her hands in her pockets, ducks her head down—and she walks away.

  "Hey!" I yell after her. "Hey!"

  She walks fester.

  I take a few steps after her, but there's no point in making her life miserable. If I'm going to go after someone—let it be DeMarco.

  And speaking of DeMarco, he isn't finished yet.

  Now he says, "Anybody know the poor jumper?"

  Heads shake and no one seems to suspect that's glee in DeMarco's expression as he says, "This is the worst part of my job—breaking this kind of news to the family." DeMarco goes ahead and reaches into Stewart's pocket. For someone who killed himself because he didn't have any money, Stewart's wallet looks pretty fet. But DeMarco makes a big show of ignoring the bills and goes straight for the identification. He gets a notebook out of his own pocket, and he writes down Stewart's name and address.

  I figure he's going to palm Stewart's money before he puts the wallet back in Stewart's pocket; but before he has a chance, a cop finally comes on the scene. He walks right through me, too, like I'm the only free spot on the sidewalk.

  "He stole my money!" I yell at the cop, but he's not as receptive as the lady I chased off.

  "All right, all right," the cop says, "those of you who saw what happened, stick around a hit The rest of you, keep moving. We don't need a circus here."

  He crouches next to DeMarco, who says, "Jumper," and hands over Stewart's wallet He's missed his chance to clean it out, but he makes sure the cop sees his PRESS card and the notebook on which he's written Stewart's name and address. He reads Stewart's name out loud, in case the cop has made it on to the police force without knowing how to read. He tells the cop my name, too, and tells him where I live. I don't even want to think about my mother getting the news.

  One of the bystanders tells the cop, "Maybe you should consider counting the money out now, here in front of everybody, just to make sure the family ends up ever seeing it"

  The crowd murmurs approvingly.

  "Yeah?" the cop says. "Maybe you should consider not being such a wiseacre, just to make sure you don't get your head knocked."

  Meanwhile, DeMarco has stood up, and he's making his way through the press of people.

  "Stop, thief!" I yell. They always ask, "Where's a cop when you need one?" Here I've got the cop, and he's worthless. I stamp my foot in frustration.

  And the lightbulb in the nearest street lamp explodes.

  Everybody jumps in surprise, including me. I didn't do that.

  Did I?

  Nah, I tell myself. Coincidence. Gotta be. I think. I'm 90 percent sure. But I try stamping my foot again.

  The cop fumbles Stewart's wallet, and it drops from his hand.

  Whoal This is getting spooky.

  I turn my face up at the sky and yell, "Excuse me..."

  "Yes," the Voice says, right beside me, making me jump out of my skin. Well ... it would have ... if, you know ... Anyway, the Voice asks me, "Are you ready now?"

  "No," I say. "I was just wondering: Was that me?"

  The Voice knows what I'm talking about "Yes to the lightbulb," the Voice tells me. "No to the wallet. You have to really concentrate to get the physical world to react, and in the meantime, things like simple human clumsiness come into play."

  "Concentrate?" I repeat. I'm thinking that it never even occurred to me to want that bulb to explode.

  And the Voice knows that, too. "You were intense," the Voice tells me, "but unfocused."

  I consider this for a few seconds. "You mean if I concentrate on blowing up DeMarco's head..." I see that DeMarco has made it to the edge of the crowd and is starting to walk down the street.

  "Nice try," the Voice says. "But that's not allowed."

  "Hmmm," I say. "Thanks, anyway." And I start to follow DeMarco.

  I'm running after DeMarco, who's crossed Broad Street, and just as I get to the comer, there're suddenly so many cars it looks like there's a direct line from Detroit, where they make them, right past this street corner. So there I am, bouncing in frustration, waiting for a break in the traffic, when it suddenly occurs to me: Hey, I'm dead. If I want to cross against traffic, who's going to know or care?

  I'm about to step off the curb
when someone says, "Hey. Little boy. How come your feet don't touch the ground?"

  I turn, real slow, like maybe there could be some other kid around who's not quite substantial enough to stay, on the sidewalk.

  The speaker is this little old lady, dressed all in black the way little old ladies do, and—sure enough—she's looking right at me. She's with a younger woman who asks her, "What're you talking about, Ma?"

  "That boy"—her finger is shaky, but, except for its movement, it's pointed at me—"his feet don't reach all the way to the ground." To me, she demands, "How come?"

  "Aw, Ma," the younger one complains.

  But the older one is waiting for an answer, so I say, trying to think of something reasonable but not scary, "Ahm ... New shoes."

  The woman slaps her hand to her forehead. "Such a mouth! In my day, children knew how to talk to their elders with respect"

  "I'm talking to you with respect," the daughter objects. "Whaddya want, Ma? I thought you said you didn't feel good. I thought you said you wanted to go home. I'm taking you home, ain't I?"

  The traffic finally slows down, and I figure I'd better cross now or risk losing DeMarco, but the woman who can see me is saying, "Yeah, yeah, my old heart has to give out sometime, why not now?"

  "Ma, you been saying that for fifteen years now," the daughter says.

  But the mother says, "Oh, my," and she sinks to the pavement, except that I can clearly see her still standing.

  I feel the presence of the Voice. The Voice says, "Welcome home, Maria."

  "Well!" the old woman tells the Voice. "Ifs about time! I'm eighty-two years old and I been waiting for you near half of that time. What took you so long?"

  Her daughter, meanwhile, is screaming for help, on her knees, loosening her mother's collar to give her more air—though you know with the old lady's type, they don't like any skin to show—and all the while the daughter doesn't even realize that her mother is dead already.

  The woman, Maria, reaches down and caresses her daughter's cheek. "Such a fuss," she says. "No need to make a scene. You were a good daughter, though I was seventeen hours in labor with you."