The Afterlife

by Gary Soto

  The wind slashed through the parking lot. I decided to float over the fans entering the gates of the Coliseum. I was tripped out by the size of the place, and by the fans wigged out in Raiders gear—one guy had a skull on each bulky shoulder. The skulls were more handsome than he was, I swear. He had no front teeth, and his eyes were sunk deep into his flesh. His nostrils were large as nickels.

  It was six days before Halloween, but every Sunday—Monday in this case—was Halloween for the Raiders Nation. Everyone wore black, and almost everyone made a fashion statement with masks, skulls, chains, shields, tiny spears, body plates of rippled muscle, flags, the whole nine yards, as my dad would say. If you came dressed in a simple sweater, you were out of place. If you had manners, you may as well go home.

  I found myself a front-row seat. The Raiderettes were doing a routine to a song I couldn't place. I thought of Crystal, a former cheerleader. If she had been at my side, she would snarl at the Raiderettes and maybe jealously call them a name or two. I would call them "sweet" or "hot," the vocabulary of a seventeen-year-old boy. How else was I supposed to respond?

  "This is sweet," I said to myself when the Raiders won the toss and chose to receive the kickoff. The Chiefs lined up, kicked off, and the game began with a fumble. The fans moaned but none booed. Only sixteen seconds had been chewed off the clock. What was the big deal? the fans thought. But the Chiefs, three plays later, scored on a quarterback keeper.

  A guy, chest bare and face painted black-and-white, raced down the aisle and roared next to me, "That call suuuuuuucks!" He was practicing for the bad calls the refs would make. He bared his feelings again when security escorted him away.

  I realized that because I was invisible, I could move down to the bench where players were gargling on Gatorade and being taped up by assistants.

  "Tonto!" I scolded myself. "Get down there on the field."

  I dived from the stands and was picked up by the wind that swirled burger wrappers. I sailed and hung over the fans in primo seats, the ones close to the field that cost a fortune, before landing a few feet from the Raiders head coach, who was rolling a Life Saver in his mouth. He was taller than I imagined, and suddenly angry as he slapped his clipboard on his thigh. He crunched the Life Saver into a sweet dust. His brow furrowed as the offensive coordinator up in the booth called a play. However, the head coach vetoed that play and called his own, his hand in front of his face. But I picked up his body language. It was a running play because his right arm went to his chest as if he were huddling the rock.

  I was right. The running back gained six yards on a straight-ahead play that was all power and grit. The running back jumped up and ran off the field because his shoe had kicked off. Right then I looked down at where my feet should have been. They were long gone, as were my legs. My arms had vanished, too. My favorite part of my body—my abs—was going fuzzy. I tried to wipe out this sour image of myself. I was there to see the Raiders win!

  "Come on, guys!" I crowed.

  They adjusted their jocks and helmets, and stuck their mouthpieces back into their chops. They held hands in the huddle, and there was nothing girlie about that. Even from the sidelines I could see that they were huge and would have had trouble getting into Uncle Richard's Honda.

  I gazed up at one of the booths, where the offensive coordinator was making the calls. What a job! I thought. I sized up the cheerleaders, pom-poms flailing, who were dancing to the Stones' "Start Me Up." I even liked the goofy guy in the stands shouting "Popcorn!" I would have loved that job, or even the job sweeping up the popcorn that didn't make it to the fans' mouths. No telling what I would have found as I swept up after one long, drunken party.

  I drifted out onto the field. Who was there to stop me? After a field goal—the Raiders were stopped on the seventeen-yard line—I sailed out to the center of the fifty-yard line, which was already torn up by spiked shoes. I hovered near the kicker as he squeezed the football and placed it on the upright. I turned and scanned the sidelines, where the players, exhausted from the last play, were bent over and breathing, their white breath hanging in the autumn sky. And it was a lovely sight seeing a player throw up. Where else could I witness a player playing his guts out?

  I turned back as the kicker sent the ball; it sailed into the lights and seemed to hang on the roar of the crowd. Then it tumbled end over end, and the defensive team, helmets lowered, started a fearless charge up the field. I flew with them, eyes wide-open for at least ten yards. I blinked, however, when a Chief with bloodshot eyes and hot snot blowing from his nostrils ran right through me. If I had been flesh and bone, I would have been out for a long time. These guys could hurt. Even their looks stung, and especially the slashing fury in their eyes.

  A ref whistled, threw a yellow flag into the air, and called a foul by the Raiders. The fifteen-yard penalty had the culprit, hands on hips, wagging his head at the injustice of being picked on. But I saw him smiling in his helmet that barely fit his large head. He fit his mouthpiece back in and was ready for more of the same.

  I huddled with the Raiders. Some numbers were called, and I didn't understand what was what. The Chiefs ran a run to the left and got nowhere. With the next play, the tight end of the Chiefs fumbled the rock and the Raiders smothered it.

  A roar burst forth from the soul of every man and woman who wanted to go home winners. They wanted a good memory of the evening, something to say tomorrow at work, "Yeah, I was there last night. Stacked up the Chiefs good." That roar had a powerful spirit to it, and it sent me sailing from the Coliseum. I rose laughing, rose tumbling like a poorly thrown football, rose and slowly descended into the parking lot. I had seen enough.

  I FELT HAPPY and had no regrets about missing the second half of the game. The wind hoisted me away from the Coliseum. I flew toward Fresno, feeling giddy. Over the Altamont Ridge two geese appeared out of nowhere and were winging at my side. We flew in formation, with me in the lead by a couple of feet.

  "You're cool birds," I praised, and they honked at me. The geese were slick, long-necked, and beautiful to watch because at times they would dip into the darkness of night only to reappear when we passed over the lights of the many farms we passed. How they could find me, a ghost, was a mystery. But they flew at my side, guiding me home.

  Fresno was a hundred miles away, too long for me to fly, and I got as far as Los Baños before I tired and said good-bye to the geese, who continued their flight south. There, at ten at night, I hooked a ride with a gray-haired husband and wife and listened to religious music all the way to Belmont Avenue. I lolled in the backseat of their car, which not only obeyed the speed limit, but crawled to Fresno, they were so slow. The wife, Dolores, opened a Thermos and poured hot coffee into its red plastic lid. The husband thanked her with a smile, and I had to smile. Here was a perfect marriage, and here was a music that blessed our journey, for it seemed every other word sung was Jesus.

  Chapter Ten

  TUESDAY MORNING. The sky was gray as eraser markings on paper. I loitered in front of Saint Johns Cathedral. The pigeons were warbling in the eaves, and a priest was tiptoeing out of the parish house and down the cold and damp steps. He was retrieving the Fresno Bee. He might he saying my mass, I thought. It would not be an easy day for him.

  I went inside the church and made my way to the altar, where I said a made-up prayer for Crystal, whom I loved more than ever. I have to admit that I prayed for the Raiders. They had lost after all, and their fans were now waking up with dark bags under their eyes. The poor sanitation crew was at work already, their hands gloved and rolling cans to the hungry mouth of the garbage truck idling in an alley.

  "Jesus," I asked. "Jesus, do we come back?" I shivered and let out a tearless cry that jerked my shoulders. I told Him that I loved my family and Angel, Eddie my cousin, Uncle Richard, my friends at school, and those people I never met because I had died young. What would I miss? What wars, conflicts, or miracle drugs that might bring back a teenage boy dying from knife wounds? "Plea
se, God," I begged, "take care of my parents." I was an only son, and would miss the passing of my parents. Perhaps I would see them in the afterlife. God, make it so, I prayed in front of an altar that was lit by a single sputtering candle.

  I closed my eyes and imagined the paintings of the saints on the fifty-foot ceiling, which was cracked and rain-stained in places. When I was in elementary school, Mom took me to mass every Sunday, and every Sunday I yawned until the mist of boredom pressed against my eyes. What intrigued me was how the artist got up to the tall, tall ceiling to do his thing. How did he climb up there? Or did someone tie a rope around his waist and haul him there, swinging side to side like a pendulum? Did they have a ladder so tall that it entered the Guinness Book of Records? Or scaffolds put together like Legos? The artist could have crawled through the roof and poked his head here and there to paint those saintly drawings. That's how I spent my time in church, in wonderment.

  I got up, turned, and discovered Yellow Shoes, head down and in prayer at the back of the church. Candles flickered behind him, and I thought of those candles as pilot lights for the flames he would have to dance around for eternity. In hell an angry God would turn up the flames and roast this gang banger forever and ever.

  "Cabrón," I muttered, and immediately felt guilty for cussing in church. I told God that I was sorry as I bowed my head and whispered, "Forgive me, Señor." I approached Yellow Shoes, who looked up with a smile that was crooked on his face, like he wasn't used to smiling and was first learning how to be happy. I thought for a moment that he could see me, that he was mocking me.

  "What are you laughing at, pendejo?" I yelled.

  Yellow Shoes rose to his feet and greeted me in a brotherly voice, "How are you?" He should have known the answer to that. He extended his hand as a sign of peace.

  Spooked, I flowed backward and hung momentarily in the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the saints staring at me, judging my reaction. I didn't understand Yellow Shoes's sudden kindness in the shape of the hand beckoning for friendship.

  "Chihuahua!" I yelled.

  A ghostly face started to rise from Yellow Shoes's shoulder, then the neck, torso, and rest of the body. It was Robert Montgomery. Had he been inside Yellow Shoes since I last saw him on the bus?

  "Chuy," Robert greeted. He pretended not to be disturbed that most of my body had vanished and all that remained was my upper torso and head. But I could read the sadness in his eyes. He was feeling for me.

  "You scared me!"

  Robert laughed. He laughed harder as Yellow Shoes looked around the church, confused at why he was there with his hand extended. "Jesus," he called, but I didn't believe that God was going to answer him. He quickly rose, closed his hands into fists, and ran out of the church, with his huango pants and his chones showing. He was running, and from what I knew of him, he would be running all his life, a coward with blood on his hands.

  "I was trying to steer this guy right," he said, pointing with his stumps. His hands had already disappeared. He didn't seem scared. "You know, I thought that if I was inside him I could work his movements a little. Get him to behave and not be such a punk." He shook his head. "I guess I was wrong."

  "How did you know that I was going to be here?" I asked.

  Sorrow shone in his eyes. "I just knew," he answered, and staring at the font of holy water confessed, "I know your funeral is going to be here." He buried his face in his stumps and his shoulders shook. He was crying for me. He sat down in the pew, then kneeled.

  I lifted my gaze toward the ceiling. How did the painter paint up there?

  "I used to go to church here," I told Robert.

  "Yeah, me, too."

  "Really?"

  He rubbed his face with his right stump, a sign that he was going to tell me something funny. "Actually, I used to sleep here. But it got spooky looking up at the ceiling and seeing all those saints watching me."

  We admired those paintings that hung high up in the cold shadows.

  "Man, I don't know how someone could paint way up," Robert said after a moment.

  My face brightened. Others, it seemed, had the same question.

  "I used to work as a painter," Robert told me. "Painted houses throughout all of Fresno." He giggled. "I dated a gal who asked me to paint her garage. I painted the house, and she gave me the boot before the house could dry."

  "That's sorry," I lamented. But I had to admit that it was funny.

  His smile evaporated. Robert stepped toward me, gave me a hug and foretold the future. "I'll see you again." His face was lined with grief. "Thanks for saving my life. I should have done better. A lot better, even if I was a terrible housepainter." He turned away and headed toward the altar. He had to speak to God on his own.

  Should have done better, I mused as I approached the heavy oak doors of the church and floated through with ease. I think I understood.

  Outside, with the wind blowing, I had a hard time keeping myself on the ground. I was like a balloon in the wind. I sailed and descended, and bounced one way and another. Once I righted myself, I grew scared.

  A man in a khaki gardening outfit was setting an iron sign in the gutter in front of the church. The sign read: FUNERAL.

  I HEARD MY middle-grade English teacher use the word afterlife when she told us about this poet named Dante and the rings of hell he had to go down. I didn't think anything of its meaning and how after we die there is a chance that we might enjoy yet another life. Who cares? I argued to myself, as I used a dried-up Bic pen to scratch my name on the top of my desk. I wanted to make sure that I left behind my placa, my name, so that others would understand that I ruled that desk for a year. So what if I got a C in English that semester? What a mocoso I was in seventh grade!

  And it didn't make sense for Peter, a friend from fifth grade, to confess to me that the day after his father died—a tractor rolled over him as he was plowing rows to plant cotton—he'd heard his dad's footsteps on the gravel in his front yard. We were in a tree, and it was autumn, like now, close to Halloween because I remember that we were eating pumpkin seeds that his mother had roasted in the oven. We were in the tree only because it was something to do. Dawg, we were dumb. We were excited to chirp stupidly, like birds in a tree that had been stripped of most of its leaves, though two bird nests, cold and abandoned, remained lodged in the crotch of limbs. We had climbed the tree to size up our neighborhood, eat our pumpkin seeds, and, I guess, after pretending to be chirping birds, allow Peter to talk about his dad, who was from Mexico, a hard worker with hands like roots pulled from the earth.

  That was ten years ago. We straddled the limbs of that ancient sycamore, talked, and watched the sun dip bloodred behind a feathery cloud. I thought of Peter as I left Saint John's and about the word afterlife. I was almost gone. I had died when I was seventeen, and what had I done with my life? Saved a man named Robert Montgomery, who in the end died anyhow. But that was something, no? I had also gone door-to-door collecting money for research to cure cerebral palsy, seven years straight. That, too, was something.

  At home, I didn't give my parents much grief. I had been a good kid, though Dad had to chase me with his belt a couple of times. Even my mom got into the action when I did something wrong and she couldn't wait for Dad to come home. With the flat of her hand poised to strike, she chased me around the kitchen table.

  A block away from Saint John's Cathedral, I heard a garbage truck braking and then the roar of the driver yelling "Stop!"—he was one of the guys who had unwittingly given me a ride to Oakland to see the game. His name was Manuel, I remembered. He was happily whistling, though there were bags under his eyes. His face was recklessly shaven and crusted with blood where he had nicked himself, perhaps out of punishment for taking a day off to see the Raiders lose. He stopped momentarily when he came across the sign that read FUNERAL. I could see him think about that sign. His whistling stopped and his face became seamed with dark lines. He considered the sign and then continued down the walkway bet
ween the parish house and the cathedral. There was garbage to pick up.

  I flew from there on a wind that was as sharp as a knife, and cold. I headed south toward Selma to hook up with Crystal. A romantic, I was loving her in my heart more and more. We'll be together in the afterlife, I thought, and as I was carried along by the wind that seemed to be spanking me, I admonished myself for not listening to my English teacher talk about that guy Dante. Tonto, I scolded myself.

  I passed Jensen Avenue, with its lots full of lines and lines of diesel trucks and farm equipment for sale, and glided up Highway 99, lined with oleanders whipped by the traffic's wind. Tumbleweeds were caught in the barbed wire fences, and strips of blown truck tires littered the shoulders of the highway. A treasure of broken bottles and crushed soda cans gleamed in the weeds. There were flattened suitcases, Styrofoam ice chests, folding chairs, lamps, and broken-apart sofas—stuff that fell off the backs of pickups. I came across an occasional dead dog and poor, homeless dudes who looked like dead dogs. At the entrances to the highway, they were holding up hitchhiking signs that would take them south to Los Angeles. Fresno was too hard on the homeless.

  I cut west from the freeway and, suddenly, I was flying over vineyards and pastures where cows looked dully at the ground, drool like clear string hanging from their fly-flecked mouths. I passed sheep, too, and chicken coops. I took a quick break when I spotted a llama farm.