by Lance Rubin
Millie and I were pretty close friends up until sixth grade, when we drifted apart due to natural causes, so I’m familiar with her strange brand of humor. She means well, but she has a poor handle on what jokes are appropriate for which occasions. Which may have contributed to our drift.
“Yes, all right, but is she—”
“Did you like my eulogy?”
The underwhelming pop song has hit its bridge, and I’ve pretty much given up hope that Taryn and I will make it in time. I’m in a mild panic.
“I did, I did.” I stare at the bathroom door, willing it to open and reveal Taryn. “But—”
“Did you like the part about the summer of Fog? You remember that?”
I did like that part, and I do remember that. There was one summer, either before or after first grade, when Millie and I used to play outside with the other kids on our block. One afternoon, Ryan, our four-year-old neighbor, found this frog hopping around near the gutter in the cul-de-sac. “Fog!” he called to all of us. “There’s a fog over here!” Our gang was instantly charmed by the tiny amphibian, and the magical part was, Fog kept showing up all summer, as if he genuinely enjoyed our company, too. This magic came to a grinding halt—as most magic does—on a humid, yellow day in August, when Ryan’s despicable older sister Marita deliberately ran over Fog with her bike. “Look, now the street’s all Foggy!” she said as she rode away. We were devastated, and in a moment of courage and inspiration, I said we needed to have a postmortem funeral for Fog. I led the ceremony and delivered a truly heartfelt eulogy, which remains, to this day, one of the proudest moments of my life. Come to think of it, my eulogy for Fog was probably better than the eulogy I gave for myself. That’s sad.
“I really should find Taryn, Millie, and if she’s not in the bathroom, then—”
The bathroom door opens, and I am standing face to face with Veronica.
“Taryn’s not in there,” Millie says.
Veronica and I stare at each other with the electrifying intensity that comes from sharing an awesome, terrible secret. Her dark hair is in a ponytail, and her waitress getup somehow makes her curvy body look better than ever, in a way that a skinny girl would never be able to pull off. Her brown eyes burn into mine. Something important is happening.
“Nice accessories,” she says as she takes one large step to the side and walks away.
Right. I have completely forgotten that I am dressed like a person who shops exclusively at Oriental Trading.
“Thanks,” I say, following after her and placing my giant-person shades on the nearest chair. “Wait up, wait up.”
Veronica stops, but she doesn’t turn around. I am forced to walk past her, unless I want to talk to her back. Which I don’t.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi,” she says, giving me a look I am not liking, one that is akin to Why are you talking to me right now?
“Um…I’m glad you’re here.”
“Yeah. I came right from work.” She gestures halfheartedly at her apron. I don’t know why I’m so charmed by it.
“Yeah, well, thanks.”
Veronica looks at me like, Can I go now? I have to admire her consistency; even at my funeral, she’s not very nice to me.
“I just wanted to, uh…” I am midstammer when I feel a hand on my shoulder and see a mass of light brown hair out of the corner of my eye.
“Where have you been?” Taryn asks. “You missed our slow song!”
“I missed it? I went looking for you!” My five necklaces jostle around in the excitement.
“What are you up to?” Taryn says, eyes bouncing back and forth between me and Veronica. I can feel my face starting to turn red. Everything’s normal. Behave as if everything is normal.
“Oh, you know Paolo’s sister, Veronica, right?”
“Yeah, of course. Hi,” Taryn says, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Hey,” Veronica says. She gives her best attempt at a smile as she fidgets with the pocket of her apron.
“I was actually at your house last night, but you weren’t there,” Taryn says, making small talk.
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s a nice house,” Taryn says.
“It is, right?” I add, wanting everyone to get along. “Great architecture.”
“I got home later,” Veronica says, her attention drifting off to the dance floor behind us. “Work.”
I bounce along to the music, maybe too enthusiastically. “Okiedokie, well, wanna go dance, Tar?”
“Sure,” she says.
But, even though (or maybe because) she’s visibly uncomfortable, Veronica won’t let me get off that easily. “It’s funny, Denton actually said you guys broke up.” She’s laughing a little, but her eyes are aimed at me and doing whatever the opposite of laughing is.
Oh right. Veronica isn’t being very nice to me because she sees that Taryn and I are still a couple. Meaning I’m the asshole who tricked her into becoming the Other Woman last night. But I’m not an asshole, I swear! I’m just a moron!
“He did?” Taryn is not pleased. “Yeah, well, he was…confused.”
“I’ll say!” I say loudly, in a way that instantly feels inappropriate.
“What do you mean, I’ll say?” Taryn asks, alarmed.
“Oh, what? Nothing,” I say. “Just ’cause I was so stupid drunk.”
“Oh. Right.”
“This guy,” Veronica says. She’s doing this thing I’ve seen Paolo’s mom (well, her mom, too) do a couple of times: to compensate for anger, she ends up smiling in this big, unnatural, fake-seeming way. It’s terrifying.
“Yeah, I’m an idiot,” I say, hoping that something or someone will save us all from this sauna of awkwardness.
And the next moment, an unlikely someone does: Taryn’s freckly friend, Melanie, who, for maybe the first time ever, I’m glad to see. (Melanie’s hated me ever since I knocked her out of the fourth-grade spelling bee by knowing there are two c’s in moccasin.)
“Hey, girl,” she says to Taryn, adjusting the neckline of her neon pink dress. “Everything okay?”
“Uh-huh, just talkin’ about Dent and his shadiness,” Taryn says, mussing up my hair.
“How’s your face?” Melanie asks, pointing to the bright red welt I inadvertently inflicted on Taryn’s cheek with my poor peanut butter cup aim.
“Oh, it’s totally fine.”
“Complete accident,” I say, giving the cheek a quick kiss.
Melanie looks skeptical. “That’s what abusive husbands say.”
“You know you’re at my funeral right now, right?”
“Whatevs. Let’s dance, girly!” Melanie says, pulling Taryn away.
“Are you coming, Dent?” Taryn says.
“Yeah, definitely. I’ll be over in a second. Veronica was just…finishing telling me a story.”
Taryn looks at me a beat longer, enough for me to understand that she’s frustrated and it’s my fault, before she’s yanked away by Melanie.
Veronica hasn’t walked away, but she isn’t saying anything.
“I’m so sorry. I really thought Taryn broke up with me, you have to believe that. I wouldn’t have…”
“Wouldn’t have what?”
I might be more straightforward about all this if I had a clearer sense of what we did.
“If I had known I was still with Taryn, I wouldn’t have…done…what we did…last night.”
“You wouldn’t have played Scrabble with me?”
“Did we play Scrabble last night?”
“No.”
“Oh. Okay.” I’m not enjoying this game. “I mean, I wouldn’t have…made out with you last night? And I’m sorry.”
“Made out with me?”
I see Paolo nearby, trying to get a read on what’s happening.
“Yeah, I—I think I did. I mean, I know we did. I…remember something.”
“Probably hallucinations from all that drinking.”
“Does alcohol make people hal
lucinate?”
“You tell me.”
“This cryptic thing you’re doing isn’t very cute. I mean, I’m not sure if you heard, but time is kinda valuable for me.”
You know how sometimes you think you’re saying something witty and appropriate and it’s only when you see how someone responds that you start to question whether it was either of those things?
“Denton,” she says, disgust written all over her face. “I’m sorry your deathdate is tomorrow, I am. Because I think you’re a good guy. Or I used to anyway. But you’ve got a lot of growing up to do.” And she walks away.
It’s my turn to be pissed. “Well, great! Thanks! When will I do that, Veronica? Huh? I don’t have time to do any growing up! I don’t get that time!”
Veronica turns around. “Calm down, D. I’ll see you at your Sitting.” Then she continues to walk away.
“You know, you’re only one year older than me, V! College has made you really pretentious.”
She stops in her tracks, turns around, and walks back to me. I’m excited to hear what she’s going to say next.
“By the way, Denton,” she says, leaning in so close that I can smell her girlness blended with the smell of the french fries she’d been serving that afternoon, “we didn’t make out last night. We slept together. Okay? We had sex. Remember? You drunk idiot.”
I’m without words.
“So. See you later.” And she is gone.
Paolo sidles up beside me. “Man, I know what it means when she gets that look. How much money do you owe her?”
It’s a surreal feeling when you realize you are everything you’ve always tried so hard not to be. I never wanted to be a lying, cheating, sleep-around type of dude. I thought I was a romantic; a writer of sweet notes; a buyer of hilarious, well-thought-out gifts; someone who wanted to wait to have sex until it was Really Right. But whether I’ve been this way all along or whether I have death to thank, this much is indisputable: I am an asshole. A non-virgin asshole.
“Wait, so seriously, do you owe her money?” Paolo asks.
I’m not sure if I should tell him about me and Veronica. There are two ways to think about it. Either Oh, I’m gonna be dead soon anyways, so I might as well not tell Paolo that I boned his sister. Or Oh, I’m gonna be dead soon anyways, so I should just tell Paolo that I boned his sister. Maybe he’d cheer me on. But there’s bound to be some weirdness, and I don’t want that in these last hours.
“Oh, uh, well, yeah. I owe her ten bucks.”
“Ten bucks?” Paolo says. “V’s freaking out like that over ten bucks?”
That is kinda low. “I mean twenty bucks. Twenty-five bucks.”
“Still. Calm it down, lady.”
“Yeah. Totally.”
We stand side by side, taking in the festivities celebrating my death.
“So this is a trip, huh?” Paolo says.
“I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet.”
He puts his arm around me, hand on my shoulder. “Wherever you go, I’ll be there in a month. Just remember that.”
This is cold comfort to me. Because, really, where are we even going? In spite of whatever I said during my self-eulogy, I’ve never fully been able to embrace the idea of the afterlife as this place where dead people can all hang out together and have fun.
“So if you forget anything,” Paolo continues, “your toothbrush, phone charger, whatever…just let me know, and I’ll be able to bring it for you.”
“Oh, cool, thanks, good to know. I’ll leave a little duffel bag you can put all the stuff I forget into.”
“Sweet, I love duffel bags.”
“Me too.”
If someone overheard our jokey conversations, they’d think we were idiots. But what we love to do is have conversations where we’re talking as if we’re idiots. It’s a subtle, but key, difference.
“Actually, could you lend me a few of your duffel bags?” Paolo asks. “I won a couple new ones on eBay yesterday, but I’m gonna need some backups.”
“Absolutely. I’ll lend you my duffel bag press as well so you can make your own. It’s great for emergencies.”
“Oh, that is gonna change my life. Thanks, dude!”
I laugh. Paolo laughs.
“Duffel bags,” I sigh.
“Duffel bags.”
We sit in this moment that suddenly feels representative of our entire friendship. It’s sad. I don’t want to sit in it anymore.
“I should get back to Taryn. She’s—”
“I think Taryn will be okay without you,” Phil says, appearing from behind Paolo’s shoulder like he’s been waiting for the perfect opportunity to interrupt. His trademark fedora is back.
“Oh. Thanks for the input,” I say. Whatever this is, I’m not in the mood for it.
“Great speech, Little. Really appreciated all the nice things you had to say about me. Right, Tooch?”
Another one of our cross-country teammates, Eric Vertucci, stands nearby. He’s generally a nice guy—except for when he’s around Phil—so he seems confused about how to respond. He settles on a quick bounce of his thick eyebrows.
“Look, Phil, I…” It was much easier to call him a tool when I was standing at a microphone in front of tons of people.
“What’s the big deal?” Paolo says. “He called you a tool because you’re a tool.”
“Nobody asked you, dick-lick!” Phil gives Paolo a little shove.
“Come on, stop!” I say, sounding even to my own ears like a whiny little kid.
Phil gets all up in my face. His breath smells like tuna fish.
“Like you’re gonna do something about it? A wuss like you?”
I say nothing. I wonder how Taryn dated this guy for three years.
“I know you were aiming that PB cup at me. Too bad you have the throwing skills of a three-year-old girl.”
Can’t argue with him there. “Get out of my face,” I say.
“You know that once you die, Taryn and I are getting back together? Right?” How painfully insecure does a guy have to be to say this to someone who is about to die? “Where do you think she was just now, when you couldn’t find her? She was with me.”
Whether or not these things are true, my predominant thought is that I’ve never punched a human being before (although that makes it sound like I have punched animals) and this might be a good time.
I ball my fingers up into a fist.
“Yo, Lechman,” Eric Vertucci says, hands on Phil’s shoulders. “Not here, man.”
Phil looks around, notices various concerned, disgusted faces, maybe hears the judgmental mumbles. (“No class whatsoever.” “Geez, it’s his funeral, dude.”)
“Yeah, okay.” Phil takes a couple steps back. “Not here.” He adjusts his fedora.
I go to straighten my tie and realize I’m still wearing many novelty necklaces.
“You’re lucky you’re dying, Little.”
“And you’re lucky you can run fast,” I say, trying my best to quickly assemble some kind of comeback.
“You threatening me?” Phil takes a step toward me.
“No, no, I meant it like, since you have no other skills or talents to fall back on in life.”
“What?”
“It didn’t fully make sense, never mind.”
Phil stares me down a beat longer. “See you soon. Let’s hit it, Tooch.” He saunters off.
Well, somebody just shot to the top of the Death Threat Suspect List.
“Sorry, dude,” Eric Vertucci says, lingering a moment longer before following Phil. “Bye, I guess.”
“Oh man!” Paolo says. “You were way too nice to that guy in your eulogy.”
“Yeah. I was seriously about to punch him just now.”
“Ah, I thought so! Man, that would have made my life.” Paolo awkwardly punches the air twice. “Who’s the dick-lick now, dick-lick?”
“You think all that stuff he said about Taryn is true?”
Paolo takes way too much ti
me to answer. “Nah, dude, he was just talkin’ smack.”
“Hmm,” I say.
“Honestly, I’d be more worried about that whole ‘See you soon’ business.”
This is all kinds of disturbing. I don’t want Phil to be the reason my life ends.
And I certainly don’t want him anywhere near my rapidly approaching Sitting.
I know different people and cultures have varying approaches to death, so in case you don’t know about the tradition of the Sitting, here’s the deal: whilst waiting for death, you sit. You generally end up in a room of your house, probably the family room (ideally not the living room because the irony of that is too hilarious and stupid), where you’re joined by your immediate family and whoever else has been invited: cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, girlfriends, best friends, and so on. Everybody communes and celebrates and waits for something to happen.
And something always happens.
Heart attack, stray bullet, seizure, fallen bookshelf or tree, stabbing, tornado, tumble down the stairs, strangling, drug overdose, fire, aneurysm. Not to mention the basics: old age, cancer, pneumonia, other fatal illnesses. People have gone to great lengths to try and survive, but you just can’t. This guy, Lee Worshanks, in Pennsylvania, spent years working on what he called a Safety Room, the perfect place in which to spend his deathdate: ideal temperature, rubber walls, dull-edged furniture, the works. When the Big Day rolled around, the room’s complicated security system somehow malfunctioned, and Lee found himself locked out. After hours of failed attempts to get inside his perfect room, he went a little nuts. He ended up electrocuted by some kind of circuit panel in the basement. So pretty much every possible variation on death in a house has happened to at least someone in the past few decades.
But you don’t know what that variation is, and you don’t know when in the day it will happen. That’s why the Sitting has always seemed insane to me. Who would ever want to be sitting in a room with their family for twenty-four hours straight? How is that anybody’s idea of a happy way to die?
I asked my stepmom a little while back if we could do my Sitting on a beach somewhere, and for a second, it seemed like she was going to agree. But then she must have envisioned a terrifying land shark chomping off my head, because she shot me down hard-core. I sorta get it.
