Death Sucks

by Andrew Mallen

  “So we have the where, now we need the when.” Lenny leaned in closer as if doing so would allow him to hear or see the dead.

  “Something like when the sun follows the moon,” Jordan revealed, hoping this puzzle would be easier to solve.

  “It always does, right?” Jackie frowned.

  Bobby sensed the kids doubt and so did his mom she was looking at him. “Try to remember exactly how she said it Jordan, its super important,” Jackie pushed.

  “I know Mom! Damn!” Jordan snapped, he was under a lot of pressure and the emotional cracks were spreading.

  “It’s okay honey bear, it’s okay,” Jackie tried to soothe him. “Just let it come to you, don’t force it.”

  “Okay mommy,” Jordan knew he got away with one but doubted he would get away with another.

  Closing his eyes he let his mind wander back to the meeting. The lady had spoken so fast and she’d been so scared. He remembered feeling bad for her. She was super nice though, she tried to smile even though she wasn’t happy. She had a sword too, that was cool. It was gold and shiny and looked brand new. “The new moon!” he cried out as the memory resurfaced. “We have to be there when the sun follows the new moon!”

  “All right Jordan! Good job little dude!” Bobby roared, there was no doubt in the kid’s voice this time.

  “What is it?” Lenny screamed, he had some major FOMO issues.

  Bobby saved him from exploding, “The sun that follows the new moon.”

  Roger whipped out his smart phone and trolled the web for the information they needed. “Shit! That’s tomorrow night!” he cried.

  “We gotta get there tonight, well for sunrise tomorrow, right?” Lenny said, mentally plotting their course and calculating the time they’d need to get there.

  “We going to see Wendy tomorrow?” Jordan whispered to his mother.

  “I think so baby and it’s all thanks to you,” she whispered back and cuddled the boy against her chest.

  “I don’t have to die today!” Lenny boomed with the realization that Jordan’s dream had saved him. “I don’t have to die Roger!”

  “You don’t have to die!” Roger cried, just as relieved if not more. “I don’t have to kill you!”

  The newlyweds danced a happy dance that would have made Balki and Cousin Larry proud as the dead looked on in awe.

  “Rub it in why don’t you?” Bobby rained on their parade.

  The living could be so insensitive.

  “Man Bobby,” Jordan scolded. “You’re a serious party pooper.”

  “That’s me, pooping on parties since 1999!” he cracked as the living danced on unfazed.

  “1999, shit, you old!” Jordan cried, pointing and laughing.

  “Jordan Tito Simmons!” Jackie reacted before Bobby could.

  “Tito?” Bobby asked.

  “Watch it now, be careful Robert,” Jackie warned.

  “Yeah, watch it Robert,” Jordan echoed.

  “You too,” Jackie played fair.

  “Yeah Tito,” Bobby let his 10-year-old self loose.

  “Enough!” Jackie roared. “Jesus ain’t going to like it if you both show up with your asses kicked.”

  The squabbling ended in an instant.

  “What happened?” Lenny asked, sensing the mood change.

  “Jackie said we have to get ready,” Bobby lied.

  “Shower up, pack up and load up. We’re going on a road trip people!” Roger yelled and everyone smiled except the Reaper.

  Telling God He fucked up is going to suck.

  PART III

  Killing Gods

  1.

  Lenny leaned on the Jeep’s horn, a not-so-subtle hint to coax the two stragglers into hurrying. The Simmons’s were already onboard, not sleeping made getting up early a breeze.

  “So what do you think Bobby?” Roger asked, pulling on his shoes.

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “I’m scared,” Roger admitted, his big blue eyes held Bobby’s, searching for the fortification he needed.

  So am I big guy, I’m scared shitless over here.

  “Me too.”

  “You think it could be a trap?” Roger posed a perilous question.

  Hadn’t thought of that one.

  “I don’t know dude, I didn’t even think of that.”

  Roger didn’t like the answer. “Really bro, I hope you’re not just thinking with your dick.”

  Ouch.

  “Easy bro,” Bobby winced at the double shot of Roger’s anger and his own guilt. “It’s just happening so fast, ya’know. I thought…I wasn’t expecting it to happen this way.”

  “But it is happening this way so you’d better get your shit straight. You’re the one who’s supposed to have this all figured out ya’know. You’re the one that’s gotta do all the talking.”

  The horn blew again.

  “Wait a fucking minute Lenny!” Roger roared through the open door at his husband, slamming it closed to punctuate his point.

  Lenny’s jaw dropped, Roger never raised his voice at him.

  “You…this is all you Bobby,” Roger raged, his face as red as an over-ripe tomato as blood surged angrily beneath his skin. “This is all you! You wanted this. This is your plan, your mission. So wake the fuck up and pull your head out of your ass because we, all of us, are depending on you. This is about more than a nice piece of Angelic ass bro, this is…this could be our last chance!”

  Bobby stood quietly, letting Roger purge. Heavy handed as it may be, it was the truth. Bobby created the mess and now it was time to clean it up. Roger had done his part and paid a high price for it. If Jordan was right, Maria had done hers as well. It was his turn. If and when God showed up Bobby needed to convince Him that He was being played like a cheap fiddle, that His brother built an army of Reapers and was going to use it to destroy Him.

  No pressure though. Fuck! What have I gotten myself into?

  “Shit,” Bobby whispered as the weight of it settled.

  “What?” Roger growled.

  Bobby looked at him, the big man’s baby face unnaturally twisted with anger and fear, and lied, “I got this big guy. No worries. I got this.”

  Roger wanted so badly to believe him. “Yeah?”

  I hope so.

  “Hell yeah!”

  Bad choice of words dumbass.

  Roger lunged, scooped the Reaper into his arms and squeezed with all he had. Bobby didn’t protest, he’d needed a hug for a very long time. He expected Roger to flinch at the chill but he didn’t. He held tight, Andre the Giant tight, and Bobby loved every second despite the pain and fear deep inside him.

  “You give ’em Hell bro,” Roger said, setting the Reaper back on his feet.

  “That’s the plan, my man.”

  Roger grabbed his gloves, hat and keys, opened the door for the Reaper. “Hope Lenny’s got the heat on because you, my dead friend, are as cold as a polar bear’s balls,” he said as Bobby passed.

  “Always balls with you,” Bobby cracked and crossed the threshold of Roger’s home for the last time.

  *

  “Sorry babe,” Roger wisely apologized before climbing into the Jeep once Bobby had settled onto the bench in the back.

  Lenny nodded, he’d have a lot to say once he had his husband to himself.

  “He’s in trouble right mom?” Jordan was no dummy.

  “Yeah he is baby,” Jackie agreed.

  “My fault Lenny, I pissed him off,” Bobby said, trying to defuse the situation. “You’re timing with the horn sucked.”

  Lenny didn’t flinch. Bobby checked to see if his hood was down. It was, he was being ignored.

  “Listen guys, we can’t start out like this.” Bobby needed to think and if the tension in the tightly packed Jeep remained as thick as it was he’d never be able to concentrate. “I fucked up. Roger reacted. It’s not about you Lenny. This shit has us all stressing hard so let’s not let it get between us, ya’know. We can’t let it beat us bef
ore we even start, ya’know?”

  Ya’know! Ya’know! Ya’know! Thanks a lot for adding that little gem to my vocabulary Roger. I sound like an idiotic, high school loser.

  Lenny’s shoulders dropped slightly, his anger receding before Bobby’s logic. “Do over?” Bobby sighed.

  “Pretty please with sugar on top?” Roger pleaded.

  “You do that again and I’ll…I’ll kick your ass,” Lenny warned.

  “I’ll help you,” Roger offered.

  Lenny smirked and shook his head at the absurdity of it. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” Roger replied.

  “Let’s go,” Bobby commanded.

  “Let’s go!” the ghosts made it unanimous in unison.

  *

  The first miracle occurred on the Long Island Expressway. There was no traffic, well, almost none. The four eastbound lanes tightened to a crawl at the Queens line where the city officially ended and Nassau County began. Even God couldn’t fix that mess. It was as if every commuter paused to consider crossing the imaginary line, that once on the other side they were no longer a part of the scene, the hustle, the thrill that was NYC. Whether four lanes or forty, that dreaded stretch of blacktop would always corrupt the endless flow of cars, trucks and SUVs racing their fellow rats to their nests.

  “Straight run from here on out,” Roger, the devoted copilot, informed his passengers as the traffic broke.

  “I never been on an island before,” Jordan said, gawking out the window, searching for something that set the place apart.

  “You’ve been to Manhattan,” his mother replied, sensing a teachable moment. “That’s an island. And Staten Island, where G-ma Simmons lives is an island too.”

  “Manhattan, really?” the boy wasn’t buying it.

  “We cross a bridge to get there right?”

  “No,” Jordan never missed a chance to correct someone. “We take the subway.”

  Jackie rarely lost her cool even when her son did his best to rile her. “You’re right but the train goes under the water, under the river. The city has a river on each side and a huge harbor at the bottom.”

  “What about the top?” Jordan pointed out the flaw in her lesson.

  “There’s a small river there too, it’s what separates Manhattan from the Bronx,” Jackie smiled as if revealing a big secret.

  Jordan shrugged, he didn’t care.

  Neither did Bobby. His brain hurt and his stomach felt like he’d swallowed a bucket of bricks. He felt colder, lonelier and more terrified than ever. The idea of meeting God, of sticking his hand out to shake His, or Hers, or whatever It turned out to be, was something he couldn’t wrap his mind around. The facts were the facts, they’d speak for themselves, but it was up to Bobby to present them.

  Shit! Fuck! Shit! How did this happen? And why me?

  “You okay?” Jackie whispered.

  “Fuck no,” Bobby snapped, immediately regretting it. “Sorry, stressing.”

  “Oh snap!” Jordan cried.

  “Jordan,” Jackie snarled.

  Jordan shut up. Jackie squeezed Bobby’s knee and smiled.

  “You guys all right back there?” Roger turned to look into the back where the only visible passenger sat crammed against the side.

  “Peachy,” Bobby lied.

  Roger got the hint and turned back around.

  “Not very nice,” Jackie chided. “You’re not exactly in the right spirit to meet Jesus.”

  “Jesus?” Bobby was sick of hearing her speak the name with such unconditional love and devotion.

  “Um hmm,” Jackie hummed, even at the precipice of spending eternity roaming the Earth, unseen and unwanted, she still believed.

  Bobby pulled up his hood, not wanting the living to be part of their discussion. “Jesus, Buddha, Shivu, Thor, Zeus, Yawei, L. Ron fucking Hubbard, who knows who’ll be waiting for us out there. It can’t be all of them. There can be only one God, right? So how many billions of people have it wrong? How many poor fools have been wasting their lives praying to the wrong dude?”

  Jackie looked at him with pity, “You’re so lost Bobby.”

  “You think?” he grunted.

  “I do but it’s okay. You don’t have to worry about meeting Him, He’s the good guy remember. He’s the one who loves and forgives, the one who will see you for who you are, for all the good in you,” she said it so confidently, so proudly, her eyes bright with the love burning in her heart.

  “You really believe all that stuff?” Bobby asked and wished he had what she did.

  “I do and you can too,” her smile almost glowed with sincerity.

  “Religion was never my thing,” Bobby admitted with a twinge of shame.

  “Religion is for those who fear hell, faith is for those who’ve been there,” Jackie recited the old adage as if it were law.

  Bobby nodded, he’d heard it before and thought of it as just another corny slogan.

  “You’ve been there, in Hell, for real Bobby and here you are. You survived all of it, all that crazy stuff you told me about, you beat it. Meeting God, that’s like a vacation for you. He’s not out to trick you or to torture you. He’s coming here for you, to listen to what you have to say. This Maria, your girl, she did the hard part for you if you ask me. She convinced Him that a servant of His greatest enemy had a secret worth hearing, worth leaving His world to come and meet you in this one. Think about that, really think about it.”

  Jackie let her words sink in. She made a very strong and very sharp point. Bobby had been to Hell and back. He’d seen things no one should. He’d had things done to him no one should. He’d survived. Now he was about to start a war that, he hoped, would lead to the destruction of that twisted world and the evil prick who created it.

  “You’re a good guy Bobby,” Jackie squeezed his knee again. “You and Him, you two are on the same team.”

  “Same team,” Bobby liked the sound of that.

  “Same team.”

  Bobby nodded at her as a smile curled the corners of his mouth.

  “You be you Robert Grant. You be the guy who saved my Wendy, the guy who saved my honey bear, the guy who save me.” She had his doubts on the ropes, setting them up for the knockout punch. “Tell Him the truth. It’s all we have and it’s all we need. Let Him do the rest. He’s God! He’s love! Even if you’re one thousand percent wrong, He’ll love you anyway, and I’ll bet my black ass we’ll all be sipping bubbly in the clouds by this time tomorrow.”

  Bobby couldn’t help laughing, the woman’s faith was as contagious as her attitude. “Two things,” he said.

  Jackie nodded, eager to hear them.

  “One, I think you might have a drinking problem.”

  Jackie rolled her eyes.

  “And two,” Bobby whispered. “You never told me you were black.”

  “Fool.” She slapped his leg and smiled brightly, knowing she’d done what needed to be done, she’d given him hope.

  “What’s he look like mommy?” Jordan asked once he was sure his mom had finished preaching.

  Jackie closed her eyes as she described the God she so doggedly believed in, “Like Bob Marley without the dreads. No dreads, not his style. He has a big puffy fro, light and clean, it sways in the breeze up there in the clouds. He wears a sharp white suit, not too flashy though, no pimp nonsense, just classy. He’s always smiling and not just his lips, uh uh, when he smiles his whole face smiles. He’s beautiful.”

  “Wow mom, you met him already?” Jordan said, fascinated.

  Bobby bit his tongue to keep from reacting to the boy’s innocent betrayal.

  “Not with my eyes honey bear,” Jackie was still savoring the image in her mind. “In my heart. He’s always right here in my heart.”

  “Oh,” Jordan didn’t get it but he’d lost interest and returned to sightseeing.

  Jackie turned to Bobby, opened her eyes and added one more tidbit of her unshakable belief, “God is whoever you want Him to be. Religion has rules, a whole
lot of bullshit rules. God ain’t about rules. Your God is your God and nobody can change Him or steal Him or tell you what He wants or how He wants you to live. God is in you Bobby just like He’s in me. You look deep enough and you’ll find Him and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when you do.”

  Bobby believed every word she said, he’d never heard someone explain it that way. She made it sound so easy, so real and so right. Believing and doing, however, were two totally different animals. Jackie saw the look and understood it. “When the time comes, you’ll do what you’re supposed to do,” she insured him.

  “I hope so.”

  “Hope is good. Hope is the first step toward fate.”

  She’s got a gift.

  “You should have been a priest or a preacher or something.”

  “I should have,” Jackie had always wanted to share the love God poured into her.

  “Yeah Mommy, the good sister Jackie Simmons. That’d be dope.” Jordan might have been watching the world whiz by but he didn’t miss a thing.

  “Sure would baby boy,” Jackie chuckled.

  “No more baby boy mom,” Jordan frowned. “We talked about that.”

  “Sorry Jordan. No more, I promise,” she said while making a sad face at Bobby.

  “S’okay,” the kid shrugged, unaware he was breaking his mother’s heart.

  *

  “Suffolk County,” Lenny announced as they sped by yet another sign that marked yet another invisible border.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Roger cried when he turned to find the narrow rear bench empty.

  “Its fine, no worries,” Bobby replied, pushing his hood back. “Just having a chat.”

  “Secrets?” Lenny wasn’t a fan and didn’t hide it.

  “No just private stuff,” Bobby said.

  Roger perked his eyebrows, the silent question demanded more.

  “Jackie was helping me out,” Bobby explained. “We were talking about God and she was explaining what He looked like.”

  “So?” Roger asked, intrigued. “Come on, what’s He look like?”

  “Apparently like Bob Marley in white Armani with Bob Ross’s hair.”

  Lenny and Roger laughed until they cried. Jordan joined in silent hysterics while Jackie fought the good fight to keep a scorn on her face. “So you two tell us then!” she dared once they calmed.