Sort of Dead

by Rob Rosen

  He nodded. “You sure, though? You’re just barely dead. What if no one has discovered your, you know…body?” He whispered the word. The word made me wince. My soul hurt. And since I was nothing but soul, everything hurt at once. Not a physical pain, but a pain, nonetheless. “We could wait. We could go to a familiar place later, hear what happened rather than see.”

  “Did you go back?” I asked. “I mean, right away?”

  The nod turned shake. “Almost. I thought about it. But I knew what had killed me, so what would’ve been the point? I went home to my mom’s a while later. That was hard enough. I went back some more; it never got any easier. I couldn’t hug her, couldn’t talk to her, let her know I was okay. Same with all of them, all my family. Plus, it felt like spying. Instead, I go watch that guy jack off. I like being in my old home.” His smile returned. “I like it here, too, for now. The bliss, it’s easy to grow accustomed to.”

  “But what if it takes decades to move on? What if that bliss turns bust? What if whatever is next is even better? Or what if you’re wrong and that next never comes?” I was still holding his hand. I’d known him for less than whatever brief time it was, but it felt like forever. Maybe that was because we were literally in forever. Either way, the conversation was uncomfortable and his hand in mine was comforting. “Can you get an erection here, Max?”

  He laughed in that supremely nice way of his. Where had he been all my life? And, yes, the irony of that had not been lost on me. He then fiddled with my dick with his free hand. I followed suit with his. It felt nice, though that was more likely because our souls were touching. Which is to say, nothing shifted, rose, pulsed, gushed, spewed. “No blood, Nord. Nothing to fill it with.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. This place is great, but not perfect. What if the poof is perfect?”

  He seemed to think this over. Eventually, his sea of blue locked into my puddles of brown. “Just think of a place, Nord. It has to be a place you frequented, that you had ties to. There seems to be a connection made in life that tethers you in death. Work, home, family, you can link to them if you choose to.” The smile had returned, but quivered. “Where were you last?”

  I’d been at my desk, at work. I could still see the screen in my head, then the ceiling that wasn’t a ceiling. Maybe there had been a fire, some sort of explosion. How does someone die at work, someone so young, someone in the picture of health? People suddenly died of aneurisms, like I’d thought before. That must’ve been it.

  “I was working,” I replied. “Why do you think I can feel your hand in mine, your hand on my dick?”

  His laugh returned. “You make odd segues, Nord.”

  I laughed. It was weird to laugh given that I had just sort of died. “My head is full of questions. I want to ask them all at once.”

  “Yeah, been there, died that.” He squeezed my hand in his. “The body stained the soul. The soul knows of feelings, sensations. Those feelings seem to be mimicked here. It’s not the same but a close facsimile. Just as nice, either way. Just as real-feeling even when we know it’s not.”

  “I can see your body, can feel it.” I touched his chest, ran my fingers through the matting of hair, but there was no heartbeat. It wasn’t real. I was grateful for the facsimile, but how long would that gratefulness last? “Let’s go, Max.”

  He nodded, and we were suddenly back at my office. It had been around lunchtime when I was still alive, best I could recall, and now it was dark outside. Inside was another matter entirely. Every light was on. The place was full of people. None of them were my coworkers. All of them were either cops or paramedics. There was a bag on the floor by my desk, body-sized, black as coal.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  He pointed at my desk, at the carpet. “Blood, Nord.”

  Lots of blood. Too much blood. I didn’t have a stomach anymore; still, I felt queasy. Rest in peace, my ass. Did people bleed from an aneurism? My computer was still on. I floated closer in. It wasn’t what I had been looking at. It was an old report. Why had someone pulled it up? Of course, the better question was, “Why did someone kill me?”

  We hung around, waiting for an answer, but, for now, people were taking pictures, writing things down, shipping me off. I tried to follow but couldn’t. Seemed that tether that Max had mentioned was all too real. I tried to punch my keyboard, to see if I could pull up a history of what else had been searched for, but, yeah, good luck with that.

  We floated there until we were alone again. I’d learned nothing, apart from the whole murder thing. Me. Murdered. I mean, I’d been no Mother Teresa in life, but no Mussolini either. People generally liked me. I was likable, after all.

  “Should we go?” asked the see-through version of my newfound friend.

  “Why would someone kill me? Doesn’t make sense. I was at work. I got along with all my coworkers.” I pointed at my screen. It had been left on. “That report must be the answer. I didn’t put it there. The person who killed me must have.”

  “What is it?”

  I again stared at the screen. “It’s a financial report. Two years old, at least.”

  “Is it significant in any way?”

  I tried to remember, exactly. I’d barely been with the company six months then. I was in the creative department, so I probably needed the report to determine future expenditures, what to spend my resources on, how much to spend, where to spend it. It was significant to me, but, again, it was an old report. Meaning, it was no longer significant. Though, seemingly, it was. At least to someone.

  “I don’t see how,” I replied. We were again back in the nothing. “What do you call this place, Max? I mean, it’s not heaven, right? And I feel too good to be in hell. Purgatory doesn’t seem to fit either. That has some negative connotations, right? Religious meaning, right? I don’t see any angels, and God doesn’t seem to be showing up with a welcoming fruit basket.”

  “Arby’s,” he said.

  I grinned. I was glad I still had it in me after what I’d been through, namely being murdered at my desk. What an awful place to die. Couldn’t someone have shot me at a Gaga concert? So much better for the obit material, right? He died as he lived: fabulously. “You call this place Arby’s?”

  He shrugged. “I loved Arby’s in life. I loved Popeyes even better, but my town didn’t have a Popeyes, so I settled for Arby’s.” He pointed all around. All around were naked people grinning. I preferred to look at him. “Arby’s seems a good name for it.”

  “Too bad they don’t have any jamocha shakes here, though.”

  He nodded vigorously, the slightest of moans escaping from his lips. “We already agreed this place wasn’t perfect.”

  “Well,” I said, “at least that explains that unfinished business of mine. Someone murdered me. Maybe that person needs to be brought to justice in order for me to go poof. Or maybe I just need to know who did it.”

  “You want to investigate your murder from Arby’s, Nord? Doesn’t seem an easy task.”

  I shrugged. “Not like I have much else to do.” I grabbed his hand; I had that to do. Maybe this place was perfect, after all. I tended to doubt I’d grow tired of doing that, I mean. “What about you, Max? What’s your unfinished business? Your life was cut short. But what can you do about that now? If they find a cure for Leukemia, will you go poof then? Do you have to wait for all your loved ones to die, for no one to miss you, for there to be no loose ends left?”

  His other hand found my other hand. If two hands locked together was great, four was even better. “I wish I knew, Nord. Again, no rulebook. I tried praying for an answer, but that didn’t work in life, so…”

  But maybe his prayers had been answered. I mean, he had found me, right? Was that by chance or fate? He’d be there a long time if he had to wait for everyone he loved to die; at least now he had company, a hand to hold, two. I wished feet could grip. I wished my dick could grow hard. How would that prayer be answered, I wondered?

  “I’m glad you came along when you
did,” I told him.

  He nodded, the smile radiant. Too bad they didn’t have sunglasses in Arby’s. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “You think gay guys kiss in Arby’s?” I asked him. I wondered if it sounded lascivious. I wondered, all things considered, if it was a good idea to sound lascivious. Was someone keeping points in Arby’s? Would my question earn me a demerit?

  The vigorous nodding returned. “There’s a reason this place isn’t called Chick-fil-A.” And his lips were suddenly on mine. I stared into the blue. That was heaven. Heaven was in the blue. I couldn’t get a hard-on, but kissing, yeah, kissing I could do. My lips could press against his, my tongue could snake and coil. There was no spit to pass back and forth, but the kiss was no less wonderful.

  “A guy could learn to like this whole sort of dead thing,” I told him, my face an inch from his once the kiss was broken.

  “Popeyes,” he said. “Seems I finally found one.”

  * * * *

  We left Arby’s and found ourselves back in his old apartment. Arby’s was wonderful, but it lacked a certain je ne sais queer. I sat on the couch. Max sat on the couch. Or, you know, floated just above it. Clark—we saw his name on a computer science diploma on the wall—sat between us. Clark was again naked. Clark was watching gay porn on a TV screen the size of Cleveland. Seemed that those feathered souls really did flock together. Fate again? I wished there was someone to ask.

  I pointed at the screen. “That guy should go and check the mole on his thigh out.”

  Max nodded. “It’s almost like we’re there.”

  I shrugged. “Heck, it’s almost like we’re here.”

  “You think ghosts watched us jack off all those years?”

  I shuddered at the thought that my gammy watched me dildo-fuck myself. I also suddenly wondered if she had gone poof. I wondered if I could find loved ones in Arby’s. Seemed unlikely. If we were meant to find one another, wouldn’t we have already? I sighed, despite my lack of lungs. The afterlife wasn’t what it was purported to be. I mean, no one told me I’d be watching a nerdy dude jack off or that I’d be making out with a fellow spirit. Maybe I would’ve gone to church more often had they mentioned all this shit.

  “Sad,” I made note.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing; probably just a freckle.”

  I shook my head. I pointed at our jacking, geeky friend. “Clark needs to get outside, leave his computer, get some fresh air, meet people, leave his dick alone for five minutes.”

  “His dick doesn’t seem to mind the attention.”

  It was a beautiful dick. Much nicer than the ones spurting not ten feet away on the screen. I wondered if the man attached was just as nice. Maybe he was a dick, too. “Do you believe in mediums, Max? Psychics? Like Whoopi in Ghost?

  He seemed to think it over for a minute. “Probably not in life, but we are here among the living, so maybe it’s possible. Maybe there are people who can tune in to our sort-of-dead channel. Why do you ask?”

  “What if it’s reverse, though? What if we’re the ones tuning in? What if we make the connection?”

  He smiled. Or maybe he had been smiling and was simply smiling wider. The dead seemed to smile a lot. Without the worries of the living, the frailties of the body, being dead was fairly euphoric. Even being sort of dead was quite lovely, most of the time—except, perhaps, when you witness your bagged-up corpse get carted away. “You want to try and make contact with Clark? While he’s jacking off?” he asked.

  I chuckled. “We could wait until…” Clark shot just then. Clark must’ve eaten a lot of steak and chicken because he was clearly not protein deficient. Meaning, Clark came and then came some more and then dribbled more come after he came. “Wait’s over, Max.”

  “How do we do it?” he asked.

  I lifted my see-through hand up and tentatively went to touch Clark’s arm. My hand went right on through. Clark didn’t seem to notice. I didn’t feel any sort of connection, though it did look weird to see my hand disappear inside someone. I shifted over, over some more, until our bodies were overlapping. I, however, was still me—or what little remained—and Clark still didn’t seem to notice. Clark, in fact, was licking the jizz off his fingers. Maybe, I figured, that’s how he kept his protein reserves up. I slid back over.

  I shook my head. “Nope, that doesn’t do it.”

  “Maybe,” said Max, “we’re on a different plane of existence. Maybe watching Clark is like watching TV. You can’t talk to a character on a TV either.”

  I looked at said TV. A stunningly Nordic blond plumber was fucking a stunningly ginger electrician. My plumber, in life, had been a portly man of indeterminable origins, my electrician a surly old guy with yellow teeth and a penchant for spitting—indoors. Life, it seemed, did not imitate art. I then looked down at the remote. I tried to grab it. Nothing happened. I tried to move it with my mind. Same result. I tried to press a button, to think of the button pressing down, to will the button downward. Guess what happened? Yeah, nothing.

  “There’s got to be a way, Max.”

  He shrugged. “We can’t go find a medium. We can only go to places we’re linked to. You linked to a psychic, Nord?”

  “My mom always seemed to know when I was up to no good.”

  He laughed. “I tend to doubt that’s the same thing.”

  I sat there watching Clark’s dick go semi. Clark’s dick semi was still a stupendous sight to behold. This was like owning a masterpiece painting and locking it up in a closet for no one to enjoy. It was a waste. Clark’s life seemed to be wasteful. I was dead far too early. I knew of waste. My smile quivered and collapsed like a house of cards in a mild gust of wind. But it was then that it hit me. Clark could help us. Clark could help me go poof.

  “Poltergeist,” I said.

  Max squinted my way. “You seem to have a penchant for old paranormal movies, Nord.”

  “No,” I said. “Poltergeists seem to be able to move objects. If they can do it, why can’t we.”

  “We?”

  I nodded. I stood. Or, that is to say, I floated off the couch. “What do you feel when we hold hands, Max? When we kiss?”

  He was still squinting my way, seemingly pondering the question. “I feel great in Arby’s. I feel even better when we hold hands, when we kiss. It’s as if one plus one equals ten.”

  “Charged,” I said. “You feel charged. I feel the same. That’s the word for it, right? Like our inner lightbulb is going from sixty watts to a hundred.”

  He touched fingertip to nose. Or at least tried to. “Charged. Right. That’s a good word for it.” He also rose off the couch until he was floating in front of me. “And your point?”

  I held his hand. Even as a ghost, the overlapping of our spirits had the same effect. Had we had hairs they would’ve been standing on end as soon as we made contact. And so, with his hand in mine, I again reached for the remote. It didn’t budge, as before, but the channel changed. The plumber was no longer fucking the electrician. Judge Judy was now lecturing a negligent dog owner who failed repeatedly to pick up after the family schnauzer. All that is to say, that poltergeisting shit was for real, if you knew how to do it.

  Clark looked up. I looked from the TV to Clark. Clark looked confused.

  “Dude,” said Max, wide-eyed. “What the fuck?”

  I grinned. “We’re poltergeists, Max! We’re like superheroes!”

  “You changed a TV channel, Nord.”

  “Even a superhero’s gotta start somewhere.”

  Clark jumped up and grabbed the remote. He eyed it, opened the battery panel, jiggled the batteries, and then changed the channel back. A construction worker had joined the naked fray. Didn’t seem like the housing project they were there to work on was going to get done any time soon. They also didn’t seem to mind. Then again, neither did the owner of said house, who was watching the spectacle off to the side, pulling his pud all the while.

  I looked at Max. “You think they went to acting
school for this?”

  “The plumber seems believable.”

  I nodded. “Julliard, I’m guessing.” I again reached for the remote. Ross was suddenly yelling at Rachel that they were on a break. Clark stared at the TV again, scratched his head, his balls. Clark’s balls hung so low it was a wonder he didn’t trip over them. Such a waste that no one else could trip over them either.

  I floated to a lamp. Max floated with me. I reached out; the lamp flicked on. I hooted and hollered. I felt alive again. Sort of alive, that is. We floated some more, hand in hand. A computer flicked on. A blender started to blend. The overhead light flicked on, off, on, off. Clark looked left, right, left, right. He didn’t seem to like that his wiring was going wonky.

  Max stopped us. “All he’s gonna do is call an electrician, Nord.”

  I laughed. “Maybe then he’ll put that beautiful dick to good use. Maybe a plumber and a construction worker will show up, too. Clark could join the union.”

  “No,” said Max. “I mean, he won’t know it’s us doing all this. If you’re thinking Clark can help us find out who, um…who, you know…killed you, he needs to know we’re asking for help.”

  I cringed at the whispered word. I’d been murdered. Me. But I was a nice guy. I was a young, nice guy. I was. And now I wasn’t. And Clark had a big dick and an unexpected light show. Little good either of those things did me.

  I glanced at the flicked-on computer. “Bingo,” I said.

  Max followed my eyes to what they were locked onto. “Think we can do it?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  We floated back to the computer. I reached for the keyboard, holding Max’s hand as I did so, feeling the energy surge between us. HELP, I typed, one letter at a time. It took some concentration, like I had to push the force of it out, from me to it, from us to it. I looked at Max. “That was difficult.”

  He nodded. “I felt it, too. Like an energy drain.” There was a desk lamp next to the computer. Max flicked it on and off, on and off, to get Clark’s attention.