Fuck , Kyle thought. I don’t care about that phone shit anymore.
They’d come in from the rain soaking wet. One look at each other, and they exploded in laughter so hard their stomachs cramped; they could hardly breathe.
Kyle didn’t remember who started taking whose clothes off first, but in no time they were naked and fucking their way to Kyle’s bedroom.
Afterward, they lay in bed not talking, sometimes grunting, sometimes nibbling, sometimes sniffing each other’s skin, sometimes slowly — almost absent-mindedly — rubbing against each other, until Lauren said, “Okay, we have to talk. About your dad. And I don’t care how funny you are, or how good the sex is, you better not walk out on me this time. Or we’re through.”
“But this is my bed. My apartment.” And he thought, I’m funny? Cool. No-one’s ever told me that before.
“Pretty clever of me, eh?”
In the end, she had just given him a number. His dad’s phone number, she claimed. He’d given it to her that time she’d answered the phone for Kyle. Call him, she’d said, let him tell you. And then call me. Call me. And he could hear in her voice: I know you’re hurting, but don’t fuck this up between us.
After she left, he stared at the number. The area code was 666. What the hell? And what was with the thirteen-digit extension?
Why am I believing any of this?
Because the world’s greatest girl thought he was funny and liked to fuck him, fuck him better than anyone else ever had.
He picked up the phone: a dozen more hang-ups in his voicemail. Shit. He put the phone back down again.
And then he thought: Every time I don’t decide something I end up feeling like I made a decision anyway. The wrong one. Always the wrong one. How had I ever had the guts to move out from Mom’s? A rare moment, that.
“Well,” Kyle said out loud, “here’s another rare moment.”
And he punched the weird number on his phone. He got the familiar “If you know the extension number of your party please enter it now.” But it continued, in a snarky: “If you don’t, hang up now and stop wasting everyone’s time.”
Kyle punched in the thirteen-digit extension. It was then that he noticed it included both the year his father was born and the year he died.
He got his dad’s voicemail.
Kyle’s father had been his best friend. When he died the world got darker, almost too dark for Kyle to handle. If it hadn’t been for Uncle Flip, Kyle might not have been able to cope.
Kyle and his dad watched the same stupid TV shows together, went out to the movies at least once a week, shopped for CDs, played cards and board games every night (Kyle’s mom never understood why they liked that so much), took bike rides, went camping — they did everything together, they were the best of pals. Unlike his friends with their parents, Kyle had never been embarrassed by his dad. Dad was the greatest. Unqualified.
Kyle hadn’t left a message, but his dad — or, rather, the voice claiming to be his dad — called back in less than five minutes. “There’s all kinds of fancy features on this phone, you know. Call display and all that. Even email and internet. Haven’t figured out how to use those yet, though. You know I was never into all that computer stuff. But, hey, I’ve got lots of time now.”
Could Kyle let himself believe that was really his dad on the phone? Why would anyone go to the trouble of playing such a cruel prank on him?
“Listen, Da — I mean, how can it be you? How do I know this is really you?” Kyle was still precariously perched on a seesaw of rage and tears, but managed to keep it internal. He had to see this through, one way or another.
“I know this is hard, son. I hate to hurt you or upset you. But this can be a good thing. We can be pals again, right? Ask me something. Anything. It’s me. Really me.”
It sounded so much like him. “No. I don’t know. You tell me something.”
“Well . . . While I think about that, I want to say that’s one hell of nice girlfriend you’ve got there. She told me to wait before calling you again, that she’d ease you into the idea. Meanwhile, she even called me a few times to keep me company until you were ready. A real sweetheart, she is. Hang on to her.”
Kyle felt himself blush, remembering the two times he’d had sex with Lauren. “Yeah, she’s great.”
“Good. She likes you a lot, you know. When you find someone you love you shouldn’t let them slip away. You shouldn’t . . .” Kyle’s dad trailed off. There was a long silence.
“Dad? Are you still there?”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. Anyway, I think I remembered something, something to prove to you who I am. The summer you were fourteen, at least once a week we played Risk in the basement, through the whole night, creeping back to bed just as the sun started to come up. Your mother would always still be asleep when I slipped in next to her. She never found out.”
“That was the summer before you died.” It was getting harder for Kyle to stifle his tears.
“Oh . . . and remember that week-long bike trip in the country when you were twelve? The first night, when we pitched camp, a fox cub wandered into our tent, and we fed it some cheese.”
“It’s really you, isn’t it?”
They reminisced for hours. And then Kyle started asking questions. Lauren had told him some of it the other night at The Small Easy, but he had assumed it was all lies, and he hadn’t really pieced it together then, or even fully paid attention.
Kyle’s dad explained what he could. “A few weeks ago, Lucifer cut some kind of deal with a telecommunications company — don’t ask me the details, these demons aren’t exactly the chatty type — and got enough phones to distribute to all of the dead. Well, the human dead, anyway. The animals didn’t get phones.”
Kyle still had trouble with some of this. “So . . . You’re in Hell. You were a great guy. The best father ever. Why are you in Hell? And what are animals doing in Hell? I don’t get it.”
“Hum . . . First off, there’s only Hell.”
“What do you mean, only Hell?”
“No Heaven, no Purgatory, no Nirvana, no Valhalla, nothing else. Just Hell. All the dead come here. It’s not so bad, really. A bit boring, maybe — and certainly understaffed and disorganized — but not so bad.”
“So you’re burning in Hell. No matter what I do, I’ll end up burning in Hell.”
“Oh, no. There’s no burning.”
“Torture?”
“Nope. No torture. It’s just this endless sea, only without the water. It’s where all the animals end up when they die. Bears, owls, insects, crocodiles, sharks, whales, dinosaurs, people. It’s all the same. You die. You end up here.”
“There’s dinosaurs in Hell? Cool.”
“I guess so. They’re just part of the scenery, you know.”
“So what do you do all day?”
“Not much. For one thing, you never sleep. You can’t sleep, in fact. So, mostly, you just hang around. Wander. Talk to people. The dogs are nice. Plus, here they don’t shit all over the place. Actually, nobody shits here. Can’t say I miss that.”
“Well that doesn’t sound too bad.”
“I guess not. But the demons shit, though. And fart. Stinko, let me tell ya.”
“Maybe it’s their diet.”
“Could be. I’ve never seen them eat, though.”
“But, all in all, are you alright there?”
“Well, you know, there’s never any sunlight. No movies, either. No TV. No sports. No food. Lots of noisy bugs. Plus you’re kind of insubstantial. You can’t really touch anyone. Almost, but not quite. And it’s kind of hard to get motivated or excited about anything. Nothing ever happens here.”
“But what about God?”
“I dunno. Haven’t seen him. The folk around here don’t seem to like to talk about that.”
After the conversation with his dad, Kyle found seven more hang-ups. Kyle had assumed that all the recent hang-ups in his voicemail had been from his father. He’d meant to ask
him, but, in the excitement of actually talking to his dead father, he’d forgotten. Anyway, this established that the hang-ups were someone else’s doing. Who was calling him like that? Couldn’t be Lauren; his mysterious caller had rung several times while they’d had sex. Wasn’t like his mother not to leave long, guilt-inducing messages. And it’s not as if he had friends or anything. Probably telemarketers, he concluded.
It was 8:50 a.m. He’d spoken with his dad for more than nine hours. Wow, he thought. Dad. Dad!
He called Lauren.
“He’s driving me crazy.” Kyle said, while absent-mindedly stroking the hood of Lauren’s clit. She squirmed and moaned. “I mean, I love him, and all that. And he really likes you. He likes how you talked to him that night when he first called and I freaked out.” His other hand cupped her breast, lightly fingered her nipple. She gasped.
“And, like, I know he’s my dad and my best friend, but, geez, he won’t leave me alone. He calls me all the time, and he wants to talk for hours. And hours.”
They were taking a midnight bath. The bubblebath smelled like oranges. A couple of scented candles flickered on the edge of the sink. Lauren lay with her back against Kyle’s chest. Only a little bit of water had splashed on the floor so far.
“I’ve been telling him he should call Mom. But he won’t. He won’t tell me why, either. She asks about him all the time.” The phone calls from the dead had become big news. There’d been lots of TV specials and talk shows. Mediums who used to claim they talked to the dead were all exposed as frauds. The Catholic Church declared that the voices were demons working for the Prince of Lies (as it liked to call Lucifer; Kyle’s dad had seen him from afar a couple of times and said he seemed like a nice guy). The Church’s position was that the voices were trying to undermine Christ’s teachings, by denying Heaven, salvation, and damnation. Religions everywhere were having trouble reconciling their dogma with what the dead were saying. And there were more troubles. There were pressures to retry murder cases in light of details learned from the dead, although not a single case had yet been brought to trial for that reason. Scandals erupted in families, governments, and corporations because of information from the dead. The stock market was taking a beating. The media was having a ball, though.
“I keep telling her that I haven’t heard from him, to spare her feelings, but I hate to lie.” He slid a couple of fingers inside her while pinching her nipple. Lauren cried out, and her legs shot out of the bath, splashing water and bubbles on the floor.
“What am I gonna do? I feel so guilty about it, but I don’t think I wanna talk to him anymore. At least, not so much. I know he’s dead and bored and all that. But, fuck, I’ve got my own life now.” Kyle lifted his hands, emphasizing his frustration.
“Hey,” Lauren said. “Put your hands back where they were.”
A lot more water splashed on the floor after that. When the phone rang, they ignored it.
While they were towelling themselves off, the phone rang again.
“You should get it,” Lauren said. “It might be your mystery caller. One less thing on your mind once you clear that up.”
“Nah. It’s bound to be either my mom or dad. Guilt or boredom. My life’s great options.” With a deep sigh, Kyle answered the phone.
“Kyle! You’re a hard guy to get a hold of.”
“So I heard from Uncle Flip. Turns out he was the one leaving all those hang-ups. He said he didn’t want our first afterlife contact to be a message.” There was silence on the end of the line.
“Dad? Are you still there?” More silence.
“Dad?”
Kyle — barely — heard his dad mutter, “Flip . . .”
“Is everything okay, Dad?”
“Huh . . . sorry, Kyle. Hmm. Listen. There’s something I have to tell you.”
After Kyle got off the phone, he ran over to Lauren’s. He had so much nervous energy to burn. He didn’t bother calling. He just ran.
Wait till she hears this , he thought.
Once he reached Lauren’s apartment, he used the boyfriend key she’d given him. The thought that he rated a key made him feel really horny. He stepped inside.
There was an empty cardboard box on the coffee table and some packing material on the floor. Lauren was hooking up a new machine to her TV.
“Look at you! Are you okay?” she said as she looked up at him.
“Huh? Yeah. I ran here. I’ve got such wild news!”
“Me, too. You’ll never believe what happened to me today.” She finished hooking up the new machine. Kyle noticed what it was. “Hey! You bought a DVD player! Cool!”
Lauren walked up to Kyle, rubbing her face against his chest. “Mmm. You smell real sweaty and sexy, and I want to celebrate.” She grabbed his T-shirt and pulled it off. She gave him a mischievous grin and ran her tongue from his navel to his neck.
Kyle grabbed her, pulled her off her feet, and carried her to the couch. “Tell me what happened!” he said, while he removed her panties from under her skirt.
“I got a call from Flicker,” she rubbed one hand on his stiff crotch while unfastening his belt with the other. “The editor offered me a monthly column at $2000, plus features and reviews at fifty cents a word.” She reached over and slid a finger up his butt. “I can make a living at this!”
“Babe, that’s so great!” He groaned. “Oh yeah, keep doing that.”
They stopped talking for while.
Kyle drowsily nuzzled Lauren’s neck. They lay on the floor, their clothes strewn all over the living room.
She asked him, “So you never told me your news.”
“That’s right. I guess I’ll just come out and say it. My dad is in love with Uncle Flip.”
“What! Really?”
“Yeah, he was worried I’d freak out, but I think it’s cool, if kinda sad.”
“Well, give me more details.”
Kyle propped himself up and leaned his back against the couch. “Well, it turns out that Dad has always had the hots for Uncle Flip, but never got the nerve to do anything about it while he was alive. Plus, he didn’t want to hurt Mom. And he’s pretty sure that Flip felt the same way. Come to think of it, Flip never did marry or have kids or anything, and he hung around with us a whole lot. Plus, he was always real chummy with Dad. Anyway. So I gave him Flip’s number, and he’s gonna tell him how he feels and try to hook up with him. I’ll feel really good if I know I helped them get together after all this time. I mean, it won’t be like they were alive” — Kyle ran his fingers through Lauren’s hair — “but at least they’ll be able to keep each other company.”
“Kyle, you’re a real sweetheart, you know.” She kissed him, slowly and deeply.
When she disengaged herself, she got up and took something out of a plastic bag. “Remember when we missed that rare version of The Big Sleep at the rep?”
“Yeah.” Kyle grinned, looking at her naked body and remembering the first time they’d had sex.
“Well, we can finally see it.” She held up the DVD case of The Big Sleep. “It’s on here. Let’s watch it. I’ve been thinking so much about buying a player, and this DVD especially. But I couldn’t really afford it. Now, well . . . my gifts to myself in honour of my new success!”
She put the disc in the machine, and they cuddled up on the couch. And Kyle — feeling Lauren’s naked skin against his, enjoying her toes rubbing against his leg — thought, Fuck, life is good. I don’t care if I don’t have a career or big goals or anything. I mean, I kinda don’t mind my job; plus, being with Lauren is doing something. It’s important.
As unexpectedly as the calls from the dead started, they stopped. When people tried calling the dead, they got “The number you have reached is not in service.” The phone calls from Hell had lasted a month. “A lunar month,” Lauren told Kyle. “The calls started on a full moon and ended on the next.” Kyle didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. “I don’t know, either,” said Lauren, “but it can’t be just a coinci
dence.”
Surprisingly quickly, the world recovered. Already the news was filled with stories “proving” that it had been a scam or a practical joke. But Kyle knew better.
He never did find out if his dad and Uncle Flip met up with each other. But they probably did, or will, he thought. Hell’s a big place, but they have lots of time.
Lauren and Kyle moved in together into a bigger apartment, one big enough for her to have an office at home. They were getting dinner ready; Lauren’s brother Jordan was in town and coming over. Kyle was a bit nervous about meeting him for the first time. He was a really important part of Lauren’s life. What if they didn’t get along?
Trying to get over his anxiety, Kyle said, “Hey! Get this. There were these two guys — ”
Lauren interrupted him. “You know, when I say you’re funny, I don’t mean that your jokes are funny, so you should stop trying so hard to make jokes.”
“Oh.” Kyle was confused. Was this some kind of roundabout way of breaking up with him? And he thought things were going so well. Shit.
“It’s how you are, who you are, that’s so funny. Just relax and be yourself. You amuse me in so many little ways. The look of panic in your face every time someone addresses you. The way you always spit exactly three times after you brush your teeth. How you constantly rub your nose. How you tend to lose yourself inside your own head. How you overreact to everything.”
“So it’s who I am that’s a joke?” Instead of breaking up with him, she’ll laugh at him for the rest of their lives? Kyle tried to balance the damage to his ego with the sex and all the other ways she made him feel good.
“No, silly. You’re charming! Everything about you is charming! You’re so transparent and honest. Real and direct. I love that.”
“Oh. Alright, then.” He grinned.
Lauren sat him down, dropped on his lap, squeezed his hand between her thighs, and kissed him.
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