by J. A. Huss
“Until you,” he finishes. “You must understand… Maddie… people are talking about the stripper who stole one hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars from me. My reputation is being compromised by the notion that I would just allow this to go unaddressed. But they will understand if they see that there is something between us. They will say, ‘Ah, Carlos loves this girl. And that’s why he let her keep that money.’”
Oh, Christ. He’s nuts. Fucking nuts. This argument isn’t even lucid.
He’s moving his head around in a way that looks like he’s trying to seduce me. Either that or he’s having a stroke.
I do a quick check-in with the devil on my shoulder, who says, Shit, kid. I dunno. This is fucking weird.
“Thanks,” I apparently say aloud, because Carlos says, “Thanks? You’re agreeing to these terms?”
“No,” I say, standing up, realizing now that the only way out of this is by gambling that if he really, really has some kind of fucked-up hallucinogenic feelings for me, I might have one card to play. So I lay it all on the line.
“No. I’m not staying here with you. I don’t care if I have to sell my fucking soul to Satan himself. I will pay you back. Because I’m not staying here!”
Chapter Two - Tyler
I sort of recognize this place and sort of don’t. It looks like the heaven from my DREAM, but it’s no longer clean and white. It looks charred, and sooty, and black. I walk along carefully, because I’m not sure what I’m stepping on. I know how it feels to step on the incinerated flesh and bones of the previously living, and the sensation I’m experiencing is very much like that. I don’t look down.
No one is around. All the helpful, wingless angels dressed like Apple Store employees are gone. Everyone is gone.
“Angel?” I call out. Nothing.
“Scarlett??” I shout. Silence.
“Maddie!?” I yell. Not even the whistle of wind.
And then… from behind me… I hear her voice.
“Tyler?”
I spin around, tingling with hope and fear, but instead of my angel, Maddie, I find standing in front of me…
James Franco.
A dude who looks EXACTLY like James Franco.
I remember when I was having THE DREAM, I kind of sarcastically mused over the notion that if there was a God inhabiting this particular version of heaven, he would probably look like James Franco. Well, shit.
“’Sup, bro?” he says. “Hey, why so slack-jawed, Ty-Bo?”
“I—” I begin stammering. “I didn’t—I—Who are you?”
“Bro,” he says, “I’m God. Who the fuck you think?”
I feel very confused. “But,” I start, “I heard Maddie.”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, “Nah, bro, that was me. Here, check it. I’ll do it again.” And then he says, sounding exactly like Maddie, “Tyler? Is that you?” I stare at him, mouth definitely agape. He laughs. “Ha! Look at your face. Oh, man. Classic. Hey, sorry. I was just fucking with you, homey. All good.”
He sticks his hand in the air. Palm out.
“What’s up, my dude? You gonna leave me hanging?” he says.
I raise my hand slowly and he slaps me five.
“My man!” he says. Then, “Yo, come chill on this, um, I think this used to be a chair or a desk or something. Can’t tell. It’s all burned the fuck up, but come sit on it with me for a sec, will ya? Need to rap with you about some shit.”
He steps over to the burned-up whatever-it-used-to-be and I don’t follow right away. I just continue staring. Profoundly disoriented.
“Dude,” he says, “Cop a squat. No fuckin’ around. Need to chat.”
I eye him and amble over carefully. Then I cautiously take a seat on a smoldering lump of ash a few feet away from him.
“OK,” he says, “you wanna keep your dist. I get it. If I had managed to burn down fucking HEAVEN, I’d be pretty worried about incurring My wrath too. All good.”
“What?” I manage. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
“Duuude,” he sighs out, “you know exactly what’s going on. I hooked you up. Like, HOOKED you up. Gave you your dream angel, the salvation to ALL your sins, the key to your redemption, and you just torched that shit like you was making Baked Alaska. You fucked me, bro.”
I shake my head trying to make any sense out of what’s happening right now. “I don’t understand,” I say. “Am I dead?”
“You’re in heaven, Charlie Brown. Albeit a fucked-up heaven that you jacked yourself, but, uh, yeah. Obviously, you’re dead, dummy. Duh.”
Wow. God’s kind of a dick.
“But so look here, cat-daddy. Here’s the skinny: You is one stone-cold sinner, my man. You should probably be in hell right now having big dudes dressed like milkmaids shoving cattle prods up your butt—
“Is that what hell is?”
“Maybe? Not sure. Haven’t been in a while, but they do some freaky shit down there. But anyway,” He continues, “the only reason you’re not there is because I’ve always kind of liked you for some reason. Not sure why. But I have. And so instead of letting you suffer down there for eternity… um, I’m gonna let you suffer here.”
“What?” I ask, understandably. “What does that mean?”
“It MEANS, Mocha-Choca-Latte, that you broke it, you bought it. You took all that was good and you fucked it up. So you’re gonna help me rebuild it. Plate by plate. Cloud by cloud. Whatever. You have to fix what you fucked.” He’s now eating an apple. I have no idea where he got the apple. It just kind of appeared. Which should not even enter my consciousness as the weirdest thing about what’s happening right now, but it does.
“So— I start.
“OR,” He interrupts.
“Or what?”
“OR… you can do something MUCH harder.”
Harder than spending eternity in hard labor trying to rebuild heaven? I’m afraid to ask. But I do. “Harder? What’s that?”
“Same thing, only you probably gotta confront a less forgiving soul than yours truly. I’m saying there’s another way to restore this joint to its previous glory. I can send you back down to earth and you can make right what you did wrong down there.”
I pause, considering what he’s saying.
“You mean with Maddie?”
“No, dude, with Celine Dion. YES, of course with Maddie, you fucktard!”
Seriously. A real dick.
“But… How would I even start? I fucked up so badly that I can’t even—”
“Oh, boo-hoo. Shit, man. You are not living up to my expectations at all. Damn, I didn’t save you from that explosion and then dump all that fucking money in your lap for nothing. I expected you to do some good shit with it! You really fucked that one up, though, didn’t you?”
“You—”
“Of course it was me! You think an asshole like you has something like that happen to them by accident? Wake up, Little Susie!”
He takes a bite of his apple.
I sit there for a beat, dumbfounded and unsure how to respond. So I just say, “Why me?”
“Why you? I dunno. Maybe because with that scraggly hair and beard you’re rocking, you ... you know, you ... remind me of someone.”
“Jesus?” I ask.
“No, no, don’t be stupid. Oh! I know! Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall! That’s who it is! Ugh, been driving me crazy. But also… no real reason. Not one you could ever understand, anyway. Sorry, man. I know you probably want a better answer than that, but… Humans are funny, dude. I give you a cerebral cortex and now you’re always trying to find the MEANING behind shit. Well, sometimes I just do stuff for no comprehensible rationale at all. But what can I tell you? I work in mysterious ways.”
“But—” I start.
“Okay, okay,” He cuts me off. “You want a reason, you want a reason, why you? Of all the seven billion dipshits on earth, why you? Well, honestly, dude… it’s because despite your best efforts to be an asshole all the time, deep down, y
ou’re one of the best people I ever created. You just can’t see it.”
Even with all the stunning things happening to me right now, this particular comment takes the cake. And then I remember that Evan said the same thing to me just hours before when I was with him before I set paradise on fire.
“That’s…” I mumble. “My friend Evan said the same thing earlier.”
“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Who do you think put it in his head to say it? Fuck, bro, I’m starting to wonder if being dead has fucked with your think-box too much.”
He sits there, shaking his head, half smiling at me. There’s so much about what’s happening that I can’t get my brain around that I don’t know where to start. So instead, I just say, “Y’know, you swear a lot more than I thought you would.”
“Whatever, bro,” he says back, “they’re just words. I didn’t invent ’em. You assholes did. They don’t mean anything. Unless. You give them meaning.”
And as I stop to ponder this, he slaps me across the face.
“Yo! Wake up, bitch! There’s decisions to be made.”
Seriously! A dick!
“So, whatcha say, man? You got two choices. Head back to earth, do right by Maddie Clayton, get her to forgive you for all the fucked-up shit you’ve done, remind her why she fell in love with you in the first place before you turned into no-show Johnson, and basically Adam-and-Eve paradise back into being—”
“Wait. Whatayou mean Adam-and-Eve paradise back into—?”
“I’m using it as a verb, bro! Like how Adam and Eve ruined the Garden of Eden with their Original Sin and all that shit? YOU and MADDIE can reverse that through the power of your eternal connection. You can make a heaven-on-earth for yourselves. Or whatever. I dunno. The whole Adam and Eve story is actually bullshit. If they had really been around back then, dinosaurs woulda eaten ’em for fuckin’ lunch, but I’m trying to employ a myth that will make sense to your tiny human brain. Look. Stop complicating the simple. I’m just sayin’… fix what you broke with Maddie, NO MATTER THE COST. Hell, you can fuck like a couple of incarcerated rabbits on conjugal visit day if you want, I don’t care—just make it right. OR be a huge fuckin’ pussy and stay here for eternity helping rebuild this Me-forsaken mess.” He gestures to the rubble around us. “Choice seems pretty clear to me.”
I shake my head. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be real.”
“What’s real, homes? Reality is a construct. It’s only real if it feels real to you. And what you’ve done to Maddie sure as shit feels real to her. So… ball’s in your court.”
I hang my head, ashamed. “I don’t know if I can face her again. After what I did. I… I’m not sure I can…”
I sigh. He takes a breath and lifts my bearded chin with his hand.
“Hey. Look at me.” I meet his eyes, reluctantly. They’re kind. He smiles a tiny smile and says, “Not everything is always about you, bro.”
I take a beat. I breathe in deeply. Then I nod.
“That’s my boy!” He shouts. “Cool. Alright, G, so I’ll go ahead and dump you back in your body, and when you wake up, you’ll be good as new. Oh. Word of advice: Forget all this has happened and REALLY don’t tell people about this. They’ll just lock you up in the fuckin’ nut house and then you’ll just be stuck making baskets and shit all day.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him, “I’m not saying shit about fuck. I don’t need anyone thinking I’m any crazier than they already do.”
“My man.” He slaps me five, winks, and starts walking off. And as he’s heading away into the great expansiveness of forever, I realize I have one last question.
“Hey,” I call after him. He stops. Turns. “...Why do you look like James Franco?”
He gets a small little smile and says, “...Dunno. That’s you, man. People see me how they wanna. Honestly? I’ve got no idea what I look like. No mirrors at my place.”
And then he’s gone.
“Clear!” Evan’s voice shouts. And then it feels as though a bolt of electricity is being shot through my body. Because it is.
“Clear!” he shouts again. Again, another shot of current surges through me and I startle into alertness.
Lights. Flashing, spinning lights. The lights of Vegas. The spinning, pulsing lights of the Strip. And also police cars, and ambulances, and a fire engine decked out like a hearse. I considered earlier tonight when I was at the Halloween charity thing at the firehouse that if they had to go on a call with the engine looking that way it would be disconcerting to whoever it was coming for. Now that it’s come for me, I actually find it pretty funny. So I start laughing.
“Oh, Jesus,” Evan says, “Jesus Christ. He’s back!” he shouts.
“Hey, dude,” I manage to mutter. He leans down close to me so I can hear him over the din and commotion around me. As I look up, I see smoke billowing out into the sky from my swanky penthouse apartment. Oh. That’s right. I set my apartment on fire. Wow. You don’t hear someone say that every day.
“Dude,” Evan whispers. He’s traded his Great Gatsby Halloween tuxedo for his fireman’s gear. I’m glad. If he came to save me while wearing a tuxedo, that’d be weird.
“Dude,” he continues, “are you okay? What the fuck happened up there?”
“What did it look like?” I croak out.
“Bro, it looked like you started a bonfire with all your shit in the middle of the living room and it got out of control, like real fast.”
“Yeah,” I muster up, “that’s about right.”
“Dude—” he begins.
“Maddie,” I interrupt.
“What?”
“Maddie,” I say again.
“Maddie?” he asks. “What’re you—? Maddie… Maddie ... Maddie ... Clayton?”
I nod. I can’t see all that clearly just at present, but I can see enough to note the worried expression that lights his face.
“What about her?” he asks.
“The stripper. The angel. Scarlett,” I say.
“Yeah?” he half-says, half-asks.
I don’t say anything. Just letting him work it out. The realization washes over him like watching the sun rise. It creeps up slowly and then it’s just there, all at once.
“Oh, my fucking shit,” he says. “Did you guys…?”
I nod.
“Oh, my shitting fuck,” comes bumbling out. “I—” he says, “I don’t even—”
Just then, Rod, the South Boston transplant who works in Evan’s station house, comes over. “Jesus, Tyler,” he says, “you’re one strong son of a bitch. Bear was sure we lost you up there, but I said, ‘It’ll take a lot more than a little smoke inhalation to kill Tyler fuckin’ Morgan!’”
Bear, the company officer, approaches next. “Nice, Rod, that’s a solid bedside manner you got there.”
“Fuck did I say?” grouses Rod.
Bear leans into Evan and says something, but I can’t hear what. Evan nods. He looks back down to me. “Okay, brother,” he says. “We’re gonna get you to Sunrise and get you checked in.”
“I’m fine,” I say, as I start to get up. “I gotta find Maddie, she—”
Evan gently pushes me back down. Whispers down to me. “You flat-lined for almost three minutes, T. We need to check you in. Please, brother. Come on. There’s time.”
I look into Evan’s eyes and see something there. Normally his darkened gaze prevents any insight into his emotions, but what I see now is fear. And love.
Fuck, man. Damn.
So I nod, and lie back again. Which is probably for the best because I feel like I’ve been run over by a rhino stampede. Not that I ever have been, but I imagine it feels shitty and surreal. And so does this.
The only thing I know for sure is that Maddie Clayton left my apartment earlier tonight and went off into the streets with a fuck-ton of unfinished business between us. And what I have to do now is correct my mistakes. Be absolved of my sins. By her.
I owe Maddie Clayton. And whatever I have to
do to, whatever price I have to pay, mountain I have to climb, or dragon I have to slay to show her that I am worthy of having this chance to make it right between us, bet your fucking ass that I will do all that it takes and then some.
Swear to fucking James Franco.
Chapter Three - Maddie
Carlos just stares at me with an expression that says, I’m being very patient right now, but don’t push it, bitch. “Maddie—”
“Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—Look, I’ll pay you back. Every fucking cent. I just—I can’t stay here and—”
He looks like he might just choke me right now.
Beg for your life, says the devil.
What? Angel says. That doesn’t sound like you.
Fuck it, says the devil. Alive and embarrassed or dead and dead.
Devil’s a pragmatist.
“Please,” I say. And then I get on my knees and look up at him. Ugh. This fucking sucks. “Please, Carlos. I’m sorry. Please just give me the chance to pay you back and make it right.”
I should see if any of the shows in Vegas need a bitch who can cry on cue because right now, I’m Meryl fucking Streep.
He looks at me dubiously, but clearly it’s working a little, and finally he says, “You’ve got two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” I stand back up. “You know I can’t come up with a hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars in two weeks! That’s not even reasonable!” Oops. Oh, well. It was an honest reaction.
He smiles at me. A nauseating, sick smile that turns my stomach. “Your parents could get that money together.”
How the fuck does he know anything about my parents? Shit.
“I—I can’t. They don’t have any money.”
“Maddie,” he drawls, slowly, “I’m being more gracious than you have any right for me to be. Do not insult me.”
“I can’t,” I say. “I can’t ask my parents to pay off a debt I don’t even—” The look he shoots me stops my sentence there.
I start pacing back and forth in front of the table. My red stripper shoe gets stuck in a crack between the pavers and I have this stupid, embarrassing moment when I almost fall. But then Other Guy catches me with a hard grip on my arm.
