Oz couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, let alone to where Bard had led him. If not for the echo of his movements, Oz would’ve guessed they’d landed in a slaughterhouse. The air was thick with muggy heat and the distinct stench of shit. Lights appeared overhead and, after his eyes adjusted to the sharpness of it, Oz looked around. They stood in a public bathroom the size of a large prison cell, walled with yellowing tiles that harbored mold along the grout lines.
“A bathroom?” Oz asked.
“Gotta be someplace a person isn’t likely to wander in to. The living don’t like surprises.”
Bard’s voice came from one of the stalls.
A flush. Then the stall door opened.
“And I wanted to piss.”
Oz couldn’t remember the last time he pissed. Few things could compare to the ecstasy of relieving a full bladder.
Bard backed into the door to open it while plugging a cigarette between his lips.
“Think you can learn without asking too many questions?”
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently, no. Look, questions are a waste of time. There is no such thing as a satisfying answer, so there’s no point in asking in the first place. Do me a favor and pay real close attention, okay? I don’t have time to repeat myself.”
“I kind of thought that’s all we had.”
“You don’t know shit. We’ve got a bit of time before the first pick up, so I’m going to show you where you’ll be staying. So pay attention, because it’s not my fault, nor my concern, if you get lost later.”
“I don’t understand. What does pick-up mean, exactly?”
“I sure as hell hope my ears are just failing me. That sounded like a question.”
I was right. I’m in Hell.
Oz followed Bard out of the bathroom and into a dilapidated park. The dry grass crunched under their feet. The trees were suffocated by moss. But it didn’t matter. They were trees and grass; two of the many things Oz hadn’t seen in—fuck knows. Too long. He walked ahead of Bard, drawn like a drunk moth toward the sunlight peeking through a break in the foliage at the edge of the park. He stepped onto the sidewalk. The sunlight smacked him, hard, across his face and neck. Oz opened his mouth as though he could lick the delicious rays warming his skin.
Skin.
In The Department, he’d accepted that what he saw when he looked down at himself was the illusion of a body. His mind hadn’t been capable of perceiving anything else. He’d been a spirit, an amorphous thing; but this—he bent down and whacked his hand against the concrete, it stung—was definitely not the same thing.
“Call it a loaner,” Bard said. “Don’t bang it up.”
“Can we get something to eat?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Are we able to eat?”
“As in physically capable? Sure.”
“I’m hungry.”
“No, you’re not. You want to be. The routines of life will all come back to you, but you’d be smart to ignore them or they’ll run your existence. You don’t need anything.”
It was true, he wasn’t really hungry. But Oz wanted to taste again. His mouth watered at the thought of that first gooey, cheesy, tongue-scalding bite of the Juicy Lucy burger from his favorite bar.
“But can’t we just—”
“No food. Work.”
“That’s it?”
“Was that another question? This way.”
The park was in a sort of city between cities—a place forgotten by everyone except those who lived there. Each building was a different shade of blue-gray, some stone, others steel, with clouded windows. Pot holes deep enough to bust a tire or break an ankle in dotted the main street that, as far as Oz could see, ran straight into downtown a walkable distance away. It was fucking depressing. Was the world always like this?
Looking everywhere except in front of him, Oz was almost hit twice by oncoming motorists—one SUV and a school bus filled with middle schoolers—during the short walk to a small apartment building. He didn’t recognize it, or anything around it, and Bard wasn’t sharing any details.
“Knowing where you are won’t help you get to where you need to be,” he’d said.
Oz didn’t care. Not really. He was somewhere, and that was infinitely better than nowhere, which was the only place he could remember being.
They approached the cracked stoop of an apartment building. Paint speckled the steps in the varying shades of gray and white that coated the building over the years. Bard shoved through the door without a key or much physical effort and led Oz to the third floor.
His new digs might be called a studio apartment, if the place wasn’t such a shithole. A bed and a desk fought for space in the far corner, leaving barely enough room to walk past them to the closet in which someone had stuck a toilet and a shower.
Bard leaned against the door frame and lit a cigarette. “There won’t be a lot of down time in between pick-ups, but we work the day shift mostly, so you’ll come back here to sleep.”
“Sleep?” Oz had forgotten what that was like, too.
“You’ve got a body now. It doesn’t need food, but it does need to rest occasionally. You kill it, I can’t guarantee they’ll give you another one. Which reminds me, look before stepping into traffic from now on. I didn’t agree to scrape your face off the pavement because you’re a dumbass.”
Bard said something else, but Oz didn’t stick around to hear it. He ran from the doorway to the bathroom and locked himself inside. There was a small, cracked mirror hanging above the sink, but hugging the door like he was, Oz could only see the reflection of his shoulder in the foggy glass.
Could he really think of it that way? His shoulder? His t-shirt hung over it without bunching or looking like it was still on the hanger. It was a nice shoulder, no doubt, but it definitely wasn’t his shoulder. There was a lot he couldn’t remember about his life, but one always recognizes their own body parts.
Oz closed his eyes and reached for the sink. He groped along the porcelain until he stood directly in front of the mirror. One, two, three quick breaths. Holding the third, Oz opened his eyes.
He’d died relatively young. This guy he occupied was old, mid-forties, easily. Lines etched his cheeks and forehead, surrounding deep set, warm brown eyes. In his old life, Oz’s eyes were blue. The hair on his new head was one of those weird shades of brown with a name like umber or burnt something-or-another. He rubbed the course patches of scruff on his chin and cheeks. He couldn’t rock a beard in his old body. This guy, though...
Bard kicked the door.
“C’mon, Princess, we gotta get moving.”
Oz took one last, long look at the stranger in the mirror, not quite sure what to make of him. He opened the door. “Who am I?”
“Please save all existential questions for someone who gives a fuck,” Bard said.
“No. I mean,” Oz made an open-handed wipe motion over his torso, “this. Who is this?”
“It’s nobody.”
“It’s somebody.”
Bard shrugged.
“It’s... weird,” Oz said.
“I didn’t see you complaining when you were prancing in the park.”
“I’m not complaining I just want to know—”
“Look...” Bard snubbed his cigarette on a windowsill. “Not everybody is a person. They’re would-be people. This guy that you’re wearing isn’t anybody. A rented tux. So, if you’re done bitching, we’ve got a job to do.”
“So is that what you are, then?”
“Am I what?”
“A... tux?”
Bard crossed his arms. “I’m someone who is here against his will, Princess. If I could get out of dealing with you, I would. My job is to teach you how to do the work without fucking up. That’s it.”
“Then why are you here? Why didn’t you just say no? There’s more of you, right?”
“Because there are worse things than death.”