Of all the times to be right...
Oz burst through the apartment door to find Bard sitting cross-legged on the floor of the kitchen with a smoldering cigarette protruding from between his lips. He chipped away at a piece of wood—was it part of the floorboard?—with a Swiss army knife.
“Kind of you to show your face, Princess,” he said, not looking up from his project.
“Sorry. I was...”
Bard pushed himself off the ground with an unexpected grace and leaned in close to Oz’s face. He scraped the corner of his mouth with the blade.
“That jiz on your mouth, Princess?”
Oz wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Fuck you.”
Bard smirked and tucked the knife into one of his many jacket pockets. “Went shopping for a pair, eh? Well you’d better hope your excursion didn’t make us late. We’ve got a pick up.”
* * *
Bard gave Oz the silent treatment the entire walk to a Starbucks nestled in the bottom floor of one of the smaller downtown skyscrapers. Oz didn’t mind the punishment. It was a welcome reprieve from the pain centralized at the front of his brain that always accompanied the sound of Bard’s voice.
Bard opened the door, and the pair walked inside without issue.
“What the hell?” Oz eyed the door like it’d betrayed him.
Bard stalked to the back of the shop and sat at a table facing the long line of patrons forming at the cash register. Oz sat opposite him.
“I spent all damn day trying to get into just about everywhere within a mile radius and I couldn’t get past the front door and you just waltz in...”
“Because we have business here,” Bard said.
“And if we don’t?”
“People don’t invite death inside. Not even subconsciously. Would you?” He pointed. “That’s our guy.”
All Oz could see were the backs of several heads. They all looked mostly the same, with variations in hair length.
“Which one?”
“Fourth from the register.”
“How do you know?”
“Just do.”
Their guy was a runner. Like a billboard for Nike, his shoes, shorts, and tank top all sported the checkmark. He eyed the pastry case while the woman in front of him placed her order—a half-caf, skim, vanilla latte with no foam and a shot of coconut.
“These coffee orders...the Magna Carta was less complicated,” Bard said.
“There’s something familiar about this,” Oz said.
Their guy pointed to a display of large cookies.
Oz’s mind cogs clicked into place.
“I wrote this,” he said, sitting a little straighter, not sure whether to feel proud or horrified that a death he’d designed was about to take place.
“He’s a religious gym rat. Never missed a day for years. Totally health conscious. You know, like tofu and shit? Then one day,” today, “he orders a cookie. He figures, what’s the harm, right? But he doesn’t know that they use peanut oil in the batter. He’s allergic.”
Bard squinted. “And apparently a moron. Sign right there says may contain peanuts.”
While their guy waited on the barista to finish concocting his drink, he took the smallest bite of the fatal cookie. He chewed slowly with his eyes closed, clearly enjoying every sugary morsel. Once he’d swallowed the first nibble, he finished it off in two fist-sized bites. He licked the crumbs from his fingers while his cheeks still bulged with masticated cookie.
His face described an instant of satisfaction before he clutched his neck and fell to the ground, writhing. Someone screamed, another shouted to call 9-1-1. Someone else tried to give him the Heimlich, but it was no use. There was nothing lodged in his throat. His lungs just refused to draw breath because the swelling in his throat denied them the opportunity. The scene shrank into a vacuum. Sounds muffled and Oz could only focus on the man’s convulsions, growing less frequent, less violent.
Jesus. It was exactly how he’d imagined it, with one fatal error.
It wasn’t until the guy had gone limp, and the man who’d tried to save his life laid his body on the tile, that Oz recognized him.
Eighth grade. Or was it the summer before? Those months blurred in Oz’s mind. He’d ridden his bike down to the lake, which was more of a retention pond that they called a lake, to hide the Playboys he’d stolen from his dad. It was the perfect plan because his dad would never mention it. His mother detested the things and would lose it if she knew they’d been in her house. Oz had the perfect spot picked out, but when he got there, there was another boy, Mark, sitting atop the log he planned on rolling over the magazines, his own smut in hand. An instant and years-long friendship was forged over the shapeliness of Miss October’s tits.
Now, Oz scrambled to his feet, knocking his chair backward. “He’s dying?”
He knew him, down to the scar above his left eyebrow—a souvenir from senior year—but he refused to believe that this was Mark. It had to be a clone. A Martian body snatch. Anything but his best friend.
“Dead, actually. You’re up, kid,” Bard said.
Oz shook his head. A fog held his thoughts and actions in suspension. “Up?”
He took a shaky step forward.
“Mark?”
A faint glow drifted upward from Mark’s body. The glow bent and molded until it became Mark-shaped. It stood with its back to the crowd, and made eye contact with Oz.
The Mark-shaped glow hesitated for an instant. Then ran. With Bard yelling after him, Oz took off after it.
“Mark! Mark, wait!” Oz called.
Crowds unwittingly parted for the chase—through the parking lot, up the length of the street until it split in two. Oz struggled to keep up. He pumped his arms and willed his legs to move faster, to keep moving, but this body was limited and Mark’s Ba was fast. Fucking old ass overweight tux-body. How did they expect him to do anything with it? Mark’s Ba took the right fork and Oz followed until the industrial area morphed into residential. His legs ached and his lungs burned with each breath. He slowed to a jog, his eyes locked on Mark’s Ba as the distance between them grew longer and longer. Oz jogged another twenty feet before that was no longer a function his legs were willing to commit to and stopped.
Hunched over, hands clutching his knees, Oz sucked in great, lungs-full of air. When he looked up, he could no longer see Mark.
The sun was hidden entirely behind the clouds that promised a forthcoming storm, but Oz was certain he saw shadows creeping over the road in front of him.
* * *
It wasn’t the explosion that had killed Oz. It knocked him unconscious and burned seventy-five percent of his body, but it hadn’t killed him.
Oz’s mother had found him under a smoldering pile of refuse. Bits of aluminum and plastic pierced his face and arms, but he’d been breathing. Barely. The paramedics were able to keep him alive, resuscitating him twice on the way to the hospital where they put him into intensive care.
After the initial surgeries to remove the charred flesh from Oz’s body, Mark had been his first visitor. Jen didn’t come.
Oz was just coming out of the anesthesia when he heard the squeal of Mark’s sneakers. They were unmistakably Mark. He shuffled when he walked. Too tired to open his eyes, too sore to move, Oz had laid in bed, struggling to breath, and listened.
“Hey, buddy,” Mark said.
The squeal of chair legs over linoleum.
“You’re an idiot.”
Oz had tried to smile, but only the corner of his mouth twitched.
“You and me, we been through a lot. Lots of trouble. More than Jen cares to remember, I’m sure. Look, we’re fighters, right? Remember that time when I almost got my ass handed to me by that old ass marine? I don’t know why that’s relevant...” Mark’s voice caught. “Guess what I’m saying is that we aren’t the type to just let something like death sneak up on us. We hear it coming and we run. Run, Oz.”
A nice sentiment, Oz had thought, when the entire lower half of my body was mummified in gauze.
* * *
Oz walked.
He had no idea where he was going, but he had to find Mark and for some reason he trusted his legs to lead him there. Oz wasn’t about to go back to Bard and ask for help. Besides, this was his friend. He deserved better than Bard.
Oz tried to convince himself that he was crazy. That being out of touch with humanity for so long was causing his dusty synapses to draw connections where there were none. But, confusing as everything had been since leaving The Department, he knew he wasn’t. At least not today. It was definitely Mark.
Every house he passed was identical to the last. Same slant to the roof. Same garage door. Same driveway. The kind of neighborhood that the Mark Oz knew would never be caught dead in. He turned a corner into a deed restricted community called Penny Terrace. There were no trees on this block. Only street lights—all of them lit in preparation for sunset. Each home had a second story, a bay window and heavy shutters. The last house on the street had a basketball hoop bolted to the top of the garage and a bike left haphazardly in the middle of the perfectly sculpted front lawn. Mark’s Ba sat next to it, arms wrapped around his knees.
“I can’t get in,” he said as Oz approached him.
“Tell me about it,” Oz said.
“Am I really... did I really just...”
Oz sat down in the grass next to Mark. “Do you know who I am?”
Mark shrugged. He didn’t take his eyes off the bike.
“Last day of senior year, your drunk ass tried to slide a bike like that down the railing of the community pool’s ladder. They’d drained it for the winter. We all thought you were dead when you hit the ground. But then you got up—bloody forehead and all—and said—”
“Don’t be a pussy, Oz.” Mark looked into Oz’s face. “You look different.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re dead.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah.”
They sat together in silence for a long time. In his head, Oz shouted. Argued. Negotiated. Cried. Tried to force himself through every stage of the grieving process as he knew them, and a few extra steps for good measure, while simultaneously coming to terms with the fact that this was, in fact, his friend and not some random idiot who stepped in front of a bus. The advantage of dying before the people you loved was in not having to experience the pain of loss. This wasn’t fair.
“Ok,” Mark said. “Now what?”
“I send you on, I think.”
“On?”
“On.”
“Where the fuck is ‘on’?”
Oz shrugged. “I’m new. Still trying to figure that out.”
“They sent an amateur to usher me to...wherever? Oh, God. What if you send me to Hell by accident? Fuckin’ A, Oz, you couldn’t even get us to the bar some nights. You’re directionally retarded.”
“Harsh.”
“I’m dead, Oz.”
“So am I.”
“I can’t do this.”
“Yes you can. Trust me.”
“What about my son?”
This was not a question Oz was prepared to answer. His son? “I didn’t realize...”
“Jen got pregnant just before you...” Mark smirked. “You would’ve been his godfather if...” And his smirk fell. “You probably would’ve been a better father to him.”
“That’s not true.”
“Could you look after him?”
“Me?”
“You owe me. Besides, you’re the only person other than Jen I trust to look after him. He’s thirteen. Can pretty much take care of himself. He just needs... guidance.”
“Mark, I don’t think I can.” How could he look after a boy who couldn’t see him? Couldn’t acknowledge his existence? What was he supposed to be—this kid’s guardian angel?
“You have to. Please.”
“I’ll try.”
“Promise me.”
Oz closed his eyes for a long time then opened them and said, “I promise.”
Mark looked up at Oz and searched his face. After a moment, he said, “All right, then.”
Oz tried to remember exactly what he was supposed to do. Bard hadn’t really given him any instruction, and the process was simple enough that Oz would undoubtedly botch it without even trying.
He took Mark’s hands in his and wondered for an instant if there was any chance of Mark staying with him; but again, a deeper instinct took over and dissolved any hope of that. Oz offered a weak smile and blew gently into his best friend’s hands. A shimmering gold coin formed from his breath. As Mark’s Ba faded, Oz caught a glimpse of Jamie’s bright blue eyes staring at him from between the blinds of Mark’s front window. They disappeared almost as soon as Oz met them.
Jamie.
Mark’s son.
There was no point in confronting him. Not yet. Didn’t even know if he’d be able to. There’s only so much a guy can take in one day.
* * *
What a fucking nightmare. Mark, the one who’d talked the pair out of so much trouble; who’d saved their asses on more occasions than Oz could remember. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t right. Mark had been the survivor. But now he was dead and he had Oz to blame for it. Son of a bitch. And to think he’d been excited to watch his handy work. What was wrong with him?
At least now Oz knew where he was. He was in his home town. Was that planned or just some sick coincidence?
Oz didn’t remember leaving Mark’s front lawn, or if Jamie watched him go. He didn’t remember wandering back the way he came. It was like his brain was filled with noxious, black smoke—too thick to think through, too heavy to want to try. Awareness finally found him as he passed a food truck, and the sound of crackling animal fat and the strong smell that accompanied it punched through the fog.
There didn’t used to be food trucks. There didn’t used to be anything. Home had been bulldozed, built over, and now looked nothing like where he grew up.
As he sat down at a picnic table in front of the food truck, it started to rain.
He laid back and let it sting his face, keenly aware of every drop. Rain. Another thing to add to his multiplying list of things he hadn’t seen, felt, thought about, in ages. When Oz was a kid, and even into his teenage years, he would stand in the driveway when it rained, just to feel it. He would imagine that each drop clung to a small badness particle that’d clung to his skin, and dragged it with the droplet to the ground, away from him. There wasn’t enough rain in the world for him to feel that way now.
The shower was brief, as Florida showers are wont to be. Soon the heat would take away any proof that it’d rained only moments before. Oz sat up to find Cora looking at him from under a black umbrella.
“You’re soaked,” she said.
“You can tell Bard that it’s done. Mark’s gone.”
“I’m not here for Bard,” she said, closed the umbrella, and sat down next to him.
“Your ass is going to be wet,” Oz said.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Oz smiled, but it faded quickly.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I feel like that’s not going to be the last time I have to watch someone I care about, die.”
“Probably not.”
“Am I being punished? Is this some twisted form of Hell without the fire and brimstone?”
“No. The way I understand it, you stay wherever it is you call ‘home.’”
“So this is home for you, too?”
She nodded. “It’s changed a bit.”
The slightest shadow of sadness veiled her face. Oz wanted to hold her. To be held.
“How old are you, exactly?” he asked.
“You should know better than to ask a woman how old she is, Oz.”
“Ballpark.”
“Older than you.”
“Obviously.”
Cora smacked his shoulder, but she smiled.
“Are you really a lesbian?”
Her eyes swept over the ground and her fingers tangled around each other. Oz had never learned how to talk to women. Probably never would.
“You shouldn’t let Bard get to you like that,” she said.
When Oz didn’t respond, she added, “I’m not really sure.”
“Seems like something you ought to be sure of.”
A poncho-clad couple sat at the table across the Oz and Cora. They shared a peck before silently dismembering the barbequed ribs on their identical Styrofoam plates. The aroma made Oz’s stomach growl.
“The summer I turned sixteen,” Cora began, “I fell in love with a girl. Her name was Elizabeth and she had the most beautiful singing voice I’d ever heard. She used to come to my family’s Inn and sing for the travelers. I’d sit on the stairs and close my eyes and imagine that she was singing her love songs just for me. She had a husband, so I knew I didn’t stand a chance. But while she sang, I imagined she was mine.
“One day Elizabeth came by while my parents were in town and I was tearing my fingers to shreds trying to get the previous day’s gunk out of a stew pot. She confided in me that her husband had been nasty to her and that she needed to get away. She sang for me while I worked.
“For several weeks it became a routine for us—Elizabeth visited more and more frequently to keep me company and to escape the terror of her husband. At the end of the summer, I confessed my feelings to her. I expected to be scolded or slapped. I expected her to run from the Inn and that I’d never see her again, but when you keep feelings that strong tucked away, after a while, they start to kill you. Instead, she kissed me. It was the most exquisite thing I’d ever experienced.
“We carried on an affair for a while. Long enough to decide to run away together. Her husband found out, though, and put a stop to it. I was devastated. She didn’t even try to see me. I felt that, without her, my life was meaningless and I—”
Cora paused to rub her sleeve across her nose.
“I met Bard shortly after that. He was my reaper.”
“I’m sorry,” Oz said.
“I hardly remember the pain.”
Oz grimaced.
“So if you determine sexual orientation based on who I’ve been involved with, then sure, I suppose you could say I’m a lesbian by default.”
“I’m sorry,” Oz said, again. It hurt to try to think of anything else to say.
Cora patted his knee. “Me too.”
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“I know. But I don’t think you have a choice.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“It’ll be okay. Promise.”
Oz wanted to believe her. She was kind and beautiful, so he should. But he felt like nothing would ever be okay again.