The Waking Moon

Chapter Thirty Nine

“Are you alone?” I asked, taking a seat beside him.

He grunted, and shook his head. “Almost never.”

A few skate rats in baggy trousers rumbled along the concrete dance floor below, bending their knees and then leaping into the air, sending their skateboards clattering noisily to the ground.

“You’re the only person that can help me.”

He pulled on his pipe, letting the sweet-scented smoke drift lazily through his lips. “Look at them,” he said, nodding at the skateboarders. “I’ve been sitting here half an hour. They’ll do that over and over again. The same idiotic trick. Over and over and over and over. It’s barely a trick! And they haven’t pulled it off one time.”

“Sampson…”

He sighed and rubbed his beard. It sounded like steel wool. “It’s about our friend Jack, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I gazed intently at him, unashamed of my desperation. “He’s been badly hurt. Beyond repair.”

He squinted silently into the distance, his lips twitching as if he wanted to say something, but had lived long enough to know that there was no point.

“There has to be a way to get him back,” I said.

“Back?”

“To the Afterlife.”

Sampson chuckled without humor. “Oh, my dear little girl. It’s not like getting a bus ticket. That road is closed to him.”

Grief swelled inside me. “His parents are dead, Sampson. All he wants is to be with them. And now he’ll be stuck here forever. As a ghost! He’ll never see them again!” I let the tears flood my eyes. Sobs shook my body.

Sampson didn’t move. His eyes were fixed on a scrawny kid who tried to pop his board onto the lowest step, then went tumbling to the ground. Across the street, Penrose High School loomed, its dreary brick facade going grimy with age. I looked for the bench where I’d sat on that first day of school, which now felt like a hundred years ago. A homeless guy lay stretched across it, his head resting on a plastic bag stuffed with what looked like dirty clothes.

“Thanks for nothing,” I said bitterly, getting to my feet. “He’ll be just another friend for you, won’t he.” I turned my back to him and made my way down the stairs.

“Miss Paulette!” I turned around. Sampson waved me back like a stern schoolteacher. “Sit.”

With a flutter of hope, I noticed that his eyes twinkled, as if he’d had an epiphany. The second I sat down, he leaned in close, his liquor breath hot against my skin. He rubbed his beard again.

“Another soul!” he whispered hoarsely. “What if he tagged along with a fresh soul?”

I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“They say that a newly deceased soul is immediately pulled into the…the…the…oh, blast it!” He waved his hand around. “Who cares what it is! I think this would work!”

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said. “He would tag along with…who?”

“If Jack’s repbod is destroyed the moment a living person ceases to…live…”

My whole body went cold. “You mean, if someone were to, say, kill themselves…”

“Well, it would have to be so!” he exclaimed. “What kind of fool would kill someone else and then tag along with them into the Afterlife! It would be fraught with problems! The newly departed must care enough to guide him, or it’ll never work.”

I sat very still, watching the skateboarders move in endless circles below. Suicide. He was suggesting I commit suicide. A large crow flew down from a skeletal tree beside the bandstand, and perched on the edge of a garbage can.  It dipped its head inside and came out with a half eaten pizza crust. Then it tilted its head and appeared to look straight at me, as if to say, That’s the only possible end to this story.

“So,” I said quietly, suddenly short of breath. “How do you destroy the repbod? Let it sit in the sun?”

“Well, it would have to be quick! As quickly destroyed as the human life. They’re strong, but certainly not indestructible.”

I stifled a shudder. Sampson sat thinking for a long time, puffing on his pipe, sniffing and wiping his nose on his sleeve. I sat patiently beside him, trying to wrap my mind around what I was being asked to do. Finally, he cleared the rattle from his throat.

“Okay,” he said soberly. “I’ve got it.” He began to lay out his plan. It was as detailed as it was horrifying, yet as he spoke, his voice grew increasingly flat and dispassionate. He was absolutely convinced it would work. 

When I left the park, I found myself wandering aimlessly, walking heavily trafficked, smoggy streets in a daze. Cars sped past with single-minded indifference. Dirty mounds of snow had hardened on the lawns of ugly rentals. The world was bleak and depressing.

When I finally got back to the cafe, Rhodes was sitting in the back room. He hadn’t seen me come in, and for a moment I stood at a distance watching him. His blond curls were matted and wild, falling across his forehead and eyes as he thumbed through a film magazine. He looked handsome and intense. I sighed. He would take it hard.

“Who were you sitting with?” I asked, nodding at the second empty coffee cup on the table.

He just shook his head and shrugged. “I’ll sleep on your couch tonight,” he said. “In case you need me to help with Jack.”

We drove home in silence. He pulled down the alley behind my house and turned off the ignition. I lingered in the passenger seat, wishing I could tell him what I was going to do. I took in the now familiar pale blue of his eyes, struggling to steel my heart. It was hard to believe that after tonight, I’d never see him again.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

My throat tightened. I nodded quickly and tried to smile. Then, before I knew what I was doing, I leaned across the seat and pressed my lips to his. His body startled at first. But then he closed his eyes and remained very still, as if afraid of scaring me away. He let out a long sigh.

When we went inside, the house was in shadows. Rhodes was very tired, and immediately settled down to sleep on the living room couch. The bedroom had warmed up and Jack was fast asleep. I hung up my coat and stood in the dark hall. It felt strange to be in my house again. I walked through the empty rooms, opening mom and dad’s closets, smelling their clothes, running my hands over the fabric and thinking of their faces. Then I went into Judy’s room. I turned on the light and spent a long time looking at every little artifact laid out on her dresser, on the bookshelves, pinned up to the walls, lost in a cascade of memories. It was the only home I’d ever known, and all around me were the lingering vestiges of a beautiful, happy family.

It was a still night. The neighbor’s light shone through the bare branches of the maple tree outside my bedroom window, casting a web of patterns on my wall. Jack slept soundly, his breaths ragged and loud. I stood looking around my room, taking in the posters and photographs on the walls, the guitar, the closet of clothes. All of the things that, at that moment in time, reflected who I was. And, I realized, it was all I would ever be.

I left the computer off. It was too impersonal. Instead I went to my desk and rummaged through the mess of books and papers until I’d found a few thick notebooks, still unused, and stapled them together. Inside the drawer I found several of my favorite black ink pens, and lined them up on the desk. I found a large envelope, addressed it to Sampson at the Albion Hotel, and pressed on probably far more stamps than were necessary. On a post-it note, I scrawled a message for Sampson, asking him to please leave the notebook on a shelf in the public library. I was very specific about where. Then I opened to the first blank page and began to write.

“To whomever finds this notebook:

My name is Paulette Marie Jordan, and soon I’ll be dead…”