The Ups and Downs of Being Dead (3 page)

As Sam walked Robert toward the exit, he raised a finger. “A
couple of caveats. You can’t go forward or back in time.”

Over her shoulder, Maggie said, “We don’t eat or drink or
sleep.”

“You won’t ever have to leave the ball game at the seventh
inning to take a piss,” Sam confided.

“Once you get the hang of passing through objects,” Maggie
said, “You can go behind locked doors, into buildings that are closed for the day.
You can go back stage at strip joints, inside women’s locker rooms.” She winked
at him!

“Why would I do that?”

Robert gave her his best ‘stern’ look, complete with
twitching eyebrow. Who was this cheeky old bag?

She snorted. “That’s one of the first things most men do
when they leave here. Go ogle naked women.”

“Believe me,” Robert said. “I’ve seen plenty of models in
lingerie and bathing suits. I have no desire to watch desperate women remove
their clothes for cash.”

“That’s right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re the
Audrey’s magnate.”

“We heard you donated an extra two-point-five million to the
center,” Sam said.

“That was supposed to be confidential,” Robert scolded, but
he was a bit flattered that the news had gotten out.

“We’re not part of the general public anymore,” Maggie told
him.

“That’s right,” Sam added with a waggle of his eyebrow. “We
hear private conversations, read confidential memos. And we’re not restricted
by scheduled hours of business, or those locked doors. It’s really quite simple
once you get the hang of it.”

To demonstrate, Sam pushed his arm through the steel door.
“Wooden doors are the easiest,” he said. “Glass is a little tougher, and these
insulated steel doors can be a little tricky the first time.”

Maggie and Sam passed through the door a couple times just
to reassure Robert it was possible, but as he stood in front of the heavy steel
obstacle, fear gripped him. What if he got stuck in the middle? What if he
split into a million tiny parts and floated away?

“Does anyone decide to just wait here?” he asked.

“One of our patients stayed,” Sam said. “Once he learned
how, Albert Jackson slipped into the stainless steel container with his body.
Said he didn’t want to see all the changes in the world. He just wants to come
back and be surprised. Like Christmas morning. He said that way, if the
reanimation process doesn’t work, he’ll never know what he missed. Personally,
I think he’s a moron.”

During his tour of the center, Robert had been shown the
storage area with rows of silver cylinders. The center called the 10-foot tall
storage tanks Dewars.

“He’s just in there waiting?”

“Boring, huh?” Sam said.

“Come on,” Maggie urged. “Suck it up, Robert. Let’s get you
out of here.”

For an old broad that barely stood five feet tall, she was
pushy.

“Start with just a hand,” Sam said. “Press your palm into
the door.”

“Just remember,” Maggie said, “there is no spoon.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you see the Matrix?” she asked.

Robert shook his head.

“Well, I highly recommend it. Put that on your list of things
to do.”

Sam cleared his throat to get Robert’s attention. “Imagine
that there is no door.” His own hand disappeared into the steel.

Shaking off his fear with a resolute jerk of his shoulder,
Robert reached out his hand and whispered, “There is no door.”

His fingers slowly sank into the metal. But a strange
tingling sensation scared him and he jerked his hand back.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Maggie said. “Kind of like when your hand
falls asleep.”

“It’s because you’re passing through the door at the
molecular level,” Sam said. “You can sense your own essence being jostled by
the atoms that make up steel and insulation.”

“We’ve often said that the administrators here at the center
should have set up a little obstacle course with barriers like windows and
brick walls,” Maggie said. “You know, to sort of ease us patients into the
whole navigation process.”

“But they didn’t.” Sam was growing impatient. “So let’s go!”

Planting his feet farther apart, Robert locked his elbows
and charged forward. At the last second, when his face got right to the
surface, he cringed and reared his head back. But his body continued in its
forward motion so his head bent back onto his shoulders in an unnatural
position. He screamed.

His torso and legs reached the other side of the door before
his head caught up. If he were alive, he would have messed his pants. Closing
his eyes, he waited for the drunken wooziness to pass, and the tingle in his
body to fade.

“You did it!” Maggie exclaimed.

“Yeah,” he whispered. He hoped he didn’t faint in front of
this old woman.

Outside the center, a brisk wind sent dead, brittle leaves
scuttering in front of Robert. The night he’d arrived at the hospice, an icy
rain had stung his cheeks, the cold wind whipping at his pant-legs.

But now, Robert didn’t feel anything. In fact, he was quite
comfortable strolling through the industrial park with Maggie and Sam.

“So, are you two related?” he asked.

“No, we just volunteered to man the center for three
months,” Maggie said. “In case someone showed up. Like you.”

“The temps take turns,” Sam said.

“Temps?”

“All of us who are waiting to come back,” Maggie said.
“There are seventy-one temps at the center.”

“Seventy-two now,” Sam said, “Counting you.”

At the end of the street, Maggie turned right and the three
made their way toward a busy intersection. Robert had never been much of a
walker—he’d had a driver for the past twenty years—but he wasn’t the least bit
fatigued.

“We all meet twice a year, in June and December,” Sam said.
“It’s the only way we can stay in touch with each other. You know, since we
can’t use phones or e-mails.”

Maggie strolled along with a wide step, her arms swinging
briskly. She acted more like a twenty year-old, than a decrepit old woman.

“The meetings are a lot of fun,” she said. “We catch up on
what others are doing.”

“Yeah, and we find out what folks have planned for the next
six months,” Sam said. “One of our temps is hanging out with President Sherman,
in the oval office. Another is on the NASCAR circuit, riding in the car with
Donny Childers.”

“I’m not into car racing,” Robert said.

“Me either,” Sam said with a shrug. “I was a bit of a
stuffed shirt when I was alive. I taught microbiology for thirty years. Then
retired and moved to Maine with my wife. Tended a garden, waited for my
grandkids to come and visit. Pretty boring.”

Maggie turned and walked backwards. “I encourage our temps
to try lots of things. How do we know car racing will even be around
seventy-five years from now? Won’t that be something interesting to tell your
new friends in the future?”

“So are you going to the racetrack when your three months is
up?” Robert asked Sam.

“Well, no. Actually, I’m sitting in on a class on
biochemistry at Stanford.”

Robert choked out a cough. “Oh, that’s a lot more
interesting than gardening.”

“Hey, I went on a cruise down the Amazon last year,” Sam
said. “Saw the rainforest, visited Machu Picchu. ”

Directing his attention to Maggie, Robert said, “And I
suppose you’ve got a quilting bee lined up.”

“Oh, Robert,” Maggie said, shaking a finger at him. “You’re
a smart aleck. I can see that we’re going to get along just fine.”

“Better be careful,” Sam warned. “Maggie’s a psychologist.
Has been for…how long has it been, Maggie? Eighty years?”

Throwing back her head, Maggie hooted. “Maybe more. My
mother swore I was analyzing kids in my kindergarten class. My husband, Joe
says I was born a busybody.”

“Is he a temp, too?” Robert asked.

“No, he’s still alive. But he is a cryonics member. He’s all
lined up to be preserved when his time comes.”

“What about you?” Sam asked. “Were you married?”

“Yes I was. For twenty-eight years.” Robert amended that in
his mind. It had been twenty-eight long years.

* * *

It was Spring, 1975. A friend of a friend had managed to get
an extra invitation to Sherry McClintock’s post party for her debut at the New
York fashion show. As it turned out, it was Sherry’s last post party as well.
She’d thrown everything she had into her spring collection, so when the fall
designs came out, her ideas were flat and lacked creativity.

Naturally, Ralph Lauren and Bill Blass were throwing their
own soirees, but Robert could never wrangled an invite from the big boys. At
the time, he was flattered to get into Sherry’s somewhat dismal bash.

Standing off to one side, Robert zeroed in on a voluptuous
blonde working the room. She approached a guy who looked like he had just
stepped off the dance floor in his bell-bottomed trousers and paisley polyester
shirt with lapels halfway to his waist. The way the woman’s hips and shoulders
swayed in a sensuous, fluid motion, she must have thought the man was someone
important. When she spoke to Mr. Disco, her head cocked in a coquettish tilt.

At that moment, Robert concentrated every conscious thought
into willing that woman to come over and thrust her body at him. His friend of
a friend caught him drooling and gave him a nudge.

“She’s gorgeous,” he’d sighed. “Is she a model?”

“Are you kidding?” the friend snorted. “Look at those
breasts. They’re udders. And have you see her ass?”

Yes, in fact, Robert had seen that luscious ass; had already
imagined gripping it with both hands. The woman was a goddess.

His friend shook her head. “She’s a wannabe. With that
figure, she’ll never make the catwalk. My guess is she’s trying to make it onto
some magazine editor’s couch.”

Unfazed by his friend’s comments, Robert took the initiative
and approached the blonde. He felt quite confident in his pin-striped jacket
with the wide lapels, and his Elton John platform shoes.

Sure enough, when the gorgeous blonde saw him, she thrust out
her chest and gave him a coy smile. She didn’t bother with introductions.

“Who are you with?” she asked.

The question threw Robert off, but he hastily explained that
he’d come to the party with an old friend.

“No, silly.” Her eyelids fluttered over emerald-green eyes.
“Are you with a retailer or a magazine?”

Robert could still remember stretching up to appear taller,
jutting his chin out to strike a pose as he informed the foxy lass that he was
the owner of the Audrey’s clothing chain.

She’d never heard of it.

He explained that his stores sold designer fashions at
affordable prices.

“You mean knock-offs?” Her lush, full lips shrank into a
snarl, and the gleam faded from her eyes as she scanned him up and down. “So,
what does that make you? The Knock-off Gnome?”

Gnome? He was a good three inches taller than her. If she
hadn’t been wearing those killer stilettos, he’d have towered over her. And the
way she dismissed him—quickly turning away as though she had inadvertently
spoken to someone on the wait-staff—any other man would have felt like a fool.
But Robert took her rejection as a challenge. What a putz.

* * *

Robert was just finishing a more upbeat version of meeting
Amanda when Sam slowed at a small huddle of people at a bus stop.

“Here we go,” he said. “Let’s practice catching a bus.”

“Why bother?” Robert asked. “Didn’t you say I can just
visualize where I want to go and be there?”

Pinching his lips, Sam nodded. “Sure you can. But you’ve got
a good long time to wait. If we’re lucky, technology will catch up in maybe
seventy-five years. So, what’s the need in rushing from place to place?”

“But taking cabs is a hassle,” Maggie said. “You don’t know
where they’re going until someone flags one down. Buses have routes, and
schedules. So they’re much more reliable.”

Sam stepped in front of a heavy-set woman toting a red
umbrella, her pudgy face pinched with impatience. Turning to Robert, Sam shot
him a wry smile.

“I do cut in line.”

A city bus pulled up, and when the doors opened, Robert, Sam
and Maggie boarded ahead of the woman and made their way to empty seats in the
back.

Robert glanced around the bus. “How can you tell if someone
is dead? I mean, you two look the same as everyone else.”

“That’s pretty simple.” Sam shouted, “Hey, you!”

An old man sitting next to an elderly woman looked up. Both
Maggie and Sam waved, but the old man just scowled and turned forward again.

“How did you know?” Robert asked.

“I didn’t.” Sam shrugged. “But if he wasn’t dead, he
wouldn’t have heard me. Every now and then you catch someone eavesdropping on a
conversation, or they make eye contact when you pass on the street.”

The three of them settled onto one bench, although Robert
noticed that he couldn’t really tell if he was sitting.

“Do the living ever sense that we’re around?”

“Every once in a while you get a tortured soul that puts off
such a foul aura that the living can feel him,” Maggie said. “Maybe even see
him.”

Sam snorted his disbelief, but Maggie was adamant. “I saw a
dead soul in New Orleans who was screaming and whirling around his brother like
that Tasmanian devil in the cartoon. Evidently, the brother had been too drunk
to drive, but he didn’t turn over his keys. He ended up crashing, and the dead
man was pretty sore about it. The brother never knew he was there kicking up a
storm, but a woman walking her little dog passed nearby. The pup backed right
up onto the woman’s foot and piddled on her shoe.”

“That doesn’t prove that other
people
can sense our presence,” Sam argued.

“Okay, watch this.”