The Ups and Downs of Being Dead (17 page)

Robert sniggered.

“You may not believe this,” Maggie said, “but I have a
normal, healthy appetite. And I’m looking forward to being young again, with
lots of estrogen and flexibility.”

“Geez, Maggie,” Robert hissed, and glanced nervously around
the first-class cabin as if someone might have overheard.

“You told Sam that your wife was…how did you put it?…lacking
the va-va-voom? And what did you do during your twenty-eight years of marriage
to fix that?”

Damn it! Every time he talked to Maggie, she turned whatever
he said into something he’d done wrong.

“What is a man supposed to do when his wife makes it
abundantly clear she does not want to be touched?”

“See a counselor, read books that can be discussed, ask her
what she wants?”

“She wanted to be left alone!”

Robert turned to glare out the airplane’s window at the
darkness below. End of discussion. But as he gazed at small towns that twinkled
below, he couldn’t help wondering what magic Martin had worked to get Amanda to
warm up.

Maggie interrupted Robert’s thoughts by leaning across him to
peer out the window.

“Could be tricky getting a ride to Marshallton this late at
night. Our best bet will be a truck stop. Those guys drive all night.”

“We’re going to catch a ride with a trucker,” Robert
muttered.

“Oh, just wait, Robert. Those guys are the most fun.”

Maggie literally wriggled with excitement.

“You should see the compartments in their cabs. They don’t
just have beds, they’ve got refrigerators and TVs. All the comforts of home.”

“I’ll bet.”

The sun was just coming up when they climbed out of the rig
at a truck stop on the outskirts of town.

Maggie pretended to stretch, like it had been a long haul.
Robert was just grateful he couldn’t smell. The truck driver they’d been riding
with looked like he’d worn the same flannel shirt for the past two years. The
‘comforts of home’ in the back of his cab included tipped over beer cans,
half-eaten burgers and sticky porn magazines.

“Come on,” Maggie said as she headed for the restaurant at
the truck stop. “Sometimes they have local maps on the wall for the drivers.
Let’s see where Jasmine Lane is.”

The street was the main drag of a trailer park. Robert
squinted up at the street sign. It read Jessamine Lane.

“Do you suppose they know they spelled it wrong?”

Maggie found the address and poked her head through the
trailer door.

“Stan?” she called.

But when Robert passed into the trailer, he found a retired
couple sitting at a tiny table sipping coffee.

“It appears brother dearest has also sold Stan’s palatial
estate,” he said.

Maggie nodded. “I figured as much, but you never know.”

Back outside, she hesitated as she watched an older model
sedan drive away.

“Oh, poo, I’ll bet that’s Stan’s brother Jim. He supposedly
lived right next door to Stan. What day is this?”

Counting back, Robert decided it was Sunday.

“Bet they’re going to church,” Maggie said. “Let’s go see.”

The next thing he knew, Maggie was standing on top of the
car as it headed down the road.

As he hurried to catch up, Robert wondered if Maggie’s
husband ever got tired of her bossiness. Maybe she thought they were going to
hook up in the afterlife, but old Joe had other plans. After all, he would be
revived first. He might find someone even more compatible than sweet old
Maggie.

When the car pulled into the parking lot of a crappy little
cinderblock church a couple miles later, he amended his pondering to include
her always being right.

The couple climbing out of the car must have been in their
eighties. The man wore suspenders that bowed out to make room for his enormous
belly. He wore a ball cap that read: Husqvarna. A farmer who must have worked
his whole life to afford his luxurious retirement home. The wife wore a
lime-green polyester shift with several snags in the knit, and a dingy
cream-colored cardigan with front plackets that drooped from constant tugging
to conceal her own stomach. She used a cane to support her weight, but still
leaned on her husband’s arm with her free hand.

A cheap organ quietly played as the couple hobbled to the
first available pew and took their seats.

Up at the altar, a handful of country folk in choir robes
shuffled to a row of chairs, and a minister slipped silently to the pulpit.
When the organist banged out the last few chords of the song, the minister
leaned into the microphone and said: “This is the day the Lord hath made. Let
us rejoice.”

“Rejoice!?” a man yelled. “For what? A bunch of goddamn
liars and cheats?”

From the back of the church, Robert scanned the crowd,
looking for an embarrassed wife or mother attempting to hush the blasphemer,
but no one reacted to the man’s outburst.

Robert wasn’t even sure where he was, but then a man rose up
from behind the preacher like some alien predator in a movie. His face was
contorted in a snarl, his teeth bared. When he was directly over the preacher’s
head, he called out, “Mornin’, Reverend Daniels.”

“Oh, boy,” Maggie muttered. “Here we go.”

The man danced a little two-step shuffle on the clergyman’s
head without ruffling the first hair.

Oblivious, the preacher called the congregation to prayer.
He started with the usual praise to God’s glory.

“Who are you to tell us what God wants, you two-bit fake,”
the man yelled. “You’re not even a real preacher!”

Drawing his knees up high, the angry man tried to stomp on
the preacher’s head.

“Forgive us our sins,” the preacher continued.

“Our sins!? Yeah, let’s talk about sins. Let’s talk about my
good-for-nothin’ brother and his greedy wife, taking my money, selling my
home.”

The man flew down the aisle to where the man with the
bulging belly sat with his wife. He punched wildly at his brother’s flaccid
jowls, but nothing happened.

“Looks like we found Stan,” Maggie whispered.

He carried on with his one-two punches even after the
congregation stood to sing a song.

Robert whispered back, “He can’t even make his cheek
twitch.”

“He’s not concentrating,” Maggie said. “I think he’s too
angry to focus. Oh, good God! He just tried to spit on his brother.”

Frustrated with the lack of results, Stan swirled up to the
ceiling and hovered.

“Where’s that idiot doctor?”

Like Casper the friendly ghost, Stan flew up and down the
aisles, checking faces.

“Here you are, you sniveling coward.”

Stan attempted to stomp the hymnal out of a man’s hands, but
it was another failure.

Clicking her tongue, Maggie moved past other parishioners
lined up in the back for a quick getaway, and started up the aisle toward Stan.

By the time she got to the aisle where Stan was using the
doctor’s hymnal as a trampoline, the song ended.

“Hello, Stan,” she said.

His head jerked in her direction. His bottom jaw hung slack.

“You look like you’re very angry at these people,” she said.
She didn’t cross her arms, or perch her hands on her hips. She simply made an
observation. “Would you like to talk about it?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Maggie Nelson. I’m a member of the Cryonics Center in
St. Louis.”

“How can you see me?”

“Well, I’m a dead member. My body was cryopreserved a couple
years ago.”

That got ole’ Stan fired up again.

“Do you know what my goddamn brother and his wife did?” He
shot an accusing finger in the brother’s direction. “They had me cremated!”

“We heard,” Maggie said. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“Sorry! What good is that going to do me?”

Her shoulders inched up as she tilted her head. “About as
much good as trying to kick the preacher, or belt your brother.”

For a moment, Stan considered giving up, but then he
screamed out a war-cry and flew at his brother full-steam. Not only did he pass
through his brother, but he went through the next two pews behind the man.
Still not the first flinch.

That final effort seemed to take the wind out of his sails.
As he shuffled back toward Maggie, he nibbled at the corner of his lip like he
was trying to keep it from trembling.

“Why didn’t Abner just do what I asked?” Stan said.

Maggie sighed. “Money is a powerful thing. Some people can’t
resist its force.”

The minister read a scripture from the Bible. After snarling
in his direction, Stan said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Out on the front steps, Stan did a double-take when he saw
Robert.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Robert Malone.”

“Great,” Stan moaned. “And I suppose you’re a member, too.”

Robert pinched his lips in sympathy.

“Well, you both are goddamn lucky your family did what you
asked them to do.”

Maggie eased down onto the step.

“I don’t understand what when wrong,” she said. “Didn’t the
center talk to you about a Living Will?”

“I had that!” Stan screeched. “I had the Durable Power of
Attorney for Health Care. I had the Relative’s Affidavits.”

His fingers scratched at his scalp.

“I even made that stupid video so if my sister-in-law tried
to prove I wasn’t of sound mind, Abner could play that back.”

“So why didn’t your attorney stop them?” Maggie asked.

“He was in Michigan. That’s where I’m from originally. By
the time he heard about my death, I’d been cremated.”

“Oh, my!”

“Yeah. The second the doctor pronounced me dead, my brother
had a meat wagon ready to haul me to the incinerator.”

“Didn’t your doctor know about your plan?”

For the first time, Stan appeared a bit chagrined.

“I told him,” he said, but then his voice dropped. “But I
never gave him a copy of the will.”

“But when you died,” Robert asked, “didn’t he at least
mention the will to your brother, Abner?”

“He made a half-assed attempt. But my sister-in-law just
said ‘what will?’ And of course, he was way outnumbered. The preacher was
there, insisting my brother was doing the right thing. Talking about how it was
an abomination to want to come back.”

Maggie raised a finger. “Hang on, now. What about your wife?
Your kids?”

Stan turned his head to gaze out at the small cemetery next
to the church.

“Elizabeth died four years ago. We moved down here where it
was warmer ‘cause of her health.” Again, he clamped the corner of his lip to
keep it from trembling. “We never could have kids.”

“Was your wife a member of the center?” Maggie asked.

“Nah.” He turned back toward her. “The day I saw an article
in that scientific magazine, I decided to join. We were at the doctor’s
office—again. I showed her the story, asked her to join with me. Said we could
come back and try to have a family in the future, when she was healthy. But she
wasn’t interested. Didn’t think God would approve.”

“So you had no one championing your cause?” Maggie said.
“Does your brother have children?”

“Oh, sure. Three greedy little bastards.” Stan raised his fists
in the air like he wanted to punch something, anything. “Do you have any idea
how much my wife and I spent on Christmas presents, birthday presents for those
kids? She even tucked twenty-dollar bills in greeting cards for every holiday
that came along. But did any of them speak up? Hell, no! They all hung around
my brothers’ house, wringing their hands until they’d gotten word that my ashes
were ready to be picked up.”

His voice cracked.

“They bought the cheapest urn the guy had.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” Maggie said.

“Do you have kids?” Stan asked her.

“Two sons.”

“I know men don’t usually feel this way,” he said, “but my
whole life, I wanted to have children. I didn’t care if it was sons or
daughters. I just wanted to have someone I could show how to catch a ball or
tie a shoe. I’d have sat with them when they did their homework. Or gone to
watch them play baseball or sing in a choir.”

Maggie nodded like she understood completely. Robert hoped
neither of them realized how little he identified with Stan. He’d certainly
never had that burning desire to deal with all the crying and misbehavior that
came with kids. If Stan only knew how few rewards parents got for all the
effort, he wouldn’t be so glum.

“And you thought when they revived you in the future,” Maggie
said, “they’d have a way to fix your problem.”

“Exactly!”

Her head wobbled as she looked at Stan. She turned and
studied the church for a moment, her head still gyrating like it was loose.
Then, after taking a quick glance at the cemetery, she seemed to come to some
kind of conclusion.

“So, when church is over, what do you do? Go back to their
house and try to knock over coffee cups, get the windows to rattle at night?”

Stan was pretty shocked that she had him pegged so well. The
corners of his mouth turned down.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Sometimes I go to the elementary
school, see if Abner’s grandkids miss me.”

He made an embarrassing snort. “I think I scared their dog
once. He piddled on the floor and got a beating. I felt bad about that.”

“And are you satisfied with all this?” Maggie gestured with
her palms turned up.

Stan shook his head. “No.”

“I can’t guarantee there’s someplace else out there where
you can go,” she told Stan. “Heaven or Nirvana or whatever.”

She looked at the church again, then at all the cars in the
gravel parking lot. Robert got the feeling she was dragging things out, giving
Stan time to think it through.

“It just seems like you’re not too happy in this particular
astral plane.” She grinned, but Stan didn’t find the new age comment funny. Or
he didn’t get it.