Damned

The computer says, "Will you accept the charges?"

And I say, Yes.

Over the phone, Emily says, "I only called because this constitutes a way-terrible emergency." She says, "My parents want me to see a new shrink. Do you think I should go?"

Shaking my head, I tell her, "No way."

Babette's hand grips the back of my neck, her white-painted fingernails digging in until I hold still.

“And don't let them feed you full of Xanax, either," I say into the phone. From my personal experience, nothing feels as awful as pouring your heart out to some talk therapist, then realizing this so-called professional is actually vastly stupid and you've just professed your most secret secrets to some goon who's wearing one brown sock and one blue sock. Or you see an Earth First! bumper sticker on the rear of his diesel Hummer H3T in the parking lot. Or you catch him picking his nose. Your precious confidant you expected would sort out your entire twisted psyche, who now harbors all your darkest confessions, he's just some jerk with a master's degree. To change the subject, I ask Emily how it was that she contracted AIDS.

"How else?" Emily says. "From my last therapist, of course."

I ask, Was he cute?

Emily shrugs audibly, saying, "Cute enough, for a sliding-scale therapist."

Toying with a strand of my hair, looping it around my finger, then pulling it to where my teeth can nibble the tips, I ask Emily what it's like to have AIDS.

Even over the phone, her eye roll is audible. "It's like being Canadian," she says. "You get used to it."

Trying to sound impressed, I say, "Wow." I say, "I guess people can get used to pretty much anything."

Just to make conversation, I ask if Emily has gotten her first period yet.

"Sure," Emily says, "but when your viral loads are this sky-high, menstruation is less like a big celebration of attaining womanhood, and more like a way-biologically hazardous toxic spill in your pants."

Without realizing it, I must still be biting my hair, because Babette slaps my hand away. She waves the little scissors in my face and gives me a stern look.

Over the phone, Emily says, "I figure that once I'm dead I can start dating." She says, "Is Corey Haim seeing anybody?"

I don't answer, not right away, not that instant, because a herd of new Hell inductees is crowding past my workstation. A regular flood of people has just arrived, still not entirely certain they're dead. Most of them wear leis made of silk flowers looped around their necks. The ones not wearing sunglasses have a stunned, worried look in their eyes. A mob that could easily be the entire population of some country, it's usually proof that something terrible has just befallen folks on earth.

Over the phone, I ask Emily if something awful just occurred. A major earthquake? A tidal wave? A nuclear bomb? Did a dam burst? Of the milling, stunned newcomers, most appear to be wearing vivid Hawaiian-print shirts, with cameras slung on cords hanging around their necks. These people all boast roasted-red sunburns, some with white stripes of zinc oxide smeared across the bridge of their nose.

In response, Emily says, "Some big cruise-ship disaster, like, a jillion tourists died of food poisoning from eating bad lobsters." She says, "Why do you ask?"

I say, "No reason."

Deep in this crowd, a familiar face floats. A boy's face, his eyes glowering beneath the overhang of a heavy brow. His hair, too thick to comb flat.

In my ear, Emily asks, "How did you die?"

"Marijuana," I tell her. Still watching the boy's face in the middle distance, I say, "I'm not altogether certain." I say, "I was so way stoned."

Around me, Archer flirts with dying cheerleaders. Leonard checkmates some alive dweeb. Patterson asks somebody on earth how the Raiders are ranked this season.

Emily says, "Nobody dies from marijuana." Pressing the subject, she says, "What's the last detail you remember about your life?"

I say, I don't know.

Beyond this new flood of the damned, the boy's face turns. His eyes meet mine. He of the moody, wrinkled forehead. He of the snarling Heathcliff lips.

Emily says, "But what killed you?"

I say, I don't know.

The boy in the distance, he turns and begins to walk away, dodging and weaving to escape through the crowd of poisoned tourists.

By reflex, I stand, my headset still tethering me to my workstation. And with a sharp shove against my shoulder, Babette sits me back down in my chair and continues to snip at my hair.

"But what do you remember?" Emily asks.

Goran, I tell her. I remember watching the television, lying on the carpet on my stomach, propped on my elbows, next to Goran. Arrayed on the carpet around us, I recall half-eaten room-service trays containing onion rings, cheeseburgers. My mom appeared on the television screen. She'd pinned the pink breast cancer ribbon to her gown, and—as the applause died down—she said, "Tonight is a very special night, in more ways than one. For it was on this night, eight years ago, that my precious daughter was born... ."