Live From the Afterlife

1.

Total personal noncooperation

Champaign, Illinois, Winter 1991

Axl inhales the icy junkyard air as he watches the sun rise. The morning light bathes a mountain of snow-covered tires in a sad sort of dignity, tender and strange.

He's leaning against my car, which he painted black and fitted with bogus license plates to throw off the soldiers who've been hunting him since before I died. It's a fresh look for the ancient beast, a 1979 Chevy Malibu Classic that groans when you rev her up, like the tired old lady she is. But Axl has a sentimental attachment to her, and her huge seats give him plenty of room to toss and turn in his sleep.

Axl squints at the new day before him.

His pounding headache makes the junkyard seem to throb.

Before he can stop himself, he's imagining me leaning beside him, bundled in my Navy jacket and a cherry-red scarf that matches my lipstick.

I give him a flirty smile, lower my eyelashes.

He rubs his thumb along my cheek.

Leans in.

I kiss him. First on his massive jaw, and then his lips, tender and muscular. Our bodies sing. His body actual, mine intangible, the crackling of energy that used to be my life. We're together, the way we always wanted to be-

Until the shot fires.

The explosion shatters Axl's eardrums.

He's back at the Round Barn Restaurant, covered in my blood.

For the thousandth time since I died, Axl's heart grabs him by the throat.

Why didn't you save her?

The freezing wind blows straight through his Dead Kennedys T-shirt, stinging his chest. He lifts the whiskey bottle to his lips, takes a long, luxurious swig.

In the past three months, Axl has lost thirty pounds. His skin is the color of a dead fish. His swollen eyes are ringed with black. His T-shirt hangs limply over his skeleton beneath his open puffer coat; a belt cinches his black cargo pants above his bony hips.

There's still some muscle in his wild tawny hair, though, which sticks out every direction like it's angling for a fight with the gods. His Greek-statue bone structure is even more pronounced, and his thick neck with the strong tendons I always had to resist the urge to bite. Bite in a sexy way, not like a scorpion. Like a prelude to a passionate make-out session, the kind we were too afraid to have in real life but have all the time for now that I'm dead.

Unfortunately, I'm about to cancel our interdimensional sexual fantasies.

Not because they're, you know.

Troubling.

Only because he's starting to smell. Like the dive bars where my father worked when I was a kid. The holes in the wall I despised, filled with smoke and adults who acted suspiciously giddy and lighthearted, as if they'd damaged their lives so thoroughly that they had nothing important left to screw up.

Axl takes another swig of whiskey. It burns his throat and dulls the edges of his pain.

Now, he's in his childhood bedroom in Rolling Acres. He crouches, presses his ear to its thin door.

His father is stomping, shouting, tearing through the house like a natural disaster. Everything shakes-the doors, the windows, the floors.

Glass shatters.

Axl's stomach clenches.

He's young in this memory. Twelve, I think.

"You're lucky I don't shoot you!" shouts Axl's father.

"Walter, you're drunk!" his mother cries.

More breaking glass.

Axl trembles with panic as he slips inside the closet where his old mutt, Goob, is already cowering. He closes the door and wraps his arms around the big dog's neck, nuzzles his face into her matted fur.

In most of these memories, they find each other, Axl and Goob.

His childhood dog was his original true love.

But she can't stop Axl's thoughts from racing. He needs to burst out of this closet and save his mother. He needs to stop his house from falling down. The problem is, his father is so much bigger than him. So much stronger, and he'll beat anyone who questions him. Even Axl, a seventh-grade boy-even Frank, a senior in high school.

Until I died, I knew none of this. Walter Fischer was gone by the time we were in high school. Max and I heard jack squat about him. We joked that Frank and Axl's dad was Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols. A genetic explanation for the Fischer brothers' charismatic indignation.

Turns out not.

Young Axl's jaw clenches.

I'm gonna go out there. Take my beating. Prove I'm not afraid.

He peers into Goob's watery eyes.

Except she's scared! Goob needs me. . . .

When the closet door opens, Axl and I jump.

Frank Fischer crouches on the shaggy orange carpet, facing us.

It shocks me, seeing Frank in Axl's memories.

Young.

Alive.

Axl's big brother's face was the map he relied on for direction. The chiseled cheekbones, the pouty smirk, the deep-set eyes in that unnerving supernatural blue that, when he looked at me, always made me feel half-naked. The short, shaggy hair the girls called strawberry blond. Frank's sharp canine teeth and ice-cold eyes made his grin read, to most people, like a threat. A thrilling threat to admirers like Maxy and me, who fantasized extensively about Axl's big brother-specifically, letting him undress us with those teeth and ravage us.

But a chilling threat to anyone Frank wanted to intimidate. Someone who dared to cross him in his underground business, dealing outlawed music, banned films, and all the other culture that's illegal in the New America. Someone who was competing with him for a girl, or simply for rock-star status, the undivided attention of the crowd.

Axl finds something else in his brother's brazen expression.

Comfort.

In Frank's face, Axl sees the truth.

Everything will be okay.

It isn't rational for Axl to think that anything will be okay.

He's trapped in a house with his father, whose fury has been burning for thousands of years, spewing radiation like a dying star.

And since Bud Hill became America's Favorite Dictator-he's our first dictator, the only one we've ever had, but Max called him that because, like lots of bullies, the man is confoundingly popular-the world outside this house isn't safe for anyone.

But Frank's here now, and Axl knows.

Axl wants desperately to squeeze Frank. Scrunch his eyes shut and melt into his brother's chest, the soft T-shirt with the silkscreen of Iggy Pop.

But Frank doesn't do hugs.

From the back pocket of his shredded jeans, Frank whips out a cassette tape.

Holds it beside his face like a winning lottery ticket.

Slides it into a Walkman.

Slips big, soft headphones over Axl's ears.

Presses play.

The beat is spare and catchy. A crisp cymbal. Snappy drums.

Then, the squeaky whooshing of a record scratching. A familiar guitar riff lights up Axl's brain, from an Aerosmith song the Fischer brothers listened to a lot.

But instead of the usual vocals, this version explodes with new energy. It's the rap artists Run-D.M.C. Their remake of the song "Walk This Way."

It's the first time Axl has ever heard it.

Frank keeps grinning at Axl, his single silver hoop earring glinting as he nods to the beat that bleeds through the headphones-to the beat Frank carries inside him, syncing with every song.

Frank's cocky composure is enviable. Infectious.

Axl can't help but nod along.

Frank had the power to change any moment into something so much better. He was a natural rock star.

Axl's chest softens. His heartbeat slows.

We feel the dog sigh, and lean against her.

And we stay in this moment, relishing it. This reckless, incongruous, impossible three and a half minutes of joy.

This . . . is an amazing song. . . .



Axl passes out in the driver's seat of the Malibu, which is still parked in the junkyard. Frank and the music drift away.

I hear Death whispering to you, Axl.

Promising you that we can be together again.

Your mother, Frank, Maxy, and me.

Nowhere.

Everywhere.

The memory of a perfect song.

You know that I'd give anything to go back. Redo the last five minutes of my life. Apologize to the madman with the gun. Swear never to perform Shakespeare again. Pretend like I was working with the party to get Ms. Lee arrested for teaching us guerrilla theater in the first place.

Tell any lie to stay alive.

When I faced down the party, I thought I was standing for something. Standing up to the dictator and his admirers, the New America that had been so crushing for so long.

Instead, I handed them a win.

They did it.

They kept us apart.

Art is selfish.

I was selfish.

I know that now.

But you dying won't bring us closer together.

Death is the opposite of what we long for.

It's an absence.

Nothing's here but what can no longer be.

Including me.

You don't get it, though, do you? You keep imagining it-reuniting with us in the afterlife. Picking up where we left off. Making bad raunchy ghost jokes. Farting gross ghost farts. Having dirty sweaty ghost sex-instead of the dirty sweaty angel-mortal sex we're having now, which is perfectly fine!

Is it that you can't hear me, Axl?

Or do you just refuse to listen?

Axl's chest rises and falls with every breath.

Guess I should let him sleep.

I used to think I could hear Max talking to me from the afterlife. His ghostly voice buzzing in my ear, circling like a lazy fly, annoying me, telling me what to do.

I assumed I was imagining it. Max and I had always been able to finish each other's sentences. Our minds were equally filthy, though he was more offensive about it. We were both preoccupied with the perfect outfit, though we rarely agreed on what that was. We spent every weekend raiding the garage sales in our Midwestern mindfuck of a corn-fed freak show's richest subdivisions, digging for cast-off finery.

"What thinkest thou of this pastel tuxedo pant paired with this psychedelic granny top? A killer combination that will get me very laid?"

"Didja eat magic mushrooms for breakfast?"

"Lucky Charms with strawberry Nesquik."

"Gag."

"I do kinda need to hurl now that you mention it."

"You're about to look like some upchucked Lucky Charms."

"Well you are plain and sad, and it is terminal."

I could've imagined conversations between Maxy and me forever.

Turns out I wasn't making them up.

Ghost Max was with me all along.

Since I've been Living-Not-Living in Axl's consciousness, I've learned that Max used to talk to Axl, too.

Used to. When I died, Max abandoned us both. Now, Maximus Bowl is Forever-Dead, Beyond the Beyond. And I'm alone here in Undead-Dead land, clinging to Axl like Max clung to me.

But so far, I can't speak to the living the way Max could. We may have been twins, but we weren't identical. When he was alive, Max talked compulsively. I listened. Absorbed the vibrations in the room. I was an actor, forever imagining myself into other people's lives.

And it feels like that's all I can do now. Absorb Axl's thoughts. Feel him struggling, desperate for any way out.

But why should I accept this? If I can suspend myself between Life and Death, I can surely do other impossible things. Rules never stopped me in life. Why would I let them stop me now?

Wake up, Axl, and listen to me.

You don't get to die yet.

You don't get to give up.

If you love us, you have to live. Not to defeat the dictator or stand up for some idiotic idealistic concept, like art.

You stay alive to prove that we're still here.

That we won't let them destroy us.

Axl blinks awake. Coughs a thick, wet cough that makes it sound like a slimy troll is sliding around in his lungs. Fumbles with the door of the beast, shoves it open.

Did I do it? Did my smoldering ghostly intensity give Axl an epiphany?

He pulls his Zippo out of his pocket, lights a death stick. In the car, his pager buzzes. For the millionth time, he ignores it.

If I hold the smoke in long enough, bet I can black out.

One. Two. Three-

Axl's lungs seize. His hacking cough echoes across the junkyard. He hawks a fat loogie over his shoulder. Unbuckles his belt and pisses grandiosely in the sludge.

Axl.

My love.

You ridiculous corndog.

You've gone fully revolting.

He sees my face again-imagines my eyes closing, my lips parting-

And I'm there, kissing him, despite everything-tasting the bitterness of his misery, absorbing the heat of his grief.

Even dying hasn't made sex less confusing!

Oh, Axl. How the hell did we get into this mess?

And how in the name of Dionysus are we going to get out of it?