It took Karen almost three weeks to die, but in the land of the dead, time twisted around itself to join connected events. So it was only a few hours into Dennis’s party that Karen’s began, and his gossiping guests faded away to attend the newest scandal.
Things Dennis did not accomplish from his under thirty-five goals list (circa age thirty-four):
1) Start another band.
2) Play some gigs in the area.
3) Get his sugar under control.
4) Be nicer to Karen.
5) Stop cheating.
6) Go to the gym.
Dennis’s self-denial had finally reached its breaking point. He ran between the fading guests. “How do I get there? You have to show me! I have to see her!”
They winked out like stars from a graying dawn sky, not one of them letting slip what he needed to know.
The empty gym, if it was a gym, seemed to be disappearing on the edges. Perhaps it was. The dead people had talked about imposing their own shapes on the limitless afterlife. Maybe shapelessness was taking over.
One spot near the buffet tables remained bright, a fraction of the dance floor underneath the disco ball. Uncle Ed stood alone in the middle, fiddling with the coin slot in the juke box.
He turned as Dennis approached. “I wanted ‘Young Love,’” he said, “but they’ve only got ‘After You’ve Gone.’ Not worth a quarter.” He sighed. “Oh, well. That’s the afterlife, I guess.”
The juke box lit up as the coin slid into its machinery. It whirred, selecting a record. Dennis recognized the bright, slightly distorted strains as a hit from the forties.
Ed selected a pastel blue balloon and began to whirl it around like a dance partner. Dennis stood tensely, arms crossed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ed dipped the balloon. “About what?”
“About Karen.”
“Figured you’d find out sooner or later. No sense ruining a perfectly good party until you did.”
“I’d have wanted to know.”
“Sorry then.”
“How do I get over there? I’ve got to talk to her.”
“You can’t.”
“I’ve got to!”
“She doesn’t want you. You can’t go bothering someone who doesn’t want you. That’s one of the rules we agree on. Otherwise someone could stalk you forever.” Ed gave a mild shrug. “I was used badly by a woman once, you know.”
Dennis glared silently.
“My first wife, Lilac,” Ed went on. “Not Melanie’s mother. Lilac died before you all were born. Your mom never liked her.”
“Mom never liked Karen either.”
“A perceptive woman, your mother. Well, things were good with me and Lilac for a while. We spent my whole party making out. Afterward, we found some old Scottish castle out with the dusties and rolled around in the grass for longer than you spent alive. It didn’t last long, though. Relatively. See, while I was still alive, she’d already met another dead guy. They’d been together for centuries before I kicked it. She was just curious about what it would be like to be with me again. Near broke my heart.”
“Ed,” Dennis said. “Karen murdered me. I have to know why.”
Ed released the balloon. It flew upward and disappeared into grey.
“Have to?” Ed asked. “When you were alive, you had to have food and water. What’s ‘have to’ mean to you anymore?”
“Ed, please!”
“All right, then, I’ll take a gander. I’ve been dead a long time, but I bet I know a few things. Now, you didn’t deserve what Karen did to you. No one deserves that. But you had your hand in making it happen. I’m not saying you didn’t have good qualities. You could play a tune and tell a joke, and you were usually in a good humor when you weren’t sulking. Those are important things. But you never thought about anyone else. Not only wouldn’t you stir yourself to make a starving man a sandwich, but you’d have waited for him to bring you one before you stirred yourself to eat. One thing I’ve learned is people will give you a free lunch from time to time, but only so long as they think you’re trying. And if you don’t try, if they get to thinking you’re treating them with disdain, well then. Sometimes they get mean.”
“I didn’t treat Karen with disdain,” Dennis said.
Ed blinked evenly.
“It’s not that I don’t think about other people,” Dennis said. “I just wanted someone to take care of me. The whole world, everything was so hard. Even eating the wrong thing could kill you. I wanted someone to watch out for me, I guess. I guess I wanted to stay a kid.”
“You married a problem solver,” said Ed. “Then you became a problem.”
When Dennis thought about Ed, he always thought about that moment when he’d watched him fall off the roof. Failing that, he thought of the mostly silent man who sat in the back of family gatherings and was always first to help out with a chore. But now, with his words still stinging, Dennis remembered a different Uncle Ed, the one who’d always been called to finish off the barn cats who got sick, the one everyone relied on to settle family disputes because they knew he wouldn’t play favorites no matter who was involved.
Ed didn’t look so much like the man who’d fallen off the roof anymore. His wrinkles had tightened, his yellowing complexion brightening to a rosy pink. His hair was still slicked back from his forehead with Brilliantine, but now there were generous, black locks of it.
He straightened his suit jacket and it became a white tee-shirt, snug over faded jeans. He grinned as he stuck his hands in his pockets. His teeth were large and straight and shiny white.
“I always figured we’d have kids,” Dennis said. “I can’t do that here, can I? And the band, I was always going to get started with that again, as soon as I got things going, as soon as I found the time…”
Dennis trailed off. The juke box spun to a stop, clicking as it returned the record to its place. Its lights guttered for a moment before flicking off.
“I’m dead,” said Dennis, plaintively. “What do I do?”
Ed spread his hands toward the gym’s grey edges. “Hop from party to party. Find a cave with the dusties. Get together with a girl and play house until the continents collide. Whatever you want. You’ll find your way.”
A newsboy cap appeared in Ed’s hand. He tugged it on and tipped the brim.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he continued. “I need to pay my respects.”
“To my murderer?”
“She’s still family.”
“Don’t leave me alone,” Dennis pleaded.
Ed was already beginning to fade.
Dennis sprinted forward to grab his collar.
When Dennis was four, he found his grandfather’s ukulele in the attic, buried under a pile of newspapers. It was a four-string soprano pineapple made of plywood with a spruce soundboard. Tiny figures of brown women in grass skirts gyrated across the front, painted grins eerily broad.
The year Dennis turned six, his parents gave him a bike with training wheels for Christmas instead of the guitar he asked for. After a major tantrum, they wised up and bought him a three-quarter sized acoustic with two-tone lacquer finish in red and black. It was too big, but Dennis eventually got larger. The songbook that came with it included chords and lyrics for “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and “Yellow Submarine.”
The summer when Dennis was fifteen, he wheedled his grandparents into letting him do chores around their place for $2.50 an hour until he saved enough to buy a used stratocaster and an amp. He stayed up until midnight every night for the next six months playing that thing in the corner of the basement his mother had reluctantly cleared out next to the water heater. He failed science and math, and only barely squeaked by with a D in English, but it was worth it.
The guitar Karen bought him when they got engaged was the guitar of his dreams. A custom Gibson Les Paul hollow-body with a maple top, mahogany body, ebony fret board, cherryburst finish, and curves like Jessica Rabbit. He hadn’t been able to believe what he was seeing. Just looking at it set off strumming in his head.