Penni Jones - Suicide Souls

“Why aren’t we moving?”

“Dunno.” Luke doesn’t look at me. He just stares with his mouth open.

My fist balls up and I fake-punch him. It would feel so great to for-real punch him right now. Luke slowly turns his head toward me.

“Can you please have a little fucking compassion?” he asks.

“We don’t have time for compassion, you emo nitwit,” I say with my teeth clenched, at least I think they are. It’s hard to tell for sure. “Is the Shadow still here?”

Luke’s eyes become more alert and he looks around the room slowly. “I don’t think so.”

“What are we supposed to do now?” I don’t expect him to know, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

“I guess I’m not done here.” He turns back to Eben and Daisy.

This is my hell, my purgatory, my punishment. I wonder if it’s for being generally heartless, or for something in particular. Like the time I was mad at my sister for calling me a slut, so I flashed my tits at her husband. I didn’t want to sleep with him or anything. He had gout and always smelled like he’d just been hovering over a stockpot. It was just a case of me acting out because my feelings were hurt. No big deal, really. She was flashing her tits all the time back then. Mainly because she was breastfeeding or whatever. It was gross.

At least I am finally feeling regret. Mostly just regretting rushing through my grief watch and getting stuck with Luke. Such a miserable waste of space. I bet he wrote shitty poetry when he was alive. He probably read Edgar Allan Poe like all the other smelly morose 1990s teens.

I wonder if Daisy pushed Eben out, or if it was a C-section. Would I have been able to handle that shit? Probably not. I would have been one of those jerks who passes out in the delivery room, creating a family anecdote that would be told for years.

This is the strangest thing that’s ever happened. More than watching my parents grieve, more than my roommate tasting my brain-and-blood odor on his toast, more than the first time I met Edgar in that weird not quite café food court place.

None of this has felt real, but this feels the most like a dream.

As Poe said, “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

“Maybe you have to make Eben cry before we can go,” Naomi says.

“Yeah. Probably.”

The revelation that Eben is the reason we’re still here had sat perched on the edge of my brain, not quite ready to dive in, like a child apprehensive about jumping in a swimming pool.

Making my newfound son cry sounds like pure torture.

“We’ll have to do the dream thing Edgar told us about,” Naomi says.

“No. It’s too mean.”

Naomi inches closer and pushes her tits centimeters from my face. “Do you have a better idea, Cobain?”

For a second, all I concentrate on is her tits, the once fleshy half-globes spilling from the top of her red dress. I want to squeeze them more than I have wanted anything since I’ve been dead.

“You want to touch them, don’t you?” she whispers. I can feel her breath again, though I don’t know if it’s some weird spirit pressure or my imagination.

I nod without taking my focus from her chest.

“I promise you, Luke. If you cooperate and get us the fuck out of the middle of shithole, Missouri, I will let you touch my boobs as soon as I have a body again.”

“They won’t be the same tits.” Not this perfect rack, no way. This is a one in a million set of boobs. How could someone with these sweater meats ever have been sad enough to kill herself?

“You’re right. But maybe they’ll be even better.” She bends her knees a little so I’m looking at her face instead of her chest. Her face is pretty, but not as impressive as those boobs. “If they’re not, I’ll buy some new ones. Okay? And I’ll let you motorboat them, even though women hate that.”

“Even if I’m ugly?”

“Yes, even if you’re ugly.”

“Even if I have that weird condition that makes my sweat smell like chicken soup?”

Naomi purses her lips and says, “Okay. But maybe for not as long.”

Maybe making my kid cry isn’t such a big deal. It will save me and Edgar, after all. And kids cry all the time, right? That’s kind of what they’re known for. Otherwise people wouldn’t call you a baby when you cry.

“It’s time for bed, Eben,” Daisy says.

“But Alex isn’t home yet.” Eben stands from her lap even as he protests.

“Alex has to work late. You know that.”

I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m glad to hear Eben say “Alex” instead of “Dad.”

But who the fuck is this Alex anyway? Please, please don’t let it be Alex from the high school basketball team. That guy took a shit on my front porch one time because he cheated off my math test and made a C.

“Come on.” Daisy stands up and smooths her jeans before grabbing Eben’s hand and leading him down the tiny hallway.

“If his bedroom is decorated in footballs and baseballs, I’m going to puke,” Naomi says.

If Naomi hadn’t killed herself, someone would have eventually done the job for her. She could have just waited and the outsourcing would have taken care of itself.

“Oh, shit. I can’t puke. Maybe I can make that my first task when I’m in a new body.”

My first instinct is to wait in the hall while Daisy goes through the bedtime routine. But I don’t want to. I should see everything.

Eben goes into an orange bathroom and pees sitting down.

“Does he get that from daddy?” Naomi asks.

“Actually, yes. It’s less messy.”

“Sissy.” Naomi goes back to the hallway while I watch Eben brush his teeth. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t do it long enough, but I can’t do anything about that.

He goes into a bedroom that is indeed decorated in a stock sports theme. I never would have allowed that bullshit.

My dad forced me to play football. Pee-wee all the way to junior high, when a knee injury put me out for what was supposed to be the season, but I never returned. I hated it. We were children competing for manhood. Who could be the fastest, the strongest, the most enviable? Fuck that. All I wanted to do was read books and play guitar. Later I added smoking pot and having sex to my preferred activities. But never sports.

I saw a puddle in the field and planted my foot in it right as I ran and turned my knee just slightly. Enough to fall over with a torn ACL. It hurt like a bitch, but it was the smartest thing I had ever done.

Every time my dad suggested I find another sport, I reminded him how much the knee surgery had cost him. That shut him up every single time.

But maybe Eben is different. Daisy played softball and ran track in high school. Maybe he inherited her competitive nature.

Or maybe the bullshit wallpaper came with the trailer and Daisy can’t be bothered to change it.

Eben puts on robot pajamas and climbs into his twin bed with a pale green comforter. At least there are no balls on the bed.

Bojangles jumps up and licks Eben on the face. The dog plops down and lets out a little grunt. He’s staring at me, but not reacting. He’s just letting me know that he doesn’t trust me.

Can’t blame him.

Daisy squeezes Eben and kisses him, then quietly sings “Jesus Loves Me” to him. She hands him a book and whispers, “Only fifteen minutes, okay? It’s a school night.”

Naomi is here now. I don’t know when she came in from the hall.

Daisy leaves the room through the door like living people do. Bojangles follows her and keeps his eyes on me until he’s out of the room. Daisy closes the door behind her, leaving Eben alone in the little bedroom.

His room is smaller than mine was. But I didn’t know mine was small until I grew into an awkward, lanky teen. Eben probably doesn’t know that his room is the size of a walk-in closet.