CHAPTER ONE
an excerpt from STAND
UP, ERNIE BAXTER: YOU'RE DEAD
By Adam Voith
1. WORKIN’ ON LEAVIN’ THE LIVIN’
Listen: Don’t put much stock in what the
folks at the churches and labs are saying. You keep your body
when you die.
I’m dead, but my name is Ernie Baxter. I’ve kept
my body, and I’ve kept my name. Keeping those two things
was surprising, and there have been other surprises. You have
certain expectations, but this much is now clear to me: In heaven,
there is no interfering with the living. You can look down through
silver-lined clouds and see the people you love down below with
a fair amount of clarity, but there is no interaction. I was
shocked as shit that the rumors about the clouds and their beautiful
lining panned out, but no hauntings. No channeling through dogs
and certainly no slumber party board-game communications. Believe
me, I’ve tried.
My name is Ernie Baxter, and my hands are tied.
My history has passed to the memories and stories of my mother
and ex-girlfriend.
Bosses and co-workers.
Bartenders and insurance agents.
Friends and gym teachers.
The day after my funeral, I was watching my mother.
Bless her lonely soul, she was cleaning the house. I wished
with every ounce of my new, ghostish self that I could do the
dishes, clean the wood floors, or switch the laundry from the
washer to the dryer. I tried yelling: “Mom! Can you hear
me? Mom! If I were there you wouldn’t have to ask more
than one time for me to shake out the rugs! Two times tops,
mom!”
Nothing. She went about her business.
I tried deep concentration, attempting to send some kind of
kinetic waves into her head: “Mom. I love you mom and
maybe it’s not cleaning that you’d want. How about
this: I’ll come down there right now and leave my socks
and shoes all over the house. I’ll forget to feed the
cat. I’ll put dirty dishes in with the ones you just put
through the wash cycle. Something. Anything!”
Nothing. She blinked at the dishwasher and wiped down the counters,
whistling a hymn that was played at my funeral. She looked okay.
I tried to convince a cabinet door to swing open, reaching for
some sign that would show her that I was with her, watching
her, right there.
Nothing.
And then back to yelling: “Mom! Mom, I made it to heaven!
You did good, mom. And I miss you.” Believe me, it’s
not easy to watch her from here, silenced by what feels to be
as many miles as a science teacher could write in zeros on the
chalkboard.
There’s more crying in heaven then you might imagine.
I’m here in a small crowd, all lost newcomers with dripping
eyes, mourning the mourners. Sad that they’re sad. Lonely
in heaven.
During the funeral I was able to eavesdrop on particular conversations.
It was, in fact, during the ceremony that I realized my most
obvious and agonizing limitation; I can listen to only one conversation
at a time. As I watched my mother talking to my high school
buddies, I panicked as I missed out on whatever my ex-girlfriend
was saying to her husband. I couldn’t hear what my cousins
were mumbling into each other’s ears without missing out
on something the preacher was saying to my seventh grade teacher.
With desperation, I eyed each conversation and began spastically
darting through them and over them like a bat on a bungee cord.
I was terrified.
So I missed a lot of the things that people were saying, but
from what I could make out, I’d wager that twenty-five
percent of all sentences uttered about me that particular day
were horribly flawed. Dates were wrong, funny stories exaggerated,
and opinions attributed to me skewed. Some folks thought I was
still working in an office when I died and had heard I was up
for a big promotion. Others had some “evidence”
that I’d gotten really into exercise and were surprised
that my health had deteriorated so quickly. One man I didn’t
recognize was rattling on about an apparent girlfriend I had
in Seattle. He was wrong. I died with my mother, and my mother
alone. I’d made some friends on the west coast, but not
the type of friends that come to your deathbed, and certainly
not the type of friends that fly to the Midwest for a funeral.
I had zero representation down there for the past several years
of my life, and history was suffering.
Imagine sitting in a theater, at the beginning of a movie, and
suddenly you realize that you’re the star. You’re
the star, but you don’t remember practicing your lines.
All the time you were living your life, making progress, getting
paid, falling in love, driving, sleeping, marking an ‘X’
through another box on the calendar… All of it, to your
total surprise, was just the rehearsal.
The feeling is unsettling, of course, and it looks like the
actual movie, the documentary, is going to last a long, long
time. An eternity.
Who would have thought? And who the hell is prepared?
The lead role in the movie of your life is acted out based wholly
on the shady recollections of the ones you’ve left behind.
This takes some getting used to, and I’d only had a few
days.
You want to believe that memory is a strong entity, the perfect
memorial, an asset to the dead. When you are alive, you tell
stories in hopes that folks will remember what you’ve
said, the points and perspectives you’ve perfected. You
do things, say things, in hopes that you will remain intact,
removed from speculation and locked safely away in memories,
but it’s not to be. Memory, in fact, might be the greatest
liar of all time. The most deceptive of sinners. The real face
of death.
Truth be told, I was always excited about the “death takes
all” idea. Dead, buried, and forgetting about it. When
it was all said and done, I figured I’d kick back with
the angels, and float around like everything was beautiful and
nothing hurt.
But the real deal is that it’s never all said and done.
From here, it’s clear that although I only walked Earth’s
face for a handful of years, those years are going to stretch
for some time. The longevity of it chills me to the bone. And
look at her. I outlived my mother. The poor woman has been left
alone to preserve the memory of her son. A mother should never
have to do that.
To be fair, I should highlight some of the bonuses here. I don’t
want to misrepresent with half-baked observations and appraisals
because there are some comforts that came to me quickly. The
people are friendly and heaven is, indeed, a beautiful place.
The general overview and speculation you hear is reasonably
accurate, but there are some major flaws to the earthly descriptions;
I’ve still got the body. The cancer’s gone, but
it’s still arms, legs, feet, and hands. I’m not
floating around, I’m walking. As it turns out, the streets
are indeed paved with gold, which is bitchin’, and the
rivers are flowing clean, but I’ve yet to see anyone with
a harp. There are certainly some aspects of the myth that can
now officially be put to rest. I’m an authority now, and
listen to me spewing it out. Up here, I could go on and on with
weighty revelations and new prophecies, but it only gives new
ironic flavor to preaching to the choir. Watch these words fall
quietly down, reaching the globe just as all sound, meaning,
and importance fully disappears from them.
I died too early. Perhaps with more time, I could have solidified
some of the stories that were told at the funeral, given them
a personal stamp of approval and gone away content that history
had been secured. But it wasn’t to be.
In heaven, you can spend a lot of time watching the people you
miss remember you. The scientists, the preachers, and your mother
beside your deathbed will tell you there’s no pain in
heaven. Don’t believe them.
....
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With his mid-brow championed micro-press TNI BOOKS, Adam Voith
has quietly and without agitation made a name for himself in
the
shivering world of independent publishing. The tiny but feisty
Seattle-based press is owned and operated by Adam and his wife
Joy, and released as its first title a collection of Adam's
stories titled BRIDGES WITH SPIRIT.
Since then, there have been several other books and book-like
projects published by TNI BOOKS, including recent books by Camden
Joy and David Shields as well as the celebrated LITTLE ENGINES
magazine.
STAND UP, ERNIE BAXTER:
YOU'RE DEAD is Voith's second book. See
more or buy the new book at: www.tnibooks.com
and www.adamvoith.com
