'Didn't You Know?'

Pete woke up where he does nearly every day. He found the scene the same as everyday too. The cars going by as he got up from some blankets that made up his bed hidden in the bushes. He looked over the other way and saw the Cherry Creek canal, the thin strip of water flowing along at its bottom as joggers went by on the paved trail that ran beside it. Today they were gawking his direction, but not at him. The look people get when they see something terrible but are just too curious to look away. He got closer to the edge and looked over to see police and paramedics loading a body a few feet down the way on to a carry board. The ambulance was parked at the next intersection.

“That sucks.” He uttered as he turned to get on with the day.

He had plans. A guy he knew said he would spot him some brown. He needed to find the guy though. As he wandered Denver, he kept seeing a guy in a suit following him. He was wondering if he owed someone and forgot. He kept walking to the meet spot. Havoc, that’s just what everyone called him, was usually down by the 7-11 on Lincoln.

As he went, he tried asking for change from people, most just ignored him, like usual. A few apologized and said they didn’t have money. The guy in the suit kept showing up as he went. Just the one though, and he was always just watching him pass by. One was really odd though.

The random guy in flip-flops and looking like he was ready to go surfing said “you can see me?” Then he ran off down an alleyway.

“Hey! Havoc!” he called out when he saw the guy he was looking for, but he didn’t even hear him apparently. “Dude! Right here.” He started jogging a little.

As he got closer Havoc got into a car driving off.

“What the fuck, dude!” Pete yelled. A few people looked and kept going. “Fuck. Maybe Star has some oxy.” He went off to find her.

He kept asking for change. One person handed him a few Pesos, like that did any good with out going to a bank. He stuffed it into a pocket of his worn-out jeans anyway. At one corner a thin lady with a long black bohemian like dress was chewing on a cigar and watched him approach.

“You loo-k lie a maan in a haury.” She drew on the cigar and held it like a pointer in her hands pointing at him. “Are you?”

Pete stopped in his tracks. “Sort of. You know anyone that’s holding?”

“Holding brown or oxy?” She brushed back he long black and purple hair on the one side fighting the wind coming around the building.

“Either.”

“No.” With that response, Pete started walking. “You don’t need it anyway.” She called after him.

He called back over his shoulder. “I don’t need a ‘just say no’ speech, lady.”

He spotted Star when he got just a little bit away from The Church. “Hey! Star!” He started running to her.

“I don’t know. It’s like… I guess it’s just something that happens.” She said to Liberty.

“Yeah. He was a good guy.” Liberty patted Star’s shoulder to comfort her as they sat beside a building.

“What’s going on?” Pete asked knowing it was bad news. “What happened?”

“I just hope that he is happy, wherever he is.” Star had tears running down her cheeks.

Pete knelt down, “what happened?!”

“Petey was a good guy” Liberty said trying to comfort Star.

“I’m right here.” Pete exclaimed as he reached out for her and watched his hand pass right through Star. “What the fucking hell!” he screamed as he jumped up and backed up. “I’m right the fuck here! Why did my hand do that?”

Pete turned and ran a block or two before getting tired and ducking into a hiding place between two buildings in an alley. He sat against a wall trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He knew he woke up, it couldn’t be a dream from some bad heroin, could it? Maybe he just was still sleeping under his bush back by the creek. Had to be it. There was no other way about it.

“I have something to talk to you about,” said a voice.

Pete looked up. “What the hell!” It was the man in a suit that had been showing up everywhere. “Who are you? Why are you after me?”

The man held he hands raised a bit to try and show he meant no harm to Pete. “My name is Jimmy.” He walked slowly over to across the small area from Pete and crouched down. “I am not after you, specifically, but you did catch my eye.”

“I don’t bareback if that’s what you are thinking.”

Jimmy chuckled “Nothing remotely like that.” He looked at Pete for a moment in silence as Pete looked everywhere else to see if they were alone. “Tell me, what did you do yesterday?”

“Why? What is it to you?”

“Humor me. I am trying to help out. Here.” Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag with tiny yellowish-brown rocks in it. “Just talk to me first” he demanded as he handed it over.

Pete lit up with happiness and snatched the bag from Jimmy. “Fine. Whatever, dude.” He stuffed the bag in his pocket before looking around again and calming down. “I got up. Met up with people. Begged for money. Spiked a vein. Went to sleep again.”

“Little more detail at the end please?” Jimmy smiled.

“I went back to my camp on the Creek there. I used my kit to cook the stuff, and then injected it into my leg. Then I laid down… or did I?” Pete thought about it. “I think I got my blankets set up and laid down. I’m not sure though.” He was looking through the wall behind Jimmy trying to remember.

Jimmy sighed. “Maybe you walked somewhere?”

Pete mumbled “…maybe…” Then he perked up. “Yeah. Star was there. I saw her.” He stared off again. “I wanted to go give her a hug, and I started walking toward her.” Pete’s face scrunched up. “I remember, I think I tripped over something…. Yeah… I fell. It really hurt my head… I couldn’t move. I didn’t know where I was.” He came back mentally to the present and looked Jimmy in the eye for the first time. “How did I wake up where I always sleep this morning then? Did I fall into my bed or somethin’?”

Jimmy stood up. “Lets got for a walk and talk more.”

“Ok”

They walked back to Pete’s camp on the wall of the Cherry Creek canal on Speer St. As they went, they talked about random things. They got closer and saw that everything was gone. The police, the paramedics, and all his stuff. Blankets, tarps, clothes. Everything. What little he had was cleaned away as if he never existed. There was the thin woman in the black dress smoking a cigar again though.

Pete reached in his pocket and handed the bag back to Jimmy. “My kit was in my stuff. This is no use to me now, I guess.”

“Sorry.” Jimmy gestured at the woman. “That’s, well, I guess you could say she in my boss.” They kept walking to her. “This is Abigail, she goes by Abby though.”

“Hou ya doin’” she muttered past her cigar and offered her hand.

Pete looked at her for a moment, and slowly grasped her hand to shake it. “How come I can touch you two but not Star?”

Abby pulled the cigar from her mouth and pointed it at him again. “Good question. This one is sharp, Jimmy. Too bad.” Pete opened his mouth to speak, but she kept talking. “Because you are a ghost.”

Pete’s mouth just hung open for a second. Before he could utter “wha?”

Jimmy put his hand on Pete’s shoulder and led him over to where the paramedics were before. “They were picking up your body.” He let that sink in for a second before continuing and Pete slowly looked at him. “Star watched you miss the edge of the canal and fall landing headfirst and breaking your neck down there.”

“It’s a hard thing to deal with, but she has lots of other people to help her out, Pete.” Added Abby.

“You sure.”

“Very.” Abby said. “We deal with this all the time.”

“So,” sighed Jimmy. “Our job is to help you cross over and put your soul to peace. You deserve it. You didn’t choose to be sent to combat, yet you have tortured yourself everyday after you got back.” Jimmy put his hands on both Pete’s shoulders and turned him to look him in the eye. “You survived there. The world you came back to looked much different after being ordered to kill though. Are you ready?”

Pete looked at the blood stain on the rocks below for a little bit. “Are you sure she is going to be, ok?”

“Abshlouly” said Abby past her cigar again.

“Then yes… This is not the way I wanted to go, but thank you.”

Jimmy started uttering phases in a language that Pete couldn’t recognize. He looked down to see his hands and body slowly enveloped in a white lite, before the whole world went away.

“Goo job on you firs wone, Immy.” Abby said and patted him on the back. She puffed on her cigar a little bit and pulled it from her mouth releasing a billow of smoke. “Time to get back to HQ, I think.”

“Is that girl, Star, really going to be ok?” Jimmy asked still looking at where Pete was.

Abby walked around in front of him. “Yup. She cleans up and starts a homeless shelter with drug rehabilitation in his name.”

“How do you know?”

“You think death is the only business I am in?” Abby smiled at him. Before waving toward the street side. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Jimmy put his hand in to his pocket and pulled out a scythe that should have never fit in a pocket. As he put both hands on it, it began to glow a purple light. He used it to slash the air opening a gash in the open space that widened to show a shabby hotel in the desert. They stepped through one by one, and it closed again like nothing happened.

(Also published to Kindle Vella)