Michael Balletti
I don’t know. I guess it’s because you kind of remind me of me. Anyway, those tired scenarios: paradise, punishment, oblivion. None of them happen after we shuffle off this mortal coil.
I know what you’re thinking. Another crackpot has come to tell me the meaning of life. Well, yes and no.
I’ll start by telling you what I used to do. The year was 1999, and I was the non-foods manager at the neighborhood supermarket. I ensured the shelves were stocked neatly and abundantly with shampoos, toothpaste, maxi pads, all the items in the grocery store you don’t eat. Hence, non-foods (also known as HABA: health and beauty aids). Now don’t be fooled! This glamorous position didn’t just fall into my lap—it was hard-earned. I started working at the supermarket in high school as a stock boy and quickly climbed the ranks after a few years. At 22 years old and with only a high school diploma, 14 bucks an hour puts a hop in your step. What did I know?
But after a few more years of unloading pallets of mops, light bulbs, and batteries, I started to examine my life. Was this all there was? Was my destiny making sure aisle three had enough shaving cream and razor blades? I was suffering a midlife crisis at the tender age of 25. Thoughts of going to college and earning a degree (in what I didn’t know) drifted through my head. Maybe computers, I wondered. They’re always talking about jobs with computers on TV.
So, on March 29, after working the late shift so my assistant Richie could go to a show at the Meadowlands, after making sure the shelves were adequately stocked with mouthwash and aspirin, I punched out and walked atop a fine layer of freshly fallen snow toward my car. Whoever said March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb never lived in New Jersey. The spring flakes fell like giant white fists. I was alone. Only a few cars remained in the parking lot, owned by the unfortunate souls working the overnight shift.
I don’t know if it was the springtime snow or the slow, painful realization that my life was going nowhere, but I suddenly felt my eyes welling up with tears. Embarrassed and confused, I stopped cleaning off my car and watched the flakes accumulate on the windshield. Utter loneliness and despair overtook me, and I felt trapped, like an insect in an overturned glass.
What am I doing? That question turned again and again in my head. I had no answer and felt almost ashamed for thinking it. It wasn’t a bad job—there were worse ones—but something was missing. Meaning. Fulfillment. Happiness. I decided to try and find the answer in a place familiar to me in name only: Willie’s.
Willie’s was the dive bar around the corner from the supermarket. I was never one to indulge in drinking alcohol—maybe a beer or two while watching the game—but I decided to do some real pounding that night. And I wasn’t going to do it isolated in my dingy apartment. Only alcoholics and George Thorogood drink alone. Again, I was lost at 25.
So, I started out. Normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead walking to Willie’s at that hour. Maybe it was a stretch to call the area dangerous, but it was definitely sketchy. It wouldn’t be front-page news to hear that so-and-so’s house got broken into or what’s-his-face got mugged coming home one night. But snow seems to put the damper on crime—at least it did in my mind. My feet crunched softly on the packed ground as I walked down the street. Wisps of pink and purple streaked across the night sky, and the perfect new snow covered the tree buds like fuzzy cotton balls. It was quite beautiful, but my inner gloom didn’t allow me the capacity to enjoy the uncommon splendor of springtime snow.
I sat at the end of the bar. I recognized some of the patrons in the place from work. Two cashiers sat at a booth with two of the store managers. They giggled and flirted over their beers, the managers ordering more as soon as the gals went dry. They couldn’t see me from where I sat, which was good. The two managers were easily 20 years older than the cashiers, and both had wives and kids at home.
Is this what awaited me? I thought. Becoming a fat drunk, using greasy charm to seduce naive young women into bed? Was this embarrassing scene a future reality for me?
This sort of thing went on for a while. I won’t bore you with more of my internal turmoil. But I became modestly drunk and even more depressed after a few hours. Eventually, the managers and the two cashiers stumbled out together arm in arm. I think one of the guys, Bobby, saw me but pretended not to recognize me.
The place thinned out, leaving only me, the bartender, and a sloppy guy at the other end of the bar. I came to the drunken conclusion that I had no one to blame but myself for my life. I was lazy and lacked self-confidence, and I was stuck in a miserable, dead-end job because it was comfortable. It was the devil I knew. And slowly, I realized that I would never leave that place. Because no matter how much I hated it, no matter how much I complained about it, no matter how much I thought I was better than it, that job insulated me from the big bad world and all its uncertainty. Suddenly, I discovered why I never drank. It didn’t make me forget my problems; it made them clearer.
It was well past midnight, and I remembered I had to be back at work in about six hours. We were expecting a delivery. More douches and toothbrushes. I paid for my drinks and walked through the exit, trying valiantly to disguise my unsteady gait.
The snow sparkled brightly under the glow of the streetlights as I shuffled back to the supermarket parking lot. Flakes were falling lightly by then, and the cold air smacked me in the face like a wet rag, dispelling my reservations of being too drunk to drive. I felt my bones begin to ache. Arthritis? I thought absently. Could I be in the early stages of a degenerative disease that usually afflicts the elderly? Sadness welled in my heart as I dusted off my windshield.
I stayed in the car for a while, warming it up and thinking some more. Then, for some reason, I thought about high school. Not really about the school memories, but how I used to think being an adult would feel like. Did I always have such low expectations? When I grow up, I’m going to be the non-foods manager at the supermarket. Yes, it’s as demoralizing as it sounds! Maybe I should’ve studied harder. Taken things more seriously. I wasn’t a terrible student, but I just never took an interest in anything. And now it seemed too late.
The heater squealed and let out an offensive odor as I shifted the car into drive. As I rolled slowly down the recently salted avenue, my thoughts turned strangely to death. The thought, morbid as it may have been, of running my car into a telephone pole or smashing it into a wall at 60 miles an hour crossed my mind. Sure, I might feel some pain, but then there would be darkness. Nothing. Sweet nothing.
I nestled myself in those comforting yet conflicting thoughts. Not waking up every morning in a crummy apartment and a job I couldn’t stand. No more dealing with customers complaining about the skyrocketing prices and half-empty shelves. No more work, no more bills. And who knows? Maybe there was life after death. Fluffy white clouds as far as the eye could see. A chorus of singing angels. Me floating along naked with beauty at every turn. Eternal happiness filling my soul.
“You might want to rethink that, pal.”
The husky alien voice came from behind. I slammed hard on the brakes, skidding sideways for about 30 feet, before coming to a slow-motion stop right before a row of parked cars. I silently thanked my lucky stars for the near miss, looked over my right shoulder, and saw a dark mass lying on the back seat. My thoughts and movements were labored, but I managed to grab my CLUB (which I used to protect my priceless ’91 Chevy Cavalier) from under the passenger seat and shouted something about his ass and my foot.
“Take it easy, pal. I’m not here for you,” he said, shifting and moving to an upright position. “I just thought you could use a little cheering up, that’s all.”
We stared at each other for what felt like hours. I held the CLUB in front of me, shaking and waiting for this intruder to make a move, but we just sat there. The only sounds came from my strained heater.
It was the sloppy guy from the bar. How the hell did he get in my car? I thought. I must’ve been totally wasted if I didn’t notice his fat ass slip into my backseat. He was bigger than I remembered, and I felt a rush of terror and anxiety mix with the haziness in my head.
“Take it easy,” he said again. “You wanted to know about death? Well, here I am. In the flesh, or so to speak.”
His deep-set eyes and rich, velvety voice had a strangely soothing effect on me, and I lowered my CLUB, dropping it noisily between the driver’s side door and my left leg. He chuckled, a raspy cackle, and wiped his piggish nose with one giant chapped hand.
“Look, I didn’t mean to frighten you. Well, that’s not exactly true. But don’t be scared! It’s all I can do for fun!” Then his half-smile dissolved. “I’m not like some other agents. The rogues. Those are the ones you have to watch out for. The murders and deaths that don’t make sense, that’s usually them.”
His voice grew lower and conspiratorial.
“You should watch out. This isn’t the greatest of environs.”
Panic bubbled in my throat like a gob of grease.
“But as I said, I’m not here for you.”
“Who are you here for then?” I heard myself ask.
That half-smile returned. “Bobby, the store manager. His wife will have a nasty little surprise for him when he gets home tonight. Serves him right, right? Fooling around with Dottie. He’s got a two-year-old at home. Makes things easier for me, too, when others do the dirty work. All I have to do is pick up the pieces.”
I felt like I was underwater, floating in a sea of fear and confusion.
“Just drive,” he said, and then he was sitting beside me. He didn’t climb over the seat or get out of the car and move up to the front. Instead, as soon as the word “drive” left his lips, he materialized right beside me, his knees pressed uncomfortably against the dash.
I drove, sneaking sidelong glances at him whenever I could. Even in profile, his face looked too lumpy, like a baker had kneaded a wad of dough for hours and then haphazardly put it aside, never to touch it again. I felt the sweat beading on my upper lip as I tried desperately to formulate a plan, but my brain couldn’t focus. Adrenaline and indecision surged through my veins, mixing with my quickly evaporating buzz, creating a nearly debilitating sensation that caused my head to ache.
“Listen, don’t try and think of a way to get rid of me. It’s not gonna happen.”
I turned to him in shock and felt my head nodding in compliance.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, my voice quivering, my lungs turning cold and heavy as concrete.
He turned to me with his big dark eyes. Giant spiders, that’s what his eyes looked like. Giant spiders, crawling up and down, side to side, searching for a place to spin their poisoned web. I felt my stomach start to clench.
“It’s OK. I’m not going to hurt you. You just remind me a lot of myself. The way I used to be, that is. Before …”
His voice trailed off, and sadness broke across his puffy face. I was paralyzed. He was easily twice my size, and if he could teleport himself to my front seat, what other powers did he have at his disposal?
Then it hit me: the CLUB. I reached under my seat with all the deftness I could muster considering the circumstances and grabbed it again with my sweaty left hand. I held it for a moment, making sure I had a firm grip. Lord knew if I took a swing and missed, I was dead. But maybe I could stun him just long enough to open the door and run to safety. These types of harrowing escapes always seemed to work in the movies. I waited until we came to a red light. I took a deep breath and reaffirmed my grip on the CLUB. Then, with all the conviction I could summon, I jabbed my anti-theft device into his sternum like a champion fencer.
Pudding.
It was the only word I thought of as I stared at him in horror, my ass frozen to my seat, my ingenious scheme of fleeing falling by the wayside. His entire body turned into pudding as the CLUB fell with a clunk to the floorboard. Then the pudding gathered, pooled, shifted, and molded itself back into the guy like chocolate clay.
The expression on his stout face hadn’t changed. He looked forlorn, stricken, like a man who’s just realized a great and awful truth.
“It’s OK. I’ll let that go,” he said flatly. “You should know, though, you can’t kill Death. I wish you could.”
There was a lot of screaming and crying after that, I must admit. To this day, I still won’t touch pudding. But eventually, and amazingly, the guy calmed me down, and the next thing I knew, we were parked under a streetlight a few blocks from my apartment. I don’t know how we got there since I wasn’t paying much attention to the road.
“So, you’re Death?” I asked finally.
“The one and only. Well, that’s not true. I’m just one of them.”
I stared at him blankly.
“Listen,” he started, shaking his head. “Death isn’t what you think. That’s why I’m here. I know what you’re going through, believe me. I used to work in a supermarket, too.”
“How did you know that?”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? Your thoughts were screaming like a woman at a Bee Gees concert.”
He must have read my mind again or noticed my confused expression because he shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “I guess they’re not big anymore. I haven’t kept up on music since I died.”
My body stiffened, and I felt the hairs on my neck stand at attention.
“Yeah. I’m dead, kid. And believe me, it’s no picnic.”
He went into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He patted them on his beefy hand a few times and then popped one in his mouth. The cigarette lit without needing a match, and he leaned his head back as the smoke swirled lazily around his head.
“At least I don’t have to worry about dying from these.”
My mind was reeling in a million different directions. I tried to say something, but the words were broken and low. Then he looked at me and smiled: a yellow grin.
“1978. That was my last living year. I was the grocery manager at Skyways. Yeah, it’s not around anymore. I was a lot like you, only a bit older. I started at the store when I was 17, and before I knew it, I had been with the company for 15 years. It was only supposed to be temporary, just something to pay the rent, you know. I was going to be a rock and roller.” He took a long drag from his cigarette. “Yeah. It was going to be Zeppelin opening for Roger Thorn and The Four Aces.”
He looked out through the windshield, and I could see the shine in his eyes. Then, incredibly, the deserted street evaporated. Swirling smoke materialized, and bright lights bloomed. He was young again. I could see him. He was on stage, lights blinking and flashing in time with the music. His long, wavy hair bounced around as he played the guitar and wailed away about his baby and those fleeting summer nights. Rebellion and excitement radiated from his body, galvanizing his bandmates and electrifying the raucous crowd. His eyes were clear and bright, alive with emotion, with feeling. The feeling you get when you’re doing something you genuinely love. Then, with the sudden and abrupt changeover typical of dreams, the stage disappeared. Now he was standing in a narrow aisle, illuminated by harsh fluorescent lighting. Wobbly shopping carts tottered past, manned by figures as homely as they were silent. The twinkle in his eyes faded. His hair became thin and scraggly. A U-boat of soup replaced the guitar in his hands, and instead of singing about a woman and that sweet, gossamer season, his voice was crackling over an intercom and informing shoppers about a “great two-for-one” sale on cereal. The fire was gone, extinguished by a shroud of misery, never to be lit again.
“Never thought it would turn out like that,” he said softly.
“But how did you …”
“How did I die?” he asked loudly. “Well, after the band thing didn’t work out, I decided to bury myself at work. I would work overtime, overnight, anything. I would put in 60, 70 hours a week at that shithole. Weekends didn’t exist to me. I would get a random Tuesday or Wednesday off during the week and would spend that day sleeping or tidying my apartment just enough to make it livable. My relationships with family and friends disintegrated. My love life was nonexistent. I would never eat a bullet, although the thought did cross my mind more than once, so I guess I was trying to kill my spirit. It happens more than you think, kid. People lose themselves. Alcohol, drugs, gambling. Those are the most obvious, just some of the vices people use to hide their failings, their disappointments. Their sadness. It’s self-punishment, really. And I chose work.”
He started to fidget, but I found myself hanging on his every word.
“Then, on November 11, 1978, I left work for the last time. Everyone remembers their date. I was driving home, exhausted as usual. I was stopped at a light when I noticed a good-looking woman standing on the corner. It was a cold night, windy as hell, and there she was with no jacket. Tall, thin chick with long blonde hair whipping around her face like a pennant. It was well past midnight, and there wasn’t another soul in sight. Just her, standing there in her black T-shirt and faded bell-bottom jeans, staring toward the street with vacant eyes. For a second, I thought she was just a figment of my imagination. I mean, it had been a while since I was with a woman, ya know?”
He laughed to himself and rubbed his eyes.
“But then she noticed me and smiled. I remember feeling my heart skip a beat then. She stepped off the curb and walked toward my car. The light had turned green by then, but I didn’t care. I had to know what she wanted. She motioned me to roll down my window, so, of course, I did. She was still smiling, but it didn’t look friendly anymore. You ever seen a hyena smile? It kinda reminded me of that. Then, before I knew what was happening, she reached into my car with these talon-like claws and tore into my throat. A bloody mist exploded in front of me, and then everything went dark. When I opened my eyes, I was standing in this long line. When I reached the end, a guy gave me a card that read Death Squad. I’ve been doing this ever since.”
We sat there in the car for a while. The snow had stopped completely, and the scenery outside was lovely. Well, as lovely as it gets parked in a marginal North Jersey neighborhood at 2 in the morning. There must be a science to the silence that happens after a snowfall. It’s almost hypnotic. The wind rocked the car slowly from side to side as he lit another cigarette.
“There are other jobs,” he said suddenly. “I mean, there are thousands of them. Millions of them. Cafeteria duty, gate polishers, garbage men, guardian help, messengers. You name it, they got it. From the lowest to the highest. They also say you can be promoted, but I’ve never seen it. I think they just tell you that, so you work hard. Give you something to strive for. It’s just like anything else.”
“That’s heaven?” I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it. What if he was talking about the other place? I cringed and pressed myself hard against the seat, expecting the worst. He sat silently for a moment, taking a long deep drag.
“It’s all the same, kid. It’s all just work. It never ends.”
His voice and eyes made my heart sink, and I felt a chill run through my body.
“Sometimes I wonder,” he said, holding his cigarette inquisitively in front of him. “Did they take me because I gave up, or did I give up because I knew they were coming?”
He continued staring at his cigarette like it was an instrument to the gods, his dark eyes examining the smoldering lines of gray.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
He smiled, and I could see the young man he once was. The man singing and playing on stage. And even though I had never picked up an instrument or dreamed of playing in front of thousands of fans, I felt a kinship with him. A feeling that warmed my spirit and pushed the fogginess out of my head.
“Experience the things you’re dreaming about, kid. Because in the end, this,” he said, pointing around us, “is as good as it gets.”
And then he was gone.
I sat in the car, stupefied. But I felt refreshed and alert, and something I hadn’t felt in so very long: optimistic. My life no longer felt like a dead end flanked with hair dyes and deodorant. Instead, it felt like a fresh page in a new notebook, free of lines and borders. It was out there. Whatever I wanted was out there waiting for me.
I started home filled with the exuberance and excitement of a child on Christmas Eve. Tomorrow was going to be the first day of the rest of my life.
Then it happened.
They all have their own style. Each one goes about their job differently. Some do it quickly without fanfare; others use all the powers of showmanship they have at their disposal.
I got the showman.
He came from behind the bushes. I was walking toward my apartment when I saw him appear out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t have time to react or run, not that it would have made any difference. This shrouded stranger, garbed in the obligatory black cloak (hooded, of course), jumped in front of me and brandished a giant cliched scythe. Then he rose to his full, imposing height, paused exaggeratedly, and flipped off his hood with a theatrical flourish. His skull was the color of pale egg yolk; his eye sockets were as dark and deep as bottomless pits. I could tell he was pleased with his entrance and appearance. Somehow it seemed like that empty grin grew wider. And then, after posing for a few more beats, he swung the blade through my torso with one graceful motion.
“I am the untimely frost,” he said in a booming Shakespearean voice. My legs buckled, and my hands and knees dug into the cold, powdery sidewalk.
“And like snow, I fall on any head I choose.”
I mean, c’mon. Who talks like that? I swam in total blackness, free-falling into the void, tumbling toward forever, when suddenly my eyes filled with light, and I found myself standing in a long line. It stretched toward infinity in both directions. Eventually, I made it to the end, and a smiling woman handed me a shiny yellow card …