Obituary

“Mr. Gray, it's time to wake up.” said the assistant in its not-quite-monotone voice, exactly the same as it had the day before and the day before and the day before that, going back nearly two years. “You'll be late for work if you don't get up this minute.”1

Dean Gray remained a motionless tangle of flesh and blankets on his mattress, and it would be hard for anyone less than a physician to decide whether he was awake or completely unconscious. “Mr. Gray, are you prepared to lose your job due to sloth?”2

Dean's head lifted slightly, not at all where you'd expect it to be on the bed. He blinked several times, waiting for his pupils to dilate, and decided it would be best to leave his eyes closed—no amount of light would be able to pass his eyelids without angering an already intense headache.3

Lose his job...no, he couldn't take that. He'd starve. The rest of the assistant's sentence made very little sense after being mixed up and ripped apart by the headache, but that one part remained clear.4

“Mr. Gray,” came the impatient voice. “You really must--”5

He stuck out an arm and fumbled with a set of buttons until the voice was terminated with a loud click.6

Bliss.7

Falling back on his elbow after trying twice to sit up, Dean opened his eyes again. They stayed open this time. The light was impossibly bright this morning. Why couldn't he remember to close the blinds before he even drove to the liquor store, just once? Of all the places to wake up hung over, why was he stuck in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows?8

Unfortunately, the assistant was right—it was already too late for him to make it on time. Still, it would be wise to high-tail it to the office, or skip town and drive to Mexico. It was getting close to the Day of the Dead, but there was probably a downside to driving south through an entire country and staying in a place where booze and life were cheap and strong and there would be no one to recognize him, except a silent bartender and a few anonymous street sweepers. Still, he moved his head to the left, searching the assistant for the time, instead of towards the leather suitcase that sat against an off-white wall. The assistant was nothing more than an eight-inch metallic cube endowed with an LED screen and the ability to irritate you as much as the fat, gay, British butler it was supposed to imitate, but never brought you breakfast or bed or warmed your car up for you.9

It was a gift from Dean's late brother, who, in a final act of egotistical glory, created what he could to point out the difference between his success as an inventor and Dean's impoverished life as...whatever he had been doing back then. Their parents, who thought that both their sons were wiping their asses with hundred dollar bills, wouldn't let Dean throw it away or destroy it...they thought he was nothing less than a very successful bachelor living in a penthouse in the city. (He didn't entirely hate this illusion, though. In fact, he had done quite a lot to fuel it--those floor-to-ceiling windows, for example, were there simply because they were cheaper than insulated walls. Who cares if the rats have cold feet, as long as they stay in the cage? In a letter to dear old mommy, though, he said they were to provide a better view of Lake Michigan.)10

It was eight fifteen, and Dean should have been in the car by six.11

Between throbbing periods of pain in his head, Dean made several movements that resulted in his half-naked body standing in a room without heating, insulation, or carpeting, while a Michigan snowstorm was carrying on outside. In fewer words: it resulted in a set of goosebumps that could easily be confused with a massive army of fleshy barnacles.12

He shouldn't complain about the temperature, though; the city council, when designing the 'charity housing building,' had decided that quantity of rooms was more important than quality. He was making just enough money—sixteen grand a year—to lose eligibility for the housing if there were even twenty less rooms. Other people deserved the rooms more--the ones who could hardly afford the hundred dollar monthly rent, even with the help of their churches and family.13

A pair of jeans and a collared shirt would hold up fine—Spallner wasn't going to yell at him for violating an already loose dress code when he was three hours late. The old man'd probably even forgive Dean for whatever smells were radiating from his core that day. He pulled on the clothes and walked out of the bedroom through an industrial metal door.14

In a private apartment, he would have come out into a carpeted living room or a short hallway. Instead, he was faced with a long linoleum corridor that, on his right, lead past a long row of doors that ended with two signs that read 'Restrooms' and 'Kitchen,' and, on his left, reached a dead end at a wide window after only five yards or so. (Actually, it was only a dead end if you disliked the idea of reliving your days on the high school diving team.) He turned to the right and walked towards the 'Bathroom' sign.15

He tugged on a loose handle and stepped through the door, which moaned and shook in resistance. There were five green stalls on the left wall, an equal number of sinks straight ahead, and a trough-style urinal to the right. Two men were using the urinals, and one pair of feet was visible in a stall. He walked to the sink and splashed water on his face. It hardly helped.16

Dean stared straight into the mirror for a moment, casting only a fleeting glance at his hallowed face. He focused more on the room behind him—the doors on the stalls would never hang straight, and their paint job had achieved a patch-like quality after many pitiful attempts to cover up graffiti. The tiles were gritty with dirt, and one of the urinals had been flushing since the beginning of time.17

The faucet stopped running in fifteen seconds, so Dean walked into a stall, and sat down. He closed the door and chuckled about a rhyme (here I sit, broken hearted, tried to shit but only farted) on the wall. He relieved himself (then one day I took a chance, tried to fart but shit my pants) and left the bathroom.18

Halfway back to his door, Dean stopped at the elevator and pressed the 'lobby' button. It was one of the only buttons with all it's characters--'L-O-B'--still19

clearly defined. The doors slid open almost immediately, and he stepped inside without looking.20

“Oh God.” came a voice, and he looked up at a woman standing in a gray business suit, uncharacteristically expensive for someone living in the government-owned tenements. Her lips were pursed so tightly that it was hard to believe they could be opened far enough to let those words out. “I thought I could avoid you today. I figured you wouldn't wake up 'til noon, if you woke up at all today.”21

Dean gave a sarcastic laugh and stared at the emergency brake on the wall. He honestly considered pulling it, for no other reason than causing her distress. Spending more than five minutes at a time with the woman would resemble an eternity in the deepest layer of Hell, though, and it would make him even more late for work. Maybe next time.22

“Marijuana,” he began.23

“Mary Joanna.”24

“Forgive me,” he said with false sincerity. “You were given a very unfortunate name, Mary. I was thinking last night, and began to wonder how you can spend this much amount of time living with...losers...like me, and still be considered royalty?”25

Mary huffed and puffed for a moment, nearly blowing the house down, and gave him a look that she hoped would have the full effect of a prize-winning sarcastic comeback. It fell just short of this—she did consider herself royalty, having a big-business daddy and a loving mommy that could buy extravagant meals, who were broken and put behind bars for embezzlement only a month before her house caught fire. Now she was forced down to to the level of a bunch of swine that hated her for her former prosperity.26

Fortunately for Mary, the elevator stopped and Dean got out on the ground floor. She stayed on, although she, no doubt, had intended to get off there too. This was the only well-kept area of the building, and it was only kept nice to prevent it from becoming an eyesore to passers-by on the street, who could vote to cut off funding for the project without a second thought. Well-kept, however, did not mean emaculate—the 'Help' desk was scratched and the lighting was dim, but the rest of the floor would not have looked out of place in a three-star hotel.27

Dean walked to a phone hanging on one wall and inserted a quarter. He dialed a number and tapped his foot as if to encourage a voice to pick up quickly. A sweet Romanian voice picked up.28

“Hello, Cooperville Press and Argus, how may I he--”29

“--This is Dean, I'm just calling to--”30

“--You've got to get out here, man.” said the voice, losing it's false happiness. “Spallner is pissed, pissed, pissed. If you were anyone else, he'd have a gunman at your door by now.”31

He thanked her and hung up the receiver. If Spallner was mad enough to get Unshakable Eka worried, all excuses would be futile. He rushed out the door and raced with the blowing snow that skated across the parking lot. 32

The car door opened with a groan, because he had dented the area around the hinge a year ago. It was a Dodge pickup truck, featuring a sense of abandonment and suicide doors that had lived up to their name with the previous owner. Dean sat behind the wheel and started it up, empathizing with the engine as it gave a painful moan.33

As Dean began to pull out of the parking lot, Marijuana strutted out of the building, heels clicking. He imagined her standing, turned-up nose and all, in front of the truck. The likeness of a ram charged at her from it's hood ornament home until it knocked her back onto the road. As the smile transferred from her face to Dean's, the truck rolled over her torso, and caused the ram to nod in approval.34

Unfortunately, she was sitting safely in her car and Dean's tires ran over nothing but highway pavement and gray slush for the next forty minutes. He turned up the radio until it brought his headache back full strength. 35

He got on and off the freeway by two exits with unknown numbers. He'd taken the same route almost every day for two years, and never thought to give them names. The town he entered immediately thereafter had a name as well but it wasn't known to many outside the city limits—it was exactly the same as any other small town across America. In sixty seconds, Dean had rolled through the entire downtown area, which wasn't much more than a gas station, a restaurant, a patch of grass where he would have smoked if he grew up here, and a barber shop without a striped pole out front.36

A little farther down the road, he pulled into a half-full gravel lot. It was behind a small brown building without sign, but everyone in town knew it was the Cooperville Press and Argus, named for a nearby town and distributed throughout the county. Dean ran to the door and opened it slowly, hoping he could get to his desk before anyone noticed him.37

Not so lucky.38

The pudgy red body of Jack Spallner stopped Dean three steps later. It filled the hall, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall. It seemed to grew larger every time it inhaled, but never shrunk after exhaling.. 39

“DEAN GRAY YOU STUPID BASTARD!” yelled Spallner, who must have gotten the inevitable crescendo of insults and complaints out of the way an hour ago. “LATE AGAIN! HOLY--”40

“--Listen, Jack.” interrupted Dean coolly. It took an unusual amount of restraint to keep from turning it into 'Jackrabbit,' 'Jack Knife,' 'Jack-in-the-box,' or any of his much more inappropriate nicknames.“Can we just pretend you've yelled at me for a couple minutes, rhymed 'headlines' and 'deadlines' five times, and threatened to fire me, so I can get to work?”41

Spallner became an unstable atom bomb for several seconds, but eventually decided not to explode. The final deadline for the day was approaching, and his continued yelling would destroy whatever miserable chances it had of being met.42

“Just think about what your life would be like without this job.” he said. “What would you do?”43

“I'd probably write a feature article for some other paper about Spallner, the Chemically Unbalanced Jackrabbit.” 44

In less than one second, Spallner changed from a puffing, boiling, hysterical maniac to a small animal whose eyes radiated a healthy respect that could be mistaken for fear. (Hence the name 'Jackrabbit.') He walked away and Dean made his way down a narrow hallway. He kept his right shoulder to the wall as it opened up into a larger office, and he ended up in a corner cubicle with nothing in it that couldn't be slid into a cardboard box with five minutes notice.45

The coffee machine gurgled and five hundred keys were clacked as Dean logged onto his computer, neglecting his email account in favor of keeping his job. He typed away for a while, paraphrasing entire sheets of weather predictions and sports news. 46

At one-o-clock, he took a phonebook from the top drawer of his desk and opened it up at random to a white page. Approximately one-twentieth of the names were crossed off with black ink, in no particular order. Dean dropped his finger onto a random entry and copied all the information onto a yellow legal pad. 47

Sherry Ellis...3849 Crystal Drive, Apartment 206...614-299-444748

He crossed out the entry in the book and repeated the proccess with four more entries, each on a separate page, then the book was closed and dropped back in it's spot. Dialing the number, Dean kept his pen out and tapped it to the beat of waiting tone.49

“Hello?” said a voice, in time with the pen. “This is Sherry.”50

“Well, my name is Rob McKay, and I work for Phillips and Howard Incorporated. Would you like to take part in a demographic survey that will help us specialize our products for people like you?”51

A short pause.52

“Yes, I suppose so. I've got nowhere to be today.”53

“Thank you, Ma'am, it won't take long. First of all, I'll need to know your age and gender.”54

“I'm sixty-three years old,” (Dean sighed—if she had said 'years young,' like many women, she'd have to die a particularly painful death.) “And I guess you can tell I'm a woman.”55

Laughter, although nothing was funny.56

“I guess I do. Are you married, by any chance?”57

“Not any more—Richard passed five years ago.”58

“I'm very sorry, ma'am. Now, what religion are you? Jewish? Ah—do you ever visit the synagogue in Glassner?” Yes, she was regular attendee. After all, it was only a block away from her apartment. 59

For five minutes, Dean scratched the woman's responses on the legal pad, making jokes and asking even more questions. She was a lonely woman, resigned to death in five years, whose only hobbies were piano and reading. This must have been the first time anyone had called her in ages—she seemed to hang onto every word of Dean's with all her might. He began to worry that she wouldn't let him hang up when the time came. Perfect. Finally:60

“Thank you, ma'am. Before I go, I would like to know what Phillips and Howard products you've purchased withing the last five years.”61

“Honestly, young man,” (Young man—it's strange how much you can learn about a person from a simple phone conversation.) “I've never even heard of your company.” No one has.62

“Well, goodbye, and thank you for your cooperation.”63

Dean went straight to typing his next article. It only took ten minutes, so he went online, found the Kaddish, and read it for Sherry.64

He was dialing another number before long. He pursed his lips and considered calling it, but set the phone in it's cradle and picked it up again. After considering it for a full minute, he decided, finally, that he could call his neighbor Mary Joanna without feeling remorse—he had never interviewed anyone he knew personally before.65

He found the number in the phone book and dialed it, tapping his pen to the beat of the tone.66

“Hello?” came a voice, off-tempo.67

“Hello,” Dean said,, smiling. “My name is Stanley Egan, and I'm conducting research for Banner Enterprises...”68

At eight-o'-clock, all the cars have left the lot except for one. It belongs to Spallner, who has been in charge of printing the paper ever since he threw his coffee mug at Simon Hall and told him to get the hell out of the building.69

The paper will be distributed the following morning at five-o'-clock. There is a single copy of tomorrow's edition opened up on a table, and it has been proofread many times. 70

It is opened to a page somewhere in Section B. There's a story inside, continued from the front page:71

Only one person was killed in the fire: sixty-three year-old Sherry Ellis. The fire was started in Ellis' apartment, and officials say arson was not a factor. The fire is thought to have started in the kitchen, where the smoke could not have reached the alarm system. A neighboring tenant heard sounds of panic—banging, screaming, pounding ,etc.--at eight thirty. Not sure what to do, she called 9-1-1. When the emergency vehicles arrived at 8:33, Sherry Ellis was deceased, covered in burns. The fire was put out, and the mortician was called. Ellis was known for her love of the piano and Russian literature. She will join her late husband after a funeral service this Friday at the Glassner Synagogue. It will be held at 6:30, and anyone is welcome to attend.72

--Dean Gray73

Eight twenty-one p.m. There are nineteen cars in the Sunrise Towers parking lot. One of them, a black sedan, is angled slightly in it's parking space. If you sat on the hood, you could see straight into the second-story window of Sherry Ellis' flat. Through the lace curtains, you could watch her as she smoked a cigarette and began the last chapter of Dostyovsky's 'Crime and Punishment.'74

Eight twenty-two. She sets the cigarette in an ashtray designed to look like a seashell. She leaves the book open to her page and walks to the bathroom. She's whistling a Beatles song, but she can't remember the name. 75

Eight twenty-three. She closes the door and locks it, although no one was going to open it 76

anyways. She turns on the shower and undresses, waiting for the water to get warm. It doesn't take long—she steps in and begins to shampoo herself.77

Eight twenty-four. The cigarette, smoldering tip and all, falls from the ashtray to the crack in between the pages. Dostyovsky's masterpiece begins to burn.78

Eight twenty-six. A plume of smoke is rising from the tablecloth and the half-eaten curtains. It swirls against the bathroom door, and cannot make it into the living room, where the smoke detector is located. 79

Eight twenty-nine. Sherry is done with her shower. She wraps herself in a towel, dries her hair quickly, and reaches for the doorknob. It feels hot.80

Eight thirty.81