Dead Detectives and Dead Teens: chapter 1

Well starting out with a new, original story! Being dead sucks. Being murdered sucks worse. Good news! Even the underworld has detectives...

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You know, the big wigs down here tell me it’s about memory. Our bodies change with how we remember ourselves, and we can change that. It’s like Lotta, my secretary. She didn’t used to be drop dead gorgeous with a rack that wouldn’t quit. She was a mousy little girl with stringy brown hair.

No more.

Just don’t look at the rope burn around her neck. See, that’s the other thing about living down below. Not all of our memories are easy to get rid of. For Lotta? It’s hanging from the rope in that little room, realizing that it’s not gonna be fast or painless.

Me? Yeah, everyone can smell the damp on me. I guess I handled it better than Lotta—figured you keep poking your nose into the Mob’s affairs, sooner or later you’re gonna be stuffed into a barrel and dumped into the East River. I could change that, like Lotta might be able to get rid of that rope burn.

But…

See, that’s the big thing about living in the Memory Lands. It’s about memory.  We’re not made of flesh and bone, the City isn’t made of steel and concrete. It’s memory. It’s why nobody ever bothers to map the City. A million memories, a million little changes. You can always find your way to that cafe you like, but other places? You can look a week for ‘em—unless you know how to do things.

Change your memory too much, you may forget who you are. And that’s bad.

Worst case, you end up in Darktown.

But right now, Lotta’s looking at me with that look.

“Client?” I asked.

“Yeah. You ain’t gonna like this one, Boss,” she said and turned to let the…

Oh yeah. I understand.

Teens are always the worst cases.

The girl who is walking in doesn’t show any signs of what killed her. But not many teens die of old age, and she can’t be over 16. She’s wearing some new clothes, from the ‘70s, but definitely after my time.

Yeah, call me old, but I think girls should wear clothing that covers more than it doesn’t. Still, not my show.

“Mr. Harris?”

“Stan Harris, yeah,” I nodded.”You want something to drink?”

“I-No, I mean, I never drank. I’m Sheila.”

“Pity, Shiela. One nice part about being dead is you get the taste but not the hangover.” I pulled the booze out of my lower drawer and poured myself some. “So, what are you here for?”

“It’s um… I died.”

“Yeah, that’s how we get here.”

“And well, nobody… Grandpa and Grandma aren’t here, but I guess they were—“

“Okay, hold up.” Guess this kid missed orientation. “We got saints and sinners down here, people with regrets, and people who lived their lives. So what you were upstairs don’t mean anything. You gotta place to stay?”

“At one of the apartments…it’s like my old room.”

“Good.” The City usually had some place for people to go to when they arrived. Some lived there for their unlives, and some moved. But at least she’s not wandering around. “Now, tell me what you want?”

“I’ve been hearing Mom.”

I frowned. “A lot of people hear their loved ones, especially if they’re up in the Living Lands. It’ll go away.”

“No, I mean, it’s not like a memory! I hear her in the present! She’s calling for me!”

Crap. Just because you couldn’t go medically crazy didn’t mean you couldn’t go the other kind of crazy. But…

Crazy didn’t mean you might not have a point.

“Fine, let’s go get something to eat and we’ll talk. Lotta, hold the fort.”

“For what, your non-existent customers?” Lotta called.

“Ha. Ha.” I said. “Yeah, if Abe Lincoln comes in, get his name and address.”

“Fine.”

I grabbed my jacket and gestured for Sheila to follow me out of the office, down the rickety stairs, past the little barbershop.

Memories. And the City moves to help us. I grew up in this time, with sodajerks and matinee performances that boasted real AC, and so I live in a part of the city that remembers that time. A few blocks down there’s some garish monstrosity from the 1960s, and a big mall from the early 1970s, where people who remember that go.

You can get anywhere you want in the City, it’s just a matter of wanting to get there.

“Right,” I gestured at Shiela. “Got anything you want to eat?”

“Um… we don’t have to eat.”

Crap. “You really did miss orientation, didn’t you? Not surprising, we get more people down here every year.”

“Why? There’s not a war going on—“

“Kid, there’s a war going on somewhere on Earth every second of the day.” I pointed over at some apartment buildings. There was a woman coming out of one, smallpox scars on her face, wearing an 18th century dress as she unlocked the door to her little Volkswagen bug.  “Also, there’s a lot more people now. I’m telling you if the Living World ever does have a nuclear war, we’re gonna be completely swamped… So, what’s your poison?”

“Do you have… McDonalds?”

I couldn’t help it. I just stopped and stared at her. “We have every kind of food you ever dreamed of. And you want a McDonalds.”

“Yeah?”

“Fine. Let’s walk.”

“But won’t it…”

“We’ll get there, and it’ll give me some time to think.”

She nods, and just follows me. Above us a biplane sputters in the sky, the stars above it matching no night sky up top shining, the half-moon rising.

We get the moon. Not the sun. Not down here.

She’s looking around, with that worried look that a lot of new arrivals have. Why not? After all, you were supposed to go to heaven or hell, but not… here. I know some of the religious types say we might be in purgatory…

But it’s not exactly like anything they remember. Or anyone. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Ramesses bemoan the fact that things were Not As He Was Told.

“So, you looking for a job?”

“A—I’m dead!”

“So am I. Dead don’t pay the bills. Sure the city gives you a place to live and you can get food and a few memory tokens…but that’s not enough.” We dodge some kids running down the street, chasing a yapping dog.

I guess they all remembered it, from how skinny they are, they probably didn’t have many good memories up top.

“Look, Kid.”

“Sheila!”

“Fine, Sheila, this place is about memory, and working helps keep your memory strong. It doesn’t have to be a normal job. We have schools here, but if you just sit and stew or wonder around, longterm, that ain’t good for you. Even if you want to Move On, you can’t just do it by sitting and stewing.”

“That’s going to heaven?”

“Dunno. Nobody’s ever come back. Some people think it’s just going all the way dead.”

She doesn’t say anything to that. I let her do her thinking while we head down the street.

There will be golden arches in our future.

After all, it’s what we’re looking for.