The Five People You Meet in Heaven

  “Get up…and get a job!”

  The old man was wobbling, but he came toward Eddie and pushed him. “Get up and get a job! Get up and get a job! Get up…and…GET A JOB!”

  Eddie rose to his elbows.

  “Get up and get a job! Get up and—”

  “ENOUGH!” Eddie yelled, surging to his feet, ignoring the burst of pain in his knee. He glared at his father, his face just inches away. He could smell the bad breath of alcohol and cigarettes.

  The old man glanced at Eddie’s leg. His voice lowered to a growl. “See? You…ain’t…so…hurt.”

  He reeled back to throw a punch, but Eddie moved on instinct and grabbed his father’s arm mid-swing. The old man’s eyes widened. This was the first time Eddie had ever defended himself, the first time he had ever done anything besides receive a beating as if he deserved it. His father looked at his own clenched fist, short of its mark, and his nostrils flared and his teeth gritted and he staggered backward and yanked his arm free. He stared at Eddie with the eyes of a man watching a train pull away.

  He never spoke to his son again.

  This was the final handprint on Eddie’s glass. Silence. It haunted their remaining years. His father was silent when Eddie moved into his own apartment, silent when Eddie took a cab-driving job, silent at Eddie’s wedding, silent when Eddie came to visit his mother. She begged and wept and beseeched her husband to change his mind, to let it go, but Eddie’s father would only say to her, through a clenched jaw, what he said to others who made the same request: “That boy raised a hand to me.” And that was the end of the conversation.

  All parents damage their children. This was their life together. Neglect. Violence. Silence. And now, someplace beyond death, Eddie slumped against a stainless steel wall and dropped into a snowbank, stung again by the denial of a man whose love, almost inexplicably, he still coveted, a man ignoring him, even in heaven. His father. The damage done.

  “DON’T BE ANGRY,” a woman’s voice said. “He can’t hear you.”

  Eddie jerked his head up. An old woman stood before him in the snow. Her face was gaunt, with sagging cheeks, rose-colored lipstick, and tightly pulled-back white hair, thin enough in parts to reveal the pink scalp beneath it. She wore wire-rimmed spectacles over narrow blue eyes.

  Eddie could not recall her. Her clothes were before his time, a dress made of silk and chiffon, with a bib-like bodice stitched with white beads and topped with a velvet bow just below her neck. Her skirt had a rhinestone buckle and there were snaps and hooks up the side. She stood with elegant posture, holding a parasol with both hands. Eddie guessed she’d been rich.

  “Not always rich,” she said, grinning as if she’d heard him. “I was raised much like you were, in the back end of the city, forced to leave school when I was fourteen. I was a working girl. So were my sisters. We gave every nickel back to the family—”

  Eddie interrupted. He didn’t want another story. “Why can’t my father hear me?” he demanded.

  She smiled. “Because his spirit—safe and sound—is part of my eternity. But he is not really here. You are.”

  “Why does my father have to be safe for you?”

  She paused.

  “Come,” she said.

  SUDDENLY THEY WERE at the bottom of the mountain. The light from the diner was now just a speck, like a star that had fallen into a crevice.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” the old woman said. Eddie followed her eyes. There was something about her, as if he’d seen her photograph somewhere.

  “Are you…my third person?”

  “I am at that,” she said.

  Eddie rubbed his head. Who was this woman? At least with the Blue Man, at least with the Captain, he had some recollection of their place in his life. Why a stranger? Why now? Eddie had once hoped death would mean a reunion with those who went before him. He had attended so many funerals, polishing his black dress shoes, finding his hat, standing in a cemetery with the same despairing question: Why are they gone and I’m still here? His mother. His brother. His aunts and uncles. His buddy Noel. Marguerite. “One day,” the priest would say, “we will all be together in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

  Where were they, then, if this was heaven? Eddie studied this strange older woman. He felt more alone than ever.

  “Can I see Earth?” he whispered.

  She shook her head no.

  “Can I talk to God?”

  “You can always do that.”

  He hesitated before asking the next question.

  “Can I go back?”

  She squinted. “Back?”

  “Yeah, back,” Eddie said. “To my life. To that last day. Is there something I can do? Can I promise to be good? Can I promise to go to church all the time? Something?”

  “Why?” She seemed amused.

  “Why?” Eddie repeated. He swiped at the snow that had no cold, with the bare hand that felt no moisture. “Why? Because this place don’t make no sense to me. Because I don’t feel like no angel, if that’s what I’m supposed to feel like. Because I don’t feel like I got it all figured out. I can’t even remember my own death. I can’t remember the accident. All I remember are these two little hands—this little girl I was trying to save, see? I was pulling her out of the way and I must’ve grabbed her hands and that’s when I…”

  He shrugged.

  “Died?” the old woman said, smiling. “Passed away? Moved on? Met your Maker?”

  “Died,” he said, exhaling. “And that’s all I remember. Then you, the others, all this. Ain’t you supposed to have peace when you die?”

  “You have peace,” the old woman said, “when you make it with yourself.”

  “Nah,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “Nah, you don’t.” He thought about telling her the agitation he’d felt every day since the war, the bad dreams, the inability to get excited about much of anything, the times he went to the docks alone and watched the fish pulled in by the wide rope nets, embarrassed because he saw himself in those helpless, flopping creatures, snared and beyond escape.

  He didn’t tell her that. Instead he said, “No offense, lady, but I don’t even know you.”

  “But I know you,” she said.

  Eddie sighed.

  “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

  “Well,” she said, “if you have a moment.”

  SHE SAT DOWN then, although there was nothing to sit on. She simply rested on the air and crossed her legs, lady-like, keeping her spine straight. The long skirt folded neatly around her. A breeze blew, and Eddie caught the faint scent of perfume.

  “As I mentioned, I was once a working girl. My job was serving food in a place called the Seahorse Grille. It was near the ocean where you grew up. Perhaps you remember it?”

  She nodded toward the diner, and it all came back to Eddie. Of course. That place. He used to eat breakfast there. A greasy spoon, they called it. They’d torn it down years ago.

  “You?” Eddie said, almost laughing. “You were a waitress at the Seahorse?”

  “Indeed,” she said, proudly. “I served dockworkers their coffee and longshoremen their crab cakes and bacon.

  “I was an attractive girl in those years, I might add. I turned away many a proposal. My sisters would scold me. ‘Who are you to be so choosy?’ they would say. ‘Find a man before it’s too late.’

  “Then one morning, the finest-looking gentleman I had ever seen walked through the door. He wore a chalkstripe suit and a derby hat. His dark hair was neatly cut and his mustache covered a constant smile. He nodded when I served him and I tried not to stare. But when he spoke with his colleague, I could hear his heavy, confident laughter. Twice I caught him looking in my direction. When he paid his bill, he said his name was Emile and he asked if he might call on me. And I knew, right then, my sisters would no longer have to hound me for a decision.

  “Our courtship was exhilarating, for Emile was a man of means. He took me places I had never been, bought me clothes I had never imagined, paid for
meals I had never experienced in my poor, sheltered life. Emile had earned his wealth quickly, from investments in lumber and steel. He was a spender, a risk taker—he went over the boards when he got an idea. I suppose that is why he was drawn to a poor girl like me. He abhorred those who were born into wealth, and rather enjoyed doing things the ‘sophisticated people’ would never do.

  “One of those things was visiting seaside resorts. He loved the attractions, the salty food, the gypsies and fortune-tellers and weight guessers and diving girls. And we both loved the sea. One day, as we sat in the sand, the tide rolling gently to our feet, he asked for my hand in marriage.

  “I was overjoyed. I told him yes and we heard the sounds of children playing in the ocean. Emile went over the boards again and swore that soon he would build a resort park just for me, to capture the happiness of this moment—to stay eternally young.”

  The old woman smiled. “Emile kept his promise. A few years later, he made a deal with the railroad company, which was looking for a way to increase its riders on the weekend. That’s how most amusement parks were built, you know.”

  Eddie nodded. He knew. Most people didn’t. They thought amusement parks were constructed by elves, built with candy canes. In fact, they were simply business opportunities for railroad companies, who erected them at the final stops of routes, so commuters would have a reason to ride on weekends. You know where I work? Eddie used to say. The end of the line. That’s where I work.

  “Emile,” the old woman continued, “built the most wonderful place, a massive pier using timber and steel he already owned. Then came the magical attractions—races and rides and boat trips and tiny railways. There was a carousel imported from France and a Ferris wheel from one of the international exhibitions in Germany. There were towers and spires and thousands of incandescent lights, so bright that at night, you could see the park from a ship’s deck on the ocean.

  “Emile hired hundreds of workers, municipal workers and carnival workers and foreign workers. He brought in animals and acrobats and clowns. The entrance was the last thing finished, and it was truly grand. Everyone said so. When it was complete, he took me there with a cloth blindfold over my eyes. When he removed the blindfold, I saw it.”

  The old woman took a step back from Eddie. She looked at him curiously, as if she were disappointed.

  “The entrance?” she said. “Don’t you remember? Didn’t you ever wonder about the name? Where you worked? Where your father worked?”

  She touched her chest softly with her white-gloved fingers. Then she dipped, as if formally introducing herself.

  “I,” she said, “am Ruby.”

  Today Is Eddie’s Birthday

  He is 33. He wakes with a jolt, gasping for breath. His thick, black hair is matted with sweat. He blinks hard against the darkness, trying desperately to focus on his arm, his knuckles, anything to know that he is here, in the apartment over the bakery, and not back in the war, in the village, in the fire. That dream. Will it ever stop?

  It is just before 4 A.M. No point in going back to sleep. He waits until his breathing subsides, then slowly rolls off the bed, trying not to wake his wife. He puts his right leg down first, out of habit, avoiding the inevitable stiffness of his left. Eddie begins every morning the same way. One step and one hobble.

  In the bathroom, he checks his bloodshot eyes and splashes water on his face. It is always the same dream: Eddie wandering through the flames in the Philippines on his last night of war. The village huts are engulfed in fire, and there is a constant, high-pitched squealing noise. Something invisible hits Eddie’s legs and he swats at it but misses, and then swats again and misses again. The flames grow more intense, roaring like an engine, and then Smitty appears, yelling for Eddie, yelling, “Come on! Come on!” Eddie tries to speak but when he opens his mouth, the high-pitched squeal emerges from his throat. Then something grabs his legs, pulling him under the muddy earth.

  And then he wakes up. Sweating. Panting. Always the same. The worst part is not the sleeplessness. The worst part is the general darkness the dream leaves over him, a gray film that clouds the day. Even his happy moments feel encased, like holes jabbed in a hard sheet of ice.

  He dresses quietly and goes down the stairs. The taxi is parked by the corner, its usual spot, and Eddie wipes the moisture from its windshield. He never speaks about the darkness to Marguerite. She strokes his hair and says, “What’s wrong?” and he says, “Nothing, I’m just beat,” and leaves it at that. How can he explain such sadness when she is supposed to make him happy? The truth is he cannot explain it himself. All he knows is that something stepped in front of him, blocking his way, until in time he gave up on things, he gave up studying engineering and he gave up on the idea of traveling. He sat down in his life. And there he remained.

  This night, when Eddie returns from work, he parks the taxi by the corner. He comes slowly up the stairs. From his apartment, he hears music, a familiar song.

  “You made me love you

  I didn’t want to do it,

  I didn’t want to do it…”

  He opens the door to see a cake on the table and a small white bag, tied with ribbon.

  “Honey?” Marguerite yells from the bedroom. “Is that you?”

  He lifts the white bag. Taffy. From the pier.

  “Happy birthday to you…” Marguerite emerges, singing in her soft sweet voice. She looks beautiful, wearing the print dress Eddie likes, her hair and lips done up. Eddie feels the need to inhale, as if undeserving of such a moment. He fights the darkness within him, “Leave me alone,” he tells it. “Let me feel this the way I should feel it.”

  Marguerite finishes the song and kisses him on the lips.

  “Want to fight me for the taffy?” she whispers.

  He moves to kiss her again. Someone raps on the door.

  “Eddie! Are you in there? Eddie?”

  Mr. Nathanson, the baker, lives in the ground-level apartment behind the store. He has a telephone. When Eddie opens the door, he is standing in the doorway, wearing a bathrobe. He looks concerned.

  “Eddie,” he says. “Come down. There’s a phone call. I think something happened to your father.”

  “I AM RUBY.”

  It suddenly made sense to Eddie, why the woman looked familiar. He had seen a photograph, somewhere in the back of the repair shop, among the old manuals and paperwork from the park’s initial ownership.

  “The old entrance…” Eddie said.

  She nodded in satisfaction. The original Ruby Pier entrance had been something of a landmark, a giant arching structure based on a historic French temple, with fluted columns and a coved dome at the top. Just beneath that dome, under which all patrons would pass, was the painted face of a beautiful woman. This woman. Ruby.

  “But that thing was destroyed a long time ago,” Eddie said. “There was a big…”

  He paused.

  “Fire,” the old woman said. “Yes. A very big fire.” She dropped her chin, and her eyes looked down through her spectacles, as if she were reading from her lap.

  “It was Independence Day, the Fourth of July—a holiday. Emile loved holidays. ‘Good for business,’ he’d say. If Independence Day went well, the entire summer might go well. So Emile arranged for fireworks. He brought in a marching band. He even hired extra workers, roustabouts mostly, just for that weekend.

  “But something happened the night before the celebration. It was hot, even after the sun went down, and a few of the roustabouts chose to sleep outside, behind the work sheds. They lit a fire in a metal barrel to roast their food.

  “As the night went on, there was drinking and carousing. The workers got ahold of some of the smaller fireworks. They set them off. The wind blew. The sparks flew. Everything in those days was made of lathe and tar…”

  She shook her head. “The rest happened quickly. The fire spread to the midway and the food stalls and on to the animal cages. The roustabouts ran off. By the time someone came to our home to wa
ke us, Ruby Pier was in flames. From our window we saw the horrible orange blaze. We heard the horses’ hooves and the steamer engines of the fire companies. People were in the street.

  “I begged Emile not to go, but that was fruitless. Of course he would go. He would go to the raging fire and he would try to salvage his years of work and he would lose himself in anger and fear and when the entrance caught fire, the entrance with my name and my picture, he lost all sense of where he was, too. He was trying to throw buckets of water when a column collapsed upon him.”

  She put her fingers together and raised them to her lips. “In the course of one night, our lives were changed forever. Risk taker that he was, Emile had acquired only minimal insurance on the pier. He lost his fortune. His splendid gift to me was gone.

  “In desperation, he sold the charred grounds to a businessman from Pennsylvania for far less than it was worth. That businessman kept the name, Ruby Pier, and in time, he reopened the park. But it was not ours anymore.

  “Emile’s spirit was as broken as his body. It took three years before he could walk on his own. We moved away, to a place outside the city, a small flat, where our lives were spent modestly, me tending to my wounded husband and silently nurturing a single wish.”

  She stopped.

  “What wish?” Eddie said.

  “That he had never built that place.”

  THE OLD WOMAN sat in silence. Eddie studied the vast jade sky. He thought about how many times he had wished this same thing, that whoever had built Ruby Pier had done something else with his money.

  “I’m sorry about your husband,” Eddie said, mostly because he didn’t know what else to say.

  The old woman smiled. “Thank you, dear. But we lived many years beyond those flames. We raised three children. Emile was sickly, in and out of the hospital. He left me a widow in my fifties. You see this face, these wrinkles?” She turned her cheeks upward. “I earned every one of them.”