Dick is Dead: A Nightmare Story for Children
by Jason Young

See the car stop.

It’s the day of my funeral and the traffic lights are stuck on red. The black man driven black car waits, black on asphalt-black. The lights don’t change as gallons and gallons of gasoline bleed into the atmosphere behind me, puddles of smoky spray belching onto the pavement. A thousand crusty pistons in a thousand crusty cylinders sing in perfect harmony.

The aching squeals make something inside of me break into completeness - something that was dead and grey shoots back to life.

Sick, hungry, I push open my coffin and crawl out.

See Dick run.

Out of breath, I crash against the building wall, huffing and puffing as the black man discovers I’m missing. A carrier of night, a saviour of sorrow - he slams his car door shut and quickly glances around, runs up the street towards me. I duck into a store; a half-breath later my savior runs by.

Do I fit in among the living? I ask myself, scanning the convenience store kids waiting in line to pay for their liquor/candy/nicotine. Their bleached-out blue, pale sunken TV-eyeballs answer me in a tartrazine-coated whisper:

Welcome, Dick. Welcome to our humble home.

I know they’ll keep my secret. If the black man comes in here, asks them if they’ve seen me, they won’t squeal. They would not betray their own. No, their freaky white voices will lie, we haven’t seen a corpse. We’ve just been playin’ video games, sir. That’s what we do when we’re here - we play video games and suck each other’s blood.

I walk to the back of the store and duck behind a magazine display rack - as good a place as any to hide.

See Dick steal.

My thumb is two days rotten; it almost falls off as I pull the chip bag open. Sticking my hand into the grease, I retrieve a crumb-coated fist. Lick the oil, slurp the animal fat off my fingers.

I’m crouching behind an aisle; so far I’ve grabbed and devoured three chocolate bars and a bag of chips. The chips are salt and vinegar and I realize it’s a bad choice as they burn my open sores.

Suddenly thirsty - and in a great deal of pain - I crawl across the stained plastic floor towards the soda aisle.

See Jane fall.

...right across my leg. I grimace in pain (realizing my nerve endings must still be intact) and look up at her through swollen eyelids.

She’s just like me: filthy, ugly, dead. Her hair is twisted in a bun and her lips are chapped and her eyes are coated with smoke. She’s wearing a torn white dress, cut just above her kneecaps to show her dirty legs. There’s blood or lipstick or something black smeared across her shoulder, making her look like a Sergeant of the dead-but-living.

Don’t mention it, Private - just get that rifle in your mouth!

I’m looking at her and she’s stunning.

Pull the trigger, Private! Pull it now!

*Bang.*

See Dick fall in love.

See Jane bend down and help Dick stand.

We stumble out of the store, unnoticed by the arcade-zombies, the candy-covered corpses. Their eyes are elsewhere: tack-welded to the rows and rows of lottery tickets, the one-in-a-million chance that maybe they’ll win. Executive desk-jobs, cabins on the shore of Candle Lake, skiing in the winter and tennis in the summer: these are the images burning to ash as the silver is scratched with a tightly-gripped penny. Abraham Lincoln smiling on the sweaty copper, coated in a tossed-off glaze. He knows they’re already dead; he knows it’s going to be a charade from here on out.

We stumble out of the store. The black man and his black car are gone; he’s probably back-tracking to the morgue, hoping to find me spilled out somewhere along the way.

We step into the intersection. All around us, cars are swerving like sharks, neither hungry to hit us nor sorry to miss. We taste their neon brake lights, lick their chrome-lined bumpers. Suck their exhaust and bleed them dry, dizzy and laughing and full. They holler at us from inside their a.c. powered tornados. But our ears are broken and we can’t hear what they’re saying - so instead of hollering back we smile.

See Jane talk.

See Dick listen.

She tells me about the house she used to live in. The lawn she used to mow, the parents she used to love. She says she wants to go back, show them she’s still alive.

I tell her they might not believe her.

What do you mean? she asks.

I take her hand, kiss it.

Nothing, I say. (Bodies float over the mountain-tops, thinking they’re still in a plane.)

I can smell the burning jet-fuel in her hair.

As she cries, against my chest.

See Spot.

She notices the red spot on my shirt, just above where my heart is. I try to take her attention away from it - but she won’t be distracted. She pulls the funeral-jacket over my shoulder, lifts up my shirt.

What’s this? she asks, placing her fingers over the bullet hole.

It’s the reason I’m here with you, I say.

Who did this? she whispers.

I shrug - not wanting to get into it.

We walk through a park. Her eyes keep returning to my wound, glancing between it and the ground. It’s autumn and the ground is orange: Mother Earth is rusting out. Leaves are breaking beneath our soles and grass is poking out between pieces of litter. On either side of us, garbage receptacles stand at attention, awaiting the command to attack.

Mother Sergeant Earth hollers:

Hold your positions! We’ll wait till they’re not expecting it and then we’ll strike!

It isn’t us, I plead, bargaining for our lives. We’re not the ones discarding needles, aluminum, cardboard on your precious fall-skin. It’s the ones lined up at the convenience store - they’re the ones you want to kill. Can’t you see we’re already dead?

Yes, my son, she answers. But what makes you think I wouldn’t hurt an innocent?

See Dick run. See Jane run.

See Dick and Jane run out of the park.

We walk between the rows of household vomit. We look at the little stickers. Other corpses float by us - picking up items and putting them down. It’s the last garage sale of the year and we’re mingling with the living.

She picks up a glass vase.

(She lifts my shirt, sees the tiny hole.)

Holds it to the sky.

(Unsure, she places her fingers on the scar tissue...)

She watches the sun change through the greenish-glass.

(...and her palms begin to sweat.)

The vase slips through her grip.

I’m ready for it.

As the silence breaks into a thousand pieces, I’m darting behind the distracted garage-sale minder. Flipping open the little metal box, I take the bills from inside and jam them into my casket-pants pocket.

I take the quarters too. They’re for her parents.

Now the lady’s yelling at her. You’ll have to pay for that! You’re going to-

I tap the lady on the shoulder, remove a ten from my pants. Pay her back with her own money and walk away with my best dead friend.

See Dick and Jane leave.

See Spot run.

The bullet hole’s bleeding - just like it did two days ago. We’re back in the park, lying under a tree. Feet shuffle by us under the branches as she tears a strip off her dress. Passing it behind me, she brings it over the bullet hole and ties it up. Her fingers are covered in dirt as she loops the fabric up and around my shoulder, forming a tight little knot. The white turns red, spreads, and finally stops. Slowly, she brings her face close to mine and I kiss her, tasting the emptiness inside her.

Suddenly she pulls away, asks:

It’s gone, I say. Didn’t you know?

What?!? she cries. But-

But what? I prod.

-You’re just like me!

I decide it’s time to tell her. Slowly, I remove the stolen quarters from my pocket, hand them to her, whisper:

What for? she asks, looking down at the coins.

They’re for you to call your parents and tell them...

Not exactly, I begin...

See Jane screaming as she runs.

See the long black car crashing into the park. See the black man get out, grab Dick, stuff him back into the casket.

See him pull back onto the street.

See the traffic lights.

As they turn to green.

© Jason Young