Dead Man's Cell Phone (7 page)

 

STRANGER

Hang up the phone. I'm coming over.

There are numbers stored on that phone. I need them.

 

JEAN

You can't have it.

 

STRANGER

I advise you to hand it over quietly.

 

JEAN

No, I won't. I won't!

 

STRANGER

Hand over the phone or I will kill you.

 

JEAN

That's absurd. You can't have it.

STRANGER

You know nothing of Gordon's work, do you? It's big business. You're in over your head.

 

JEAN

No—I'm afraid you're in over
your
head.

(Surprised at her own daring)
Whoa!

STRANGER

I didn't want to have to do this, Jean, but you are forcing my hand—

 

JEAN

Do they have lobster bisque in heaven?

GORDON

We're not in heaven. We're in a hell reserved for people who sell organs on the black market and the people who loved them.

 

JEAN

Gordon?

 

GORDON

That's right. When you die, you go straight to the person you most loved, right back to the very moment, the very place, you decided you loved them. There's a spiritual pipeline, you might say. In life we are often separated from what we love best—errors of timing, of geography—but there are no errors in the afterlife. You loved me most, Jean, so you came to me.

 

JEAN

What if the person you loved most didn't love you most?

 

GORDON

Don't try to work it out. It's too complex. Mathematical hoopla. If they need three of
Jean the beloved
why they make you into three Jeans. For the very few it's a neat transaction—totally reciprocal.
A
loves
B
,
B
loves
A
. However: some mothers loved their children best, those children loved their father best, and the father loved the family dog. Some end up with gardens. The very best parents loved all their children equally but that is rare, rare.

 

JEAN

How about people who loved God best?

 

GORDON

Don't know. Never met 'em. They go to a different laundromat.

 

JEAN

Laundromat?

 

GORDON

See you only have one costume here. Whatever you died in. So you go to the laundromat once a week. Only you have to wash your clothes naked. It's weird—hundreds of naked people washing their socks.

 

JEAN

Who did you love best?

 

GORDON

I loved myself best of all. There's a special holding pen for us. Waiting to see if someone else will join us. Like you joined me, Jean. You're my good luck.

 

JEAN

But I'm not dead.
You're lying.
You lie all the live long day.

 

GORDON

No,
you
lie all the live long day.
All those nice lies you made up for me?
Now why did you do that, Jean?

 

JEAN

I saw you die. I saw your face. I wanted for you to be good.

 

GORDON

Aw, Jean.

 

JEAN

Oh, Gordon.

 

GORDON

You and I—we're alike. We both told lies to help other people. You decided to help a dead man because only a dead person can be one hundred percent good. When you're alive, the goodness rubs off you if you so much as leave the house. Life is essentially a very large brillo pad.

 

But I digress. The point is, Jean, we're two peas in the proverbial pod. In-coming calls, out-going organs, we're all just floating receptacles—waiting to be filled—with meaning—which you and I provide. It's a talent, and I admire you.

 

JEAN

No—we're not alike. You made people into
parts
, into things. Don't you feel bad about that?

 

GORDON

I feel done with it—that's all. Money and organs and trade—up here—it's just road kill of the mind. I'm done with organs. Didn't even donate mine. They're all intact. I never signed that little thingy on my driver's license. Felt like a suicide note to sign it . . . and now . . .

 

JEAN

You don't need them.

 

GORDON

No.

 

JEAN

Take them out.

 

GORDON

What?

 

JEAN

Take them out. Put them on a cloud and lower them into South America for all the sad people who sold their own.

 

GORDON

Would that make you feel better, Jean? Would it?

 

JEAN

Yes, I think it would.

 

GORDON

All right, Jean.

I can't get it out, Jean. I can't get it out.
Oh, I've almost got it Jean!
I can feel it coming out!
Help me get it out! It won't come out!
The skin is so tough! Uuuuugh!

Couldn't do it.

 

JEAN

Oh God, how did I end up in your pipeline? Why am I not here with Dwight? In a stationery store. I loved Dwight, didn't I? I don't even know you.

 

GORDON

You love me because I'm charismatic. I'm more charismatic than Dwight. Even dead, apparently. I spent about two seconds feeling guilty about that when I was a child, then I just went on being me. Sorry, Jean. You have to be very careful who you fall in love with, and where. A nondescript café for all time? Couldn't you have chosen better wall hangings? Or better weather? An overcast day, for all time?

 

JEAN

I liked it when you couldn't talk. Could you—pretend to be dead again? Just for a moment?

 

GORDON

Whatever turns you on, Jean.

JEAN

What were you looking at before you died?

 

GORDON

You.

 

JEAN

Me.

 

GORDON

Yes, you were eating the last bite of my soup. But I wanted you to have it. That's why my eyes looked so nice—I was giving you my last bite. They say love goes right through the eyes—bam. I saw you before I died; you didn't see me. You saw me after I died; I couldn't see you. We had star-crossed eyes. Now we can gaze and gaze for all time . . .

We don't really kiss with our mouths up here. Just letting you get the hang of it.

 

JEAN

What do you kiss with?

 

GORDON

Our hair.

 

JEAN

Oh, God!
I am dead, aren't I?

 

GORDON

Yes.

 

JEAN

I suddenly feel very lonely.

 

GORDON

You can still listen to the others, you know. Invisible conversation. They're still in the air—listen:

JEAN

(To Gordon)
You can hear cell phones here?

 

GORDON

Oh, yes. The only communication device God didn't invent was gossip, and that's the most advanced technology to date. It's what they call the music of the spheres—listen—

MRS. GOTTLIEB

Of course he has my phone number, he's my son, I'm his mother. Who is this? Gordon?

JEAN

I heard her voice. On your phone. I thought—what can you tell a mother—about her dead son. I said: have a good day. And then I kept on lying to her, to make up for it.

 

GORDON

Ah, mother.

She was never so comforting in life as she was in death. If mother did not approve, then mother did not appear to love. Funny. I never knew whether or not my own mother loved me.

 

JEAN

Oh, she loved you. Your mother is beside herself with grief.

 

GORDON

No lies, Jean.

 

JEAN

No lies. Not that you deserve it.

Your mother said: I see it as my job to mourn him until the day I die.

 

GORDON

She did?

How about that. My mother loved me after all.

JEAN

Gordon—your face is different.

 

GORDON

How?

 

JEAN

You look well-loved.

 

Gordon?

 

GORDON

Mother?

JEAN

Gordon? Gordon!

It's so quiet.
I'll just call Dwight.

 

Turn on. Turn on.

Stupid, stupid phone.

I'll just pretend it's working.

Hello, Dwight, if you get this message,

I am alone on my own planet and I might be here for all time because I didn't tell you I love you in the closet in the dark of the stationery store because I got scared and then the phone rang and when something rings you have to answer it.

Don't you?

Z.

Z!

DWIGHT

Jean!

 

JEAN

Oh, Dwight! You have no idea what I've been through!

 

DWIGHT

Jean! I told you! You should never have gone off with those bad people! I forbidded you.

 

JEAN

You were right, Dwight! Dwight you were right! Did you get my message? I called you from my planet. It was so cold. And the air, oh it remembers, it all stays, like an Irish whistle they hear us. Did you hear me? Z!

 

DWIGHT

Oh, Jean!

 

JEAN

Can we go home? Do I have my kidneys? Does knowing someone help to love them best or does it all happen in one millisecond? I let your brother go. No phone. Oh, Dwight—call me darling.

DWIGHT

Oh, Jean, oh darling.

 

DWIGHT

Mother! Jean passed out in Johannesburg.

JEAN

Hello? Who are you? Put down your weapon! Oh, Dwight!

 

DWIGHT

Here, have some bourbon, upside down.