by Casey Jo Graham Welmers
When we were alive, I never figured G’s friend Ben for a psychic. Aside from standing up in our wedding and telling G that he was sure we would “last the distance,” Ben never said anything even remotely prophetic. In fact, he never said much at all, existing on the more quiet and reserved end of the social spectrum. He’d froze when it was time to deliver his best man speech, passed the mic on and around without ever uttering a decibel enhanced word. All to say, it was a total shock that Ben, of all people, so accurately predicted our demise.
Maybe it was a spasmodic, temporary sort of ability, bestowed upon Ben only because he had once lived in Baltimore, and the Universe had apparently deigned that Baltimore was where G and I would perish. At least we’d died together, and honestly, that’s the best any of us can hope for. Ideally, we’d have lived a lot longer, had many adventures and retired to northern Michigan and watched our nieces grow up and everyone else we love grow old, but these things are never really up to us.
Earlier in the day, when we were still well and whole and among the land of the living, Ben told G that if we died our bodies would be taken up by Mr. Trash Wheel, Baltimore Inner Harbor’s beloved, googly eyed garbage intercepting barge. I think Ben meant to say when and not if, but he was probably just trying to be nice, it being our last day on Earth and all.
G and I were in a Lyft, on our way back to our hotel after a literary reading, when the driver gunned it onto the boardwalk and drove us straight into Inner Harbor. We’d thought it strange, when we first arrived in Baltimore, that there were no guardrails or fences or posts separating the water from the boardwalk—that at any given moment anyone or anything could simply plunge into the ocean. I never imagined that that we would be the ones doing the plunging. I have a small memory of saying, “well isn’t this ironic?” as we went airborne, but I’d sung the words, like Alanis. I hadn’t meant to, they’d just come out that way. Not that I dislike Alanis, but I would never have chosen “Ironic” as my swan song.
I’m thankful I don’t remember drowning, because I was always afraid of drowning. G says he doesn’t remember anything either, except for a brief moment where he called the Lyft driver a murderous son of a bitch, but then quickly forgave him because he didn’t want us to die pissed off or scared or any such negative emotion that could potentially render us trapped as ghosts in Baltimore. I’m not entirely sure unresolved trauma at the end of life equates with ghost-hood, but I feel as though I’d heard whispers of this in New Age circles and passed it on to G at some point.
In retrospect, I feel bad that I didn’t see it all coming. The fact that our Lyft vehicle was a make we’d never even heard of should have tipped me off to some sort of seismic recalibration of our cosmic scales.
“It says our driver will be in a blue Toyota CH-R,” G had said, showing me a picture of an extremely compact, SUV-adjacent type vehicle on his phone. I’d bent toward the screen, squinting.
“What the hell is a CH-R? I’ve never seen that car in my life!” I’d said. G had shrugged. When the car pulled up, I was surprised to find the door handles located on the side of the door, like it was trying to be a DeLorean, or at least something cooler than whatever it was. G confirmed our destination with the driver, but obviously we never made it there. I think the guy may have taken out some other victims before sending us all to our watery graves, which feels tragic and unnecessary, but is unfortunately true.
***
G and I realize we’re dead as soon as we surface, because we both rocket from the water surprised by the fact that we hadn’t needed to hold our breath while submerged.
“Can you imagine having that kind of lung capacity for surfing?” I ask G.
“That would have been amazing!” he says. He’s shaking his head, as if to send the water out of his hair, but it’s instantaneously dry. His curls, seemingly moments ago a distinguished salt and pepper, have resumed the brown-black they were when we were first married.
“Your hair!” I say, pointing. I never in my life imagined I’d feel so nonchalant about being dead. I can’t believe the first words out of my mouth are about G’s hair.
“Your hair!” he says, pointing back. I reach up and pull the full, dark mane of my youth around my shoulders. It’s even thicker and shinier than it ever was in life. It’s nice to know that the dead get a glow-up, that bodies crippled and mangled with age or injury can look so gorgeous.
“Wow,” I say. “I feel like a mermaid!” We walk across the water, which is disorienting at first, light bending and reflecting in ways we aren’t accustomed to. They bay is calm, but there is a group of emergency water boats gathered around Mr. Trash Wheel. More first responder vehicles dot the shore, their blue and red lights cutting into an otherwise beautiful morning. The entire area is criss-crossed in billowing yellow police tape. G grabs my hand, and I’m happy to realize it still feels so warm and alive.
“I think they found us,” he says, pointing toward Mr. Trash Wheel. Normally, I would’ve had to shade my eyes from the sun, squint in order to see anything this far out. I’m thrilled to discover that my previously abysmal vision is now more than perfect, something akin to eagle eyes. I don’t think I want to see us this way, though.
“Let’s not,” I say to G, pulling him away from the awful tableau.
“You have no interest in viewing your bloated corpse?” he asks. I’m glad death hasn’t robbed him of his morbid sense of humor. I shake my head.
“I think we need to go home. But maybe let's just do what we’d planned to do today, because why not?” I say. Now that we’re dead, I’m really not sure what our opportunities for travel will be.
We climb out of the harbor around Sinners and Saint’s tattoo parlor. G points out that they take walk-in’s, jokes that we should get matching Mr. Trash Wheel tattoos. This makes me aware that our tattoos, the ones we had in life, have vanished. Skin in the afterlife is apparently made virgin again.
We wander around Fells Point, popping in and out of tall narrow row houses where no one pays us any mind: curio shops and quirky bookstores and restaurants packed with Sunday brunchers. At Bunny’s Bucket’s and Bubbles, we sit at an impressive retro style bar with turquoise subway tiles and a formica counter edged in metal, all straight out of 1957. The menu looks divine.
“I’m going to miss fried chicken,” I say. G looks forlornly at the cocktail menu.
“I’m going to miss all of these.” He waves at a bevy of alcoholic offerings.
“Did you ever wonder why they called alcohol ‘spirits’?” I ask him. “It only seems strange now, because we are spirits, I guess.” We gaze longingly as a woman nearby goes to town on a drumstick and sips a Bloody Mary, the tomato juice dribbling down her chin. We were once so messy and satiated. We hear the bell on the door jingle and look up, startled to see John Waters gliding toward us. Curiously, no one else seems to have noticed him.
“They call alcohol spirits because it summons all kinds of things,” says John Waters. It’s the kind of entrance I’ve always imagined John Waters making, were I to meet him. He stands before us, a fabulous, depraved genie. G’s eyes grow huge.
“You can see and hear us?” he asks. John Waters waves a hand. It leaves a trail in the air like a mirage, or something you’d see on mushrooms.
“I learned to astral project years ago. Fun isn’t it? Lots of interesting, debauched dead people to commune with in Baltimore.” I feel somewhat heartened to know that John Waters is still alive and well, prostrate on his couch while his consciousness prowls the city. “Anyway, you two know you don’t belong here. You really need to get to the airport,” he tells us.
“We keep getting notifications about flight delays, though,” says G, holding up his phone. I’m not sure how or why we still have our phones, but we do. It’s a disappointing development. I’d hoped to be free of digital interference in the afterlife.
“Well, that makes sense,” John Waters takes a stool next us. I’m glad he maintains his pencil thin mustache while in astral form. “Let me guess, gate D24? That’s purgatory.” G and I lock eyes.
“We’re going to purgatory?” I try to hide my disappointment. I thought we had lived decent enough lives to escape such bland spiritual limbo, but I can’t say I’m surprised, either. I always knew we’d pay for our dark sense of humor. John Waters surely understands.
“Oh sure, everyone has to go to purgatory, at least for a bit,” John Waters says. I wonder how he knows all of this. “Hope you don’t have to wait too long!” Before we can ask any more questions he disappears, very dramatic-like, an explosive puff of glitter and dirt.
“How apropos,” says G, wiping dust and sparkles from his forehead. I frantically try to collect some of it from the air to preserve for my dad when he arrives on the Other Side. He’d be over the moon to possess John Waters’ magic, astral confetti.
***
There’s a back door to the McDonalds in the Baltimore Airport labeled “Quiznos,” a blue square with white lettering announcing an entrance to something that no longer exists. It feels like pop culture archeology, like if we walked through it and started excavating we might find evidence of their famous pepper bar: pepperoncinis and banana peppers and jalapeños; the bizarre furry mascots that advertised them, all frozen in time. I point the door out to G.
“What do you make of that?” I ask. He approaches the door, which is propped open, and peers inside.
“Honestly? I think it’s like another ring of purgatory,” he says.
“You think purgatory has rings?”
“Yeah. I think there’s many different purgatories. Maybe even different purgatories for different people.” I cross my arms and consider this theory.
“Okay, I can see that. But I don’t think the old Quiznos purgatory is for us,” I say. G agrees, and we head to Gate D24, where a number of passengers have been delayed and delayed and delayed. G spots Aaron Burch at our gate.
“Look! Aaron is in purgatory with us!” he says. I suddenly have the unsettled feeling that maybe G’s theory about different purgatories is right, and wonder if we are in Aaron’s purgatory, because this whole ordeal kind of feels like a weird, meta Aaron Burch story.
“Hey!” says Aaron.
“What’s up!” we reply.
We talk for a bit about AWP and the delays. It quickly becomes apparent that Aaron doesn’t realize he’s dead and in purgatory. Whether it’s his purgatory or our purgatory or some overlapping purgatory remains a mystery. I wonder if maybe he was one of the pedestrians struck and killed by our Lyft driver.
“Have you ever been hit by a car?” I start to ask Aaron, but G elbows my side and I shut up. G’s right. That’s probably too dramatic of a question, and I don’t feel like it’s my place to tell Aaron that he’s dead. Instead I say, “So they first turned our plane around because of an unruly passenger, and then when it finally landed there was some kind of gas leak, and who knows, if it weren’t for that unruly passenger they may have never discovered the gas leak and the whole plane could have gone down with us on it!”
It’s ridiculous because we’re already dead, but it’s a good cover. A few other people in D24 purgatory hear this and feel better about the delay, or purgatory, or wherever they currently believe themselves to be.
Delta issues hotel vouchers since we will be stranded overnight. I examine our voucher and ask G if he thinks the Hilton BWI Airport is another ring of purgatory.
“Oh, definitely,” he says, an assessment that proves correct upon entering the hotel. It’s gray and black and depressing all over, a physical manifestation of everything travel weary. We find half the lights don’t work in our room, the furniture mismatched and in disrepair. An art print on the wall of a woman with her face half hidden by a savage red flower sends shivers up my spine, assuming I still have something akin to vertebrae.
“I don’t like this purgatory,” I tell G. I putter around in the bathroom, testing the water in the shower. The floor looks tailor made for a lethal spill, the drain a possible portal to Hades. There’s nothing we can do but wait, so we curl up on the bed together. I don’t dream. Perhaps dreams cease to exist once you’re dead.
***
In the morning, more delays. We consider renting a car to get home, but intuition tells me we should be sticking it out at Gate D24. “John Waters specifically mentioned that gate. We should just stay there and follow whatever happens,” I say to G.
There is no line at airport security, perhaps a benevolent perk of being in this particular purgatory. Back in the bowels of the airport, G discovers a right wing purgatory in the form of a store called “America!” On the surface it looks like a Baltimore souvenir shop, cheap key chains and sweatshirts and T’s, but in the back it's stacked floor to ceiling with MAGA-themed everything. “Some real crazy energy in there,” he tells me, shaking his head. I yell at him for exploring other purgatories without me.
Time ticks away at Gate D24. Aaron reappears and tells us that at his hotel no one seemed to be expecting them, and they all had to wait an hour just to get their room keys. I think Aaron has finally realized he’s in purgatory.
We watch with anticipation as gate workers finally wind the jet bridge toward our plane, the accordion folds expanding with promise. Everything feels thick, the sun melting in the sky and pouring across my legs in the terminal. All I want to do is get home, or to whatever home is now that G and I are dearly departed.
I find myself staring intently at the other passengers once we board the plane, wondering how they died and where they are headed to and whether or not we are even sharing the same slice of purgatory, or if it’s all just some grand illusion. G and I take turns looking out the window, everything infinitesimally small and distant. Our families are down there somewhere, our friends. I keep hoping to see or hear my sister or my mom, both dead years now. I peer into the face of every flight attendant, listen to the pilot on the intercom. If we are still in purgatory, I guess I should be reassured that they are not here. An hour later we land and 30 minutes later we get in a car and a half hour after that we finally arrive.
This is our small brick house with the light blue door and orange numbered mailbox and all of our life stacked up inside. G and I stand on the porch, our luggage piled at our feet. It's one of those crazy March days in Michigan, the kind where it’s 70 degrees and the sun is hot and everything dormant stretches eagerly toward spring. We turn to face each other as the Universe surges up around us.
“It’s been fun, hasn’t it?” says G. I could not have imagined a better life in my wildest, unborn dreams.
“The best!” I say. I don’t know what will happen once we open our door, but it feels like this is exactly where we’re supposed to be. I reach for G’s hand and find he’s already holding mine.
We draw a vivid, infinite breath and step across the threshold.
______
Casey Jo Graham Welmers thinks a lot about living and dying. Find her latest words in Hobart, HAD, Farewell Transmission, The Bulb Region and more, and at caseyjo.carrd.co.
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