Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (i can read book club .txt) 📗

You have to admit it: maybe those cops shouldn’t have rescued you at all. Maybe they should have just cut to the chase, left you for dead on the black, pee-soaked macadam. Because in the end…in the final analysis, all those tear-jerking, heroic attempts the Albany Medical Center staff made at resuscitation turned out to be all for nothing. Because now you’re dead. And there isn’t a single thing the doctors or God or Buddha can do about it.

There is however, one bright light that shines against all that darkness:

Your girlfriend, Lola.

At least Lola has stood by your side through every second of your final struggle. At least Lola has been true blue. She’s stood by your deathbed-side until the bitter end, just like any one of those famous, gladly-take-a-bullet-for-my-sig-other couples that have come and gone throughout history. Like Mary and Joseph, Antony and Cleopatra, Bonnie and Clyde. Like John and freaking Yoko.

And oh, my my, if she isn’t looking choice today.

Long, velvety dark hair draping narrow shoulders. Tall, sexy body. Tight white Levis over black cowboy boots. The Niconas you bought for her during a weekend getaway in N-Y-C. Black lace push-up bra under a loose, white, low-cut, V-neck T-shirt. She’s got these white-rimmed Jackie Os covering sad brown eyes. Jackie Os that were designed to hide the never-ending tears of a cursed Kennedy wife. Makes you feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy inside even if your soul has left your body to become just an unidentifiable, immeasurable mass of transformed heat energy.

If only you could reach out, hold her one more time, tell her all those corny I’ve-seen-the-other-side-of-life things. Tell her you’re going to a wonderful place, that death really isn’t the end, that you’ll wait for her, etcetera, etcetera. You want to wipe away her tears with a single index finger, just like Patrick and Demi in Ghost.

Lola, I’m so in love with you right now, more than I ever was in life. I’m so…

That is, until a strange man enters the hospital room.

Can’t quite make out the dude’s face since he’s wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, and you’re forced to look down at him from up at the ceiling. But he’s about your own height, Gold’s Gym slim, wiry, no stranger to sweat-soaked workouts. And you should know. Up until this little life-ending mishap the most fun you had with your clothes on was bench pressing two-thirty-five for ten reps.

Maybe you can’t see his face, but you sense that he could be young. Like, real young. Like not even over thirty young. He’s wearing a tight T-shirt, black leather jacket, tight blue jeans, and yeah, he’s got some brand-new cowboy boots going, too.

Niconas. Black.

Identical to the pair you own. Like he got his pair during a cozy afternoon shopping date to the mall followed by a major face-sucking session in the parking lot. At least, that’s the way it had been for you not so long ago. You and Lola.

Dude comes so close to your girlfriend he’s practically kissing her on the mouth, his left hand gently brushing up against her left butt cheek. Your car wreck of a body isn’t even cold yet and this jerk is about to make out with your sig other right inside the room where, by the grace of God, your soul is leaving the building. Some precious-time-to-be-alone-with-your-dearly-departed-loved-one this turned out to be.

You get like, what, one of these look-at-your-own-dead-body deals in a lifetime? And now the sig other has to go and ruin it for you.

But then hold on a second. Take a deep breath. You’ve got an idea. What if you try and make like a skydiver and dive right back into your body? You’ve heard about those dead people who’ve come back to life just like that when they’ve appeared to be gone-baby-gone. What if you try and dive back down into your body so you can jump the hell out of that bed, put those bench presses to work, and kick Gold’s Gym’s scrawny ass for good?

But as much as you wish re-entry, you know there ain’t no goin’ back for the dead and almost buried. There’s only the sad sight of your former girlfriend walking out of the hospital room, her brand new, buffed-out Some Young Guy floating close behind and no doubt admiring her choice posterior. And damn if he never did even have the decency to show his face. As if he knew all the time that you were watching him.

So, what to do?

Catch your breath and start over.

This time with the basics.

Here’s the deal: You’re dead.

Some gang of three big-ass mofos wearing President Obama Halloween masks, and pressing handheld electronic synthesizers up against their necks to mask their voices, pulled you off the street, dragged you into a back alley, beat you with fists, boot heels, and pistol barrels, and left you to bleed out alone. They said almost nothing to you, except for the tall barrel-chested one in the middle, who spat, “You should have stayed away from Peter Czech!”

You couldn’t figure out if the voice was foreign or not. Not with that synthesizer pressed up against his voice box. Anyway, that’s when you blacked out.

And now that you’re dead, you can see that your girlfriend has been doing the wild thing behind your back with someone else. Name and face not known. Maybe for a short time, maybe for a long time. You have no idea. All you know is that he’s a stud man, and she’s probably giving him a hummer right now inside her four-wheel, gas-guzzling Hummer in the AMC parking garage.

But you know what? You’re no longer angry or jealous.

Maybe that’s because of the speck of bright white light forming in front of your eyes. You begin to feel yourself moving from the ceiling toward the light, through this tunnel at lightning speed. It’s like something out of the Discovery Channel. You’re moving faster