Edgar O'Mahoney's

I think sometimes about how I want to die if I could pick. But to be honest, my attention is always stolen from the act itself, to the immediate aftermath. I don't really care how I die. I imagine it's mostly unpleasant, or not. Mostly frightening, or not. I don't care. But thinking about afterward is always a source of panic for me.

I remember once, I was with Clyde, and he was needling me about God again. It was so hot in his room, the green sheets were sticking to us. We'd just finished fucking , and his hair looked black from the sweat in the dim light, and he said, "You gotta serve someone, Fox."

He says that to me all the time, hypocritical from a fallen angel, but he doesn’t seem to care.

"Nope," I said, turning toward him on my side. He was smoking a cigarette and pushing his thick hair back out of his eyes. "I can be a rogue agent. I don't follow rules that well."

"So you'll work for the devil easy as you'll work for God?" he asked, his eyes smiling. He wanted me to say yes. He likes his girls pretty bad, but he knows that's just not me.

"No," I said. "You're missing the point. I won't work for either. I'll just do whatever I want, and when I die, I'll go where I please."

“Hm.”

"You know what I'm scared of?" I asked him. A kind of challenge around the corners of his wide mouth dared me to say his name, but fuck him. I could take it if he could. .

"I get scared I won't know where to go. Or what to do," I told him. "That being dead is like being in a dream where nothing works. I'll just feel lost and forget my name and be looking for my car keys for all time. I don't want to be… alone."

His rolled onto his back again, his hand propped on his forehead. I was troubled thinking about it so I lit my own cigarette. Clyde never really talks about what heaven was like, but he gets a certain look when he does. It was a long time before he spoke.

"Your car breaks down in the desert," he said, almost to himself. His voice is a low tuneless mutter. I looked up at him, smoking, waiting. I knew the look. He was preaching.

"But there's a diner. Got a long name, barely fits on the sign. It's early. Sun's come up. Start of a warm day."

"What's the name?" I asked, my voice quiet. He sighed out a sarcastic laugh, his eyes soft black and vacant. It was a sort of laugh that showed his teeth, and all the pain it took to summon it. If anyone knew death well, or the true nature of God, it was Clyde.

"Edgar O'Mahoney's Diner."

"That's a nice name," I said, placating. It's not a nice name, actually.

"You'll go inside, sit down and order something nice. You like hash browns?"

"Sure," I snorted, picking my fingernails and not looking at him. He rolled toward me.

"Then I'll make you hash browns. And you can have eggs Benedict. And strawberries, Fox, we never run out."

His eyes held now a deep sincerity, as if my fear was so human and pathetic to him, who obviously would never die, or was already dead. I felt a hard lump rise in my throat, tight and swollen.

"Are you gonna be there, Clyde? When I'm dead?"

He sat up and put out his cigarette in the glass ashtray that was heavy enough to kill a man.

"Yeah," the back of him said. "'Course I am. That's my job."

"And you'll make me breakfast?"

He turned back toward me and put his face close to me, kicking the wet sheets from his legs as he turned within them, his thick torso blooming above the dark green.

"I'll make you breakfast," he said, rising to his elbow, his voice hissing airless over the S. "And you can kick your feet up on the booth seat across from you. And you can smoke. And you can talk to the waitress or you can ignore her."

I stared at him, my eyes wide and ringing with tears, as Clyde explained to me the nature of God was simple, transactional, and yielding to human flaws. A diner is what I'm sure heaven is, where everyone is treated the same and forgiveness granted over melamine coffee mugs. In Mahoney's, I was sure the seats would be red or teal or both. The floor would be a tuneless, meandering and foot-worn white. And the ketchup and the mustard would be in identical yellow and red unmarked squeeze bottles. I think there'd always be music playing, but it would be quiet, all the same. It would feel safe in it’s transitioning from one town to the next along the highway. If I knew I was dead, I'd spend a lot of time there, getting ready. Looking out the window at the desert. Figuring out if I was afraid.

"I'd stay too long, Clyde. I wouldn't leave until the place closed."

He smiled again, brief this time, no teeth.

"You always do," he said. "And you play a song on the juke every time."

"What song?"

"Save the Last Dance For Me."

I laughed past tears. If anyone was going to be my last dance, it was sure going to be him. As soon as he said it, it played, obnoxious and sweet in me head, blown in like a breeze, played through speakers on an old jukebox. Crackling, record scratch.

"When you close, will you tell me where to go?"

He collapsed back onto the mattress. His hands went back into his hair, his eyes back to the ceiling.

"I'll walk you home, Fox," he said. "All the way to the door. I'm a gentleman."