“I drive around when I can’t sleep,” he said.
“Well, watch out,” she said. “There’s those asshole kids that shoot BBs at people.”
—
Two days later, he had his first day wearing the SynthaGro uniform.
There wasn’t even any training.
“It’s just like a lawnmower,” the foreman told him. “When you’re done, put up three or four of these tags.” He handed Milo a bundle of wire stakes with little yellow flags on them, warning people that the lawn had been treated and to stay off the grass for a couple of days.
“Good to go?” he asked.
“Very good,” said Milo. And he climbed into his SynthaGro truck, which smelled like poison. It burned a little, just the smell going through his nostrils.
But it was the smell of having a job, too. It was the smell of having a real life and of someone at home, someone he liked being with. It was the smell of love.
He sprayed three lawns and then stopped at the pay phone outside the Stop-N-Go in Troy.
Jodi answered the phone.
“Hey, precious,” she said. “Whatcha doing?”
Want to meet for lunch?”
“Maybe.”
“Pizza Hut.”
“Healthy choice. Okay. Now?”
“I’ll wait for you. I’ll get a table; I’m like a mile away.”
Jodi made a kissy noise as he hung up.
—
Four minutes later, Milo died on his way to Pizza Hut.
He was going down Main Street thinking how Velma from Scooby-Doo was actually hotter than Daphne, although you were obviously meant to think the other way around. Now, why is that? his brain had just begun thinking, when the thing that happened happened.
It was fast and bad.
A Camaro came screaming down Main Street, decided Milo was going too slow in his SynthaGro truck, and screeched by in the oncoming lane. (Jackass.) The Camaro went slightly airborne over the railroad tracks by the Sunoco station.
On the other side, a church bus full of kids, on a road trip from the Liberty Baptist Church in Columbus, swerved to avoid the Camaro. Swerved into Milo’s lane, just as Milo came over the tracks. Milo had about a tenth of a second to quit thinking about Velma from Scooby-Doo and process whether to hit the bus or take his chances in the ditch.
Fast fast fast: Milo yanked the wheel and rolled the truck into the ditch. Fell through the driver’s door when it flapped open. The door scissored back on him, chopping him in two and trapping both halves under the truck, with lawn chemicals pouring all over. His dead switch didn’t have time to arm.
It took him three seconds to die, but it was a long, terrible, slo-mo three seconds.
—
Jodi passed the wreck on her way to Pizza Hut, and by then there was a collection of vehicles on-site: the bus, the Camaro, five cop cars with lights flashing, an ambulance, and two fire trucks.
She stopped. She knew. She started shaking.
The same instant, the chemical smell washed over her.
“That might be my boyfriend,” she told one of the cops, gagging as she spoke, covering her face with her hand.
The cop nodded. He looked sympathetic but raised his hands, saying, “You need to back up, ma’am. Please. There’s some nasty stuff spilled here.”
Jodi backed off.
She stared into the ditch.
Truck. Chemicals. Crashed and smashed. Part of Milo. Red lights blue lights.
She thought of all the different things that could have happened or not happened, and how different things were going to be now from the way they would have been.
Looking down, Jodi noticed that she had forgotten to put on shoes.
Barefoot. Asphalt. A faded Pepsi can. They wouldn’t have let me in Pizza Hut, anyway, she thought.
Milo woke up half in, half out of the water. As if he’d washed up there like a dead animal.
For a moment, it was very nice. The smell of earth and grass and wildflowers, the cool of the water on his skin. Then, as always, memory came. First a whisper, then a roar, and Milo gagged on it. The memory of the rolling truck and the chopping in two and the crushing and drowning in chemicals was still immediate, still tangible.
This memory backed off, leaving him wild-eyed. Leaving him with other memories, things he had done, like shooting at people. Things he was probably going to do, if the accident hadn’t— He rolled over on his side, convulsing, and puked all over some dandelions.
His whole body shook.
Milo wasn’t surprised by his condition. He had led enough questionable lives to know that bad things worked their way into your soul. When you had done wicked things, you arrived in the afterlife with a berserker of a hangover.
Footsteps approached, crashing through soft grass. Milo winced.
He didn’t look up. He spat, cleared his throat, and said, “Hey.”
“Indeed,” said someone. “Hey.”
Someone who was not Suzie.
A cat trotted up and rubbed noses with him, then trotted off again.
Towering above, wearing something like a ruffled funeral dress, Nan frowned at him.
“And how,” she said, crossing her arms, “would you say that went?”
—
Milo took a few seconds to get his thoughts in order.
“I almost killed people,” he said, shuddering. “I think I would have.”
Nan pursed her lips. But when she spoke, Milo was surprised at how gentle she sounded.
“You were making progress,” she said. “There’s something to be said for that. Let’s get you home.”
She reached down and, with a surprisingly strong grip, helped him to his feet. He stood quivering for a minute, and they made their way along the river.
“I couldn’t help but notice,” said Milo, pausing to throw up again, “that I have not become part of the Oversoul.”
“Noticed that, did you?”
They crossed a bridge and walked through town. Past fancy neighborhoods. Past suburbs.
“I suppose,” said Milo, “I have to come back as a tapeworm now.”
“Stop whining.”
“Well, I didn’t accomplish anything.”
Nan stopped. She gave his elbow a yank and turned him to face her.
“Sometimes,” she said, “the value of a life is in what it doesn’t do. Imagine if Hitler had resisted the voice inside him and spent his life keeping bees? What a great life.”
Milo considered this.
“Driving into the ditch instead of hitting the bus,” said Nan, “is why you don’t have to come back as a tapeworm. Be satisfied with that. You didn’t reach Perfection and you didn’t win any prizes. Now, hush. Here we are.”
They had arrived in the middle of a trailer park, in front of a rusty old Airstream with broken windows. Off to one side towered what had to be a thirty-year pile of beer cans.
“Home sweet home,” said Nan.
“Mmmm,” said Milo, entranced by the beer cans.
They were all his mind had room for, just yet.
—
The inside of the trailer matched the outside. Stained chair, peeling walls, and some kind of smell, a combination of feet and banana peels.
Milo didn’t care. He aimed for the bedroom at the rear, collapsed on the damp mattress, and zonked out.
Time passed.
He didn’t sleep well. Kept waking up if anything happened, like if a bird flew by or a leaf landed on the beer cans.