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INTRODUCTION
IT’S NOT THAT BAD BEING DEAD. SURPRISING, REALLY, WHEN YOU think about it. I mean, everyone always seems so very terrified of the whole thing, weeping and moaning and spending years of anguish brooding about the possibility of an afterlife. And yet, here I lay in peaceful repose, quiet, pain-free, without a care in the world, doing nothing more metaphysically complicated than remembering my Last Meal—an excellent pastrami sandwich. It was brought to me, still warm, only forty minutes ago as I sat in a comfy folding chair, and I remember wondering, Where did they find such succulent pastrami in Miami nowadays? The pickle was quite tasty, too. And just to be ethnically authentic, I’d had a cream soda with it, something I hadn’t tried in a very long time; delicious. Altogether, a culinary experience that made being dead seem like a very minor inconvenience.
—although to be truthful, which is sometimes unavoidable, lying here unmoving on the pavement was starting to get just the tiniest bit tedious. I really hoped I would be discovered soon; death was not really enough to keep the mind occupied, and it seemed like I had been here quite a while. I know it might not seem like the first thing you would object to about being dead—long hours and no real challenge to the work—but there it was. I was bored. And the pavement underneath me was hot and beginning to feel very hard. On top of that, there was a puddle of sticky red nastiness spreading out around me that made me feel quite uncomfortable—of course, I mean it would have made me uncomfortable, if I had actually been alive. But if nothing else, it was certainly unsightly; I must look terribly unattractive.
Another odd concern for the newly dead, perhaps, but true. I was bound to be an uninviting sight. It was unavoidable; there’s very little charm to a corpse killed by gunshot wounds, and no dignity at all to lying in the street in the Miami sunlight and waiting in a pool of sticky red mess for someone to find your body. And when my poor, bullet-riddled corpse was discovered at last, there would not even be a genuine flood of sentiment, no heartfelt outpouring of anguish and regret. Not that I ever found real emotion terribly moving, but still, one would like to be really mourned, wouldn’t one?
But not today, not for poor Dead Dexter. After all, who could mourn a monster like me? No, it would be purely pro forma, even less convincing than usual, and I, of all people, could not really complain. I had spent my entire professional life—and a great deal of very rewarding hobby time—around dead bodies. I knew very well that the most natural reaction to finding a gore-soaked corpse was something like, “Ooh, gross,” as your Finder guzzles an energy drink and turns up the volume on the iPod. Even that was more honest than the overblown and empty teeth-gnashing I knew I would get when my pitiful corpse was discovered. I could not even hope for a classy statement of grief and loss like, “Alas, poor Dexter!” Nobody says “alas” anymore; for that matter, I doubt anyone really feels it nowadays, either.
No, there would be little real grief for Dear Departed Dexter; no one can express it for the simple reason that no one is capable of feeling it. I may be the only one honest enough to admit that I don’t, but I have never seen any compelling evidence that anyone else does, either. People are far too callous and fickle, and even in the best of times—which this was not—I could hope for no more than a moment of revulsion at the compost heap that was my human (more or less) body, and a twinge of irritation at having one more mess to deal with. And then no doubt the conversation would turn to football, or plans for the weekend, and the memory of my pastrami sandwich would last far longer than anyone’s sense of loss at my untimely demise.
But after all, there was no alternative. I just had to make the best of it, and lie here like a lox until I was discovered—which seemed to me to be a long-overdue event. I had been sprawled here in direct sunlight for at least half an hour: Can a corpse get a sunburn? I was certain dead people avoided tanning booths—even in zombie movies—but here in the midday sun, was it possible for dead skin to tan? It didn’t seem right; we all like to think of cadavers as pale and ghostly, and a healthy sun-kissed epidermis would certainly spoil the effect.
But now I hear a rising chorus of fuss and bother nearby: A metallic door thumps shut, hushed voices murmur urgently, and finally I hear the sound for which I have been yearning: the hurried clatter of approaching footsteps. They stutter to a stop beside me and a woman gasps and cries out, “Nooo!” At last: some real concern for m
y tragic condition. A trifle melodramatic, perhaps, but it’s touching, and would even be heartwarming, if only Dexter had a heart to warm.
The woman bends over me, and in the bright halo of sunlight surrounding her head, I can’t make out her features. But there is no mistaking the shape of the gun that appears in her right hand. A woman with a gun—could this be Dexter’s dear sister, Sergeant Deborah Morgan, stumbling across her beloved brother’s tragically murdered self? Who else could possibly put on such a rare display of well-armed grief for me? And there is real tenderness in her left hand as it drops to my neck to feel for a pulse: in vain, alas, or whatever it is we say instead of “vain” nowadays. Her left hand drops away from my neck and she raises her head to the heavens and says through a tightly clenched jaw, “I’ll get the bastards who did this. I swear it.…”
It is a sentiment I approve completely—and actually, it does sound a little bit like Deborah, but not quite enough. There is a hesitant, musical fluctuation in the voice that my sister would never permit.
No, this is not Deborah, but some histrionically tender imitation. And it sounds even less like my ferocious and foulmouthed sister when she adds, in a slightly nasal and very cranky tone, “Goddamn it, Victor, there’s a shadow right across my face the whole goddamn time!”
A man who sounds like he has just lived through an endless stretch of fatigue that has taken him far beyond the point of mere human exasperation calls out, “Cut. Where’s the fucking key grip?”
Victor?
Key grip?
What can this be? What, indeed, is happening? How can there be such a bizarre reaction to the tragic passing of one so young, so talented, and so deeply admired—at least by me? Is this some cosmic hiccup, a loony hallucination caused by passing through the Veil and into the Beyond? Perhaps some confused moment of transition into Oneness with All Things, as Dexter shuffles off the mortal coil and heads for the Last Roundup?
And now it gets even stranger, as a surreal scene of swarming activity begins to swirl around my body. Dozens of people, silent and hidden until now, leap out onto the sidewalk and explode into furious and focused frenzy, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to amble past a gore-soaked Dexter and whirl into antlike action. Two men and a woman step right over my tragic cadaver and begin to wrestle with large tripod-mounted lights, reflectors, and bundles of electric cable, and one really has to wonder: Is this how it all ends, for all of us? Not with a Bang but a lighting change?
Unfortunately for metaphysical discovery, we must wait a little longer to answer all these very good questions. Because today is not, in fact, that long-dreaded day of infamy when Dexter Dies. It is, instead, a very small and harmless fraud: Dexter’s Deception. For today, Dexter has entered the swinging swirling world of big-time professional show business. We have been granted the great and humbling boon of a real Acting Job, and today we are performing, playing a role for which we have done a lifetime of research. We have been cast as an extra, a playtime corpse, a small and motionless pawn on the great chessboard that is Hollywood.
And now, the woman who is not Deborah pats my face and stalks away to her trailer, muttering homicidal comments about those who would allow shadows on her near-perfect visage. The crew have all busied themselves with their obscure and energetic tasks, and above it all the more-than-tired voice of Victor chants a series of weary orders, and then adds, “And you need to get to wardrobe, and get cleaned up for another take, okay, Derrick?”
“It’s Dexter,” I say, rising up from the dead and into a sitting position. “With an ‘X.’ ”
Victor shows no sign that he has heard me, or even that I exist at all. “We are already three days behind schedule, people,” he moans. “Can we all move a little faster?”
I do not notice that anyone actually does move any faster, which seems perfectly fair to me. After all, if Victor chooses to ignore me, he can’t really object if others ignore him, can he?
An elegant young man has appeared at my side, and he squats down beside me, bringing with him the distinct aroma of some floral cologne. “Really nice,” he tells me, patting my arm. “You soooo looked really dead?”
“Thank you,” I tell him.
He lays his soft hand on my arm. “Let’s get you cleaned up?” he says. Almost everything out of his mouth so far has been a question, even simple statements like, “Hello, my name is Fred?” I do not hold it against him—although I am beginning to suspect that Fred would very much like me to hold something against him. But even if I were so inclined, and available, which I am not, it could never work out. He is a mere wardrobe assistant, and Dexter is Talent—it says so on the contract I signed!—and so I stand up with great dignity and follow along to the large trailer occupied by Fred and his associates. And as I walk, I ponder, and perhaps the very question is a cliché, an absurd echo of the human obsession with finding meaning where there is absolutely none. But as I look around me at all the absurdly expensive fuss and clutter, I ask it anyway.
