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r crashed into each other. They make it through the maze of metal by feel. One guy in a paisley cummerbund makes it across four of the five lanes before a Coke truck plows into the back of a Prius just as he’s squeezing past. The Prius lurches forward, crushing the cummerbund’s left leg between its front bumper and the rear bumper of the car ahead of it. The cummerbund lies there screaming, trying to crawl across the final freeway lane, leaving a crimson line on the road as he goes. Farther up the road, another guy is tagged by a speeding Porsche. He spins like a wind-up toy, arms and legs flying out at funny angles. What fucking amazes me is that the rest of the group makes it across all five lanes. Yeah, a lot of them are limping on broken legs, or holding on to bloody arms, but the crazy fuckers are alive enough to stumble onto the opposite shoulder of the road.
But the weirdness continues. When the last runner makes it to safety, the couple that started the whole thing dashes onto the road and heads to the bodies of the two extremely dead runners who didn’t make it. As they reach each body, they pat it down, taking something from the man’s breast pocket and the woman’s clutch bag. Then they run across the road to join their friends. By now, everyone has their blindfolds off, and in their bloody, ripped-to-shreds clothes and broken bones, they high-five each other and hug.
It’s then I notice what I didn’t earlier: that there’s another limo parked on the shoulder where the runners were headed. They limp and crawl inside and when the limo is packed, it blasts off out of there. Drivers run after it, screaming or throwing things. Some of them have pens and scraps of paper, but the car is long gone before they can catch a license plate (which I’m positive doesn’t matter anyway). And the other two limos?
Well, they explode, sending dazzling red fireballs into the night sky and blowing out the windows of nearby cars.
Whoever those suicidal blue bloods were, they planned everything perfectly. What their plan was, I’m not 100 percent sure. But they were all thrilled to make it to the shoulder, like it was just some kind of demented bar bet. And the ones who didn’t make it? There’s a small whoomph from each body and then they’re burning too. Maybe the couple weren’t taking things from the corpses but putting things on them.
Whatever kicks they were looking for, I think they found them. A lot of solid citizens are going to have strange stories to tell their insurance companies tomorrow. I don’t know if what I just saw was a suicide pact or a human sacrifice, but to be honest, it’s not my damn business. L.A. has more weird religions and suicide cults than any place on Earth. By this time next week, we’ll be hearing about how they all drank poisoned Hawaiian Punch and ascended to a passing starship carrying Sun Ra and Amelia Earhart. Have fun on Venus or wherever it is you’re going, you dapper maniacs. I have to get home and worry about my turkey.
The next day, I wander around the house like a penned bull. Bumping into things. Shoving furniture this way and that, then back again to its original position. I look around the cupboards for glasses so people can drink, and promptly break two of them.
This isn’t like me. I’m not in high school or getting ready for my first kiss on prom night. I clawed my way out of Hell. This shouldn’t be such a big deal. But these are my friends. I want them to have a good time, and I want to show them that I’m all right. The Blue Fairy came down and made me into a real boy and everything is fine, or at least not a disaster. But the more I try to fix the place up, the more of a wreck it becomes. I feel clumsy and dull witted. I want to punch something. I want to go somewhere and have a dumb guy hit me so I can hit him back. I need my heart racing, not my brain.
And on top of everything else, I have to worry about maybe helping Samael find a porn-addicted angel while helping Abbot hustle a bunch of dead people out into the street.
It’s closing time. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t be dead here.
I know it sounds easy, once you know where the haunting is taking place. Only, ghosts can get cranky when you serve them with an eviction notice. Things get thrown. Timid spooks suddenly grow fangs. People get cursed. I once saw a dead society lady—pink Chanel dress, cute little Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat—throw a three-hundred-pound exorcist out a bay window into a kiddie pool full of blood. The red stuff was a nice touch on her part. The exorcist survived the fall just fine, but when he looked around and thought he was covered in his own guts, he took off faster than Speed Racer. Next time I saw the guy, he had a van and was doing Hollywood spook tours for gawkers from Kansas and Wyoming. And he’d never looked happier. He was smart. Some people know when to call it quits. Other people have nowhere else to go, so we shake down hellbeasts and shades, trying to keep a roof over our heads and bologna in the fridge. The point of all this is that I have a lot on my mind. Enough that I forget to get the goddamn turkey.
The party is set for eight p.m. My phone rings around six forty-five. It’s Janet. For a second my heart races. Maybe she’s going to cancel. Maybe everyone is going to cancel and I can sit quietly and eat tarragon on my own.
I say, “Hi. How are you doing?”
“I’m about to collapse. Come outside and help me.”
“Outside where?”
There’s a banging on the front door, like someone’s kicking it.
“Is that you?”
“No. It’s Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Get in here. My back is about to break.”
The entrance to the flying saucer house is through an abandoned nail salon. I open the door and there’s Janet, grinning underneath a couple of giant donut boxes and two or three large paper bags.
“Help,” she squeaks like a mouse on a life raft. I grab the heavy bags and let her carry the donuts inside. She takes a quiet look around the living room and says, “Nice. Where’s the kitchen?”
“Over there on the left.”
She’s wearing knee-high black boots and jeans with a high-buttoned dark blue pinstripe vest with no shirt underneath. The vest shows off her upper-arm tattoos, something I haven’t seen clearly before because all her shirts have had elbow-length sleeves.
Janet heads in and I follow her, setting the bags on the center island. Once everything is down she takes a deep breath and smiles. Gives me a peck on the cheek.
She says, “I might have gotten a little carried away.”
I peek inside the bags.
“What is all this?”
Janet sniffs the air.
“How’s the turkey? I don’t smell anything.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That . . .”
She starts unloading one of the bags on the counter.
