Shakespeare’s Dead: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ever stare down into a coffin and wonder—even for a brief second—what it’s gonna be like when you die? How you’re gonna look, or whether the mortician painted you up in a hurry because he or she had to make it home for dinner on time?

I can only speak for myself, but let me give you my answers to these questions:

1)      It sucks.

2)      I looked skinny in the face, and boxy through the middle. Don’t get me started on the suit; I don’t own anything that ugly. It was likely a parting joke by the gang—at least Dingo would’ve thought it was funny. Aside from prick car salesmen, who wears plaid anymore? Couldn’t see my legs; the top lid of the coffin was all that was open. For all I knew, there might not have been a lower half of me in the box. Still don’t understand why I wasn’t buried in full dress uniform. It’s not like it was hidden. I kept it wrapped in plastic, hung up in the front hall closet—right under my bong collection.

3)      Yes; I look like I’ve been painted up to look like that transvestite vampire from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I’m more than positive that the man responsible for my makeup was late for something—or hates his job; you can plainly see the stitch marks from where the bullet exited my head two inches above my right eye. Even a novice golfer can replace a divot. Mr. Happy—that was his name—apparently doesn’t golf.

My name is Shakespeare Tiberius Poole, and I’m on a mission from God. Or, at least that’s what Dave, the grossly obese undead guy, said. Apparently angels don’t do wet-work anymore, and there’s something I need to do before being allowed to cross over. I was on my way to complete that mission when I stopped by here.

Given the chance, wouldn’t you visit your own funeral? Even if only to see who cared enough to come?

Aside from Sarah (the body in which I presently travelled), who had no choice in the matter, there was a pimpled teen at the door, handing out pamphlets, and the organist—a flatulent old woman so hunched over on the bench that her chin was nearly plum with her knees. Every once in a while, she’d begin mumbling the words to the tune she’d been playing for the last ten minutes. At the conclusion of each stanza she would lift a leg, fart, and then begin again. If I wasn’t so stressed over the whole being dead thing, I might have found the counterpoint funny.

Sarah definitely didn’t think it was funny. But then, her thoughts collided with mine on more than one aspect of our current situation. Either she didn’t believe Dave, the grossly obese undead guy, when he said God specifically needed her help, or she was just pissed that I confiscated her body in order to complete my mission. Whichever it was, she was fighting me every step of the way. Ever sleep on your arm and not have any control over it when you woke up? Try doing that with a whole body.

You’d think, by me possessing her body that she’d have to be gone while I was there. Well, there’s one myth busted. Dave told me I was a “free floater” and, as such, was able to coexist with a host spirit. My only question about that was, “If this mission was so fucking important, why the hell would I have to use a hostage—a pissed off gypsy one—to pull it off?

She was still not talking to me—which was fine by me because she had no concept of just how loud she was in her own head. As for me, I figured I’d keep in the spirit of the funeral and stay quiet too.

While I waited to see if my friends were gonna show, I stared down at my own face through Sarah’s eyes, tracing the lop-sided stitches that ran back into the scalp and disappeared into my hairline. I wondered what Dingo was gonna say when he saw that scar. Probably would’ve dropped some lame-ass Harry Potter battle scar remark, then go looking for the free donuts.

It was right then I started thinking…getting mad about how I died, all over again—murdered by some sneaky, asshole, demon for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You know, my mother always told me I was gonna die young, but I thought it was gonna be on the job, or because some jealous husband with a carving knife or a shotgun caught me in the midst of a wild kingdom moment with his wife.

Either of those deaths or a thousand other ways that I’m too distraught to ponder right now would have been way better than this. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I had a death wish or anything. I just thought that IF I died young it would be because of one of those reasons. To be honest with you, I was kinda hoping for later, say, when I was fifty or something and had friends that were mature enough that they could fucking tell time.

The service started a half-hour ago and not a soul had come to see me. And now that I’ve had more time to think about it, I’m pretty sure the gang’s not coming. What with how and with whom my body was found. Not to mention how we—me and that guy I was found with were, um, coupled. My friends are pretty close-minded when it comes to that sort of shit.

So, yeah, they weren’t coming. The last thing they’d want to do is show up at the funeral of a suspected homosexual.

First off, let me just make something perfectly clear. I’m not a homo. But I don’t have any particular problem with them either, so don’t go thinking I’m some kind of fag basher. Unlike my buddies, I’m more like a “you-be-you-and-more-pussy-for-me kind of guy.” Live and let live, that’s me.

Too bad the guy that turned my head into a fucking donut didn’t share my lofty philosophy on tab A being the right fit for slot B. Not content to just kill us, the bastard then posed us like we were a couple of anatomically correct dolls that a shrink would use in a post-trauma meeting with kids. You know, when he was asking them where the bad man had touched them.

Didn’t even see him coming. Some cop, huh?

Didn’t remember getting shot either. Dave had to tell me about my death and all the rest of the shit the killer did to us after I woke up. If I would’ve had a stomach I would have puked.

Some kid came in to drop off some flowers, but still no Dingo Dan, Dan number two, Willie Cha-Cha, or Nature. I could understand the rest of my friends not coming by to pay their respects—I wasn’t as tight with them—but not Dingo Dan. We’d been best buds since public school and I didn’t think a little thing like me banging his new girlfriend or dying naked in the arms of a federal agent would seem any worse or weirder than some of the shit we’d done growing up together.

Guess that shows how much I knew. Know. Whatever. The point is: This sucks big, hairy, supernatural ass.

My parents were already dead, so I wasn’t expecting them. And my ex-girlfriend definitely wouldn’t be coming, strict catholic upbringing and all…but nobody? No police burial? No partner? No captain? Aunts? Uncles? Or cousins—not even the ones I kissed? Outrageous. And do you know what I could do about it?

Uh-huh. Not a goddamned thing.

And just when I didn’t think I could feel any lower, Sarah, my human taxicab, finally decided to speak to me.

She said, “Take me home.”

“It’s not like a date, Sarah. I can’t. I’m sorry.” I wasn’t really sorry, but I thought if I played nice with her she might stop being such a bitch.

“A bitch?! Well fuck you, mister-I’m-so-suave-I-can-fuck-anybody-I-please-and-get-away-with-it-because-I-have-a-beautiful-ass. I didn’t sign up to become your slave, let alone go running off like James Bond to stop some damn cult.”

Apparently, she could read my thoughts. I did not know that. But more importantly, she said I have a nice ass. Maybe there was hope for us after all this was over. But then I thought that I shouldn’t have thought that. Oh well, at least she thinks I have a nice ass. “Say, Sarah, I was thinking…”

“Yeah, right! Like I wanna have a boyfriend that I’d have to keep in the freezer so he didn’t stink up the apartment. You’re dead, Shakespeare. Deal with it.”

I was shocked. Rejection wasn’t something I’d ever had to deal with. It was something that happened to other people—ugly people, losers—but I was quickly coming to terms with the fact that, although the graveyard had been a place where I’d gotten laid in the past, I probably wasn’t going to be dating very much from then on. So I humbly decided to not push the issue of a second romp, at least with her. There was always her sister, though. She was a minx.

“Drop dead.”

Oh, yeah. “Sorry. I was just kidding.”

“Is that all guys do? Think about sex? That has got to be exhausting.”

“You have no idea.”

“Well, yeah. I think I do. You’re in my head, you jerk.”

Just then, I saw that my fears that no one was coming to my funeral could cease. The double-doors of the viewing room opened and in filed a large crowd of men. Some carried signs, some held candles, but, all wore the same ribbon pinned to their shirts or, in the case of those not wearing a shirt, hanging from a nipple ring. And on those ribbons, there was a rainbow, e-i-e-i-o.

It seemed the local gay community had come out to pay their respects to what they thought to be one of their own, brutally murdered by the fascist regime. In a weird sort of way, I was touched. Their sense of unity overwhelmed me. And since no one would be able to tell it was really me doing it, I cried right then—cried like baby.

I said, “Let’s go.”

“What’s stopping you, big boy?”

My control over her must have been slipping. While I was distracted by the crowd gathering around my coffin, Sarah had been busy.“You, Sarah. Let go of the casket and stop singing ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot.’ That might do it.”

She let go, but continued singing until I/we were out the door and around the corner. I guess she figured petty petulance was the only power she had left. This was good, because I was beginning to get a little sick of the constant war over her arms and legs.

I really had to find a place to sit and read the manual that Dave gave me after shoving my soul into her body. The next bench we passed, I grabbed onto it and lowered us into a sitting position. Sarah, having her own ideas, tried to keep walking, but I held tight to the bench and told her that if she didn’t stop fighting that I was going to step in front of the next car. And I wasn’t kidding, either. What was gonna happen? Was I going to die again? That was probably why she stopped—because I was done fucking around.

Confused?

Oh, yeah. You don’t know about Sarah being a medium, or my murder at the hands of that demon assassin—or even about Dave, the grossly obese undead guy.

Sorry. I’m just a little agitated.

You know, being dead and all.

First off, have you ever been to a séance? Seen a ghost? Elvis or otherwise? Oh well. I guess it doesn’t really make any difference. I just thought it might help us connect a little better if you had.

Let me explain. It all started eight days ago, on Movie Night. Me and Nature—the mule of our little group—were wandering around waiting for Dingo to pick out his movie, when Nature said something that would not only change my life, it would end it.

In the beginning, there was nothing…