I Can't Hang

Our hotel was pretty dang tiny as far as I could tell.

I mean, it wasn’t like I traveled the world paying attention to every hotel I stayed at ever in my entire life, but even I could tell it was small. As soon as we walked in, the smell of musty cigarette smoke hit us all like a ton of bricks. The walls were covered in tacky floral wallpaper that looked yellowed from years of use; some of it was even flaking off.

“What a dump,” Brady sneered.

Not to mention the fact that there were only two beds, which I sure heard a lot of complaining about later.

“Look, I’m the oldest. I should get it,” Brady had insisted, puffing out his chest to enforce his “dominance.”

“I’m the only one here who’s not in trouble with God,” St. James offered as a rebuttal.

“I’m the youngest. And neither of you would wanna have to sleep with me and risk being a pedophile, do you?” I smiled super smugly, knowing in my heart that my argument would sway them the most.

As predicted, both of them exchanged a look of shock, biting their lips and giving up the extra bed to me.

A feeling of pride swelled up in my stomach. Well, something good happened.

After losing that battle, Brady slumped down on his bed and stared blankly at the old-ass TV that sat on the rotting bureau in front of him. He puffed out an exhausted breath, causing a bit of an awkward silence.

St. James looked down at the bed and sat down behind Brady, leaning against the headboard.

So I kinda copied them, taking the other bed that I was thankful I didn’t have to share with either of them. The comforter felt crusty and old under my body, caked in a thick layer of Febreeze, obviously. People probably had sex on that thing and they likely didn’t even clean it.

Brady leaned forward and poked the ‘on’ button on the TV, causing the room to come alive with loud sounds of swearing and gunshots. Television, man, television. The epitome of mindless violence and sex.

St. James stared at the screen with google eyes, not used to what he was seeing. Brady’s face was glazed over with inherent interest. Cop sirens were whooping from the speakers and more disgruntled shouts were coming from the gangs of hoodlums on the show.

“Oh my gosh,” James gasped, covering his face. “Change it. Please, just change it.”

Brady laughed out loud, reaching behind him not only to grab the remote control but to shove St. James’s shoulder. “You’re a wimp, Jim.”

“My name’s not Jim,” he coughed, blushing; his voice cracked.

“Brady, he’s from a different time,” I reminded him, rolling my eyes with a little leftover smirk. “Just, like, put it on the news or something. Maybe they’ve got some new updates on Tiger Woods.”

“Who?” they both said in unison, staring back at me confusedly.

I knew it’d fly over their heads. Oh well. “Um, no one.”

Brady stared at the remote like it was a spaceship or something, analyzing the buttons for a moment before pointing it at the TV and pressing something. The channels flipped past, showing us snippets of other shows for a while. I kept an eye out for a news station. And when Brady finally got to one, I motioned for him to stop and yanked the remote out of his hands.

“Shh,” I ushered, leaning forward.

It was a local news station with some lady-bimbo and a man-bimbo running it from behind a desk. They both had plastic smiles on as they recited depressing headlines about people getting shot and raped and crap, but as soon as they hit one certain snag, they got their serious faces on.

The screen flashed to a picture that rang so clearly in my head that I choked on a gasp the second it appeared. It was a snapshot of a Toyota halfway into a parking lot. There was a huge crowd of people gathered around it, looking all panicked and terrified like they’d just seen their lives flash before their eyes.

The bottom half of it was cut off. Gee, I wonder why. (People are squeamish.)

Brady squinted and cocked his head.

“Police have uncovered an earth-shattering discovery,” the bimbo said solemnly. “Just a few days ago, fourteen-year-old Kyle Strickland had gone missing. Authorities and witnesses say he was last seen exiting school and walking home alone. However, on his way home it appears that he had been hit by a car that had ran a red light. His body has been identified and his parents were notified, and the driver, Paul Tater, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter.”

Brady chuckled. “What a last name. Tater.”

“Shh,” St. James told him.

“His parents did not want to speak about the matter, but they are pressing charges against the driver,” the man-bimbo finished.

“Maybe Kyle was one of the angels who dropped from the sky last Wednesday when he died,” the she-bimbo added. “We’ll never know.”

Brady shot this weird little look back at me and I bit my lip, furrowing my brow. “Um…” I coughed.

“Well…that kinda seals it. You can’t go outta this hotel,” Brady shrugged. “You’ll start freakin’ people out and they’re gonna think you’re a zombie. And this time you don’t have wings to show ‘em you ain’t.”

“Woo hoo. Two weeks with you guys. I’m so excited,” I muttered. “What the crap are we supposed to do?”

Brady pointed back at St. James, who looked like he was nodding off. “This loser right here’s supposed to be looking after us.”

“I’m not a loser,” he mumbled halfheartedly, squinting at him.

Outside, things were starting to speed up. This was New York at night, after all. Building lights were flicking on and cars were honking at loud volumes, and I got the urge to get up and stare out the window.

I looked through the venetian blinds at the streets stories below us and was captivated instantly. Neon streaks smeared across my vision, cars speeding down streets to get to nightclubs or apartments or wherever. That’s the thing here. You never know where you’re going next. You only know where you’ve been and where you are right now. And you don’t care about where you’ve been – nobody does. You’re just another face. What matters is what you’re doing now and how you’re doing it.

The present. That’s all that matters. I never lived an exciting life and then I was paying for it in the afterlife. I was being forced out of my comfort zone and thrust into the hands of people I never knew existed, and they didn’t know I ever existed either. They didn’t care that I lived with my parents in a roomy apartment on West 95th Street. They didn’t give a flying fart about my family or why I was an atheist. I never cared about their lives or what they were doing that led to their deaths. Or about their parents or brothers or sisters or aunts or uncles. None of that was relevant.

All that mattered was that we had to stick together. ‘Cause none of us knew what the hell we were doing when we were separate, even though we didn’t know anything else.

Taxicabs screeched to a halt at red lights and low rider cars blasted big bass music. Couples strolled along sidewalks holding hands and keeping warm in fifteen-degree weather. Tourists honked their horns at crappy drivers, not used to the traffic.

I had seen all of this before. But had I ever really looked at it? All of a sudden, everything seemed new to me. Fresh. Original. Like I’d never experienced it before. I’d lived here for the fourteen years I’d been alive. I thought I knew this place like the stitches of my underpants. But at that moment, the world was thrown off its axis and flipped around.

Something was different. Something was coming. I’d had that inkling a few times already and so far it hadn’t been wrong.