I Can't Hang

Everyone likes a day on the town. The hustle and bustle of that big city that TV and movies always romanticize, where everybody falls in love and lives happily ever after with dreams of hitting it big, hits a soft spot with a lot of people and makes ‘em all wish they lived there.

If you’re fresh outta Heaven and are only out of your hotel to get food, though, that vision just gets flushed down the toilet.

At the moment, all I could focus on was leading Brady to the nearest corner store I knew. Something told me he’d wanna ditch us and try to get himself outta our hair, so I did James a favor and helped keep a tight leash on him. I mean, yeah, I wanted some fresh air like Brady did, but I didn’t wanna have another reason to be sent to Hell.

St. James held me by the hood of my sweatshirt gently, darting his eyes around like a lost puppy. I could intrinsically tell he just couldn’t stand to be here. Soon enough, though, I’d take us all somewhere safe. Well, away from crowds.

I pointed up ahead of us, tapping Brady on the shoulder. In the distance I saw a drugstore my parents used to send me to when I was little in order to get spices and paper towels and crap. “There it is. Just keep goin’, Brady,” I told him.

Like some kind of mismatched family with nowhere to go, we shuffled forward toward the store and filed in. The noises of loud people yakking on their cell phones gave way to quiet adult contemporary music whispering through the speakers above. I looked around – crappy lighting that turned everything yellow, brown stains on the walls, and a few shelves stacked with the cheapest food known to mankind. Yep. This was definitely the store I knew.

Brady grimaced, whiffing the air. “Smells like sex in here.”

“Let’s just get a few packs of ramen noodles and get out,” St. James cautioned. “People were staring out there.”

“Maybe that’s because you guys look like you just came out of a time machine?” I said.

I turned around before I could see their reactions to that, but I’m pretty sure they were peeved off.

There were about five or so aisles divided into general guidelines. And way in the back there was a wall with frozen crap. I knew this place relatively well, so I led them back to the snack food aisle, colorful packages flashing around me, contrasting so well with the dull lights. My mouth began to water just looking at chips and cookies and donuts and everything, but as the doctor always said, that crap ain’t for dinner.

“Aw, man, why can’t we get some of these? I’m gettin’ sick’a ramen anyways,” Brady groaned, holding his stomach.

James pushed him along. “It’s not healthy. And it’s only a distraction. Where’s the good stuff?”

I caught a glimpse of foreign letters on plastic packaging and ushered them over. “Here’s the ramen. They got…shrimp flavored, pork, chicken, curry…”

“Let’s just get ‘em all. Why not try a new flavor?” Brady shrugged. The dude thought he was invincible since he had a ‘magical’ credit card that, for some reason, hadn’t expired yet. And it was from 198-freakin’-6.

I grabbed a bunch of packs of ramen from the shelf, just picking random flavors that probably wouldn’t taste any good, but whatever. Once I was sure I had enough in my arms to last us a week and a half more, I stood up straight and grunted. St. James took a few out of my arms. Brady didn’t.

It ended up not costing us too much. Probably ‘cause ramen noodles are pretty much known to be a staple of cheapo college kids’ diets and whoever makes ‘em knows it. The clerk looked at us funny when we dumped a thousand packs of the stuff on his counter, but shoved them in bags and gave us our food anyways. So it didn’t matter.

James and I, plastic bags anchored on our arms, followed Brady back outside. He breathed in a satisfied gasp of air, exhaling slowly.

“Well, it was nice to get out, even if it was only for a minute,” Brady smiled crookedly over his shoulder at us.

Surprisingly, not many people were out when we left the store. In fact, there were hardly any people walking the sidewalks at all. With my arms weighed down by unhealthy munchies, I looked around and tried to figure out why that was the case.

“Where is everybody?” James questioned, cocking his head at me.

Brady hit my shoulder twice and pointed directly in front of us. “Aw, crap, look!”

A short, middle-aged looking man in a brown suit stood a few feet away. His back turned to us, he was staring down at a card in his hands while a few guys with cameras were talking amongst themselves. Neatly combed hair parted sharply to the left rested atop his head.

“An anchorman?” I whimpered. “Uh oh…um, guys, we better run…”

Brady took me by the wrist and yanked me forward, but St. James spoke up before we could make a valiant escape. “What’s the problem?”

“If we get caught on film, everyone’s gonna see it. And that ain’t flyin’,” Brady bluntly stated.

“We’re here at the corner of East 92nd Street and 2nd Avenue,” the anchor spoke as the cameras started rolling, “where the inhabitants of New York will not stop talking about – you guessed it – that strange incident that happened just days ago. It seemed as though something divine happened right near this here intersection…”

I grabbed James’s hand and pushed Brady ahead, trying to get us away from the public eye once and for all. That area was just asking for trouble and I didn’t wanna be a part of it. Since meeting Brady, trouble was just something that seemed to come naturally to my afterlife, and God knows (pun intended) getting seen by people all over wasn’t something else I wanted to happen.

And things were going well, too! We were out of the shot and just casually speedwalking back to our hotel – nothing suspicious! Really!

“Let’s see what some bystanders have to say about it – hey, you three! Do you mind a little interview?” the anchorman called out.

My hand neatly crashed into my face in a complete “why does this always happen to me” moment.

The three of us stopped dead in our tracks. The camera was already facing us, so it’d be kind of stupid to keep running.

James was the first to open his stupid mouth: “What?”

Brady and I turned around. The guy had a forced smile on underneath his neatly trimmed mustache, showing pearly whites that looked a little too perfect. He was ushering us to get on camera with him.

“Just a few…questions,” he said quietly, but trailed off and tilted his head in wonder. “Oh…oh my God. You two look exactly like the people who fell from the sky the other day…”

We glanced at each other with looks of horror. Of all the things…who the hell would break out a high-definition camera to tape a freak occurrence?!

I laughed it off, feeling my face heat up and blood rapidly rush to my cheeks. “Uh, yeah…we, um…get that a lot…”

The man stopped yet again, pointing weakly at me as though I was some kind of bizzaro alien who just pissed out of my finger. “And you look like the boy who was killed…”

Brady swooped in and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. Then he promptly gave me a noogie, mussing my hair. “My little brother here’s, uh, got a look-alike.” (Never mind his dark olive skin and the fact that I was a complete ginger. Brothers? Nah.)

The anchor chuckled, still radiating a little bit of freak-out in his eyes. He held a microphone under his chin naturally like he’d been doing it his entire life. “I’ll bet you two get a lot of Facenook friend requests.”

“What’s a Facenook?” Brady asked, his eyebrows pushed together and his mouth hanging open in confusion. Freakin’…

“Um…you’re…are you kidding?” the anchor snickered, unsure of whether or not he was being real. I didn’t really blame him. “When were you born?”

“1959,” he replied immediately.

“Uh, he means 1983!” I stepped in, saving the day. I didn’t even care if the math was off. If he was born in 1959 like he said, a human would be a wrinkly old sack. Not a young guy. Hopefully no one would catch what he said. “Don’t you?!”

“What…? Oh – yeah! I mean, yeah! 1983. 80s kid. Yessiree,” Brady laughed nervously, biting his lip and shaking the hair out of his eyes as if to appear confident.

The anchor gave us a funny look.

He shook it off, though, and turned to me, putting a hand on my shoulder the way a concerned adult to a little kid does. His eyebrows looked like two big fuzzy worms on his forehead. They were all I could focus on since his eyes were too creepy to look into. “You know, you do look a lot like that kid…”

I shrugged, trying to get his hand off of me. “Yeah, I know. Can’t even tell you how many times people have said that to me in the past couple’a days.”

Brady leaned on my shoulder, seeming to realize that I made a great armrest. A casual little smirk written across his smug mug, he slipped, “Yeah, Kyle’s been havin’ a bit’a trouble with that recently.”

“KYLER! My name is Kyler! Yes.” I scrambled to cover his error yet again, pulling a name out of my ass to disguise myself. Kyler. Sounds like something some scene kid would name themselves. Still, it did the job for the moment.

I shot my best dirty look up at my pretend brother for TV’s sake. If looks could kill, he’d be vaporized within half a second.

Brady just hooted a big giggle and pointed at me with his thumb. “Look, he’s even makin’ a fake name up! Poor kid.”

I jabbed my bony elbow into his rib, hoping to leave a bruise. Or, even better, break something. He doubled over and grunted in pain.

The anchorman just stood up straight like he got a stick shoved up his butthole, a look of shock flickering across his features. “Are…are you the boy who was hit by that car?”

“NO! I mean…no. I’m not. I’m just a normal kid,” I fired back, a desperate attempt at getting us the hell outta there. Things were starting to get too close for comfort. “For real.”

He almost added something else to the picture, but before he could speak, James grabbed Brady and me by the hands and pulled us away. “Um, we gotta go,” he coughed. His hands were sweaty and shaking.

“But –" the man called out, getting cut off by us making yet another quick escape.

We were practically flying again, man. The sound of rubber soles scraping against concrete rang out clearer than day as we darted away. Crowds rushed past us in a blur of nothingness, just random faces staring at us in confusion like we were escaped convicts on the run from the cops.

My heart was beating in my ears, practically flooding up into my throat. Sweat evaporated as soon as it formed on the back of my neck, getting swept away by the winter chill; goosebumps stood up on my skin. What just happened was terrifying. And I could tell by the way Brady was looking back constantly that they thought so too.

“Hey, he’s right! They do look like them!” voices said, rising above the murmur of the crowd. Just then, I could have sworn my heart stopped again. As we ran further away, bystanders began to pull out their cell phones, smiling eagerly and pointing them at us.

Click, click, click. Flashes like lightning. I was nearly blinded by all of the little half-seconds of brilliant lights – they all seemed to happen at exactly the same time. And those who weren’t taking pictures were taking videos, something that threw me off even more.

“What the crap?” Brady gasped, panting in my ear. “What’re they doing?!”

“They’re taking freakin’ pictures! GO! Run faster!” I grunted, feeling my legs grow sorer by the step. I hated running. Always did. But for now, we had something to run from, and that was what I hated the most.

James looked back and slowed down, but I pulled him back up and made him hustle.

This could not be happening, I thought to myself. Of all the rotten things to happen, this?! Nothing good could possibly come out of this. Nothing. We were officially screwed, and I knew it. All of us did. Even James.

We shot into our hotel and bounded up the stairs, ramen rustling in the bags. (I started to wonder if we’d need food in Hell, though.) I was out of breath and exhausted, and Brady and James weren’t any better. They were grunting and groaning as we filed into the room, hastily slamming the door shut behind us as if space invaders were going to knock it down. Thankfully, the bystanders seemed to not have followed us in.

I leaned against the door, dropping the bags of ramen on the floor next to me and sliding down to sit on the floor and curl up, wanting to die again.

Brady was pacing around the room real fast with his hands all over his hair, pulling it out and mussing it and everything he did when he was beyond the point of no normal nerves. And James just stood by silently with a look of quiet shock.

“This is bad.” My words were shaky and I nearly choked just trying to say them. “This is really bad…”

“Ya think?!” Brady backfired, hands up in the air.

“No…no, no, no. This can’t be happening,” James gasped, burying his face in his hands. “I knew we shouldn’t have left…”

“Well, it’s too late for that now!” Brady yelled through gritted teeth. His face was puffy and red, much like a tomato.

I felt my breathing grow erratic. It got harder to find air and I leaned back, banging my head on the door out of regret. Anger seeped through my veins, along with a hint of sadness, and a whole lotta remorse. But as much as it all hurt, I couldn’t let myself fall apart. I’d come this far…

“Turn on the TV,” I commanded, mustering up the sanity I had left in me.

They looked at me like fish.

“Turn it on! How freakin’ hard is it?!” I said again, raising my voice.

James flopped the remote around in his lap before finding the right button and flicking the TV on. I got up from my pity party and roamed over to the bed, trying to swallow the lump rising in my throat. Please, I hoped. There are so many other things going on in the news…why dwell on a freak incident?

As always, my hopes were crushed like a cigarette into gravel.

That damn anchor. I swear to God, he was the root of all evil. There, in plain sight on the television set, was Brady, James, and me.

Running from the camera.

Yelling at each other and shielding our faces from the barrage of cell-phone cameras and videos. Me pulling my hood up over my head to try and keep an incognito face, since somebody was bound to recognize me as “that kid who died.”

Brady had his hand glued over his mouth. James’s jaw was dropped to the floor. And I was just busy focusing on not completely losing it and throwing everything in the freakin’ room around.

“Yet another bizarre occurrence in Manhattan today,” the anchorman – the same damn one who caught us so off-guard – narrated. “I could have sworn that I came across the two figures that dropped from the sky, one of them being the young man who was hit by that car recently. And it would not have been such a big deal, had it not been for the way they reacted to being asked a few questions.”

“KYLER! My name is Kyler! Yes,” they sampled.

Not only was I on the brink of killing everyone, but just then I turned bright red in embarrassment. My face was clearly on TV again. Crystal clear. If anybody I went to school with saw it, they’d know for a fact that it was me, Kyle Dumbass Strickland. And God knows if my parents were watching, they’d know that it was me better than anybody.

“Uh oh,” James muttered, looking back at me with a face full’a fear.

“I know,” I whimpered, feeling my shoulders slump with my mood.

“Now what’re we gonna do?” Brady asked quietly, shutting the TV off. “This…this is too much. We’re in trouble, guys.”

I almost made another smartass remark about how obvious that fact was, but before I was able to add anything to the gigantic puddle of emotions in the room, somebody knocked at our door.

St. James leaped up off the bed and darted over to the door, peering through the peephole. But what took us by surprise was his reaction – he instantly squeaked a shriek of terror and glanced back at us, his eyes bulging with fear.

“It’s Beverly!” he whispered harshly.

Brady’s face turned completely pale. “B-B-Be-Beverly…? No…no! Anyone but her!”

James cautiously twisted the doorknob, slowly creaking it open in horror. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, but I could gather from their reactions that something really awful was about to happen.

He shuffled back as a tiny blonde girl walked forward into our room. With golden locks spilling over her shoulders and into her pretty little blue eyes, and a dress that poofed outward, she looked so cute, so innocent. And her wings were so small and fragile-looking!

One thing totally contradicted that, though – and that was the big old frown she had plastered to her mug.

“Brady, James, and Kyle,” she hissed lowly, clenching her fists. “God really needs to see you three. Right. Now.”