Free Before and Afterlives by Christopher Barzak Page B

nowhere near water; and a flat rock with a skeletal fish fossil imprinted on it. I was excited to see them all. I hadn’t realized how beautiful rocks could be. It made me want to collect rocks too, but it was already Gracie’s territory. I’d have to find something of my own.
    We sat on her bed and listened to music by some group from Cleveland that I’d never heard of, but who Gracie loved because she set the CD player to replay the same song over and over. It sounded real punk. They sang about growing up angry and how they would take over the world and make people pay for being stupid idiots. Gracie nodded and gritted her teeth as she listened.
    I liked being alone in the house with her, listening to music and looking at rocks. I felt eccentric and mature. I told Gracie this, and she knew what I meant. “They all think we’re children,” she said. “They don’t know a God-damned thing, do they?”
    We talked about growing old for a while, imagining ou rselves in college, then in mid-life careers, then we were so old we couldn’t walk without a walker. Pretty soon we were so old we both clutched our chests like we were having heart attacks, fell back on the bed, and choked on our own laughter.
    “What sort of funeral will you have?” she wondered.
    “I don’t know, what about you? Aren’t they all the same?”
    “Funerals are all different,” she said. “For instance, Mex ican cemeteries have all these bright, beautifully colored decorations for their dead; they’re not all serious like ours.” I asked her where she had learned that. She said, “Social Studies. Last year.”
    “Social Studies?” I asked. “Last year?” I repeated. “I don’t r emember reading about funerals or cemeteries last year in Social Studies.” Last year I hadn’t cared about funerals. I was fourteen and watched TV and played video games a lot. What else had I missed while lost in the fog of sitcoms and fantasy adventures?
    I bet Mexicans never would have had a private funeral. Too bad Jamie wasn’t Mexican.
    “I see graves all the time now,” Gracie told me. She lay flat on her back, head on her pillow, and stared at the ceiling. “They’re everywhere,” Gracie said. “Ever since—”
    She stopped and sighed, as if it was some huge confession she’d just told me. I worried that she might expect something in r eturn, a confession of my own. I murmured a little noise I hoped sounded supportive.
    “They’re everywhere,” she repeated. “The town cemetery, the Wilkinson family plot, that old place out by the ravine, where Fuck-You Francis is supposed to be buried. And now the railroad tracks. I mean, where does it end?”
    I said, “Beds are like graves, too,” and she turned to me with this puzzled look. “No,” I said, “really.” And I told her about the time when my grandmother came to live with us, after my grandfather’s death. And how, one morning my mother sent me into her room to wake her for breakfast—I remember, because I smelled bacon frying when I woke up—and so I went into my grandma’s room and told her to wake up. She didn’t, so I repeated myself. But she still didn’t wake up. Finally I shook her shoulders, and her head lolled on her neck. I grabbed one of her hands, and it was cold to the touch.
    “Oh,” said Gracie. “I see what you mean.” She stared at me hard, her eyes glistening. Gracie rolled on top of me, pinning her knees on both sides of my hips. Her hair fell around my face, and the room grew dimmer as her hair brushed over my eyes, shu tting out the light.
    She kissed me on my lips, and she kissed me on my neck. She started rocking against my penis, so I rocked back. The coils in her bed creaked. “You’re so cold, Adam,” Gracie whispered, over and over. “You’re so cold, you’re so cold.” She smelled like clay and dust. As she rocked on me, she looked up at the ceiling and bared the hollow of her throat. After a while, she let out several little gasps,