"Exposing hypocrisy in itself doesn't make you a moral person," I say.

"Huh?" Pam says.

"Oh, don't be so thick, Pamela," Hamilton says. "He never did have a sense of humor. Jocks never do. Listen to what Jared's say-ing … "

"Don't so-thick me, Heffy-Weffy. I'm the one who cracked the safe today."

"Hurt me, hurt me—"

"Oh Lord. You guys want a miracle to make you go 'oh wow' for real?"

"Deal us in, big boy," Hamilton says.

"Very well." I approach them and tap them each on the head."You touch us on the head? That's a miracle? Jared, I—" Pam stops, touches her cheeks, and looks at her body. Hamilton puts his hands to his ears and then falls down on his knees. "No. No. Oh, my. It's—it's real, isn't it, Jared?" Pam asks.

"It's real."

The two go silent; Hamilton crawls across the pavement and lowers his head to the ground, inspecting the dust.

Pam bursts into tears and grabs Hamilton's shoulders and tries to lift him up. Hamilton looks both lost and found at the same time. "Is it what I think it is?" he asks.

"Yes."

He moans. "You mean—we're clean?"

"Yes, you are clean. Your addictions are gone. No withdrawal. No pangs. Nothing." The two unclasp and then come over to me and try to touch me, but as with Linus earlier on that day, they end up batting each other's arms. After this, they stand and do leg squats and stretches and run around the parking lot and spin and look at the cellophane sky.

"It is a miracle. I can think! I'm clear! So clear! I haven't been this clear since—ever. The six wives of Henry VIII! The Fibonacci number sequence! How to make a smooth nonlumpy cream sauce …"

"It's so clean!" Hamilton echoes. "My head inside is clean as a lake! Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon; August, 1969—American talk show host, Merv Griffin launches his late-night CBS show in direct competition with Johnny Carson. Opening night guests include Woody Allen and Heddy Lamarr, but scheduled athlete Joe Namath is a no-show."

"Oh Hamilton—look at the world!"

"It's …"

"Yes …"

The two fall silent; their bodies slacken as though they've realized a friend has betrayed them. Sitting down on the truck's lowered tailgate, they swat diamonds from underneath their bottoms and sit limp.

"Well, well—here we are," Pam says."Clean," Hamilton says. "And I don't feel like getting high. You?"

"No," replies Pam. "I like being inside my own skin again." A seagull shrieks above them and they look up. "There's still birds," Pam says.

"But no people."

"No people. The world's over, isn't it, Jared?"

"Pretty well."

"You're real, aren't you?"

"Yep."

Silence falls where in other days traffic would have hummed and honked. "This is life, then, isn't it? I mean, this is it."

"Basically."

Hamilton and Pam hold hands. Pam says, "What do we do now, Jared? Is this it forever—silence? It's so quiet down here. Lonely. You're the ghost. You're the expert."

"Your brains are as tender and fresh as a baby bird's. Walk home. Enjoy your clarity. Go romp in a hot tub. You count; you were meant to exist. I'll be seeing you again."

And with this I vanish.

30 EVERYTHING IS BRAND-NEW

Richard was my best friend growing up, although we did grow apart over the years. He was one of the people I missed most when I died, so I'm kinda choked to see him again. But there are severe limits on how much I'm allowed to reveal to the living, so I can't be as gooey with Richard—or the others—as I'd like.

Richard is huffing up Rabbit Lane with a shotgun, so I slide down the hill to meet him. "Hey, Jared—thanks for fixing Karen's legs. That was beautiful."

"It was the least I could do."

"We came home and played splits on the front lawn with a steak knife for an hour. She's just so high on life now. Good trick with the lighting system down at Save-On, too."

"You flatter me shamelessly. Where are you walking to?"

"Out for a stroll before the sun sets to get a good view of Mount Baker. And the weather—it's so beautiful today. It's the end of December and it might as well be June. But then again there could be a snowstorm in three minutes. Weather's random these days."

"So I've heard." I walk alongside Richard.

"Were you alive when Mount St. Helen erupted, Jared?"

"No. Missed it."

"That's right. It was huge. And you missed new wave and alternative rock. Rap. Grunge. Hip-hop. People wore some pretty stupid clothes. Cars got really good, though."

"I didn't miss out on earthly things entirely, Richard. Check this out—I can do the 'Moonwalk.'"

"No way. This I've got to see."

"Just you watch me now …" I slinkily Moonwalk up the road while Richard belly-laughs. "Am I doing something wrong?" I ask.

"The opposite. It's perfect."

"Thank you. I'd like to see you do it."

"Oh please, no."

I float back beside him: "So you see, I'm somewhat up to date." We continue our walk. "Fucking A. The neighborhood's one big mess, don't you think so?"

"I don't think you ever get used to the silence, Jared. Back before the plague or whatever it was, the neighborhood looked almost identical to the way it did the year you died. But now—" We survey dead trees, rangy vines, an occasional charcoal stump where a house once stood, a bird resting on a skeleton's ribcage. Pavement is crumbling and cars are stopped in the strangest places.

We pass a dog's skeleton, bleached clean by sun and acid rains. "Pinball, may he rest in peace. The Williams's Doberman. It tried to attack Wendy, but Hamilton shot him in time. It was only hungry. Poor thing."

"Sad."

"So Jared, tell me: What about when you were dying back in 1979.

What was that like? I've always wondered. I mean, were you scared near the end, when you were dying in the hospital? You seemed socalm—even at the end when all those machines were pumping gorp in and out of you."

"Scared? I was scared shitless. I didn't want to leave Earth. I wanted to see the future—the lives of people I knew. I wanted to see progress— electric cars, pollution controls, the new Talking Heads album. .. . Then my hair fell out and I knew I'd crossed the line. After that I put a good face on it because my parents were falling apart." Richard is lost in thought. "Do you think about death much?" I ask.

"Pretty much all the time. How could I not'? I mean, look at this place."

"And what do you think?"

"I don't worry about dying. I figure that I'll just meet up with everybody else in the world wherever they went. But if I'd been you back in high school, I don't think I'd have been able to put as good a face on death as you did. I'd scream and yell and beg for more time, even on this clapped-out hulk of a planet we live on now."

"You like it here?"

"No, but I'm alive."

"Is it enough—being alive?"

"It's what I have."

"Richard, tell me the truth—and you have to tell me the truth, because, um, I'm a heavenly being."

"Shoot, buddy."

"Did you use Karen and me both as an excuse for you not to continue your own life? Did you bail out of life?"

Richard looks hurt, but then makes a dismissive "nah—why not?" gesture. "Sure. I pretty much withdrew, Jared. But I was a good citizen. I put the trash out every Tuesday night. I voted. I had a job."

"Did you feel kinda hollow inside?"

"A bit. I admit it. Does my answer make you happy?"

"Hey man. I need to ask. I need to know how you are."

"But I stopped withdrawing when Karen woke up."

"Fair enough."

"Do we have to discuss this, Jared? Let's talk about the old neighborhood. People. Friends.""I've visited all the others today. You're the last. I saved the best for last, my oldest friend."

"I'm honored, you stud."

We continue walking and cut down into St. James Place and approach my old house, a slightly shambled split-level rancher, baby-blue. On the right hand side there are cinder burns from when the house next door burned down. "The fire was three weeks ago," Richard tells me. "Lightning." We stand at the end of my driveway. "Here's your house. You wanna go inside, Jared?"