My father rarely cussed at me. It was one of those rare glimpses I ever caught of his non-father personality. I rarely liked what I saw.

"Oh my G.o.d." My mother sat down at the table, her face in her hands. She looked up at her jailbird son. "Are you dealing drugs?"

I wanted to tell them to get real, to remember that the best lessons they ever learned was from the mistakes they made, that the first step in becoming your own person is to make a conscious decision not to become your parents.

But I didn't know how to say all that, to articulate what I would only learn years later when I yelled at my own kids, because the only way to grow old is to forget what it's like to be young. And besides, they didn't deserve a response, or so I believed. They'd never been this mad before, never talked to me like this. It made all their love, all their kind words and tender moments seem totally and unforgivably conditional.

"Yeah," I replied coldly. If they needed to blame everything on changes in the world outside, instead of changes in their son, I wouldn't stand in their way. "That's it." I started up to my room, spoke over my shoulder, let my words tumble down the stairs behind me. "The big bad wolf made me do it."

"That must be his supplier," I heard my father explain to my mother. "They all have nicknames. It's all-"

The door SLAMMED! on his words, caught them and held them like fingers in a car door.

I collapsed on my bed, listened to my parents fighting downstairs, turned on the ten o'clock news. Channel 4 was running an expose on the deaths at my old high school. A young, statuesque, serious-minded telejournalist reported that students were living in a state of mourning, that grief had struck the school "like a brick through a stained-gla.s.s window." As she said this, a man with a clipboard stepped behind her, into frame, and waved off the mob of students mooning the camera and flashing middle fingers and gang signs.

"Excuse me, young man." The reporter snared a pa.s.serby and aimed the camera at him. It was Paul Pennybaum, lurching to cla.s.s. Flies...o...b..ted his tilted head, alighting on his rotten fruit face and taking off again. His clothes were tattered and sullied from his time in the grave. His eyes looked at the world like a r.e.t.a.r.ded monkey would look at a banana painted on a brick wall.

"Young man," the reporter began again, "how does it feel going to school under the shadow of Death?"

"Brains," Paul droned, with great effort, as he stared straight through the reporter.

"Yes," the reporter responded, "the victims have all suffered severe trauma to their craniums. How does that make you feel?"

"Feel . . . dead."

The reporter turned back to the camera.

"As you can see, some of the students here already consider themselves future victims. Back to you, Bob and Alice."

I changed the channel, tried to pick up some scrambled p.o.r.n, but nothing was on. So I sat there in the dark, weighing the gravity of so much death against the weight of Ginger's body on top of mine. I supposed it was partially my fault. If I whacked Paul, got rid of him somehow, the killing would stop. But I would never see Ginger again. Thus, the combination of my l.u.s.t for her and my loathing for my former cla.s.smates was enough to persuade me, before I whacked off and fell asleep, that most of them were better off dead anyway. Paul Pennybaum was by no means the only zombie at San Los Pleasovale High.

By the following Sat.u.r.day, five more students and three teachers were dead at school. My parents spoke as though I was one of them. Good riddance. And don't give me that look, either. How many times have you looked around a room and, however fleetingly, wished half of them would just disappear?

At the table that morning, my father spoke of days gone by, when he and I would barbecue burgers in the backyard and play catch. My mother made no reply. Tears welled up in her eyes as she hid them behind that day's crossword. Sitting between them at the table, I wanted to remind my father that he was a vegetarian, and that we had played catch once. Neither of us liked it. We both hated sports. And while I couldn't claim to like the jocks at my school, I couldn't blame them for being what they were. After all, if I had the choice between being a moderately clever writer, amusing himself alone at his computer, or being a Neanderthal in a football jersey at a b.l.o.w.j.o.b buffet (or so I have to imagine them), I'd have to think about it.

Leaning over his bowl of cereal, my father flipped to the business section, exposing the front page to the rest of the table. The headline read that both the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been called in to investigate the series of deaths at my old high school.

I got up to leave when I heard my bus arrive to take me to the Homecoming pep rally and game. We'd been prepping for it all week-hanging streamers in the hallways at school, pinning up signs so parents and alums wouldn't get lost when they arrived for the game from their various planes of existence. I'd stayed late every day to help decorate and then f.u.c.k my girlfriend. Every day was Christmas. Then I would come home and see my parents asleep on the couch, in the armchair, at the kitchen table, dreaming in uncomfortable positions. First I'd be mad. Then I'd be sorry. Then I'd go to sleep feeling mad that they made me feel sorry.

I paused for a second at the door, looked back at my parents looking down at their papers and plates, not so much looking at these items of interest as not looking at me.

For all they know, I am in a gang. This could be the last time they see me, and they don't care. They wouldn't care if I was next.

Going out the door, I thought about what Ginger said every night when I tucked her into her grave and I always asked to stay a little longer. If you stay, she'd invariably warn me, you can never go home.

I thought about that as I got onto the bus, and about how little home felt like home anymore.

Well, maybe I will be next.

As we pulled away, I looked back at the house I'd grown up in. It felt like I hadn't been there in years, as though it had been sold long ago and that I'd only just returned for nostalgia's sake, but had changed my mind when I drew close, and decided to keep driving.

"Where are they?"

"They'll be here."

The air was cold and electrified, the sky black. It was two minutes till game time and the opposing team still had yet to show, as had their fans. The bleachers opposite ours were bare, the sidelines equally so.

"If they don't show, do they forfeit?"

"They'll show."

I sat in the top row of bleachers with Art and Roland.

"I need a smoke," Roland said. He and Art, along with the rest of the hushed crowd, watched the field intently. The players on our side had already made their big entrance and were sitting on their benches, waiting and watching the field. "Wish I could hold a cigarette."

That afternoon, the pep rally had proceeded as all such events do-cheering, clapping, yelling, clapping some more and yelling louder, followed by more cheering, and, time permitting, more yelling and clapping. All throughout, however, there had been something in the air between the fans and the players, something in their distant smiles that made our good wishes sound almost mournful-some unacknowledged dread, as though our boys were going off to war, that we might not ever see them again.

"But if they don't show up," I repeated.

"They'll show up."

My breath came out as a fog. n.o.body else's did.

"But if they d-"

A sound rang out from On High-a lone trumpet echoing down from the cloud cover. I looked up at the sky, as did everyone, and felt fear choke my heart. The horn sounded once more, like a distant cavalry charge. As it did so, a solitary ray of golden light, no wider than a child's arm, pierced the clouds and focused on the fifty-yard line. A third time the trumpet sounded. My breath caught in my throat. I wanted to hide, to cover my face, so terrible was this sound that said your dreams are over, a sound that told you, convinced you, that everything you thought you would become you will never become; all the plans you have laid for yourself, will never come to pa.s.s. It was the bang of an unseen gun pointed at your heart. It was the sound of The End.

The fourth time the horn sounded it was joined by a chorus of bellicose bra.s.s, horns of war that wrung all will to resist from my body as the tiny spotlight that shone down on our home field widened suddenly, split the sky like a knife ripping open a wound, flooding the terrain with a rapturous, unflinching blaze as a host of seraphim in gold and white football jerseys poured down from the break in the clouds and stormed the field, a beautiful, thunderous stampede of infallible athletic ability with the greatest record of any school in the history of the universe. These were our opponents. This was Paradise High.

"We have to fight Heaven in our Homecoming Game?" I asked, totally flabbergasted. Across the field, a glowing body of halos and white robes filled the opposing stands.

"They've never been defeated," Art said and bit into a corndog.

"Why am I not surprised?"

"It ain't that bad, son," Roland offered. "It's like, this one doesn't count, you know?"

"Doesn't count?"

"Yeah, you know," Art said. "They can't be beat. n.o.body's ever even scored on these guys. When G.o.d's sitting in the other team's bleachers, the bookies take the day off."

"Is that Genghis Khan looking through their playbook?"

"He's their head coach."

"But wasn't he, like, a bloodthirsty conqueror?"

"And a strategic genius."

"But wasn't he, like, a bloodthirsty conqueror?"

"Did the first-string linebackers at Harvard score 1600s on their SATs?" Roland asked.

I stared blankly down at the fetus.

"I don't think so," he answered as the whistle rang out for the kickoff.

I left when the scorekeeper lost count. The hometown crowd hadn't made a peep for the better part of three quarters. Whether we were too sorry to cheer for Middle Plain or too guilty to root against Heaven I couldn't say, but I supposed it didn't matter. My mind hadn't been on the game anyway.

I wandered back to the cemetery. Every grave was empty. Everyone had shown up to see their team get clobbered. I wondered why.

"You know, you're quite a unique young man."

I whirled around, surprised. I was going to school in the land of the dead, but a strange voice in the middle of a cemetery was still mildly alarming.

Ms. Needlemeyer, the Clown of Dachau, leaned against the wall of a mausoleum, trying to light a cigarette without the ability to inhale.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"You're a very unique young man," she reiterated. "You are, after all, the only one who's ever been unhappy."

"Wha . . . huh? I don't get it."

"That's what you want to hear, isn't it?"

I stopped, looked at her with her painted skull and fallen stockings. She looked like a hooker who'd died propped against a lamppost and no one had noticed while she wasted away to nothing but bleached bones and a low-cut dress.

"No," I replied, softly.

"Here," she held out the as-yet unlit cigarette. "Little help?"

I plopped down on the tombstone beside her, lit her cigarette, handed it back.

"So what do you want to hear?"

I thought about that question, tried to look past the immediate thoughts of fame, money, s.e.x. I thought about Ginger, and my 'rents. Most of all I thought about how everyone on the planet seemed to kind of suck, in a general way, while I, clearly the only one who didn't suck, seemed to be the only one that was unhappy.

"I want someone to tell me it's going to be all right."

A dry chuckle sounded in Ms. Needlemeyer's throat, the sound of drumsticks on a pelvic snare drum.

"What?" I asked.

"You, young man, are the only person that can honestly say that to yourself. That's what growing up is, hon." She held the cigarette between her bare teeth, let the smoke float up into her eye cavities in a dead French inhale. "Becoming that person."

Mercifully, across the churchyard and over the last hill, the final whistle of the game blew. We turned and watched the sky tear open behind the school. The angels flew home quickly, whooping and hollering and cheering like a parade.

"Everybody always wants to be somewhere else," Needlemeyer noted. "Always making plans to be somewhere they'd rather be. I don't imagine it's any different in Heaven. I'd just like to know where they'd rather be."

I looked at the painted bag of bones, at the dirt caked on my shoes.

I had to keep my distance from Ginger at the Homecoming Dance. No one but our inner circle of friends knew how serious things had gotten between us and no one else could know, or there would be h.e.l.l to pay. Literally. So I stood against the wall with Art while Roland danced on Missy's outstretched palm and Ginger boogied beside them. After a few songs he came back to catch his breath. Missy went to the bathroom with Ginger.

"What the dilly, son?" Roland asked. He sounded like a winded rubber squeaker toy. "You upset about the game? Don't let it get to you, bro. We always lose Homecoming."

"Huh?" I looked up from my feet. "Oh. Nah, I don't care about that s.h.i.t."

"Then what's up?" Art asked.

"Nothing."

"Yeah, right."

"You love her?" Roland asked.

On the dance floor, Misty and Twisty and everybody else danced. Everyone danced differently. I wondered what it had been like, years ago, when n.o.body danced alone. You found a partner or you waited for one, looking for someone to ask.

"I don't know," I replied.

"That means no, son. When it comes to love, anything but yes means no."

I watched Ginger and Missy come out of the bathroom. Ginger looked for me across the dance floor, found me. I met her gaze, held it as I walked out to the dance floor and took her hand for a slow song.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

I made no response. We fit our bodies together and started to move.

"I think I love you," Ginger said after the first refrain.

She said it the way everybody says it the first time, when what they really mean is I think I want to tell you I love you. She looked at me, wanting me to say it back. I wanted to say it back, but I couldn't speak. All the blood in my body reversed its flow. I felt like I did in the cemetery, when Art, Roland, and Missy had played the prank on me, convincing me that I'd been dead the whole time.

"Aren't you gonna say it too?"

There was a pause between songs, long enough for someone to bet it all and lose; long enough for a plane to make an emergency landing; long enough for the next song to load, and begin.

"I, I-"

"I mean, if this isn't love, what is?" she asked, needing me to have the answer.

Again I found no words. I couldn't speak to her. Couldn't look at her.

"What are you thinking about?" she pleaded softly. She pressed her head against my chest, let the familiar cold of her tears soak through my shirt.

"Nothing," I replied, the old conversational parachute that worked more like an anvil tied to a ripcord.

"Please tell me."

I looked down at her, and for the first and probably last time, spoke with absolute honesty to a woman who I cared about: I'd been thinking about my mother, about a certain Christmas morning when I was seven years old. It was our hardest holiday together. My father had been laid off before the previous semester had begun and it had plunged him into a crisis of being from which it seemed he might never emerge. He slept most of the day and haunted our house at night while we slept. Once, when I couldn't sleep, I'd gone down for a drink of water and found the old man standing in front of the open refrigerator, talking to the appliance's innards like a door-to-door salesman might present his product on some anonymous stoop, trying his d.a.m.nedest to get his foot in the door. He'd sold vacuums door-to-door one summer when he was nineteen to save for the down payment on a car. He was brushing up the old pitch. I didn't know this at the time.