Credit Card Bureaus of the Afterlife

Credit Card Bureaus of the Afterlife

The white mailbox squeakily groaned open, reminding Jonathan Cherry that the hinges were rusted beyond the point of mere annoyance. The sound, the sensation made his skin crawl. Every time he opened it, every Friday afternoon, Jonathan made a silent commitment to spring for a can of "8-in-1" all-purpose oil. And just as regularly, the unspoken vow would again get pushed to the rear burner.

It was difficult for Jonathan to reach left, stretch, and put two hands around the week's accumulation of mail all while still in the seatbelt, but he managed to pull the bundle out without losing a single piece. Setting the pile on the passenger seat of the 1999 Jeep Cherokee, Jonathan pulled into the driveway, killed the engine, and let out a sigh. A long, weary, oppressed by routine sigh. A Life-shall-never-improve type of sigh.

---

The path through the house was, by now, navigated by rote. Jonathan walked through the front door, glancing at the hamper just inside on the left. The hamper would be revisited soon - it was a gathering place for all the other mail he had no intention of opening. The bundle in his arms would not yet join the party.

Further ahead, still on the left, was a small foyer. In it was Angela's old stupid decor. Santa Fe-style statuettes mixed with Americana pieces mixed with what Angela termed "unseasoned antiques" - in reality, old useless junk - in a tasteless amalgam unworthy of the most insipid, cliched, overdone "family eateries" like Appleseed's and Hannigan's.

Also in the foyer were pictures - of Jonathan, Angela, both together, some from childhood, some as recent as two years ago, just before the separation. Jonathan insisted to himself that sheer laziness prevented him from discarding the painful mementos. In weaker moments, Jonathan wondered why he needed to convince himself of anything.

Setting the tonnage of mail down on the kitchen table, Jonathan cautiously moved to the bar, where the answering machine sat.

Eleven messages.

Jonathan sighed, a variation on the earlier sigh. This one was of the Not-a-single-one-of-these-messages-is-any-good variety.

The sigh turned out to be prescient.

"YOU HAVE ELEVEN MESSAGES...FIRST MESSAGE, FRIDAY, 9:13, AM."

"Hello, Mr. Cherry, this is Robin Castner from AmeriCard Credit Corporation. We haven't heard from you in some time and would like to contact you about -"

"SECOND MESSAGE, FRIDAY, 9:39, AM."

"- calling to remind you that you are several months delinquent on account AA-2271-64. We at Federated Cred-"

"THIRD -"

Jonathan held the Next Message button down for three seconds, wherein all of the messages were deleted with a single beep.

Sigh number three - this one communicated nothing in particular. This was a This-is-merely-a-sigh sigh. Jonathan then turned his attention to the bale of mail on the kitchen table.

Jonathan chuckled a mirthless chuckle while fanning through the unopened envelopes of the past week. The grim laugh came from noticing all the companies named in the return address - unsurprisingly, the names on the return address were the same names as those companies calling Jonathan today and for the past several months.

Just like the rest of it, Jonathan thought. He retraced his end-of-day steps to the front door, dumping today's mail haul into the clothes hamper. The hamper was nearly full of Please Pay Your Goddamn Bills, Asshole mail from the past six weeks or so.

Hey! There's a new bill from US Creditors! First card I ever got - wonder what the minimum is now?

Curiosity claimed Jonathan. He opened the envelope despite the 31 flavors of dread he could taste.

$773.56!?? Oh. My. God.

$773.56 was the minimum payment due.

That was one credit card. One. Out of fifteen.

---

There is a theory floating around which says that human beings have no free will at all. The idea is that our chemical processes make all of decisions for us, and we rationalize the behavior afterward.

That theory was starting to sound pretty good to Jonathan now. He couldn't imagine why he ever allowed his financial matters to get so far out of hand. True, Angela's departure was abrupt and upsetting, but he hadn't realized that her leaving made him stop caring about life entirely.

In fact, this is exactly what had happened. Jonathan, for most of the past two years, simply went through the motions in everything he did, wherever he went. Whether he was at work, visiting family, or simply sitting at home, Jonathan stagnated. He'd visit his parents only after a lot of prodding, not really listening to them or engaging them. His woodworking projects, once such an enriching hobby, gathered dust in the basement. And in the two years since the separation, Jonathan hadn't once sought out companionship. He hadn't made a move on a co-worker nor had he gone to singles clubs.

---

I'm not living, I'm just being. What's more, I lack the will to change things.

Jonathan kept his mind remarkably clear of everything but that phrase as he started up the Jeep again. "Kissing A Fool" played on the light rock radio station as Jonathan reclined the seat and turned the air conditioning on high.

I'm not living, I'm just being, and I lack the will to change things.

"Time After Time" played as Jonathan stayed reclined in the seat, eyes shut, getting sleepier.

I'm not living, I'm just there, and I lack the will to change.

"Maneater" now.

I'm not living, I'm just there, nothing will change.

"(Don't You) Forget About Me" now.

I'm not...living...I'm not...

Some five hours later, Jonathan Malcolm Cherry was pronounced dead by way of carbon monoxide poisoning. His death was called a suicide.

---

"Cherry - Jonathan Malcolm Cherry," said the voice on the intercom speaker.

Jonathan looked around from his imitation leather Queen Anne chair. As he turned he generated a comically muffled squeak from underneath his seated position. There were six other duplicates of the chair Jonathan now occupied. Jonathan and the chairs were inside of a small, low-lit lobby with no plants, old magazines, or endtables. Directly opposite Jonathan was a receptionist window with nothing or no one inside except a brilliant though gentle white light.

OK - my name was called and there’s a window right there. I’m going to go there and completely ignore the fact that I was just in my garage committing suicide. Things could be worse, I suppose.

“Yes...um, hi. I’m here. I’m Jonathan Cherry...hello?”

Abruptly, a woman appeared on the other side of the window. Her instant appearance should have been startling, but it wasn’t.

“Hello Mr. Cherry - sorry for that delay,” said the face opposite Jonathan’s. She was perky but in a sincere and genuine way. Her smile was bright, her lengthy raven hair smartly styled, her large eyes arctic blue; in short, her face could best be described as post-perfect.

“No delay really...um, what is it you need?” Jonathan was starting to panic. Clearly something was wrong. Back in Columbus, he would have been a stuttering mess in front of a girl like this. The fact that he was feeling nearly comfortable in such a situation made him feel as though reality was breaking down, and when reality breaks down one is left with...a lobby with no doors and cheap furniture.

Jonathan glanced backward at the cheap chairs for reassurance. There was a wonderful familiarity in that kitschy furniture.

“I realize this must be confusing for you, Mr. Cherry. I just wanted to let you that we’ll be transferring you to see a credit claims specialist.”

Jonathan paused a long pause.

“Credit claims specialist - but aren’t we all-“

”Our specialist will gladly answer any questions you may have, Mr. Cherry. Please know that we here at Credit Alliance Corporation are going to do whatever we can to serve you best..”

“Excuse me, but can you please-“

---

“-tell me what’s going on?”

“Yeah, sure, have a seat.”

Jonathan was alarmed by the sudden change in venue. He twisted and fidgeted in his seat, the motion again accompanied by an unintentionally sophomoric whoopie cushion-type noise. When he came to a stop, he was looking at a different face than before.

Unfortunately for Jonathan, this face was substantially less perfect than the last one. A thin white crew-cut sat atop a fat head. A fat head, covered with day old mozzarella where skin should be, housed two beady eyes which were actually indistinguishable from the squinty sockets they rested in. Two asymmetrical, misshapen, hairy ears big enough to hear light would certainly have trouble hearing jet engines at full throttle, what with all the wax buildup. In those vast but clogged ear canals, cotton swabs end up having to fill out change of address forms.

In spite of all of that, the crusty old man was really hard on the eyes. He held a chipped, off-white coffee cup in his left hand, and the cup held really thick, really black, really hot, really bitter coffee. Just glancing at that ebon swill could induce nausea. The old man sipped it and made a face which strongly implied that three random ribs were being removed. That is to say, he looked happier.

That old man looks like a Dolph. Or like maybe they call him Dutch.

As before, the office was sparsely furnished, and what few pieces were there were cheap-looking and cliched. And as before, the furniture had the effect of calming Jonathan’s increasingly harrowed nerves.

“You Cherry? Dolph van Timman. You can call me Dutch.”

“...uh, yeah...thanks, d-Doltch.”

“How ‘bout some coffee.”

“NO!” Jonathan’s reaction was even more instant than the foul brew.

A beat, “Awright then, let’s get down to the brass tacks,” said Dutch.

Jonathan smirked. He was starting to like this guy. Beyond the bad smells and the lumpy body, the lousy clothes and the disgusting face, Dolph was top-shelf. He had character. The gravelly voice, the no-frills personal effects (such as the worn-in hat atop the gray-green filing cabinet ), and the big band ballads trickling out of a vintage transistor radio made Dolph a man so far out of his time he’s fashionable. “Comfortable in his own skin” doesn’t begin to tell it. He would have been a movie star back in the far-off days of film noir - and he wouldn’t have had to act.

“OK, then...Dolph...exactly what’s going on?”

Dolph paused the pause of a man who gave up smoking twenty years ago whose ingrained habit was to take a quick drag just before speaking.

“As you may know, I’m a claims specialist for Credit Alliance Corporation. Your case crossed my desk just the other day, and I gotta say, I am impressed, Charlie.”

“What’d I do?”

“You kicked the oxygen habit...because of this,” Dolph declared while handing Jonathan a document. Jonathan quickly scanned his way to the bottom of the page where a monstrous number waited.

Jonathan’s eyes could have exploded.

“THAT’S what I owed??”

“Owe. That’s what you owe.”

Half in shock, half amused, Jonathan laughed. “What, there’s an economy up here?”

“Charlie, let me dispel a little false notion,” Dolph said, pausing for the long-gone cigarette, “they always used to say you can’t take it with you. They got it half-right. You can’t take the black ink with you, but you can sure as hell take the red ink.”

An onset of rage was possessing Jonathan. “Wait a minute - I don’t understand! They’ve got creditors up here!? What do they use for currency!?”

“No, no, no, Charlie, it’s not like that. Let me explain. I took my dirt nap back in ‘89. And yeah, I had a good run. Made a little money, had my share of dames, and I was 67 years old - which ain’t bad considering I took a couple’a Jap slugs right in the ol’ breadbasket at Iwo Jima. Then I come up here and it turns out there’s a whole bunch’a folks just waitin’ around. They’re waitin’ on somebody - somebody big.

“Now it turns out I’m waitin’ a long while. Couple’a guys get the idea that we can all just wait around doin’ nothin’, or we can get somethin’ goin’ up here. So we clear out a little space, buildings and offices and stuff start goin’ up outta nowhere, and we got ways to pass the time again. I end up working for a credit bureau. Every so often a whiny kid like you gets in over his head with the bills, takes the express elevator out, and they send guys like you to guys like me to make sure they settle up.”

Dolph said a whole lot - and raised more questions than a book of riddles on fertility drugs.

Jonathan cleared his throat. “Okay...first of all, you mean to tell me that in just 17 years up here you went from ‘a bunch of folks waiting around’ to offices and jobs??”

Dolph chuckled while reaching for the coffee cup. He took a sip before replying.

“You crazy? Kid, trust me on this - you get to play worm hotel for a good 10,000 years before you’re in the waiting room.”

“The waiting room?”

“That’s where you were just 500 years ago, before you came in here to talk to me.”

WOW. This is really weird.

“So...I guess time really moves...differently up here, huh?”

“Now you’re catchin’ on, kid!” said Dolph with a gruff chuckle.

“But you said I still owe that money? How am I supposed to pay it?”

Dolph paused long enough to look Jonathan right in the eyes. It was Dolph’s most powerful Sincerity Gaze.

“You get to go back.”

Suddenly Jonathan felt queasy. Everything in the room seemed to be swirling in place. Everything about his life - his afterlife - felt absurd and wrong. He felt guilty and idiotic for taking his own life knowing now that it was not only wrong but pointless. In this form he couldn’t actually sweat, but he felt at this moment that he was sweating from every pore. Despite the non-existence of pores.

Logic will rescue me! Jonathan thought, searching for a way out of his self-made mess.

“But wait - how can I go back? How am I supposed to just explain to people, ‘Oh, I’m okay! That whole burial thing? Just a little practical joke. Ha ha!’”

Dolph stood up. He seemed to be seven feet tall at this point. He looked like the personification of credibility.

I wonder if Dolph’s really the Big Man?

“Kid, you don’t know this - you couldn’t have possibly known this - and you won’t know this after the trip back, but...wait. Let me ask you a little question first.

“Can you prove that everything you know isn’t planted in your mind every morning you wake up? In other words, if the world was destroyed one day, could you prove that all the destruction wasn’t simply undone?”

Silent moments passed. Jonathan pondered this. No amount of reasoning and logic could overcome an omnipotence capable of simply pressing the reset button.

Finally Jonathan spoke up. “How many times?” he asked with a hoarse voice, thick with emotion.

“In your lifetime? Twice,” Dolph said solemnly, with the experience of one who saw plenty of death, “Nuclear missles.”

Jonathan stared at Dolph who stared right back. Both men left an unasked question in the air.

How many resets did I get?

For the first time in many years (both in Jonathan’s personal timeline and in real time), Jonathan felt resolute. He felt driven. Granted, it wasn’t a steely resolve. It wasn’t an enthusiastic resolve. It was simply a resolve propelled by the feeling that he hadn’t handled anything in his life properly since the divorce. The feeling that righting a wrong might make a mishandled life better somehow.

In short, for the first time in over two years, Jonathan Malcolm Cherry was optimistic.

“I’m ready, Dolph.”

Dolph smiled broadly. He’d handled this type of case before and Jonathan, while bright, reacted as predictably as the next person. Dolph couldn’t recall anyone else reaching a different conclusion.

“You got it, kid. Hey, next time you’re here, look me up. We’ll have coffee when you come back.”

---

Ow! Goddamn back.

Jonathan sat up and looked up at the dashboard clock. It read 6:56 PM.

Damn, I am worn out.

And he was. Jonathan hadn’t made it inside yet - he had gone through the usual Friday routine up to a point: leave work, pick up week’s mail - but hadn’t made it any further. This time he actually parked the car in the garage, killed the engine, closed the garage behind him, cracked the front windows, reclined the seat and rested his eyes. Which turned into a nap of over an hour.

Jonathan quietly chuckled at the thought of waking up from a nap just to go to sleep, but he needed it. He hadn’t slept much the night before and felt like he hadn’t slept in days.

Today, Jonathan broke routine for no particular reason - instead of entering through the front door, he entered through the door which led to the laundry room. As he entered, he flipped the light switch. The light turned on for an instant, then switched off with a snap. Old bulb.

Oh shit - that reminds me - I was supposed to mail the light bill at lunch time. Dammit...wait a second! You can pay utilities at Dan’s Foods! I’m saved!

Of course, the courtesy office at Dan’s closed at seven-thirty - and Dan’s wasn’t exactly nearby. The urgency of the situation kicked Jonathan in the butt - he felt fully awake now.

Hopping back in the Jeep, Jonathan popped the garage door and nearly clipped the bottom of it while backing out. He left the house at all speed.

Merging onto the expressway, Jonathan was conflicted. Why the trouble? I can pay it tomorrow with a $3 late fee. They don’t even turn off power for ten more days. He answered his own question in the next moment. Bullshit. Why pick up that fee if I can avoid it? Besides, I need some groceries.

The clock flipped from 7:19 to 7:20 when Jonathan walked into Dan’s. Dan’s Foods was a relic - small grocery store, small local chain, didn’t sell TV’s - and quaint in its own way. The courtesy counter was absurdly tall and painted a horribly outdated shade of orange which clashed with all of the other outdated colors in the store.

Jonathan waited, bill in hand. And waited. Waited longer - 7:22, 7:23; no closed signs were posted, but no one was around. He was getting angrier. I miss out on sleep for this?!?

“Sorry for that delay,” said the face opposite Jonathan’s. She was perky but in a sincere and genuine way. Her smile was bright, her lengthy raven hair smartly styled, her large eyes arctic blue; in short, her face could best be described as post-perfect.

Jonathan was stunned. He couldn’t remember where, but he had seen this girl before. Hers was a face made for magazines, but it seemed warm and familiar, a touchstone to a wonderful place and time.

In that long moment, Jonathan read her face - and saw the same reaction.

“Hi I’m Bill and I have a Jonathan to pay!!” he said quickly. It felt wonderful in the most awkward way imaginable. I haven’t felt this since - “I mean, I’m Jonathan.”

Her face was aglow, her bright smile bringing him closer, setting him at ease. “Jonathan. Hi. I’m Hope,” she said, extending her hand.

Jonathan took her hand in his, gently enclosing her hand with his left. In that moment, gazing into the eyes of a genuine Love at First Sight, he felt a sense of satisfaction for choosing to pay a bill on time for once.

Smiling, he wondered if there wasn’t a lesson in this.