Rock N Soul Read Online Free PDF Page B

ring again, but still didn’t pull it off.
    Poor guy. He’d just learned he was dead and now he might be getting even deader, despite what I’d said earlier. That must suck. I’ve always thought it might be better to die suddenly, without any warning, because although it would be shitty to die without saying your good-byes, at least you didn’t have to lie there dreading the last moment. I raised my eyes to meet his and felt like maybe I should, I don’t know, say a few words.
    “You were a good musician, you know.” It was really all I could say, since I didn’t know the guy personally. But maybe it would be enough. “Your music and your life meant something to a lot of people.”
    He swallowed, even though that must be pretty useless for a ghost. “You’re a fan?”
    “Not really,” I admitted, then felt bad, both because maybe it would be better for him to be talking to a fan right now and because it’s not strictly true that I’m not one. “Well . . . I’m not a hardcore-psycho-screaming-in-the-mosh-pit kind of fan. But I like Incite the Masses, yeah. And my girlfriend was a huge fan.”
    He tilted his head. “Was?”
    “Yeah, was.” I paused, then realized what he meant. “Well, she still is a fan. She’s just not my girlfriend anymore. Hence the past tense.”
    “Oh,” he said. “Well, I guess it’s good. That people appreciated me.”
    “They did,” I assured him. “And you know, the fans went crazy when you died. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth. Some kids ran out and got tattoos in memory of you. There are fan sites and oh my God, you should have seen the crowd outside the cemetery where they buried you.”
    He blinked. “I’m buried?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Why? Does that surprise you?”
    “A little, yeah,” he admitted, hugging his arms to his stomach. “I mean, it shouldn’t. I’m dead.” He blinked hard, then sighed. “How many people get to stand there saying ‘I’m dead’ and mean it literally?”
    “No idea, man,” I said, shrugging. “I really don’t know how widespread ghostism is.”
    “So you’re not Haley Joel?” He laughed awkwardly. “I mean . . . you don’t see dead people all the time? Walking around like regular people? Who don’t know they’re dead?”
    “Not all the time, no,” I answered. “You’re my first. But who knows? Maybe finding your purple corpse awoke some latent psychic powers in me or something.”
    “Maybe— Wait. Purple corpse?”
    I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. What, you thought after you shot yourself up with that much smack you’d look pretty?”
    “I kind of hoped I wouldn’t look dead ,” he snapped. “Or even be dead, for that matter.”
    “Well, when you die of a heroin overdose you’re purple. The more you know.” I shot him a pointed glare. “But you looked okay otherwise, I guess. Well, and the fact that you’d puked yourself. So that wasn’t very attractive either. And your makeup was everywhere.”
    He grimaced. “I really didn’t think I took enough to die of it.”
    “The entire medical community disagrees with you,” I said. “And you know what they say about heroin, dude. Not even once.”
    “You mean you’ve never tried it? Not even once?”
    “Um, no,” I said, letting the contempt creep into my voice. I mean, sure, I’ll be nice to the guy to help ease his transition from life to afterlife so he doesn’t become a vengeful ghost and rethink the whole not-drowning-me-in-the-tub thing. But I wasn’t going to sit there and defend hard-drug use to him like it was a good idea that went tragically wrong.
    “I find that hard to believe.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, slowly and carefully like it was an experiment.
    I raised my eyebrow again. “Dude, not that many people actually do heroin. I mean, pot, okay. Meth. Even crack. But heroin is a pretty small subset, as far as I know.”
    “Just about everybody I know has at least tried it.”
    “Well, you’re