The First to Die at the End, page 17
“That’s really nice. Thank you,” I say.
“My weather app says it’s kind of chilly this morning. You might want to throw on another layer.”
“You too, then.”
“Oh, I’m definitely robbing you, I don’t fuck with the cold.”
We go through my shirts, and Orion chooses a navy hoodie and I put on my solid gray collared shirt with the buttons undone so my End Day messaging doesn’t get lost.
Then one foot out the apartment.
A trip down six flights of steps.
And I pause at the lobby door.
The last time I left this building, I thought everything was beginning. I had all the hope in the world and years of dreams I would be working to make come true. Now as I push the door open, I’m building steel nerves to get me through what I can only hope to be the best End Day a Decker can possibly have.
Rolando Rubio
6:56 a.m.
Rolando is exhausted when he steps out of the building, putting Death-Cast behind him.
He’s not sure what he will do for work now. He could try begging for his old job at the school. If they won’t rehire him, he can move back to Staten Island and spend some time with his mother. She’s been lonely since his father died and could use some company. But Death-Cast can’t pay him to return to that call center, that’s for sure.
Breathing in that crisp morning air, Rolando is unsure where to go next. He doesn’t want to return to his depressing apartment after such a depressing night. He’d love to see Gloria and Paz and celebrate life while he can. Who knows how long it will be until Death-Cast calls him like he did with so many Deckers. Another part of him wants to see if he can find that old man, Clint Suarez. No one should be alone on their End Day.
Rolando checks his phone, and there are more than twenty missed calls from Frankie. He’s nervous and imagines the worst. Then he remembers that Gloria and Paz can’t be dead because their names weren’t read out loud during the commemoration ceremony this morning. But Death-Cast doesn’t call for near-death experiences, and what if Frankie has beat Gloria so badly that she’s been hospitalized? It wouldn’t be the first time, and he’s unsure when it will be the last.
He calls Frankie to put himself out of his misery.
“Finally,” Frankie answers. “What took you so long?”
“I’ve been working. What’s wrong? Is everyone okay?”
“I need your help on a project that’ll be huge for me and the family.”
Rolando rolls his eyes. He’s sure this is going to be like that time where Frankie wanted to borrow money so he could buy a car “for the family” and to “keep Gloria and Paz safe from the trains” and “so they can take more trips to the beach,” only for Frankie to blow that loan while gambling in Atlantic City. If Rolando had savings, he’d know better than to trust Frankie with any money again.
“What’s the project?” Rolando asks, already thinking up excuses to not help Frankie.
“I want to take pictures of Deckers.”
Rolando waits for more information, but nothing. “Like as a service?” He wouldn’t be surprised if Frankie was trying to make quick cash off Deckers who aren’t sure what to do with their money.
“No, I wouldn’t charge. I just want to be around and capture their final moment.”
What an absolutely horrific intention. Rolando stops in his tracks. “How is that going to help the family?”
“Come on, it’s obvious. Getting pictures of a Decker on the first End Day could sell for loads of money. The only Deckers I know from the news are already dead. I need names so I can find them and follow them around.”
“So you want to stalk the Deckers.”
Frankie is quiet, just like he gets right before he explodes. Except Rolando isn’t the one who will be hurt. If Gloria is telling the truth, Frankie has never laid a hand on Paz, but Rolando is scared that day isn’t too far away. Then Rolando has an idea. Instead of letting Frankie be the explosive one, he can push Frankie toward an explosion—toward the death of a Decker just like he wants. Maybe Frankie can get hurt along the way and he won’t be able to harm Gloria ever again.
“I’ll help you,” Rolando says, his heart hammering.
He’s violating the lives of these Deckers who registered for the program at their discretion. But he’s turning his back on ethics if it means protecting a woman and young boy who are at risk simply because of the man in their home. He doesn’t want to send Frankie to Clint Suarez, the elderly Decker whom Rolando spoke to for nearly an hour. That man hasn’t lived that long for it all to end with Frankie in his presence. He’s thinking back to the commemoration ceremony, still fresh in his head. There were a lot of names that stuck out, but none like the very first because he thought it was too charming for a real person.
“Joaquin Rosa called the first Decker. I don’t know if he’s still alive, but his name is Valentino Prince.”
Frankie Dario
7:01 a.m.
Frankie almost drops his phone.
Did he just hear that right? His new tenant is a Decker? The first Decker? Called by Joaquin Rosa personally? This is going to be the best day of his life. Frankie’s obviously, not Valentino’s. Though Frankie won’t be grieving Valentino, he’s very ready to exploit his death. The new tenant is going to be his golden ticket out of this building.
There’s no way pictures of the first Decker dying won’t sell for millions.
Frankie hangs up on Rolando and rushes to his window, drawing the curtain to look into Valentino’s apartment. The lights are off. He’s probably still sleeping. Or he could have been murdered by that other boy who was trying to be smart with Frankie. Serves Valentino right for picking up strangers in the streets. He runs out into the hallway and bangs on Valentino’s door.
“It’s me, Frankie!”
Still nothing.
Silence is good. Silence means he’s not alive to answer.
Frankie returns to his apartment to grab the key to 6G, just used in the middle of the night when Valentino locked himself out.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Paz asks, eating cereal at the table.
He leaves without answering. He unlocks the door, and if anyone gives him trouble for doing so, he’ll rat out Rolando for sharing this Decker’s name and Frankie will tell the authorities he was very concerned for the well-being of his tenant. When in reality, Frankie opens the door and steps inside, hoping to find a crime scene.
Nothing, again.
Just an air mattress and clothes and shoes.
He swears under his breath and returns home.
Gloria looks him up and down, finally taking an interest. “What’s going on?”
Frankie finds Valentino’s number and calls him. But it keeps ringing and ringing. “Why do people have phones if they never answer them?!”
“Why, Daddy?” Paz asks, not understanding that it was rhetorical.
Frankie drags a chair from the dining table—these floors have long been scratched up, and he won’t be living here for much longer anyway—and props the chair against his front door to make sure he can see and hear Valentino coming home.
That Decker will change Frankie’s life today.
Valentino
7:06 a.m.
I love the morning sun on my skin, but I come alive as we go down into the subway, like I’m in a whole new world. Orion isn’t nearly as fascinated as I am by the fact that we’re suddenly underground. Then we need to buy our MetroCards, and I’m looking between the teller booth and the ticket vending machine as if it might be my only chance to do so.
“I’m torn.”
“Human or robot?” Orion asks.
“Most humans have been pretty rude since I got here.”
“Robot for the win,” Orion says.
“Glad to be checking out of here before a robot apocalypse.”
Ripped apart by a cyborg is not one of the creative ways I want to die.
We go to the vending machine and there are options ranging from single ride for $2.25 to an unlimited pass for $89.00. “I guess a day pass is enough, but I’ll just get the monthly pass. I can leave the card for Scarlett and encourage her to go out and use it instead of hanging around the apartment.”
I tap all the buttons and pay, and my first MetroCard slides out. It’s yellow with blue lettering in what I think is that same Helvetica font I used for so many school PowerPoints over the years. I had originally planned on framing this MetroCard along with any other NYC mementos. I hope Scarlett puts it to good use.
I swipe my way in at the turnstile smoothly.
“You’re a natural,” Orion says.
We wait on the platform with other riders. There are beams with chipped paint. Posters along the wall that have been graffitied by an artist with a penis obsession. An overflowing trash can. I’m surprised I don’t see any rats up here like they’re waiting for the train too, when I remember that they’re mostly down on the tracks. I want a closer look at the train tracks, but I know better than to be a Decker who ignores the painted yellow lines at the edge of the platform, signaling for everyone to keep their distance at risk of falling in. I press my back to the wall so someone can’t accidentally knock me in—or even intentionally. I wouldn’t put it past anyone after having a gun fired at me.
“Should I have stayed home?”
Orion doesn’t even look puzzled. “We can go back if you want.”
“It’s not what I want, but it feels like the smarter choice.”
“Then let’s go.”
I’m dragging my feet back toward the turnstiles, thinking about how I can be home in five minutes. I pause at the emergency exit gate. “I’m freaking out.”
“I get it.”
I almost tell him that he doesn’t, except he does. Orion has lived with this panic for years. No, he’s never known for a fact that his death was certain. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t questioned every little choice he makes. “What’s the point of Death-Cast calling if you’re too scared to live?”
Orion doesn’t have some immediate joke. It’s like he has some inner detector that lets him know when I need to be distracted and when I need to be engaged. “This is your End Day, Valentino. Only you can make the call on what to do.”
The train rumbles as it begins pulling into the station.
“How do I know what’s worth it?” I ask.
He taps the End Day message across my shirt. “Ask yourself if it’ll make you happy to do it, and heartbroken if you don’t.”
When I’m on my deathbed later, looking back on my life—my End Day in particular—I want to feel like I made the most out of it. That I made my dream come true, and got the chance to live it before I die. I should honor my heart before it’s pulled out of my chest.
The train doors open, and I turn around, running straight toward the car while yelling at Orion to follow me. We squeeze in right as the doors close. If I had space to jump and pump my fist, I would. I’m so empowered by Orion’s words. Before I can thank him I smell something horrible. I look around to identify the source when I realize why it’s so crowded. Everyone is cramming together on this side of the car because at the other end is a massive pile of vomit, probably courtesy of someone who got sick from Death-Cast partying. I’m immediately nauseated, and my appetite has been killed. I hold my gray shirt to my nose, breathing in the Hugo Boss cologne I spritzed on it back in Arizona that smells like plums and citrus.
“Welcome to New York,” Orion says with a smile before hiding behind his nose inside the hoodie.
This is not an experience I was particularly interested in having.
Unfortunately, the train is running express and holding us hostage for several stops, so when the doors open at Sixty-Eighth Street, we get out and switch cars. Orion wants distance from the overflow going directly into the next car, so we jog down the platform and hop back on the train before the doors close. This time we’re able to sit, our backs to a map of New York with blue, red, green, orange, yellow, purple, brown, and gray lines that each represent a different path.
“We’re on the green line,” Orion says, tracing where we started and down to Union Square. “And here’s where we’re getting out.”
I gesture at the map. “Do you think I could travel all of this in one day?”
“I don’t know, but honestly, why would you? The trains are mad gross. That hellhole we just escaped from is not rare.”
“I originally dreamt about visiting every corner of New York. At least by riding the train I could say I passed through them.”
“But the best parts of New York are out on the streets.”
“Like when I got shot at?”
“Like when you got shot at!”
“Terrifying.”
“Fucking terrifying.”
I hope they catch that guy.
Minutes later, the train stops at Forty-Second Street, close to Times Square, where everything changed. The doors remain open too long, and I shudder thinking that man in the skull mask could be any of these passengers filing in. He could think I recognize his eyes and need to finish this job. Choosing to embrace possibilities like this by not retreating home doesn’t make things less terrifying, but all I can do is hope for the best today.
As we’re approaching Union Square, I look up and down the car. People are holding on to the poles while reading a newspaper or on their phone. Someone else is dozing off, their head snapping back upright as their chin touches their chest. Others are sitting quietly, traveling from A to B or even B back to A. But I really thought there would be some kind of show, like young people turning the train into a jungle gym as they swing around the poles and flip around while blasting music. We reach our stop, and before I step onto the platform, I wait one extra moment to see if a show is about to begin, but nothing.
“First thoughts on your first ride?” Orion asks as we climb the stairs.
“More ordinary than I thought. Where were all the dancers? Is it too early?”
“Nah, I’d see them on the train rides to school a lot of mornings. That really pissed off people. Maybe the usual performers were out doing their thing last night.” He squeezes my arm as we leave the station. “I bet you’ll catch a show on the way back.”
“Hopefully.”
I can’t imagine I would be heartbroken on my deathbed by not having seen people dancing on the train, but it’s one of those daily occurrences in New York I’ve been imagining for so long that it feels weird to not have been granted that instantly. Especially when time is so limited. It just shows that no matter what’s happening in your life, the world doesn’t only spin for you.
However, Union Square is a breath of fresh air. There are chess players sitting on top of crates, basking in the sun. One woman has the biggest smile on her face as she walks eight dogs. Two women are holding hands and coffees as they enter this little park. That could actually be a nice place for a cozy, autumnal photo shoot. I can already picture myself standing on a bench with the flaps of my gray wool coat thrown open, revealing a white tee and . . . I stop planning the outfit I won’t be able to wear this fall.
While waiting at the crosswalk, we stand at the curb and I stare at the sky and watch an airplane flying over us. I can’t wait until Scarlett gets here.
“Have you ever flown before?” I ask as we cross the street.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
Then I stop in the middle of the street with my hands to my mouth. I’m asking Orion why he’s never flown after a hijacked plane killed his parents and uprooted his life. That was so stupid and careless. Orion looks over his shoulder to see I’m not following him at the very same time I remember I’m a Decker who can be run over at any moment. I don’t even look both ways, which is probably as foolish as stopping in the middle of the street in the first place. I would be terrible at playing Frogger, though I miraculously make it to the next block in one piece.
Orion grabs my shoulders. “You got to be careful!”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter if cars have stopped, assume there’s an idiot behind the wheel.”
“I always do,” I say, thinking about the idiot who almost killed Scarlett. “But I’m sorry for forgetting about your parents. I won’t even blame it on being tired or because it’s my End Day. I just wasn’t thinking.”
Orion shrugs. “You’re not the first to slip. It’s all good.”
I shake my head. “No it’s not. But I’ll be better from here on out. However long that is.”
Orion’s hands are on my shoulders again, this time gentler. “If you really want to make it up to me, you won’t make it so easy for anyone to kill you.”
7:38 a.m.
We arrive at the Future Star Model Management offices.
This is a newer agency that promises to be behind the biggest faces in the modeling world. I’m really grateful they saw my potential after reviewing my online portfolio—their favorite photographs were taken by Scarlett—and after one fun Skype interview I signed with the team. Their company is currently located in some generic commercial building, and I like to think they will make good on their promise and turn people into superstars.
Even though Future Star is new, I still thought the office was going to be glossy with magazines laid out on a glass coffee table. Instead, it feels like this place hasn’t gone through any renovations from whatever business was here before; I’m going to go ahead and guess this was a dentist practice since it still has that tooth-dust smell that I remember well from having one of my own ground down before being restored to match its neighbor.
What really gets me is how I was so sure there would be a receptionist with a headset who would instantly recognize me. This man has no idea who I am. There are a dozen headshots taped to the wall under the company sign, and mine isn’t one of them. Was I supposed to bring one with me? No, I’m a client. They also have a massive printer right there in the corner. Even then, I booked a major campaign for this company. You’d think my face would be worth highlighting. It’s not, though.
