49. Virgil the Guide (chap. 5)-Eric




• We pulled onto the I-35 North ramp and stayed on it for several hours. Being unoccupied was a mixed blessing. The free time enabled me to sit back and ponder my situation. The problem was I didn't want to think about anything. My head was still throbbing from the drinking bout. Instead of thinking too much about anything I pulled out my wallet and studied my picture.
  
  It was a recent photo of my girlfriend, April and I. I fondled the photo, as if by concentrating enough on it I could teleport back home. It didn't work. The more I focused on the photo, the less it seemed like me. My boyish face, clean and round was now famished and unshaven. I looked in the rear-view mirror at my sunken cheeks and then back to April. She was pleading for me to come back. At that point I would have done anything to get back. I even missed her filthy Cocker Spaniel, Skittles.
  
  "Don't do that to yourself, man." Virgil said, eyeing me and the photo.
  
  "That's easy for you to say."
  
  At that Virgil bellowed so loud it startled me. He snapped the reins and we came to a screeching halt. We stopped so abruptly my face hit the metal pedestrian bar.
  
  "You think this is easy for me, Justin?" He said, and then shook his head.
  
  "I've lost more than you know. And I've taken on everyone else's baggage too."
  
  I didn't reply. He was right. I'm sure I wasn't his first tourist. There was no telling how long he had to put up with whiney, sniveling people. My whimpering wasn't going to help him, and it wasn't going to help me either.
  
  After I put the photo away he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He handed it to me shyly, which seemed to be in contrast to his arrogant, calloused ways.
  
  "That's Jessica," he said, pointing at the photo. "That's my daughter, Rachael. And that's me, a few weeks after I was ordained."
  
  He didn't look any younger in the photo, but he hadn't aged either. The blue background of the photo seemed to accentuate the sparkle in his blue eyes. His wife was beautiful. She wore her short, blond hair in paige-flip style. They both looked happy.
  
  "I was forty-nine. The rule is, we don't talk about how. We can only say when. I'm sure you sensed that intuitively. Instinctually even."
  
  I nodded. No matter how much I wanted to talk about what happened, I couldn't. In fact, I had forgotten how I died.
  
  He snapped the reins again and we were off.
  
  "So, where we headed?" I asked.
  
  "Next stop, Purgatory."