in, no big deal. A lot more carefully I followed but only got a few feet into the place before I froze and my jaw dropped below sea level.
I recognized what I saw immediately because I’d seen it so often before and had always wished I could go there. Now I was. The inside of Mel’s house, the house that used to belong to Chris Rolfe, was now Rick’s American Bar from the movie Casablanca.
While my brain tried to swallow that fact, Mel sat down at the white piano and began playing the movie’s theme son, “As Time Goes By.” He wasn’t bad either. Then he began to sing it but I was walking around the room so I didn’t pay much attention. The dog plumped down on the floor and went to sleep. I was in such shock that I didn’t realize until later that both of them lost their flames as soon as we got into the house. Like once they were home they were normal again. Although my idea of normal that day had taken a vacation to another planet.
As far as I could see every detail in the room was perfect, right down to the ashtrays on the table and full bottles behind the bar. The room was empty except for us, which gave it a whole different feeling from what it was like in the movie. Other than that though, this definitely was Rick’s place. If Humphrey Bogart had walked in at that minute I would not have been one bit surprised.
Mel finished playing with a big right-hand display—DONG!—and afterwards everything was very quiet in there. Naturally I was tempted to say real coolly, “Play it again, Sam,” but I didn’t.
Instead I asked, “What is all this?”
“It’s Rick’s. Don’t you know Casablanca? The movie?
“Yes I know Casablanca! That wasn’t my question. How come you live in this house now and it looks like a movie set instead of someone’s living room?”
“Before we come back, they ask us what kind of décor we would like where we live. We get to choose.”
“Choose what?”
“The décor! What’d I just tell you?”
“I’m very confused, Mel.”
He took a deep breath like I was the stupidest being he’d ever met and my dumbness was using up his air supply. “Before we come back here, to Earth, they ask what kind of décor we’d like in the house they assign us. We get to choose. I said Rick’s American Bar from the movie because that was the coolest place on Earth.”
“How long ago did you die?”
“Last Friday.”
“How?”
“I drowned in Aqaba, scuba diving. I stepped on a poisonous sea urchin and had an allergic reaction. Pretty pathetic way to go.”
“And you went to Hell?”
“Straight to. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”
“But you’re back here a week later?”
“Not by choice, pal. Not by choice.” The doorbell rang. Mel held up one finger for quiet. “Let me just get that. What kind of beer do you want? I’ve got everything here. There’s even a good Polish one. Zee-veetch or some name like that.”
He left the room and the animal followed. I wondered if it was some kind of satanic chaperone. What kind of visitors did the dead have? That thought grew so fast and so horror-movie-ugly in my head that in the minute or so it took Mel to return, I was almost hyperventilating. What kind of visitors DID the dead have? Good God, what if they were—
“It’s for you.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, opened again. “Me? No one knows I’m here.”
“Yeah, well, obviously they do. They say they want to talk to you. Two goofy-looking guys with shaggy haircuts.”
“Brooks and Zin Zan!”
“Whatever.” Mel shrugged.
I started out but stopped short when I thought of something. “Were—were you on fire when they saw you?”
“Sure. Anytime I step out of this house I start to burn. One of the many drawbacks of being back on Earth again.” He sounded angry about it, put out.
“Did you like it in Hell?”
“I can’t say much about it because that’s against the rules, you being alive and all.” He looked left and right, as if some enemy might be listening. “But I will tell you this—ever think maybe that Hell stuff you’ve always heard is a bunch of crap? Maybe it’s given all that bad press because they want to keep people OUT of there? That if people really knew what it was like, an awful lot of them might kill themselves to get there sooner?”
The