Get in Trouble: Stories (16 page)

“You’re not going to be fat in the afterlife?” At this point, I still don’t know
’s
plan, but I’m starting to worry.
has a taste for the epic. I suppose it runs in the family.

“My
Ba
is skinny,”
says. “Unlike yours,
. You may be skinny on the outside, but you have a fat-ass heart. Anubis will judge you. Ammit will devour you.”

She sounds so serious. I should laugh. You try laughing when you’re down in the dark, in your sister’s secret burial chamber—not the decoy one where everybody hangs out and drinks, where once—oh, God, how sweet is that memory still—you and your sister’s Face did it on the memorial stone—under three hundred thousand limestone blocks, down at the bottom of a shaft behind a door in an antechamber that maybe somebody, in a couple of hundred years, will stumble into.

What kind of afterlife do you get to have as a mummy? If you’re
, I guess you believe your
Ba
and
Ka
will reunite in the afterlife.
thinks she’s going to be an
Akh
, an immortal. She and the rest of them go around stockpiling everything they think they need to have an excellent afterlife. The Olds indulge them. The girls plan for the afterlife. The boys play sports, collect race cars or twentieth-century space shuttles, scheme to get laid. I specialize in the latter.

The girls have
ushabti
made of themselves, give them to each other at the pyramid dedication ceremonies, the sweet sixteen parties. They collect
shabti
of their favorite singers, actors, whatever. They read
The Book of the Dead.
In the meantime, their pyramids are where we go to have a good time. When I commissioned the artist who makes my
ushabti
, I had her make two different kinds. One is for people I don’t know well. The other
shabti
is for the girls I’ve slept with. I modeled for that one in the nude. If I’m going to hang out with these girls in the afterlife, I want to have all my working parts.

Me, I’ve done some reading, too. What happens once you’re a mummy? Grave robbers dig you up. Sometimes they grind you up and sell you as medicine, fertilizer, pigment. People used to have these mummy parties. Invite their friends over. Unwrap a mummy. See what’s inside.

Maybe nobody ever finds you. Maybe you end up in a display case in a museum. Maybe your curse kills lots of people. I know which one I’m hoping for.

“
,”
said, “I don’t want this thing to be boring. Fireworks and Faces, celebrities promoting their new thing.”

This was earlier.

Once
and I did it in
’s
pyramid, right in front of a false door. Another time she punched me in the side of the face because she caught me and
in bed. Gave me a cauliflower ear.

’s
pyramid isn’t quite as big as
’s,
or even
’s
pyramid. But it’s on higher ground. From up on top, you can see down to the ocean.