Lemmen's Nursery

My mouth felt the way mouths feel after waking up from an unexpected nap. I was desperate for a toothbrush. What time was it? Late.

The living room TV was asking if I wanted to continue watching 30 Rock. I got up and headed to the guest bathroom. Where was the dog? There isn’t a toothbrush in the guest bathroom, but there is some mouthwash. I slosh that about. Spit. Not much improvement.

Man, I can’t remember the last time I fell asleep on the couch. My buddy Andy seems to always be falling asleep on his couch. He gets up kind of early though. That must be his secret. Anyway, where is Holden? He needs to go out back, do his thing, and we can both head to bed.

I glanced out the sliding doors that lead to the backyard. It seemed incredibly dark. Which, given it’s night, shouldn’t be too surprising. But I was out there earlier with Holden and the moon was so bright. Wait, I took Holden out already. Damn, my mouth tastes horrible.

I opened the door to the garage to make sure the garage door was closed. What I saw came as a bit of a shock. Instead of our garage, I was greeted by what appeared to be a restaurant waiting area. It most closely resembled the waiting area of the Chinese food restaurant from the episode of Seinfeld where they spend the entire time in the waiting area. At the host’s podium was Alec Baldwin, in character as Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock.

“Lemmen.” He said staring straight at me.

“Jack…” This was such a weird dream. “This is a really weird dream.”

“Well, that’s because you’re not dreaming, Lemmen. You’re dead. This is purgatory.”

I took a moment to consider what I just heard. “I know this is the part where I normally say something like, ‘sure, sure. I guess I shouldn’t drink those gluten-free alcoholic seltzers anymore.’ But, for some reason I believe you, Jack.”

“Thank you for not making this difficult.”

“So, how does this all work? You said this is purgatory? Is this the Chinese restaurant from that episode of Seinfeld?”

“I’ll explain. Yes, I did. And yes, it is.”

Out in the direction where I was expecting to see our garage door was pure darkness. There was an audible din beyond Jack that made it sound like there really was a dining room out there somewhere. I heard a plate shatter.

“I’ll get some stuff out of the way, Lemmen. You are dead. Freak accident. Brain aneurysm. You died on the couch watching 30 Rock, which is why I’m here. The host always takes the form of the last fictional character you viewed as a father-figure or had a sexual fantasy about. I’m not sure which I am for you.

You won’t be stuck in purgatory forever, and you are going to Hell.”

I must’ve had some sort of reaction to that last statement.

“Oh, don’t worry, everyone goes to Hell. It’s not really that bad. No one really gets into the other place. The last person to get in was Chadwick, and fuck me that was over a year ago now.

Anyway, you won’t be stuck here in purgatory forever. You’re here until the next opening. There are three openings every year: the Super Bowl, the Wimbledon Men’s Final, and the Primetime Emmy Awards.”

“So, I’m here until the Super Bowl?”

“Correct.”

“I don’t know why this is my next question, but what happened last year? Wasn’t Wimbledon canceled to collect insurance money?”

“Ugh, yes. The Emmy’s opening was absolute chaos.”

“Gotcha… Well, what do I do now?”

“You can do whatever you want!”

“Do I need to eat?”

“No, and the taste in your mouth will go away.”

“That’s good.”

“You’ll essentially have free reign to keep tabs things. You’ll be like a ghost in a way, but there will be no way for anyone living to notice anything you do. You can pick up a book off your coffee table and read it, but anyone in the room will just see the book on the coffee table. You can watch the World Series while Lacey is watching HGTV; everyone wins. Except for the whole…”

“Me being dead… thing.”

“Precisely.”

The moment hung in the waiting area.

“Fuck me.”

“I always ask this, and some people are too distraught the answer, but how do you think you’ll spend this time?”

“I suppose I’m meant to say something profound. That I will spend all the time I can with Lacey even if she doesn’t know I’m there. Or that I’ll meditate until February. Or read all the books I can. And I’ll probably do some of that, but if I’m being honest, I’ll probably do most of the same shit I do now.”

I took a second to gather my thoughts.

“Obviously, I will extensively follow my memorial proceedings. I think most people have had some fantasy about being able to attend their own funeral. Maybe someone will record parts of the wake or stream live on Instagram. That would be cool. I will scour social media to see what gets posted about me, and by who. I predict these posts will decrease in frequency at an exponential rate after a week or so. Every now and then another post will pop up, and I’ll drink it up and think, ‘wow, that person, huh, wouldn’t have thought that!’

But then I’ll probably just obsess over fantasy football, browse Reddit, and watch TV (I think I’ll be around to catch the rest of this season of Succession). Other than those first few weeks, and the fact that I no longer have to go in to work, I really don’t think I would do anything much different than I do right now with my free time. I imagine I would watch football on Sundays and root for the players on my fantasy team to do well.

I wonder how my friends will handle my fantasy football team. My guess is they will probably do that thing where whoever my team is playing benches their players each week until I win the championship. But I can see some arguments for finding a replacement, and I don’t hate that either. If Russell Wilson comes back healthy, I think my team is a real threat. Is that fucked up, Jack?”

“Nothing’s fucked up here, Lemmen.”

I shook my head.

“Am I really dead?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

I looked over to the blackness where our garage door ought to be, and listened to the din of white noise pouring out from the beyond.