Who says death’s the end of everythin’?

I know I did, for one, at many points in my previous life. (But, fair warnin’, it ain’t what you’re thinkin’ either.)

That was before I arrived at the great celestial bar in the sky, called Il Milione, or the Million. It’s the kind of waterin’ hole suitable for dead people like me—go figure. Call it blasphemous, but I bought the strongest drink I could afford in the joint—apparently, my credit in this place is good. The same goes for all of the other souls wandering in through here.

You might be wonderin’ who I am. The name’s Joe. No, not the Immaculate Conception Joe. Nor the Big Baddy in the U. S. S. of R. No, I’m just Joe. Nothin’ special ‘bout me. Nothin’ worth knowin’, except maybe that the last thing I ‘member is blowin’ my brains out with some cheap hooch in a cowboy bar in Kansas City, Missouri, in the U. S. of A.

Now, I’m here. It’s a goddamned paradise, friends—Il Milione. It’s like the drinkin’ gods were listenin’ to me the whole frickin’ time. This bar ain’t too shabby a joint either—as far as bars are concerned.

When I first came to, I found myself in a dark part of town. Only a few streetlamps, no visible stars, colder ‘an a witch’s tit, and thick fog coverin’ everythin’. Then I found her, friends. Il Milione shone through the fog like a goddamned lighthouse beacon, beckonin’ weary travelers such as myself to come on by, enticin’ many of us with cold drinks and a liquor selection that’d make God himself jealous. Heaven’s a bar, friends, or so I thought when I first arrived at Il Milione.

You would think that someone like me, who’s seen ‘nough bars to fill a lifetime, wouldn’t be surprised by Il Milione. But you’d be wrong.

Il Milione is about three thousand square feet, filled, wall-to-wall, with patrons of every kind of background you can imagine. Hell, the other day I saw Old Blood ‘n’ Guts jabberin’ on with J. Edgar Hoover, who happened to be in the nicest little black dress. The bar’s walls are covered in memorabilia from several wars and various photogenic events, even a couple I don’t know about. Il Milione is outside of time and space, says a guy name Turing, who’s got one of his main squeezes, a healthy-looking, young man in his thirties, hangin’ on his every word. Turing likes his on the rocks, but sometimes he gets crazy and drinks the hard stuff, one after another, never really gettin’ knock’d down.

My favorite spot is the bar itself. It’s a throwback to an age when they really knew how to build bars. The seats are mahogany and leather. The bar’s surface is a polished nickel with lacquered sides and a stained cherry wood base. I like it here because it feels like home, more than any other place in my previous life. Everyone keeps saying that, too.

However, I am left wondering why I am at Il Milione. Everyone here used to be a somebody. I’ma nobody. I never put men on the moon. I never led troops into battle. The only thing I ever did, and did well, was drink and play a mean game of billiards, but I was never a pro at any of those things. No one wrote about me in the Times. No one really knew my name. If they did, it was just Joe, or “That guy.”

***

A few nights ago, I was sitting by my lonesome at the bar. Before I knew it, somethin’ called C-pop rings out across Il Milione, and everyone’s in a dancin’ mood, tappin’ toes and bobbin’ heads and snappin’ fingers. After three or four stiff drinks, I decide to take J. Edgar, who likes to call herself Janet, onto the dance floor. She’s got pretty good moves, and she taught me a thing or two about dancin’ to C-pop. She jokes about how the commies are good at makin’ dancin’ music these days, before she is asked to dance by Old Blood ‘n’ Guts. I think those two are in love, and in a big way. Old Blood ‘n’ Guts keeps smilin’ at J. Edgar (a.k.a. Janet, remember?) like she’s the life of the frickin’ party or somethin’. Everyone keeps sayin’ they’re the couple to watch.

I am taken off the dance floor by someone who claims to be Cleopatra. She’s no Elizabeth Taylor, who just happens to be dancin’ between Turing and his main squeeze on the polished oak dance floor.

“Who are you?” Cleo asks, before grabbin’ a drink from a nearby table.

“Name’s Joe,” I say in a matter-of-fact tone, or at least it feels that way to me.

“Joe who?” Cleo asks, intent on knowin’ what I have to say.

“Just Joe, ma’am.”

“You somebody, Joe?” Cleo says, with a strange, heavy accent.

“No, I’ma a nobody, ma’am—born and raised a nobody.”

“What’s ah nobody? Is that important where you come from, Joe?”

“Sure is, ma’am,” I say. “Sure is.”

The guys and gals behind me start laughin’ it up at Cleo’s expense. I don’t pay them much attention and decide to go back to the bar, leavin’ poor Cleo all by her lonesome, probably embarrassed for even talkin’ to the likes of me.

At the bar, a guy named Marco Polo serves drinks to the patrons of Il Milione.

“What’ll it be, Joe?” Polo asks, half-interest’d in what I might say. He reminds me of my old Tomcat back home—half-interest’d in what I might be doin’ or sayin’. Polo always goes on and on ‘bout havin’ explor’d the world. He saw China, India, and the like. Whoop-de-frickin’-do is all I can say in my spinnin’ head, but I don’t blurt it out loud. I humor the poor, dumb bastard because he knows how to mix a strong drink that’ll give ya a real good buzz—that and he owns the place, so go figure.

***

Between strong drinks and bein’ serenaded by what everyone calls dancin’ music, I end up in the company of three somebodies. They’re Turing, Einstein’s first wife, Mileva, who says Einstein stole her best work, and some guy named Stephen Hawking, another new addition to Il Milione. They talk about the Universe, the improbabilities that have created Il Milione, and somethin’ ‘bout a giant computer. I ‘member the word computer from my days. It’s all fuzzy ‘round the edges, though. Somethin’ from ah magazine I read between benders back in the early sixties. It, the article that is, talk’d a good deal about how computers were giant things, and expensive, too. These guys keep goin’ on and on about how the Universe may be a large computer of some kind. I just can’t wrap my mind around the idea. It’s crazy, I tell you.

“How can the frickin’ Universe be a computer?” I ask, my words slurrin’ some. “That can’t be. That just can’t be, friends.”

The three look at me in what I can only assume to be some state of horror. Before I know it, they’re draggin’ me into Il Milione’s empty V.I.P. room and closin’ the door behind all of us. Only a soft thump-whoomp can be heard seepin’ through the door and velvet-covered walls.

“You know what a computer is, chap,” Turing says with a wide smile. “They were ubiquitous not long after my own death, I am sure of it.”

“Ubiquitous?” I ask, soundin’ out the word across my fuzzy teeth and numb tongue.

“Pervasive, ever-present, et cetera, et cetera, chap,” Turing answers, still smilin’. “They did have computers everywhere when…errr…before you shoved off, friend?”

“No, not exactly,” I say, shruggin’.

“He’s right, Turing,” says the one named Hawking. “I used to carry a computer around myself. They were ubiquitous in my time, but not his. Now, the Universe has seen that I no longer need one.”

“Carrying a computer,” Turing says, laughin’ at this. “How preposterous, chap. That would mean serious technological challenges would need to be met by engineers.”

“Indeed,” Hawking hums, noddin’ his head.

“Who cares about the size of computers and their ubiquity,” Mileva pipes in. “We have figured out that all people in the bar were a somebody, or connected to a somebody, at one point in their lives.”

“True,” Turing says, shruggin’ his shoulders.

“I concur,” Hawking adds.

“Except for me,” I say. “I’ma a frickin’ nobody. Why the hell am I here?”

“That can’t be right,” Mileva says. “Nobodies don’t seem to get into this place. You must’ve done something in your old life, something worthy of recognition by the Great Computer.”

“Nope,” I say, laughin’, feelin’ my buzz right about now. “I just drank and play’d pool. I guess the damn’d computer isn’t all that, now is it?”

“Doesn’t seem like much to be famous for, chap,” Turing admits with a wink from his left eye.

“Well,” Hawking purrs, lickin’ his dry lips. “Before I died, people often became famous for posting a video on something called the Internet.”

“What’s the Internet?” I ask.

Turing and Mileva shrug in unison.

“Nothing too important, good man,” Hawking says. “I think we can safely say that we’ve found the first anomaly, our first real outlier in the dataset, Mileva.”

“Indeed, we have,” Mileva says, sighin’. “That means we’re back to the drawing board—again.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Don’t get too discouraged now,” Turing says. “It could be worse.”

***

And indeed, it got worse.

Night after night, the grind of bein’ in the same bar, with the same people, doin’ absolutely nothin’, doesn’t seem that appealin’ to me anymore. I’m reminded of my ramblin’ days, when I used to take to the open road, hooch and smokes in hand. I travel’d across the great expanse that is the North American continent, endin’ up in waterin’ holes, saloons, speakeasies, and the like, drinkin’ to my heart’s content.

But somewhere durin’ the drinkin’ and the hard soberin’ between benders and bars, I start’d to get funny ideas about the world, and my place in it. I used to envision myself as a sort of tough guy for the mob, a movie star on the silver screen, or whatever tickl’d my fancy at the time. I was an idea guy, too, who was painfully short on follow-through.

Once I got an idea in my head, I would stick with it for a few minutes, hours, days, or weeks, before the next idea came along. I’d stay up all night, drinkin’ hooch and smokin’ one pack after the other, tryin’ to nail down the idea before it disappear’d from my brain forever. I used to carry dozens of notebooks and pads of paper in my truck, wherever I’d go. I kept my ideas, my failures, with me. I miss those days. Those days when I’d stay up for four days straight before passin’ out due to exhaustion.

After an idea flopp’d, I’d get into a real funk, somethin’ that made me want to drink more than I’d ever dared. That’s when I’d wish for death to come. Death seemed so final, so painless, so empty. It would cure me of my ideas, my notebooks, my failures, I thought. But now, after nearly a month, or what feels like a month of being at Il Milione, I am ready for death again, somethin’ final, somethin’ complete. The darkness that comes for us all—that’s what I want. That’s what I crave at this moment. I want it more ‘an any drink, and that’s sayin’ somethin’, friends.

***

When I reach my low, Mileva comes into the picture. She’s a lot better lookin’ in the dim light of Il Milione. After a few beers, she’s friendly, too.

“D’you ever think about the afterlife?” I ask Mileva, before takin’ another drink from my beer.

“I think we all have,” Mileva says, takin’ a drink from her beer as well. “It’s only human. I know I shouldn’t’ve, but I did.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because scientists and mathematicians aren’t supposed to think about such things. Those old superstitions aren’t theoretically possible,” Mileva answers.

“Then why are we here?” I ask.

“That’s a great question,” Mileva says. “But I don’t care about that tonight.”

“What do you care about, Mileva?”

“Will you dance with me, Joe Nobody?”

“I thought you wouldn’t ever ask,” I say, finishin’ off the last of my beer. “Shall we?”

***

After dancin’ with Mileva, I feel myself gettin’ up on a high. The ideas start flowin’ from my brain, and I have to ask Polo for some napkins and pens to write ‘em all down. Amid an idea I have for a robotic cook, Turing and Hawking ask me to join them and Mileva in Il Milione’s V.I.P. room again. I take ‘em up on their invitation, leavin’ behind my scribblin’s, knowin’ Polo won’t trash ‘em.

Once inside the V.I.P. room, I see that a fourth person has joined the meetin’.

“Who’s this?” I ask, pointin’ to the man in strange gray clothin’.

“He’s Deng Xiaoping,” Turing answers. “We’ve been talking about ways to solve the conundrum that is Il Milione.”

“Deng who?”

“Deng Xiaoping,” Deng says, holdin’ his hand out to me.

I shake it. “Nice to meet ya, Deng.”

“Pleasure’s mine, Joe.”

“You know my name?”

“Our organization knows many people,” Deng says.

“Organization?”

“Chap, he’s talkin’ about our little club here in Il Milione,” Turing whispers to me.

“Oh,” I say.

“He’s a communist, but a damn good provocateur,” Hawking says.

“I’ll be damned,” I say with a whistle. The whistlin’ causes Deng to wince some. “Sorry.”

“No worries,” Deng says. “Shall we get started?”

Turing, Hawking, and Mileva nod in unison.

“Okay,” Deng says. “Every good operation needs to stick to basic security protocols.”

“What’s that mean?” I ask.

“You tell nobody of our plans,” Deng answers. “Do you understand?”

I nod. “Gotchya.”

“Now,” Deng begins, pullin’ out the blueprints of Il Milione and placin’ it on top of the room’s polished table. “We have to figure out how to turn off this program, Il Milione, and get somewhere where we can find answers.”

“Sounds heavy, man,” Hawking says.

“We just need to know the computer’s weaknesses,” Deng fires back. “Every machine has at least one weakness.”

“True,” Turing says. “Very true, Deng.”

“What’re a computer’s weakness?” I ask.

All four members of the organization look at me and then three of them look at Hawking.

Hawking nods and says, “Viruses, hardware problems, you name it. They’re finicky things, computers are, friend.”

“So how do we get to the hardware or software, as you call it?” Turing asks.

Hawking shrugs. “I don’t know, my good man.”

“What if it isn’t like the computers you’re used to?” Mileva asks. “What if it doesn’t have a weakness?”

“Everything has weakness,” Deng says, slappin’ his hand on the blueprints.

“I don’t know about computers,” I say. “But I know bars.”

“What was that, Joe?” Mileva asks.

“What was what?” I ask.

“What you said, dear?” Mileva asks.

“I don’t kno’ a goddamned thing about computers, but I sure as hell know my bars.”

“That’s it!” Mileva shouts. She runs up to me and gives me a big hug. I’m confused, not really knowin’ what I did or said to make her so happy, but I don’t care. I don’t mind makin’ her happy. There’s somethin’ about her, somethin’ different from all of the other gals I came across in my ramblin’ days.

“Joe is right,” Mileva says. “It’s a bar, not a computer. At least not a computer in the sense that we all know.”

“What are you getting at?” Hawking asks.

“Yeah, what are you getting at, Mileva?” Turing asks, scratchin’ his head.

“Joe,” Mileva says, hookin’ arms with me. “How do you close down a bar for good? I mean to say, how do you make sure a bar ceases to exist?”

“Where are you going with this?” Deng asks, lookin’ at her kinda strange—like she’s crazy or somethin’.

“If the bar is like a program in a computer,” Mileva says. “Like the programs Stephen told us all about, I think we can crash the whole thing.”

“Crash what?” I ask.

“Crash the system,” Mileva says. “Force it to reboot, is that the right word for it, Stephen?”

Hawking nods and says, “Yes, yes, it is, Mileva. You have been listening to my ramblings these last few years.”

“It’s hard not to,” Mileva says. “Joe, how do you make a bar cease to exist?”

I shrug. “Burn the goddamn’d thing to the ground.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Mileva says.

***

The plan isn’t all that sophisticated, really. We, the organization, decide to burn Il Milione down to the ground, hopin’ it crashes the system, the software, or whatever the hell it is that Mileva and them keep goin’ on and on about.

Mileva sets herself up near the red and yellow jukebox. Turing, Deng, and Hawking stand at agreed-upon choke points, cuttin’ off access to the bar’s only fire extinguishers. Before everyone got into position, Deng and Hawking disabled the fire sprinkler system, somethin’ Hawking said would put an end to the plan. As for me, I’m where I usually am—the bar. My part in all of this is pretty simple. I’m to start the fire, somethin’ Mileva thought up. I ‘member my days in the scouts and makin’ fires. I was the best damn’d firestarter in my troop. In my pockets, I have everythin’ to get the job done. Deng has taught me the art of the Molotov cocktail and homemade firebombs, usin’ only the stuff you might find in a bar.

Mileva finds a popular song on the jukebox and plays it. The song starts off real slow like, but people are already headin’ to the dance floor, bobbin’ heads, tappin’ toes, and snappin’ fingers with the rhythm of the beat. Old Blood ‘n’ Guts and Janet head to the dance floor when the song really launches. This gets everyone into a frenzy, includin’ Polo, who leaves the bar and grabs a barmaid to dance with.

I hop onto the bar’s nickel surface and slide over to the other side. I begin stuffin’ rags into open’d hooch bottles and begin linin’ them up on the bar. I look up to see that Mileva is now standin’ next to me.

“Hey,” Mileva says. “You almost ready?”

I nod. “Sure am.”

“You’re turnin’ out to be a real special somebody, Joe Nobody.”

“I’ma tryin’, ma’am,” I say with a wink.

“Let’s get the party started then,” Mileva says.

I nod again and begin lightin’ the rags stuffed in the bottles. I hand one lit bottle after another to Mileva. She tosses them here and there. The sound of breakin’ glass and the whoosh of flames doesn’t stop the dancin’. Instead, it seems to make the dancin’ wilder.

“Keep them coming, Joe Nobody,” Mileva says.

That’s exactly what I do. When we finally run out of bottles, the whole place is ablaze. Everyone’s on fire, but no one’s screamin’ or hollerin’ like you’d expect. No, they are still dancin’ and grabbin’ ahold of body parts that I didn’t know was legal or moral, even for a bar.

One of the last things I see is Old Blood ‘n’ Guts sliddin’ his hand up Janet’s hairy right leg and kissin’ her neck, near her Adam’s Apple. Both of ‘em are on fire. Pieces of ‘em are fallin’ off into the bluish-purple flames. The heat melts the bar’s keepsakes and photos. The dance floor moans and buckles, as the fire eats away everythin’ sturdy. The ceilin’ is covered in thick, black smoke. While this is goin’ on, I ask Mileva to dance with me. She nods and we enter the burnin’ dance floor, knowin’ we’ve already experienc’d death once before, and there’s no need to worry about it again.

***

When I come to, I find myself sittin’ next to Mileva, who is in a nice dress and is wearing white shoes. We’re on a movin’ train, and it’s daylight outside.

“Glad you could come back to the world of the living, Joe Nobody.”

“What happened?”

“It worked, Joe,” Mileva says. “It worked. You’re a talented arsonist, Mr. Nobody.”

I blush at this. Mileva sees this and kisses my cheek.

“Where are the boys at?”

Mileva points to Turing, who is with his young-looking main squeeze. She then points to Hawking and Deng, who are playing somethin’ that resembles chess, but it uses small black and white stones for pieces.

“Where are we?” I ask, lookin’ out my window.

“Who knows?” Mileva says with a shrug and a smile. “But it’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“Sure is,” I manage to say.

“I have somethin’ for you, Joe,” Mileva says.

“What’s that? A drink?”

“No, nothin’ like that, you scoundrel,” Mileva says, slappin’ my arm. “I found these before the bar burned down.”

Mileva hands me my scribblin’s. I look at them and feel myself smilin’.

“I didn’t know you had such interesting ideas, Joe Nobody,” Mileva says. “You think we can explore some of them?”

“What d’you mean, Mileva?”

“I’ve always fancied myself an idea person,” Mileva says. “I’ve always had ideas, just never the right person to share them with.”

“Well,” I say, puttin’ the napkins in my coat pocket. “I guess we can always explore those ideas of yours.”

“Yours, too,” Mileva says. “Don’t forget that.”

“Where are we headin’, Mileva,” I ask, leanin’ back in my seat.

“Hopefully somewhere where we can explore our ideas together, Joe Nobody.”

“Sounds real swell to me, Mileva.”