You Can't Sue a Dead Man

The mail slot in the door marked B4 didn’t clatter; it growled.

Julian didn’t look up from his hands, tightly clutching a stack of letters dated years ago. He sat on the edge of a mattress that had long ago sunk into a perfect mold of his lower back, listening to the letters falling one by one onto the linoleum. Slap. Slap. Slap.

He determined their source by the sound they made. The thin, crisp ones were from his credit card company; square-shaped letters with cellophane wrapping that framed his name and address like a wanted poster. The heavier, textured ones were from the building management, no doubt a ten-day notice. The final one, light and weak, had to be from the downtown mechanic who still held his spare alternator hostage.

Julian finally tore his eyes from the letters in his hand. They were unimportant, really; just old mail from when his parents had still been alive. There was really no reason to keep them, except they reminded him of life before.

Life before his troubles.

The bed frame groaned as he stood, hastily tucking the letters into a half-open drawer, and trudged to the small kitchen. He didn’t pick up the letters; he didn’t even touch them. To touch them was to acknowledge them, and to acknowledge them would bring the panic back into his throat and the weight back into his chest. Yes, he thought as his heel stepped onto the large, bold letters spelling out “OVERDUE” on the top letter. It was better to ignore them.

Through the kitchen window lightning flashed, illuminating black clouds over the midnight sky. Julian barely gave the outside world a glance as he filled a small cooking pot with water from a water bottle and set the stove to high, watching the tiny bubbles wriggle their way to the top. A cup of tea would help sooth his emotions.

As he stood watching the water, his phone buzzed from the counter behind him. He’d turned off the ringer three months ago when the collection agencies had started using local area codes to trick him into answering.

The screen flashed on, the white light illuminating his face as he peered over it. Two new notifications met his eyes. Capital One: High Priority Message and Benson & Myres: Urgent Account Update.

He flipped the phone face down.

Julian leaned against the counter and put his face in his hands, the silence probing him like yet another collection agency. After thirty years of loss, debt, depression, and more debt, he was running out of patience. And excuses. His parents were long dead, his sister lived in New Zealand and hadn’t called in over a decade, and his steady job at the fulfillment center had said its good-byes three months prior. Even if he woke up tomorrow with enough money to pay his debts at his door, it wouldn’t take away the weight that all these years had set on him.

Finally, Julian shuffled back into the living room and collapsed on the bed, flicking the TV remote on. He didn’t care what was on. He just needed the sound of human voices to remind him he wasn’t already in hell.

The TV crackled to life with a high-pitched whine. The screen flickered with static before switching to the local news. Channel 4. The banner at the bottom of the screen pulsed with a single headline: BREAKING NEWS: TRAGIC ACCIDENT ON I-19.

Julian ran his fingers through his hair as his eyes idly tracked the images. An impeccable-looking announcer with waxed hair was speaking into a microphone.

“…recovering the wreckage from the northbound lane just past Exit 12. State Police report that the vehicle, a silver 1990 Honda Civic, lost control on the slick bridge, colliding with a fuel truck before bursting into flames. Authorities have confirmed that the only person injured was the driver of the Honda Civic.”

Julian’s hand dropped to his side with a thump.

The screen shifted to a live field report. A reporter stood beneath a black umbrella, her face alternatively lit up by the flashing red and blue lights of emergency vehicles. Behind her, the charred, twisted wreckage of what once was a car was being hoisted onto the back of a flat-bedded tow truck. Although most of the wreckage was unrecognizable, the back bumper was still intact. Attached to it was a faded bumper sticker of a black cat with glowing neon eyes.

Julian stared at the sticker.

He owned a 1990 Honda Civic. He had that same identical sticker.

“We have only just received confirmation on the identity of the deceased,” the reporter’s voice cut in as the screen split. On one side, the wreckage continued to smolder. On the other, a photograph appeared.

It was a driver’s license photo. The lighting was terrible, casting deep shadows over a hollow, exhausted face. The hair was slightly longer now, but there was no mistaking the figure.

Below the photo, text crawled in huge black letters:

JULIAN CLARKE. AGE 43. PRONOUNCED DEAD AT SCENE.

Julian couldn’t breathe. His hands clutched at air as he struggled to comprehend what was going on.

“State troopers found a wallet at the scene containing the identity of Mr. Clarke, a local resident,” the waxed-haired reporter was back. “Public records reveal few surviving relatives, but authorities are trying to reach them anyways—”

Julian pressed the mute button with a trembling thumb.

For a long moment he sat there in silence. He half-expected the announcer to reappear, half-laughing, to report a mistake, a different face, a different name…

But nothing happened.

He raised his right hand. It was trembling with an energy that he couldn’t control. Slowly he put his index finger and thumb against the skin of his forearm and pinched as hard as he could, holding them there as he felt the hot white pain shoot up his arm. When he removed his hand, the small indention remained, soon filling up with angry red blood.

Pain. Dead men don’t feel pain.

He placed his fingers to his neck. For a long, terrifying five seconds, he felt nothing but cold skin. Then, a pulse. It fluttered erratically, without an obvious pattern, but it was there. Thumpthump-thump-thumthump. His heart was pumping blood. He was still alive.

He stood up and walked to the small kitchen window. The glass was stained and greasy. Julian pressed his forehead against the glass and looked down.

There was his Honda Civic—dirty, beat-up, and running on half a life—but there it was. It sat with four tires planted into the pavement, unburning and whole.

Julian’s mind spun, struggling to make sense of it all. The wallet. He had lost his wallet two days ago at the gas station. Someone must have picked it up…pocketed it…someone with a car identical to his…. He shook his head. Could it really be a coincidence? Something like this?

A horrible roar of thunder rattled the window. Julian flinched, stepping back from the glass. The clouds, having loomed in the dark sky for so long, broke. It didn’t start with a drizzle. The skies simply opened the gates wide. Giant drops of rain pounded into the ground and tin roof, drowning out all other sounds. In seconds Julian couldn’t see four feet out into the vertical curtain of rain.

He walked back to the kitchen counter. His legs felt like they were sodden, heavy and uncoordinated. Julian picked up his phone.

He had to call. He had to tell the authorities he was alright. His thumb reached for the number pad.

But the notifications held his eyes.

Notice of account suspension, the first began. Account #9942-X. We have received notice of a status change regarding the primary account holder. All collection activities have been paused pending verification of estate status.

Julian’s hand shook, and the phone trembled.

“Paused,” he whispered hoarsely.

He opened his banking app. The balance was still negative, but there was a new flag at the top of the interface. Account suspended. Deceased status pending.

The collection calls would stop. No more red-lettered notices would come sliding under the door. Letters from lawyers, past associates, the threatening court summons…they would all stop. Cease.

You cannot sue a dead man. You cannot expect a ghost to pay you what he owes.

Julian felt something on his chest. It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t sadness. It was a wonderful, terrifying lightness.

To the world, Julian Clarke was dead.

And he had never felt so alive.

The duffel bag was a dirty brown canvas, and smelled like old olives and stale bread. Julian ignored the scent as he shoved three shirts, two pairs of pants, a toothbrush, and as many socks as he could get his hands on into its interior. He stuffed all the cash he had—a measly seventy-four dollars—into the pocket of his jacket, which was hastily slung over his shoulders.

He stood by the door, the bag hanging from his hand.

Julian turned around for one last look at the room that had been his home. Against the opposite wall squatted the broken TV, the familiar cracked screen dark and silent. On the dead stove the pot of water sizzled as it cooled. The red ink of the papers lay undisturbed, reflecting in his flashlight’s beam. He gave it one last nod of farewell.

Julian drew back the deadbolt. It slid open with a clean, metallic click. He stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him until the latch caught.

The hallway of the third floor was narrow, lit only by a dim row of bulbs running down the ceiling. As Julian turned towards the stairwell, prepared to step out into a new world, B4’s next-door neighbor, B2, swung open.

Mrs. Gable stood in the doorway. She was seventy, wore a faded floral housecoat that smelled like lavender and wet poodle, and held a plastic bag of garbage in one hand and a glowing phone in the other. She gave a little jump in surprise when she saw him standing out in the hallway.

“Who’re you?” she said, squinting as she leaned forwards in the semi-darkness. She had left her spectacles in her apartment.

Julian’s heart gave one long, heavy thud against his ribs. This was it. If he explained, if he told her he was Julian, it would all be over. The phone would buzz, the despair would mount, and the red ink would keep flowing in under the door.

“I’m…from the delivery company,” he said finally, offering a small smile. “Just dropping off a package for someone.”

“Well, that’s alright,” said Mrs. Gable after a still moment. “Say, did you see the news? Someone from around here died tonight. Tragic accident, a car crash, you know—it’s all over every station.”

“As a matter of fact I did see that,” Julian answered. “Awfully sorry that he had to go.”

“Yes, well—it happens to all of us, you know. Quite exciting.”

But Julian didn’t answer. He was already moving down the hall, his feet making no noise on the worn-carpeted floor. He reached the stairwell door and pushed it open with his free arm, descending into the darkness three steps at a time.

When he stepped out of the building’s oak doors a few minutes later, the rain hit him like a train. In seconds his hair was plastered to his forehead and his whole body was soaked. The air tasted of asphalt and…something sweeter.

He didn’t look back at his Honda Civic, sitting in the parking lot not twenty feet away. He didn’t look back through the small window of Apartment B4.

Julian turned left, towards the interstate, and walked into the storm, smiling as the city mourned the death of Julian Clarke.