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the window to read,
“Closed.”
    Oz laughed. He’d been thrown out of his fair
share of establishments in his life. He had no idea how ridiculous
it looked from the outside.
    The kid’s grumbling drew Oz’s gaze to his
skinny form. His hair had been shorn into a crew cut and he wore a
black polo shirt and dirty khakis. His sneakers were as frayed as
the bag. What could he want to lift from what looked like an occult
shop? The kid picked up his bag and smacked it to shake away the
added grit before swinging it onto his back. He lifted his head and
looked directly at Oz.
    “The hell are you looking at?”
    Oz turned, expecting to see someone standing
behind him, but there was no one else on the street. They’d all
remembered something that called them away from where Oz stood.
    “Me?” Oz asked, feeling mildly
ridiculous.
    “Duh.”
    “You can see me?”
    The kid took a step back. “Um. Yes?”
    Finally.
    Oz took two steps toward the kid, who took
three steps backward.
    “Sorry. I’m not—my name’s Oz. I’m not going
to hurt you.”
    He offered his hand then thought better of
it. There was probably a good reason people turned away when they
came near him. Oz wasn’t taking chances until he knew all the
rules.
    “Jamie.” The kid’s bright blue eyes moved
over him, scrutinizing.
    “Listen, Jamie,” he paused. “You have
anything to eat?”
    Jamie’s gaze softened. He dropped to his
knees to dig through his backpack. After a quick forage, he
produced a sandwich baggy containing a pulverized PB and J and
tossed it to Oz.
    He caught it one-handed.
    Food.
    “Thanks.”
    Oz peeled the baggy from the jelly-sogged
bread, then balled up the sandwich and shoved it, whole, into his
mouth. From his stomach, filling his chest and reverberating from
behind his pursed lips came a moan that only the starved could
possibly interpret.
    The gummy goodness stuck in every one of his
teeth. It tasted faintly of plastic.
    It was Heaven.
    “You, um, you ok?” Jamie asked.
    Oz gave the universal “one minute” signal
while sucking the final bits of peanut butter from his molars.
“Yeah,” Suck. Slurp. “I’m good. Better. Thanks.”
    Jamie hiked his bag over his shoulder,
keeping a careful eye on Oz. “There’s a homeless shelter down the
road. They have hot food and stuff, I think. My mom volunteers
there on Saturdays.”
    “I’m not homeless,” Oz said with his hand
inside the plastic baggy, attempting to finger the sticky bits from
the sides.
    “Ok,” Jamie said. He turned around and began
his rapid retreat.
    “Wait!”
    Jamie looked over his shoulder, but didn’t
stop. “Look, dude, you’re creeping me out, ok? I’ll call the
cops.”
    Oz stopped and put his hands up. “Okay, okay.
Listen. I’m not crazy. I just—I just got back and I’ve spent all
day being dead and alive and ignored by people who can’t see me and
I can’t go anywhere or do anything and you’re the first person
who’s seen me and I just—” Oz wiped his face. “Sorry. Long story.
I’m really not crazy.”
    Jamie stopped and cocked his head. “Did you
say you were dead?”
    Something bubbled in Oz’s stomach and it
wasn’t the pulverized sandwich. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to be
telling the boy this. “Yes...”
    “You don’t look dead.”
    “I’m renting a tux.”
    “Huh?”
    “Never mind. Yes, I’m dead.”
    He’d been dead for a while, even accepted it
in less time than most he’d encountered in The Department, but
saying it aloud, those two words, struck a nerve deep in his mind
that flushed ice through his veins.
    In true, thirteen-year-old-boy fashion, Jamie
said, “Prove it.”
    “How?”
    Jamie folded his arms across his chest and
shrugged. There was something familiar about the boy’s attitude,
and his mannerisms. The way he held his sides while his arms were
crossed and the backward angle at which he tipped his head. It was
creepy.
    “Fine,” Oz said, “Follow me.”
    Oz backtracked the way