Death of a Metrosexual

By Greg Schumaker

Jackson Roemer stared down at his dead body. Calmly, he observed the shocking scene – a sight that would be considered deplorable to the living. Death wasn't so bad, he thought, it was a bit surprising…but you know. His attention was first caught by the vanilla colored phone, lying inches away from what used to be his palm, beeping with anger over the dead line. He admired his thin body, his short, styled, hair, and his moisturized skin. The hypnotic beats of electronic dance music pounded from the distant sitting room.

"Such a waste," he whispered as he shook the invisible energy he had become, it felt somewhat like the head he used to carry on two shoulders.

He hovered more closely now, the sounds of sirens drawing closer to his chic, plastic furniture filled, apartment. The red Armani tie around his neck, complimenting the blue stretch fabric shirt, was stained with the apple martini that once delicately filled the small glass lying in shards across the blue kitchen tile. He now knew this was no accident. The drink's cherry, still half chewed inside his mouth, was the last thing he tasted before being suffocated by his own body's will.

"I was poisoned!" he shouted into the space of white noise that no one, save for a select few mediums in the greater New York area, would hear. Seconds after his realization the police broke through the heavy almond door to his suite.

"Another metro," the fat male cop said, folding his arms as he watched the paramedics quickly check for a pulse and solemnly shake their heads. They motioned for the stretcher.

"This is becoming an hourly routine," the fat female cop responded. She sniffed the air, "smells like some tutti-frutti drink."

"Actually, it's an apple martini," he corrected her. She shot him a curious look. "I'm no fag, Margaret. Jesus. I'm in the clubs a lot."

"Breaking up cat fights," she groaned, leaning intently over the dead body. Jackson's spirit watched them with curiosity, picking apart their uniform and the fat male cop's thinning red hair.

"It's the cherry, idiots," he sighed. "Look in my mouth!" That job would be left to the medical examiner. I am so not watching my autopsy, he thought as he listened to the cops talk.

The fact that he was dead finally hit him when the stretcher was raised and brought out into cold winter. A crowd has formed in the hallway, necessary for the police to use their "nothing to see here" line. His neighbor, Karen, a very rich and very fabulous older woman, was crying loudly.

"How could this happen?" she asked painfully, "who would do this? He was so young and hip."

"Such a waste," a younger woman standing in the crowd proclaimed.

Jackson nodded toward her in agreement from atop the broad chest he once used to breath. He didn't want to let go, not of his body or of his sprawling and decadent apartment. He would miss his polished nails and comfortable furniture…and his friends.

As if a king was being carried atop his throne, Jackson hovered closely above his body as it was slowly loaded into the back of a flashing ambulance. The ride to the hospital reminded him of the night his wife had gone into labor ten years ago. He was only twenty and studying law, she only nineteen and fresh out of high school. Their daughter, Harvey, was born minutes after they arrived at the hospital. Now it would be the same hospital where he would be stored and chilled, waiting in line for his turn to be fashionably buried in a rose lined coffin with memory foam padding. The worms would have good lumbar support, he figured.

Karen will make sure I'm wearing only the finest, he assured himself.

The liquid on his tie tugged at his curiosity. Surely his ex-wife hadn't done it. She was getting plenty in child support – and spousal support. He had a feeling his death would give her even more for her trashy plastic surgery and Harvey's expensive schooling.

The past several days had been spent in a haze. He'd been in court and the subject of interviews. The verdict had only been announced three hours prior to his death, Jackson giving his client a high five and leaving abruptly to get a celebratory manicure.

His client was the defendant, a young guy who got caught in some fight at a night club with the plaintiff – a dramatically purple drag queen, complete with feather head dress and eight inch heels.

"That little bitch broke my nose," the drag queen, a black man cleverly calling himself Almond Joy, claimed when being questioned by Jackson.

"It was already crooked!" his client shot back. The judge's hammer stopped the brewing commotion and he demanded Jackson wrap up his questioning.

"I can't deal with this stupidity anymore," the judge announced, eyeing the jury as if to say "make up your damn minds now, The Apprentice is on in two hours."

When the jury had announced the defendant not guilty, Almond Joy called for vengeance. "There's nothing we can do, Honey," his lawyer, dressed in a yellow sequined suit, assured him behind a feminine voice. The drag queen then proceeded to break down and cry.

Jackson just smiled and went about his business, contemplating his next case. The fact that his client was truthfully guilty didn't bother him one bit. Sure, Almond Joy would have to live with a strange nose the rest of his life; it wasn't his job to alter that. Jackson's client had actually thrown the first punch, prior to pulling off Almond Joy's blond wig and his right eye's top fake eyelash.

Jackson, filled with sorry, watched his alcohol stained body be loaded into a drawer in the drab morgue. Like a balloon, he let himself drift up through the various levels of the hospital, until finally stopping outside the maternity ward where he had proudly watched Harvey be displayed by their nurse.

A television in a room nearby flooded his hearing. It was the local news, a special report. A graphic appeared on the screen set to dramatic music, reading: Metrosexual Manslaughter. The anchorwoman, seeming frightened by the news, announced that two of the city's most recent news making figures, Jackson and his client, had been mysteriously murdered. Jackson felt as though he was frowning, but the ability to express emotion seemed to have been lost years ago – the same feeling he'd experienced after his divorce.

Across the city, in a small and dimly lit apartment, a drag queen sat enthralled with the breaking news. He laughed, the purple feathers atop his head rustling as if being strangled by strong winds. In celebration, he took the remaining few cherries that soaked in a glass bowl filled with rat poison and poured them down his sink's garbage disposal.

"See what happens when those damn metros mess with Almond Joy," he proudly grumbled to himself.