Albom, Mitch - Five People You Meet In Heaven

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The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Mitch Albom

ALSO BY MITCH ALBOM

Tuesdays with Morrie

Fab Five

Live Albom

Live Albom II

Live Albom III

Live Albom IV

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Mitch Albom

NEW YORK

YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU

H. Morris Co., Redwood Music Ltd. All rights on behalf of

Broadway Music Corp administered by Sony/ATV Music

Publishing, 8 Music Square, Nashville, TN 37203. All

rights reserved. Used by permission.

reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written

permission of the Publisher. Printed in the United States of

America. For information address: Hyperion, 77 West 66th

Street, New York, New York 10023-6298.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Albom, Mitch.

The five people you meet in heaven / Mitch Albom.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-7868-6871-6 (alk. paper)

1. Accident victims—Fiction. 2. Amusement

parks—Fiction. 3. Amusement rides—Fiction. 4. Future

life—Fiction. 5. Aged men—Fiction. 6. Heaven-Fiction. 7.

Death—Fiction. I. Title. PS3601.L335F59 2003 813'.6-dc21

2003047888

Hyperion books are available for special promotions and

premiums. For details con_tact Michael Rentas, Manager,

Inventory and Premium Sales, Hyperion, 77 West 66th

Street, 11th floor, New York, New York 10023-6298, or

call 212-456-0133.

FIRST EDITION

This book is dedicated to Edward Beitchman, my beloved

uncle, who gave me my first concept of heaven. Every year,

around the Thanksgiving table, he spoke of a night in the

hospital when he awoke to see the souls of his departed

loved ones sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for him. I

never forgot that story. And I never forgot him.

Everyone has an idea of heaven, as do most religions, and

they should all be respected. The version represented here

is only a guess, a wish, in some ways, that my uncle, and

others like him—people who felt unimportant here on

earth—realize, finally, how much they mattered and how

they were loved.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The End

THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A MAN named Eddie and it

begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It might seem

strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are

also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.

THE LAST HOUR of Eddie's life was spent, like most of

the others, at Ruby Pier, an amusement park by a great gray

ocean. The park had the usual attractions, a boardwalk, a

Ferris wheel, roller coasters, bumper cars, a taffy stand, and

an arcade where you could shoot streams of water into a

clown's mouth. It also had a big new ride called Freddy's

Free Fall, and this would be where Eddie would be killed,

in an accident that would make newspapers around the state.

AT THE TIME of his death, Eddie was a squat, white-

haired old man, with a short neck, a barrel chest, thick

fore_arms, and a faded army tattoo on his right shoulder.

His legs were thin and veined now, and his left knee,

wounded in the war, was ruined by arthritis. He used a cane

to get around. His face was broad and craggy from the sun,

with salty whiskers and a lower jaw that protruded slightly,

making him look prouder than he felt. He kept a cigarette

behind his left ear and a ring of keys hooked to his belt. He

wore rubber-soled shoes. He wore an old linen cap. His pale

brown uni_form suggested a workingman, and a

workingman he was.

EDDIE'S JOB WAS "maintaining" the rides, which really

meant keeping them safe. Every afternoon, he walked the

park, checking on each attraction, from the Tilt-A-Whirl to

the Pipeline Plunge. He looked for broken boards, loose

bolts, worn-out steel. Sometimes he would stop, his eyes

glazing over, and people walking past thought something

was wrong. But he was listening, that's all. After all these

years he could hear trouble, he said, in the spits and

stut_ters and thrumming of the equipment.

WITH 50 MINUTES left on earth, Eddie took his last walk

along Ruby Pier. He passed an elderly couple.

"Folks," he mumbled, touching his cap.

They nodded politely. Customers knew Eddie. At least the

regular ones did. They saw him summer after summer, one

of those faces you associate with a place. His work shirt had

a patch on the chest that read EDDIE above the word

MAINTENANCE, and sometimes they would say, "Hiya,

Eddie Maintenance," although he never thought that was

funny.

Today, it so happened, was Eddie's birthday, his 83rd. A

doctor, last week, had told him he had shingles. Shin_gles?

Eddie didn't even know what they were. Once, he had been

strong enough to lift a carousel horse in each arm. That was

a long time ago.

"EDDIE!" . . . "TAKE ME, Eddie!" . . . "Take me!"

Forty minutes until his death. Eddie made his way to the

front of the roller coaster line. He rode every attraction at

least once a week, to be certain the brakes and steering were

solid. Today was coaster day—the "Ghoster Coaster" they

called this one—and the kids who knew Eddie yelled to get

in the cart with him.

Children liked Eddie. Not teenagers. Teenagers gave him

headaches. Over the years, Eddie figured he'd seen every

sort of do-nothing, snarl-at-you teenager there was. But

children were different. Children looked at Eddie—who,

with his protruding lower jaw, always seemed to be

grinning, like a dolphin—and they trusted him. They drew

in like cold hands to a fire. They hugged his leg. They

played with his keys. Eddie mostly grunted, never saying

much. He figured it was because he didn't say much that

they liked him.

THIRTY MINUTES LEFT.

"Hey, happy birthday, I hear," Dominguez said.

Eddie grunted.

"No party or nothing?"

Eddie looked at him as if he were crazy. For a moment he

thought how strange it was to be growing old in a place that

smelled of cotton candy.

"Well, remember, Eddie, I'm off next week, starting

Monday. Going to Mexico."

Eddie nodded, and Dominguez did a little dance.

"Me and Theresa. Gonna see the whole family. Par-r-r-ty."

He stopped dancing when he noticed Eddie staring.

"You ever been?" Dominguez said.

"Been?"

"To Mexico?"

Eddie exhaled through his nose. "Kid, I never been

anywhere I wasn't shipped to with a rifle."

He watched Dominguez return to the sink. He thought for a

moment. Then he took a small wad of bills from his pocket

and removed the only twenties he had, two of them. He held

them out.

"Get your wife something nice," Eddie said.

Dominguez regarded the money, broke into a huge smile,

and said, "C'mon, man. You sure?"

Eddie pushed the money into Dominguez's palm. Then he

walked out back to the storage area. A small "fishing hole"

had been cut into the boardwalk planks years ago, and

Eddie lifted the plastic cap. He tugged on a nylon line that

dropped 80 feet to the sea. A piece of bologna was still

attached.

"We catch anything?" Dominguez yelled. "Tell me we

caught something!"

Eddie wondered how the guy could be so optimistic. There

was never anything on that line.

"One day," Dominguez yelled, "we're gonna get a halibut!"

"Yep," Eddie mumbled, although he knew you could never

pull a fish that big through a hole that small.

TWENTY-SIX MINUTES to live. Eddie crossed the

board_walk to the south end. Business was slow. The girl

behind the taffy counter was leaning on her elbows,

popping her gum.

Once, Ruby Pier was the place to go in the summer. It had

elephants and fireworks and marathon dance contests. But

people didn't go to ocean piers much anymore; they went to

theme parks where you paid $75 a ticket and had your

photo taken with a giant furry character.

Eddie limped past the bumper cars and fixed his eyes on a

group of teenagers leaning over the railing. Great, he told

himself. Just what I need.

"Off," Eddie said, tapping the railing with his cane. C'mon.

It s not safe.

Whrrrssssh, A wave broke on the beach. Eddie coughed up

something he did not want to see. He spat it away.

Whrrssssssh. He used to think a lot about Marguerite. Not

so much now. She was like a wound beneath an old

bandage, and he had grown more used to the bandage.

Whrrssssssh.

What was shingles?

Whrrsssssh.

Sixteen minutes to live.

NO STORY SITS by itself. Sometimes stories meet at

corners and sometimes they cover one another completely,

like stones beneath a river.

The end of Eddie's story was touched by another seemingly

innocent story, months earlier—a cloudy night when a

young man arrived at Ruby Pier with three of his friends.

The young man, whose name was Nicky, had just be_gun

driving and was still not comfortable carrying a key chain.

So he removed the single car key and put it in his jacket

pocket, then tied the jacket around his waist.

For the next few hours, he and his friends rode all the

fastest rides: the Flying Falcon, the Splashdown, Freddy's

Free Fall, the Ghoster Coaster.

"Hands in the air!" one of them yelled.

They threw their hands in the air.

Later, when it was dark, they returned to the car lot,

exhausted and laughing, drinking beer from brown paper

bags. Nicky reached into his jacket pocket. He fished

around. He cursed.

The key was gone.

FOURTEEN MINUTES UNTIL his death. Eddie wiped his

brow with a handkerchief. Out on the ocean, diamonds of

sunlight danced on the water, and Eddie stared at their

nimble movement. He had not been right on his feet since

the war.

But back at the Stardust Band Shell with Marguerite—there

Eddie had still been graceful. He closed his eyes and

allowed himself to summon the song that brought them

to_gether, the one Judy Garland sang in that movie. It

mixed in his head now with the cacophony of the crashing

waves and children screaming on the rides.

"You made me love you—"

Whsssshhhh.

"—do it, I didn't want to do i—"

Spllllldddaashhhhhhh.

"—me love you—"

Eeeeeeee!

"—time you knew it, and all the—"

Chhhhewisshhhh.

"-knew it. . ."

Eddie felt her hands on his shoulders. He squeezed his eyes

tightly, to bring the memory closer.

TWELVE MINUTES TO live.

" 'Scuse me."

A young girl, maybe eight years old, stood before him,

blocking his sunlight. She had blonde curls and wore flip-

flops and denim cutoff shorts and a lime green T-shirt with

a cartoon duck on the front. Amy, he thought her name was.

Amy or Annie. She'd been here a lot this summer,

al_though Eddie never saw a mother or father.

" 'Scuuuse me," she said again. "Eddie Maint'nance?"

Eddie sighed. "Just Eddie," he said.

"Eddie?"

"Um hmm?"

"Can you make me . . ."

She put her hands together as if praying.

"C'mon, kiddo. I don't have all day."

"Can you make me an animal? Can you?"

Eddie looked up, as if he had to think about it. Then he

reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out three yellow

pipe cleaners, which he carried for just this purpose.

"Yesssss!" the little girl said, slapping her hands.

Eddie began twisting the pipe cleaners.

"Where's your parents?"

'"Riding the rides."

"Without you?"

The girl shrugged. "My mom's with her boyfriend."

Eddie looked up. Oh.

He bent the pipe cleaners into several small loops, then

twisted the loops around one another. His hands shook now,

so it took longer than it used to, but soon the pipe cleaners

resembled a head, ears, body, and tail.

"A rabbit?" the little girl said.

Eddie winked.

"Thaaaank you!"

She spun away, lost in that place where kids don't even

know their feet are moving. Eddie wiped his brow again,

then closed his eyes, slumped into the beach chair, and tried

to get the old song back into his head.

A seagull squawked as it flew overhead.

HOW DO PEOPLE choose their final words? Do they

re_alize their gravity? Are they fated to be wise?

By his 83rd birthday, Eddie had lost nearly everyone he'd

cared about. Some had died young, and some had been

given a chance to grow old before a disease or an accident

took them away. At their funerals, Eddie listened as

mourn_ers recalled their final conversations. "It's as if he

knew he was going to die. . . ." some would say.

Eddie never believed that. As far as he could tell, when

your time came, it came, and that was that. You might say

something smart on your way out, but you might just as

easily say something stupid.

For the record, Eddie's final words would be "Get back!'

HERE ARE THE sounds of Eddie's last minutes on earth.

Waves crashing. The distant thump of rock music. The

whirring engine of a small biplane, dragging an ad from its

tail. And this.

"OH MY GOD! LOOK!"

Eddie felt his eyes dart beneath his lids. Over the years, he

had come to know every noise at Ruby Pier and could sleep

through them all like a lullaby.

This voice was not in the lullaby.

"OH MY GOD! LOOK!"

Eddie bolted upright. A woman with fat, dimpled arms was

holding a shopping bag and pointing and screaming. A

small crowd gathered around her, their eyes to the skies.

Eddie saw it immediately. Atop Freddy's Free Fall, the new

"tower drop" attraction, one of the carts was tilted at an

angle, as if trying to dump its cargo. Four passengers, two

men, two women, held only by a safety bar, were grabbing

frantically at anything they could.

"OH MY GOD!" the fat woman yelled. "THOSE PEOPLE!

THEY'RE GONNA FALL!"

A voice squawked from the radio on Eddie's belt. "Eddie!

Eddie!"

He pressed the button. "I see it! Get security!"

People ran up from the beach, pointing as if they had

practiced this drill. Look! Up in the sky! An amusement ride

turned evil! Eddie grabbed his cane and clomped to safety

fence around the platform base, his wad of keys jan_gling

against his hip. His heart was racing.

Freddy's Free Fall was supposed to drop two carts in a

stomach-churning descent, only to be halted at the last

in_stant by a gush of hydraulic air. How did one cart come

loose like that? It was tilted just a few feet below the upper

plat_form, as if it had started downward then changed its

mind.

Eddie reached the gate and had to catch his breath.

Dominguez came running and nearly banged into him.

"Listen to me!" Eddie said, grabbing Dominguez by the

shoulders. His grip was so tight, Dominguez made a pained

face. "Listen to me! Who's up there?"

"Willie."

"OK. He must've hit the emergency stop. That's why the

cart is hanging. Get up the ladder and tell Willie to manually

release the safety restraint so those people can get out. OK?

It's on the back of the cart, so you're gonna have to hold him

while he leans out there. OK? Then . . . then, the two of

ya's—the two of ya's now, not one, you got it?—the two of

ya's get them out! One holds the other! Got it!? . . . Got it?"

Dominguez nodded quickly.

"Then send that damn cart down so we can figure out what

happened!"

Eddie's head was pounding. Although his park had been

free of any major accidents, he knew the horror stories of

his business. Once, in Brighton, a bolt unfastened on a

gondola ride and two people fell to their death. Another

time, in Wonderland Park, a man had tried to walk across a

roller coaster track; he fell through and got stuck beneath

his armpits. He was wedged in, screaming, and the cars

came racing toward him and . . . well, that was the worst.

Eddie pushed that from his mind. There were people all

around him now, hands over their mouths, watching

Dominguez climb the ladder. Eddie tried to remember the

insides of Freddy's Free Fall. Engine. Cylinders.

Hydraulics. Seals. Cables. How does a cart come loose? He

followed the ride visually, from the four frightened people at

the top, down the towering shaft, and into the base. Engine.

Cylin_ders. Hydraulics. Seals. Cables.. . .

Dominguez reached the upper platform. He did as Eddie

told him, holding Willie as Willie leaned toward the back of

the cart to release the restraint. One of the female riders

lunged for Willie and nearly pulled him off the platform.

The crowd gasped.

"Wait. . ." Eddie said to himself.

Willie tried again. This time he popped the safety release.

"Cable .. ." Eddie mumbled.

The bar lifted and the crowd went "Ahhhhh." The rid_ers

were quickly pulled to the platform.

"The cable is unraveling. . . ."

And Eddie was right. Inside the base of Freddy's Free Fall,

hidden from view, the cable that lifted Cart No. 2 had, for

the last few months, been scraping across a locked pulley.

Because it was locked, the pulley had gradually ripped the

cable's steel wires—as if husking an ear of corn—until they

were nearly severed. No one noticed. How could they

notice? Only someone who had crawled inside the

mecha_nism would have seen the unlikely cause of the

problem.

The pulley was wedged by a small object that must have

fallen through the opening at a most precise moment.

A car key.

"DON'T RELEASE THE CART!" Eddie yelled. He waved

his arms. "HEY! HEEEEY! IT'S THE CABLE! DON'T

RELEASE THE CART! IT'LL SNAP!"

The crowd drowned him out. It cheered wildly as Willie

and Dominguez unloaded the final rider. All four were safe.

They hugged atop the platform.

"DOM! WILLIE!" Eddie yelled. Someone banged against

his waist, knocking his walkie-talkie to the ground. Eddie

bent to get it. Willie went to the controls. He put his finger

on the green button. Eddie looked up.

"NO, NO, NO, DON'T!"

Eddie turned to the crowd. "GET BACK!"

Something in Eddie's voice must have caught the peo_ple's

attention; they stopped cheering and began to scatter. An

opening cleared around the bottom of Freddy's Free Fall.

And Eddie saw the last face of his life.

She was sprawled upon the ride's metal base, as if someone

had knocked her into it, her nose running, tears filling her

eyes, the little girl with the pipe-cleaner animal. Amy?

Annie?

"Ma ... Mom ... Mom ..." she heaved, almost rhyth_mically,

her body frozen in the paralysis of crying children.

"Ma . . . Mom ... Ma ... Mom .. ."

Eddie's eyes shot from her to the carts. Did he have time?

Her to the carts—

Whump. Too late. The carts were dropping. Jesus, he

released the brake!—and for Eddie, everything slipped into

watery motion. He dropped his cane and pushed off his bad

leg and felt a shot of pain that almost knocked him down. A

big step. Another step. Inside the shaft of Freddy's Free Fall,

the cable snapped its final thread and ripped across the

hydraulic line. Cart No. 2 was in a dead drop now, nothing

to stop it, a boul_der off a cliff.

In those final moments, Eddie seemed to hear the whole

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Albom, Mitch - Five People You Meet In Heaven

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