Mark Long is Alive  My friend Mark Long, who committed suicide several months ago, is alive. I am sitting with him in his living room. We are talking. His older brother or brother-in-law comes in and sits down in a chair. He is angry with Mark for faking death. He and I exchange words. I ask him to leave, and he does. Mark was in Chicago for a long time. He did fake his death. Outside the deck doors are little children with dark skin, a rabbit or two, and a dog that are dancing to some sort of beat. Their ankles are shackled together. Mark's father and mother are there. She is nursing a little boy. His sister comes in and says to me, "Thanks for telling us (that Mark is alive)." I say that I didn't tell them: I had no idea. My mom had been in Chicago and a woman my mom knew saw Mark and told her about it. My mom, in turn, told the Longs.  I am in Mark's old blue car. I'm wearing three seatbelts. We're going to the casino. We head towards Armstrong High School on Home Avenue, stopping to pick up Ryan, A kid I knew from 7th grade. I tell Mark that last week I had a dream about him being alive. There are seven guys in the car. Mark is driving, and rolls through a stop sign with a police car sitting right there. We drive by the Roadside Company building. Near the park are several ambulances and police cars. They are dragging the Dirty River for a body. Someone fell through the ice. That is what happened when Mark died, except we never found his body. They faked it after four or five days of looking.