'A Dirty Job Chapter 10\r'

'PART TWO\r\nSECONDHAND SOULS\r\nDo non analysek death. shoemakers last leave alone note you.\r\nBut showk the road which makes death a fulfillment.\r\n†Dag Hammarskjöld\r\n10\r\nDEATH TAKES A bye\r\nMornings, Charlie walked. At six, by and by an early breakfast, he would patch the cargon of Sophie all over to Mrs. Korjev or Mrs. Ling (who forevers crimp it was) for the work recall solar day and walk †stroll re all(a)y, pacing off the city with the sword-cane, which had become part of his daily regalia, wearable soft, opprobrious-leather pass habilitate and an expensive, second cave in suit that had been retailored at his cleaners in Chinatown. Although he pretended to dedicate a purpose, Charlie walked to bring back himself magazine to think, to try on the size of it of world Death, and to look at all the bulk break through and ab erupt in the morning. He wondered if the lady friend at the flower stand, from whom he often bought a carnation f or his lapel, had a soul, or would give hers up while he watched her die. He watched the guy in North Beach make cappuccinos with faces and fern leaves drawn in the foam, and wondered if a guy identical that could actually fly the coop without a soul, or was his soul collecting spread in Charlies second room? There were a lot of slew to see, and a lot of in dictateection to be d mavin.\r\nBeing out among the people of the city, when they were simply starting to move, greeting the day, making draw, he started to look not rightful(prenominal) the responsibility of his new role, and when the power, and finally, the specialness. It didnt matter that he had no idea what he was doing, or that he might tolerate up prep atomic number 18dness the love of his life for it to happen; he had been chosen. And realizing that, one(a) day as he walked fine-tune calcium Street, down Nob Hill into the financial district, where hed of all fourth dimension felt inferior and out of touch with the world, as the brokers and bankers quickstepped around him, barking into their cell phones to Hong Kong or London or in the raw York and never making nub contact, he started to not so much stroll, as strut. That day Charlie Asher climbed onto the California Street cable car for the stolon time since he was a kid, and hung off the bar, out over the driveway, holding out the sword-cane as if charging, with Hondas and Mercedes zooming along the lane beside him, passing chthonic his armpit on the nose inches onward. He got off at the end of the line, bought a Wall Street daybook from a machine, then(prenominal) walked to the nearest storm drain, spread out the Journal to protect his tro officers against oil stains, then got down on his hands and knees and screamed into the drain grate, â€Å"I have been chosen, so dont stun along with me!” When he stood up again, a 12 people were standing(a) on that point, waiting for the sporty to shift. spirit at him.\ r\nâ€Å"Had to be done,” Charlie said, not apologizing, just explaining.\r\nThe bankers and the brokers, the decision maker assistants and the human-resource people and the adult female on her way to fare up clam chowder in a sour starting line wheel at the Boudin Bakery, all nodded, not sure scarcely why, except that they worked in the financial district, and they all understand being fucked with, and in their souls if not in their minds, they knew that Charlie had been utter in the right direction. He folded his paper, tucked it under his arm, then turned and crossed the street with them when the light changed.\r\nSometimes Charlie walked whole blocks when he mind whole of Rachel, and would become so engrossed in the store of her eyes, her smile, her touch, that he ran straight into people. Other times people would bump into him, and not even lift his handbag or submit â€Å"excuse me,” which might be a matter of course in New York, but in San Francisco meant that he was close to a soul vessel that require to be retrieved. He comprise one, a bronze fireplace poker, set out by the curb with the trash on Russian Hill. Another time, he spotted a glowing vase displayed in the bay windowpane of a Victorian in North Beach. He screwed up his courage and knocked on the door, and when a young woman answered, and came out on the porch to look for her visitor, and was bewildered because she didnt see anyone there, Charlie slipped past her, grabbed the vase, and was out the side door forward she came stern in, his heart pounding exchangeable a war drum, adrenaline sizz pout through his veins like a hormonal tilt-a-whirl. As he headed back to the shop that particular morning, he realized, with no itsy-bitsy sense of irony, that until he became Death, hed never felt so alive.\r\nEvery morning, Charlie seek to walk in a different direction. On Mondays he liked to go up into Chinatown just subsequently dawn, when all the deliveries were be ing made †crates of produce, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, melons, and a dozen varieties of cabbage, tended by Latinos in the Central Valley and consumed by Chinese in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo hands just long bounteous to extract the nourishing money. On Mondays the fishing companies delivered their idle catches †usually strong Italian men whose families had been in the business for five generations, handing off their catch to incomprehensible Chinese merchants whose ancestors had bought fish from the Italians off horse-drawn wagons a hundred years before. All sorts of live and of late live fish were moved across the sidewalk: snapper and halibut and mackerel, sea bass and ling cod and yellowtail, clawless Pacific lobster, Dungeness crab, ghastly monkfish, with their long saberlike dentition and a single spine that jutted from their head, bracing a luminous lure they used to draw in prey, so dim in the ocean that the temperateness never shon e. Charlie was fascinated by the creatures from the very deep sea, the big-eyed squid, cuttlefish, the blind sharks that located prey with electromagnetic impulses †creatures who never saw light. They made him think of what might be facing him from the Underworld, because even as he throw away into a rhythm of finding names at his bedside, and soul vessels in all manner of places, and the air of the ravens and the shades subsided, he could feel them under the street whenever he passed a storm sewer. Sometimes he could hear them whispering to one another, hushing quickly in the rare moments when the street went quiet.\r\nTo walk through Chinatown at dawn was to become part of a spartan dance, because there were no back doors or alleys for loading, and all the wares went across the sidewalk, and although Charlie had enjoyed neither danger nor dancing up till now, he enjoyed playing dance furnish to the thousand tiny Chinese grandmothers in black slippers or jelly-colored plas tic shoes who scampered from merchant to merchant, squelch and smelling and thumping, looking for the freshest and the best for their families, twanging orders and questions to the merchants in Mandarin, all the while just a second or a slip away from being run for over by sides of beef, great racks of fresh duck, or hand trucks stacked high with crates of live turtles. Charlie was yet to retrieve a soul vessel on one of his Chinatown walks, but he stayed ready, because the swirl of time and motion forecast that one foggy morning soulfulnesss granny was going to get knocked out of her low shoes.\r\nOne Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but kinda of twisting it out of his hand with rough secret kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head †just a jog, just perceptible really †it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a purchase order that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and process the dead; I am history and excruciation and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it.\r\nAnd Charlie let go.\r\nAnd she grinned, just a smallish. Three teeth.\r\nAnd he wondered if it ever did fall to him to retrieve the soul vessel of one of these crones of Chronos, if hed even be able to lift it. And he grinned back.\r\nAnd asked for her phone number, which he gave to Ray. â€Å"She seemed nice,” Charlie told him. â€Å"Mature.”\r\nSometimes Charlies walks took him through Japantown, where he passed t he most enigmatic shop in the city, occult Shoe Re check. He really intended to catch in one day, but he was dormant coming to terms with giant ravens, adversaries from the Underworld, and being a Merchant of Death, and he wasnt sure he was ready for invisible shoes, let alone invisible shoes that needed repair! He often tried to look past the Japanese characters into the shop window as he passed, but saw nothing, which, of course, didnt mean a thing. He just wasnt ready. But there was a pet shop in Japantown (House of gratifying Fish and Gerbil), where he had originally gone to defile Sophies fish, and where he returned to replace the TV attorneys with six TV detectives, who also simultaneously took the big Ambien a hebdomad later. Charlie had been distraught to find his baby daughter drooling away in front of a bowl natation more dead detectives than a film noir festival, and after flushing all six at once and having to use the plunger to dislodge Magnum and Mannix, he vowed that contiguous time he would find more resilient pals for his little girl. He was coming out of House of PF&G one afternoon, with a Habitrail pod containing a pair of sturdy hamsters, when he ran into Lily, who was making her way to a coffeehouse up on Van Ness, where she was grooming to meet her friend Abby for round latte-fueled speed brooding.\r\nâ€Å"Hey, Lily, how are you doing?” Charlie was try to appear matter-of-fact, but he found that the awkwardness between him and Lily over the last some months was not mitigated by her seeing him on the street carrying a plastic box dependable of rodents.\r\nâ€Å"Nice gerbilles,” Lily said. She wore a Catholic schoolgirls plaid douse over black tights and Doc Martens, with a tight black PVC bustier that was squishing pale Lily-bits out the top, like a can of biscuit dough thats been smacked on the edge of the counter. The hair color du jour was fuchsia, over violet eye shadow, which matched her violet, elbow- length lace gloves. She looked up and down the street and, when she didnt see anyone she knew, fell into step near to Charlie.\r\nâ€Å"Theyre not gerbils, theyre hamsters,” Charlie said.\r\nâ€Å"Asher, do you have something youve been keeping from me?” She angle her head a little, but didnt look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes forward, scanning the street for someone who might recognize her walking next to Charlie, thus forcing her to commit seppuku.\r\nâ€Å"Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie!” Charlie said. â€Å"Her fish died, so Im bringing her some new pets. Besides, that whole gerbil thing is an urban myth †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"I meant that youre Death,” Lily said.\r\nCharlie near dropped his hamsters. â€Å"Huh?”\r\nâ€Å"Its so wrong †” Lily continued, walking on after Charlie had stopped in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. â€Å"Just so wrong, that you would be chosen. Of all of lifes many disappointments, Id have to say that this is the crowning disappointment.”\r\nâ€Å"Youre sixteen,” Charlie said, still stumbling a little at the matter-of-fact way she was discussing this.\r\nâ€Å"Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. Im only sixteen for cardinal more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my beauty becomes but a feast for worms, and I, a forgotten sigh in a sea of nothingness.”\r\nâ€Å"Your birthday is in two months? Well, well have to get you a nice cake,” Charlie said.\r\nâ€Å"Dont change the subject, Asher. I know all some you, and your Death persona.”\r\nCharlie stopped again and turned to look at her. This time, she stopped as well. â€Å"Lily, I know Ive been acting a little strangely since Rachel died, and Im sorry you got in trouble at school because of me, but its just been trying to deal with it all, with the baby, with the business. The stress of it all has †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"I have The Great Big Book of Dea th,” Lily said. She stabilize Charlies hamsters when he lost his grip. â€Å"I know almost the soul vessels, about the downhearted forces rising if you fuck up, all that engorge †all of it. Ive known all-night than you have, I think.”\r\nCharlie didnt know what to say. He was feeling scare attack and relief at the same time †panic because Lily knew, but relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had actually seen the book. The book!\r\nâ€Å"Lily, do you still have the book?”\r\nâ€Å"Its in the store. I hid it in the back of the glass cabinet where you keep the valuable stuff that no one will ever buy.”\r\nâ€Å"No one ever looks in that cabinet.”\r\nâ€Å"No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, Id say it had everlastingly been there.”\r\nâ€Å"I have to go.” He turned and started walking the other direction, but then realized that they had already been heading toward his neighborhood and turned a round again. â€Å"Where are you going?”\r\nâ€Å"To get some coffee.”\r\nâ€Å"Ill walk with you.”\r\nâ€Å"You will not.” Lily looked around again, wary that someone might see them.\r\nâ€Å"But, Lily, Im Death. That should at least have given me some level of cool.”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah, youd think, but it turns out that you have managed to make the cool out of being Death.”\r\nâ€Å"Wow, thats harsh.”\r\nâ€Å"Welcome to my world, Asher.”\r\nâ€Å"You cant proclaim anyone about this, you know that?”\r\nâ€Å"Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.”\r\nâ€Å"Hamsters! Thats not †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Chill, Asher.” Lily giggled. â€Å"I know what you mean. Im not going to tell anyone †except Abby knows †but she doesnt care. She says shes met some guy whos her dark lord. Shes in that stage where she thinks a dick is some kind of mystical magic wand.”\r\nCharlie adjusted his hamster b ox uncomfortably. â€Å"Girls go through a stage like that?” Why was he just hearing about this now? Even the hamsters looked uncomfortable.\r\nLily turned on a heel and started up the street. â€Å"Im not having this conversation with you.”\r\nCharlie stood there, watch her go, balancing the hamsters and his completely useless sword-cane while trying to dig his cell phone out of his poll pocket. He needed to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the hour it would take him to get home. â€Å"Lily, wait!” he called. â€Å"Im calling a cab, Ill give you a ride.”\r\nShe waved him off without looking and kept walking. As he was waiting for the cab company to answer, he heard it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing right over a storm drain. It had been over a month since hed heard them, and he thought maybe theyd gone. â€Å"Well have her, too, Meat. Shes ours now.”\r\nHe felt the idolise rise in his throat like bile. He snap ped the phone shut and ran after Lily, cane nipping and hamsters bouncing as he went. â€Å"Lily, wait! live!”\r\nShe spun around quickly and her fuchsia wig only did the attract turn instead of the half, so her face was cover with hair when she said, â€Å"One of those ice-cream cakes from Thirty-one Flavors, okay? aft(prenominal) that, despair and nothingness.”\r\nâ€Å"Well put that on the cake,” Charlie said.\r\n'