Seven Deadly Pleasures (4 page)

I
went downstairs for a cup of coffee and the Grim Reaper was sitting in my living room.

"Good morning," he said. His voice was gravel. He had bald, red eyeballs set in exposed muscle. He had lips, but they were diseased pieces of blackened flesh that dangled over his skull teeth. I snatched a quick glance to the stairs.

"Don't worry," he said. "She cannot hear us."

Thank God for small favors. Still, I was not going to take any chances. I sat down slowly, so as to make as little sound as possible. I could hear Tina moving around up there from bureau to closet. He folded his bony hands together.

"Still no talkie-talk? What a pity. I like a little conversation before I induce the coronary, or initiate the stove oil-fire that gets away, or cause the accident with the air conditioner that falls off the high shelf in the shed when you try to yank out the snow shovel jammed next to it." He sat forward. "For you, I was thinking of maybe an accident with glass! I was thinking about that picture window there, a fall, a shattering, and a decapitation. I could have Tina come down and find your body in spasm, hands still grabbing blindly at the jagged edges, your head, by God this is poetic, your head still held on by a single strand of neck tissue! What do you think?"

Sweat burst a bit on my upper lip. Just before this thing took over my living room, I had been thinking about the white, wooden blinds covering the picture window. The thin, cylindrical bar that you twisted to open and shut the blinds never stayed on the S-hook anymore. The metal had worn outward a bit from the continuous use, and the bar kept popping off. On a whim, I had been thinking about grabbing the pliers Tina had left by the stereo, climbing onto the back of the sofa, and giving the S-hook a squeeze. Why hadn't I done it over the weekend, or the last, or the one before that? Why did I decide to do it twenty minutes before I had to leave for work? A little, personal mystery. I guess I had always been impulsive that way.

"Impulsive guys die too, Joe," he said. "So, what will it be? Many of my clients like to have a say in their method of execution. It's in the contract that I ask and get some sort of response."

How did he know I was just thinking about my own impulsiveness?
I thought. Tina dropped something upstairs, and I heard a quaint, "Oh shit!" I stayed where I was. I didn't think I was going crazy, and I was not foolish enough to wonder if I was dreaming. While asleep, one's dream could be mistaken for reality, but I had enough common sense to know it didn't work the other way around. Was I hallucinating? If so, this was one hell of a detailed manifestation. The Reaper pointed across the marble table that sat between us.

"I knew you were considering your own impulsiveness because I can hear everything you think the second you think it, Joe. Your little honey dropped the tweezers back into the bottom of the tin tangled up with the hairbrush, the two combs, the nail file, the clippers, and the three scissors that are too dull to keep in the kitchen drawer anymore. That's why she just swore. You're not crazy, you are not dreaming, and you are not hallucinating. That which is presently before you has too much vivid order for that, and you know it. Now stop thinking around me and think directly to me. It will help expedite things. I do have other calls to make."

"So, you can read my thoughts," I said. Tina did not respond, and a brush of new fear whispered up my spine. She should have heard me. It was a small row house. The Reaper clapped his hands together.

"Joy!" he said. "Actual discussion! My creation! The big lie! Go ahead, entertain me! Tell me you are too young to die even though you know deep down that when it is your time, it is simply your time! Say that you don't fear me when you are actually terrified!"

"What's the point?" I said. From beneath his cloak, the Reaper produced a long-handled sickle. He pushed himself up to a standing position and brought the weapon down with a kingly bang.

"Because I am the provider of your shield, and I like to see my work in action once in a while!" He paused, and leaned in a bit. "Don't you see? I am the creator of the mask. Without it, the human race would annihilate itself in a matter of days. Call it a loan. I supply your species with this safety device, this ability to screen, refine, and purify before going verbal so to speak. In return, I take lives at random. That's the deal. On the downside, I am the artist who so briefly gets to witness his product first hand because he must inevitably erase his subjects. It is life's ultimate irony."

"Then take back the mask."

"What did you just say to me?"

"Take it," I said. "I have nothing to hide."

He cocked his head.

"You reject my art? You dare to insult me?"

"Yes."

"You reject the gift I have given you? You reject the very essence of personal mastery?"

"Yes," I said.
And fuck you,
I thought for good measure.

His grin got savage and the air tingled. He pressed in across the table within an inch of my face, and I was overcome by an odor that drew up images of dead flowers strewn before gravestones under a pale moon. My head spun, and he spoke a last time.

"I always like a good wager, so survive this and your life shall be spared. Speak the truth for two short hours."

Then he was gone.

It was 8:00 A.M.

With every second that passed by, the "Reaper incident" dulled and lost potency. The bubbling sound indicated that the coffeemaker was on its last cycle, next to hiss the last of its water through in a thin stream. If there was any sound that could really ground you, that was it. I got down two clay cups, did the sweeteners, and added the half-and-half with the pretty Native American squaw on the carton. A bird chirped somewhere, but it wasn't that distinct sound cardinals made when spring had truly arrived.

I turned to the window and looked into the back alley. The neat checkerboard presentation of windows and brick face was betrayed at the bottom by small pockets of trash that had blown up and settled in various areas of fencing. Of course, everyone had a different idea of what color a garage door should be and how long between paint jobs was appropriate. Wires crisscrossed each other up and down the row, and there was laundry hanging off some of them. The family across the way had left their mongrel dog out all night, and he was circling his pen with his gray tongue hanging out. He sensed me, pawed up on the fence, and barked hoarsely. We really had to get out of the city.

I poured the coffees and strode back through the living room. Potted coleus and fern stood like handsome soldiers beside the wall unit stacked with television, cable box, DVD player, and state-of-the-art audio system. The sun coming through the blinds made glare bars across my Monets hanging on the east wall. From upstairs Tina's voice tinkled like those high piano keys little girls trilled in the drawing rooms of movies about the old country.

"Honey, we need toilet paper up here!"

The hairdryer kicked on. I switched the coffees to one hand, opened the downstairs closet, and snagged a roll.

"We could have used a jumbo pack of these at the office yesterday," I thought with a smirk. "The old man must have shit himself at the close of trade when he saw my profit and loss at eight hundred and ninety thousand in the black."

Then again, he probably thought it pretty much par for the course by now. After my third interview and the ceremonial handshake nine months ago, he'd said they hired me at Rollins and Howell Financial because I was the most serious young man they had ever met. They thought I was the dependable young mule they could keep in the wings, and what they got was a thoroughbred that shot out of the gate. They had planned a straight and narrow path for me, and now pretty much scrambled to get out of my way. I was a risk taker with an incredible poker face. I had a great sense of humor, but kept it to myself. I loved being an enigma, time and again dashing those lingering impressions of conservative stoicism with broad and sweeping strokes of precariousness behind closed doors. I always went long, and I never asked permission. I almost always won, and didn't even smile until I got home.

Tina called me an "old soul." Still, every oyster had to have a pearl to give up once in awhile. I did confide in her. I told her my dreams, confessed my insecurities, shared occasional frustrations, admitted the different angles and depths of my love for her. I preferred to do that in bed, under the covers with the lights off. I liked the warming effect of her cheek to my bare chest, and the hollow of my neck. I liked her little rosebud lips and the way she dryly brushed them along my jaw line. I cherished those intimate exchanges, breath mingled with breath. Whispers.

"Baby, I love ya!" I called out loud while climbing the stairs.

The hairdryer stopped.

"What did you say, Mookie?"

I smiled. We were still in the stage of little pet names in private. It started as a joke and we fell into the habit. It was cute for now, and it would pass. That was OK too. As long as we didn't turn into a quarreling couple like
her
parents.

"I said I love ya! Whoops!"

"What?"

"My foot hit the base of the top step and I almost dropped the coffee."

She snickered.

"Klutz! You should work out or something."

"Cunt! If you keep sneaking handfuls of the Nestlé's morsels that are only supposed to be for baking, you're going to end up with a bitch-belly like your mother."

I straightened up and a hot dash of coffee spattered my wrist.

And I was lucky. The ugly words had escaped under my breath just after Tina turned the hairdryer back on. Just. I stumbled into the bedroom and ditched the clay cups. Prickly sweat beads stood up on my scalp.

There was no filter. There was simply the primal brainwork here, immediately spit forth like sewage before it could be transformed into something witty.

I plucked a pack of Marlboro Lights off the bedside end table, stuck a smoke between my teeth, and absently patted my chest for a lighter. I was partly dressed, no shirt. My eyes did an erratic, bouncy search across the room and I made myself slow the glance down. On the bureau sat "the box" which Tina had conveniently forgotten to stow in the basement, and I snatched it down to dig through.

It was her old retro Gothic stuff, safety pin earrings, studded wristlets, spiked ankle bands, and junk jewels. It was her childhood hope chest, sweet nostalgic reminders of the fashion she sported long before I introduced myself, showed her the comforts of the corporate world, romanced her, swept her off her feet, and made her Mrs. Joe Kagan. The skull and crossbones lighter was near the bottom and I drew it out to thumb the small roller. The flame blew out before I could light up and I cupped my palm against the current of the ceiling fan. I popped it to life and took a deep drag.

"So," Tina said.

I jerked at the sound and she didn't notice. She was on her way to the closet to switch blouses for the umpteenth time, and she twisted her straight, jet-black hair up into a temporary bun. She scanned the overstuffed hanger-rack, shook her head, and reached for the small bottle sitting next to her pile of beret hats on the back shelf. She turned, pursed her lips, sprayed a bit of perfume into the air, walked into it, and spoke as if the conversation from last night had never been interrupted by seven hours of sleep.

"So, hon, if the kids play ball on the lawn tonight, it's your turn to kick 'em off, right?"

It was her slickest game. If not fully gratified, Tina would relentlessly return to a subject until the answer brought full satisfaction.

"We discussed this last night," I said. She blinked thick lashes.

"Yes, but we did not conclude. They're always in our garden to use my flowering fig for first base. When I asked them to leave yesterday that older boy called me the 'C' word while his mother stood in her doorway across the street with a smirk on her face. It's not fair, and I think you should get involved."

"Fuck your flowering fig," I said. "That woman across the street happens to be married to the biggest, meanest-looking motherfucker I've ever seen and I don't relish the thought of pissing him off."

Tina's arms flew up to cross before her chest and my heart sank. Straight confrontation made for poor politics and the issue was tricky, especially since she had a good point. Our neighborhood was the farthest borough northeast of town that still claimed an urban zip code. And it was littered with children, mainly two tribes. The nine-year-olds were the wild street rats who kept the avenue swarming with the violence of their Nerf bow and arrows, rubber dart pistols, and Super Soakers. Still, the real problem was the twelve-year-olds, that cruel clan that was quick to make captains and choose up sides. Whether it was a quick round of roughhouse, dodge ball, or nine-inning baseball played with an aluminum youth bat and duct-taped tennis ball, they claimed any section of unfenced property as prized, personal domain. Real champs. They swore like sailors,
fucking spastic, you suck!,
argued like lawyers, and slid hard and often into Tina's flowering fig.

"Stop playing the isolationist," she said. "I need your support in this because when I do it alone, I come off as the neighborhood witch." She bent to tug her black stockings and the smooth line of her cleavage jumped out to say hello.

"I want you now, baby," I said. "Shut your damned trap and bend over so I can do the nasty." As soon as it was out I clapped my hand over my mouth, but she read the motion as an act of sarcasm. She jerked up straight.

"I'm not your slut, Joe. And don't change the subject. Our life together does not just revolve around you."

"The hell it doesn't! Do you really think that the chump change you make at the boutique even comes close to—"