Black-Winged Tuesday Read online

  Black-Winged

  Tuesday

  By

  Alicia Ryan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 Alicia Ryan

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1468079085

  ISBN-13: 978-1468079081

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to my sister, Katrina, for moral and editorial support and to my husband, Robert, for all he does for me every day.

  Alicia Ryan

  Chapter One

  On Tuesday, a jet engine fell out of the sky and crushed Herman Morrie and all his worldly possessions. The jet engine was unexpected, but Tuesdays were historically bad days for Herman, so as he surveyed the second smoking crater he’d ever seen in his life, he had to admit he wasn’t terribly surprised. A fateful Tuesday had outdone him once more.

  His mortal remains, now somewhere at the bottom of the hole he was looking down on, were probably pressed into a man-shaped stain on his off-white corduroy couch, which was in turn now just an ember pressed into whatever remained of his living room wall. The entire scene looked as if he’d opened a jar labeled “Black Hole,” and his life had compressed in on itself, taking him with it. And perhaps it was for the best, he thought. Who knew what havoc future Tuesdays might have wrought on him or on perfectly innocent bystanders?

  He had a long history with Tuesdays. He’d only been five when his mother left, and he wasn’t sure what day it had been when she’d packed her bags, but when his father finally told him mommy wasn’t coming home, it had been a Tuesday.

  And it had been a Tuesday night that found him standing in front of Mary Louise Johnson with his pants down at the junior high “Spring Fling” dance. That was when the pattern revealed itself to him – the parade of horrors that Tuesdays consistently brought into his life.

  Of course some good things had happened to him. He tried to remember those, too. For instance, as soon as he was old enough, his father had let him start working in his garage, and Herman enjoyed spending time with him.

  His father, Carl Morrie, was a soft-spoken man, but also wise and kind. He didn’t charge people too much, less if he knew they couldn’t afford it, and he kept quiet about neighborhood and church politics unless he was directly asked. Even then, he usually just reminded the questioner about the golden rule or some other appropriate biblical precept. So there were basically two things people knew about Carl Morrie – he was a godly man and one hell of a mechanic. And he was generally regarded as a good father to his strange little boy who liked to read comics and tend to his pet ants.

  Working at the garage helped Herman discover his talent for taking things apart and putting them back together. After high school, he’d enrolled in the local community college, and then transferred to Tennessee State to study engineering.

  His father had been so proud, but he never got to see Herman graduate. A massive stroke had taken him early one morning just as he was starting to break down the engine of a 1976 Ford pickup. They said death had been pretty much instantaneous, and wasn’t that a good thing as Carl had been the only one at the garage so early on a Tuesday.

  Herman had come home to bury Carl Morrie in the local cemetery in Hattiesburg in a quiet, godly service befitting a quiet, godly man. He’d gotten his father a nice stone, too, but then hadn’t known what to put on it. He told the man he didn’t want to rush, since it was going to be written in stone, and he’d let him know when he came up with what he wanted.

  It took two days before Herman realized the answer had been staring him in the face all along on the old tin sign that hung on the telephone pole outside the garage: “Hattiesburg Garage: Fixing What’s Broke Since 1939.” He thought the previous owners had probably come up with the slogan, but decided if it was good enough for Carl in life, it would be good enough in death. So Carl Morrie, “born 1935, died 1985 – fixed what was broke in between,” became the proud owner of one of Hattiesburg Memorial Gardens’ most distinctive epitaphs.

  In short order, Herman sold both the garage and the old house, and after his final year at university, moved to California. He remembered at the time having some idea that maybe location was the problem – that if he left Tennessee his luck could only get better.

  For a while after the move, his luck seemed to hold. He got a good job as a civil engineer and put up one big railroad bridge of which he was particularly proud.

  It was five years before the faulty water heater in his house exploded on a Tuesday afternoon, leaving a smoking, house-sized crater in the middle of Squirrel Lane. He’d been at work at the time, and the blast thankfully hadn’t hurt any of his neighbors.

  He’d thought briefly about renting an apartment so the place would have regular maintenance, but the way his luck seemed to be trending, he’d thought it somewhat irresponsible to live in close proximity to other people. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt the next time his house exploded or a car crashed through the front window or a jet engine fell on it.

  Down below, the noise of the accident scene reclaimed his attention. It appeared to have roused all the neighbors, and they were now pouring into the street to meet the flashing police cars making the turn onto Kindley Drive. A few more seconds and a fire truck followed close behind.

  “At least you went out with a bang,” a voice said from Herman’s left. He turned to see a gray-clad figure standing about ten feet from him – if standing was the right word to describe what a semi- transparent being did when looking down from the clouds.

  It appeared to be a young man with wavy brown hair wearing a gray robe, but Herman had never seen the likes of either. The young man was, to put it simply, beautiful to behold. Herman’s first thought was that Michelangelo should have used him as the model for David or else not have bothered.

  The robe served the purpose of covering parts of the young man’s body from view, but otherwise it was as unlike cloth as anything Herman could have imagined. It was more like tiny bits of light or smoke – or both – that shifted, slipped, and swirled as the man moved, covering him in an ever-changing cloud of lightest gray.

  “What are you?” Herman asked.

  “I am a Neutral,” the young man responded. “Neutrals like me escort people like you once they’ve…passed…to the judgment chamber.”

  A bolt of fear lit Herman’s insides. He thought he’d lived a decent life, but he hadn’t been to church in years. Would the big man hold that against him?

  Of course, he would, Herman decided. It was Tuesday.

  “If you’ll come this way,” the young man asked politely, gesturing with his right arm to where a series of puffy clouds formed a kind of stairway. Herman couldn’t see where it led, but started walking anyway, and the young man fell in beside him.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know on the way.”

  As they climbed, Herman hoped the staircase was as endless as it felt. Something about the term ‘judgment chamber’ brought back fearful images of his old preacher, the Reverend Eli Castor, an intimidating man over six feet tall with white hair, a round belly, and an overzealous desire for fried chicken and praising the Lord, in that order.

  From childhood to his teenage years, his father had made sure Herman had been in attendance at church every Sunday like a good southern boy. Not to mention if you missed a Sunday, Rev. Castor would be on your doorstep the next evening talking about how God wanted his people in a pew.

  So Herman went every Sunday with his father and tried his best to listen to th
e sermons on the sins of alcohol and the flesh, but his best wasn’t very good. He always wound up reading the Bible or staring out the window. As long as he was quiet, his father didn’t scold him.

  When he was twelve, he’d agreed to be baptized – the full immersion dunking where Rev. Castor always got a little too carried away, and the newest Christians emerged not so much with the fear of God as with the fear of water. After that, Herman had expected to be able to pay better attention, but something about that man waving his black-robed, chicken-grease stained sleeves up and down and yelling at the congregation just seemed ridiculous. He used to imagine Rev. Castor’s robes were really a set of black wings and that if he concentrated hard enough he could help the preacher take off.

  Now, however, as Herman glanced at this young man beside him clothed in a smoky robe, completely free from grease stains, he wished he had paid more attention on Sundays and less time trying to levitate the minister - less Luke Skywalker, more Gospel of Luke.

  Each upward step he took only served to increase his panic, prying his thoughts from their rational moorings. What if there’s a quiz? he wondered. Who was it that built the ark – Noah or Jonah? Was his name Paul or Saul after his conversion? Why do all of these names have to rhyme?

  “I’ve never seen a dead man sweat before,” observed the young man with a chuckle.

  Herman frowned. “Do you mean to tell me I’m still going to have sweaty palms in the afterlife?”

  “It’s probably just a temporary leftover from your living state. I’m sure this too will pass,” replied the young man as he patted Herman’s arm.

  “What do you mean ‘this too’?”

  “Well, we all bring some quirks from our real life into the afterlife, but normally once you’ve chosen sides, the quirk disappears. Mine was narcolepsy.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I follow you. What about choosing sides?” Herman asked.

  “Well let me start from the beginning and tell you how it happened for me. In my human life my name was Steven Lawson, and I worked for Disney. I was one of those guys who got to walk around in the hot Mickey suit and make little children cry. But anyway, I digress. I was at work one day, driving a golf cart to get to my next autograph signing when my narcolepsy kicked in. Asleep at the wheel, I crashed into Cinderella’s castle and, one giant mouse-sized splat later, died.”

  ”I’m sorry,” Herman said.

  Steven shrugged and continued, “As I watched the staff try to shield my remains from the innocent eyes of children, my Neutral showed up and escorted me up to the judgment room.”

  At the terrified look on Herman’s face, Steven laughed. “It’s not what you’re expecting. Christians have been getting this part wrong for just about forever.” Stephen jabbed him in the ribs with a smoke cloaked elbow. “But, hey, Sunday School teachers had to make you behave somehow, didn’t they? The judgment room is all about your judgment. You decide which side to play for.”

  Herman had the feeling that this was a dumb question, but he asked it anyway. “What are my options?”

  “Well, you can decide to be a Good, a Bad, or a Neutral like me.”

  His interest piqued, Herman raised the obvious questions. “Why did you decide to be a Neutral? And why would anyone decide to be a Bad?”

  “I’m a Neutral kind of by accident. When my choice came up, my narcolepsy kicked in again and my head fell forward and hit the Neutral button, so here I am” replied Steven.

  “Oh, so what would you have picked?”

  “I think I would have been a Bad. I mean, all my life I spent being good in fear of what was waiting on the other side. Then I got here and found out it would be my choice. I could play for the Good team and continue as I had all my life, or I could play for the Bad team and finally be able to say ‘screw it all!’” Steven’s response carried more passion and fervor than Rev. Castor’s sermon on homecoming Sunday.

  Herman noticed as Steven spoke his robes had morphed from the light, airy gray to something more reminiscent of a tornado cloud. Steven followed Herman’s gaze, noticed the color change, and gathered his composure.

  “Herman, I’m sorry about that. I got a little carried away. Where were we?”

  “The teams,” answered Herman.

  “Ahh, yes,” began Steven, “the teams. As needed, certain humans are given guardian angels to guide them. So, once you choose, you’ll be partnered with a member of the opposite team and assigned a human to guide.”

  “Kind of like Jiminy Cricket?” ventured Herman.

  “Yeah, exactly like Jiminy Cricket. That’s a good comparison for humans. We should put that in the welcome video.” With that declaration, Steven pulled a small notepad and pen out of a hidden pocket of his smoke robe and jotted it down. “I’ll get big points with my boss for that one.”

  “Why would God send a Bad angel to watch over someone?”

  Steven shrugged. “There’s some sort of system that sorts out who goes where and why, but I don’t know exactly how it works. I’ve heard there’s a lot more behind the scenes wrangling between God and Lucifer about these sorts of things than you might expect.” He shot Herman a glance. “That’s just rumor, mind you. Don’t go spreading it around.”

  Herman pondered that for quite some time, after which he began to wonder just how long the staircase could possibly go on. How long had they been walking? What was one staircase in the expanse of eternity?

  Steven interrupted Herman’s brief encounter with existentialism by triumphantly announcing, “Here we are.”

  Herman looked around at where “here” was. Unfortunately, it appeared to be the end of a very long line. Glitzy, flashing billboards flanked either side of the queuing crowd promising those who chose to be Bads all sorts of tantalizing deals.

  After not moving for a while and staring at each other in awkward silence, Herman asked impatiently, “Isn’t there a fast pass or something?”

  “There is, but I’ve already used my quota for the month. Sorry. Looks like you’ll have to wait. But before I forget, you do have to fill out a comment card.”

  Steven handed Herman the comment card and a pencil, and Herman tackled the one and only question. “How can we make the journey to the judgment room better?” Herman carefully wrote “Escalator and a little ‘Stairway to Heaven’ music to ease our fears” and handed it back to Steven.

  Steven put the comment card into his invisible pocket as they advanced forward in the line. After another interminable wait, a doorway came into view with flashing green neon lights announcing that this was indeed the judgment room.

  Herman’s first impression was that the door looked like the entrance to one of the seedy bars in his hometown he had tried once, unsuccessfully, to sneak into as a teenager. Not quite what he was expecting, but then what was? Certainly not the narcoleptic angel guide who lamented not crossing over to the dark side. Nor the fact that his Sunday school teachers had been wrong. Nor that a large lady on a scooter was getting ushered to the front of the line before his very eyes! He threw a questioning glance at Steven.

  “The elderly and handicapped get to go to the front of the line,” he explained. “Just don’t try to fake it. That happened once. The guy zoomed up to the front in his motorized wheel chair, and once the door opened, he was so excited that he stood up. When the rest of the line started to boo, he yelled out that he’d been miraculously cured.”

  “So what happened to him?”

  Steven cocked a brow. “There are levels of hell, you know. Some of them just have really interesting nightlife, but others – well, I hear they’re not very nice.

  By now, only three people stood between Herman and eternity. As the door opened for the next person to enter, Herman saw a bright flash of light that seemed to consume the darkness of the doorway.

  His voice trembled as he asked, “Is…Is that God?”

  Steven laughed. “Oh no, that’s just the photographer. Even in the afterlife you have to have some form of identificati
on.”

  Herman laughed the relieved, nervous laugh that he used too often in uncomfortable social situations – asking girls out on dates (not that there were many of those), declining to contribute money to charitable organizations, and waiting in the interminable line to make the biggest decision of his life…er…death.

  At the sound of his laughter, the red-head in front of him turned around and held out her hand. “Hi,” she said, giving him an appraising look. “I’m Maggie Linlow. What are you in for?” She spoke with a slow, obviously fake, Southern drawl.

  He tried to ignore the hand with long red nails in front of him, but she was persistent. So he extended his hand and said, “Herman. I’m in for life.”

  She giggled. “So am I. Have you decided which team you’ll play for yet?” She wiggled suggestively as she bent down to tighten the gold strap of her stilettos.

  Herman replied with a slight crack in his voice, “No. I’m not too good at decisions. How about you?”

  “Oh, most definitely I’m going to be a Bad. I have to carry on my legacy,” she answered, pushing down the short gold skirt that had ridden up.

  Herman tried not to be distracted. “Your legacy?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said as she twirled strand of her red hair around her finger. “I met my end doing the nasty,” she said with a wink.

  Herman choked and sputtered, “What?”

  “I’m part of the oldest profession, darling. Do I need to spell it out for you? The fat, old bugger had a heart attack right on top of me, and I suffocated. Not exactly the glamorous end I imagined, let me tell you.”

  “Well, it’s better than being squished flat by a falling jet engine,” Herman replied.

  Her green eyes grew big as saucers at that news. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. What are the odds of that?”

  “It’s Tuesday. The odds were pretty good,” he said dryly.

  The humor was lost on her.