Black-Winged Tuesday Read online

The door opened, and with a girly giggle she entered and left him staring at the wiggle of her pert behind as the door closed. Standing next in line, he felt intimidated by the decision looming before him.

  “Steven?” Herman asked as he looked around for his guide.

  “Sorry. Over here! I’m coming.”

  Herman couldn’t see Steven for the mob of people that seemed to have congregated behind him. Finally elbowing his way from between a tall man in a pilot’s suit and a flight attendant, Steven appeared with a hotdog in one hand and a tall Coke in the other.

  “Where were you? I’m about to enter the judgment room, and you’ve gone out for a snack?” Herman demanded.

  “Sorry. I thought the red head would distract you longer. There was a rush of people, some plane crash, and Satan decided to capitalize and set up a hot dog stand.”

  “Did you at least bring me -” With that Herman was cut off as the door opened, and a smiling old lady with white hair and all her teeth took his hand.

  As he passed through the door to the judgment room, he turned around to say goodbye to Steven who waved his hotdog at him and took a long sip of Coke. The last thing Herman heard before turning around to face his judgment was that refreshing “AHHH” of unadulterated Coca-Cola bliss.

  Herman turned, guided by the little old lady still holding his hand the way a mother would hold the hand of her precious child, and felt his jaw drop at the sight of the judgment room. He’d had two visions of what to expect – something traditional with a fountain and a diamond staircase leading to the pearly gates of heaven, or more in tune with the way the rest of his day had been going, maybe a cheesy game show from the disco era with angels in bell bottoms.

  What he saw in front of him was neither of those things. It was an airport, all clean lines of stainless steel, Neutrals dressed in gray on the lookout for suspicious packages, and throngs of people. He’d never seen such a sterile, cold environment. But maybe that was the point.

  “Surprised?” asked his little old lady whom he now noticed was wearing a gray skirt suit with an H2H logo on her more than ample bosom.

  “Oh, you have no idea,” replied Herman who turned red, ashamed of thinking that the old lady’s bosom certainly looked younger than she did.

  She stepped behind what could only be compared to a ticket counter and handed him a keypad. “What’s your destination, sir? Good, Bad, or Neutral? Once you’ve made your decision please press the correct button.”

  Herman bit his lip, unsure of what to do. There was that cute little number Maggie. Not that he’d ever have enough nerve to do anything about it, but maybe in the span of eternity he could work up enough gumption to make his move. But he didn’t think he’d make a very good Bad guardian angel. How could he advise someone else to do evil when he’d never had enough courage to try it out for himself? The minutes ticked on as Herman contemplated his decision.

  The old lady behind the counter continued staring at him, and then bent over behind the counter, seemed to wrestle with something, and appeared again. “Here, we don’t have forever. Try these,” she said, handing him a pair of delicate ladies underwear.

  “I…I’m sorry?” stuttered Herman in wide-eyed disbelief.

  “They are our sorting panties. Our sorting hat is out of order. It will tell us where your true heart lies. Go on, there’s a restroom just behind you. I’ll be here when you come out,” she explained.

  There was no way Herman was going to put on a pair of red lace panties, so he quickly made his decision. “There’s really no need,” he said hurriedly, “I’ll be a Good.” He pressed the Good button on the keypad and handed it back to her.

  The old lady behind the counter chuckled. “Works every time,” she mused. She bent down and shimmied her panties up to where they belonged.

  While the old lady worked typing information into her computer, the thought that things could not possibly get any weirder crossed Herman’s mind, but he quickly shooed it away, afraid to tempt fate.

  Herman decided to make small talk despite knowing he had no knack for it. “So how long have you been here?”

  “Oh, about five years. I was seventy two and going strong when I died in a freak boating accident. Contrary to popular belief these things don’t float, but then again I did buy them on Ebay for my seventieth birthday,” she said, signaling the assets Herman had admired earlier.

  “Wow” was the only response Herman could manage as he cursed himself for daring fate to shock him. It was his experience that fate rarely let him down.

  “I’ve shared too much, haven’t I? My husband was always getting on me for over sharing with strangers. Anyway, dear, I’ve finished putting your information into the computer. Your flight to Heaven is in two hours. You’ll wait there until you hear from your handler. Here is your cell phone. It will go off when your handler has the perfect assignment for you. Now if you’ll just proceed around the corner to the right, you need to have your identification made.”

  Herman was surprised at how quickly she morphed back into business mode after their counter-side confessional, but he took the cell phone, thanked her and moved on. He rounded the corner and on his right, per her directions, was a small room with a very grave man behind a desk. The room was a sea of gray, from the man’s suit to the walls behind him, and the lighting was poor, an oddly ubiquitous problem in mug shots, dressing rooms, and most especially DMVs, Herman thought. The only bit of light in the room came from one bright spotlight illuminating the blue backdrop in the rear corner of the office.

  He gently rapped on the door. “Excuse me, sir. I was told to come here for an identification card?”

  Without looking up, the man asked, “Name?”

  Herman responded while the man typed.

  “Stand in front of the backdrop, please, Herman.”

  Herman did as instructed. The man stepped up to the fancy digital camera and pursed his lips in consternation. “Herman, there’s a glare on your glasses. Remove them, please.” Herman did so, and the man snapped the picture; the printer whirred and shot out his identification card. The man glanced at the picture as he handed the card to Herman, and in his first show of emotion, nodded approvingly at the image he held in his hands. “Not bad. I’d lose those glasses if I were you.”

  Herman looked down at the picture that would haunt him for all of eternity and saw just a regular guy, without glasses. He left, returning his glasses to their proper place as soon as he turned the corner.

  According to the departure monitors, his flight was scheduled to leave from gate G7. On his way to the gate, Herman passed all sorts of stores including “Dead, Death, and Beyond: All the essentials for travel in the afterlife,” and an equal opportunity sports bar called “Hooters and Peckers.”

  Herman quickly found his gate, sat down, and hoped he was safe from any more encounters with “interesting” characters. He put on his usual face that screamed “Don’t sit next to me” and began to relax only to be jarred to attention a short while later by a flight attendant reminding passengers that drinks would be $5.00, water $2.00, and snacks $10.00 and up.

  Herman grunted, took a pen out of his shirt pocket, and looked around for something on which to write his strongly worded complaint letter to H2H airlines. Lucky for the airline, they were saved this piece of junk mail by Herman’s phone.

  Herman jumped as it vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and to his surprise, he had one new text containing the following message:

  “Herman, it’s your lucky day. No need to catch your flight. I’ve got the perfect assignment for you. Go to ‘Hooters and Peckers’ and tell the bartender you like Tapioca. – Norton, Your Handler Extraordinaire.”

  Herman was glad to be spared, even temporarily, the outrage of the airline’s exorbitant fees, so he quickly strode off to Hooters and Peckers.

  A young, perky hostess greeted him with a smile, when he walked in the orange door. “Are you a hooter or a pecker?”

  Not sure how to answer th
at question, Herman replied somewhat uncertainly, ”Umm…pecker, I guess.”

  Her smile widened. “Certainly sir, follow me.”

  When she led him left into a room decorated with woodpeckers and scantily clad men, Herman spoke up. “Miss, I think there’s been a little misunderstanding. I prefer hooters, if you get my drift.”

  She looked embarrassed. “Oh, dear. My mistake. Come this way.” She led him into a room much more to his liking, and Herman spotted his target behind the bar.

  He left his escort and headed over to where a tall, bald man with a scar over his left eye and a patch over his right stood deftly pouring a beer. Herman took a seat and announced to all within earshot, “I like Tapioca.”

  The man sitting next to Herman moved one stool over, and the bartender looked at him, cocking his scarred eyebrow. Without saying a word, he reached under the bar, pulled out a portable DVD player, handed it to Herman and with his wooden peg finger pointed to a private booth in the corner.

  Herman walked over to the booth, all the while keeping an eye on the bartender whose one good eye remained trained on him. Once in the privacy of the booth, Herman pressed play on the little gadget, and on the screen appeared a tiny Italian man complete with dark sunglasses, beige trench coat, and a brown, comb-over toupee trying diligently to swallow his head.

  The man on the screen began to talk with a harsh Jersey accent that didn’t seem to fit his small stature. “Herman, this is Norton, your handler. But you can call me N. If you look under your booth, you will find a dossier on your new assignment, Charlie Woodson. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to guide him and advise him wisely. All you need to know is in the dossier. Your partner will meet you there. This message will self destruct if you are not careful.”

  With that, the screen went blank leaving Herman wondering where all of the normal people went when they died and if this Charlie Woodson character would mind very much if he showed up at his first day on the job drunk.

  Herman recognized that it was Tuesday, so instead of ordering a cold beer, he reached under his seat. The pudgy, worn manila envelope ripped easily from its velcro stays under the bench. He glanced around, satisfied himself that he wasn't being observed, and then spread the contents of the envelope out on the table.

  There were two single-spaced typed sheets of paper clipped together with a photo of a non-descript young man, a name tag from a company called Office Supply HQ with "Herman" printed on it, a billfold with $200 in cash and an American Express corporate card from H2H Enterprises, and a key ring with no keys - only a red button that said "Send" enclosed by a metal loop, and a small, laminated orange card with the following instructions:

  1. Press "Send" to be transported to the location of your current assignment.

  2. If you press "Send" while on Earth, you will be returned to the same spot in the spirit world from which you departed.

  3. Send Button, LLC disclaims any and all responsibility for any transport error (including transport to an undesired location, inability to transport, customers lost in transit, whether temporarily or permanently, and any other error) resulting from the use of this product, whether such error arises out of a product malfunction, a design defect or user ignorance.

  4. Have a nice trip.

  Herman put the billfold in his pants pocket and clipped on his name tag, noting for the first time that it also specified he was an employee in the "Mail Room." Great.

  He read the first paragraph of Charlie's bio and quickly decided that maybe he hadn't been as boring during his own life as he'd previously imagined. Poor Charlie was an unfavored son working, as he had since getting his business degree from Central Valley College, at his uncle's office supply business.

  Herman decided to save the rest of Charlie's life story for later, so he folded it into thirds and slipped it into his back pocket.

  Then he grabbed the little key ring and pressed "Send."

  Chapter Two

  A giant sucking sound drew Herman’s attention, and he turned to see that the bar was no longer visible. Or rather it no longer looked like it should have - angular, solid and generally Euclidian. Now it seemed as if all reality outside his booth was being stretched and twisted, whirled about like the colored sugar used to make those incredibly large lollipops barkers sold at the county fair.

  As the bartender and his fine establishment became increasingly distorted, the middle of the image started to shimmer. In a few moments, it became transparent, giving Herman a glimpse of a parking lot dotted with reedy trees and late-model sedans. The image steadied, and Herman could almost feel the sun on his face.

  He got up from the booth and stepped through the opening, expecting to be transported immediately across the barrier and onto the shimmering asphalt, but the trip was not instantaneous. He took a single step forward and the scenery blurred and rushed past him and then stopped. He turned, his eyes confirming that the smoky border of heaven's waiting room was now far behind him on the horizon. Another step forward, followed by another motion sickness inducing landscape change, and he was surrounded by clouds and blue sky. Another step brought him into visual range of what was clearly California and the undulating golden hills in the center of the state. A welcome sign told him his charge lived in the appetizingly named town of Strawberry, and finally he found himself putting his foot out into the parking lot of Office Supply HQ.

  The building itself was a four-story refrigerator with windows. Typical of office parks everywhere, except this one had a large red sign bearing the company name and logo above the door and a balloon in the shape of a pencil moored just off to one side. The balloon was yellow, with the company name stenciled on one end, and roughly the size of a small camper. It floated about two stories above the ground, giving the place the feel of a used car lot.

  Herman asked the overweight man behind the front desk for directions to the company mail room.

  “Oh, you must be Olive’s replacement,” the man said. He lifted his arm to point out a bank of elevators across the lobby. The action caused his unbuttoned jacket to part, revealing a crisp white shirt at least one size too small; the straining buttons and fleshy divots drew Herman's eye as he listened to the man tell him to go down one floor to the basement, turn right and go through the double doors at the end of the hall.

  "Thank you," Herman said, leaving the man at his post to go in search of his own.

  Downstairs, the double doors of the mailroom burst open just as Herman arrived, and a large man in chocolate-brown polyester pants and a short-sleeved white dress shirt stormed into the hall, his hands raised toward the ceiling. Herman was close enough to see the yellow stains under his arms.

  “And don’t let me come down here again and catch you titivating when you should be working,” the man shouted back into the room through the still swinging doors. He punched the wall with his hammy right fist and waved a blue and white delivery envelope in front of the mailroom window. “I told you I wanted this as soon as it arrived!”

  Two employees stood on the other side of the glass. One, a spry Hispanic fellow in a vivid yellow and white Hawaiian shirt, nodded and smiled at the man. “Yes, boss,” he yelled. “No problem.” The other was facing away from the window and turned his head just far enough to pass for an acknowledgement.

  The angry man turned to Herman. “Who are you?”

  Herman pointed to his name tag. “I’m Herman. I’m the new mailroom guy.”

  The man came forward with his hand extended. “Lucian Phipps,” he said. “President of the company.”

  Herman nodded appreciatively. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Phipps.”

  “You don’t look like the lazy type,” he replied, eyeing Herman’s business casual ensemble.

  “I’m sorry?” Herman asked.

  Mr. Phipps looked at his watch. “We start here at eight o’clock, young man.”

  Herman looked down. It was five of nine. “I must have gotten the wrong information. It won’t happen again.”<
br />
  “See that it doesn’t. What are you doing here anyway? You don’t look like your last job was in a mailroom.”

  Herman faked a self-conscious smile. “Recession, sir. I got laid off from my job at a…a… computer support company last month. I’m looking for things more in my line, but in the meantime, I need to keep busy.”

  Phipps got an admiring gleam in his eye. “That’s the spirit, young man. You keep that attitude and you’ll go far.” He stepped around Herman and started for the elevator. “Feel free to stop in some time when you’re making the rounds, son. I want to make sure Ernest and Oscar are training you properly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lucian Phipps disappeared into the elevator, and Herman went to meet his fellow sufferers.

  “You must be the new guy. I’m Oscar,” said the Hispanic guy. “And this turnip is Ernie.”

  “Ernest,” the man corrected, turning to shake Herman’s hand. Ernest was a couple of inches taller than Herman, making him at least six foot three, but was wiry thin, so not very threatening. Not to mention he sported a gray-blond mustache that covered most of the lower half of his face. Under the mustache he wore an untucked, green flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of faded black jeans.

  “Ernest sorts the incoming,” Oscar explained, “and I take care of shipping. You’ll be delivery. Your cart is over there.” He pointed to a two-tiered trolley. “You’ll make two complete rounds each day. It takes about an hour per floor to get around. When you come back, Ernie will have the next batch ready for you, and you can give any packages you’ve picked up to me. Outgoing letters just get dropped in this box over here.”

  Herman noted the large, white postal service box on the floor next to the door. Above it hung a poster of a young starlet, scantily clad, and apparently running from a giant robot.

  “Got it?” Oscar asked.

  “I think so,” Herman said. “Nice poster.”

  Oscar laughed. “Yeah, now that Olive’s gone, Ernie and I are making the place our own. At least for a while. Jessica here was our first addition. We were putting it up when Mr. Phipps came in.”