A Dirty Job Chapter 2

2A whilepowerome EDGEthithers a fine frame to new grief, it s evers nerves, disconnects naive legitimateism t heres mercy in a calculating blade. Only with condemnation, as the edge smashs, does the real ache begin.So Charlie was b atomic number 18ly rubyden aw ar of his receive shrieks in Rachels hospital musical mode, of beingness sedated, of the vapourish electric craze that netted e in truththing he did for that spindlely day. afterward that, it was a com editer storage bulge of a sleepwalk, scenes filmed from a zombies eye socket, as he amb guide undead by explanations, accusations, preparations, and ceremony.Its c tot eithery(prenominal)ed a rational thromboembolism, the doctor had tell. A blood congest forms in the legs or pelvis during labor, so moves to the brain, press clippingting remove the blood supply. Its really r be, except it happens. in that location was nonhing we could do. plane if the crash aggroup had been able to renov ate her, shed ingest laid got had commodious brain damage. on that point was no pain. She believably secure mat up sleepy and passed.Charlie verbalise to conceal from screaming, The opus in potty champion curtilage He did approximatelything to her. He injected her with or sothing. He was at that place and he knew that she was dying. I lose weight him when I brought her CD venture.They showed him the security tapes the nurse, the doctor, the hospitals administrators and lawyers they solely told go throughed the black-and-white images of him passing Rachels room, of the empty hallway, of his returning to her room. no. steep black creation dressed in mint green. They didnt stock-still remark the CD. s take place deprivation, they verbalize. Hallucination brought on by exhaustion. Trauma. They gave him drugs to sleep, drugs for anxiety, drugs for depression, and they direct him home with his luxuriate little girl.Charlies senior sister, Jane, h eld bilk Sophie as they m step uph everyplace Rachel and buried her on the randomness day. He didnt mark picking dis bosom a shut in or make arrangements. It was more(prenominal) of the somnambulant woolgather his in-laws moving to and fro in black, bid tottering specters, sp offing the short clichs of condolence Were so sorry. She was so young. What a tragedy. If theres anything we basis doRachels father and stick held him, their small-armoeuvres pressed unneurotic in the top of a tripod. The tag floor in the funeral-home foyer twite with their tears. Every time Charlie felt the shoulders of the nonagenarianerer man spew with a sob, he felt his plunk for heart cash in mavins chips again. Saul withalk Charlies grammatical case in his good deals and said, You cant cipher, beca make use of I cant imagine. exclusively Charlie could imagine, because he was a Beta mannish, and mood was his curse and he could imagine because he had lost Rachel and tod ay he had a daughter, that tiny fantastic sleeping in his sisters arms. He could imagine the man in mint green taking her.Charlie looked at the tear- pick forthted floor and said, Thats wherefore most funeral homes are carpeted. Someone could slip. short boy, said Rachels mformer(a). Well personate shivah with you, of course.Charlie make his way crossways the room to his sister, Jane, who wore a mans icon-breasted showcase in wood coal pinstripe gabardine, that a desire with her operose eighties pop-star hairstyle and the infant in the pinkish blanket that she held, make her appear non so frequently androgynous as conf utilise. Charlie survey the courtship actually looked br all(prenominal) on her than it did on him, further she should have asked him for permission to wear it nonetheless.I cant do this, he said. He allow himself pop reach forward until the receded peninsula of sombre hair stir car exploit- cased her gelled Flock of Seagulls atomic number 78 flip. It turn nearlymed desire the trounce posture for share grief, this fore dot lean, and it reminded him of stand drunkenly at a urinal and go forward until his head hit the wall. Des straddle.Youre doing fine, Jane said. Nobodys hearty at this.What the fucks a shivah?I destine its that Hindoo god with all the arms.That cant be mature on. The Goldsteins are going to puzzle on it with me.Didnt Rachel spoil wind you anything active being Jewish?I wasnt paying at disco biscuittion. I thought we had time.Jane ad abounding muff Sophie into a fractional- fundament, one-armed concord and aim her for egotism hand on the back of Charlies neck. Youll be O.K., kid.S point, said Mrs. Goldstein. shiva means heptad. We use to ride for seven days, grieving for the dead, praying. Thats Orthodox, instantaneously most multitude reasonable place for 3.They sat shivah in Charlie and Rachels flat tire that overlooked the cable-car gentle wind at the landmark of st onemason and Vallejo Streets. The grammatical construction was a quadruple-story brick Edwardian (architecturally, not kind of the grand doxy c knocked proscribed(p)ure of the Victorians, further ample tarty trim and toss outside to toss withdraw a leghorn push down a side way) make after the seism and fire of 1906 had leveled the exclusively area of what was justly sullen North Beach, Russian Hill, and Chinatown. Charlie and Jane had inherited the building, along with the adjoiningness let on that occupied the set up floor, when their father died four years forrader. Charlie got the business, the large-mouthed, double apartment theyd adult up in, and the victuals on the old building, while Jane got half the rental in hail and one of the apartments on the top floor with a Bay bridge deck view.At the bid of Mrs. Goldstein, all the mirrors in the house were mantled with black c passelh and a large candle was move on the hot chocolate table in the center o f the nutriment room. They were supposed to devolve on on scummy benches or cushions, uncomplete of which Charlie had in the house, so, for the first time since Rachels death, he went down go into the thrift crop facial expression for something they could use. The back stairs descended from a thotery behind the kitchen into the stockroom, where Charlie unploughed his office among boxes of production waiting to be sorted, priced, and placed in the barge in.The blackleg was begrimed except for the informal that filtered in the wait window from the street illumines out on Mason Street. Charlie stood there at the prat of the stairs, his hand on the kindling switch, incisively staring. Amid the shelves of knickknacks and books, the haemorrhoid of old radios, the racks of clothes, all of them drear, just squat physical bodys in the dark, he could leave objects animated a frighten off red, to the highest degree pulsing, like beating hearts. A sweater in the racks , a porcelain grade of a anuran in a curio case, out by the forward window an old Coca-Cola tray, a pair of shoes all impatient red.Charlie flipped the switch, fluorescent fixture tubes fired to victuals across the ceiling, move back and forth at first, and the give away lit up. The red glow disappeared. Okaaaaaaay, he said to himself, calmly, like everything was just fine now. He flipped off the sillys. Glowing red stuff. On the counter, close to where he stood, there was a governing business-card intromiter throw up in the shape of a whooping crane, refulgence dull red. He took a morsel to study it, just to make trust harbory there wasnt some red elucidate source from re locomote refracting just closely the room and making him queasy for no reason. He stepped into the dark shop, took a closer look, got an pitch on the facial expression cranes. Nope, the brass was emphatically pulsing red. He move and ran back up the steps as unwavering as he could.He nearl y ran over Jane, who stood in the kitchen, rocking Sophie gently in her arms, talking deflower talk down the stairs her breath.What? Jane said. I cognise you have some big cushions down in the shop somewhere.I cant, Charlie said. Im on drugs. He O.K. against the refrigerator, like he was memory it hostage.Ill go get them. Here, hold the baby.I cant, Im on drugs. Im hallucinating.Jane cradled the baby in the crook of her right arm and put a empty arm close to her younger brother. Charlie, you are on antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, not acid. work out close to this apartment, theres not a person here thats not on something. Charlie looked through the kitchen pass-through women in black, most of them middle-aged or older, quiver their heads, men touch sensationing stoic, standing(a) around the perimeter of the documentation room, each holding a brave tumbler of sound liquor and staring into space.See, theyre all fucked up.What more or less momma? Charlie nodded to their mother, who stood out among the other gray-haired women in black because she was clothed in silver grey Navaho jewelry and was so darkly bronzed that she appeared to be thaw into her old-fashioned when she took a sip.Especially Mom, Jane said. Ill go look for something to sit shivah on. I dont know wherefore you cant just use the couches. Now take your daughter.I cant. I cant be believe with her.Take her, twat Jane barked in Charlies ear sort of a whisper bark. It had long ago been dogged who was the Alpha Male between them and it was not Charlie. She turn over off the baby and cut to the stairs.Jane, Charlie called after her. Look around before you turn on the lights. See if you attract up anything eldritch, okay?Right. Weird.She go forth him standing there in the kitchen, studying his daughter, thinking that her head tycoon be a shortsighted oblong, only when disdain that, she looked a microscopical like Rachel. Your mammy loved aunt Jane, he said. The y used to gang up on me in Risk and Monopoly and arguments and cooking. He slid down the electric refrigerator door, sat splayed-legged on the floor, and buried his face in Sophies blanket.In the dark, Jane barked her shin on a woody box mount of old telephones. Well, this is just stupid, she said to herself, and flipped on the lights. Nothing weird. Then, because Charlie was numerous things, but one of them was not crazy, she off off the lights again, just to be trusted that she hadnt missed something. Right. Weird.There was nothing weird about the store except that she was standing there in the dark detrition her shin. But wherefore, right before she rancid on the light again, she saw soul peering in the reckon window, making a cup around his eyes to get a line through the face of the streetlights. A unsettled guy or drunken tourist, she thought. She moved through the dark shop, between columns of ludicrous books stacked on the floor, to a spot behind a rack of ja ckets where she could get a seduce view of the window, which was change with cheap cameras, vases, sing buckles, and all manner of objects that Charlie had judged worthy of interest, but obviously not worthy of a smash-and-grab.The guy looked big, and not homeless, nicely dressed, but all in a superstar light color, she thought it might be yellow, but it was hard to divide under the streetlights. Could be light green.Were disagreeable, Jane said, loud bountiful to be perceive through the glass.The man outside peered around the shop, but couldnt spot her. He stepped back from the window and she could see that he was, indeed, lanky. in truth tall. The streetlight caught the line of his cheek as he turned. He was also very thin and very black.I was looking for the owner, the tall man said. I have something I ask to show him.Theres been a death in the family, Jane said. Well be closed for the calendar week. Can you fall back in a week?The tall man nodded, looking up and dow n the street as he did. He rocked on one foot like he was about to bolt, but kept stop himself, like a sprinter straining against the kickoff blocks. Jane didnt move. There were perpetually people out on the street, and it wasnt even late yet, but this guy was too anxious for the situation. Look, if you contain to get something appraised No, he cut her off. No. Just promise him shes, no grade him to look for a package in the mail. Im not sure enough when.Jane smiled to herself. This guy had something a brooch, a coin, a book something that he thought was worth some money, mayhap something hed gear up in his grandmothers closet. Shed seen it a cardinal quantify. They acted like theyve make up the lost urban center of Eldorado theyd come in with it insert in their coats, or wrapped in a thousand layers of tissue opus and tape. (The more tape, generally, the more worthless the concomitant would turn out to be there was an equation there somewhere.) Nine times out o f ten it was crap. Shed watched her father tense up to finesse their ego and gently trim down the owners into disappointment, convince them that the hokey value do it priceless, and that he, a down in the mouth secondhand-store owner, couldnt presume to put a value on it. Charlie, on the other hand, would just tell them that he didnt know about brooches, or coins, or whatever they had and let someone else bear the bad news.Okay, Ill tell him, Jane said from her cover behind the coats.With that, the tall man was away, taking great praying-mantis strides up the street and out of view. Jane shrugged, went back and turned on the lights, because proceeded to search for cushions among the piles.It was a big store, taking up nearly the whole fathom floor of the building, and not particularly well organized, as each system that Charlie espouse seemed to collapse after a a couple of(prenominal) weeks under its own weight, and the result was not so such(prenominal) a welter of or ganizational systems, but a garden of mismatched piles. Lily, the maroon-haired churl girl who worked for Charlie three afternoons a week, said that the fact that they ever found anything at all was verification of the chaos speculation at work, then she would walk away muttering and go out in the alley to the shinny clove cigarettes and scan into the abyss. (Although Charlie noted that the Abyss looked an awful lot like a Dumpster.)It took Jane ten legal proceeding to navigate the aisles and find three cushions that looked great enough and thick enough that they might work for academic term shivah, and when she returned to Charlies apartment she found her brother curve into the fetal localisation around baby Sophie, asleep on the kitchen floor. The other mourners had all in all forgotten about him.Hey, doofus. She nudged his shoulder with her toe and he rolled onto his back, the baby still in his arms. These okay?Did you see anything glowing?Jane dropped the stack of cushions on the floor. What?Glowing red. Did you see things in the shop glowing, like pulsating red?No. Did you? descriptor of. introduce em up.What?The drugs. script them over. Theyre obviously oftentimes better than you led me to believe.But you said they were just antianxiety.Give up the drugs. Ill watch the kid while you shivah.You cant watch my daughter if youre on drugs.Fine. allow the crumb snatcher and go sit.Charlie handed the baby up to Jane. You have to keep Mom out of the way, too.Oh no, not without drugs.Theyre in the medicine cabinet in the operate bath. Bottom shelf.He was sitting on the floor now, clash his forehead as if to stretch the skin out over his pain. She kneed him in the shoulder.Hey, kid, Im sorry, you know that, right? Goes without saying, right?Yeah. A adynamic smile.She held the baby up by her face, then looked down in adoration, Mother of savior style. What do you think? I should get one of these, huh?You can borrow mine whenever you need to.N ah, I should get my own. I already feel bad about borrowing your wife.JaneKidding Jeez. Youre such a welcome mat sometimes. Go sit shivah. Go. Go. Go.Charlie gathered the cushions and went to the living room to grieve with his in-laws, nervous because the only prayer he knew was Now I Lay Me gloomy to Sleep, and he wasnt sure that was going to cut it for three full days.Jane forgot to mention the tall guy from the shop.