Fated (16 page)

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Authors: S. G. Browne

Tags: #Humorous, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Fiction

BOOK: Fated
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“Do you work here?” he asks.
With my hands, I motion to my attire, which consists of flip-flops, a pair of teal diamond mosaic board shorts, and a canary yellow T-shirt that says
Prostitutes Suck
. “Do I look like I work here?”
He studies me as if considering the question.
“Then who are you?” he asks.
“I’m the safety inspector,” I say. “And if you don’t get out of my sight in five seconds, you’re going in my report.”
“But I was just—”
“One. Two . . .”
Before I can say, “Three,” Guenther is running away toward the rear entrance of the building. I watch him go while finishing off the last of my sausage, bemoaning the fact that I don’t have any more beer to wash it down with. I’m wondering if I can make a quick trip to the nearest pub, but when I turn around, Dennis is standing there wearing a neoprene particle mask, industrial-strength mortician’s gloves, and an annoyed expression.
“What the hell is this?”
“Surprise,” I say, with a smile I hope doesn’t look as forced as it feels.
Dennis studies me with those ice blue eyes of his beneath his shock of white hair and above his particle mask. “I don’t like surprises.”
It’s true. I tried to throw him a surprise victory party after the destruction of Pompeii and he killed the caterer.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, pulling the particle mask down.
I open my mouth to explain why I’m here, but it’s not easy to apologize to Death. I forgot how intimidating he can be.
“You saved that human’s life,” says Dennis.
Talk about your awkward moments. I’m here to make amends with Death and ask him for help with Destiny and I end up rescuing one of his would-be clients.
“Yeah, well, it looked like it was going to be pretty painful,” I say. “And it’s not like he’s going to be around that much longer.”
It turns out that although I saved his life today, Guenther Zivick will, in fact, last two more years before he gets fired, wanders home in a drunken stupor, loses his apartment keys and climbs in through his kitchen window, then passes out halfway through the window with his head in the sink, but not before inadvertently turning on the hot water and drowning himself.
Dennis stares at me, not blinking. I hate it when he does that. It creeps me out.
“How’ve you been?” I ask.
“How’ve I been?” he says, as if asking if that’s the best I can come up with. “Let’s see . . . a handful of revolutions, a dozen civil wars, innumerable riots, some ethnic cleansing, a couple world wars, Iraq, Vietnam, the Middle East, countless acts of terrorism, the Holocaust, a bunch of serial killers, a few nuclear bombs, rebellions, uprisings, assassinations, murders, plane crashes, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and HIV.”
Okay. A little repressed hostility. I expected that. I probably even deserve it. But still . . .
“Well, if you would have just sunk the
Santa Maria
,” I say. “Or started a mutiny. Or infected the ship with the plague . . .”
“Do you want to start in on that again?” he says. “Because I can go all day.”
“Look,” I say. “All I meant was—”
“I’m not the one who asked his best friend to break the rules,” says Dennis. “I’m not the one who wanted his best friend to change the fate of mankind. And I’m not the one who just saved a human from a trash compactor.”
The way he says it makes it sound so unsavory.
This isn’t how I saw this going. I didn’t come here to rehash old arguments. I came here to patch things up. To apologize. To forge a new partnership. But that’s the problem with being Fate. Sometimes I just can’t accept myself.
“I’m sorry,” I say, blurting it out. “For Columbus. For the five centuries of fighting. For the trash compactor. For everything. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”
Dennis studies me, as if he’s not sure he heard right. “You’re sorry?”
I nod.
“Really?”
I nod again. “Really.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Well, if I actually had a heart, I’d cross it,” I say. “And if I could die, I guess that’s what I’d hope for.”
Dennis stares at me a moment before finally nodding as if to indicate he believes me. Then, for the first time in centuries, he smiles. It’s just a small one, but a smile nonetheless. And hard as it may be to believe, there’s no one in the universe with a smile as dazzling or as radiant as Death.
This time, my own smile doesn’t feel forced.
We stand again in an awkward silence, neither one of us knowing how to proceed. I notice Dennis’s eyes are glassy. While I can’t say it’s the first time I’ve seen him get choked up, it’s always a little disconcerting when Death starts to cry.
“You look good,” I say, trying to break the ice.
“You, too,” he says. “That a new man suit?”
“Latest model,” I say, flexing my biceps. “Popular with the ladies.”
He nods and smiles and I wonder when he last got laid.
We spend a few minutes catching up on our latest exploits and trying to ignore the fact that we’ve allowed five hundred years to pass before doing this. But we can’t spend more than a few minutes chatting, since both our schedules are pretty booked. So we make plans to get together once we’re back in Manhattan.
“Hey, Fabio,” says Dennis.
“What is it?”
I can see from the expression on his face he has something serious he wants to share.
“You know you’re not supposed to get involved with humans.”
I nod, though I wonder if he’s talking about Guenther Zivick or if he somehow knows about Sara, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.
“You going to report me to Jerry?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Just be careful. Humans can be more trouble than they’re worth.” And then he’s gone, leaving me to ponder the wisdom of my actions. But I don’t get to ponder them for long, as Guenther Zivick comes back with security to kick me off the property.
This is the thanks I get for saving his life.
CHAPTER 23
The Buddhist counterpart
to the concepts of fate and destiny is karma—the sum of all that a human has done, is doing, and will do. The effects of all actions and deeds create past, present, and future experiences. But karma is not destiny, since humans, to some degree, act of their own free will to create their destiny. And a particular action now doesn’t condemn you to some predetermined fate. It simply leads to a karmic consequence.
Like that of the Hindu Indian sitting at the table near the front door.
“This guy didn’t stop to help a woman who dropped her bag of groceries on her way home,” says Karma, soaking up some of his lamb curry with a piece of naan and washing it down with the last of his beer. “Couldn’t be bothered, the prick. Now watch this.”
The Hindu, who is going to be unhappily married and cheating on his wife in nine years, reaches for his glass of water and drags the sleeve of his white shirt through his yellow daal. When he realizes what he’s done, he jerks his arm away so fast, he hits the elbow of the waiter passing by, causing the waiter to dump his tray full of chai into the Indian man’s lap.
“Bull’s-eye,” says Karma.
I’ve known Karma pretty much since I came into existence. We met in Primordial Soup 101 and became instant friends, even roomed together during Path Orientation and signed up as lab partners for Fundamentals of Human Existence. Jerry taught that course, which Karma and I ditched on more than one occasion to smoke some buds and catch some waves off the shores of South Africa. In spite of our attempts to convince Jerry we were doing field research on Homo erectus, we had to make up our classes during the decline of Neanderthal man.
I haven’t seen Karma in a while, not since the Great Depression, as he tends to spend most of his time in India. It’s not easy trying to find anyone among the more than one billion humans squished into one subcontinent. But in addition to Death, it’s good to have Karma on your side, so I tracked him down at a bar in New Delhi and invited him to lunch.
The thing about Karma is that he’s an alcoholic.
Beer, wine, whiskey. Anything that brews, ferments, or distills. His favorite activities are attending Oktoberfest in Munich, going bar hopping on St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, and drinking shots during Cinco de Mayo in Tijuana. And when Karma drinks, he’s not a happy drunk.
Think loud.
Think obnoxious.
Think American tourist.
“Yo, Apu,” says Karma, waving his empty bottle at the waiter. “How about another beer?”
The waiter, who is taking an order at another table, gives Karma a dirty look, which probably isn’t a good idea. As soon as the waiter turns around, he trips and falls into a table of Russian tourists.
“So what’s your take on this big event Jerry keeps talking about?” asks Karma.
“I don’t know,” I say, watching as the waiter apologizes to the tourists. “I haven’t really given it much thought.”
Over the past couple of months, Jerry’s sent out several more e-mails about his Big Event, each one as cryptic as the first. Though he did mention something about significant global implications.
“Well, Chance is running a pool if you want to get in on it,” says Karma. “The smart money’s on a worldwide pandemic, though there’s a lot of action on another ice age and a nuclear holocaust. And last I heard, the return of the Messiah is getting twelve-to-one odds.”
The return of the Messiah always gets twelve-to-one odds. Go figure.
“So what do you say?” asks Karma, trying to flag down another waiter by waving his empty beer bottle.
“What type of pandemic?” I say. “Are we talking influenza or plague?”
“Doesn’t matter,” says Karma. “A pandemic is a pandemic. Chance isn’t splitting hairs.”
Although I hadn’t given it much thought lately, a worldwide plague could do wonders for freeing up more of my personal days.
I’m thinking about putting my money on a pandemic, or maybe a nuclear holocaust, but both of those options strike me as bad karma, so I decide to go with ice age. It’s not as flashy, but I figure it’s the safe bet. We haven’t had one of those in a while.
“Hey!” Karma shouts to anyone who’ll listen. “I’m getting thirsty over here!”
All the patrons at the other tables look our way. In the back of the restaurant, I can see the manager talking to several members of the service staff.
“You might want to keep your voice down,” I say, leaning forward. “The humans are starting to notice you.”
“It’s about time they noticed,” he says, shoving a forkful of vegetable masala into his mouth. “Most of the time they go through their pointless lives wearing blinders, completely unaware of how their actions affect their pathetic existence.”
You can see why we always got along so well.
A waiter finally brings Karma another beer, shutting him up for the time being, which gives me a chance to ask him the question that’s been on my mind ever since Sara said she thought we were destined to meet. Sure, it’s highly improbable. But so was human evolution.
“Is it possible for me to be on the Path of Destiny?” I ask.
Karma drains half of his beer. “Have you been hanging out with Insanity again?”
The thing about Insanity is that, well, you know . . .
“No,” I say. “I was just wondering—”
“Predestination Law clearly states that Destiny, Fate, and Karma can never cross paths, share the same path, or appear on one another’s path,” he says. “It’s a cosmic impossibility.”
Karma always was a better student than me.
“So it’s not possible for a mortal to be destined to meet an immortal?” I ask. “Not just to take my order or serve me drinks, but with a definite design or purpose?”
Karma looks at me the way Pope Urban VIII looked at Galileo when he argued that the sun was the center of the universe.
“Look around this place,” says Karma, pointing with his half-empty beer bottle at the patrons and employees. “You think any of these humans, these mortal subcreatures, are destined to meet either one of us with a design or a purpose? To meet Karma or Fate?” He takes another pull on his beer. “Maybe Embarrassment or Mediocrity . . .”
The future inhibited ejaculator sitting at the adjacent table is staring at us.
“What are you looking at?” asks Karma.
The man looks away and takes a drink of his tea.
“That’s right,” says Karma. “Ignore us. Pretend we’re not here. Pretend your actions won’t have any cosmic consequences.”
The man continues to ignore us, asking a passing waiter for his bill.
“Maybe you should take it easy,” I say.
“Take it easy?” says Karma, finishing off the rest of his beer. “How am I supposed to take it easy when all around me these creatures are in a perpetual state of ignorance?”

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