Secondhand Souls (17 page)

“So?”

“He’s our Charlie,” said Audrey.

Jane punched him in the arm. “Freak.”

She went to the closet and picked a subtle, dark gray plaid wool suit, handed it to him, then took Audrey out into the great room to wait for him to emerge. The suit felt very familiar, yet not. Watching Mike’s expression change in the mirror when he moved was strange, like he was remotely working a robot, but he was getting used it. He wasn’t comparing it to old, human Charlie, so much, as little, crocodile Charlie, so the differences, for the most part, were positive. He straightened the lapels and presented himself to the judges, who were seated on the couch.

“Turn around,” Jane said.

“Very nice,” Audrey said.

“A little snug in the shoulders and arms.” Jane rose, pulled at the shoulders, brushed at some imaginary lint. “That’s how guys are wearing their suits now, though. I think you’re good to go. Do you have shoes?” Jane looked at Audrey, who nodded. “Sweet. You guys want something to drink?” She headed to the kitchen.

“I like my tea like I like my men,” Audrey said.

Jane looked at her quizzically.

“Weak and green,” Charlie said. “You know, that line was a lot funnier the first time I heard it, when I actually hadn’t spent a year being weak and green.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Audrey. “Sorry. Jane, do have you any wine?”

Jane scoffed. “I have red, I have white, I have pink, I have green.” She looked at Charlie. “Get over it, Chuck, you’re not green anymore.”

“Red, please.”

Before Charlie could ask for anything to drink, there was the ratcheting sound of a key in the lock and the door opened, flying back on its hinges. In marched Sophie, pink backpack dragging behind her, followed by Cassie, carrying two bags of groceries. Sophie slung her backpack up on the breakfast bar and jumped up onto the stool.

“I need a snack up in this bitch or I’m going to
plotz,
” said the darling little brunette with the heartbreak blue eyes.

Jane looked past Sophie to Charlie and cringed, then to Cassie, who was trying to land two bags of groceries on a counter with only one bag’s worth of space. “Cassandra, what kind of filth are you teaching this child?”

Cassie finally let one bag of groceries slide into the sink and looked over. “Oh.” She combed her red curls with her fingers. “Hi.” Then she recognized Audrey, having only really seen her once, and her eyes went wide. “Oh, hi!” She looked at Charlie, really more checking him out than looking at him, as if she might be sizing him up to figure out a fair price for him. “So . . .”

Sophie looked over her shoulder quickly, then to Cassie, and whispered, “Who is that guy wearing Auntie Jane’s suit?” Her whisper skills were still developing and were decidedly wetter than required.

“Family meeting,” said Jane. “In the kitchen. Family meeting.” She crouched down so she was behind the breakfast-bar pass-through. “Family meeting.” Her hand shot up and grabbed a handful of Cassie’s sweater, pulling her down.

Sophie spun on her stool, her eye on Audrey. “Hey, I remember you. You’re that
shiksa
that came here with Daddy.” She squinted at Charlie suspiciously.

“Yes,” said Audrey. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Family meeting!” said Jane and Cassie as they stood, each taking one of Sophie’s arms and dragging the child over the breakfast bar into the kitchen and out of sight in the depths below.

Furious whispers, some of them damp, Jane peeked up, ducked, more whispers.

Audrey patted Charlie’s arm. He’d stood when Sophie had come in and looked on the verge of either crying or being sick to his stomach.

Frantic whispers, a pause, then a little kid voice: “Are you fucking with me?!”

“Jane!” Charlie barked.

Jane stood, “You taught her that one.” Back down.

Cassie stood, nodded confirmation, ducked.

Charlie looked at Audrey for help. “It
is
kind of your catchphrase,” she said.

Jane popped up, then Cassie. Sophie came around the breakfast bar as if the great room had been mined, stepping carefully but keeping her eyes on Charlie.

Charlie crouched down. “Hey, Soph,” he said.

She approached him, looked him in the eye, looked
into
his eyes, looked around, like she might spot the driver in there. He had felt less foreign even when he was the croc guy. “It’s me, honey,” he said. “It’s Daddy.”

Sophie looked to Audrey, who nodded. “It your daddy, Sophie. He just got a new body because the old one was broken.”

Charlie put his arms out. She stood there, three feet away, just looking at him. He let his arms fall to his knees.

“Go ahead, honey, ask me anything. Ask me something that only Daddy would know.”

“That won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“You could be tricking me. I’m a kid, we’re easy to trick. It’s a proven fact.”

“Just try.”

She rolled her eyes, thinking. “What word are we never allowed to say? I mean,
you
can say it for the question, but
I
can never say it.”

“You mean the K-word?”

She didn’t move. “You could have just guessed that.”

“It’s okay, honey. I know this is strange.”

More eye rolling, foot shuffling, then her eyes lit up when the question occurred to her. “When we went to Tony’s to get pizza, how did we eat it?”

“Like bear.”

“Daddy!” She jumped into his arms.

There were hugs and kisses and no few tears, which appeared to be contagious and went on for a few minutes until Jane started making gagging noises. “God, I hate this movie!” She blew her nose on a paper towel.

Sophie pushed back from Charlie’s embrace. “Daddy, the goggies!”

“I know, honey, Auntie Jane told me. It’s one of the reasons I had to come back.”

“Are you going to find them? We have to find them.”

“We’ll find them,” Charlie said.

“Let’s go get ice cream, and look for them,” said Sophie. “Can we go get ice cream?” Sophie looked to the kitchen, to Jane, who froze like a pistol had been pointed at her. Sophie looked back at Charlie. “Who is the boss of me now?”

“Family meeting,” Charlie said.

Sophie ran back to the kitchen. Cassie and Jane ducked down.

“Out here, please,” Charlie said.

They all came out of the kitchen, heads down, and shuffled out into the great room. Charlie sat in one of the leather club chairs, Cassie and Jane sat with Audrey on the couch. Sophie crawled into the chair with Charlie and he looked up, helpless.

“Do not start crying, Chuck!” said Jane. “Do not!”

Audrey looked down, veiled her eyes with her hand.

“You either, booty nun.” Jane elbowed Audrey.

“Are you a nun?” asked Sophie.

“Different kind,” said Jane.

“Flying?”

“Yes,” said Jane.

“Sweet,” said Sophie.

“Sophie has nun issues,” Jane explained to Audrey.

“Flying?” asked Charlie.

“It’s a show on TV Land,” Cassie said.

“Right,” Charlie said. “So, can I take my daughter out for ice cream?”

“That would be great,” Jane said, “except everybody in the neighborhood knows Sophie, and knows that Cassie and I are raising her. All of a sudden she shows up with a strange man—”

“Wearing Auntie Jane’s suit,” added Sophie.

“It’s
my
suit,” Charlie said.

Jane said, “Maybe we can say we brought you in so she would have a male influence on her, like Big Brothers of America or something.”

Cassie said, “Or, we could say that we are thinking of having a kid of our own and we’re auditioning you as a sperm donor. See how you are with kids first.”

“That seems kind of dubious,” Charlie said. “Not that easy to explain casually on the street.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Cassie. “I’ve got it, you’re Uncle Mike from Seattle. Rachel’s estranged  brother. And you’re staying with us because you can’t hold a job due to your drug problem and some run-ins with the law.”

“Yeah, so we’ve let you work as our manny, until you get on your feet,” Jane said.

“Except that money keeps disappearing from our purses,” Cassie said.

“And local dogs have started to go missing,” Jane said.

“So we made Sophie show us where you touched her on a My Little Pony,” said Cassie.

“On my horn,” said Sophie.

“She’s an
alicorn
,” Jane explained.

“A unicorn, a Pegasus,
and
a princess at the same time,” Sophie clarified.

“Of course,” said Charlie, thinking they were enjoying this family meeting way, way too much. To Jane he said, “You have broken my daughter.”

“Everybody thought you were fine,” said Jane, completely ignoring him.

“But then,” said Cassie, “I went to your apartment to borrow a cup of sugar, and you weren’t there, but the door was open, so I went in—”

“And discovered the secret room full of your mummified victims,” said Jane.

“We have one of those at the Buddhist Center,” Audrey said cheerfully. “Under the porch.”

“Audrey, please stop helping,” Charlie said.

“What? It’s nice to be included.”

Cassie hugged Audrey and kissed her on the cheek, which Charlie found both disturbing and slightly arousing at the same time.

“So, if anyone asks, that’s the story,” said Jane.

“It’ll be great!” said Cassie.

“Sure, good.” Charlie stood and held his hand out to his daughter. “Come on, Soph, let’s go get ice cream.”

They walked a few blocks through North Beach, down Grant Avenue past Café Trieste, where Francis Ford Coppola supposedly wrote the script for
T
he Godfather;
past Savoy Tivoli, the bright yellow-and-maroon-painted bar and café with booths open to the street, where Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Ferlinghetti dined; past North Beach Pizza, two galleries, two leather boutiques, and a lingerie store, then up Union Street, headed toward Coit Tower, to a gelato place that had been there as long as Charlie could remember, and whose seating consisted of one teak garden bench outside and one against the wall inside across from the counter. They ordered scoops in sugar cones and took their cones to the bench outside.

“Your Nana used to love this place,” Charlie said.

“Jewish Nana or dead Nana?”

“Dead Nana.”

“Your mom, right?”

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt when you think about your dead mother?” A serious question coming from a small child with a corona of bubble-gum gelato around her mouth.

“A little, maybe, but a good hurt. I wish I would have paid better attention when I was little.”

“Yeah; me, too,” said Sophie, who had never known her mother as anything but pictures and stories. She sighed, licked her gelato, painting a dot of pink on her nose. “We’re not going to be able to tell Jewish Nana about you being back, huh?”

“No, probably not.”

“She’d
plotz,
huh?”

“I don’t know what that means, punkin.”

“You couldn’t find a Jewish body?”

“Been spending a lot of time with Jewish Nana, then?”

“It feels like it.”

“Oh, I know, honey.”

She patted his arm in solidarity.

“After this, we need to find the goggies, Daddy.”

17

Come Lay My Body Down

F
or the next two days Charlie tried to get used to the idea of living his life as someone else. He walked around the neighborhood, running errands and adjusting to being outdoors again, among people and traffic and sunshine. He went to the courthouse and applied to change Mike Sullivan’s name to Charles Michael Sullivan, so he’d have a quick explanation for why everyone in his life would be calling him Charlie. He accepted sympathy about his accident from the people at Mike’s bank, and made sure everyone he encountered knew that he was suffering from mild amnesia and asked them to be understanding if he seemed a bit sketchy on the basic details of his life. Mercifully, most of the people who he encountered seemed to think Mike Sullivan was a pretty decent guy, although no one seemed to know him very well, which worked out great for Charlie.

“This amnesia thing is great,” he said to Audrey as she sat bent over a sewing machine, making one of dozens of costumes for the Squirrel People. “You just say, ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t remember your name, I fell off the Golden Gate Bridge and hit my head and I’m having a few memory issues.’ Everyone’s so nice about it.”

“They’re probably envious they can’t use the same excuse,” said Audrey. “This is ridiculous!” She snapped the needle up out of the fabric and snipped the thread. “I can’t make all the Squirrel People ornate costumes. This list Bob gave me is impossible. I made their original costumes from fabric scraps I’d collected over months. This would be a full-time job, even if all I was doing was collecting material, let alone making a unique costume for each of them.”

“Maybe I can help,” said Charlie.

“That’s sweet of you to offer, but you have plenty to do already. I’m just going to get a couple of bolts of cotton in different colors and make them basic outfits from it, with drawstring trousers, like hospital scrubs. They can cinch them up to fit.”

“Sounds good,” said Charlie. “You can use Wiggly Charlie for the pattern.”

Charlie had gotten used to Wiggly Charlie following him around the big house that comprised the Buddhist Center, the little monster imitating his movements. When Charlie went to the bathroom, W.C. followed him and peed in a plastic mixing bowl that Charlie had used for the same purpose when he had been a little monster. When Charlie sat down to practice Mike Sullivan’s signature, W.C. sat on his mixed nut can, using a stack of books as a little desk, and practiced his penmanship as well, which consisted mostly of tearing stationery and licking the pen, then putting inky tongue prints on the paper. Charlie hung some of the more interesting ones on the fridge.

Wiggly Charlie was learning skills, but didn’t seem to be getting any more vocabulary, picking up only the odd word here and there and working them into some syntax around the phrase “need a cheez.” He also alternated between making an excited, happy noise and a disappointed sigh sound, which he only seemed to make when a cheez was not forthcoming or when Charlie left the house and did not take him. Charlie felt for the little guy, having been imprisoned in that improbable body himself, but W.C. seemed strangely untroubled.

“Maybe life is just easier if you’re a little goofy,” Charlie said to Audrey. He gestured as he said it, a bit of a game-show-spokes-model-presenting-a-dishwasher flourish. W.C. made exactly the same gesture, perhaps half a second behind Charlie. Audrey shuddered a little at the sight of it.

“I’m not sure how he’s even, uh, alive,” said Audrey. “Not that I understand the mechanics of any of the Squirrel People, but the engine is their consciousness, their soul. W.C.’s soul—you—left the building and found a new place to live.”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said, rubbing his brow. W.C. mirrored the gesture. “There’s
something
in there.”

Audrey nodded, a little creeped out by the synchronized mime. “I think maybe when you left that body, there was a shadow or an echo of you left in there.”

“Nah, I’d feel part of me missing, wouldn’t I?”

She shrugged. “Just don’t get too attached to him, Charlie. We don’t know how long he will last. He might be like the ladies I used the
p’howa of undying
on.”

“Boobies,” said Wiggly Charlie, who hopped and made his excited noise.

“See,” said Charlie. “He’s his own man.”

“Really? What were you thinking about just then?”

“I’m going to go grab something to eat,” Charlie said. “Can I bring you anything?”

“Need a cheez,” said W.C.

Meanwhile Charlie got used to the peculiarities of Mike Sullivan’s body. Mike had been meticulous and incredibly considerate to write down all of his bank account numbers, his passwords, even the context of the contacts in his phone, but he didn’t explain what the dark spot on his left calf was: it could have been where he’d been poked with a pencil as a child, or it could be a deadly melanoma, but in Charlie Asher’s beta-male imagination, it was probably the latter. Despite a dubious medical history, there were qualities of Mike Sullivan’s body that were new to Charlie, and delighted him, among them a much more solid hairline than Charlie Asher had been blessed with, and, of course, arms . . .

“Look, I’ve got guns.” He flexed his biceps for Audrey. “I’ve never had guns before. Do you think they’re good for anything, or are they, you know, like breasts, just for looking at and touching.” He presented an arm for her to squeeze.

“Breasts are for breast-feeding babies, you doof.”

“Sure, there’s that, too, I guess.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll need them to paint the bridge. That’s probably how Mike got them.”

Charlie sat down, a little stunned.

“I can’t paint the bridge. I can’t. I have to collect souls, I have to reopen the shop. I have my own stuff to do.”

“But that’s Mike Sullivan’s job.”

“I’ll claim that the fall damaged me, so I can’t do it.”

“But it’s obvious you’re good as new,” Audrey said.

“I’ll say I’m mentally unable to do it. The amnesia excuse has worked great so far.”

“So you’ll tell them you can’t remember what color to paint?” She tried very hard not to laugh, but failed.

“You, young lady, are not too old to be spanked,” said Charlie, using his stern dad voice, tickling her and trying to pull her over his knee as she squirmed and giggled.

Which was only one of the many, many cues that had sent them into a raucous session of sweet monkey love. In fact, once they had breached the wall of tentative awkwardness his first day home, if it hadn’t been for Audrey’s duties at the Buddhist Center, and Charlie’s need to establish his new life as Charles Michael Sullivan, they might never have gotten out of bed except to slide naked down the stairs to the refrigerator. But when the last attendee for the last meditation session left in the early evening, the crazy new-love sex fest began, and went on until they collapsed into exhaustion or laughter or exhausted laughter.

“Wow,” Charlie said, late that first night, lying next to her, catching his breath; a sheen of sweat on both of them, golden under the candlelight.

“Yeah,” said Audrey. She ran a fingernail between his abdominal muscles. “Yeah.”

“Is this better?” he said, rolling on his side to face her, look in her eyes. “Better than the first time, when we were together?”

“Charlie, this is wonderful, but we only had one night. It was wonderful then and it’s wonderful now. I knew I loved you then. I love you now.”

“Me, too,” he said. He touched her jaw, smiled. “But is this body, you know, am I better now?”

“It doesn’t really matter what I say, I’m not going to stop you from being jealous of yourself, am I?”

“I’m sorry. I guess, yeah. I just feel so lucky to be here, with you, to not be, you know, like before.”

“I loved you then, too,” she said. “But this is nicer. It’s okay to say that, right?”

“I guess. But some part of me will always just be a little reptilian monster following his penis around.”

“I know that’s how I always think of you,” she said.

Again, the tickling, and they were off again.

On their second night together they learned just how close Charlie was to W.C. They were making love, slow and sweet and without the slightest worry of getting anywhere, just being there, when there came a scratching at the door. For a second their eyes went wide, then the scratching began again, then stopped, and having been brought back to the world outside themselves, they finished, and Audrey got up and padded naked over to the bedroom door.

“Oh no!” she said, when she opened the door.

Charlie looked over to see Wiggly Charlie lying on the floor, as if he’d been leaning against the door and had rolled in when she opened it. He just lay there, a motionless lump.

“Is he . . .” Charlie sat up. “Is he dead?”

Audrey knelt, reached out, and gently touched W.C. on his wizard robe. He lolled to the side.

“Oh no. That’s not right,” Charlie said.

Then Audrey lit up, looked back at Charlie over her shoulder with a smile. “No, look, it’s okay. He just has an erection.”

She picked up Wiggly Charlie by his enormous erect willy and turned to show Charlie. The little unconscious monster jostled limply like a puppet on a stick. “He’ll be fine.” She bounced W.C. on the end of his stick.

“Wow, you were right about the echo. It’s like we have some kind of psychic connection.”

“Right, this used to happen to you, remember?” Audrey said, swinging W.C. by his dong to make her point. “As soon as it goes down he’ll be back.”

“Which is never going to happen if you keep yanking him around by it.”

“Oh. Good point. Sorry.” She carried Wiggly Charlie back to the doorway and carefully set him outside in the hall—rolled him on his side and patted his little shoulder. “You rest, little guy.”

She palmed the door closed, then turned, leaned on the door, and looked at Charlie. “I’m glad he’s okay.”

Charlie lay back on the bed, looked at the ceiling. She joined him and found a spot between his chest and shoulder that seemed to have been built to lay her head upon.

“He was eating some out-of-date cat food this morning,” she said. “I hope you don’t have any ill effects from it.”

They lay quietly for a moment, considering the situation, pretending they didn’t hear Charlie’s stomach growl. There was the noise of something stirring in the hall and she smiled and kissed his chest. “See?” she said. “He’s fine.”

“Before, when I was—you know—when I had Wiggly Charlie’s body, did you ever pick me up like that? I mean, it seemed like a pretty automatic response for you . . .”

She nuzzled into his chest. “You mean, pick you up and swing you around by your huge unit? Spray furniture polish on your wizard robe and dust under the bed with you? Like that?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Of course not.”

“Was that why my clothes always smelled like lemon?”

“Don’t be silly. You couldn’t smell things in that body. Hey, what should I wear to the funeral tomorrow? I don’t think my monk robes are appropriate, but it’s been so long since I’ve worn a dress.”

“Wait a minute. I used to wake up under the bed wondering how I got there.”

“Shh, shh, shh, quiet time. Rest. Rest. Sleep.” She gently stroked his penis like she was petting a kitten.

There was a thump in the hallway like someone had dropped a bag of dicks.

W
hich Little Pony is appropriate for a funeral?” Jane asked, flipping through Sophie’s closet.

“I don’t think any,” said Charlie. “It’s a wake, Jane.”

“Smurf ? Little Mermaid? This big red dog, I forget his name?”

“Doesn’t she just have a normal little dress?”

“Why are you taking her to a funeral anyway? She’s just a little kid. Despite her being the big D, she doesn’t really get death. After you, uh, died, it was pretty awful trying to explain.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her that when you die, fluffy monkeys take you shoe shopping with a black card.”

“That’s horrible.”

“And very hetero,” said Cassie from the other room.

“No, it’s not. I see what you’re saying, Chuck, but Sophie didn’t even know Cavuto.”

“We’re not going for Cavuto. We’re going for Inspector Rivera. He saved my life. Sophie wouldn’t even have a daddy if it weren’t for him, so we’re going. Funerals are for the living.”

“Fine. What’s Audrey wearing?”

“A black dress.”

“Well, I can’t go now, that’s what I was going to wear.”

“No, you weren’t. I saw my charcoal Armani hanging on the doorknob in your room.”

“Okay, I wasn’t, but Cassie was, so she can’t go, so I can’t go.”

“Gray dress,” Cassie called from the other room.

“Not helping,” Jane shouted. To her brother, under her breath, she said, “Can you believe we marched for the right to marry, for
that
?”

“You didn’t march,” Cassie called.

“How did you hear that?” Jane said. “Do you have this room bugged?”

“Jane, please, can we find something?” Charlie said. “Audrey’s waiting downstairs.”

Before Jane could dig back into the closet, Sophie marched into the room, past them, pushed her toy box over to the closet, climbed on it, pulled out a blue dress, jumped down, went over to the bed, where she laid out the dress, then crossed her arms and looked at them.

Charlie and Jane slunk out of the room to give the child the privacy she seemed to require.

“It’s
my
Armani,” Jane said. “You were dead.”

“You swiped it when I still lived here. What tie are you wearing?”

“No tie. Cream satin camisole.”

“Nice.” He put his arm around her, side hug, then hip-bumped her into the couch.

C
avuto’s wake was held in the grand ballroom at the Elks Lodge, which took up the third floor of a large building just off Union Square. The enormous room was paneled in dark mahogany, with tall cathedral windows that looked out over the square. There were perhaps five hundred people in the room when Charlie and his family arrived: Audrey on his arm, Jane and Cassie following, each taking one of Sophie’s hands between them. Most in attendance were San Francisco cops, all in dress uniform, but there were also police and firemen from a dozen different departments, and more polished buttons than a royal wedding procession.