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Three Men and a Hearse

Lurking in the leafy, green-black shadows, three men, their faces shrouded in darkness—their disguises a blend of New England Colonial and British Hard Rock—drawled in thick, limey accents about the excellence of guns, lust, death . . . And mutant four-leaf clover.

"‘E won’t tyke it," mugged the short one.

"‘E’ll tyke it," drawled the tall one in his best Virginian, tugging at his genuine, silver-haired pony tail.

The fat one glared. "Talk American, Thomas."

"Take the clover, Ben," the tall one drawled.

Fat Ben’s green eyes smoldered.

"You said this Yahoo thinks he’s a Houyhnhnm. If that’s correct, he’ll think it’s manna from the gods: He’ll never suspect that it’s an Olympian double-cross. It’s the consummate touch!"

A twisted grin flashed in Ben’s darkened skull.

"Besides, Ben," Thomas continued, "if what you say about his state of mind is correct, he’ll take this bag of four-leaf clover . . . ," he paused for just a beat to inhale the sweet-smelling fragrance in the paper bag, rich with leafy-green stimulants, ". . . and treat it like a lucky talisman! Like a gift from the gods!" he grinned, pleased with the twist. "He’ll take it as a sign of Divine Intervention, for Christmas’ Sake"—His eyes sparkled like a delighted devil’s—"But he’ll be the one left holding the bag," he twinkled, twanging the lines so that he sounded like his Academy Award-winning cousin Jack Nicholson, doing his now-classic portrayal of Thomas Jefferson.

Fat Ben frowned.

Tall Tom grinned. He was seeking—but evidently not getting—the same level of excitement from Fat Ben that he felt in constructing this scenario. "Benjamin, he’s nobody," he litigated, "and here he is getting a shot at the Big Time." Ben had become an enigma. "I’ll do it," Thomas sighed. He pulled a gold-plated gun out of his windbreaker. Checked it. Holstered it. He hated it. Hated hurting his buddy and deviating from the Presidential Plan that the Fat One had written. But he’d do it if somebody had to, and somebody had to.

Ben was mute.

"I’ll do it," Thomas said.

The short one checked him. "Sire?" He yanked the bag of magical stuff out of Thomas’ hand to give Ben an extra moment to decide if he honestly didn’t want to do it. "Make your bones, Sire."

Ben grunted.

"James," said Thomas to the short one, stealing a moment to sniff in the brown paper bag, "give me the clover. I’ll plant it in his frigging brain if the stiff walks in on me." Bored with the conspiracy, Thomas wanted to get it done and to get back to the pleasures of the After World. "We’re doing this buzzard a favor by Executive Privilege," he judged. "Let’s do it."

James grimaced to signal that Benjamin had turned the ugliest shade of smeary dark green.

"Thomas . . . this kid’s my . . . "

"—BEN—"

The fat one staggered on the marble stoop, dragging James to the ground with him.

"I’M OKAY! I’M OKAY!"

"Right you are, Cap’n," said James. Sprawled on top of him, he had to heave against his chest to get up.

" . . . MY RESPONSIBILITY," Ben roared.

Thomas backed off.

Ben blotted his brow and wheeled to his feet, impressing his compatriots with his agility.

Thomas winked a sly one at James. "You got it."

Ben caught it.

"He’s back," said James.

Thomas grinned at Ben and dared him to deny it. Ben grumbled and dusted off the seat of his knickers.

"Hide the gun in the bag and leave it by his bed," Thomas continued as if nothing had happened. "Let’s just do it like we planned it. Like I said, Ben, if you’re correct, he’ll think Fate is knocking at his door with a Master Plan . . . and a bag of lucky four-leaf clover. He’ll walk to a nice quiet place where nobody’ll notice, take the gun out of the bag, and blow his brains all over the sidewalk." His eyes sparkled. "Finito!" He sniffed as if fighting back a tough pugilist. But he did not know—nor in this After Life would he learn—the source of his discomfiture. "You told us you can think what he’s thinking," he continued, "and that that’s what he thinks about . . . that he lies awake at night thinking about it. It’ll be all over, Ben. Think about it. You’ll get him a nice house, pass along a few of your girlfriends’ telephone numbers . . . and before you can say Jack Nicholson, we’ll begin our campaign for the presidency. The presidency! How about that?" he grinned.

The magic of Thomas’ soothing twang had briefly cast a spell over James, whose affection for the president could not be measured in human terms. "Great. That’s great, Mr. President."

Ben cast a fishy eye. "Thomas," he croaked, his voice scratchy and thin. "I’m not convinced this fish will bite." He strained like Mr. Brando in The Godfather (a man with just enough breath for himself and his family, and none to spare). "He likes it when it’s his worm. Tell him we’ll make him an Honorable mayor . . . or a city councilman." He gestured. "Like we said this afternoon . . . something he thinks is beneath him. His ambition will to drive him to the White House."

Thomas grinned. " . . . Or to the grave."

"That’s as it should be," said Ben; "don’t forget, Athena . . . she wants it . . . "

"The worm," interjected James.

" . . . to come from him," said Ben. "If he thinks it’s our plan, she’ll learn that too . . . when she finds his brain. I’m not talking to this punk kid about any office higher than . . . municipal, City Hall. Like I said, let him want the presidency." He gestured, indifferent to say anything else. "That’s when we’ll shoot for it."

Thomas and James did a slow take at each other. Then shrugged and frowned consent.

"Not before."

Thomas smirked. "Tell him he’s shooting for mayor."

Ben shrugged. Eh.

"Managing the City would be great training," said James. "If he straightened it out, we’d have a track record in any bid for national office . . . one that we could point to, one that we . . . "

"What if he didn’t straighten it out?" interrupted Thomas. "What if he burned it to the ground. Like that other one?"

"No matter," said James. "He’d get elected anyway."

"That’s something to think about," mused Ben. "Tell me, James, when was the last time that a mayor of Philadelphia—or of any other big city—shot straight for the White House?"

James had a crazed glint in his eye . . . and his stubbled chin pointed absurdly into the air. "That’s no debating point. Tell me, when was the last time a presidential candidate had a ghost for a godfather, Ben . . . a goddess for a godmother, and us for his campaign team? We’ve designed a new deck of face cards for this joker."

Ben stretched his neck. "Thomas, what do you think?"

"He’s in misery, Ben. Let’s not drag it out any longer than we have to . . . for his benefit," said Thomas. "Right, we can campaign in Philadelphia and win the Office of Mayor in the dark," he chuckled. "But our mandate, if I understand you correctly, Ben, is to turn the Nation around one-hundred-eighty degrees—in the direction of Common Sense and Enlightenment principles." He dragged his boot on the scraper by the marble stoop. "Winning in Philadelphia is not practical," he smirked.

Benjamin didn’t budge. He was grim.

"The way I see it," Thomas went on, "it’ll steal valuable time from our primary objective; and we can’t afford it. Realistically, we don’t have the time to attend to these local political niceties. That’s the way I see it, Ben. Let the living get to Washington by climbing the political and social ladder. We’re working against a deadline . . . and this kid’s not playing on our team."

"I’m killing him," said Ben.

"He’s dead," said James. "When the press gets wise, this campaign is going to stink like the Mariner’s albatross. We’ve got one shot: Let’s shoot for the presidency. Mayor? What do we do for four years if we win? What could anybody do—legally—to change anything, working in the bowels of City Hall in provincial Philadelphia," he whispered to the midnight leaves. "We’d be dead on the job. Besides, the presidency doesn’t take any on-the-job management skills to get elected . . . and we’ll short-circuit any surprises . . . dirty tricks, things that’ll blow up in the kid’s face in the campaign. We’ll play it like a blitzkrieg."

"Exactly," said Thomas, disturbed by the violent metaphor. "Anyway, Ben, he’ll be out of his mortal misery by noon tomorrow—and back home with us by midnight. Dolley’ll take good care of him," he grinned, anticipating James’ response. "Right, James?"

James grimaced at the thought that Dolley should have to comfort anybody’s broken bones but his.

"What can we lose?" asked Thomas.

Ben dropped back into the shadows.

Buried in darkness on the quiet tree-lined street, they missed the cynical brow and quick smirk on Ben’s chubby face—as he stepped out of the yellow lamplight—a sweaty look which betrayed his Olympian understanding of the deadly seriousness of a situation that far outstripped even their understanding. By Olympian fiat, Benjamin couldn’t tell Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison that their mortal afterlives in the After World were at stake. That a failure to bring about a change in American consciousness—and a global one to boot—one that traded the Romantic faith of Americans for the time-worn Neoclassical virtues of Clarity, Order, Reason, Simplicity, Antiquity, Restraint, and Objectivity, might compel the Board of Directors of GOD Inc., Galactic Olympian Deities, Incorporated, to shoot The End, the closing credits to The March of Time. Not just for the planet. But for Earth’s Heroes as well, exemplified by America’s Founding Fathers and Mothers in the vaunted After World.

The President’s question rang ominously in Ben’s ear: What can we lose? What can we lose? What can we . . .

"What. Thomas, I can’t answer that," said the fat one.

They both looked grim.

"Listen, Ben. We’ve spent nine months talking about a campaign that doesn’t have a face. If where he lives is any clue, we’re in deep deep shit. What’s he look like? Who’s his tailor? What’s the caliber of his brain?"

"We’ll get him one."

"No brain?" marveled James, thinking that anything is possible if life after death is.

"That, too," said Ben.

"Tomorrow," Thomas said to Ben, "take him to the Fashion Show. Take him to Independence National Historical Park. Take him to Betsy Ross’ house after the show . . . when she’s entertaining. Take him on the town," he said. "If we’re going to back this kid for president of the United States—"

"Thomas, we won’t tell him that," interrupted Ben.

"Right."

"If he believed it, it’d either go to his head . . . or it’d kill him . . . kill his confidence. Either way, it’s murder."

"Benjamin, I want to feel he’s somebody that I can support."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, ‘Why?’"

"Whatever he is, once he’s dead, he’s ours. We’ll make him into anything we like. Anything."

"I thought he has to decide for himself. You said Athena said—"

"We’ll educate him . . . and he’ll decide. He’ll decide in our favor, or our premise is empty. Thomas, if we can’t educate a kid to want to be president . . . and to take advantage of the system of public education that’ll get him there . . . or get him further . . . then we’ve blown it, and our principles and premises are empty. If we can’t convince this kid, a thirty year-old shit who should be putty in our hands, how are we going—how are we qualified—to convince the Nation of anything? Tell me that. We’re doggie-doo before we begin."

"We’ve got to kill him," Thomas said.

"I guess I’m the Catcher in the Rye. I get to watch the whole thing . . . and catch him when he falls . . . " Benjamin bit down hard on his lower lip to kill the pain that had begun to well up in his throat. " . . . dead."

Thomas shuddered.

Thinking to lighten the moment, James thrust the crisp brown paper bag full of fresh clover into the fat one’s hands. "Tyke it," he said. "I’m embarrassed to say it, Benjamin . . . but I picked ‘em just for you."

Ben grinned at the foolishness.

"Just don’t get horsy on me," James warned.

Thomas took an Ortgies caliber 7.65 out of his leather shoulder bag and gave it to Benjamin, who slipped a slug into it and dropped it into the bag of fresh clover. Ben did not say how he had come by it. But it was the same handgun that Seymour Glass had used to fire a bullet through his right temple at the end of one of J.D. Salinger’s stories in Nine Stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."

"Knock ‘em dead," Thomas quipped.

Ben winked.

Thomas grinned.

"Are you two flirts finished?" whispered James. "Benjamin, go upstairs and plant the goddamn clover . . . so this buzzard can find it and join us on The Road Show. Let’s kill this guy and be done with it," he said and shivered in the stiff night air.

Ben curled his bottom lip and bowed his head as if he were at war in the trenches with shells exploding all around him.

Never, since the ancient, biblical days of Abraham—and his precious son, Isaac—had a father’s loyalty to Galactic Olympian Deities Inc. been tested so dramatically. Never had GOD Inc. directed a father to slaughter his posthumously-sired, illegitimate son as a sign of loyalty to the Corporation. Never had Benj. Franklin thought he’d choke up like this at the moment of corporate truth, loyalty, and intrigue. Never had he steeled himself to be harder, harsher, tougher, crueler . . . more of a cold-hearted bastard than he had ever wanted to be about anything.

If that’s what’s wanted, that’s it, he chafed.

He had spent nine months in Philadelphia, creating a file of false dossiers, birth certificates, American Express Gold Cards, and zillions of other documents necessary to modern life—including bundles of $100 bills, which he printed on his own press from plates that he borrowed from the U.S. Mint (real money, not counterfeit). Happily, too, he had created the means to properly house and entertain Thomas Jefferson and James and Dolley Madison in more-or-less simple, luxurious, neoclassical suites at The Benjamin Franklin House (where Dolley and the Founders studied and astutely and compassionately reasoned, argued, and—ultimately—defended the death of Lucky Stiff). But it was agony. Under Olympian fiat, he could not tell—and did not tell—the Gang of American Patriots that the mark was his son. Nor did he tell them that "Stiff" was the name he’d taken when he lived for several years with Mini, nee Pallas Athena, in Washington, D.C., during Richard M. Nixon’s ill-fated, Federal administration.

Frankly, he didn’t think they’d go along with him if they’d known about Lucky’s paternity.

He thought they’d revolt at the idea.

"My Dolley’s waiting for me in naked splendor, and I’m not getting any younger, Ben," said James.

"Ben, what is it?" asked Thomas, noticing the sudden, sad strangeness in Benjamin’s behavior. "Look, don’t worry about it. You’ll pick up the kid tomorrow . . . and then you’ll make him bright and shiny like a new-minted half-penny."

"Make it a full penny," said James.

"Take him to the Fashion Show," Thomas droned. "Everybody who’s anybody will be there. He’ll love it. He’ll forget he’s dead. Trust me on this one. He’ll say he’s never had it so good."

"Hide the friggin’ pistol," said James.

Ben wheeled about and practically hurled himself up the white marble steps into the entry.

Under the luxurious trees, which obscured most of the yellow light of the street lamp, the three men could barely be discerned, the flashing whites of their eyes and their teeth shining in their faces the brightest things on the dark sidewalk.

Sitting on the grimy marble steps, they waited for Benjamin Franklin to finish his errand in the narrow, red-brick row-house, typical of houses in so many neighborhoods in the City . . . and they talked, their faces masked by the green-leafed night.

"Wonder where he is?" asked James.

"Upstairs!" said Thomas.

"No, I mean the boy," said James, "the mark."

"Didn’t Ben say the kid spends a Devil of a lot of time hanging in and about . . . down at that place in the old section? What’d he call it? What’d he say?" wondered Thomas.

"Head House Inn?"

"That’s the place. It’s down in that part of town that’s been built up as it was, they say, to look American Colonial . . . something like the way it looked the summer of ‘76 . . . when I drafted the Declaration . . . at the beginning of national time . . . at the founding of the Nation."

They were silent for a moment. James thought of what, to him, was the more important legal, political event of the drafting of the Constitution eleven years after the Declaration of Independence . . . and Thomas thought of the sweltering heat and nasty mosquitoes he’d fought that summer in Philadelphia eleven years before the birth of the Constitution . . . in the two rooms he’d rented on the second-floor of the young German bricklayer Jacob Graff’s house . . . at the southwest corner of 7th and Market Sts. . . . where, in two intensive weeks, he drafted the Declaration.

"You missed the Constitution, Mr. Jefferson."

"That I did. I was Mr. Secretary for the Colonies, Mr. Madison, living in France. But I have studied your book, your summary of the proceedings, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Reported by James Madison, as you so accurately entitled it, my fellow Virginian and successor to the throne," he nodded.

"Don’t get naughty, Thomas."

"I’m tired, James—very tired of it. We left these buzzards an imperfect constitution . . . and they . . . "

"Botched it."

"They didn’t perfect it, that’s one thing certain. Have you gone about this City? What’s gone wrong with these . . . these . . . miserable . . . ," he scoffed, unable to finish his thought.

"Where’s the inn?" asked James.

"Ask the chauffeur."

"I’m the chauffeur."

Thomas flashed a silly grin that James just caught a glimpse of in the light that flickered through the shadow-dancing of the leafy-green trees.

"Aw, Ben’ll know," said James.

"I’m sure he will; he’s been scouting the City since Athena left him for Athens. Athena," he said wistfully. "What a legend! Man, what wouldn’t I give to . . . Boy, I’d like to . . . "

"Easy, Thomas."

"I’d like to be in Athens," he finished dry.

"Right."

"I would, too, like to be in Athens," Thomas affirmed.

"You’d like to be in Athena in Athens . . . and get that thought out of your head . . . while it’s still yours to think with. That Goddess is Ben’s broad, and Zeus has given the Affair his Galactic Olympian blessing."

"I don’t fuck with Zeus," said Thomas.

"Mr. President, it’s a no-win situation. If he doesn’t lay you out, she will."

"I wouldn’t hurt Ben."

"You’d hurt yourself."

"How do you kill such thoughts?"

"Don’t think ‘em."

"Wonder where Ben’s got to? Only had to hide a bag of clover—with a hot tool in it."

"Maybe he couldn’t find—the room—"

Both had the same thought at the same time; both turned slowly to look at each other at the same time.

"CHRIST! JESUS CHRIST!" they chimed.

"He’s found a floozy, a hussy . . . "

" . . . and he’s getting laid."

"I’ll be a smacked ass," said James.

"We’re down here beating our dongs, and he’s creaming his bird," Thomas observed.

"We gotta think of something fast, buddy."

"He’s gotta get his."

Like a grim ghost just risen from the grave, Dr. Franklin glowed magically just behind them and loomed in the street light cast in the doorway.

"We’ll take him to a brothel."

"We’ll engage the services of a lady for a granddaddy gang-bang. We’ll watch him beat his dead meat raw."

"Limp and raw."

"At his age, he couldn’t get it up more than once a . . . "

"AAAAggggg!" roared Old Ben.

"AAAAiiiii!" yelped Thomas and James, jumping out of their skins and stumbling off the marble time-worn steps.

Ben just stood there as big as the doorway, Mr. Grim Death in the terrible blink of the night.

"J-Just joking, Cap’n," stammered the short one.

"Beggin’ y’r leave, Sir," said the tall one, saluting the Colonel of the Regiment of Philadelphia. "We heard you humping the poor maid, Sir, and thought we’d extend the joke . . . if y’know what I mean," he bowed, doubling up in laughter.

James squealed like a rat on holiday and pointed at Ben as if something in his pants had gone deliriously awry.

The fat one felt a draft in his crotch, felt himself sweating and blushing . . . and like an embarrassed little boy caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, he buttoned up his fly.

"Bull," he groaned.

Thomas and James just ogled at each other standing at a safe distance on the curb. Ben laughed. Then all Hell broke loose as the three men doubled up in laughter that quickly sent angry, sleepy neighbors to their second-story windows, fuming with hot curses and cold condemnations about what the City has come to when goddamn drunks disturb the peace at such an ungodly hour . . . when decent hard-working citizens are trying to get a good night’s sleep before embarking on a hard day’s labor.

The men smothered their laughter. It was painful, their hissing and spluttering through their teeth and tightly sealed lips—whose wild bursts of ejaculatory joy sounded like raspberry razes and musical farts. But, finally, they settled down on the white marble steps to a softly jocular, sane state of affairs, accompanied only by low groaning grins.

Throats raw, they leered at Ben.

"Was she good?" they nudged; "did she like it?"

Ben busted a gut; Thomas thought they’d better get out of town before it’s too late.

"My dear," said Ben, happy that they’d parked the limousine at the curb, a Lincoln Continental, a long black job, a hearse. "I—I thought I’d die back there. Wwhh! You should’ve seen your faces," he laughed, "when you turned and jumped."

"We saw yours when you found your bird in flight," said James, unlocking the driver’s door.

"Benjamin, my good man," said Thomas, shaking his hand, "my senior in age, wisdom and experience, THE GREATEST MAN AND ORNAMENT OF THE AGE AND COUNTRY IN WHICH HE LIVED," he announced to the neighborhood at large; then privately, "my good, bawdy sport, I’d be less than honest if didn’t tell you . . . that I am embarrassed about the lowness of the low comedy and the rowdiness of my—and my low associate’s—behavior. Therefore, if you will permit, and on behalf of Mr. Madison, who is incapable of manners, I tender you our unsolicited apology at this auspicious time," he bowed, grinning and leering so broadly like a brainless fool that Ben grinned, too, "for the low . . . no, the broad humor . . . and for any low offense that the gods in their infinite wisdom," he grinned, "have happily permitted us to commit."

"Thomas, you’re full of it. But I accept your apology . . . on the single condition that you accept my Golden Shovel Award," said Old Ben hoarsely.

"Sire, I humbly accept."

They opened three doors, got into the limo, sighed, and settled back, drying their tears with fine linen handkerchiefs. James drove and Thomas rode shotgun. Ben sat in the back.

"Let’s catch Lucky at Head House Square," said Ben, thinking he’d like to introduce his buddies to the kid.

"What if he’s not there?" asked James.

"He’s there," said Ben.

¶

Heading east toward the Delaware River—and architecturally back in time as they traveled down Pine St. toward Society Hill—the hearse turned the lively corner at 2nd St., where youthful stags, maidens, and ageless couples on-the-town slurped gigantic, triple-decked ice cream cones . . .

"Hey, I want one of them," cried James.

. . . waited patiently in line outside the Head House Inn for a table after a movie at the Ritz, talked in cliques on the brightly lighted sidewalk, shopped in candle shoppes and leather goods stores, bought souvenirs from artisans selling hand-made jewelry, original art from artists with water colors or charcoal prints, cheerfully greeted old and new friends in passing with a happy wave of the hand, and gladly showed perfect strangers the fabulous things they’d bought and bargains they’d found from the quaint artists’ stands . . . things to bring back home to Mom and Dad, girlfriends at work and guys at the office . . . and happily celebrated the rhythms of night life in Philadelphia, this eve of The Fourth of July on the 222nd Anniversary of the Nation’s founding, in the Year of Our Lord and One-time Master, President, and CEO, Nineteen Hundred Ninety-eight.

Lucky Stiff, at thirty something a sacred fish swimming upstream (as Fate and the machinations of GOD Inc. would have it) against the current of happy couples who strolled arm-in-arm as they crossed the bright cobblestone street, ignored the traffic that headed his way—as well as the school of citizens.

No matter that a sparkling, black, late-model Lincoln Continental had slowly turned the quaint, fashionable Society Hill corner . . . nor that its mad chauffeur, decked in a simple, black, three-cornered hat, had headed straight for the latent suicide.

"DON’T RUSH ME! ALL RIGHT?" Lucky bitched, standing firmly in the middle of the historic, cobblestone street, the flat of his hairy hand stopping traffic like an experienced traffic cop. "I’LL GO WHEN I’M READY." He punctuated his stand by screwing his index finger into the defiant air.

As the hearse majestically rolled by, the kid thought he heard somebody—the Jolly Roger chauffeur, who sported a fake, black patch over his left eye—shout, "NOT TODAY, JAMES!" Frankly, though, he had no way of knowing that it was actually the portly, jovial passenger, who sat regally in the rear of the hearse, who had issued the stiff warning to the mad chauffeur.

"BY JOVE!" shouted the privateering chauffeur, flying off down 2nd St. like a bat out of Hell. "IF NOT TONIGHT, BENJAMIN, WHEN’S THE BLOODY EVENT TO BE?" he joked, grumbling like a Lord Pirate.

His good eye glinted with sparkling good humor as he gnashed his teeth and drove the hearse as if it were the bridge of a triple-masted pirate ship—and he the captain, fighting for his life in the face of treacherous winds and mutinous seas.

The hearse circled the block. Solemnly, James navigated the ghost ship back to Pine St. and pulled up at the curb near the shopping mall—where the quiet, residential area began—just a few midnight steps from the quaint Head House Inn.

They talked.

"What’re y’going to do with ‘im, Cap’n?" asked James.

Ben sat enigmatically. "It’s a surprise."

Thomas leaned back.

"Ben, it don’t feel right . . . and he . . . don’t look right," he said.

"Wait’ll he’s dead," said Ben.

"Now that mykes sense," chimed James, figuring that everybody else had lost it.

"I’ll take him to the Fashion Show," said Ben.

Benj. Franklin’s Second Annual Designer-Line Fashion Show was an eagerly-awaited-for party at which you were lucky if you could get tickets. For it—and for the celebrated guests—he designed everything, period outfits for everybody in Kingdom Come. If he liked you, he’d invite you to the show and make you something nice—something that’d fit you perfectly, that’d match your taste, times, tush, personality—and he’d do it better than anybody dead or alive.

He was dynamite at it.

Everybody loved him for it. Eternity was so dull, it helped to pass the time. It entertained.

"Act surprised . . . When you see him, act . . . "

"I won’t have to act, Ben," Thomas yawned.

"Act surprised," said Ben.

"Home, James," commanded Thomas, yawning like a yak and hooting like an owl, his night-green eyes tearing profusely in the pleasure of it all. "Home," he yawned.

James started the engine.

Thomas nodded.

Ben stared at his own reflection in the door window as if he were staring at Big Daddy Death.

"THERE HE IS!" cried James.

Thomas jumped.

Ben didn’t budge from his ghostly image in the window as the kid walked jauntily by the hearse, heading home to a fresh-picked bag of killer, four-leaf clover, whistling Rodgers and Hammerstein’s "I Whistle a Happy Tune" as he passed on.

Transfixed, Ben briefly saw their visages merge in the dark-tinted glass as his doomed, unlucky son passed the hearse. The two images, one superimposed on the other, showed Ben’s face as big as a green monster’s as it enshrouded Lucky’s figure on the sidewalk—walking happily in the tinted glass.

"It’s a murderous game," said Ben.

"That it is, Godfather."

Ben frowned at the title. He’d honored Zeus with it, but Zeus was Zeus; and, besides, when he’d used it, he’d meant it. He’d used it with respect.

I get no respect, he thought.

James grinned.

"Take me home, James . . . Home," he said.

"Home it is, Godfather."

Thomas dozed.

Revving the hearse’s powerful engine, James spun his wheels and left a pound of rubber on Pine St. as he roared away from the curb in his three-cornered hat and turned the mad corner at Head House.

Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July, thought Ben. He thought about the kid . . . about the kid’s death . . . Independence Day, he thought, a cynical grin gracing his dry lips.

A dirty, crumpled brown paper bag of four-leaf clover tumbled out of his fat hand, spilling through the midnight of his snowy imagination.

. . . time to die, he dreamed.

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Copyright © Domenic Corsaro 1998