While having lunch at Qdoba yesterday I ran across a very interesting individual. He was about 5’5″ tall, a bit on the heavy side, dressed head to toe in a charcoal gray suit, a top hat that added an extra foot to his height, wore a large yellow smiley face button in his lapel and was carrying an ice cream scoop that was almost as tall as he was. I had just started digging into my baby head sized chicken burrito when he walked in.
He waited in the doorway and scanned the lunch crowd as though looking for a friend. Since I really enjoy spotting odd people I studied him from behind my burrito. He could have passed for just another goth kid; pasty face, stringy hair, sunken eyes, pouty red lips except he was easily in his late 40s/early 50s and he was smiling. It was the kind of smile that said ‘I know I don’t belong on this person, but I’ve nowhere else go’. Then he looked at me. His eyes lit up as if he had found who he was looking for. He headed towards me and since I had chosen a booth in the corner there was nowhere for me to go to avoid him. I readied my burrito to toss at his head in case he turned out to be a bit crazier than I was prepared to deal with. It just might be able to stun him long enough for me to slip past.
When he reached my table he said, “Hi! You have a blog, don’t you?”
I said, “Well, I prefer to think of it as a place to keep my deepest hopes and dreams safely on the internet where anyone with a computer and AOL can poke and plunder. Why?” I was also wondering to myself what it was about me that made it obvious that I was a blogger. Sorry. “Internet hoper and dreamer.” Perhaps it’s a kind of “mark of the beast” on my forehead. I made a mental note to check a mirror when I had a chance.
“I’ve recently started a new business in the area and I was trying to come up with a way to get the word out that wouldn’t cost me anything. Capital’s a bit tight at the moment so traditional advertising is out. I felt that getting on the news would be problematic, considering the nature of my business, and they wouldn’t give me the positive spin that I need. Then I remembered the power of the Internet! Hundreds of thousands of people could hear about my business and it wouldn’t cost a dime! All I needed was a sympathetic blogger with a large enough audience. They’ve been in the news a lot lately, you know?”
“So I’ve heard.” I got out when he paused for breath.
“Do you think you might be interested in interviewing me? You do have a lot of readers, right?” He tilted his head when he finished speaking and looked at me expectantly with sideways crazy eyes.
“Um. Okay. Yeah, sure, why not? And I have oodles of readers. Simply oodles.” Sure, it was a lie, but this was the strangest thing to happen to me in ages and I was afraid that if he found out I had perhaps 12 regular readers he would go find someone else who bore the Mark of the Blog and take his weirdness with him. I couldn’t have that. And besides, 12 could be oodles, right?
He stood his ice cream scoop carefully against the side of the table, sat down across from me, leaned in and said, “How would you like me to start?” He had a musty smell about him and up close I could tell that his suit and hat were actually black, just very dusty.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never done an interview before. Let’s start with your name and what your business is about.”
“My name is The Jolly Reaper and that’s also my business. I rend souls from people with an extra bit of flair and fun,” he said, with the grin still on his face and the crazy still in his eyes.
“I see…”
———————–
Sorry to have left you hanging like that. What can I say? I’m a busy beaver. Those dams won’t just build themselves! So, anyway. I’m going over the notes from my interview with The Jolly Reaper. I’ve decided to present it in standard “Q&A format”. At least I assume it’s the standard. I also have the sketch I did of him here:
Me: So. How did you come into your… profession?
The Jolly Reaper: I was sitting out on my porch one fine Summer day watching my neighbor, Bill, mow his lawn. He was about halfway finished when The Grim Reaper rode up, hopped off his boney horse and started chasing Bill around his yard. I could hardly believe my eyes! Bill tried to escape with a juke and spin but he was fairly out of shape and The Grim Reaper caught him with a backhanded swing of his scythe and that was that. I thought to myself, “That’s no way to run a business.”
M: How do you mean?
TJR: Well, Bill wasn’t exactly a close friend, but I could tell he was positively terrified when he saw that cloaked monstrosity bearing down on him. I ask you, does that sound like customer satisfaction?
M: Um. No. I suppose not.
TJR: Of course not! Life is hard enough without it being ended by a bony anachronism with an oversized knife. You know? Sure you do. So, after going over to make certain that Bill was dead, I turned off his mower, went back into my house, called the police, then sat down to give it some thought. I figured there were a lot of people that would rather not be visited by The Grim Reaper.
M: Most of them I would imagine.
TJR: Exactly! Talk about a huge potential customer base! And I put it all down to the way The Grim Reaper has chosen to handle things. He’s had thousands of years to make the experience of dying more enjoyable but he hasn’t bothered. It’s almost as though he doesn’t care. And I think that people have picked up on that. I decided then and there that it was time for a someone to set up a bit of competition, and I knew that I was just the man to do it. I know what’s fun.
M: How do you mean?
TJR: Well, for starters, there’s the whole image that The Grim Reaper presents to his customers. He’s a dusty skeleton in a black robe riding a skeleton horse and carrying a three foot long curved blade at the end of a six foot staff. Not very soothing. Whereas I’m a normal looking fellow who dresses nice. I’m wearing a friendly smiley face button, I drive a green Metro and I carry a big ice cream scoop. Now tell me, is that scary?
M: Well, not really, but it is very odd. I was ready to bean you with my burrito.
TJR: Ah! But you didn’t, did you? If I had been The Grim Reaper you wouldn’t have hesitated and I would be picking chicken and rice from my eye sockets right now. Instead, here I sit within two feet of you and you’re totally calm. Cool, huh?
———————–
TJR: Oh! Don’t worry! I’m not going to “ply my trade” on you today. I really do want this interview.
M: Well, that’s a relief. But why?
TJR: Well, when I turned in my application to start my own Reaping business with the IRS…
M: Wait. The IRS?
TJR: Yes. I’m sure you’ve heard that the only two certainties in life are Death and Taxes. Well, it was decided at some point that they might as well share building space and staff. Makes it easier to coordinate. So, in every major IRS building, usually the basement, there is a Death Management office. Even in the smaller buildings you can usually request a franchise application, although they require that you go to a major office for testing.
M: Testing?
TJR: Of course. They have to be sure that you have the right frame of mind for the business. That you can be depended on and aren’t overly squeamish. They say there’s nothing more awkward than a person failing to be shuffled off because their Reaper got a case of the dry heaves.
M: What if that happens?
TJR: Usually something unpleasant, so I’ve heard. If it isn’t taken care of quickly it will result in ghouls.
M: Ghouls? Like vampires or zombies?
TJR: Not exactly, although they can be mistaken for such. But they are in fact just ghouls. Souls trapped in decaying bodies. When that happens to a person they tend to go a bit funny in the head. Some of them act as though they are vampires, seeking out victims in an attempt to quench a thirst they don’t really have. Others get depressed and just wander around and slowly fall apart. Those are often mistaken for zombies, but really they just want to be left alone.
The real problem when someone has crossed over to ghoul status is they fall off the radar, so to speak. Reapers have no way of locating them. Not even through the IRS. So then a reclamation unit gets dispatched to the spot where the death should have occurred and they set about tracking down and containing the ghoul, hopefully before it kills anyone.
M: That’s nice of them.
TJR: It’s not done to be nice really, it’s done to prevent extra paperwork.
M: How so?
TJR: Well, as it was explained to me, since the ghouls have fallen off the radar nothing is able to keep tabs on them and their actions weren’t anticipated. Therefor, if a ghoul kills someone it’s unexpected and since it was before the victim’s predetermined time there isn’t a Reaper ready to take the soul. And if the soul isn’t properly reaped, then the victim becomes a ghoul.
A lot of undead mythology is based off of this actually.
Many ghouls aren’t discovered until they fail to show up for their scheduled time of death and their Reaper reports them as a “no show”. Then a detective is sent to find out when and where the missing-deceased was last seen alive and then cross reference that location with known ghoul activity. It’s all ghastly complicated, although I’ve heard that someone is working on a computer program to make it a bit easier. I’m just glad it’s not my problem as long as I do my job properly.
M: You mentioned other Reapers. I thought there was just you and The Grim Reaper. There are more?
TJR: Oh certainly. The world is a big place. The Grim Reaper was a solo operator for a very long time, but he was having a bit of trouble keeping up with the population growth around the Middle Ages. There were quite a few ghoul outbreaks due to him falling behind. So, The Powers That Be decided that it was time to expand the work force. Word was circulated and people were recruited into the Reaper Army. Many of them in fact came from the large population of ghouls.
Back then the requirements were a lot more strict. Much like any army you had to form a unified image. Everyone had to dress in robes, carry a scythe and have their flesh and organs stripped from their bones.
Fortunately in the mid 50s The Powers noticed what was happening in the field of restaurant franchising. They decided to give it a “hundred-year-try” while maintaining the Reaper Army at its current strength, just in case things didn’t go so well. And that leads me back to why I need this interview.
M: Oh! That’s right! I’m sorry I interrupted earlier.
TJR: No problem. It all works out in the end. The standing Rule of Death is when it’s someone’s time to pass on, they automatically fall under the scythe UNLESS they are aware of their other options. So, if someone is about to die and they have heard of me, or one of the other franchise operators, then a signal is sent to my GPS locator along with a name, description and exact time and cause of death. Then I can either accept or decline the soul. At that point I usually have to get moving because they don’t give as much advance notice as they used to. Not since Fred.
M: Who’s Fred?
TJR: I’ll tell you about him some other time. Let’s just say he had a “Plan” and leave it at that for now.
———————–
M: So let me see if I have this right. In order to get your own “Reaping Franchise” all you have to do is go to the IRS, fill out a form, take some tests to show you have the stomach for it and that’s it? You don’t need to pay anything? No start up fees?
TJR: Well for the most part that’s correct. But believe me, you do pay.
M: How so?
TJR: You pay on your first client call…
M: Are you okay?
TJR: What? Oh. Yes. I’m sorry. I was just remembering.
You see, after you’ve turned in your forms and taken the initial tests then it’s like any other government activity. They give you what you need to do the job and then you wait for the time to come to do it.
When I applied eight years ago we didn’t have these nifty GPS locators. I was given a pager and I was told to always be near a phone. Generally I would have an hour from when the pager went off to give them a call back if I accepted the job, so it didn’t really limit my movements much. No long trips through the desert, but otherwise life as normal.
I was also given a kit containing pamphlets that talked about presenting the proper image, putting together a good business identity, why I no longer needed health and dental benefits, how to cope with stress, the credit value of a soul and others. It was quite a package.
They gave me a franchise number and a mail order catalog for an unlisted company that specialized in hard to find reaper gear. It was explained that I would be receiving my Visa Black Card in the mail within the next few weeks and that, based on the size of my franchise I would have a quarterly budget that I needed to remain within. If I had trouble staying within the budget or seemed to be spending money at an excessive rate I could expect to be audited.
I was told as I finished up that I wouldn’t be an actual reaper until the pager went off; if I turned down my first client my franchise would be forfeit and I would have to repay the balance on my Black Card; and that it could take anywhere from three months to a year before I was paged. I thanked them and then went home to look over the catalog with my wife.
My wife, Carol, hadn’t been terribly supportive of the idea that I was going to be a Grim Reaper. The months since Bill died she and I argued about it quite a bit. But I knew that I could make a positive difference to the act of dying. If only she had seen what he’d gone through. Once I completed the application and the tests she seemed to have resigned herself to it. I can be quite stubborn.
When I got home I showed her the pamphlets and the catalog and I asked her to help me think of a name and image to set me apart from the other reapers. When we first met she was going to college working toward a degree in design. I was a business major. We had a whirlwind romance that ended with us getting married before we graduated and having our first child shortly thereafter. After our second child was born four years later she pretty much gave up on her dreams and settled for her reality. Once she had the catalog in her hand and heard what I was hoping for it was like a switch was thrown. All of her creativity seemed to come flooding back and it was all I could do to keep up with her.
Eventually we settled on the look you see before you. Interesting, but not intimidating. That was the goal. Then it was time for more waiting. Since the day-to-day living expenses were covered under my budget I had a lot of time to just sit and think. Eight months had passed since I left the IRS building and Summer had rolled around. The kids were off from school and everyone wanted to get away for a vacation. I guess all of my sitting around waiting for the beeper to go off had been getting to them. The kids really wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom and Carol thought it would be a lot of fun. Help get me out of the funk I was in. Have you ever been to Disney World?
M: No. I never have. Is it nice?
TJR: Yes, but it’s large. The kids loved it though. It got to the point where we couldn’t keep up. They were going through the Haunted Mansion for the third time or so and Carol and I were sitting on a bench resting when it happened. The beeper went off. It was an amazing thing. To Carol it sounded like any other beeper. To me it seemed like church bells were going off in my head. Not painful, but impossible to ignore. I looked at the number then looked at Carol. She had a mixed expression on her face. Excitement and concern.
“Are you going to do it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ll be right back. I have to call the number for the details.”
“I hope it’s not too far,” she said as I looked for a phone. I was dazed. I had spent so much time waiting for this moment and suddenly it had come. I found a phone, made the call and then went back to Carol. She looked at me with expectant eyes.
“Well?” she asked as I sat down next to her.
“Knock-Knock.” I said.
She looked at me puzzled, “Who’s there?”
I took her hand, kissed it and said, “Death.”
She collapsed in my arms.
That was the final test, and the cost of my franchise. I had to take the soul of someone I loved.
… to be continued …
