Oh-Oh City

After that, when I was sure, I asked questions, but her answers wereoften unsatisfying.

"Why me?"

"Scott, I'd tell you if I knew. But I don't, honest. It just happens. They tell you that – one day you'll see your replacement, and you'll know. I guess it's sort of like love at first sight."

"Beenie, you're God/God knows everything. There's nothing He doesn't know."

"Maybe when we're all joined together, all thirty-six of us. But that never happens, so individually we got to struggle along with what we do know. You're it, mister. You're the one who's go

"Where do we go when we die?"

"Wherever you want. Some people stick around here; others take off."

"Take off where?"

"I told you: wherever they want."

"You're not helping!"

"They're vague questions. Remember in your class? 'Be more specific, Silver!' By the way, you know where you got that name? Your family's real name is 'Flink,' but when your great-grandfather came here from Saarland, he didn't think it sounded American, so he changed it to 'Silver.' Jack Silver instead of Udo Flink."

"Udo Flink? That's the stupidist name I ever heard."

"I guess your grandpa thought so, too. Do you want egg salad or corned beef?" From her left and right pockets, she took out sandwiches wrapped in plastic. "Roberta told me you liked my egg salad."

"I do. Thank you. That would be nice." She handed it to me, and I held it up. "An egg-salad sandwich from God."

"At least that way you can be sure it's fresh, eh?"

"Beenie, what am I supposed to do now? It's an incredible compliment that you've chosen me, hut… what do you do when you're …. "

"Well, you're not there yet, bug, so don't start worrying about that. First you gotta pass the tests. I mean, you're already over the first hurdle, which is getting picked. But now come the tests. Those're the rules, and you've just gotta follow them."

"What kind of tests? What kind of rules?"

"You want to know now? Don't you want to finish your sandwich first?"

"Now."

"O.K." She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin that had 'Dairy Queen' printed across it. "First thing you gotta do – the first test, if you want to call it that – is work out your problem with A

"Why can't you do something to take her anger away?"

"First of all, I wouldn't know how; remember, I'm only a fraction of the whole, and my powers aren't as great as you think. Second, you two've got to work it out yourselves. If I waved some kind of magic wand over her and did what you said, it wouldn't solve her problems. It'd only be like a stopgap. A kid's got to learn to tie its own shoes sooner or later."

"What should I do to help her?"

"That's part of your test. You have to figure her out and how to start patching things up. I can tell you, though, she's not going to be much help. You've got yourself a hostile witness there, counselor. She hates your guts."

I gathered. Does she know about me? Obviously she knows about you, since you were the one who brought her back."

"Yeah, she knows about me, but not about you. She thinks I brought her here so you could make peace. She doesn't know it's part of your test."

"How do you hush the dead?"

She slapped my shoulder. "That's a good question. You know what one of my tests was?"

"Beenie, these are the ultimate mysteries! They're not recondite – they're impossible to understand. How am I supposed to go about –"

"What does 'recondite' mean?"

"Difficult to understand.'"

"Stop whining man. Of course they're hard to understand! You're the scholar, the thinker. I'm just a stupid little woman from Kansas with kids who don't like me. But I passed my tests. Sure, they were different from yours, but they weren't any easier."

"How can God have trouble with His children?"

"Hey, friend, did you ever read the Bible? A lot of His kids gave him lip. From what I heard, Moses sat up on the mountain and argued forty days! Christ? 'Why have You forsaken me?' Some gratitude, huh? And Job! He wanted personal proof! He wanted us to drop everything, come down and show him, like we were demonstrating a vacuum cleaner!

"I thought you said all thirty-six of you never got together."

"Not anymore. In the old days, but not now. It hasn't been necessary until now. Don't you see, Scott? That's why man keeps wanting to be immortal. Not so he can live a million years, but because, deep in his blood, he knows God must be kept alive for every generation. God, who's a part of every man because He's made up of men. Thirty-six of them. From all cultures, all kinds of personalities and professions, men, women, kids. … The faces of God are always changing, because the separate pieces change. But at the end, there's just Him, and He's immortal so long as man wants to be. The fact that I have trouble with my daughter, or that I'm dying of cancer, doesn't matter. It's important to me, sure, but not to the big picture. Those're some of my tests – making peace with my children, and learning how to die. Christ had to learn how to die, too."

I made fists and shook them at the sky. "It's too earthly! It's supposed to be more majestic!"

Beenie said nothing while I raged, and after, when my futile hands opened and dropped slowly to my lap.

"Finish your lunch, Scott. I recondite it very highly."

The snow had started again as we approached her house. I would much rather have stayed outside and watched it fall than go in and talk to A

"What am I supposed to say?'

"Play it by ear. See how she acts."

Beenie opened the front door and waved me in. It smelled nice inside. An aroma of woodsmoke and soap. Brushing the top of her head vigorously to get the snow off, she called, "A

"A

When nothing happened, she scratched her nose and went looking. No A

"Nowhere! That little skunk. Where'd she go?"

"Maybe she doesn't want to see me." I hoped my relief wasn't too obvious.

"I guess not. Well, that isn't your problem. I'll find her and get you two together. You want a hot toddy or something! Another sandwich?"

"No, thank you. I need to go and sit alone awhile. There's too much to think about."

"I'll say!" She opened the door and walked me out to the car. "Say, what's that inside there? Is it A

"I don't know."

There was something propped in the. passenger's seat. At first, I, too, thought it was the girl, because it was so large. Getting closer, I could almost – "Nisco?! Great God in Heaven, it is! It's Nisco."

"What?" Beenie came up next to me and bent over to look through the windshield. 'What's Nisco? It's a stuffed animal. Look how big it is! Must have cost you a fortune. Did you buy it for one of your grandchildren? Hey, what's the matter?"

"It's the Nisco! I can't believe it I haven't thought of that – I couldn't finish the sentence. My jaw worked up and down a couple of times, but didn't have the oomph to do anything else. "Hey, what's up? What is that thing?"

I turned to Beenie and looked at her with, I'm sure, very stu

"You keep saying that. Looks like a stuffed animal to me."

"It is. When I was a boy, the only bad dreams I ever had were of that wolf. See the X's where the eyes should be. I once went to the movies and saw a cartoon with him in it. He was the bad guy. The tilted hat, big mouth, fangs. He was chasing the Three Little Pigs. That night and for months afterward, I dreamed he was chasing me. Holding a knife and fork and always drooling, he was going to carve me up. I was so scared. I used to wake up screaming. My parents'd run in, thinking someone was murdering me-"