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“Because so many of them are dead. They have no souls. This has been going on for some time. The dead bring death back with them when they return to Earth.”
What can you say to something looney-tuney like that? I felt like taking a nap. I felt like getting up from where I was sitting, maybe or maybe not giving a wave to everyone in the room, and walking right out of there into the bedroom and my pillow and about an hour nighty-night. My brain felt tired and like it had had something lousy and too heavy for lunch.
“Yeah? Well prove it, Brothers.” De
Not that it touched the Heidelberg Cylinder boys. They smiled on like two Ken dolls on a date with Barbie. Brooks politely asked, “What do you mean, sir?”
De
Vito put a thumbs up. “I agree! Show me too!”
I kind of felt like doing it too. I myself was sick of gleamy-eyed wackos coming to my house with their cheap pamphlets and “God’s-go
What I resented most was how damned sure people like this were that they were right. Hey, maybe they were, but how could they be so convinced? I admit I wasn’t sure of anything in life, much less how His Majesty upstairs in heaven makes things work. But at least I admit it. Listening to these dudes talk, or others like them who’d appeared over the years with their own smudged magazines and weird smiles, God was as easy to understand as the baseball scores.
“Well?”
The not-so Righteous Brothers blinked at the same time and smiled again. But kept their traps shut.
“Huh? Can you prove you’re right? Or are you going to tell me to wait till Judgment Day rolls around to find out?”
“Oh no sir, we can show you right now. That’s not a problem.” Brooks spoke and his voice was nice as rice. I mean he spoke like what De
“What the fuck are you guys talking about?”
Rae caught her breath hearing my words, but I couldn’t help myself. I was suddenly as hot and sizzling as a frying chicken. I didn’t like where this conversation was going. And I sure didn’t believe what was just said. All eyes were on me like the kid who just farted in class. De
“You can sit there with a straight face and say you’ll show me Satan this minute?”
“We can show you proof, sir. All the proof you’ll need. We just have to go up to Pilot Hill.”
“What’s on Pilot Hill?”
“The proof you want.”
“What proof?”
The brothers stood up. “We can go right now. We’ll give you a thousand dollars each if you’re not happy with our proof.”
The room went stone quiet for the second time in ten minutes.
Rae said in a wiggly voice, “A thousand dollars?”
“Oh yes, ma’am. We have no desire to waste your valuable time.” Brooks reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills as thick as a Big Mac. So help me God, that man’s hands contained more cash than I’d ever seen one person hold, outside of a bank teller.
Vito whistled one note low and asked what I’m sure we were all wondering: “How much you got there?”
Brooks looked at his hand. “I think ten thousand dollars. How much do you have, Brother Zin Zan?”
Zin stuck out his lower lip and nodded. “Ten thousand.” He patted his pocket.
“Each of you guys is carrying ten grand?” De
“That’s the way we do things in our organization, sir. We want you to be happy with your decision, one way or the other.”
Vito stood right up. “Well, I just made my decision-let’s go!”
De
Rae looked at me and then stood up slowly. The Brothers did too. Only I stayed where I was sitting. To emphasize that fact even more I crossed my arms and went humph.
“What’s the matter, Bill?”
“You know damn well what the matter is, Rae! This whole thing is nuts. The three of you are going out the door with these screwballs because they dangled some free money in front of you. Dangled but didn’t give. Well how about this: I’ll come too if you give me my thousand dollars right now, Brothers. Not later-this second. I’ll give it back to you when we get there if I’m so convinced you’re right.”
“I’m fine with that, sir. It’s no problem,” Brooks said and without one second’s hesitation peeled ten crisp new hundred-dollar bills off his Big Mac. “Here you go.” He crossed the room and handed them to me.
“Hey, I want mine too if he’s getting his now!”
“Me too.”
“Yes, me too please.” Rae said that. She is a shy, kind woman who doesn’t even complain when someone big steps on her toe at the market. But now here she was wanting her thousand dollars up front just like everyone else. I was setting a bad example, but at least we were all a thousand dollars richer for it.
Then an evil thought came riding in. I looked suspiciously at the money in my hand. Maybe it was too fresh, too new? Was real money really that green? “How do we know this isn’t fake? That it’s not counterfeit or something?”
Brother Zin Zan was counting off hundreds while Brooks was handing Vito his share. “Oh we can stop at a bank on the way and have it checked if you like. But I guarantee you it’s real.”
I looked at my money like it might have something to say. This whole thing was so crazy, why shouldn’t we just accept it at face value? Four thousand dollars was being handed out in that room and everyone was as cool as cucumbers about it. Like it happened to us every day and now was just the payoff hour. Rae wore a smile that was somewhere between happiness and crime.
“How do you want to go over there?”
“What do you mean?”
De
Zin Zan shook his head. “We don’t have a car.”
I shook mine. “We got a little Hyundai. We can barely get the two of us into it. It wouldn’t know what to do with six people.”
“It’d have a heart attack,” Rae said, and it was like the first joke she’d made in five years.
All the guys smiled at her and I felt pretty proud to have a wisecracking wife. First she’s putting out a greedy hand just like the others for a thousand dollars and now she was cracking jokes. She was suddenly a completely different woman from the one I knew, but I kind of liked it.
“Then I say we all go in the truck.”
“What truck, yours? And ride in the back with the rest of the appliances?”
“Naah-you and your wife can sit up front with De
Brooks and Zin Zan nodded to that and so did Rae. Who was I to argue? We put on our raincoats and waded out into the storm. Where I looked left and right but didn’t see any furniture truck. “So where is it?”