The Grim Reaper
The Grim Reaper by J.D. Collins, 2001 and ©1999-2000 by J.F. Clennan, is a short story whose twisted thesis of hope and despair became a major thematic element in IF ALL MEN WERE ANGELS published by Denlingers http://www.thebookden.com/allmen.html
If All Men Were Angels
by John F. Clennan © 1997 & revised 2001 All Rights Reserved By John F. Clennan, Esq.
The faint December sun hadn’t crested the treetops when I stole into the suburban storefront law office as quietly as if I were running from the Grim Reaper. No I wasn’t `a second story man.’ Besides, in my opinion of the time, this modest office in a suburban strip mall could only boasted of one-story. I do admit I had mischief in mind as I hopped across the pitted ruins of the parking lot. I needed to be in early to see if I could raise a little money by feeding off my landlord’s phone line.
Outtakes from IF ALL MEN WERE ANGELS were published by the legendary Bill Loepkey's Inditer Dot Com of Canada.
Against advancing illness and frustration which the legal system imposed, Bill Loepkey promoted literature and culture on the internet. It is no small recognition that his countrymen have hono[u]red Bill in their Bibliotek Nationale. In many respects Angels complimented Mr Loepkey's complex situation: a fascination with the new electronic against the onslaught of an illness induced by the marvels of technology.The central message of IF ALL MEN WERE ANGELS twisting the themes of hope and dispair agianst the background of the Third Industrial Revolution might have been met a receptive audience at
Inditer Dot Com .
I was the new boy. My mentor Jack Nater the lawyer from whom I sub-let space was on trial; with the boss away, I was sure his secretary Jane would come in late. I might have about 20 minutes to screen calls to find a few people with cash to pay for on-the-spot services, Jack busy with his trial of `The Case’ wasn’t able to render.
Sure I was alone I sung to myself: “Ring,
Ring,
Telephone Ring,
Ringing Bells Make Lawyers Sing!”
Then there was a breezy chill, a colder gust than even this frigid December morning was capable of. I had felt that bone curdling chill of emptiness and despair before. It feels like, I thought, the gush of the attendance taker in law school as he strode the aisles of the amphitheatre in search of failing students. What did we call him, The Grim Reaper?
I heard a voice crying out. “Jane, Jane.” I was relieved. Jack Nater the older lawyer I sub-leased space from was calling out the name of his secretary. What was Jack doing in? He was supposed to be on trial.
Bubbling at a jaunty stride, Jack peered in to the secretarial area where I usually kept myself at one of the desks I rented. My own private room in the back was too cold.
“Oh you,” the ebullience vanished from Jack’s wizened face. Placing the pot containing a small withered Christmas tree on the shelf by the window, Jack turned to me. Jack’s voice soured to reflect his annoyance, “I expected Jane early. I had some dictation: request for instructions, for the trial… Why are you here?”
“Ah—Jane called,” I thought quickly, “---she couldn’t make it…. Her….husband’s sick and she asked me to cover.” I prayed Jane wouldn’t walk in and prove me a liar.
“Hmpf---Husband probably got himself drunk again,” Jack’s face snarled with disgust, “and --- Oh well, after today ---- When the case settles and I cash out, it won’t be my worry.” Jack turned to his struggling foot weed he called a Christmas tree. “See this little tree;” Jack held up the sprig by the stem like a freshly killed rabbit, “it’s my farewell gift to the office. Maybe Santa will leave next month’s rent under it.”
“Santa might not notice us,” I retorted. “The top of your tree is busted. We can’t put a star on top.”
Times were tough. One in every third house was boarded up. Rusty hulks with out of state license plates tooled the roads with occupants searching for jobs. Sometimes I got meager fees in rolled up coins.
Jack wasn’t interested in “coffee-money-work” anymore. He had `The Case,’ a complaint for personal injuries. Jack expected to cash-out on the one-third contingency handsomely.
Jack snorted. “Have Jane make a star…. She loves make-work. When real work has to be done --- no matter. After today she can work for you--- that is,” Jack looked at me with a spiteful taunt, “if you can afford her.”
“Tell Jane to follow a second dream? I’d prefer to meet the Grim Reaper!” I snickered Jack was a short-timer. He was entitled to snicker and smirk at those who would remain. And I knew nerves had given a razor sharp edge to his nastiness.
Jack ignored me. Instead he stared out the window with hands on his hips and pontificated, “I’ve waited 40 years for this moment…. And I don’t mind admitting I’m scared of tomorrow more than you are.”
“Scared. Why? Of What?” I chuckled. “The Grim Reaper will snatch the victory away from you.”
“There is a Grim Reaper out there, one who feeds on ambition and false pride and revels in arrogance….” Jack orated, “Anytime you think yourself too important, you think you can hold out for just a little more, there, the grim reaper is ready to pounce.”
“Sounds like the gaunt, wizened attendance taker in law school with gnarled bony hands grasping the shoulders of a failing student with `It’s time.’” I laughed sarcastically. I thought the empty office echoed in reply with that low haunting cackle of the Grim Reaper.
“Yes young advocate,” Jack checked his watch, “it’s time. I have to get to the courthouse.” Jack smiled, “Destiny calls.”
As soon as I heard Jack’s tires turned on the fractured macadam of the parking lot, I returned to my ditty… “Ring---Ring---Telephone Ring, Ringing bells…” Just to be sure, I went over to the window to look out. I almost tipped over the pathetic little Christmas tree in the process. “Poor little tree. You may meet the Grim Reaper ahead of Jack.”
Pickings on Jack’s lines were slim with holidays near and tough times forecast ahead, but I did find a few willing to pay small fees before I received a call from Jack. “That tall, loud-mouthed arrogant Empress I call a secretary ever come in?” Jack churlishly asked.
“In the lady’s room. She asked me to cover phone.”
“Good, the defense collapsed,” Jack reported, “Defendant failed to show for testimony. Judge gave the defense an hour to decide whether to up the offer from $50,000.” Glee was in Jack’s voice. “I myself decided that the supposed Grim Reaper ain’t such a bad guy after all.”
“No, Jack,” I replied, “The Grim Reaper is just the sum of all our fears as well as of our hopes and our expectations.”
Jack’s chuckle was his good bye. As the line went dead, I though I heard the reverberation in a low braying sound in the wire.
When I hung up, I felt that chill, the bone piercing dry blast of artic wind. I turned with the expectation of finding the Grim Reaper at my door. Instead there was only Jack’s tall blond secretary Jane.
“Jack?” Jane asked in a low voice.
“I covered,” I told Jane as relinquished her seat and re-took my own. “All Jack wants is a cheer for his sad little tree: make a star for our decrepit Christmas fir.”
“Should be easy enough,” Jane said officiously, “as soon as I get through reams of files I’m reviewing.” Jane pulled out an egg carton full of dusty files that she was indexing as she did virtually every day. Jane looked to me. “`The Case,?’” Jane asked breathlessly.
“Jack got an offer of $50,000.”
“Not enough!” Jane commanded.
I felt that chill. The Reaper was nearby. I could feel him.
“No, it’s not,” I agreed.
I couldn’t tell Jane what was obvious. Waiting for this trial, Jack, when he thought no one was looking, used to study his prospectus for some retirement community in Florida or Georgia.
Jane looked down at her typewriter with determination. “I need more to bring me up to a living wage, to fix up this dump and maybe even put some money in Jack’s pockets for a change.”
I felt that blood freezing cold draft again. Win or lose. Jack was gone.
Jane was looking for me for an assurance I could not give. I was spared. Before I could think of a lame excuse like watering the wretched little tree, the telephone spared me.
Jane reached for the phone with the grace of a pouncing tiger.
“$125, 000.00,” Jane screamed into the phone receiver, “I don’t believe it. Yeah I agree. Don’t take it. The insurer can offer more.”
As Jane hung up the phone, I felt the wisp of glacial air flood the office. I could now hear the Grim Reaper braying in ecstasy.
“Wait a sec…”Jane told the phone. “Is a door open somewhere in the back? Go check. The cold gives me the willies. It feels like the refrigerator at a slaughterhouse.”
Jane stared to cut stars but couldn’t hold the scissors in her hands. “I’ll buy Jack a star and take my bonus and tell Jack to cram this job. I’ve got the heebie-jeebies---,Jane stared at the phone with a blank accusing stare, “Won’t that phone ring?”
A gale fierce as one off the Great Lakes whistled throughout the office with that soul-pounding he-haw of the Grim Reaper.
I told Jane, “Jack just got off the phone. They probably can’t find the keys to the Bank of England so quickly.”
Jane forced a smile. She returned to the star cutting only for an instant before she threw down the scissors and paper and bolted for the door. “I have to go out. I’m too psyched up. Cover for me.”
An icy whiff followed in her wake and swept up the pitiable stars Jane had tried to cut.
“Ring-Ring-Telephone ring--,” I sang in response to the Grim Reaper’s bellow.
By the time Jane staggered in from her long liquid lunch, Jack had called with news that the offer had jumped to $150,000 and then to $175,000 and then to $190,000. “I think,” Jack commented, “I’ve conquered the Grim Reaper.”
A hurricane could not explode with greater force through the office. The Grim Reaper was now roiling deliriously.
“Is,” I asked Jack, “the Grim Reaper the devil, Satan our adversary or a friend who warns us every step of the way?”
Jane herself was delirious—deliriously drunk. I moved to the back office to get out of her way. About three o’clock Jack called on my line. I picked up the phone.
As Jack reported that the offer had been raised to $225,000.00 and not a penny more, there was some commotion up front.
“You want,” Jane’s drunken voice berated a visitor, “some document read and explained to you? We don’t take chicken feed in here! Do you know my boss is such a great lawyer that insurers beg him to take money.”
“That chicken feed is my lunch money!” I exclaimed in horror.
On the phone Jack voice asked in a dreamy tone, “what do you say?”
“Can you hold a second, Jack, I’ve got to square away a client.”
Jack’s voice replied, “No I’m going to say `No.’ They got a lot more. I’ll bet the offer will jump during deliberations.”
A blizzard’s icy gush hit my face; its furies melded into the signature horse laugh of the Grim Reaper who was ready to strike.
I wanted to plead with Jack to take the money, but the line went dead. I did what I could. I raced out to the customer in the parking lot and persuaded him to return to my office. “Drunken secretary… no….a person on Temporary Release from ---eh the insane asylum who needed a document notarized.” I paused. “Poor girl, she’s not violent. She’s just eh—impersonating a legal secretary---How much crazier could you be? Dear Jane’s waiting for The Grim Reaper---eh—the hospital orderlies, the guys with the wrap around sports jacket to pick her up. Her medicine will kick in any minute now.”
I walked the client back across the chug holed parking lot to the office. I hesitated as I opened the door. Would that haunting bellow and billowing frost greet me? No, it was quiet. Having struck, the Grim Reaper does not relish lingering to savor his conquest.
Jane was peacefully passed out in her chair. “See, I told the client, the medicine has kicked in!”
But the sorry Christmas tree now festooned with Jane’s ill cut stars had drawn the client’s attention from drunken Jane. “There are some buds, hope for the sorry, sickly sprout!” The Client declared. “It will bloom again in spring.”
If you haven't used the 'Vox Populi', get started! Send in your comments and critique on
John D. Collins work. Inditer.com is a community of like minded writers.
Each wants and deserves the help of the other. Do it! It won't cost a dime! You'll be glad you helped! IF ALL MEN WERE ANGELS - - - Email John D. Collins
Arthurian Legend * FULLOSIA PRESS * * FULLOSIA * * * RPPS CULTURAL SERVICES