GLASS SOUP Read online

  Or he would be in the park with Luba, sitting on one of those green wooden benches in the hundezone, reading the newspaper while the dog sat at his feet contentedly watching the world go by. Leni loved to go to the park with them and watch how others—both canine and human—reacted to John’s giant.

  “Hello?”

  Just hearing his voice instantly calmed her and closed all of her banging doors. He was exactly where she wanted to be.

  “John, it’s me, Leni.”

  “Hi, boss.”

  He always had a different name for her when they spoke, a different moniker—boss, sweetie, pal. The list went on and on. No one had ever addressed her like that. The names made her smile because they were very much a part of his manner.

  “Where are you?”

  He answered immediately. “On your tongue. In your hand.”

  The response was so unexpected and intimate that she almost swooned. “John, can I see you today?”

  His voice changed tenor. When it came again it was concerned rather than teasing. “Of course. What’s up? Is anything wrong, Leni?”

  “No, no. Yes. I don’t know. I just want to see you.” Suddenly she felt like crying. Why?

  “Sure you can. Where are you? I’m in the park with Luba.”

  Leni still felt like crying but at the same time broke out in a big smile. She loved hearing she had been correct about where he was. She loved being right about John. It made her feel like they were on the same page. “Where’s Luba? Are you reading the newspaper?”

  “She’s by my foot watching a cocker spaniel piss on a bush, and yes, I’m reading the paper. Am I really that predictable? How depressing. What’s up, my friend? You don’t sound so good.”

  “I had a really strange lunch just now and I don’t know, it just would be really, really nice to see you today, if that’s okay.”

  “Yes, absolutely. Do you want to come over here or meet someplace else?”

  I just want to fuck you is what she really wanted to say to him but could not. Leni had said and done things with Flannery that she never would have thought herself capable of before. But this line she simply couldn’t say. She didn’t have the courage yet. “Can we meet at your place? I’m in the First District now. I can take a taxi and be there in ten minutes.”

  “Can you make it an hour or so? Let me do two errands and then I’ll meet you there. Is that okay?”

  “Yes—an hour.” Shoulders sagging in relief, she pictured the keys to his apartment in the inner pocket of her purse—their special home. The owner had given John two sets when he moved in. The first day Leni visited him there, the first time they’d gone to bed, he had given her one of these sets afterward. He said, “Now if I lose my keys, you have to come over and let me in with yours.” Sometimes when she was alone or unhappy, she got out these keys and simply held them in her hand. Everything was all right now. She clapped her telephone closed and took hold of the cane leaning against her leg. She’d walk down Kartnerstrasse to clear her head and then catch a taxi over to his building. Everything was all right now.

  A hundred feet away standing in the shadows of a doorway, Flannery watched Leni limp off in the opposite direction. Pressing the disconnect button on the blue phone, he dropped it back into his pocket. But as it touched bottom there it began to ring again. He was a popular boy today. He took the phone back out and answered. “Hello?”

  “Where are you?”

  He smirked at the demanding tone of the voice. This one didn’t ask questions—she gave orders, even when ending her sentences with a question mark.

  “I’m on your tongue. I’m in your ear.”

  Tsking her impatience, she snapped, “Don’t be an idiot. Where are you?”

  “I’m washing the buffalo.”

  The weirdness of his remark stopped even her for a moment. “You’re what?”

  “I’m in Calcutta washing a water buffalo. I’ve become a Janist. This is one of our practices.”

  “A what?” She ran a hand impatiently through her long red hair.

  “A Janist. The religion? It’s based on the teachings of Mahavira, sixth century B.C.—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” But she was giggling now because he had gotten to her again. That was one of the things she loved about him. She could boss the world around but not this man. She pretended to hate how frustrating he could be. In truth she really liked how independent and unpredictable he was with everything, including her.

  “Nothing. I am talking about absolutely nothing. I’m down at the Danube walking the dog.” He said this while watching people pass by on Vienna’s busiest walking street. The Danube was five miles away.

  “Let’s meet today. I’m dying to go to bed with you.”

  He watched a pretty woman with a perfect ass walk by. Her name was Ursula. He thought for a moment about whether he wanted to go to the trouble of entering her life. She liked the color periwinkle and to be fucked hard in funny locations—like on the kitchen table, or over the trunk of a car. He could not see into Ursula’s future but he could see everything there was to see about her now.

  “Hey Romeo, did you hear me? Do you want to go to bed with me or not?”

  “Take it easy, willya? I was trying to work out whether it’s possible for us to get together today, but I just can’t do it. As soon as I get back to town I’ve got to go to a very important meeting that’ll probably last a long time. Otherwise I’d happily peel grapes for you all afternoon, Mrs. Vaughn.

  “How about tomorrow? I’ll bring some Viagra so we can really have a lonnnng party.” He knew she would say yes but only after pretending to think about it a moment or two. Because she didn’t want him to think she was too easy. Women were so predictable.

  “Can we go to a hotel? I love going to hotels with you. It makes it feel so much more dirty.”

  He decided to get off the phone now and find Ursula. Why did it seem like every other woman in Austria was named Ursula? Who would even consider naming a daughter that? He had about an hour before he had to meet Leni. More than enough time to make contact with Urrrrsula. Her ass was just too good to miss. Without missing a beat, speaking again into the telephone, his voice was a perfect mixture of sex, glee, and great good humor. “Flora Vaughn, we can go to any hotel you like.”

  Feed Me to Your Sister

  “Just because I’m silent doesn’t mean I have nothing to say.”

  “I understand that. Continue whenever you’re ready.”

  “Just so we’re eye to eye on that matter.”

  “Eye to eye. No problem.”

  Simon Haden looked at his seventeenth bowl of chocolate pudding and abruptly pushed it away.

  Broximon waited politely for Haden to continue but he didn’t. They were seated at a table with Volin Poiter, Seaburg Rasnic, Tyree Meza, Duryee Grenko, Mescue Rell, and Sneekab. Or rather, Haden was seated at the table, Broximon was sitting on the armrest of his chair, and the others were on the table because these others were houseflies. Once to amuse an eccentric woman he was trying to seduce, Haden had named every fly that landed on their table while the couple ate at an outdoor restaurant. Now these flies had returned to visit.

  “The hell with her!” one said in fly-speak. But since this was his death, Haden was able to understand.

  “That’s right,” said another fly with hearty gusto. “Who needs her?”

  Haden dismissed the statement with a flick of his spoon. “That’s easier said than done. Plus the fact there’s obviously nothing I can do about it anyway, being dead and all.”

  The flies knew more about what was going on than Haden did, but weren’t about to tell him anything. No way. They had trouble enough, just being dead flies. Instead, they turned their many eyes to Broximon who knew the secret too. They wanted to see if he would spill the beans.

  Haden had called Broximon to say that he was stuck. The little man didn’t know what Simon was talking about but nevertheless took his discomfort as a good sign. At
least it meant Haden was thinking about things, which was a marked improvement. Brox could not believe that someone who’d experienced a breakthrough as big as Simon’s could be so lethargic and unmotivated afterward. It was as if Haden was resting on his laurels and had no desire to move forward with his new knowledge and insight. But what laurels? He was only at the beginning and had such a long way to go.

  “She haunts me, Broximon. How is that possible here? How can you be haunted when you’re dead? Huh? And it’s even more so now than when I was alive. She’s completely under my skin. I don’t understand that. It makes no sense.”

  Broximon looked at his highly buffed two-tone shoes. Pretty damned sharp shoes. “Have you seen her here?”

  The flies buzzed a little louder. Things were getting interesting.

  Haden was thinking too hard about her and didn’t really hear the other’s question. “What?”

  “Have you seen Isabelle since you’ve been here?”

  Something in the way the question was asked brought Haden to attention. “No. Why?”

  Broximon reached down and brushed nonexistent dust off the tip of his shoe. “Well, you must have dreamed about her when you were alive, right?”

  Haden spluttered, “Uh yeah—about five thousand fucking times.”

  “Then there you go, Simon: she must be around here somewhere if you dreamt about her so often back then. This is your world—that’s what it’s all about.”

  “I’ve never seen her here,” Haden said defensively, as if he’d been too dumb or unobservant to notice the obvious. But what Broximon said made real sense: some version of Isabelle had to be here because this was Haden’s world. It was made up of bits and bytes that had stuck in his mind when he was alive. And Isabelle Neukor had certainly stuck in his mind.

  “Maybe you should go looking for her, Simon.”

  Almost as one, the flies stopped buzzing for a moment when Broximon said that. Was he giving too much away?

  Grudgingly, Haden asked, “Yeah well, this is a big damned place, Brox. Even if you’re right, where am I supposed to start looking for her, in the Yellow Pages?”

  Broximon wanted to say You really are an idiot, Simon but that would have been counterproductive. Yet the longer he spent with this man the more he was convinced that Haden was an idiot.

  He was spared having to say anything because just then Mrs. Dugdale came marching around the corner. She wore yet another appallingly colorful dashiki that looked like the result of an explosion in a crayon factory.

  “Ah Simon, there you are!”

  Despite his age and the fact that he was dead, Haden still reflexively sat up straight in his chair on seeing his old schoolteacher. And as if they all knew who the woman was, the flies fled.

  “Hello Mrs. Dugdale.”

  Instead of answering, she looked at his half-eaten serving of chocolate pudding. Sitting down opposite him, she pursed her lips and pushed the bowl away from her to the very edge of the table with one finger. “You certainly do like your desserts, don’t you, Simon?” Her voice was a thick semi-sweet scold.

  Haden swallowed then swallowed again. “I don’t have to worry about getting pimples here, Mrs. Dugdale.”

  Her look turned stern. “Don’t be rude, mister. I was only making an observation.”

  Haden was tempted to grab his crotch and tell her to observe this. But he didn’t.

  “Hello Broximon.”

  “Hello Mrs. Dugdale.”

  “Those are very festive shoes you’re wearing today.”

  All three of them looked at Brox’s cream and brown two-tones.

  “Yes well, thanks a lot. What’s up, Mrs. D? We’re sort of busy here, you know? We’re having, like, a meeting.”

  The teacher was so unaccustomed to being addressed with such bald sass that she could only stare at this pushy little man sitting on the armrest in his pimpy shoes. Both of these people may have been parts of Haden’s memory, but that didn’t necessarily mean they had to like each other.

  She crossed her arms over her breasts and gave him the ugly eye. “I’m very sorry to interrupt your meeting, Broximon. I’m only here because I’ve been sent to tell Simon something.”

  The men waited. Mrs. Dugdale glared. When she felt that they’d been glared at long enough, she continued in a slightly less aggrieved voice. “I’ve been sent to tell Simon that God wants to see him.”

  God’s office was nothing special. By the way it was furnished it could just as easily have belonged to a North Dakota dentist or some combover in middle management. The secretary/receptionist was a fortysomething nondescript who told Haden in a neutral voice to take a seat. “He’ll be with you in a minute.” Then she went back to typing—on a typewriter. God’s secretary used a manual typewriter.

  Haden sat down on a green chair and carefully looked around the room, trying to absorb every detail so that he would remember as much of it as possible afterward. God’s office. You couldn’t get much higher than that. He was sitting in God’s office waiting for the man himself, who had personally summoned Haden to come by.

  But for what? While waiting for the meeting, a realization began to dawn on him and it wasn’t a pretty one: What if his Judgment Day had arrived? Instead of lightning bolts, crashing kettle drums and cymbals, it came via an old schoolteacher giving you the message that God wanted to see you? What if an hour from now Haden was standing waist-deep in a pot of boiling shit while being stabbed by legions of red devils with flaming pitchforks—?

  “Next.”

  Panicking, he glanced toward the door to see if he could escape. He could try, but God’s secretary was watching now and he was sure that if he made a break for it, she could stop him.

  “I could. Now just behave yourself and go in there,” the woman said to him in a harsh voice that sounded remarkably similar to Mrs. Dugdale’s.

  The day of reckoning had come. Haden sensed all along that this sweet kooky dreamworld/down-memory-lane afterlife had been too easy, too good to be true. Now came the fire and brimstone. The hot pitch and the cold sweats he’d always assumed would be waiting for him after he died. He felt like crying. He felt like running away but it was too late for that and besides, where could he go? The jig was up. His jig was up.

  Utterly defeated and expecting only the worst, Haden stood and moved slowly toward the door. The image of that last bowl of delicious chocolate pudding crossed his mind and tormented him further. He’d left it half uneaten. Just like his mother used to make but he’d pushed it away…

  “It’s not fair! You could have at least given me some kind of warning,” he pouted out loud.

  The secretary didn’t even look up this time. She only wiggled a finger toward the door and said, “Move.”

  He got as far as the door. Touching the knob, he let his hand drop, and then touched it again. Summoning the little courage he possessed, he turned the knob this time and the door swung open.

  A giant white polar bear sat behind a giant black desk across the not so large office. The animal’s size and that of its desk made the room appear much smaller. The bear was looking at a white paper on the desk. It wore rectangular black reading glasses perched on the end of its fat black nose.

  The desk was empty except for that single sheet of paper and a copper-colored name plaque on the right front corner. The name engraved on the plaque was Bob.

  God was a polar bear named Bob?

  For the first time since entering the room, Haden realized there was no chair for him to sit in. There was the desk and the bear’s chair but that was it. So he stood there uneasily and waited for whatever came next.

  God was a polar bear?

  Looking up, it saw him and the bear’s features immediately softened. “Simon! Wow. Wow. Wow. It’s been a lonnng time, eh?”

  “Sir?”

  “Bob” took off his glasses and with great delicacy lay them down on the desk. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember?”

  Now it came clear—the whole thing was a
trap. Throw him off with the polar bear, then when Haden answered its question wrong, a door beneath his feet would drop open and zoop—down he’d plummet right into hell. No wonder there was no chair for him to sit in: this wouldn’t take long. One question, one wrong answer, and hello hell.

  Now he really didn’t know what to say. The bear appeared to be waiting for an answer but what could Haden say that wouldn’t spell his doom?

  “Uh—”

  “Jesus, Simon, you’re breaking my heart here. You don’t remember anything?”

  He looked at the bear and then straining, looked closer. He saw nothing but what was there. Finally when it reached the point where most bears would either have roared or eaten Haden, this one began to whistle. “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” It was a pretty good whistler too. Halfway through the song it stopped and looked at the man.

  Thoroughly confused now but also somewhat encouraged because he hadn’t been sent to Hell yet, Simon Haden looked back at the beast, trying with all of his mental might to use every brain cell to—

  “Oh-my-God, BOB!”

  The bear grinned now and slapped its knees. “Finally! Now get over here and give your old pal a hug.”

  It didn’t need to say that because Haden was already bounding across the room to do exactly that. Embracing the enormous white animal which by then had stood up and come around the desk, Haden hugged it as tightly as he could. Tears were in his eyes. While being hugged, Bob started whistling the song again which only made Simon hug tighter.

  Bob the polar bear was the first and probably greatest gift Simon Haden ever received. He was three years old when it was given to him. Both of his parents were odd people. Little more needs to be said about them other than neither believed a child under three years old understood or appreciated Christmas. Consequently there was no real point in celebrating the holiday in the Haden home before then.

  Because his parents were also tightfisted crabby skinflint shitheads, they purchased for their little son’s first Christmas: 1. a middle-sized tree that they left undecorated except for strung popcorn (homemade) because to them, ornaments were a needless frill, 2. a large stuffed animal that for some peculiar reason was being sold for very little at the gasoline station they frequented.