Printer-friendly version

Blue Moon 14.1

by Donna Lamb

.

"That's not a wish!" howled Sophie.

"Of course it is, it's even in the subjunctive," said Ted. He sipped bad hospital coffee and looked around himself in the doctor's lounge. He'd once been a monk in a sixteenth century hospital and the advance in technology fascinated him.

"I still can't grant it," grumbled Sophie. "I can't bring Richard back to life and you know it. Nor can I conveniently have him be dead from some other cause since he's a Defender and under retro-active protection from extra-mundane causes of death." She stuck her tongue out at Ted, then sucked on the watery remains of the highball she'd carried from Wrangler Jill's. Her expression matched the ones that had made Lemon Eater Jones famous.

Ted smiled at her. "That's two you've failed to grant, third time's the charm, my lovely."

"Oh, stuff it," Sophie snarled. "She's still got half an hour to mess up the third wish."

"Your third try at a third wish, you mean. A red oak barbecue feast in Santa Maria says she doesn't," offered Ted, smiling over his coffee cup.

Sophie grimaced. "Petty side bet."

"Linguica sausage, tri-tip, pinquito beans. Win or lose, you get to eat in Santa Maria which you've been banned from doing for seventy-four years since you tricked that priest into barbecuing his own donkey."

"It was a joke! Okay, okay. Uh, that's not a square bet."

Ted beamed at her. "Either way we eat well, but you win, the ban is over, twenty-five years sooner than scheduled; you lose, the ban lasts another seventy-five years."

Sophie's mouth was already watering. Gluttony was one of her favorite sins. "Portuguese red wine?" she offered.

"And locally brewed beer," he nodded.

They wrapped thumbs across the rickety table and kissed their own elbows which supernatural beings can do without risk.

"Twenty-five minutes till midnight and the end of Oddfellows Day," commented Sophie.

Ted smiled slyly at her. "So it is, so it is."

* * *

In the emergency room, the tall ginger-haired woman sat beside Richard's gurney, holding his dead hand. "We never...." Jo said to Jill. "We ... m-might have...." She trailed off.

"You loved him," Jill said, not asking.

"I think so. How do you know? I don't think I'd ever been in love b-before." She patted Richard's sleeve. Her swollen eyes and nose had turned her beauty into a picture of heartbreak but she remained unaware of this effect.

Jill smiled. So young, she thought.

"We were ...going to write songs together. Live together. I can't ... I can't b-believe this. After everything that has happened, now, now ...." She trailed off. She sobbed once but her tears were gone, her throat raw from dehydration. "Last night I was so m-mad at him! I can't believe that."

A doctor came in, her face pinched with concern. "Um. Miss Thiery? The police are here. They need to see ... the body."

Jo gasped. Jill seized her in a hug, pulling her away from Richard's body.

* * *

"I can't watch this," Richard told the voice. "Jo is hurting, this isn't right." Unlike Limbo, there are tears in heaven because physical bodies are restored. In Richard's case, he looked much like he had while alive but wore a white linen suit with an ice-pink shirt and a blue and yellow Escher-fish-bird-print tie. He made a very stylish angel.

Wiping a tear from his eye, Richard turned away from the wide-screen plasma display in the family room of his new, ranch-style, heavenly mansion. The room looked empty but Richard knew the voice could hear him.

"If you to accept the position as for Clarence to Melody Jo, you may having to be watched such scenes," said the rumbly voice. "Sadness happens in mortal lives."

"I know," said Richard. "I've only been dead a few minutes here, let me get used to the idea." A Laz-E-Boy chair very much like one his father had owned occupied the proudest place in the handsomely decorated room. Richard flopped into the chair, an action that used to get him yelled at. "You know, Mr. Gumro, I just don't think I'm ready to be dead."

The voice chuckled. "Your own Clarence, Ted o'Mersey, am working on that."

Richard looked up, even though the voice seemed to come from everywhere. "What?"

"An unmade wish is like an unmade bed, a temptation."

"The wish I didn't make? But Jo ..." his voice caught in his throat. "Jo ... made that wish. The devil didn't grant it. Thank ... thank you."

The voice chuckled. "Oh, the G in Gmunro does not stand for God. This estimable person am only to being a Principality." The African giant entered the family room from the hall to the kitchen, munching an enormous Dagwood that seemed to include a slice of pumpkin pie in its layers. "When I grow up, being an entire country I am," he rumbled with amusement.

Richard laughed, surprising himself.

Gmunro didn't have his canes or his glasses but his scars and pockmarks still wreathed his enormous smile. "You not to meeting Himself until you permanent resident. You still on tourist visa." He shook a fat finger. "Not even green card!"

Richard had to laugh again. "You mean I'm an illegal alien in Heaven? Mi abuelita, my grandmother, would be so embarrassed!"

"Ho! Ho! Ho!" shouted Gmunro, like a big, black, Christmas elf.

Richard couldn't have believed he could laugh so much at such a time but Gmunro's chortles were infectious.

Gmunro straightened his face out. "Now three things you needing to know are:

"One, I going to tell you grandmother what you say. Ho, ho!

"Two, why you not to having deli mustard?" He waved the Dagwood. "This much better to be making deli mustard with." He took a bite and chewed with much enjoyment.

"Um, three?" Richard asked. Personally, yellow mustard was fine with him but he made a note to always have deli mustard, too -- for his friends.

Gmunro swallowed. "Three, Jo is to making third try at third wish. Got you temporary assignment as Clarence to help her making rightly." He eyed the much shrunken sandwich, choosing where to bite next.

Richard looked at the big screen where Jill still held Jo but now in the outer room of Emergency. The surviving members of I-NO-Y had arrived, too, Bugs still wearing his guitar on his back. Tom Harmon, Andie Moore and Beverly Messenger were also on their way, he knew, not pausing to consider how he knew such things. Further away but also coming were Richard's own parents and his sisters.

"She doing anything to having you back. Very dangerness. You take the job?"

"Yes," said Richard. "She's got to make some wish besides wanting to take the bullet for me."

Gmunro nodded benignly and took another bite of the Dagwood. Seeing Richard's expression, he offered the sandwich to the new Clarence.

"No thanks," said Richard smiling. "I wouldn't want to bite off more than I can chew."

"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" laughed Gmunro with his mouth full.