“Why do some clients qualify for better travel packages, mano?” I had asked our trainer.
“They led good lives, chico,” he snapped back at me.
“¡Que traes! How do you define a ‘good life’?”
“Better than yours. Or mine.”
Eventually, unwillingly, I accepted the rules of the DOD and the restrictions the company placed on its agents. At first, I went along with the rules because I had been scared into line. Later on, because I became fatalistic. But, eventually, when things started to make some sense, I started following the rules because I became convinced they were right. I never understood completely why the DOD did things the way it did, but I got enough to see there must be a reason for it all. As I read the records of my clients’ lives I started to understand why the agent who handled my case wasn’t completely straight with me. A soul’s life is very complex, not to mention delicate. The files reapers get contain not just a client’s actions, but also their thoughts and motivations: whether they are remembered, repressed, or conveniently edited and justified after the fact. These things interact in interesting ways in affecting a person’s destiny and it’s rarely healthy—for the reaper as well as for the client—to go into the details.
A mass murderer is obviously not going to be issued a ticket on the Number Nine train, but a seemingly good person could be just as bad off. One of my early clients was a philanthropist. He was incredibly wealthy and put most of his money into good causes that helped thousands of people. But he also bullied and humiliated virtually everyone who personally came into contact with him. He loved making employees crawl and as for his wife… that woman deserved a ticket on the Number Nine if only for what she had put up with. As for his politics, he could have marched with Mussolini. The best that man qualified for was a girl’s three-speed bicycle.
I remember my first Double-N sale. I was beyond envious. When I made to hand the ticket to my admittedly well-deserving client, the little golden slip started to twitch. I was so startled that I let go… but instead of falling, the ticket leapt straight into his hand. I wouldn’t take bets on who was more surprised. I saw a lot of Double-Ns after that and got used to their antics, but I never really got over the envy. Every day I’d come into the building, see that big picture of the Number Nine train hanging in the lobby and say to myself, ‘One of these days, I’m going to ride her right on out of here!’ A second thought would always say, ‘Yeah, right.’
And so I became a good sales agent. After a slow start. After I got over the fear and bitterness, that is. I may have ruined my life but, dead, I started doing OK. My job got to be rewarding. I made friends in the office, settled into a nice apartment, found a cozy little brew-pub where I spent a lot of my off time, and I began to think that life was good. Which is when I started to have serious problems.
On the surface things were still fine. My job and everything else were fantastic, but I was in the Land of the Dead and having the time of my life. At first that was just ironic, but eventually the contradictions started to get to me. I began to obsess about the little things. Like cigarettes. Where did the tobacco come from when no plants grew in the Land of the Dead? And what about the patties in those greasy, half-pound, bacon-and-cheese hamburgers I had almost every day for lunch? Dios mio, did I love those things especially since I no longer had arteries to clog. And why did I go to bed every night when I had fallen into the big sleep? The Land of the Dead was so normal on the surface, but also so deeply perverse underneath. My existence in it became a torment, a cruel shadow of Life. I realized I was trapped in a limbo state halfway between the Land of the Living and the Land of Eternal Rest, an awful mixture of both and neither. For most souls the Land of the Dead was just a place to cross on their way to a better place, but I was condemned to stop in it for I didn’t know how long. It was much, much worse than the fear I had experienced in the beginning.
My office manager, a tragic soul named Yehuda, sent me to the company shrink. She didn’t make much progress with me at first, though. She tried to help me to simply accept the contradictions, but at first I seemed too far gone to listen. I resisted, as if I wanted to be tormented.
Then one day I was sitting in my office and staring at the street below. I decided to jump. ‘Dead Man Kills Self’ was the tabloid headline I envisioned. I started to laugh and couldn’t stop. Our secretary had the shrink to the office within twenty minutes. I was still hysterical when she got there. It was my way of touching bottom. After that, she made progress with me. I learned much later that there were people who really did try to commit suicide. What people could do to themselves in such futile acts is one of the saddest things I’d ever heard. After a while, existence became bearable, but never again truly, unreservedly, enjoyable. And that, in the Land of the Dead, is a good thing.
Eva, Don, and Dom
The years crawled by. I got promotion after promotion and eventually a fancy new office on the top floor of the building. I became a senior sales agent and the commissions just came rolling in. I got my clients personal cars, luxury cruises, Double-N tickets and although it seems now like bus packages were the worst I did for anyone, I suppose I must have had my share of bicycles, packing crates and walking sticks, too. Nobody can hit a homer every time at bat.
I hadn’t been in my new office long when the secretary for that division got promoted out. The new one was fresh from the Land of the Living. I decided to give her a hand somewhere, so around noon her first day I perched myself on the edge of her desk and said, “So, you interested in catching some lunch with an ace salesman, kid?”
“Would there be any point?” she asked, sounding bitter. I knew that tone well enough not to take it too seriously.
“Not as such,” I answered, “but do you really want to work straight through ’til five?”
She didn’t have to give that much thought. “Can’t say as I do. Got any place special in mind?”
“Sure do.” I told her about my little brew-pub and we were on our way.
After we had ordered, Eva leaned toward me and said, “Am I supposed to guess your name, or what?”
I laughed. “Calavera,” I said. “Manny Calavera.”
“OK, Cal. I’m Eva Luna.”
“I know. It’s on the nameplate on your desk.”
It was Eva’s turn to laugh. “You a sales agent, or a detective?”
“Both, maybe. I gotta find the best packages for my clients, you know. Cigarette? It’ll help you relax.”
Eva stopped tearing little pieces from her napkin and said, “Sure. You a mind reader, too?”
“No,” I said as I gave her a cigarette and lit it, “just an old hand. I think I went through half a pack while the agent that picked up told me I was stuck here.”
Eva took a long drag. “Thanks, sweetheart.” A puzzled look parked itself in front of her skull. “Could you tell me what I’m inhaling this smoke with?”
I shook my head. “You’re better off not thinking too much about things like that.”
“I don’t just accept things, darling.”
“I’m an old hand, remember?” Eva cocked her skull like a dog hearing an unfamiliar word. Not that Eva was a dog. Far from it. “Things are pretty strange in the Land of the Dead. They seem like the way they are back home, but they’re not. That can really mess with your head if you get too wrapped up in it.”