Charles Frederick - Grim Fandango

I blew a smoke ring while I thought about that. “Can’t imagine,” I finally said.

“Hey, Manny,” Glottis said as he started filing the edges of the hole he had made, “I don’t want to butt into your affairs, you being a big-shot sales agent and all, but that is a gasoline pump you’re leaning on, you know.”

“ ¡Ay Chihuahua! ” I exclaimed as I quickly stamped out the cigarette.

Glottis finished up on the car and started to wedge himself into the hole while I got my gear on. When I was done I turned to see Glottis looking at himself in the side mirror.

“Hey, I look good in this, don’t I?”

I thought he looked idiotic, like a Shriner in a parade, but I said, “Yeah, well, they say black is slimming.”

I got in the car as Glottis reached in through the driver’s-side window and started the engine. The car lurched forward while I had one foot still on the ground. I fell back in the seat as the car jerked toward the exit to the Limbo Highway. ‘Oh, great!’ I thought. ‘He’s never driven before!’

“I’m drivin’!” Glottis crowed, as if I needed the confirmation. “Yeah! I’m drivin’!”

“ ¡Por favor! ” I muttered as we made our halting way along the dark, misty road. “I could’ve walked faster than this!” But eventually we got to our destination in whatever city it was. I never bothered to learn where these places where. It wasn’t my world any longer. It gave me the creeps.

As we pulled up to the diner where I hoped to pick up a client, another DOD car pulled away. Two souls sat in the back. One waved to me. “Domino!” I hissed through clenched teeth.

Glottis brought the car to a lurching stop. I waited a few seconds in case of any more sudden movements before getting out. I slipped into the diner and felt a woman near the door shudder. “I know you can’t hear me,” I whispered in her ear, “but try to feel what I’m about to say deep down in your soul: Don’t eat the gazpacho! ”

Turning away from the living, and therefore uninteresting, I found one last soul left in the diner who lay on the floor swathed completely in thick cords—the ‘mortal coil’. With a practiced flick of my wrist I let my scythe unfold and lock open. I sliced through the cords and the soul sat up. “Nice bathrobe,” the man, a midget, sneered.

“Name?” I sighed.

“You first,” the man snapped as he stood up.

“Manny Calavera.”

“OK, Calavera, I’m Bruno. Bruno Martinez.”

“Well, Bruno, I’ve got a car outside, so if—”

“Where the hell are we going?” he demanded.

“Mr. Martinez,” I said gently, “you’re dead.”

“Yeah,” he snapped, “I kinda figured that what with the cramps, bloody vomit, plague of locusts…”

I felt my shoulders sag. “So you didn’t have the salmon mousse?”

“No, wise guy. The gazpacho.”

“Well, since you are dead, Bruno, it’s time to leave this world.”

“And if I don’t wanna?”

“Look at your hands, Bruno,” I said very softly.

He did, and jumped when he realized he could see through them. “What’s happenin’!?” he yelped.

“Your time in this world is over,” I said. “You either move one to the next… or become nothing.”

Bruno started moving quickly toward the door. “So why can’t I see through you?” he demanded.

“I’ve already left this world for good, even if I do make return trips. I couldn’t do my job if I was liable to fade away.”

I ushered Bruno into the back of the car as he asked, “So what’s your job?”

“To take you from this world and start you on your journey through to the next,” I said as I got in after him. I explained everything to him on the trip back which, thankfully, was much smoother and quicker. I finished my spiel just as we pulled back into the garage.

“…but we offer several package upgrades if you’d care to…” I was saying as we got out of the car.

“Cut the yap!” Bruno interrupted. “I just want something cheap where I can get some rest, and that’s it!”

“Ay ay ay,” I said under my breath as Bruno trotted to the elevator.

“You know, Manny,” Glottis was saying, “I could make this car a little faster, if you wanted…”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said absently as I followed Bruno, “whatever.”

Glottis started to say something else, but since he sounded happy and apparently wasn’t speaking to me, I just tuned him out.

I had Bruno in my office just long enough to determine what package he deserved. Then I led him down to the shipping room and got him into a coffin. “You’ll get plenty of rest this way, Mr. Martinez, and you’ll be safely padded by the foam created when these two chemicals mix, like this.” I took the two hoses dangling from the ceiling and sent a double-stream into the coffin.

“Uh, on second thought,” Bruno said, a little panicked, “I wanna upgrade my package.”

I released the hoses. “Sorry, Bruno, but you didn’t qualify for anything better.” Bad-tempered or not, he did come out better than Celso Flores. The coffin wasn’t comfortable, but it was safe. “But here,” I went on, “have this complementary mug!” I held up one that said ‘Today is the first day of the end of your life’.

“No, wait!” he said, fighting to keep me from putting the mug into the coffin. “Can’t you find me something where I can at least move my legs?”

“You know I’d like to, Bruno, but my boss is a real hard-ass.”

I had closed the door when Bruno and I entered the room, and it’s hinges squeaked loudly, and yet I didn’t realize Copal had entered until he started shouting. “I gotta be hard-ass when I got lazy sickle wavers like this jolly boy working for me! Manny,” he continued, “you couldn’t find a sale at a yacht club!”

“I got a sale right here!” I said, as if that would have stopped Copal.

“I’m talking premium sales, Calavera! Like the kind Domino makes!”

And I knew now just what kind of a back-stabbing judas Hurley was. I was too angry at having Domino thrown into my face to think before shouting, “How the hell am I supposed to make premium sales with the scumbag clients you’re sending me!?”

I don’t think I knew what I said until I heard Bruno’s indignant “Hey!!”

Copal overrode whatever Bruno might have said next. “Now you’re blaming it on the clients ? I’ve had it with you, Manny! If you haven’t bagged a premium before the next sales report comes in, you’re out ! Out on the streets! No job, no way to work off your time! Just your fancy suit and your big smile,” he sneered, “and a whole lot of time to kill!” He slammed the door behind him.

I turned slowly to see Bruno sitting up in the coffin. “Who’re you callin’ a scumbag?” he asked dangerously. “Why, I oughta—”

I sent the chemical streams straight into his mouth. He fell gurgling back into the coffin as I filled it with foam, pausing just long enough to throw the mug in. Then I slammed the lid shut and bolted it down.

I paced back and forth in the elevator during the ride back to the office, trying to calm down. “I’m sick of waiting around for a good lead,” I muttered, “like it’s gonna fly in here tied to a brick. It’s time to take one!” A larcenous idea started forming in my mind.

“How’d it go,” Eva asked when I got out of the elevator.

“ ¡Híjole! I got a tiny little man with a mean temper and no commission.”

“Well,” Eva said with a glance toward Copal’s door, “at least you don’t work for one.”