The Deck Chair Arranger Read online



  THE DECK CHAIR ARRANGER

  By

  Neil Coghlan

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  The Deck Chair Arranger

  Copyright © 2010 by Neil Coghlan

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  THE DECK CHAIR ARRANGER

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  It’s a thankless task indeed, working for God. Such a prestigious role naturally attracts fraudsters claiming also to have a direct line to the Supreme Being. Many of these seem, for whatever reason, to be serving long prison sentences. I’ve read several accounts of psychopathic killers who claim to have heard God speak to them, giving divine instruction to them while they carry out their senseless killing.

  Let me tell you, when God speaks to me, there is nothing imaginary about it. I’m not sure why anyone else would make such outrageous claims. God tells me that I need to focus on what He requires of me and not get distracted by all this tittle-tattle.

  It is, however, a thankless task. Neither of the two women with whom I have chosen to share significant portions of my life have been understanding about the task He set me. My ex-wife, Haley, actually had the temerity to call me insane. I’ll sometimes take my favorite easy chair out back, sit there on the porch, under which she lies, and speak to her about the intransigent attitude she showed in her final months. I don’t need to do that, you understand. I choose to do it.

  Caroline was far more sympathetic to the mission I had. At least, in the beginning when we first got together after the police search for Haley was called off. Of course, I never gave her all the messy details, but she knew where I was coming from. We never wed – He made it clear that was out of the question – and we lived together contentedly for a couple of years.

  The problems only started when Caroline took it upon herself to speak to a few of the local church leaders in our community about what she termed my “bizarre behavior”. That was six months ago and she’s feeling better now, bless her. She mostly reads in the back room; well that’s to say, I read to her when I’ve got the time to do so. She’d surely appreciate the chance to get up and walk around the house a little, but her legs won’t take her weight anymore. Six months in bed will do that to a person. I’m even starting to lose faith in all that medication we’ve got her on, but He tells me it’s working so I persist with it. Who am I to question the creator of the Universe, after all?

  ***

  God first mentioned the possibility of working with Him when I was but a spindle-limbed boy in the flat suburbs of Wichita. The temptation was strong for a youngster to get bored and distracted, there among the red hot street hydrants and the sprinklers that sprayed rainbows all over the yard. It would have been so easy to fall into all sorts of foolish deeds with those other young boys and their incessant bikes. But I chose another path and He was happy. The first time I heard His voice, that majestic symphony, He told of how proud He was of the sterling work I was doing taking care of the neighborhood birds and rodents using only a magnifying glass and my father’s craft knife to aid me in my work.

  “In you, I see a potential for greatness,” He said at one point. After the initial shock, I couldn’t help but weep.

  My true mission, He gave to me only once I’d left college. He’d always kept in touch. Sure, He disappeared on and off for months at a time, but I knew that He would always come back. In those periods when He left me to my own devices, I think it was because He didn’t approve of my socializing, the drinking, the naïve fumbling attempts with a Diane Holden or a Meg Goodacre. It was the disapproval of a Father and I understood. But when things turned round, when I was feeling my worst, He came back and only very rarely with angry words and arduous chores to appease Him. I knew I was in it for the long game, not instant gratification, so I eventually learned to leave behind the baser things of my college life, to spurn friends and their petty pursuits and focus on what I was going to dedicate my life to.

  In June, 1978, the day after my twenty-second birthday, He finally told me what He’d spent a dozen years preparing me for. The world was going to end, He said, as clear as I’m talking to you today. I spoke to him out loud, there on the front stoop of our old house, bottle of Coors in my hand.

  “When is it going to end?”

  “Soon. A few years.”

  I never could get over his British accent. It often made me smile.

  “Why?”

  “Daniel, have you noticed all that is wrong with the world? Have you seen how far things have gone?”

  “I know Lord. We’ve spoken often of this, but I’ve never lost hope. Just those few small things we’ve done together have made a difference, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Wichita is a better town for your deeds. Of that, I’m certain. But your fine work will struggle to make itself felt in the wider world. It is, I fear, a lost cause.”

  “So, what?” I asked. “Are you going to destroy it?”

  By now, I’d laid my beer down on the half-rotten boards of the floor.

  “Yes. I need to start again. Everyone will perish. Except you, my Daniel. I need you now more than ever and know that you will be saved by my very hand at the end.”

  We spoke all night on that occasion and God laid out my task. I was going to be the deck-chair arranger on the Titanic. Sure, the Earth was going to sink, smashed about the foredecks by an iceberg of sin and depravity, but my mission was to find the good in all the trash of humanity of which He despaired.

  “When the end comes,” He said, “all but yourself will be driven to Hell. Before that eventuality, you must find the snow among the dirty slush, the living leaf in the autumn pile. Find them and send them to me, Daniel.”

  And so I did. What was there not to be happy about? I was saving souls! I arranged the deck chairs and threw the worthy over the railings to God’s own lifeboat. For three decades, I’ve carried out this thankless task. I am never allowed to claim any credit for this work I do, certainly never shout out in the street that it’s me who is putting in the hard graft that is redeeming good souls. It’s a lonely slog.

  My first salvation was going to be in Wichita, but late in the planning of Rebecca Gurr’s demise, He cautioned against my beginning my undertaking there in my home town.

  “Tread not the blood of the good about your own home,” He said and in a day or so, I figured what he meant. I had to go traveling. Spread my wings.

  I saved Alison Kline in January, 1979. Only a heart as good as hers could have motivated her to walk from Mexico to Canada in order to raise money for a children’s hospital in her town of Modesto. It made news all over the country and that’s what led me to her one evening as she strode and struggled her way along the Pacific Coast Highway in the north of her home state. She certainly never appreciated being saved, but He had told me to expect some aversion to His plan. As she added a bright dash of red to the rocks far below, He visited me again for the first time in two months.

  “Daniel, now you are doing my work. Get on and hasten.”

  Those British vowels! I did get on and I did hasten. Six more were saved by the end of the year, four more in the next eighteen months. It got tougher with my job in Wichita so I began to set aside holiday periods for the saving. I haven’t missed a Thanksgiving in twenty-four years, a record I’m proud of. Christmas and Fourth of July are good times of the year too. The rest of the time, it’s research. I want to save only the very best, those that truly deserve it.

  I can recall each and every pure soul I’ve saved from eternal damnation. He told me that I would be meeting them afterwards when it all starts again in a few years, so every face is in my head, every instant I was in their company recorded upstairs for posterity.

  Bearded Chris Prendergast, long foppish hair covering
his face as he fell, his charity work continued no doubt by his grieving wife. Young Casey Jones who went over the edge on her bike, with a little help from General Motors, a mere two months after donating a kidney to her brother, a gesture that saved his life and, in a sense, her own. I still today see her eyes, those sparkling emeralds that touched my soul aglow in her final seconds.

  I see even Prissy Alma when I want to, when I need to. She holds on her face a benevolent smile, one that says she understands what I did to her in 1992. I always see her face through that ketchup-smeared window. You’ll have noticed I’m a pusher. It’s less messier than getting involved with knives and rope and poison and whatnot. The good Lord’s gravity does most of the hard work and it was thus with Prissy one April lunchtime. The second she struck Parnell Drive from her fourth floor office window, her trailing hand leaving that ketchup mark that lives with me still, the death of Montana’s famous anti-corruption queen sparked a political storm that swept four crooked politicians into jail.

  “The positive ripples from the stone of goodness that you threw, Daniel,” He said.

  There were others too, mostly I saved them in the same way. A shove here, a vehicular nudge there. All counted, forty-seven pioneers for the new beginning may not sound many, but He tells me it is not the number I should concern myself with. Only a month ago, the last time we spoke, we touched on this very issue.

  “It is the quality, Daniel, and in that, you have exceeded my most optimistic expectations of you. There is real excellence in the ranks of those you have saved, my Son.”

  He had never addressed me in that way before and it left me without words for a while. I’m not one to start having ideas above my station – don’t start calling me Jesus! That would be ridiculous.

  I do though feel there is a genuine warmth in our relationship as the end nears. He won’t tell me the exact date, not wanting to put fear in my heart, as He puts it.

  “Soon. A few years,” is all he ever says, just like that first time, just chatting like buddies out on our front stoop at the Flower Drive house.

  My research continues apace. They say you’re always happiest when you’re busy. There are always more good men, women, even children out there, beckoning for your attention, requesting salvation in their own unique way.

  Simon Hood – now, there’s an interesting character. Reminds me of my very first save, the girl walking to Canada who went for her last pee by the edge of the cliff. He wants to raise a million bucks for amnesiacs or something. I can’t remember now. And Caroline said I had no sense of humor! Jokes aside, though, this coming Fourth of July holiday, he’ll be enjoying his fund-raising cycle ride from Chicago to Los Angeles following the path of the old Route 66. He’s going to be quite vulnerable to anyone in a badly-driven pick-up truck, isn’t he?

  Fender will meet bicycle in a glorious metallic crunch and another will have been saved. I won’t be thanked and I won’t expect it, certainly not from Mr. Hood. I’ll just keep doing my job. The world will list a little more towards starboard and the black, icy waves splash that little closer to the deck. I don’t know when the water will begin to wash over the wooden boards, but I’m ready when it does. It won’t be long. A few years.

  ***

  About the author:

  Neil Coghlan is currently living in Buenos Aires where he divides his time between writing, web design and walking around the city. He has several stories published in anthologies and magazines. He hopes you enjoyed this story as much as he enjoyed writing it.

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  You can find Neil’s author blog here: https://esllou.blogspot.com