Limbo 56 by Mike Morris (suggested reading .TXT) 📕

ironworkers arrived, and they all spent time smoking and drinking, playing dominoes and swapping soccer jokes. Arthur had been looking forward to this evening, a chat with Gladys and her gypsy smile, warmth and the anticipation of a woman’s soft body close to his, the heady feel of money in his pocket and the thought of a couple of days away from the screeching foundry. As he played dominoes, losing game after game, the feeling began to slip slowly, inexorably away. He became louder, forcing laughter, irritating even Joe as he thumped the table, causing the dominoes to jump like frightened crickets. Finally, in the middle of a game he jumped up. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, scattering dominoes.

He approached the pub with Joe in tow. The other two had slipped off down the street, shaking their heads at his temper as he strode out of Joe’s tiny house. He could feel sour beer sloshing around inside his stomach, and for a moment, he hesitated, but then he heard loud laughter and the sound of Gladys flirting with the customers. Unreasonably, he wondered how she could flirt while he waited for her, money in his pocket.

So on a Sunday evening in 1878 he walked into the dim pub that stood just outside the foundry gates. It was a place where dry foundry workers crowded round the bar, slaking the unquenchable thirst that comes from years of breathing black sand and choking on the smoke from the furnace. Arthur’s throat was bone dry and he had already absorbed more than his share of beer. Somehow, he was not surprised to see the broad back and the loud jacket of the stranger from the canal. He had not clearly seen a face, but the flashy clothes could only belong to the man on the bridge.

“Evening, Gladys,” he said, shoving aside the well-dressed stranger. “I’ll take a couple of pints,” he told the gypsy barmaid who flashed him a white, crooked smile. He thought with satisfaction of the evening ahead. There was little doubt that Gladys would say yes to his offer. She was always game for a fling with a man of means, even if they were only temporary means. He and Joe went through the nightly ritual as to who would pay for the first round. “I’m OK for money, Joe,” he said, loud enough for Gladys to hear. “I won ten quid on the horses last night.” Unfortunately, the well-dressed stranger heard also and turned away slightly with a derisive smirk that Arthur noticed and resented immediately.

Gladys wasn’t quite as receptive as he expected. She was, he saw, paying a lot of attention to the stranger. “Couple more,” Gladys,” he called, waving away Joe’s attempt at payment. Gladys distractedly set up two more pints of brown beer, and leaned towards the stranger, showing a great deal of her ample bosom. The man, Arthur noted, did not speak in the flat, strangled accents of the industrial Midlands. “Londoner,” he thought contemptuously. He downed the beer in one gulp and shoved his glass forward. “Two more,” he demanded. He saw that the stranger was drinking scotch and water. “And a double scotch,” he added loudly – “neat.”

He waved away Joes outstretched hand and faced the stranger. “Not from here,” he said. “Are ye.”

“Not likely,” the stranger said. “I’m a big city fella.”

“Come slumming, then?”

“I’m here talking to the lady,” The stranger said carefully. “Why don’t you leave us alone to talk?” He was a big man, muscle running to fat. Arthur looked at him and cracked his knuckles.

“’Ere, Arthur boy, calm down,” Gladys told him. “Ere’s a beer for you and Joe, on the ‘ouse.”

“I can pay for my own,” Arthur said, and the barflies shuffled closer, sensing a fight.

“Well good for you,” the Londoner said. “Now, why don’t you let me talk to the lady?”

Gladys was a veteran of dozens of pub skirmishes. She could calm down a whole bar full of enraged soccer fans, and had done so once by stripping off her blouse and bodice before violence erupted. However, she was excited this evening and made a fatal mistake.

“Lay off, Artie,” she said. “This gent’s taking me to London for a few days. You calm down and I’ll see you next week.”

Arthur swung at the big man. His fist rammed through an inch of fat and bounced off solid muscle. He wasn’t sure what happened next. The Londoner was hurt, but he was still quick. Arthur saw a flash of silver, and there was a great cold pain in his ribs. He looked stupidly at the blood trickling on to his overalls, and the bar began to go dim and darkness gradually spread from the corners of the familiar room.


Chapter 2 – Limbo
When he opened his eyes, the bar was empty. He must still have been groggy, because the light seemed peculiarly hazy. He blinked and sat up. The pub was different somehow; he would have sworn that the walls had been a darker shade of brown. He was beginning to feel irritated. Surely, the customers had not just left with him lying on the floor. Certainly, Joe or Gladys would try to help. It was a tough pub but even here, a man with a knife in him commanded some compassion, some minimum amount of respect. Arthur looked down hastily. The bloodstains were dry, almost invisible; the knife was jammed between his ribs, up to the hilt.

He got to his feet and looked around. Yes, there was definitely something wrong with the pub. The pumps were new and bore the names of beers he had never heard of. The gas mantles had disappeared also, and in their place were globes, hanging off the end of a cord. He shook his head. The wound was still not bleeding. It was itchy rather than sore. Experimentally, he pulled, and then looked at the knife in horror. It was rotten with rust. What sort of man had the Londoner been? But Arthur remembered the flash of the blade in the gaslight; that knife had been expertly wielded and well-kept.

His wound still did not bleed. “I need a beer,” he muttered, moving behind the bar. He pulled a frothy pint of one of the new beers and noticed the calendar. He wandered over to it, and drank half the beer in a gulp. “Aagh,” he growled. The beer was tasteless, with only the memory of the bitter, fruity taste he was used to. He set the glass down and studied the calendar. March? Two months old? Then he saw the year “Nineteen Eleven,” he said aloud. “What kind of joke is this?”

“Sorry you had to wait so long.” He jumped and turned to face the owner of the voice. A smooth-looking man in a black suit sat at a corner table. “Come over here,” the man said, opening his briefcase. “I won’t bite.”

Arthur walked over dazedly and sat down. “Naturally, my organization was ready within a couple of months,” the man sniffed. “But the others, Hell, they’re slow.” He shuffled his papers. “In one way, though, you’re lucky. Right now, we have the best deals since, well, since I can remember, and I have a very long memory,” and he laughed. “You’re a retired foundry worker too.” He shook his head. “You must have been born lucky.”

“Retired?” Arthur said. “I’m not retired.”

“Of course you are,” the man said. “You’re dead. You can’t get much more retired than that.”

Arthur looked at the unfamiliar bar and the rusty stain on his overalls. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed.

The man cringed. “No need to get nasty,” he said. “You got yourself into that fight.”

“Are you a ghost?” Arthur asked stupidly.

The man shrugged. “I was, a long time ago. Look,” he continued. “I need you to sign some papers. There are hundreds of souls waiting. They’ll all be eager to snap up this offer.” Arthur looked at him perplexedly.
“It’s the offer of a deathtime,” the man said breathlessly. “You don’t have to learn new skills, you get free board and lodging, heating allowance, special clothing.” He twitched. “But you must act now, or the position will be gone.” He thrust a red pen towards Arthur. “Just sign on the dotted line.”

Arthur had seen plenty of salesmen in his time, desperate men who would say anything to sell a patent medicine, potion, or marvelous new invention. “You said I have the experience,” he told the drummer. “You mean, in the foundry?”

“Yes, of course,” the man said. “Act now, while the iron is still hot.” He laughed nervously at his own joke.

“I think,” Arthur said, “that, with all my experience, and having waited thirty-three years. I should be able to go to heaven right away, and choose my own position.”

The drummer blanched. “Hhheav…,” he cried. “Up there. No no no. You died in a bar brawl, they’ll never take you up there.”

“Then, you don’t have to worry,” Arthur snapped. “And I can wait a few more years for another offer.”

“But I like you,” the salesman wailed. “I’m doing you a favour. Look,” he said excitedly, as if a new idea had just struck him. “With your experience I can get you in as a foreman. You can have a whole work crew under you down below. Just think, you can order them about, and you won’t even have to exert yourself.” He looked hopefully at Arthur. “Just rub a rag across the machines every so often. What do you say?” he added thrusting out the pen again.

“He’ll need to listen to me first.” A sour-faced little man sat down beside them, and the salesman, whose horns Arthur could see quite clearly now, vanished with a pop and a screech.

“Alright,” the little man said peremptorily, “I need to ask you quite a few questions before we will even consider you up there,” and he waved his hand at the smoky ceiling. He sounded, thought Arthur, just like a magistrate who had sentenced him to thirty days for disorderly conduct. Arthur opened his mouth. “I’ll ask the questions,” the little man said. “Now, bear in mind that, at most you will be admitted to the very lowest regions of Heaven.” He looked severely at Arthur. “Now,” he unfastened a white briefcase and looked short-sightedly at his papers. “When did you last attend a church service, religious gathering, or any sort of discussion group where religion was disseminated? Really,” he sniffed at Arthur, “I don’t know why they put all these loopholes in the questionnaire.” He sniffed again. “Well, come on, answer the question.”

Arthur felt his temper, never very steady, rise again. Only the thought that the alternative to this obnoxious little man involved stoking the fires of Hell forever kept him still. “Yes,” he said randomly. “It’s been a while, but I’m sure I went to one of those dissemination things.”

The little man coughed and sniffed. The proximity of a dead foundry worker seemed to have upset his sinuses. “When did you last perform a good deed, and with whom,” he enunciated. “Please state as completely as possible the time, nature and duration of the deed, your inner motives, and why you think the recipient deserved the deed.” He grunted. “Only certain categories of good deed will be accepted as valid, I’ll read you the categories and various restrictions that apply.”

The questions rolled on for hours and Arthur, who had expected to feel no pain while dead,