A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper 1)

"I'm so disappointed," said Jane. "I was looking forward to raising her on the all-girls team - giving her the advantages I never had, but look at her work that sausage. This kid is a natural. "

"Get that out of her mouth!"

"Relax, she can't eat it. She doesn't even have teeth. And it's not like there's a moaning Teletubby on the other end of it. Oh, jeez, it's going to take major tequila to get that picture out of my head. "

"She can't have pork, Jane. She's Jewish! Are you trying to turn my daughter into a shiksa?"

Jane snatched the cocktail sausage out of Sophie's mouth, and examined it, even as the fiber-optic strand of drool stayed connected to the tiny kid. "I don't think I can eat these things ever again," Jane said. "They'll always conjure visions of my niece blowing a terry-cloth puppet person. "

"Jane!" Charlie grabbed the sausage from her and flung it into the sink.

"What?!"

"Are you listening at all?"

"Yes, yes, you saw some guy get hit by a bus so your fabric is unraveling. So?"

"So, someone is fucking with me?"

"And why is that news, Charlie? You've thought someone was fucking with you since you were eight. "

"They have been. Probably. But this time it's real. It could be real. "

"Hey, these are all-beef Lil' Smokies. Sophie's not a shikster after all. "

"Shiksa!"

"Whatever. "

"Jane, you're not helping with my problem. "

"What problem? You have a problem?"

Charlie's problem was that the trailing edge of his Beta Male imagination was digging at him like bamboo splinters under the fingernails. While Alpha Males are often gifted with superior physical attributes - size, strength, speed, good looks - selected by evolution over the eons by the strongest surviving and, essentially, getting all the girls, the Beta Male gene has survived not by meeting and overcoming adversity, but by anticipating and avoiding it. That is, when the Alpha Males were out charging after mastodons, the Beta Males could imagine in advance that attacking what was essentially an angry, woolly bulldozer with a pointy stick might be a losing proposition, so they hung back at camp to console the grieving widows. When Alpha Males set out to conquer neighboring tribes, to count coups and take heads, Beta Males could see in advance that in the event of a victory, the influx of female slaves was going to leave a surplus of mateless women cast out for younger trophy models, with nothing to do but salt down the heads and file the uncounted coups, and some would find solace in the arms of any Beta Male smart enough to survive. In the case of defeat, well, there was that widows thing again. The Beta Male is seldom the strongest or the fastest, but because he can anticipate danger, he far outnumbers his Alpha Male competition. The world is led by Alpha Males, but the machinery of the world turns on the bearings of the Beta Male.

The problem (Charlie's problem) is that the Beta Male imagination has become superfluous in the face of modern society. Like the saber-toothed tiger's fangs, or the Alpha Male's testosterone, there's just more Beta Male imagination than can really be put to good use. Consequently, a lot of Beta Males become hypochondriacs, neurotics, paranoids, or develop an addiction to porn or video games.

Because, while the Beta Male imagination evolved to help him avoid danger, as a side effect it also allows him fantasy-only access to power, money, and leggy, model-type females who, in reality, wouldn't kick him in the kidneys to get a bug off their shoe. The rich fantasy life of the Beta Male may often spill over into reality, manifesting in near-genius levels of self-delusion. In fact, many Beta Males, contrary to any empirical evidence, actually believe that they are Alpha Males, and have been endowed by their creator with advanced stealth charisma, which, although awesome in concept, is totally undetectable by women not constructed from carbon fiber. Every time a supermodel divorces her rock-star husband, the Beta Male secretly rejoices (or more accurately, feels great waves of unjustified hope), and every time a beautiful movie star marries, the Beta Male experiences a sense of lost opportunity. The entire city of Las Vegas - plastic opulence, treasure for the taking, vulgar towers, and cocktail waitresses with improbable breasts - is built on the self-delusion of the Beta Male.

And Beta Male self-delusion played no small part in Charlie first approaching Rachel, that rainy day in February, five years before, when he had ducked into A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books to get out of the storm, and Rachel granted him a shy smile over a stack of Carson McCullers she was shelving. He quickly convinced himself that it was because he was dripping with boyish charm, when it was, in fact, simply because he was dripping.

"You're dripping," she said. She had blue eyes, fair skin, and dark loose curls that fell around her face. She gave him a sideways glance - just enough consideration to spur his Beta Male ego.

"Yeah, thanks," Charlie said, taking a step closer.

"Can I get you a towel or something?"

"Nah, I'm used to it. "

"You're dripping on Cormac McCarthy. "

"Sorry. " Charlie wiped All the Pretty Horses with his sleeve while he tried to see if she had a nice figure under the floppy sweater and cargo pants. "Do you come here often?"

Rachel took a second before responding. She was wearing a name tag, working inventory from a metal cart, and she was pretty sure she'd seen this guy in the store before. So he wasn't being stupid, he was being clever. Sort of. She couldn't help it, she laughed.

Charlie shrugged damply and smiled. "I'm Charlie Asher. "

"Rachel," Rachel said. They shook hands.