Eddie Banks slowly shuffled into the locker room after a hard day on the job. He was aching for a hot shower. Nothing seems to cling tighter than the stench of death, and Eddie positively reeked. It’d been a busy day - mob hits, car wrecks, executions, and abortions - no rest for the wicked, they say.
     He walked to his locker at the end of the aisle and leaned his scythe against the wall.
     “Damn, I’m getting too old for this shit,” he said, looking in the mirror.
     Eddie was only forty-one, but looked about fifty. His short, curly hair had once been an auburn hue, but now was thinning and fading to grey. The lines around his eyes betrayed a lifetime of worry, and his bulging gut betrayed a lifetime of beer.
     “Nobody in this motherfuckin’ shithole gives a damn!” he said, wadding up his robe and throwing it in the bottom of his locker. He hung up his scythe and grabbed a towel as he headed for the shower.
     “Hey, Banks! How’d it go with ol’ Sam?” asked Wilson, a fellow Reaper in an adjacent stall.
     “Fuck him! That sonuvabitch can lick the snotty end of my fuckstick!”
     “Told ya he wouldn’t go for it,” the other man laughed. “That fucker only gets off on the misery of others!”
     Sam was the Reaper foreman. He handed out assignments every shift and didn’t care whether you enjoyed ‘em or not - just so long as they got done.
     “Y’know, Eddie - if you’re really that sick of the job, you could always go on strike,” Wilson said half-jokingly.
     “And go to Hell like those other fuckers? Fuck that! That’s how I ended up here in the first place! If the Old Man hadn’t hired me on as a scab when I OD’d, I’d be burning with the rest of those shitheads!”
     Eddie returned to his locker and started getting dressed. He’d have to hurry, if he wanted to meet his friends at the Eternity Café by eight. It’d been over a month since they’d gotten together and he was really looking forward to some R and R. Eddie shut his locker and hurriedly made his way to the door. He reached for the handle just as the door swung open, nearly knocking him on his ass.
     “Shit! Why don’t you watch where the fuck you’re goin’, dumbass!” he exclaimed.
     “I think, perhaps, it is you who should be watching where he goes, Banks,” replied the grim figure in the doorway.
     It was Jack Tripper, the most senior Reaper on Eddie’s shift. He’d been in this line of work for over a century, and took the job way too seriously - never showing any emotion, or even taking off his hood. He was the perfect Incarnation of Death, winning Reaper of the Year every year for the last three decades at the annual company Christmas party. Though feelings among his fellow Reapers ran from admiration to loathing, one thing was consistent - they all feared him. Sure, it was impossible to die when you were already dead, but you could still feel pain. Eddie still remembered one guy who Tripper had fucked up so badly that the poor fucker couldn’t work for a week - he went over his yearly allotment of sick days and lost his job - which for an Incarnation, meant you got sent straight to Hell.
     “Uh, yeah. My bad,” Eddie stammered.
     Tripper looked on Eddie as if he were less than an insect and cooly walked past him.
     “Fuckin’ asshole,” Eddie muttered under his breath. “That guy needs to lighten up. Get laid or somethin’.”

     The Eternity café was where all the agents of Heaven came when they wanted to relax and kick back after a hard day’s work. Mostly it was frequented by the various major and minor Incarnations that kept the universe running - damned souls hand-picked by the Almighty to do His bidding. But you could also find Heaven’s other inhabitants here as well - the saved, fallen deities, saints, and even the occasional angel. The place was more crowded than usual tonight, and Eddie could see why - a gaunt young man in an over-sized cowboy hat stood on the stage tuning his guitar.
     “I’ll be damned!” breathed Eddie, walking up to the bar. “Hey, Dion,” he asked the bartender, “how the fuck’d you manage to book Hank Williams!?”
     “Ah, I told him drinks were on the house!” the dark-haired youth smiled. “Ain’t no way he was gonna turn that down!” Dion was at one time one of the most popular deities of the Mediterranean - the god of wine and hedonistic pleasure. Now he ran the Eternity Cafe. “What’ll ya have, Ed? Just got a new stout in from Bavaria you should try.”
     “Naw, fuck that dark shit! That last one you gave me tasted like something out of a colostomy bag! Just gimme a Bud.” Dion rolled his eyes as he opened the bottle and handed it to Eddie. “Hey - you seen Porter?”
     “I think they’re over there.” Dion pointed to a table in the corner.
     “Thanks, Dion.” Eddie handed him a five as he walked away. “Keep the change.”
     Eddie approached the large round table and pulled up a chair. His friend Porter, a satyr, was in the midst of relating one of his crude exploits to the four others at the table.
     “Hey, Ed,” Porter acknowledged his friend before continuing. “Anyway... so this chick is blowin’ me, right? Head, balls, shaft - suckin’ dick like it’s goin’ outta style!”
     “Aw, geez - he didn’t just go there!” exclaimed Mary, who worked the Fate crew. “You’ve got great timing, Eddie.” Eddie grinned. For some reason, whenever Porter was around, the conversation invariably turned to sex.
     “At first, it kinda shocked me,” he went on, “but then I noticed that it was feelin’ kinda good, so I started gettin’ into it - grindin’ my ass into her face an’ stuff.”
     “Christ, lad!” exclaimed Gus, an Irish Timekeeper. “What th’ fuck is wrong with yeh?!”
     Porter ignored him. “Man, she kept lickin’ til her tongue was all the way up in there! It was like she was Frenchin’ the chocy starfish!” He grew solemn as he looked down in his beer. “Y’know, I miss her sometimes.” Their attention briefly turned to the stage as Hank started to play.
     “Heyyy... good-lookin’... whaaat ‘cha got cookin’?”
     Johnny, an Incarnation of Hatred, turned to Porter.
     “What are you man, some kind of homo?” he asked. “What’d she do next, strap one on and plow your beanfield?”
     “Naw, man,” the satyr wrinkled his nose. “Gettin’ a rim job doesn’t mean you’re gay or nothin’. It just feels good, that’s all.”
     “Unlez yer gettin’ it froma ‘nuther guy,” drawled Homer from Sloth Division, drunk as usual, “then yer defin’ly gay.”
     “Let me tell you somethin’,” added Johnny, “back when I was alive, my ol’ lady tried that shit on me. We were sixty-ninin’ by the pool, see? Next thing I know, her tongue starts snakin’ its way up towards my asshole. I shot up like a bolt of lightnin’. I wasn’t havin’ none a’that shit. I was like ‘alright, time to fuck.’”
     “Dude, you’re just insecure about your own sexuality,” said Porter.
     “Fuck you,” retorted Johnny. “Least I ain’t no homo.”
     “Well, I’m not either,” shot back Porter.
     “Yeah, well maybe you ain’t now, but you’re definitely a fag waiting to happen!” replied Johnny.
     “Whatever,” said the satyr, waving his hand. He was tired of arguing. They sat in silence as Hank continued to play.
     “Hey - Heyyy, sweet baby... donnnn’tcha think maybe...”
     “I could never stand the taste, myself,” spoke up Mary.
     “Man, you guys are fucked up!” laughed Eddie.
     “Aye, lad, but that’s why we’re yeh mates now, innit it?” smiled Gus. “So, m’boy - how’re things at ‘Murder, Inc” these days?”
     “Not too great, guy,” Eddie frowned.
     “Place still gettin’ ya down, hon?” asked Mary, putting a hand on his shoulder.
     “Yeah, I keep hopin’ that it’s gonna get better, but it never does. I mean, all this killin’...”
     “Well, isn’t that what you’re supposed to fucking do?” asked Johnny.
     “Well, yeah... but I always seem to draw the depressing shit: stillborn babies, murders, lethal injections, cancer patients... I mean, fuck - I used to be a comic! Why did the Reapers have to go on strike? Why couldn’t it have been the Lust Brigade?”
     “Hey, now,” chimed in Porter, “bein’ a satyr can have its depressing moments, too! I mean, can you imagine how bad it is havin’ to get a chick horny for Ron Jeremy?”
     “Porter, you know that’s Greed’s job!” chided Mary. “How else are you gonna get some porn starlet to give it up for the Hedgehog?” Porter grinned in embarassment.
     “Have yeh tried t’git yerself a transfer, Ed?” asked Gus.
     “All the fuckin’ time. But that sadistic bastard Sam always turns me down.”
     “Well...” started Mary, “have you thought of trading lists with someone else?”
     “What? Are you crazy? No one would risk that! Sam hand-picks those jobs for each and every one of us. Says he chooses them based on our personality. No telling how bad another guy’s jobs would be!”
     “But you did just call him a ‘sadistic bastard,’” Porter pointed out. “Maybe he’s screwing with other fuckers, too. If I was you, I’d find the coldest, hardest, meanest motherfucker on your shift and switch scrolls while he’s not looking. They probably got him killin’ the rainforest or some cheesy shit like that!”
     “Yeah, right! They probably got that guy killin’ kids and puppies!” retorted Johnny.
     “But that would probably make him happy...” thought Eddie, quietly sipping his beer.

     A few days later, Eddie finally saw his chance. Tripper had left his locker open while he went to take a piss. Eddie quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching, and pulled Tripper’s sealed scroll from the top shelf of the locker, replacing it with his own. He then pulled on his hood and hurried out of the locker room to start his shift.
     The first call on Tripper’s list was a triple death in Cambodia. Eddie arrived at a run down bar to see several people running out.
     “Those damn fools’ve got a land mine!” one of them screamed.
     “This must be it,” he thought, walking into the bar.
     Within Eddie saw three young men sitting at a table with a large bottle of whiskey. Beneath the table was a metal object. He hoisted his scythe and moved closer.
     “Your turn,” one of the men said, handing the bottle to one of his companions.
     “You stomp on it first,” the second man said.
     The first one grinned drunkenly, raised his foot, and slammed it down on the metal object.
     “Boom!” yelled the third man, startling his companions.
     “Fuck you,” laughed the second man as he poured himself a shot and quickly quaffed it down.
     “These morons are playing some kind of Russian roulette drinking game!” thought Eddie.
     The second man took his stomp then passed the bottle to the third.
     “Now, we see if you blow up,” he said.
     “Not a chance!” laughed the third as he downed his shot. “This thing’s old as hell! It’ll never go off! Here, I’ll prove it!”
     The man pulled the mine from under the table and stood on his chair. Eddie readied his scythe.
     “Baaannzzzaai!!!” screamed the man, jumping down on the mine.
     “Darwinism at work,” joked Eddie as the building exploded. It was the first time a job had ever made him smile.

     Eddie’s next job was in a barren village in Somalia. He heard a plane’s twin engines roar in the distance. Several emaciated people with bloated stomachs, among them many children, came running from their mud and thatch homes.
     “De plane! De plane!” shouted one of the kids as the aircraft came into view.
     “Mtuba!” shouted one of the men. “Come quick! The plane from Sally Struthers has brought us more food!”
     A boy of about eleven came running from a hut on the edge of the village as the plane dropped a large object.
     “Papa!” Mtuba shouted, shielding his eyes from the blinding sun as he looked into the sky. “Where is it?”
     “Run, Mtuba, run!” the man cried. “There is no parachute!” A large shadow appeared over Mtuba as he spun around to see a huge crate falling rapidly toward him. Eddie readied his weapon for the killing blow.
     “Uh oh,” said the boy. “Looks like that fat bitch screwed up again...”
     The crate splintered into several pieces as it crushed Mtumba beneath its weight. Eddie couldn’t stop laughing at the irony. He was looking forward to his next hit.

     After several more morbidly humorous jobs, Eddie was finally at the last name on his list. A guy in a ritzy part of Salt Lake City named “Tad.”
     Eddie arrived at the luxurious apartment and followed the voices down the hall.
     “Here, Pooky! Come on out, boy!”
     “It’s not working, Frankie. I can still feel him up in there.”
     Before Eddie lay a scene straight out of an urban legend. One man, completely naked, had positioned himself on all fours upon the bed, with a cardboard tube sticking straight out of his ass. Another man, also naked, was talking into the tube while holding a hand full of rodent food at the tube’s visible end.
     “Holy shit!” laughed Eddie. “Gerbilling!”
     “Tad, honey, I don’t think he’s hungry.”
     “Well we can’t leave him in my ass all night!”
     “Well, what do you want me to do, sweetie?”
     “I don’t know, Frankie. I think he might be stuck. Get the flashlight and see if you can see him.”
     “We’re out of batteries, Taddy-boy. You said you were going to pick some up when you went to the mall yesterday, but you forgot, remember?”
     “Quit busting my balls, bitch, and get this damn rat out of my ass!”
     “Wait, I’ve got an idea.” Frankie grabbed a small box from the night stand and opened it. “We might not have a flashlight...,” he said as he leaned closer.
     “Uh, oh. Here we go,” thought Eddie.
     “...but we do have matches,” Frankie said as he struck the match and held it up to the tube.
     The methane in Tad’s colon caused a huge explosion, decimating his internal organs and shooting the now-hairless Pooky out of the tube with such force that it broke Frankie’s nose! Eddie was laughing so hard he was crying as he harvested Tad’s soul. His stolen Death list vanished as the last name was scratched off.

     Eddie walked into the locker room grinning from ear to ear. Today had been the best day he’d had since dying six years ago. It was late, and the place appeared to be completely empty, everyone else having already went home. He turned down the aisle where his locker was and stopped dead in his tracks.
     “Have a nice day at work, Banks?” Tripper leaned against Eddie’s locker, stroking his scythe.
     “Uh... the same as usual I guess. Nothin’ special.”
     “Oh really? Well let me tell you about mine, Banks - I had one of the most unusual days I’ve had in decades. I first started out with beheading a drug dealer in Iran. Next, I took a child as he burned alive in a car accident. A mob hit followed that one, then a suicide, then a train wreck. I claimed another child in a drive-by shooting, and then I took the soul of a prostitute as her killer punctured her lung and she drowned in her own blood, after which he had sex with her corpse and ate it. Of course, that was after he had skinned her alive.”
     “Yeah, it was a bad day for me too,” Eddie gulped.
     “Bad day? Bad day? Today was the best day I’ve had since I died! Do you realize the type of jobs I normally draw? People who die by their own stupidity, or the stupidity of others. No real aesthetic value in that type of thing whatsoever. No art in a silly death at all. But when there’s pain, suffering, despair, and torment - now that’s a death! And I owe it all to you, Banks.”
     “Uh, me?” Eddie squeaked. He was sweating profusely.
     “Yes, you, Banks. I know you traded lists with me. You’re locker is right across from mine - you’re the one who had the greatest opportunity.”
     Eddie began to back away.
     “In fact, I have a proposition for you, Banks.”
     “Me?” Eddie squeaked again.
     “Yes, you, you blubbering idiot! I suspect that you had a much better day than you are revealing. You are a weak, soft individual lacking the proper fortitude to perform such assignments as are usually doled out to you by that fool Samael! He has less love for the Art and more for seeing those below him writhe in unhappiness.”
     “But... I thought you loved your work, Tripper. I mean, you always win Reaper of the Year.”
     “I, Mr Banks, am a professional! I will always execute my duties in a manner superior to all my fellows without regard to the nature of the assignment! But that does not necessarily mean that I enjoy taking lives in a ridiculous manner! But you, Banks, you would, for you are a ridiculous man!”
     “Uh... okay,” Tripper’s eyes glowed inside his skull with a fire Eddie had never seen. All he wanted to do right now was to take a shower and head to the Eternity Café for a cold beer.
     “Now, Mr Banks, here is my proposal: every day from here until Samael is replaced or transfers to a new department, you and I will trade scrolls, leaving no one else the wiser by maintaining our expected demeanor.”
     “But what if we’re caught?”
     “Samael has been running this department for only a few years longer than I have been a Reaper. He is easily fooled as long as we make no outward shows of contentment. Only then will he become suspicious. Also, take into consideration that he won’t be here forever. Angels are transferred to new departments every few centuries or so. I know I can continue with the charade.”
     “But what if I can’t.”
     Tripper’s eyes glowed menacingly.
     “Samael’s investigation will take much longer than the time it will take me eviscerate you so badly that you will never be able to work again, and thus be sent to the Pit! The same fate that awaits you if you refuse my offer...”
     “O-kay,” replied Eddie. “Guess I have no choice.”
     “You have made your bed, Banks, and in it you must lie. I give you my word as a gentleman that I shall not betray you, if you shall not betray me.” Tripper extended his bony hand.
     “Yeah, you’ve got my word, too,” Eddie replied nervously as he took the offered hand.

     The Eternal Café was rather slow that night, as Dion hadn’t hired anyone to perform. Eddie paid for a beer and walked over to the table where Porter was sitting with former actor Jay Silverhills and just reaching the punchline of one of his more notorious jokes.
     “Ummmm.... ear sticky!” Porter finished as Eddie sat down.
     The three burst into laughter.
     “Ummm... that funny,” mocked Jay, standing up. “Ummmm... me now must go to little brave’s room!”
     Porter and Eddie laughed as Silverheels walked away.
     “So,” Porter asked, drying his eyes, “how’s the ‘graveyard shift?’”
     “It still sucks,” Eddie lied, “but I’m getting used to it.