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Character Name: Charlie Asher

Character Series: A Dirty Job (by Christopher Moore)

Age: By book end, I’d wager mid/late 30s.

Background: Okay, I’m going to try and sum this up in under 5 pages because the book is kind of a mish-mash of events happening all over the place at random that eventually make sense (or don’t—there really isn’t much of a semblance to plot when you try to explain it in a summary).

Charlie Asher was born a few years after his sister, Jane. He grew up in San Francisco, or more specifically, Chinatown. His father worked his own secondhand store called Asher’s Secondhand (gasp, shock) and his mother was a glamor queen who hated her husband’s work. NOTHING REALLY HAPPENED. Except for the local seven-fingered tailor (Three-Fingered Hu, for only three fingers on one of his hands) revealing to 10-year-old Charlie the wonders of illegal Chinese fireworks. But that doesn’t really matter much either. When Charlie was 17, his father died and the business was left without an owner. It was originally meant to be passed down to Charlie, but Jane, at 19, took over for several years while Charlie took his time and went to university, getting a bachelor’s degree in business. He got jobs in several monotonous workplaces full of pencil-pushing and douchebosses. Needless to say, Mrs. Asher was more than displeased that although the main heir of the store wasn’t around, the store hadn’t yet gone out of business.

In his mid-twenties, Charlie came back to run the store, picking up a few regular employees—Ray, a former cop with paranoid tendencies who was desperately searching for the right Ms LoveYouLongTime online, and Lily, a wannabe Goth of 13 who helped out part-time with her parents’ permission (who would become 16 by the book’s start). Business was steady, but not booming, and Charlie enjoyed life in the building, which he was also landlord of. It was around this age that, on a rainy day, Charlie found refuge in a bookstore called A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books, where he met Rachel Goldstein for the first time. Within ten minutes, they had a later date set up at a coffee shop after an awkward interrogation about each other (“Are you gay?”, etc. etc.), and one thing led to another when, a year later, he was married to Rachel.

Not too long after, Rachel was pregnant with Charlie’s baby, and nine months later, she was in the hospital giving birth to a baby girl that they named Sophie (Charlie had freaked out about the baby having eleven toes (he counted it several times!) or possibly a tail—but he would love her anyway). Once the nurses got sick of his paranoid rambling, they threw him out of the hospital and he went back to the car. He spotted Rachel’s favorite Sarah McLachlan CD and decided that his wife couldn’t recover from childbirth without it, barging back into the hospital with it. There, he spotted a FUCKING HUGE black man in a mint green suit standing over his wife. He told Charlie that, contrary to what he thought, she was not asleep. She was dead. Charlie didn’t believe him, and checked. Rachel wasn’t breathing. He freaked and screamed for help, an emergency team of nurses and doctors rushing into the room. 50 seconds later, his wife was pronounced dead.

After that, Charlie couldn’t really handle himself, so his sister Jane advised him to take some meds. He did, and then doped himself up for about two weeks straight into a bizarre stupor, sitting shivah with Rachel’s family (since Rachel had been Jewish). It was around this time he began to notice that certain items in his store were glowing red, and he thought they were radioactive at first, but then decided that he was just hallucinating from all the meds.

[During those two weeks, a package was delivered to Charlie’s store, addressed to the owner. Lily thought it was within her right as an employee to see what it was all about and found a copy of The Great Big Book of Death. She kept it for herself.]

After his two weeks of holing himself up in the apartment, he decided to go outside for once, leaving Sophie in the care of the two widows who lived in the same building—Mrs. Ling (a Chinese immigrant who judges animals and plants based on how she thinks they’d taste in soup) and Mrs. Korchev (who eventually taught Sophie her first words—“like bear”). It was on Charlie’s first venture out into the world when he killed a man with a truly unique weapon: the number forty-one bus.

Charlie had noticed that the man’s umbrella was glowing red like the things in his shop, and before he could stop himself, he called out to tell the man his umbrella was radioactive as he was crossing the street. The man stopped in the middle of the road, and the forty-one bus slammed straight into him and created an epic, gory scene.

A while later, Charlie got an estate call—he’d have to go and visit the home of whoever wanted Charlie’s store to take in something. He found that he was taking in a huge stash of expensive designer clothing from a woman who ate silica gel (yes, the “do not eat” stuff) and later died. Her husband was with Charlie when, outside the front door of the house, Charlie spotted some freaky man-sized raven shadows and tried to save the husband, but instead ended up “killing” him. Next to his corpse, the man’s cane glowed bright red (Charlie later gave the cane to the Emperor of San Francisco, who is a crazy hobo that everyone knows, loves, and nourishes out of the goodness of their hearts, along with his two dogs). Oh yeah, and a hot redhead who’s actually the main character of some of Moore’s other books came in for a quick cameo and called Charlie Death (yeah I forgot to mention that Moore pulled a CLAMP in San Francisco where it’s a clusterfuck of crossovers with his own books—there’s also a squad of vampires and blue hookers running around that Charlie’s very vaguely tied to, but that’s irrelevant and he doesn’t know about it, really. *cough*)

It’s around here that Charlie gets a ~*~mysterious call~*~ but since he has caller ID, that was kind of ruined. While the caller was trying to RAGE ANGRILY at Charlie, Charlie’s confused about what he’s talking about with soul vessels and whatnot. Charlie hangs up and finds the address where the call had been made and makes a trip up to the Castro area of San Francisco, bringing along a sword-cane he found in his shop just in case. He barges into a jazz shop and starts raging around, and one short fight later, Charlie’s knocked out with a cash register by the black dude in a mint green suit.

He wakes up and finds himself tied to a chair so he can be infodumped upon by Green Suit Guy (whose name is Minty Fresh, I kid you not). Basically, Charlie is one of Santa’s Helpers of Death—he’s Death, but not the only one. There’s a whole swarm of them, at least a dozen in San Francisco, and Minty calls them all Death Merchants. BASICALLY, the Luminatus, the Death With a Capital D, disappeared ages ago and now the Death Merchants cover his ass and collect soul vessels (containing the souls of people once they die) so that the Forces of Darkness don’t get them, selling the vessels on to people who are ready to receive a soul.

Oh yeah, and Death Merchants don’t have the power to kill people. Which kind of stumps Charlie, because he pretty much inadvertently killed two guys (which he really didn’t, he just thinks he did). Minty doesn’t have an answer—much like he doesn’t have an answer as to why Charlie didn’t receive the Great Big Book that Minty sent.

So Charlie goes back out into the world and embarks on his epic adventure as a Death Merchant, getting a little date book so that the names of the people whose soul vessels he was supposed to collect and in how long would show up to him. Oh yeah, and he throws a fit about fuzz on the toast of Death (and how Sophie had Death for a daddy). Not much really happens, other than some freaky shit with shadow ravens and Lily revealing to Charlie that she knew he was a Death Merchant thanks to taking Charlie’s copy of the Great Big Book.

Life falls into a regular pattern of secondhand selling and embarking on doing cool Deathy shit. Charlie starts hearing voices coming out of the sewer, threatening to kill him and yadda yadda, he gets some Chinese fireworks from Three-Fingered Hu, and bombs the shit out of the sewers and the sewer harpies who are taunting him. Oh yeah, and Inspector Rivera starts stalking him. But GASP, the fireworks make them stronger! They try to assassinate Sophie in her sleep as revenge, but two black, giant-as-all-hell (no pun intended) dogs come out of nowhere and rip the sewer harpies a few new holes. Some research shows that the dogs, named Alvin and Mohammed, are hellhounds, and they’re pretty much indestructible. Charlie tries killing them for a while, but then figures that it’s better for Sophie’s protection, since someone out there is trying to kill her.

Ray begins to think Charlie is a serial killer and vice versa, since dead people’s stuff kept ending up in Charlie’s store (Charlie had no real reason for thinking Ray was a serial killer, uh). ANYWAY, Charlie has to retrieve the soul vessel of a woman named Madison. Too bad she was still alive when he came around and her soul vessel was her boob implants. Charlie was caught by the police for being a pervert with intention to kill her, but Madison was shot dead the same day anyway. LONG STORY SHORT, sewer harpies got the boobs. And soul vessels make them stronger.

Nothing of much importance happens, until Jane calls Charlie and reveals that their mother is going to die soon, and they have to go down to Sedona, Arizona to visit her in her last hours. (Neither Jane nor Charlie even knew their mother had cancer, she hadn’t spoken to them in years, haha whoops.) Anyway, they go down to Arizona without a second thought and pay their respects to their mom. That night, while Charlie was watching his mother, a guy creeped into the room and searched the room. Charlie pointed to a necklace on one of the shelves—the guy was a Death Merchant and was looking for his mother’s necklace. LONG STORY SHORT, the two Death Merchants talk, and turns out that there’s going to be an epic battle in San Francisco and oh yeah the Forces of Darkness are rising.

The next day, Charlie’s mother dies. Charlie realizes he probably has soul vessels to collect and leaves for San Francisco immediately, dumping Jane in Arizona until her mother’s funeral came around. Indeed, Charlie had two names in his date book—Esther Johnson and Irena Posoko-fuckhername-ovich (not like Charlie knows what the hell it is either), but failed to get either of them. Esther Johnson was playing dead for Charlie, while Irena was still alive and pepper-sprayed Charlie, which prompted him to try and drop a cinder block on her head (…yes).

Charlie goes back to Arizona for the funeral of his mother, and it was SAD. Then he went back to San Fran, and was told by Jane to get laid and was thrown 500 bucks at him to do it. Instead of getting laid, Charlie went to a massage place and blew (no pun intended) 200 bucks there. Then he started to take a walk around the city where his blatant horniness got him killed. A lady in a dark alleyway lured him in and started giving him a hand job when it turns out that SHE’S A SEWER HARPY OH SHIT and she skews his penis on a claw (…look I don’t make this shit up, blame Moore). While Charlie gets his head bashed around a bit, our favorite stalker Inspector Rivera comes up and shoots the sewer harpy until she flies off in raven form. Charlie comes back home and all is well! Jane is proud of him for fucking a tiger or whatever.

Later, he goes out on a walk with Sophie to the zoo. On the way there, she spotted a black cat and pointed at it, saying “kitty!” The cat dropped dead right in its tracks. Then, she spotted an old man, and said “kitty!” at him too. He dropped dead too. Charlie banned Sophie from ever using the k-word, and Charlie began to worry that he was the Luminatus because seriously, what the fuck, whose kid does that.

And not too long after THAT, Charlie was shot twice in the leg with steel arrows by an unknown assassin who also tried to kill Sophie, but was busted by the hellhounds. Charlie was put in a hospital and doped up while Ray accompanied him and blabbed about being Death and whatnot (Ray declared him too doped up to make any sense).

But soon enough, Charlie and Minty realize that there has been a woman as of late who keeps showing up and buying soul vessels in bulk—which isn’t supposed to happen and skews the natural order of events. And here is where the weird shit REALLY starts: they begin to notice little squirrel people running around. (To be accurate, they’re not all squirrels, they’re actually just hacked-up body parts from all sorts of animals shoved together and dressed up in cute theatrical outfits.) One of these squirrel people was actually the one who tried to kill Charlie, and eventually Charlie and Minty find themselves at the mercy of the critters.

Next thing they know they’re tied up like hostages and are being served tea by the soul-vessel-hoarding lady and the squirrel people. INFODUMP NUMBER 2: her name is Audrey, she’s a monk who was taught in Tibet, can see soul vessels and souls in people, and can perform several p’howas, the two most important ones in this story being the p’howa of undying (which basically halts a person’s biological progression, be it in sickness or aging or whatever), and the p’howa of forceful projection, moving soul vessels from one body/item to another. Audrey basically made a bunch of toy-sized zombies and gave them souls, thinking that all the Death Merchants were actually bad guys by entrapping souls. Weeeiiiiird shit.

Oh yeah, and then Charlie shagged her (cue about 5 pages of “you shagged a monk?!”).

ELSEWHERE IN SAN FRANCISCO, the sewer harpies are getting more and more powerful, and pay a visit to another Death Merchant in San Francisco, who was prepared for something like this. He bombed the living shit out of his store, himself, and the sewer harpies. Which, understandably, causes the other Death Merchants to freak out, especially when another one of them is kidnapped and injured (but makes it out alive).

This is increasingly making Charlie feel responsible for everything since there’s supposed to be a big fight between the Luminatus and the Forces of Darkness, and he (thinks he) is the Luminatus. But he doesn’t do anything and just kind of tries to survive all the sewer harpy bullshit until they take all of Audrey’s spare soul vessels (the squirrel people were spared), including Rachel’s soul vessel.

And it is at this point that Charlie loses his shit.

Charlie goes back to his store, and gets some hardcore motorcycling gear all over him as a shield, taking along with him his sword-cane and two Desert Eagles that Minty gave him for protection. He announces his will to all his friends, family, and colleagues, and then goes off on a suicide mission with the squirrel people as backup (who are all armed with knitting needes, sporks, etc.)

They head into the sewers and search for the harpies, eventually finding them on a weird demonic ship (yes, in the sewers). Some squirrel people are killed and eaten, and Charlie proceeds to fight. He fares pretty well, actually, considering he’s not a fighter, against them; he managed to impale one with his sword, nearly decapitated another, and killed one completely dead. But then things take a turn for the worse—the sewer harpies can heal themselves with the souls of the squirrel people, who are barely a match for them, and Charlie is swiped with deadly poison from one of them. It becomes increasingly hard for him to fight back, and his sword’s been taken from him and both Desert Eagles are out of ammo—oh yeah, and the shock from the guns might have shattered his wrist.

But the cavalry arrives at the last minute! Meaning, Sophie, the hellhounds, Audrey, and Minty Fresh. The hellhounds chew the living shit out of the Forces of Darkness and save Charlie from imminent death. Sophie reveals that she, not Charlie, is the Luminatus (yes, a 6-year-old child is the lord of all Death), and she has retrieved Rachel’s soul vessel. They all go back home! Happy ending, right?

Not quite. At Asher’s Secondhand, everyone tries to get Charlie some serious medical help ASAP, but turns out it’s too late. The poison from the swipe is killing him, and he laments in his last waking moments, mostly about not fucking an engineer or artist or poet before he dies.

Oh, and just to top off the fantastic weirdness of this book. Audrey eventually brings Charlie back to life by the p’howa of forceful projection, and the Death Merchant continues life as a squirrel person with a ten-inch schlong (no really they actually said that) until Audrey can get a human body for him. But I’m not taking Squirrel Person!Charlie—I’m taking him juuuuust before he dies.

[Note, because I didn’t know how to fit it in anywhere else. Sophie had several pets in her early childhood before Alvin and Mohammed, including 12 fish, 6 named after TV attorneys and 6 named after TV cops, a turtle, and a cockroach named Bear. They all died within days.]

Check it out, guys! This background is just over 5 pages long!

Personality: Beta Males. Second to Alpha Males, they are usually weak and timid, and they certainly don’t have enough testosterone to get themselves a lady, much unlike the Alpha Male. From an evolutionary position, though, they have managed to keep themselves going by realizing that, like the Alpha Male would do, chasing after woolly mammoths with pointy rocks was going to get them killed. So while Alpha Males got themselves killed left and right in the name of testosterone, Beta Males swooped in and fucked every Alpha Male wife on the rebound.

What does this have to do with Charlie? He is a Beta Male. Your standard modern-day Beta Male, in fact. He is most certainly not manly in any way (but that’s not to say he’s feminine), isn’t strong, and can easily be bossed around by others. He’s kind of a pushover, and the Beta Male capacity for common sense (i.e. “SHIT THAT MAMMOTH’S GONNA KILL ME”) has become blatant paranoia. Charlie has really got the brunt of the paranoia bit, to the point that he insists his daughter has unusual appendages and that her entire future will be ruined because he fed her pork sausages.

Another interesting facet of the Beta Male mind is their fantastic imagination, which Charlie, too, has been overly gifted with, and often feeds into his paranoia. He imagines all sorts of wacky scenarios, taking simple sayings and ideas and running with them until he imagines himself dizzy and sick with all sorts of bizarre fantasies. Usually they concern Sophie and her future (and how she’ll become a shiksa, which he thinks is some kind of lap-dancing whore). His imagination, though, also allows him to easily adjust to the abnormal. After a little while, Charlie easily fell into a steady lifestyle as a Death Merchant and all the glory of glowing red objects and horny sewer harpies that came with it. Oh yeah, and he adjusted pretty easily to the idea of Audrey’s squirrel people—that takes SKILL, man.

But, Charlie’s not completely your textbook case of a Beta Male. After working as a Death Merchant for several years, he’s adopted a few Alpha Male qualities. He’s not quite so afraid of everything anymore: “I was afraid to live, so I became Death.” Sure, Charlie worries and gets scared, but he’s not running from the fight anymore and going against the standard fight-or-flight response from a Beta Male (which is flight, if you couldn’t guess). Sometimes the fight doesn’t even come to him—the sewer harpies hadn’t been doing much, really, when Charlie firework’d the living shit out of them. He did that just for shits and giggles-slash-revenge. Similarly, he’s gotten more into the habit of fucking with people minorly just for fun (see: finishing all of Mrs. Korchev’s sentences with “like bear” for her and snarking back at Inspectors Rivera and Cavuto). In the same vein of slightly Alpha Male-like behavior, Charlie’s tolerance for bullshit has lowered since becoming a Death Merchant. Not so much bullshit of the “hey you’re Death knock yourself out” variety, more bullshit of the “now I’m just fucking with you” variety, and it leads Charlie to lash out, sometimes like an idiot (see: swinging a fucking SWORD at a giant man in a store for all to see).

Charlie is also very devoted. He thought he wouldn’t be able to continue living without Rachel, and preserved everything that he could of her—her hairbrush, her shampoo, the food she used to cook (for two years—the fridge was disgusting, to put it lightly). It took him an extremely long while to get over her death, and even then, he felt that forging a relationship with any other woman would be like cheating on her. He also grew to become a very devoted father, trying to care for Sophie in every way possible to make her life as good as he could. And even if his main instinct is to run away in a fight, if it means protecting the people he’s devoted to, he WILL go out there and fight an impossible fight, if only to try and set things right.

Item Lost: His first memory of meeting Rachel that day in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books.

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