Damned (5 page)

Still gazing at herself in her compact mirror, Babette asks of no one
in particular, "What day is it?"

Leonard's arm crooks, instantly, and he looks at his diver's
chronograph watch, saying, "It's Thursday. Three-oh-nine p.m." A beat
later, he says, "No, wait... now it's three ten."

In the middle distance, a looming giant with the head of a lion, shaggy
with black fur, with cat claws instead of hands, reaches into a cage and plucks
out a wailing, flailing sinner, dangling him by his hair. In the same manner
you might nibble grapes from a bunch, the demon's lips close around the man's
leg. The demon's furry lion cheeks sink inward, hollowed, and the man's screams
grow louder as the meat is sucked from the living bone. With one leg reduced to
hanging bone, the demon begins to suck the meat from the second leg.

Despite all of this ruckus, Leonard and Patterson continue to watch
Babette, who watches herself. The Ice Age of Dumbness.

With a muted clank, the punk wearing the leather jacket pries the tip
of his safety pin, twisting it sideways within the lock on his cell door to
trip the mechanism. He pulls the pin free, then wipes it against his blue jeans
until the point is clean of rust and slime before thrusting it back into its
previous place, piercing his cheek. At that the punk swings the cell door open
and steps out of his cage. His Mohawk stands so tall the blue hair brushes the
top of the doorframe.

Swaggering down the row of cells, the blue-Mohawk punk peers into each
cage Inside one lies an Egyptian pharaoh or somebody who went to Hell for
praying to the wrong god, crumpled on the floor, gibbering and drooling, one
arm sprawled so that the hand rests near the cage bars. A fat diamond ring
glitters on one finger, the stone in the four-carat range, D-grade, not cubic
zirconium like Babette's cheapo earrings. Next to that cage, the punk kid stops
and stoops. Reaching through the bars, he slips the ring off the wasted finger.
The kid pockets the diamond ring inside his motorcycle jacket. Standing, he
catches me watching him and saunters toward my cell.

He wears black motorcycle boots—note: an excellent footwear choice for
Hades—the ankle of one boot wrapped with a bicycle chain, his other ankle
wrapped with a knotted, soiled red bandanna. Pimples swell into red points
dotting his pale chin and forehead, in contrast to his bright green eyes. As
the Mohawk punk struts closer, one hand slips into his jacket pocket and scoops
out something. From a long toss away, still walking, he says,
"Catch," and his hand swings, tossing the object, which flashes in a
long, high arc, flying between my cage bars, falling to the point where my
hands clap together to catch it.

Acting the part of a complete Miss Slutty Slutovitch, Babette continues
to ignore Patterson and Leonard but holds her compact angled to spy on the punk
kid, scrutinizing him so closely that when the thrown object flashes, the
bright flash bounces off her mirror, reflected into her eyes.

"What's a nice girl like you," the Mohawk kid asks me,
"doing in a place like this?" When he talks the safety pin in his
cheek jerks around, flashing orange in the firelight. He struts up to the bars
of my cell and winks one green eye at me, but looks at Babette without looking
directly at her. He's clearly touched the dirty iron bars, then touched his
face, his jeans, his boots, smearing the filth all over himself.

No, it's not fair, but dirt does manage to make some people look more
sexy.

"My name is Madison," I tell him, "and I'm a hope-aholic."

Yes, I know the word
tool.
I may be dead and jailbait and
boy-crazy, but I can still be used to make another girl jealous. Warm from the
punk's pocket, lying in the palm of my hand is the stolen diamond ring. My
first gift from a boy.

Drawing the oversize safety pin from his cheek, the Mohawk kid pokes
the sharp point into my keyhole and begins to pick the lock.

Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison. I assume that membership in
Hell gives you access to a zillion-million A-list celebrities.... About the
only person I'm not excited to meet is my dead grandpa. My long-dead Papadaddy
Ben. Long Story. Please credit the impulse to my youthful curiosity, but I
can't resist the opportunity to get sprung and take a quick look-see ramble to
check out the lay of my new neighborhood.

Spare me, please, your dime-store psychology, but I really do hope the
devil will like me. Note, again, my lingering attachment to the H-word. My
being here, locked in a slimy cage, it would seem a foregone conclusion that
God isn't my biggest fan, and my parents, it now appears, are largely out of
the picture, as are my favorite teachers, nutrition coaches, really all the
authority figures I've tried to please for the past thirteen years. Therefore
it's not surprising that I've transferred all my immature needs for attention
and affection to the only parental adult available: Satan.

There they both are: the H-word and the G-word, proof of my tenacious
addiction to all things upbeat and optimistic. To be honest, all my effort thus
far to remain spotless, mind my posture, present myself as perky, affect a
cheerful smile, is calculated to endear myself to Satan. In my best-case
scenario I see myself assuming a kind of sidekick or comic-relief role,
becoming a perky, chubby, sassy girl child who tags along with the Prince of
Lies, cracking wise-ass jokes and propping up his flagging ego. So ingrained is
my spunky nature that I can't even allow the Prince of Darkness to indulge in
the doldrums. I truly am a sort of flesh-and-blood form of Zoloft. Perhaps that
explains Satan's general absence: He's simply waiting for my verve to exhaust
itself before he makes himself known.

Yes, I understand that much about pop psychology. I may be dead and
vivacious, but I'm not in denial concerning the manic first impression I can
make.

Even my own dad would tell you, "She's a dervish." Meaning: I
tend to wear people out.

It's for that reason that when the blue-Mohawk punk unlocks my cell
door and swings it open on creaky, rusted hinges I step back deeper into the
cage rather than forward to gain my freedom. Despite the diamond ring the
punk's just tossed me, which now resides on the middle finger of my right hand,
I resist my wanderlust. I ask the kid his name.

"Me?" he says, stabbing the oversize safety pin through his
cheek. He says, "Just call me Archer."

Still lingering in my cell, I ask, "What are you in for?"

"Me?" the kid, Archer, says. "I went and got my old
man's AK-47 semi...." Dropping to one knee, he shoulders an invisible
rifle, saying, "And I blew away my old man and old lady. I slaughtered my
kid brother and sister. After them, my granny. Then our collie dog,
Lassie..." Punctuating each sentence, Archer pulls an invisible trigger,
sighting down the barrel of his phantom rifle. With each trigger pull, his
shoulder jerks back as if pushed by recoil, his tall blue hair fluttering.
Still sighting through an invisible scope, Archer says, "I flushed my
Ritalin down the toilet and drove my folks' car to school and took out the varsity
football team and three teachers... all of them, dead, dead, dead." As he
stands, he brings the bore of the imaginary rifle barrel to his mouth, purses
his lips, and blows away invisible gun smoke.

"Bullshit," shouts a voice, Patterson, the football player,
fully restored to a teenage boy with red hair and gray eyes and the large
number 54 on his jersey. In one hand, he carries a helmet. His feet scratch the
stone floor, the soles of his shoes tapping and skittering with sharp steel
cleats. "That's total bullshit," Paterson says, shaking his head.
"I saw your paperwork when you first got here. It said you're nothing but
a lousy shoplifter."

Leonard, the geek, laughs.

Archer snatches a rock-hard popcorn ball off the ground and wings it,
line-drive fast, against the geek's ear.

Exploded popcorn and the pens from his pocket fly everywhere. Leonard
falls silent.

"Get this," Patterson says. 'According to his file Mr. Serial
Killer, here, was trying to steal a loaf of bread and a batch of disposable
diapers."

At this Babette looks up from her mirror and says, "Diapers?"

Archer strides over to the bars of Patterson's cell, thrusting his chin
between the bars; snarling through clenched teeth, Archer says, "Shut up,
jockstrap!"

Babette says, "You have a baby?"

Turning toward her, Archer shouts, "Shut up!"

"Get back into your cell," Leonard shouts, "before you
get us all in trouble."

"What?" Archer shouts. He swaggers over, at the same time
extracting the safety pin from his cheek, then begins to pick the lock of
Leonard's cage door. "You afraid this will go on your
permanent record,
twerp?" Tripping the lock, Archer says, "You afraid you might not get
into an Ivy League college?" On that note he swings the barred door open.

Grabbing the door, yanking it shut, Leonard says, "Don't."
Unlocked, the door won't stay shut and swings open. Holding it closed, Leonard
says, "Lock it, quick, before some demon comes along...."

Already, Archer's blue head is swaggering over to Babette's cell; pin
in hand, he's saying, "Hey, sweet thang, I know a scenic spot overlooking
the west edge of the Sea of Insects that will take your breath away," and
he begins picking her lock.

Leonard continues to pull on the bars of his cell door, holding it shut.

My door hangs open. I close my hand into a fist around my new diamond
ring.

Patterson shouts, "You loser, you couldn't find your way across to
the far side of Shit Lake."

As he swings open Babette's door, Archer shouts, "Then join us,
jockstrap. Show me."

Dropping her cosmetics back into her fake Coach bag, Babette says,
"Yeah... if you're brave enough." Pointlessly, she pinches her
already short skirt and lifts the hem as if to prevent it from dragging. Being
a total Miss Harlotty O'Harlot, her legs showing almost to her panty-hose
crotch, Babette steps through her open door, picking her way delicately in her
fake Manulo Blauhniks.

Leonard stoops to collect his scattered pens. He brushes the bits of
sticky popcorn from his hair.

Archer swaggers over to Patterson's cell. Holding the safety pin
outside the bars, beyond Patterson's reach. Baiting him, Archer says, "You
up for a little field trip?"

To get Leonard's attention I tell him my theory about behavior
modification therapies versus plain, old-fashioned exorcisms. How nowadays if
any of my friends, my alive girlfriends, sat in their bedrooms all day throwing
up, the diagnosis would be bulimia. Rather than engage a priest to confront the
girl about her behavior, express love and concern, and evict the occupying
demon, contemporary families engage a behavioral therapist. It's weird to think
that as recently as the 1970s religious leaders were throwing holy water on
adolescent girls with eating disorders.

My hope really does spring eternal; but, darn it, Leonard isn't
listening.

By now, Archer has sprung Patterson. Babette joins them and the trio is
already strolling toward the fiery horizon amid screams and swarms of black
houseflies. Patterson offers his hand to steady Babette on her high heels.
Archer sneers, but it might just be the pin lanced through his cheek.

Even as I continue to talk, expounding on my theory about Xanax
addiction being caused by demonic possession, Leonard of the lovely brown eyes
throws open his cell door and bolts after the vanishing hikers. My last only
new friend in Hell, Leonard's scrambling over the terrain of aged Gummi Bears
and smoldering coal. His head swiveling, on the lookout for possible demons,
he's calling, "Wait!

Wait up!" Rushing after the fading blue point of Archer's Mohawk
hair.

When all four of them are almost gone, reduced by distance to mere
rule-breaking dots in the landscape of bubbling poop and discarded Jujubes,
only then do I open my own cell door and take my first forbidden Bass Weejun
steps in their pursuit.

Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison. Like so many tourists, we've
embarked on our little walkabout to explore Hell. We take note of the general
topography. We view a few interesting landmarks. And I'm prompted to make a
small confession.

The group of us skirted around the margin of the flaky, greasy Dandruff
Desert, where scorching winds as hot as a billion hair dryers blow the scabs of
dead skin into drifts as tall as the Matterhorn. We traipsed past the Great
Plains of Broken Glass. After a fair trek, we stood on a bluff of volcanic
cinders overlooking a vast pale ocean which stretched to the horizon. No wave
or ripple disturbed its opalescent surface: a shade of soiled ivory similar to
the scuffed faux leather of Babette's counterfeit Manolo Blahnik shoes.