Hell (34 page)

A short time later Hatcher finds himself standing in the middle of Grand Peachtree Parkway, exhausted, achy, dazed, and near him are Isabella Andreini and William W. Ross and Jason Stanley and Jezebel and they are likewise exhausted and achy and dazed and these five are conscious of each other, they look into each other’s eyes and then quickly away again, vaguely aware that there was something between them but they don’t know what, exactly, though Hatcher works at remembering, and he does, briefly—like remembering a dream upon awaking and then forgetting it utterly a few moments later—Hatcher briefly remembers the shared longings, the shared selves, and he thinks he understands, he thinks it is only in pain that we are all truly connected, and when the pain ends, we are alone. Utterly alone in our heads. And as soon as he thinks this, he forgets it. But only in his mind. His hands flex and they remember. The crowd begins slowly to flow forward. His legs move and they remember. The others push among Hatcher and Isabella and William and Jason and Jezebel and the five disperse in the crowd, their bodies separating, their minds and hearts separating. And in their minds it is as if this never happened.

And Hatcher slides across the crowd as it flows onward and he emerges onto the sidewalk in front of empty bookstores. One of them has a sandwich board outside: Hell’s Belles Lettres. He is at the alley mouth where Virgil led him to Beatrice. Is this a bookstore that’s surviving? He steps to it, but the door is locked and the blind is down. No. Nothing lasts in Hell but the promise of pain. And he lifts his eyes, and there, on the corner on other side of the alley, its red neon sign spewing bright sparks, bright even in the mid-day sunlight, is the establishment called BURGERS.

Hatcher snaps straight upright. BURGERS.

BURGERS is open for business.

BURGERS.

He crosses the alley mouth and stops and turns and faces the door that leads into the only hamburger joint in Hell. He lifts his hands before him and he looks at them and he flexes them and he looks at the door. He steps to it and puts his hand to the knob and he turns it and he pushes and the door swings open and his legs move. Inside, there is a sizzle in the air, things frying, pungently meaty things, out of sight, and yet the place is empty. He closes the door behind him and he steps farther in. He stands in the center of a linoleum floor full of Formica-top tables, all of it white, achingly white from bright fluorescence overhead. He waits and he realizes there is no way in Hell he is going to figure out what this is about. He just has to move across the floor and through the door before him.

But he waits. He waits and he listens to the faint buzz of the ballasts above him and he realizes that he can no longer hear the perpetual street roar. Grand Peachtree Parkway is just behind him and he can hear nothing but the buzz of the light fixtures and a distant sizzle. And a doorknob rattling. Also behind him. But the knob is not yielding. Hatcher slowly twists around toward the sound, but by the time he can see the front door, whoever was trying to get in is gone.

He turns back to where he now feels strongly he must go. He squares his shoulders. He shoots his cuffs. And laughs just a little at himself for this. And he moves forward. He puts his hand on the knob and he opens the door, and he finds himself in a short, white-walled corridor, with another buzzing fluorescent bulb and another door straight ahead, only a dozen paces away. He does not hesitate. He moves on. Passing on the left is a door marked
WOMEN
and two paces farther, on his right, a door marked
MEN
. There is nothing else. The entrance ahead, he assumes, is into the kitchen.

And he is before it. And still another knob yields to him, though this door feels very heavy as he starts to push, and it is faintly luminous, he sees, and he pushes hard to get it to move and it does, barely, he puts his shoulder against it and it is cool to the touch, it is emanating a coolness onto his face, a sweet coolness, and once the door starts to move, it feels not as heavy and now less heavy still and now actually easy and now the door is so light it feels as if it is opening itself and it swings suddenly wide, carrying him shoulder-forward for a step and then he takes another, just to keep himself from falling, and he rights himself and he stops, and the door thumps heavily closed behind him, and he is standing in a kitchen. A classic, compact, stainless-gleaming, fast-food kitchen with deep fryers and grills and bun toasters and sinks.

And it is air-conditioned. The hamburger grills are sizzling loudly and Hatcher can see the rows of burgers there, and it’s real meat—the air is full of the smell of all-beef patties—but there is no heat, there is only a soft undulant coolness all around. And there are no people.

Hatcher steps farther in. “Hello?” he calls.

But there is no answer.

He looks at the burger grill, beside him now. All the patty tops are pink. They have only recently been put there. But even as he watches, all the burgers rise in unison from the grill and rotate themselves in the air and they descend, and they hiss and pop and fry noisily on.

Hatcher lifts his face and breathes deeply into his body the cool conditioned air. Not since he died has he felt this. Not since he died. And he does not let himself think. He calls out once more, “Hello?”

Nothing.

He walks forward and emerges from the kitchen to find himself behind the order counter. Before him are rows of free-standing molded plastic booths in red and yellow. The window posters push Happy Meals and Quarter Pounders with Cheese. The windows themselves are storefront, looking out on the sidewalk of a city street with a glass office building façade directly across the way. Halfway to the front door, a to-go bag with the Golden Arches sits in the middle of a booth table. What Hatcher does not see is another person. Not in the restaurant. Not passing by outside. He steps around the order counter and suddenly senses someone to his right and he looks and he jumps back at a wild head of red hair and a red nose and a broad red mouth and he has been away from his life on earth long enough that it has taken him this brief moment to recognize Ronald McDonald, in yellow jumpsuit and red-and-white-striped shirt, and another brief moment to understand that the clown, though life-sized, is not real. He is molded plastic. He stands watching over the dining area with his right arm extended and his hand cupped, perpetually ready to administer a comradely hug. And suddenly a rich, deep, mellifluous male voice speaks from the general direction of the clown, “Welcome.”

Hatcher comes near to Ronald. This is clearly no sentient being. But someone might be watching through the clown from some remote place. Hatcher says, “Hello?’

But Ronald says no more.

“Hello? Anyone there?”

Nothing. No one.

Hatcher looks out into the street. The air in the dining area is cool, the smell of the hamburgers is very good, and the silence feels like his head is lying on a down pillow. What part of Hell is this? And he knows the answer. He knows the answer to that, but he does not let even his deep inner voice speak it.

He moves toward the front doors. When he passes the to-go bag, he can feel it radiating heat. Not like any heat he’s felt in these past many risings and settings of the faux sun of Hell, but the heat of putting your feet up on your desk and unloosening your tie and somebody steps in and sits and you talk about the Yankees or the Jets with that heat kissing your fingertips through a bun and sweetly stirring your tongue, and this to-go bag is giving off not only heat but the smell of two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. And Hatcher stops. And he knows this is for him. He picks up the bag.

He steps into the street. In the air is a hint of ripe peaches. And of coffee brewing. He looks up and down. No people. No cars. No birds, either. The sun is high but it feels mellow on his head. He walks toward the corner, and across the way is an urban park lush with live oaks whose broad limbs wear a dense cloak of Spanish moss.

And he is standing in front of Starbucks. And he steps in. And there is no one. But sitting on the center of the first table to the left of the door is a Venti that he knows—instinctively now—is a Toffee Nut Latte with extra foam. He knows it’s for him. He picks it up and it is sweetly warm in his hand, and he steps back outside, and he crosses the street and begins to follow a fieldstone path, and it is rising gently toward the center of the park, and he stops suddenly. He sets his McDonald’s to-go bag and his coffee down on a stone, and he steps off the path. There is no grass in Hell. Even at Satan’s hunting lodge it was fake. This appears to be real.

The broad, flat, dark green blades of Saint Augustine grass. He kneels down and puts his palms on the ground and it is soft and it yields and the smell of the soil and the real grass well up into him, and he stretches out forward and presses his chest and the side of his face into this living ground. He lies there for a long moment and then slowly rises, and he does not brush himself off but picks up his bag and his cup, and he continues along the curving path up the rise. And at the top is a chair. A familiar chair.

A low-slung Toshiyuki Kita recliner, the “Wink,” exactly the same as his reading chair after becoming the anchor of the
Evening News from Hell,
the first thing he bought strictly for himself in his Dakota apartment. He shared that apartment with someone. Someone who wasn’t crazy about this chair, but he was, and he bought it. It makes no difference who didn’t like it. He approaches the chair slowly, and he touches the twin yellow headrests, which always felt to him like his own two hands clasped comfortably behind his head, and he crouches down and eases onto the chair, settling into the broad sitting groove of its purple body. And he looks out at a wide azure pond in the center of the park, and beyond is a dense stand of water oak, and beyond the trees is a stacking of high-rise buildings, a cityscape of glass, with the sunlight reflecting there, but softly, and one skyscraper rises high above it all, its lean dusky brown facade a stacking of vertical piers going up to a gilded pyramid of open latticed girders that seem stuffed with the baby blue sky.

Hatcher eats his Big Mac. Pittsfield Kobe. He drinks his Starbucks latte. The caffeine rushes in him and he lets the foam evaporate on his lips. And when he finishes eating and drinking, he rubs the heels of his hands on the arms of the chair. And his thumb thinks to look for something, a little rub spot on the right arm. And he finds it. This is his chair. His. And he knows he is in Heaven.

And he has still seen no one else. He lifts his head a little. He looks off to the trees on the right. He looks off to the trees on the left. He looks at the pond, and he scans the far tree line. There is no one. And there is silence. Which is all right. He feels his body letting go. He lays his head back into the two soft hands of the chair. And he sleeps.

He wakes to stars. The night has come, and it is cool, and the air is full of the smell of Confederate jasmine. The tall buildings beyond the trees are dark, but the pyramid atop the skyscraper is lit brightly in gold. It floats in the sky before him like a fiery crown. Hatcher rises from his chair, and he walks back down the path, and there are bright lights all along this thoroughfare. He has always felt most comfortable in big cities. He steps in at Starbucks, and his evening latte is waiting on the table.

He goes back outside, and he stands in the center of the street, and he feels luxuriously slow inside. He sips his coffee. He takes his time. His coffee stays hot to the last drop, but not so hot that he can’t sip it as deeply as he wants, which he does, even at the very last, filling his mouth full and holding it warmly there and then letting it slide down. And all the while, he watches the bright golden crown floating above this Great Metropolis of Heaven.

And when he is finished with his coffee, he knows simply to open his hand, and he does, and the empty cup drifts off. And with a bit of a shock he realizes, as he stands there, that nothing hurts. There is not a single part of his body that isn’t feeling sweetly fine. And still he can’t take his eyes off the Great Skyscraper of Heaven. And suddenly the building below the pyramid, merely implied till now in the darkness, begins to come alive with light. The windows. The thousands of windows before him begin to flare into golden brightness. Quickly, in no discernible pattern, high and low and middle, left to right and right to left, the windows burst into light like the explosion of a Fourth of July rocket. It’s all for him, he feels. He begins to walk toward the building. And part of him is thinking:
That’s where everyone is
.