Surprised the hell out of me to tell the truth. So I'llze tell you a little secret. While floating down to the bottom of the Mississippi, I knew I was done for. That was it. As soon as I exhaled I knew nothing more would happen to me in my lifetime. Next stop was Hell or oblivion – depending on what you believe. Then I saw a spark in the dark water, a shimmer of white flowing towards me, growing as it came. It was an angel in flowing robes, swimming like a fish. I thought for sure I was dead, but no – he said – I was only close to it. My life flashed before my eyes and I realized that even though I had done much to make the world a bad one, it had always been the influence of other people that tarnished the soul of the sweet little boy I once was.
"And the angel agreed.
"He knew when a wrong had been done and that revenge should be mine. He touched the rock around my feet and split it in two. Soon I was crawling and coughing my way up onto the banks. That angel gave me powers you can't even fathom. I could punch a hole through a cinderblock wall. I could just close my eyes and think myself somewhere, anywhere I had ever been before. Do you have any idea how amazing that is?"
At this Julius stopped, pulled out the sides of his trousers and grinned with what was left of his face, "Now if only I could get a fresh pair of pants. It's kinda hard to get the cuffs off with the shoes still on. Still, it's an amazing thing."
Julius checked his watch. "Times up! You got an appointment to keep and I don't intend to keep you waiting. Got three more people to kill before I'm done with my list."
Samuel stuttered with fear. Keep him talking. It's your only hope. Keep him talking and someone will hear. Keystone cops will rush in and smack him silly with their clubs, they just have to.
"So you killed the rest of your gang?"
"You bet! First thing on my mind," said Julius, unstrapping Sam from the crate, lifting the rock out of the tub and setting it on a roller dolly. "But believe me, you had it easy. I tenderized those boys with a blow torch and a crowbar first. Nobody ever deserved it more."
"Vaugn & Roxy De Jean?"
"The girl I loved, and the guy she went off an married. That's where I got this nice knife in my shoulder. I keep it to remind me of Roxy."
"Maud Corduroy?"
"Poisonous bitch. Taught me to steal and then disavowed all knowledge of me once I got caught. Boy was she ever surprised by my homecoming."
"Boss Carlyle?"
"Kilt my pappy in a fixed duel. One of those guns wasn't loaded and it wasn't his."
"Phillipe Byrd?"
"Foreclosed on the family farm. Put us all out in the street."
"Jefferson Lallemand?"
"Stomped him flat, just for the fun of it. The boy really had it coming."
"Benji Smallwood?"
"Never heard of him."
"Suds Malone?"
"Now that man never put enough beer in his so-called beer. Well, Lookee here. Q&A time is over because we are at the end of the dock."
Sam had been aware of it. It was hard not to notice the pier shaking on its timbers under Julius's heavy steps, but some part of him believed that if he kept asking questions new boards would appear and they could simply go on walking forever. Now he was standing upright with barely an inch of wood before a six foot plunge into the black waters of the Mississippi. He felt every quake and vibration sink straight to his belly. Julius leaned forward and whispered into his ear, "call on the Angel Sam. Right now, he's your only hope."
"Wait!" Sam cried and thrashed from side to side against his chains, "Whait!. What about Johnny Torrentino?"
Julius paused for a moment, trying to place the name. His grin tightened into a sneer. "Oh yes, the trumpet player. Why? He once looked at me funny."
The dolly tilted. Sam felt his feet tugged forward as if chained to the unrelenting pull of a locomotive. A shift in gravity and Sam was sent wheeling through the air.
A roaring splash. A sinking schlump. Soon Sam was standing upright on the river bottom, thirty feet down and with pressure squeezing on the sides of his head like a clamp vice. He could see nothing and hear nothing yet seemed to feel everything. Cold water rushed over his skin as he tried to twist loose. His cheeks ballooned and almost ripped in an attempt to hold in every spare bubble of air. Fear rippled up his spine as – right at the exact moment when he was pondering Julius's suggestion – a white spark appeared in the murky distance and weaved its way forward out of the gulf. For a moment, Sam totally forgot what was happening and nearly dropped his jaw in awe.
"Don't speak," it thought to him with a quiet symphony of pleasant tones, "I can hear every thought you think, and you can hear mine."
"Every thought you think?"
"Every one."
"You weren't supposed to hear that."
"I hear everything. No secrets remain hidden from me, Samuel James Ponticliff."
Sam smirked and a few precious bubbles slipped between his teeth. Quickly, he thought a shout across, "Can you get me out of here!?"
"Of course, that is what I am here for. However, my assistance is not inexpensive."
"Um, I think I still have my wallet on me."
The angel seemed unstirred. That wasn't it now was it? Of course not. He could probably summon up all the money in the world with just a snap of his fingers.
Sam thought out loud, You want my soul don't you? What else could you possibly want? What else did he have left to give?
"Such a sour notion." thought the angel, "Tainted by the dabblings of underpaid wordsmiths. I like to think of it as forging an alliance. Like when you pledge the allegiance to your flag or join the army. That is all I want. You do a few things for me. I do a few things for you. We'll straighten out the details in the future. Whaddya say Sam?"
Desperate for anything, Sam almost agreed, until tripped up by the slight realization that the angel was now talking to him with his own midwestern twang. He had come in like a choir boy but now he was laying out vowels flatter than Kansas. Sam's left eyebrow angled upwards. This was his bullshit antenna, and it went up automatically, usually while taking notes on senators talking about tax dollars.
The angel grew slightly miffed by Sam's silence. "Look at where you're at Sam. Look at what has happened to you. Do you really want to put any more trust in a force which would let such a crime be committed?"
Sam tightened his lips into a sneer. You could have arrived a tad bit earlier.
The angel stretched out his arms. From first glimpse the angel was human, perfectly human, the high water mark of perfection, yet his skin glowed with a pale flourescent light which couldn't be natural. With arms upraised, he now beamed with it, shining a cold radiance over the area. The light reminded Sam of a diner at 3 AM, a place where the food didn't taste half bad, yet looked dead on a plate as soon as it was served.
"Is this what you want for your future Sam? Rot. Filth. Decay. Abandonment."
Sam wondered what the angel was talking about and then caught a glimpse of it in his peripheral vision. He would have jumped out of his shoes, if at all possible. There in the water beside him swayed a baker's dozen of tortured corpses, chained up, roped down, and anchored to the river bed by large stone blocks. A few of the older ones had already been skeletonized by the pecking of fish and the ripping of crabs. Roxy Dejean still looked remotely femine despite being a bare bones in a dress. Boss Carlyle, who was no more than two feet away, was bloated like a gas bag ready to blow. Seaweed had already begun to take root in his pale blue skin. Johnny Torrentino, not far beyond him, was barely a bruised blur, only identifiable by the dented, crumpled and broken coronet Julius had chained to his chest.
"Tell me Sam, what faith lets this go on unchecked?"
Sam's chest clenched. It sucked against the top of his throat and he felt razor blades of pain wriggle into his cheek bones. The air had gone stale in his lungs. He looked at the angel. In the increased light he saw something he'd missed before. A long black tentacle, as thick as a used tire, leading out of the silken gown and spiralling back
into the water. It thickened as it went until it disappeared in the darkness, or possibly it became the darkness. A lucid flash and Sam realized he wasn't talking to an angel at all but a gossamer finger puppet on the hand of something so black and massive it needed to lie on its belly to remain hidden under the world's oceans. It had every fang ever birthed in its jaws and every tentacle that had ever strangled a man thrashing from its sides. A word bubbled up from his subconscious – Tartarus – but in the oxygen starved furnace of his mind it came out – tartar sauce.
T
"Honey, do we have any tartar sauce. These cat fishes are almost fried," says his mother.
"Check the ice box again. I swore I saw a jar in there yesterday," answers Samuel Ponticliff Senior. It is a beautiful summer day in Kansas, without a cloud from horizon to horizon. Sam Senior slips his great uncle's heavy glass monocle in his shirt pocket and pulls Sam Junior close to his side. Junior is sullen, thick with that strange mixture of anger and embarassment which accompanies any child caught having too much fun when he shouldn't be.
"Still." says Sam Jr, "They're only ants. You step on 'em as often as I do."
"Not intentionally I don't,"says Sam Senior. "And you were burning them down. You were taking delight in their helplessness."
No comment.
"Boy, you know what the law of the land says?"
"No. What?"
"It says that you have to eat everything you kill. Bugs, gnats, worms, fishes. That's why it's not a crime to kill chickens and pigs.