by Mark Cain
Prometheus shrugged. “Help yourself,” he said, popping the last bit of his sandwich into his mouth.
I went over to his time clock and looked at the record. Time clocks in Hell weren’t exactly dependable - nothing was - but it appeared that, except for his breaks, Prometheus had a perfect attendance record. He hadn’t even taken any sick leave, and you’d think getting your liver ripped out every day by a couple of vultures would leave you feeling poorly every once in a while.
By the way, people don’t get sick days in Hell as a general rule, but since Prometheus wasn’t Jewish, Christian or Muslim, but instead a titan out of Greek myth, QED he couldn’t be damned by our rules. Despite his apparent daily suffering, he probably could get an occasional day off, if he’d wanted to. These ancient Greeks, though. They seemed to have quite the work ethic. In this regard, he was like Ronnie, that is, my friend Charon, the Ferryman of the Dead. Ronnie never missed a day’s work either.
I didn’t think an hour dinner break would be long enough to steal the fires of Hell. Not even Prometheus could pull that off, I decided. “Thanks,” I said, putting his timecard back in its slot. “I didn’t think you were involved, but this way I can check you off the list of possible suspects.”
Prometheus stood, stretching his massively muscled arms above his head. I felt like I was looking at Michelangelo’s David after he’d spent a year bulking up at a gym. “Well,” he yawned. “That’s certainly a relief. I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be in trouble with the law. Hey, what makes you the law, anyway?”
I grimaced. “Satan views this as a maintenance issue, so he booted it to me.”
“Maintenance issue? How does he figure that?”
It was Orson’s turn to grimace. “HVAC system.”
“Ah.” Prometheus nodded then headed toward his shackles. I could hear the loud clang of each lock as he snapped them shut. “Damn,” he grumbled. “Hey, Steve, as long as you’re here, make yourself useful.”
“Hmmm?” I hmmmed in puzzlement, walking over to where the titan had settled on his stone “Sure. What do you need?”
Prometheus pointed to the giant open shackle on which he was resting his right wrist. “The last one is always a bitch to latch on my own, and today the hinge has chosen to freeze up on me.”
I bent down to take a closer look. The ancient iron was badly rusted. I tested the hinge. The shackle was heavier than a car tire.
“Rrrr crrr, rrr crrr.” Orson said and started chuckling.
“Shut up,” I mumbled absently.
Prometheus looked up at my assistant. “Rrrr crrr? What the hell’s he talking about?”
“Pay him no mind.”
“But what does he mean?”
I pulled a can of WD-40 from my tool belt. “He means oil can. He’s referencing an old movie. Not funny, Orson,” I said, though my friend was still chucking. “Good idea though.” I sprayed some WD-40 on the hinge and let the solvent do its thing for about thirty seconds. Then I worked the shackle’s joint back and forth a few times. Satisfied, I snapped it shut with hardly any effort at all.
“Hey, that’s pretty good stuff!”
“Yeah.” I sprayed some WD-40 on the other three joints, hesitated slightly, then left the can next to Prometheus. “They should all work better now. Just to be safe, though, I’m going to leave the can with you.”
Don’t get in your head that I’m a good handyman. I suck at it, but anyone can use WD-40. Even me. It was my second most useful tool, after duct tape.
The giant smiled. “Thanks! That’s nice of you.”
I shrugged. “No problem. Besides, it’s the least I can do since … ”
“Since you accused me of stealing the fires of Hell?”
“Something like that. See you around, Prometheus.”
“Only if you come back here. I don’t get out much.”
“Guess not,” I said, summoning Bik. The fire giant extinguished his flame just before landing on my palm. He was still smoldering a bit when I stuffed him in my pocket protector. “BOOH!” I yelled.
The giant vampire bat cracked open an eyelid and looked at me.
“Time to go.”
BOOH released his claws, completing a back flip as he landed heavily on the ground nearby. Still, the move was surprising graceful, like a gymnast. If he’d been competing at the Olympics, I would have given him at least an 8.5.
My winged friend bounded into the air. As he swooped by me and Orson, he dug his claws into our shoulders and lifted us off the ground.
“Ouch!”
“You get used to it. Bye, Prometheus!” I shouted.
BOOH did a quick zig-zag in the air, as he avoided two monstrous vultures that swooped toward Prometheus. My batty friend was curious about what was going on, so he hovered in mid-air to watch for a minute.
As soon as the vultures landed next to the titan, they bent to his side, knocking their skulls together. The hideous creatures hissed at each other.
“Fred, Ethel,” Prometheus chided. “Come on. How many times have we talked about this? Where are your manners? There’s plenty to go around. Ethel, ladies first.”
With a screech, Ethel tore into the giant’s right side. Blood squirted everywhere, and the giant howled in pain.
Or at least, it seemed like pain, but I thought I detected a note of boredom in his screams.
Ethel’s head came up, and Fred bent to take her place. The female vulture was drenched in the titan’s blood, a big chunk of liver hanging from her beak.
I shuddered. I always hated liver.
BOOH,” I said, averting my eyes from the grisly scene. “Show’s over. Let’s scram.”
We scrammed.
Chapter 7
We spent the rest of the morning travelling all over Hell, checking the elaborate system of pipes and duct work that enabled the HVAC system to maintain the Netherworld at either insufferably hot or unbearably cold temperatures. In this task, BOOH was a huge help; there was no way we could have covered so much territory in such a short time without him.
“Let’s start here on Five.” I suggested to Orson, before we began our diagnostics and after we returned to our office from visiting Prometheus.
“Why?” he said, with only mild interest. He was in the middle of cleaning his fingernails with a straightened paperclip.
You may wonder why we spend so much time tending to our nails. Everyone around here does it, even devils. My theory is that this obsessive attention to what seems like a mundane act of personal hygiene is symptomatic of a larger need. On this infernal plane, where everything is wrong and generally chaotic, we want at least one thing under our control, and since fingernails are handy - no pun intended - we tend to focus on them.
I walked to the door. Bik, who had been buzzing around our office like an angry firefly, assuming fireflies got angry, zipped into my pocket protector. “Why start on Five? Well,” I said, stepping out on the porch. “Aside from the fact that it’s the most convenient place to begin, it effectively bisects the plumbing for the HVAC system.”
“You mean ductwork.”
“You know what I mean,” I grumbled.
“Why the bad mood, boss?”
On the street just in front of our office was a vendor selling roasted chestnuts. When I lived in New York, back when I lived at all, roasted chestnuts were a favorite treat. These were burnt though, and the smell, mixed with that of the sulfur, which was almost always present in the air, was a particularly noxious combination.
“I’m just not looking forward to this particular job. It’s a damn sight bigger than the Escalator problem.”
“Work’s work,” Orson said, buying some of the burnt chestnuts off the vendor, an odd-looking fellow wearing a curly reddish blonde wig, top hat and baggy suit.
“Hey,” my friend said to the vendor. Orson appeared to know him. “How goes?”
“Honk, honk!”
“Well that’s good. Steve, meet Harpo Marx. Want a chestnut?”
“No thanks. It smells burnt to a chrisp. No offense, Mr. Marx.”
“Honk!”
“Sorry. I mean Harpo.”
We spent a few minutes exchanging pleasantries and honks. Orson thought the Fifth Level Demons had a real chance at winning the pennant this time around, perhaps even the Underworld Series. Harpo agreed, or at least, I think he agreed. It was kind of hard to tell. Since I found baseball more boring than watching paint dry, I didn’t express an opinion one way or the other.
Still, a little boredom at that moment was welcome. It put a damper on my concerns over Flo and the “metaphysical ramifications” of a cold day in Hell. Nothing takes away anxiety quite like boredom—unless you start to get anxious about being bored for too long, which can happen if you’re an active type. Me, well, after being Hell’s Super for such a long time, I was plenty active, but this was only little boredom. It felt good for a change.
But the job was beckoning. “Come on,” I said, finally interrupting the conversation. “Nice to meet you, Harpo, but we gotta go. Later.”
“Honk!”
“Why did Harpo get off with only being a chestnut vendor?” I asked as we crossed the street. “Considering other eternal damnations, his seems like pretty light fare.”
“Harpo abhors the smell of burnt chestnuts.”
“You know, I totally get that.”
We were now facing the yawning chasm in the center of Level Five. Thanks to Beezy’s magic thwock to my forehead, I could see an array of pipes and tubes crisscrossing the entire circle. “How are the chestnuts?” I asked idly, as we made our way around the Throat of Hell.
“They suck,” he grumbled.
“Big surprise. They smell like they’ve been burning on that grill for two hundred years. So why do you eat them?”
“I like old chestnuts.”
“Oh.”
After about three hundred yards of walking around the Throat, I stopped. “See anything?”
“No,” he said, between swallows of chestnut. “Should I?”
I looked down at the shells he was leaving on the ground behind him. “Hansel, are you making a trail to follow home, or are you just littering?”
“Littering, of course. This is Hell, so who cares?”
“Good point. Anyway, you may not see anything, but just to the left of me are two rather sizable pipes, each about eight feet in diameter. The red one comes from the furnace room down on Nine, and the blue one comes from Erebus up on Two.”
Orson looked at me as if I were some kind of lunatic. “I don’t see a damned thing. How can you?”
“Beezy used some devil hocus-pocus to hide them,” I said with a shrug. “He’s temporarily made it possible for me to see them.”
Orson whistled. “I wish I could see them.”
“Yeah, they’re pretty impressive. If we run into Beezy sometime, we’ll ask him to give you the second sight.” And I’ll be sure to have some aspirin to give you for the ensuing headache. “For now, you’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“Will do.”
I put my hand on the red pipe. It was quite hot, but not enough to burn me. That wasn’t a surprise, since I’d witnessed the failure of those jets on Nine. “Okay, so you don’t see anything at all?”
“Other than that big, black hole that looks like a bottomless pit, nope.”
I ran my hand up and down the hot pipe.
“You look like a street corner mime. Do the ‘locked in a box’ bit now.”
“Har har. For your information, at this moment, my hand is resting on one of those two big, fat pipes, see? Well, of course you don’t, but get my drift? This is the red one. Go ahead and touch it. It’s hot, but not so hot that it will burn you.”
More on faith than anything else, Orson stretched his hand out and placed it next to mine. When he felt the heat, he pulled back reflexively, but then he tried again. “Amazing!” he enthused, brushing his fingers along the invisible metal of the pipe. “And you’re saying these things are all over Hell?”
I glanced around. “Yeah. Level Five practically looks like a spider web to me right now, with pipes and ductwork going all over the place. The one you have your hand on, though, is the main source of heat for all Hell. It leads straight from the boiler room down on Nine.”
Orson frowned. “Well, it’s hot, that’s for damn sure, but I would have thought it would be hotter than this.”
“It should be. If the system were working properly, this pipe would burn off your fingers.”
Orson jerked his hand off the metal.
“They’d grow back, of course, at least, according to Beezy, so you needn’t worry. Besides, you know I’d never let you do something that would hurt you permanently.”
“Yeah,” he said, slowly, “though I still remember the time you shoved Edison into the Mouth of Hell.”
“That’s because he was yelling at me for being incompetent. He was asking for it.”
Orson pursed his lips. “Maybe.”
My assistant was pissing me off. For him to think that I’d intentionally get him hurt, well, it didn’t sit well with me. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, we’re sure now that the heating system isn’t working right. It’s even cooler up here than the pipe was down on Nine. We can check some of the upper levels, but I suspect that the pipe will get progressively cooler.”
“What about the air conditioning?”
“That pipe is right over here,” I said, indicating what must have seemed to Orson like another span of air.
“How do we test to see if it’s working properly?”
I told him.
“Come on! You’re kidding.”
“It’s either that or your chestnuts, and I don’t mean the ones in your hand.” I looked meaningfully at his crotch.
“Well I’m not doing that!”
I frowned. I was still ticked off at him for his lack of faith in me. “You have to. With your tongue, I mean, not your dick. You’re my assistant, and you have to do what I say. Besides, I’ve already done it once. It’s your turn.”
Orson frowned and started making his flat-mouthed popping noise. “I can’t even see the damn thing!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll guide you.”
“Fine,” Orson huffed. “You’re the boss, and I’m just an underling. And, gee, thanks for rubbing my nose in it.”
Now I felt guilty. I was being a jerk, and I knew it, but we had to run the test, and it was his turn.
“Let’s get it over with.” Orson stuck out his tongue, and I moved him slowly toward the blue pipe. “You’re in position. Take a lick.”
“You know, you’re being an asshole, Steve,” Orson groused. With great reluctance, he put his tongue to the pipe. “Aye … uuuh!”
Good thing he just called me an asshole. Now I didn’t feel so guilty. “Did you say ‘oil can?’” I asked, looking at him with a puzzled expression.
He shot me a dirty look. “Aye eh, aye uuuh!!”
“You suck? Wait a minute. I get it now. You’re stuck, right?”
He just rolled his eyes.
I chuckled. “Don’t worry. Same thing happened to me. Here, let me help you.” I grabbed Orson’s waist from behind - I could hardly get my hands around him, and I was impressed by how squishy he was in the middle, sort of like the filling of a Twinkie - and gave him a sharp tug.
Orson’s tongue stretched like a rubber band then popped off the pipe. “Aaaghh! Aaaghh! Thyit! Thad hurd!”
The chuckle just wasn’t sufficient, so I kicked into a full-throated laugh. “Yeah, I know. Bruce did the same thing for me down on Nine. Same results. Let’s see.” Orson held his tongue out for me to examine. The top layer of skin - the one with all the taste buds - had ripped off his tongue. I could see it stuck to the pipe. To Orson, though, it probably looked like torn skin and clotting blood suspended in midair. “Don’t worry. Your tongue will heal in a second or two, though you might want to wait a bit before finishing your chestnuts. Might not be able to taste m
uch for an hour or so, though down here in Hell, that’s usually a good thing.”
“Nu … nu … not funny, Steve,” he said, as the top of his tongue sealed over.
“Sorry, but it’s the only way to test. Well, except that other way, and I did give you your choice.”
Orson rubbed his jaw. “You’re rationalizing. That was just plain mean.”
I shrugged. “Maybe a little, but I was pissed off at you for not trusting me.”
Orson put his hands on his hips. He looked pretty indignant. “And so you hurt me to teach me a lesson?”
“No, but … ” Blushing a deep scarlet, I shut up. Weren’t my actions exactly what I assured him I would never do? “You’re right. One of us had to perform the test, but I didn't have to make fun of you in the process.”
“No shit.”
I sat down on the pavement next to the Throat of Hell. That had been a rotten thing to do to him, probably my best friend in all of the Underworld.
What’s wrong with me? Is Satan right? Do I take a perverse pleasure in inflicting pain on others? Am I actually demon material?
I shuddered then looked up at my friend. “Orson, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what got into me. Please forgive me.”
That was a mistake. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground, slightly toasted and with a mess of coconut cream pie covering my puss.
Satan has a thing about pies. He loves throwing them in the faces of the damned. I don’t know if he got the idea from Laurel and Hardy or ‘Blazing Saddles,’ or if he is the actual inventor of the classic pie in the face gag. Regardless, genuine expressions of positive emotion, saying things such as “I love you” or “I like you” or “You’re the best” or sincerely thanking someone or apologizing and really meaning it is frowned upon in Hell and receives a predictable if stupid punishment. The transgressor is flattened by Hellfire then, in a juvenile finale that only a devil, demon or vaudevillian would find funny, hit with a pie in the face.