Chapter 27
Let the Walls Close in, or Let Them Come Down
Basil steers his noisemaker off State Street, left onto Broadway, beneath the rows of elms and cedars he has grown to love. He’s an hour late, probably more, not that anyone will care. Bulcavage is hardly in the office at all anymore, off doing whatever he’s doing. Says he’s scouring the sidewalks for prospective clients, herding new accounts. More likely he’s tending to other interests: poaching elephants for ivory, hooking thirteen-year-old girls on crack, trafficking Russian women to serve as sex slaves-slash-brides for wealthy American men, and who knows what else. At least that’s what Herbert says.
Basil eases onto Crescent Avenue, the road that leads to the office parking lot, and the view shocks him—as does the rush of sound.
Nearly a hundred people mill in the parking lot. Edna Babych stands on a makeshift stage, barking into a megaphone, riling the crowd. The spangles of her hideous denim jacket catch the sun.
“Fuck,” Basil mouths, and he rolls the noisemaker into a spot at the end of the far row, maybe ten yards from the lot’s edge.
“There!” Edna cries.
Basil looks up to see Edna with her arm outstretched, pointing directly at him.
“Stone him!” she screams.
As Basil steps away from the motorcycle, a pebble skids along the asphalt and bounces off his hoof. Protestors swarm him. He can smell their anger, their hatred, their cravings for his death.
“Rapist!” yells one, inches from his face.
“Unholy!” screams another.
“Pig!” barks another. This one douses Basil’s cheek with lukewarm liquid—coffee, he’s happy to discover, not freshly brewed urine.
“Go home, Satan,” yips a child of no older than eight.
“That’s not my name,” Basil screams back. He gallops toward the building entrance and sees a man with a familiar face standing motionless by the door: Officer Pierce.
More than a dozen protestors block Basil’s path. He tries to be gentle, tries to sidestep as many as he can, but they do their best to obstruct him. In his efforts to evade them, he knees a young woman in the gut. As she doubles over, he bloodies her nose with his elbow. He checks over his shoulder to see Edna on her stage, wild eyed and trembling and smiling like a madwoman. Behind her, he notices for the first time, an oversized T fashioned from planks of pine comes alive with the morning sun. The cross stands more than twelve feet tall from top to bottom, by his best guess.
“Crucify! Crucify! Crucify!”
He reaches the door and says to Pierce, “Aren’t you going to do anything?”
Pierce responds dully, “Nope.”
Basil enters the building, and he’s thankful to see Pierce step in front of the glass door, blocking any of Edna’s murderous lot from coming inside. Small favors, he thinks.
He clops down the hall and cracks open the door to Melody’s office. Melody’s assistant, Audrey Pernie, gabs away on the phone, cracking her gum. She shields the handset with her palm and whispers to Basil, “She’s not in, sweetheart.”
A lie, he knows. He turns toward the well-lit conference room and sees Melody through the glass panel, working her way through a pile of papers.
Basil waves off Audrey and enters the conference room.
Melody colors a paragraph of text with a yellow highlighter. She doesn’t look up.
Uh-oh.
“Do you see what’s going on out there?” he says.
“Yup.”
“Can you do something about it, please? You know, like last time?”
“I’ve done more than enough for you already, Basil.”
“But you have such a gift for crowd control.”
“Tell me about Rebecca Devine.”
He pauses to consider each syllable. He can’t place the name.
“Oh, come on,” she says. “Your ancient brain can’t be that feeble.”
“You’ll have to enlighten me. I’ve never heard of her.”
“You might know her as Divinity. Takes regular shifts at a charming little titty bar called Cheeky’s. You were there recently, as I understand it—right after our dinner the other night, in fact. Ring a bell?”
Fuck.
“I don’t know what she told you—”
“She didn’t tell me a damned thing,” Melody says. “Looks like she’s chummy with your friend Edna Babych, though. Those two are thick with each other now. You couldn’t help yourself, could you? You just had to go and do something stupid. Just like every other idiot with a piece of meat between his legs.”
“Listen—”
“You’re on your own. That poor girl is likely to press charges.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything.”
“Oh no? Seems to me you went to a strip club and roughed up a stripper when things didn’t go your way. You should think about getting a lawyer.”
“I didn’t rough up anyone but the bouncer, and that’s because he hit me with a chair.”
“Because you tried to rape that poor girl.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He hesitates. Then, by way of a defense, he says, “I was lonely.”
“No,” she says, locking eyes. “You were just being you. Rapists rape.”
“I got confused.”
“Go get confused somewhere else. You don’t belong here. That should be crystal clear to you by now.”
There’s nothing else for him to say. He could apologize, but he knows she won’t accept it. He could give her some time to cool down, not that someone like her needs time to make up her mind. He doesn’t blame her. She might be right about him after all.
He exits the conference room, clops past Audrey Pernie, and steps into the hallway. As the door closes behind him, Audrey chirps, “Catch you later, dolly-doll.”
* * *
Basil and Herbert stand at the second-floor window, watching the crowd rock Basil’s noisemaker back and forth until the motorcycle topples over with an alarming crunch. Members of the mob cheer and raise their flexed arms as if they’re part of an oppressed tribe that has removed a dictator from power.
Herbert says, “You don’t have to tell me, but—”
“I got carried away,” Basil replies. “There was a girl, at a strip club just outside of town, Cheeky’s …”
He hopes Herbert will use his imagination to fill in the rest.
“What happened?”
Shit.
“I made a mess.” He explains how a nice young woman, the redhead, was kind enough to give him a lap dance. Then things took an unfortunate turn. “I got a little overenthusiastic. A couple of folks got hurt, maybe. Melody would tell you I did ‘something stupid,’ to use her words.”
It feels good to admit, freeing.
“You’re a lot dumber than you look,” Herbert says. “You know everyone’s watching so they can catch you doing something that proves you’re the monster they think you are. You know they’re just waiting for you to screw up so they can run you out of town.”
“I leave at the time of my choosing, no sooner.”
“Yeah, you’re in control. Clearly. You asshole!”
“If you have something to say, I want to hear it.”
“I’ll leave the chastisement to Edna, but I do have to tell you something.” Herbert draws a breath. “A reporter from the Crete Bee came by this morning, asking questions about you. Crete’s at least an hour from here, probably closer to two. It seems word about you is getting out. I don’t think that’s a good thing for you. It was just a matter of time, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were the town’s dirty little secret before, but you were our secret, and everyone wanted to keep it that way. So if what you’re telling me is true, about the stripper—”
“How could I deny it?”
“Well, I think this is the straw that’s going to break the camel’s back, as they say.”
They watch Edna on her stage
. She stands next to a tall, buxom woman with a mane of red hair collected into a tight ponytail. She looks different than the woman Basil met the other night, but it’s her. It’s Divinity. Regret sours in his chest.
“This poor, lost little love bug,” Edna says through her megaphone, though the window glass dulls her words. “She was doing her best, trying to earn money doing things no woman should have to do, and in walks this thing, this devil, this beast. It debases her. It degrades her. It abuses her. It tries to steal life from her. Yet here she stands, proof of her strength to do what every one of us must: resist. We must drive this thing from our sight. For decency. For our church. For our Lord in Heaven above. And for our dear Rebecca here, this precious little love bug who strayed from the path but has found her way back into the loving arms of our Lord.”
Herbert turns to Basil.
“Pure venom,” he says. “Even by Edna’s standards.”
“I detest that woman,” Basil responds.
“She loves you too.”
“I fear the time of my departure draws near.”
“Maybe if you apologized …”
“I’ve done what I’ve come here to do. More or less.”
He’s not so sure.
“You can fight this,” Herbert insists. “All you have to do is show them you’re not some bloodthirsty, sex-crazed goatfucker.”
“I’d love to hear your prescription for starting such a conversation.”
“We’re in advertising, for Christ’s sake. We spin bullshit all day long.”
“No, my goodbye tour begins now. I’ll help you hit whatever deadlines we have to hit. I’ll get to the Sand Hills one last time. I’ll do whatever I can to mend the rift with Melody.”
“Knowing her as well as I do, that’s one Humpty Dumpty you’re not likely to put back together.”
“What else do we have to do for the Devil Smoke campaign?”
The overhead panels groan, a fluorescent tube sparks, and the ceiling splinters. A round and reddish-black mass falls to the floor. The stunned creature finds its feet, on spindly legs, and spins in circles, chirping nervously. Herbert leaps onto the nearest desk.
Basil can’t believe his eyes. Neither can Herbert, understandably.
“It’s an imp,” Basil says, to himself as much as to Herbert. The small, horned creature dives behind the base of a swivel chair.
Basil bends down and whispers gently, “Come to me, little one.”
He extends an open palm, and the filthy little thing—covered in cobwebs and the white chalk of chipped plaster—steps into the harsh light. The imp makes a cradle of Basil’s palm, and the master brings his child near to his face. He recognizes this Nameless imp as one of the three he chose as scouts just prior to his ascent, as one who could alert him to any disturbance afflicting Our Fiery Home in his absence.
This cannot be good.
Basil takes a deep breath and exhales.
“What news do you bring?”
The imp chirps to Basil in Locuri, the primitive dialect native to the tongues of all demons and imps. Basil gives a long sigh.
“When?”
The imp responds with a series of clicks and pings.
“And what of Kamala?”
The imp chirps excitedly, then sadly.
Basil sets the imp down.
“You have earned your freedom, little one,” he says. “I name you, Boothe.”
“Uh … Basil,” says Herbert, still crouched atop the desk. “Can you fill me in here?”
“Forgive me,” he says. His eyes alternate between the gaping hole above and the pieces of wrecked ceiling scattered across the floor. “This is an imp, a breed of creature native to the underworld. To a demon, an imp is a cross between a slave, a pet and a playmate. Think of it as an aphid to an ant colony—symbiotic, to a large degree. Before I left Our Fiery Home, I tasked this little one and two others with seeking me out if conditions down below took a turn for the worse. It appears they have, to put it lightly.”
“What is it?”
“Kamala has lost control and Lubos has swooped in to take her place,” he says. “He intends to follow in my footsteps, you might say.”
“How so?”
“He’s making plans to come to the surface, and he’s bringing a few friends along with him.”
“Why?”
“Simple, really. He wants to right a perceived wrong. He aims to bring war and death to your people.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means the end.”
“For your world or mine?”
“Both.”
“I see.”
“It is, in a word, regrettable.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
Herbert doesn’t seem to believe what he’s just heard. Or he doesn’t want to. Basil can’t blame him.
“Why did you call him ‘Boothe’?” Herbert asks.
“It suits him, don’t you think? Every demon and imp lacks a name at birth, and remains one of the Nameless until assigned such by his better. Without the gift of a name, a demon or imp lacks freedom of movement. At least that’s what they are told, as a way to restrain them, to protect against revolt. They’re prisoners, fearful. It’s why so many stay in Our Fiery Home. It seems Lubos has undone that protection.”
“So what becomes of Boothe now?”
“If he’s like the others, he’ll likely roam up here for a bit. He’ll tire of the landscape in time. Chances are he’ll find his way back to the underworld. For most of our kind, Our Fiery Home is the only place that makes sense.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I’m afraid my timeline has changed. I must stop Lubos.”
An hour later, Basil ventures out into the parking lot, with Boothe perched on his shoulder. The crowd envelops him, and he swings his beefy arms, thorn-tipped elbows out, enough to enjoy a wide berth. He pushes through the crowd and heads toward the last row in the parking lot, where he finds his toppled noisemaker, shiny with bodily fluids. He runs a smooth palm over the chassis to wipe away the sheen of mucous and urine. The words DIE DEVIL DIE have been etched white into the black paint. He clenches his teeth, revs the engine and then speeds away, leaving the jeering crowd at his back.
* * *
At the mouth of a side street, two whiskered men dressed in leather, chainmail and denim, each astride a motorcycle—all black paint and polished chrome—wait in the shade of a towering elm. One of the motorcycles has a sidecar bearing the weight of a silent passenger: a life-size model of a human skeleton outfitted in chaps and a patched-up denim vest, its skull protected by a strapped-on German Stahlhelm with a sharpened silver spike on its crown.
After watching the demon speed away on a Harley that looks all too familiar, the two bikers bark over their grumbling engines and nod in agreement. One of them points to the four-story stucco building and drags his finger across his throat. The other smiles and nods in assent.
The two Harleys roar to life. A second later, only the fumes of cooked fuel linger in their place.
Chapter 28
The Quiet Chorus of Smashed Redbirds
Peace. The first suggestion of daylight creeps across the horizon and kisses the smudged glass of the east-facing windows. As the darkness recedes, the sun paints the living-room wall a soft orange.
Basil smiles to welcome his last day on the surface, above ground, among humans.
He stares at the trench his hooves have made in the living-room carpet, the result of nearly nine hours of incessant pacing. He hasn’t slept all night. No time for sleep, only for reflecting on earth-bound delights. Boothe, the imp, has curled up in a tight ball beneath the television. Basil shakes away the flower of jealousy, wishing for a mind settled enough to indulge in sleep.
He has reached his decision. His time on the surface, with only the sky overhead, has reached its inevitable end. He will return to the realm of rock and fire. Given Boothe’s revelation, he hopes to find some
thing left to rule when he gets there.
Boothe stirs as Basil clicks on the TV. A talking head from the local news station extols the joys of another sunny day: high of eighty-three, on the cooler side for late August, a few clouds and a steady wind blowing in from the southeast. He checks the clock, which tells him it’s almost seven a.m.
The plan: First, fry up a dozen eggs and however much bacon he has left in the freezer, fill his belly, then ride his noisemaker out to the Sand Hills for one last quiet stroll through the woods and meadows, and end the day with a bath in the creek, only the minnows and pollywogs to keep him company.
He envisions the scene: plopping down in the middle of the creek to wash every limb and scrub the rim of every orifice; lying in the pebbled streambed and staring at the cloudless blue sky, framed by branches whose leaves have begun to yellow; and letting the cool water plug his ears, invade his pores, so he can absorb each drop as a way to take at least part of the creek with him.
Eventually he will dry off and head to the office so he can resign. The goodbyes will be difficult. Only Herbert will listen. Only Herbert will care. Basil will do what he can to mend fences with Melody, though he imagines a best-case scenario in which she tells him to go fuck himself, which would suggest she actually gives a lick. He’d choose revulsion over indifference any day.
He turns off the TV and sits in the middle of the living-room floor, facing the open window and the flowering dawn. He closes his eyes, his lips curling into a smile as the sun warms his face and naked chest.
* * *
Three middle-aged men in white short-sleeve shirts, bright-blue neckties and wrinkled khakis struggle to raise the twelve-foot-tall wooden cross. As they ease the base into a hastily dug hole, two of them steady the cross while the third fills the hole with dirt and loose gravel.
Edna Babych steps forward to test the cross’s stability. It wobbles at her slight touch. She squints from the sunlight reflecting off the glass of the four-story building in which the beast does its earthly business.
“Shoddy,” she says. “A stiff wind will blow it over. Do better.”
Burn, Beautiful Soul Page 24