by Dan Simmons
“Thank you, George,” interrupted Brother Freddy. He stood, stretched, and walked to the color monitor attached to the computer terminal on his desk. “Sister Betty Jo, you said there were several thousand requests for the Personal Intercession Prayer?”
“Yes, Brother,” said the woman in white, laying her small hand on the console next to her chair.
Brother Freddy smiled at George Cohen. “I told these folks I’d personally pray over their letters if they’d send in a love offering,” he said. “Might as well do it now. I’ve got thirty seconds before Brother Beau goes into his intro. Betty Jo?”
The woman tapped a button and smiled as the list of thousands of names flashed by on the color monitor. After each name was a code relating to the category of problem for which intercession was requested according to the checklist provided on the Love Offering form: H-health, MP-marital problems, $-money problems, SG-spiritual guidance, FS-forgiveness of sins, and so on. There were twenty-seven categories. Any one of Brother Freddy’s two hundred mail room operators could code more than four hundred intercession requests a day while simultaneously sorting the letter contents into stacks of cash and checks while cueing computers to provide the appropriate reply letter.
“Dear Lord,” intoned Brother Freddy, “please hear our prayers for the receipt of Thy mercy for these requests which are made in Jesus’s name …” The list of names and codes flashed past in a blur until the suddenly blank screen held only a flashing cursor. “Amen.”
Brother Freddy turned on his heel and led the suddenly scurrying-to-keep-up retinue on the thirty yard walk to the Hallelujah Breakfast Club studio just as the program’s opening graphics and triumphant music filled the sixty-two monitors in the Broadcast Headquarters’ corridors, offices, and board rooms.
Brother Freddy knew there was a problem eighteen minutes into the program when he introduced Dale Evans only to watch a tall, dark-skinned man with long, black hair walk onto the set. Brother Freddy knew at once that the man was a foreigner; the stranger’s long hair was curled in ringlets which fell to his shoulders, he wore an expensive three-piece suit which looked to be made of silk, his immaculately polished shoes were of soft Italian leather, his starched collar and cuffs dazzled with their whiteness, and gold cufflinks gleamed in the studio lights. Brother Freddy knew that some mistake had been made; his born again guests—despite their personal wealth—went in for polyester blends, pastel shirts, and South Carolina haircuts if for no other reason than to stay in touch with their video faithful.
Brother Freddy glanced down at his notes and then looked helplessly at the floor director. Brother Billy Bob shrugged with a depth of confusion that Brother Freddy felt but could not show while the red eye of the camera glowed.
The Hallelujah Breakfast Club prided itself on being live in three time zones. Brother Freddy smiled at the advancing intruder and wished they had gone with the tape-delayed programs his competitors preferred. Brother Freddy usually prided himself on the fact that he wore no earphone to hear the booth director’s instructions and comments, trusting instead on Brother Billy Bob’s hand signals and his own well-honed sense of media timing. Now, as Brother Freddy rose to his feet to shake hands with the swarthy stranger, he wished that he had an earphone to learn what was going on. He wished that they had a commercial to cut to. He wished that somebody would tell him what was happening.
“Good morning,” Brother Freddy said affably, retrieving his hand from the foreigner’s firm grip. “Welcome to the Hallelujah Breakfast Club.” He glanced toward Brother Billy Bob, who was muttering urgently into his bead microphone. Camera Three dollied in for a close-up of the swarthy stranger. Camera Two remained fixed on the long divan crowded with the Miracle Triplets, Bubba Deeters, and Frank Flinsey grinning mechanically from beneath his military-trimmed mustache. The floor monitors showed the medium close-up of Brother Freddy’s florid, politely smiling, and only slightly perspiring face.
“Thank you, I’ve been looking forward to this for some time,” said the stranger as he sat in the velour guest chair next to Brother Freddy’s desk. There was a hint of Italian accent in the man’s deep voice even though the English was precisely correct.
Brother Freddy sat, smile still fixed, and glanced toward Billy Bob. The floor director shrugged and made the hand signal for “carry on.”
“I’m sorry,” said Brother Freddy, “I guess I’ve mixed up the introductions. I also guess you’re not my dear friend, Dale Evans.” Brother Freddy paused and looked into the stranger’s brown eyes, surprised at the anger and intensity he saw there, praying that this was only a scheduling mix-up and not some political terrorist or Pentecostal crazy who had gotten past Security. Brother Freddy was acutely aware that the signal was being telecast live to more than three million homes.
“No, I am not Dale Evans,” agreed the stranger. “My name is Vanni Fucci.” Again the hint of an Italian accent. Brother Freddy noted that the name had been pronounced VAH-nee FOO-tchee. Brother Freddy had nothing against Italians; growing up in Greenville, Alabama, he had known very few of them. As an adult he had learned not to call them wops. He presumed most Italians were Catholic, therefore not Christians, and therefore of little interest to him or his ministry. But now this particular Italian was a bit of a problem.
“Mr. Fucci,” smiled Brother Freddy, “why don’t you tell our viewers where you’re from?”
Vanni Fucci turned his intense gaze toward the camera. “I was born in Pistoia,” he said, “but for the last seven hundred years I have lived in Hell.”
Brother Freddy’s smile froze but did not falter. He glanced left at Billy Bob. The floor director was frantically making the signal of a star over his left breast. At first Brother Freddy thought it was some obscure religious symbol but then he realized that the man meant that Security … or the real police … had been called. Behind the wall of lights and cameras a live studio audience of almost three hundred people had ceased their usual background murmur of whispers and shiftings and stifled sneezes. The auditorium was dead silent.
“Ah,” said Brother Freddy and chuckled softly. “Ah. I see your point, Mr. Fucci. In a sense all of us who were sinners have spent our time in Hell. It’s only through the mercy of Jesus that we can avoid that as our ultimate address. When did you finally accept Christ as your Saviour?”
Vanni Fucci smiled, showing very white teeth against dark skin. “I never did,” he said. “In my day, one was not—as you Fundamentalists put it—‘saved.’ We were baptized into the Church as children. But I made a slight mistake as a young man and your so-called Saviour saw fit to condemn me to an eternity of inhuman punishment in the Seventh Bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell.”
“Uh-huh,” said Brother Freddy. He swiveled around and gestured toward Camera One to dolly in closer for an extreme close-up on him. He waited until he could see only his own face on the floor monitor and said, “Well, we’re having an enjoyable conversation here with our guest, Mr. Vanni Fucci, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to take a break for a minute while we show you that tape I promised you of Brother Beau and I dedicating the new Holy Beamer we installed last week in Amarillo. Beau?” Below the frame of the close-up, out of sight of the viewing audience, Brother Freddy drew his right hand repeatedly across his throat. On the floor, Billy Bob nodded, turned toward the booth, and spoke rapidly into his microphone.
“No,” said Vanni Fucci, “let us go on with our conversation.”
The floor monitors showed a long shot of the entire set. The Miracle Triplets sat staring, the bottoms of their little shoes looking like exclamation marks. The Reverend Bubba Deeters raised his right arm as if he was going to scratch his head, glanced at the steel hook that was the reminder of the Lord’s Will during his Viet Nam days, and lowered his arm to the divan. Frank Flinsey, a media pro, was staring in astonishment at the three cameras where no lights glowed and then back at the monitors which definitely showed a picture. Brother Freddy was frozen with his hand still raised to h
is throat. Only Vanni Fucci seemed unruffled.
“Do you think,” said the Italian guest, “that if Dale had passed away before Trigger, Roy would have had her stuffed and mounted in the living room?”
“Ah?” managed Brother Freddy. He had heard very old men make similar sounds in their sleep.
“Just a thought,” continued Vanni Fucci. “Would you rather I go on about my own situation?”
Brother Freddy nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he saw three uniformed Security men trying to get on stage. Someone seemed to have lowered an invisible Plexiglas wall around the edge of the set.
“It actually has not been seven hundred years that I have been in Hell,” said Vanni Fucci, “only six hundred and ninety. But you know how slowly time passes in such a situation. Like in a dentist’s office.”
“Yes,” said Brother Freddy. The word was a little better than a squeak.
“And did you know that one condemned soul from each Bolgia is allowed one visit back to the mortal world during our eternity of punishment? Much like your American custom of one phone call allotted to the arrested man.”
“No,” said Brother Freddy and cleared his throat. “No.”
“Yes,” said Vanni Fucci. “I think the idea is that the visit sharpens our torments by reminding us of the pleasures we once knew. Something like that. Actually, we are only allowed to return for fifteen minutes, so the pleasures sampled could not be too extensive, could they?”
“No,” said Brother Freddy, pleased that his voice was stronger. The single syllable sounded wise and slightly amused, mildly patronizing. He was deciding which Biblical verse he would use when it was time to regain control of the conversation.
“That’s neither here nor there,” said Vanni Fucci. “The point is that all of the condemned souls in the Seventh Bolgia of the Eighth Circle voted unanimously for me to come here, on your show.” Vanni Fucci leaned forward, his cuffs shooting perfectly so that gold cufflinks caught the light. “Do you know what a Bolgia is, Brother Freddy?”
“Ah … no,” said Brother Freddy, derailed slightly from his line of thought. He had decided on a verse but it seemed inappropriate at right this instant. “Or rather … yes,” he said. “A Bolgia is that duchess or countess or whatever who used to poison people in the Middle Ages.”
Vanni Fucci leaned back and sighed. “No,” he said, “you’re thinking of the Borgias. A Bolgia is a word in my native language which means both ‘ditch’ and ‘pouch.’ The Eighth Circle of Hell has ten such Bolgias filled with shit and sinners.”
The silent audience was silent no longer. Even the cameramen gasped. Brother Freddy glanced at the monitors and closed his eyes as he realized that his very own Hallelujah Breakfast Club, the top-rated Christian program in the world except for the occasional Billy Graham Crusade, would be the first program in TBN and CBN history to allow the word “shit” to go out over the airwaves. He imagined what the Ministry Board of Trustees would say. The fact that seven of the eleven Board members were also members of his own family did not make the image any more pleasant.
“Now listen here …” Brother Freddy began sternly.
“Have you read the Comedy?” asked Vanni Fucci.
There was something more than anger and intensity in the man’s eyes. Brother Freddy decided he was dealing with an escaped mental patient.
“Comedy?” said Brother Freddy, wondering if the man were some sort of deranged standup comic and all of this a publicity stunt. On the floor, the cameramen had swung the heavy cameras around and were peering in the lenses. The monitors showed a steady shot framing only Vanni Fucci and Brother Freddy. Brother Billy Bob was running from camera to camera, occasionally tripping over a cable or coming to the end of his mike cord and jerking to a stop like a crazed Dachshund on a short leash.
“He called it his Comedy,” said Vanni Fucci. “Later generations of sycophants added the Divine.” He frowned at Brother Freddy, an impatient teacher waiting for a slow child to respond.
“I’m sorry … I don’t …” began Brother Freddy. One of the cameramen was disassembling his camera. None of the remaining cameras was aimed at the set. The picture held steady.
“Alighieri?” prompted Vanni Fucci. “A dirty little Florentine who lusted after an eight-year-old girl? Wrote one readable thing in his entire miserable life?” He turned toward the guests on the divan. “Come on, come on, don’t any of you read?”
The five Christians on the couch seemed to shrink back.
“Dante!” shouted the handsome foreigner. “Dante Alighieri. What’s the deal here, gentlemen? To join the Fundamentalists Club you have to park your brains at the door and stuff your skull with hominy and grits, is that it? Dante!”
“Just one minute …” said Brother Freddy, rising.
“Who do you think you …” began Frank Flinsey, standing.
“What do you think you’re …” said Bubba Deeters, getting to his feet and brandishing his hook.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” cried the Miracle Triplets, struggling to get their feet to the floor.
“SIT DOWN.” It was not a human voice. At least not an unamplified human voice. Brother Freddy had made the mistake once on an outdoor Crusade of standing in front of a bank of thirty huge speakers when the soundman tested them at full volume. This was a little like that. Only worse. Brother Billy Bob and others with headphones on ripped them off and fell to their knees. Several overhead spots shattered. The audience leaned backward like a single three-hundred-headed organism, whimpered once, and adopted a silence unbroken even by the sound of breathing. Brother Freddy and the guests on the divan sat down.
“Alighieri did it,” said Vanni Fucci in soft, conversational tones. “The man was a mental midget with the imagination of a moth, but he did it because no one before him did it.”
“Did what?” asked Brother Freddy, staring in fascinated horror at the madman in the crushed velour chair next to his desk.
“Created Hell,” said Vanni Fucci.
“Nonsense!” cried Reverend Frank Flinsey, author of fourteen books about the end of the world. “The Lord God Jehovah created Hell as He did everything else.”
“Oh?” said Vanni Fucci. “Where does it say so in that grab-bag of tribal stories and jingoist posturings you call a Bible?”
Brother Freddy thought that it was quite possible that he was going to have a heart attack right there on the Brother Freddy’s Hallelujah Breakfast Club hour going live into three million three hundred thousand American homes. But even while his heart fibrillated and his red face grew redder, his mind raced to come up with the appropriate Scriptural verse.
“Let me tell you about an experiment performed in 1982,” said Vanni Fucci, “at the University of Paris-South. A group of quantum physicists headed by Alain Aspect tested the behavior of two photons flying in opposite directions from a light source. The test confirmed an underlying theory of quantum mechanics—namely, that a measurement made on one photon has an instantaneous effect on the nature of another photon. Photons, gentlemen, traveling at the speed of light. Obviously no information could be transmitted faster than the speed of light itself, but the act of defining the nature of one photon instantaneously changed the nature of the other photon. The conclusion drawn from this is obvious, is it not?”
“Ah?” said Brother Freddy.
“Ah?” said the five guests on the divan.
“Precisely,” said Vanni Fucci. “It confirms in the physical world what we in Hell have known for some time. Reality is shaped by the first great mind which focuses on measuring it. New concepts create new laws and the universe abides. Newton created universal gravity and the cosmos rearranged itself accordingly. Einstein defined space/time and the universe retrofitted itself to agree. And Dante Alighieri—that neurotic little whimshit—created the first comprehensive map of hell and Hell came into existence to appease the public perception.”
“That’s ridiculous,” managed Brother Freddy, forgetting the cameras, forgetting the
audience, forgetting everything but the monstrous illogic—not to mention blasphemy—of what this crazy Italian had just said. “If that was … true,” cried Brother Freddy, “then the world … things … everything would be changing all the time.”
“Precisely,” smiled Vanni Fucci. His teeth looked small and white and very sharp.
“Then … well … Hell wouldn’t be the same either,” said Brother Freddy. “Dante wrote a long time ago. Three or four hundred years, at least …”
“He died in 1321,” said Vanni Fucci.
“Yeah … well … so …” concluded Brother Freddy.
Vanni Fucci shook his head. “You understand nothing. When an idea is strong enough, large enough, comprehensive enough to redefine the universe, it has tremendous staying power. It lasts until an equally powerful paradigm is formulated … and accepted by the popular imagination … to replace it. For instance, your Old Testament God lasted thousands of years before it … He … was actively redefined by a much more civilized if somewhat schizophrenic New Testament deity. Even the newer and weaker version has lasted fifteen hundred years or so before being on the verge of being sneezed out of existence by the allergy of modern science.”
Brother Freddy was certain he was going to have a stroke.
“But who has bothered to redefine Hell?” Vanni Fucci asked rhetorically. “The Germans came close in this century, but their visionaries were snuffed out before the new concept could take root in the mass mind. So we remain. Hell persists. Our eternal torments drag on with no more reason for existence than could be offered for your little toe or vermiform appendix.”