***
The funny thing was, as I was typing, I realized something: I don’t know why, but I’d always felt kind of sorry for the man at that moment in his life. I mean I know he did all this horrific stuff to everybody, and I hated him for that and all, but still, I just couldn’t help but feel bad for him, for anybody so doomed in the moment. There were probably only about a half-dozen people in the whole history of the Old Earth who were as crappy to other people as he was. I imagined he must have been scared and full of regrets, but was it just for his fate, or did he have any actual remorse? I always wondered about stupid stuff like that.
***
Abruptly, the lights dimmed further and there on the big screen, sitting on a couch and hunched over a Luger lying on a small coffee table, was good old Adolf in living color, looking pretty sick and tired and everything. He was saying something I couldn’t understand, not because it was in German, but because he was mumbling in a barely audible voice.
Then a woman appeared that must have been Eva Braun, though I didn’t recognize her, except for the blonde hair, because she was looking pretty sick and tired herself. Hitler became angry and began ranting at the poor woman. “It’s time; it’s time,” he said.
She was crying hysterically and grabbed his hands. “No, I won’t be alone,” she said. “We go together.”
“Nonsense, Eva,” said Hitler, pulling away. “You have to be sure I’m gone.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” asked Eva. She sat next to him, grimacing and tugging at her hair with two fingers.
“For what, Eva?” he yelled. “I tried to make Germany great, but they betrayed me. History will prove my greatness.” His voice was shrill, unconfident.
“I’m afraid,” said Eva.
“We should be proud of what…” But he stopped in mid-sentence. The room he was sitting in looked to have darkened a moment before, almost imperceptibly. Hitler seemed to notice, too, and he looked nervously about the room. His face changed. It was either madness or fear or both—I could not be sure. I pressed the rewind button. He began the sentence again, and I caught a shadowy mass move above his head. I thought it must be a demon.
“Enough talk,” he said, “get your pill.” He reached for the Luger and checked the chamber.
I had seen enough. As terrible a person as he was, I didn’t want to see his brains flying out all over the place or anything, and I didn’t want to see that poor miserable women die either. My desire to watch another man’s misery had only made things worse.
***
I pushed the red button on the keyboard, and the screen went all blue and cloudy again. I typed: D-a-l-l-a-s, P-i-t-t, S-u-p-e-r-B-o-w-l-X, something, anything to lighten my mood. It was the first Super Bowl I’d ever seen. I heard the roar of the crowd, and the screen lit up with the stadium on its feet and the players lining up. It was the fourth quarter. The Cowboys were behind, but from the shotgun the great Roger Staubach moved the team steadily down the field. Inside the forty, he took the snap, rolled to his left and threw a thirty-four yard strike to wide receiver Percy Howard for a touchdown.
It wasn’t enough. They lost the game by four points, but they had fought hard, and I remembered becoming a diehard Cowboy fan because of that game. If Pittsburgh had lost, I would have become a Steeler fan that day. I’d always preferred the underdog.
***
The football game was just the thing I needed to get me out of my head. I was again ready, I thought, for some heavier history. My favorite documentaries on the History Channel were about World War II. Perhaps because it was the last American war with a defined purpose and an altruistic goal that hadn’t been clouded or hampered by political correctness or questionable motives. I must have seen every documentary of that war two or three times. I had also watched the movie Saving Private Ryan and the scenes at Normandy Beach with all the blood and flying body parts and whatnot, acclaimed for their realism, at least a dozen times. It was probably my favorite movie. None of it could have prepared me.
The screen lit up again. I had typed the word blitzkrieg. It was a German word meaning lightning war. The term was first coined after the German Army’s rapid onslaught of Poland, an invasion that took merely four weeks. I lasted three and a half minutes. This was no movie. I might just as well have been in the middle of the battle myself, screaming and covered in blood. The scenes were indescribable—the violent clarity, the intense awful noise, the agonizingly vivid color of death—horrors all too much even for me, a tired veteran of film gore and witness to horrors of the Tribulation.
I needed to get away from it. I would have turned it off after the first deadly explosion, except I was in shock. I should have left the theater, but I didn’t want to leave with those images still fresh. I began to punch frantically on the keyboard, places and dates, anywhere, anytime, any way to escape. But it was no use. Every place I searched, more violence and mayhem: beatings, hangings, shootings, stabbings, clubbings, fighting, kidnappings, thieving, rape, war and murder—a slide show of our ugliness, Old Earth’s very own home movie. I shut it off.
***
I sat for a while in the leftover haze of that overwhelmingly dark imagery. Then a thought came: I wasn’t thinking about Danny any longer. I forced a slow and broken laugh from the bottom of my throat at the irony. It was enough to break the spell, which gave me a chance to form another thought: I need to go to a safe and familiar place. It was a bad idea that would prove neither safe nor familiar.
I typed two simple words into the keyboard: M-e; B-a-b-y. The screen lit up for a third time. The blue sky faded, and there was my mom with her big weird glasses being helped out of our station wagon by my father. My brother Gerry was standing on the porch with my aunt, who was holding Geoff, all waiting for their little brother to come home. My mom’s smile was huge; my father’s even bigger.
***
I didn’t remember that part from the old grainy home movies, him smiling so wide. I’d heard he didn’t want the name George for me. My father had a childhood nemesis by that name, but my mom insisted. I always thought he hated me; I thought I knew it after I heard that. It must have been one of the few times she’d gotten what she’d asked for.
I mostly remembered him mad at me or my mom or somebody or other all the time, but especially me. I was afraid of him. He was big and he could yell like nobody’s business. When he yelled, I couldn’t speak. Then he’d interrogate me. I couldn’t answer with him yelling and all, so I’d just cry. This made him even angrier, and he’d yell some more. If I didn’t say the right thing, I’d often as not get a whipping.
***
I fast-forwarded a little. My father held me and tickled my chin. I kept going. I was a toddler, walking precariously while he urged me toward him, arms outstretched. Then he was playing with all of us, chasing us around the backyard. Gina was there, and he caught her and pulled her gently to the ground with him. We boys began to pile on, and he rolled over to protect her as we wrestled around on his back.
Forward through time, finger on the button: Dad throwing soft pitches, Dad driving us to Boy Scouts, Dad singing in the car, Dad cooking his stew, Dad with a cold wash-rag on my forehead, Dad with me on his lap watching an old Western, and on and on.
Further in time: Dad pacing around a waiting room while a doctor set my broken arm, Dad arguing with my teacher about my grade being unfair, Dad siding with me after I quit my first job, Dad telling my mother he was worried about me, Dad, close to death, asking my mother to take care of the credit card mess I had gotten myself into, Dad telling me he loved me…
Who was this man? Where was all that anger, the constant yelling, the whippings, the put-downs, that hatred towards me I so cherished with my angst? This wasn’t my childhood. Or was it? What had I done with it? I had kept all the bad memories, taken my anger and erased the good in him, brushed it off my memory with the back of my hand, rewritten my own version, carried it with me like some schoolboy’s note to excuse my reckless behavior.
&
nbsp; Who was my father? What right did I have to disparage his life? Who was George Somerset? Did I even know? What did my daughter take from our life together? What did I give her to take? Could I even remember all the things I’d done to her? Did I know what I had done to Renee? To everyone I knew? I knew I lied to people’s faces. How much did I lie to myself? How could I be truly sorry for things I refused to think about? How could I be forgiven? Why was I even here? How did God see me? It was time to introduce George Somerset to himself. And so I watched.
***
I watched my brothers getting whipped for my lie about the donut. I watched as I stole money off the dresser of my hardworking father. I watched as I picked a fight with a kid named Donald just because I knew I could beat him up. I watched as I ditched church. I watched as I read a Bible one morning and smoked weed the same afternoon. I watched as I cheated on practically every girlfriend I ever had.
I saw my drunkenness, my boasting, my gluttony, my lust. I saw my perversions disintegrate every bit of morality I possessed. I heard the profanity and the blasphemies spewing from my mouth on a daily basis. I watched the promises I made to God while suffering go broken as soon as I felt better. I saw my wife curled on the floor in pain at the news of my infidelity. I saw my little girl hiding under the covers while Renee and I screamed at each other over and over again.
***
I watched it all. And when I couldn’t remember any more specifics, I just typed in “the rest of George’s sins,” and there it played: one long, awful movie about a pathetic creep who destroys everything good around him.
There goes George driving drunk and smashing into the side-rail of a freeway exit, causing his friend a permanent limp. There goes George running a stolen credit card and taking the cash out of the register of the gas station he works at, for fuel he never pumped. Now George is at a whorehouse in Mexico, wasted on tequila, spending money he doesn’t have.
See George push his girlfriend into getting an abortion. See George snorting cocaine until all hours of the morning. See George pick another fight at a bar. See George give out another bad loan. See George the vandal. See George the liar. See George the thief. See George the pervert. See George the hypocrite, and on and on and on.
***
Now see George in his house. There he is fighting with his wife. There’s his little girl crying in her bedroom. There goes George packing his bag. There goes George slapping his wife. There’s his little girl standing outside her room screaming. There goes George walking toward the door. There’s his little girl holding onto his leg. There goes George pushing her away. There’s his little girl begging and sobbing: “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy…” There goes George.
Then I heard a loud voice, and a shiver went through my core. But it only said this: “The Theater of History will be closing for the evening in five minutes.”
30
I exited the Theater of History to find the streets of New Jerusalem fairly empty, the light of the great city dimmed. Dark clouds had moved in, shielding the night sky. There began a heavy snow.
I walked in a stupor of self-loathing, drained and miserable. I had succeeded in one way by pushing Danny to the back of mind, only to trade it for images of my hysterical little girl and the rest of my shameful life. I found a hotel and tried to sleep. It was useless.
***
I could not check the ugly images, or the racing questions they provoked: How could I do all those things? How could I live with it? Why didn’t I make things right? Why didn’t I change? Why was I here? Why, when so many were in the pit?
The pitiful truth of my life was a parade of sin and debauchery completely unworthy of even the tiny shack in paradise I’d been gifted. How could I stomach my existence here while others burned? I jumped out of bed and fell to my knees. “Lord,” I prayed aloud, “trade me for someone in the pit.”
I felt the heat immediately, even before I heard the screams and the moans and the cursing. It was a thick, intense heat that hung in the air like clear soot from some great, invisible chimney, and left me gasping for breath. Then I felt the anguish, a feeling of unimaginable loneliness and despair—a feeling like coming off a cocaine binge, multiplied a thousandfold, an emptiness so excruciating I begged to get out of there even before I opened my eyes.
***
When I did finally open them, I was sorry. I saw a scene like an insane asylum in one of the horror films I once dragged poor little Sophie to. I’d landed in a dark and cavernous room, pocked with darker tunnels in every direction, swarming with all manner of flying insect. People, if you want to call them that, were wandering aimlessly, pulling at their hair, picking their skin, grinding their teeth, spitting and cursing, and exhibiting other signs of madness. They were naked, covered in boils and open sores, their eyes wide as half dollars, darting and vacant, as if they were searching for something they knew they could never find.
I became frantic, my begging turned to a scream. The people around me laughed. I screamed louder; they laughed louder. I began sobbing hysterically; a group of hellions surrounded me. I put my hands to my face, and that’s when I felt the worn hands of an old man and realized I was back in my Old Earth body.
Then those miserable creatures were upon me. They scratched and clawed and punched and kicked and pulled at my naked flesh. The pain was excruciating, and all I could do was beg them to finish me off, but just as soon as they tore a chunk of flesh out of me, it would heal into a puss-filled boil, and I realized there was no death here either. “Please, Jesus!” I cried. “Help me! Please, help…” My heroic sacrifice had lasted exactly twelve seconds.
***
Even before I finished begging, the unbearable heat diminished, and the boils on my skin began to retract. The flesh-tearing hell zombies suddenly stopped their violent attack, recoiling with fear as they backed away. I was glowing again, and within a few moments, I had my new body back.
Gone was the anguish and pain. I was still in the pit but back in my new body, protected and actually feeling a bit of joy, or was it simply relief?
But this lasted only a moment. I was still in that horrible place, nervous and frightened, and the misery before me tore at my heart. I wanted out, but I took account of the situation. I could function in my new body down there, and I somehow knew I could leave at any time. And although I had been foolish to think I could trade my life in the New Kingdom for even five minutes of anyone’s miserable existence in that wretched place, I knew I needed to stay for some reason. And it came to me in an instant. I had to try and do something for at least one poor soul down there.
***
And I had one name in mind. It was Justin Lister, my old friend and partner in business and other crimes. He helped me get out of the city when I needed him. He saved my life. I had to find him. Justin could talk anyone into anything, but he couldn’t talk himself out of this place.
It was a futile venture, I supposed. There were reasons nobody came out of this place, but I had to try. I launched my new body into a frantic search. I picked a tunnel and moved as quickly as I could to find him. I didn’t want to be down there any longer than I had to.
Around every corner, always, in the distance, I could see the orange glow of what I thought must be a great fire, and instinctively avoided the direction from which it seeped because I somehow knew going there would lead me to Lucifer himself.
Aside from this avoidance, I had no clue of what direction I should travel, and it didn’t take long before I realized I needed help in this seemingly endless maze of tunnels and lost souls. So I prayed, “Help me find him, Lord.” And just like that, I knew where I was headed, unconsciously taking lefts and rights like I was heading to the corner store in one of my old neighborhoods.
I must have passed fifty thousand people in every manner of dysfunction before I came to the opening of a larger cavern. It was fairly dark inside, most of the light coming from the glow of my own body, but I could make out a figure sitting on the ground, legs spread, c
hin on chest, back up against the cavern wall.
“He told me you’d be coming.” I heard his voice, now only a dull, scratchy, deeper version of the clear and excited voice I listened to for so many hours on the Old Earth.
“Who told you?” I said. I was close enough to see him now. He was barely recognizable, thin and wretched, his skin yellow and full of sores. His face was worn like it had been dragged across gravel and healed under a hot lamp. His lips were bloody and cracked, his eyes red as lipstick.
“You think you’re the only one with supernatural friends,” he snarled.
“What are you doing, old friend?”
“Waiting for you,” he offered through the grinding of his teeth.
“With your life, Justin, your life!”
He laughed then, and it was genuine laughter—the only genuine laughter I heard since I’d been down there.
“You still have choices,” I said.
“Look at you and your fancy body. I have choices? A thousand years I have to be in this hole. What do you know?”
“I know what’s going to happen,” I said.
“You know everything up there, don’t you?” said Justin. “Well, we got a little surprise for you!”
“You can’t win. You saw what happened on the Old Earth. And how do you think you got down here anyway?”
He stood up, pointed a long, bony finger at me and began shouting. “You piece of shiny garbage! You’re trying to sell me…I do the selling around here, remember! You wannabe saints up there think you got it all figured out! You’re just puppets to Him! Free will my ass! When the real man takes over—then we’ll have some free will, baby!”
“Listen to yourself, Justin, this isn’t you. He’s already got you. You’re miserable down here. You’ve already ground half your teeth away. Look at your skin; you look like a leper, man. Please, Justin. Think for a minute. You were a conniving son of a gun, but you always had a big heart. Why do you think I stuck around? You never talked like this.”
What the Hand: A Novel About the End of the World and Beyond Page 31