Purgatorium

by J. H. Carnathan

  My car is gone again!

  I want to yell Uriel’s name at the top of my lungs. Panicking a little, I start looking up and down the street for my vehicle. The solar eclipse catches my eye, almost as if it were reminding me of how much of it was like a metaphor to my whole life.

  Anything that brings about a positive light gets instantly covered in darkness.

  As I turn my head to the left, I notice a black 1982 Pontiac Trans Am driving up to me. I remember that Peter Cameron was driving the same car. But I see that now, in the driver’s seat, is Uriel. He drifts around me as I hear the Knight Rider theme song playing on the mix tape to the stereo system.

  “Get in!” he shouts, still drifting in circles around me.

  Something tells me that he isn’t gonna stop.

  “Jump!”

  I see the window on the passenger side is open. Out of nowhere, I begin calculating in my head the velocity at which the car is going to the speed I would have to hit to make the jump in to it. There are other variables involved that include the tire rotation, ground surface, and wind ratio.

  I pinpoint the exact moment in which to go. The car drifts to my eye level. I run and take the leap, like Superman posing it in midair, making my body shoot right through the window at the exact given interval of my calculations.

  Once inside, Uriel looks over to me, almost shocked.

  All I can think is, I know math.

  I quickly turn off the music and look up to Uriel, pridefully. He turns the wheel and drifts out of the circle, back onto the street.

  I notice the familiar looking coin necklace around Uriel’s neck that wasn’t there before, just like with the others. I wonder what this necklace means again and what kind of control it has over them.

  I test a theory.

  “So…that token of yours? You didn’t say anything about trying to find it.”

  I sarcastically shrug.

  I’ve been more concerned with oddly healing back my cut off body parts as of late.

  “I bet you haven’t even tried to look for it, have you?”

  Did you not hear what I just thought? That was ME explaining to YOU that I have been pretty busy as of late! You understand me now?!

  Uriel pauses for a few more seconds.“You don’t have any idea what it could be? Where it could be?” Uriel asks, sighing.

  So am I to understand that you can’t read what I am thinking right now?

  I watch him just sit there in silence. This is just like how Raphael was for a few seconds yesterday. Is there some bad angel signal that blocks them from reading my thoughts at times?

  “I know what you’re thinking but remembering how to do complex math equations is not going to be enough. You need to start thinking about your token before it gets much closer to the race. Without it, then all of this would have been pointless.”

  That was not what I was thinking but okay.

  “We still have a lot that we need to teach you before the race, so get your head in the game.”

  I sit there for a moment thinking what the token even does again. It has something to do with opening the door to the outside, I remember. Like a key of some sort. I then wonder if it is an actual key or some kind of lock picking mechanism. My head starts to hurt, but I realize it’s more of a brain-freeze feeling.

  I look out my window and see it being slowly iced over. I stare at Uriel wondering what he is waiting for. I see him, eyes closed, kissing his coin pendent around his necklace, like he is saying a prayer.

  Uriel turns on the stereo and fast forwards till he gets to the song ‘Ram Jam’s Black Betty.’ He quickly U-turns the car, heads down the street, and turns right, tires squealing. He starts accelerating down the long straight road in front of us when the light ahead turns yellow, then red.

  I look at Uriel, who speeds up. I grip the dashboard. Uriel flies through the red light, gaining more speed. Up ahead, I see an onramp for the interstate. Uriel takes the hard right onto it and floors it onto the highway. He continues to drive faster and faster.

  I see a dark patch on the road, right where the highway bends left. Uriel presses the gas pedal all the way down and the car accelerates wildly. We hit the ice and immediately, the car starts sliding sideways towards the left guardrail. Sparks fly off the side of the car.

  Uriel curses as he struggles to keep the car on the road.

  Angels curse?

  “Reapers!” he shouts. I look around but don’t see any. Regardless, the road is slowly freezing over; the car struggles to grip the pavement.

  It starts sliding back across the highway towards the right shoulder. We are nearing the exit for the coffee shop. But it’s too late to go in, I think nervously. As the car slides onto the shoulder, the tires grip again. Uriel regains control of the car, but instead of breaking, he presses down on the gas again and steers the car over the edge of the off-ramp onto the grassy slope beside it.

  I see we are driving right through the lawn beside the coffee shop parking lot. We need to make it to my office building, I think, looking at Uriel. Why can’t he hear what I am thinking?

  I look at my watch:19:50.

  The car flies past the parking lot, onto the cross street, over the median, across the other side of the street, over the sidewalk, and into the park. They can’t get us now, we are in the right time zone, I think. We only have a couple of seconds to get to...

  I suddenly look straight ahead at the reapers blocking our way from my office building. I yell in my head, Look out!

  Uriel slams his foot down on the brakes. The car comes to a quick stop. “Get to the tree!” he shouts.

  I throw the door open and stumble out. Looking to my right, I see the statue, the bench, Ferris wheel, and then, immediately next to me, the tree. My watch beeps.

  20 Minutes

  “I will lead the reapers away. Go in, now!” Uriel screams.

  I run towards the door inside the tree, and look back to see Uriel driving away behind me. The whole park begins to snow as the reapers are getting closer. I suddenly hear loud music coming from behind the door. As I reach for the doorknob, it opens on its own. I walk in as the grass around the tree starts to frost over.

  I see a well-dressed crowd in an upscale-looking club—men wearing tuxedos and women in designer dresses. Fake snow is falling from the balcony. The entire scene seems eerily familiar, in particular, a set of curtains over on the left wall of the club. I walk over, push them apart a little, and see through a set of doors to a glass-cased dresser displaying card face masks—an Ace, a King, and a Queen. I am back in the casino again, I think.

  I turn around and see a beautiful woman walking through the crowd toward me. It’s Lisa, I remember. I look at her red dress and recall where I saw it before. It’s the same dress that Uriel had in his hand. Strange, I think. She hands me a drink. I am no longer in control of my body as I take the glass.

  “So… how about that dance?” she asks, smiling seductively and holding her hand out for me. I down my drink and set the glass to the side.

  I take her hand and we walk back through the crowd to a mostly open, white tile dance floor. People are doing the waltz around us. I think to myself, how great can this possibly get? The one dance my mom taught me how to do.

  I extend my hand, confidently; she takes it and we begin to dance.

  “You dance very well. Who taught you how?” Lisa asks me.

  Lisa’s hands begin to change while I hold them. They become the hands of my mother. As we continue to move gently across the floor, I feel the room spinning. My drink has taken its toll, wrapping my mind with delusions. I see now that I am dancing with my mom. I feel young again as I watch myself getting shorter and her taller. We begin to laugh and continue to dance around the whole place.

  Confused, I whisper, “My mom,” perhaps to Lisa, perhaps to the memory of my mother. I
t didn’t matter. My younger self begins to grow up to the man I am today. I reach back up to her, seeing her through my adult eyes. My mom proudly smiles at me as I slowly dip her.

  Suddenly, I hear an abrupt beeping. I know this sound from somewhere. This sound is the same noise as my watch alarm, I think. As I bring her back up from the dip, I see that my mom has changed back into Lisa.

  Money starts falling from the balcony. I continue dancing with Lisa as the snow falls everywhere around us. Lisa giggles at me, watching me stare in disbelief and desire, watching the snow come down. Finally, the waltz ends.

  Unexpectedly, a laser light shoots across the dance floor and throughout the club. A dubstep track begins playing and men and women start dancing throughout the club. The dance floor around us fills up. I see bar waitresses carrying trays of shots throughout the club.

  I look back at Lisa, who is looking at me lustfully. I gaze into her beautiful eyes, feeling her soft curvaceous body against mine. I lean in towards her, bringing my lips close to hers. Lisa puts her finger to them. She holds up a key with the number 6 on it and looks over to a set of elevators. She winks.

  “Shhh….I will be waiting.” She hands me the key and walks away. I hold the key tightly, my heart beating. I feel agitated desire throughout my body. I head to the elevator trying to calm myself in the process. The doors open and I hop in.

  Seconds pass as I get out of the elevator. My inner thoughts have regained control of my mind as I look down the hall full of doors.

  This is where Michael had stopped me last time I was here. He didn’t want me to see what was behind the door.

  I look down at my hand and see that the key is gone. Do ‘I’ really want to know what’s behind the door? As I get closer, I notice the little girl appear again.

  “You don’t want to go in there,” she says.

  “I have to,” I say to her, pleadingly. I look back at the door, grab the doorknob, turn it, and walk in.

  The room looks like my apartment room in my prison. I see my number six key is magically out of my hand and now lying on the table next to the door. I look over the place and see the same layout and the Yamaha Grand Disklavier in the corner of the living room. A clock is perched right above it and I notice it turning from 3:09 to 3:10AM.

  3:10. The piano. It’s somehow all connected for this specific moment, I think as my head starts to hurt. My pain gets worse as I begin to look around the room some more. I hear noises full of passion in the other room. Is that Lisa I hear? I wonder.

  There is a red dress, high heels, a tuxedo jacket, white shirt, and pants—all strewn about on the floor. I pick up the red dress and know it’s Lisa’s. I go to the bedroom door and see Lisa and another person entangled together passionately. I walk closer and pull the sheets off from over them. “What have I done?” I say to myself. The unknown man is me.

  I look up and I am no longer in the bedroom. My watch goes off.

  35 Minutes

  I see that I am in the meat locker freezer once again. I feel cold air around me, there is a dim light, and a chilly tile floor underneath me. I look down back at Lisa but see that she has become the waitress. Shocked, I push myself off of her and stand up. I notice the waitress is wearing the same red dress that Lisa had worn. She also has bruises on her upper arms.

  I point to her arms, questioning if I had done that to her. She bows her head and nods to me. She looks down at the floor, ashamed. I start to apologize until suddenly something catches my attention.

  Behind me I can hear Uriel singing a Boys II Men song.

  “I’ll make love to you like you want me to, and I’ll hold you tight, baby, all through the night!” I turn around and see Uriel by the steel door, holding a boombox with his mix tape exposed in front of it.

  “Gucci! You almost had her!” Uriel slaps me on the back, laughing. The waitress shyly walks toward the door.

  “Careful how you play your cards when you have a queen already in your hand,” he says coyly.

  I pause, remembering those words from when Michael had said them. Repeating the sentence in my head, I realize its true meaning.

  I had it wrong the whole time. It was never about the card game or the Queen of diamonds. It was about another kind of Queen, my own personal Queen. Madi. I had her in my hands and made one rash decision after the next, losing her in the process.

  Uriel continues, “What’s that saying? You don’t know a good thing until it’s gone? Or is it you play the hand you’re dealt? To hell with it! Either way you cut the deck you still come out as a cheater, Gucci.”

  He ejects the tape and turns it over. “What are you an A-side or B-side type of guy?”

  I look at him, not understanding what he is trying to get at.

  “The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of a record. The A-side usually featured hit songs that the fans heard many times over the radio. The B-side is the less hip secondary recording that gives fans the rarer songs that aren’t played as much.”

  He presses ‘play’ on the boombox and gets taken back by the sound of the B-sided music.

  “Me personally, loves the B-side better. It’s the surprise factor! Everything you thought you knew about the band changes. They experiment and go off the beaten path, finding a new sound along the way. Sometimes that path does lead to failure and misfortune, but the risk of finding something pure out of it is how we perceive a real artist from a one-hit wonder. So what kind of man are you? Do you like the surprise or do you stick to what you know?”

  He is toying with my emotions. I give him no physical response other than a distasteful look on my face from everything I have come to learn about myself.

  Uriel laughs again, taking hold of the waitress’ arm, turning and walking out of the meat locker.

  I notice the necklace isn’t around his neck anymore and wonder if there’s any significance between the necklace and the angels’ odd behavior.

  “When you’re done feeling sad, turn the tape to side B and meet us out here,” Uriel calls back.

  I quickly run over to the boombox and punt it. It goes shattering into the wall. I walk out through the kitchen and push the door open to the restaurant. A waltz is playing on another boombox and Uriel is dancing with the waitress. “Always carry a back-up, Gucci!” I charge forward, about to smash the other one, when I see the blood running down the waitress’ leg.

  “Did you know, Gucci, that the highest divorce rate in America is 50%?” Uriel asks, sweeping the waitress across the floor. She looks miserable and reluctant but continues dancing with Uriel.

  “Twenty to twenty-four-year-olds have the highest percentage of marriages that end in divorce. Women are at about 36%, men 38%. You’re just following the statistics, so don’t beat yourself up. It’s not worth it! She’s not worth it. Hell, no woman is worth it!! Women are pleasurable distractions…nothing more and nothing less. In this day and age, it’s everyone for themselves. There are new rules to live by now. As the old song goes, ‘Love the one your with, honey!’ Whoever said that marriage is forever lied to you. Because I can promise you this, every man and woman cheats! Physically or mentally, it doesn’t matter. Cheaters always be cheating!!”

  I can’t help but think that Uriel may be right but I wave it off. He is wrong, I think. I hear the whispers again rolling through my head. “Why would you even think that? Uriel is right. Women only bring us down. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for a certain woman.” I try to clear my mind and not listen to whatever has corrupted me. I look over and see that Uriel has stopped dancing.

  “Thank you for the dance, my lady,” he says, kissing the waitress’ hand, then letting her go. “‘Praised be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious; and for love, sweet love—But praise! O praise and praise, for the sure unwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.’ That’s Walt Whitman, Gucci.”


  Uriel picks up a knife off a nearby table and stabs the waitress’ eye. She screams and screams, holding her hands to her face, stumbling around the tables while bumping into chairs.

  “Lust is blind,” he says to me. “Get it? Some people can’t see the truth until it’s too late.”

  Shocked and horrified by Uriel’s violence against the waitress, I also feel ashamed, humiliated, and angry at myself. I look over at the silver cover and notice the bottom of the hourglass is almost full. Looking back up at Uriel, I am suddenly struck by a thought. He must be my demon. Without thinking twice, I quickly reach down and turn off the notification sound to my watch.

  40 Minutes

  Uriel laughs, watching the waitress continue to stumble around while screaming. Suddenly, his expression changes. I see him start to shudder, then notice his breath hanging in the air. I run back in to the kitchen as I hear him yell, “What have you done?!”

  I make my way back into the meat locker. I lift the lever and lock the steel door tight. Closing myself in, I watch Uriel bust through the swinging doors into the kitchen. He sees me through the hole space. He pulls on it but soon finds out that I locked it from the inside.

  “What are you doing?” he shouts at the door. “You’re the one who cheated, and you think I am your demon? Really?” Uriel continues to pull on the door. “Okay, Gucci, can you then look at the thermostat for me?” he yells.

  I look up and see the meat locker is getting warmer. I remember Michael telling me now that it can only stay cold in here for a few minutes. If the temperature gets warmer then the reapers will be able to pick up my heat patterns. I look down at my watch.

  It reads: 41:00.

  I only have a minute and two seconds until the record starts to play on the outside! I need to get on that subway car right now! I look back at Uriel not knowing if I can trust him.

  Reapers’ screeching sounds are echoing through the kitchen. Uriel looks to me, “I can only hold them off for so long!” He shows me his mix tape, grinning like an idiot.

  Frost covers the door behind him that leads to the dining room. It bursts open and three reapers fly in, stopping in front of Uriel, who has turned to face them with his boombox in hand. He puts the tape in and presses play, then sets the boombox down and cracks his neck from side to side. Uriel pulls his hair tie out of his hair, pulls his hair back more tightly, and reties it into a ponytail.