by Jasper Bark
I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not touched or nothing. I just hate Danny Taylor. He’s always been a nasty streak of piss. One of those useless thugs whose lips have been glued to a crack pipe since they were fifteen.
Danny didn’t have no dad around when he grew up see. That’s cos his dad Charlie topped himself. Walked into his garage one night and started up his prize BMW. He loved that car more than his family. There was only one person Charlie loved as much as his car and that was Charlene, his bit on the side. But Charlene got tired of his shit and left him.
So Charlie got tired of life. He started up the engine and instead of getting a hose and sitting in the front seat, he went round the back of the car and put his mouth straight over the exhaust. Like he was blowing his prize possession. The pipe was so hot it melted his lips, fused them to the exhaust. He was a terrible colour when they found him several hours later. His lips glued to the pipe.
Charlene didn’t go to the funeral, but she wore black for a week as a mark of respect. She’s nice like that is Charlene. She just can’t take men too seriously. That’s why she can’t stay committed to one. They’ve never been there for her so why should she be there for them. That’s what she told me when she dumped me.
I fucked her for a while after Charlie died. Nothing serious, but I had a lot of fun and I was sorry when it ended. I was in her kitchen when she told me. She was wearing this long baggy top, not one of her usual tight, low-cut jumpers.
Maybe she was trying to make herself look less attractive so she could get rid of me. Or maybe she was hiding something. I don’t know. But nine months later Stevie was born. Terrible shame about that kid, terrible shame.
The stench of the urinal brings me back from the memories. “Danny,” I say. “No one can hear you mate, they think it’s just the pipes.”
I know a lot about the pipes in the King’s Arms. I did a job for the landlord a few months back. The urinal was playing up. The sluice was backed up and the piss was spilling out of the trough onto the customer’s shoes. So he got me to look at it.
Turns out there’s a little crawlspace right behind the wall where the urinal hangs. That’s where all the pipes are. I had to go through the yard at the back and knock through the outside wall to get to it, so I could clear the blockage.
Only two feet wide it was. Working in there reminded me of being in solitary. I did a bit of bird when I was a youngster, for fighting mainly. Thumped a guard when I was inside and ended up in the hole. Wasn’t too different from that crawlspace, except it smelled better, even with all the dead rats.
That was the funny thing about the crawlspace. I think it was something to do with the air circulation or whatever, but all the rats were perfectly preserved, like mummies. Some of them must’ve been there for decades as well, but not one of them stunk.
I cleaned them all out when I cleaned out the sluice pipe. You wouldn’t believe the shit I found in there. Great clumps of slimy pubes and other stuff you can’t imagine, like a glass eye and a tiny baby doll’s arm. No shit, a baby doll’s arm, don’t ask me how that got there.
I look at the sluice at the end of the trough and try to imagine how it would fit through the little round grate. “You shouldn’t have done that to Stevie,” I say. “You realise that don’t you, Danny?”
Danny had persecuted Stevie his whole life. Maybe because of who Stevie’s mother was. Or maybe because of the way he was born. He wasn’t like other kids. His left arm was stunted and never grew. It remained the size of a baby’s arm. Plus he had this weird lazy eye that used to go all over the place when you were talking to him. Made it difficult to look him in the face. It also made him a target for little cunts like Danny Taylor.
I tried to help him when I could but there’s not a lot you can do when it’s kiddie violence. If you cuff them round the ear you’re likely to end up back in stir these days. Plus I wasn’t around that much. All the same I did feel a bit responsible. Like I said, Stevie was born about nine months after me and Charlene split up, and even though Charlene had a lot of fellers, I’ve always had my suspicions.
The whole thing between Danny and Stevie came to a head about a week after I’d finished the job at the King’s Arms. Stevie walked into the men’s room and saw Danny at the urinal. He must have been scared, but fair play to him, he stepped up right next to Danny.
I’m not certain exactly what happened next. Maybe it was Stevie’s arm, or maybe he’d had a few and couldn’t handle it. Perhaps it was his sense of humour, but he ends up pissing all over Danny’s shoes.
Danny was having none of that. So he took Stevie round the back of the King’s Arms and did a number on him. Dragged him outside by his little arm. Stevie was howling with the pain as Danny damn near wrenched it off. Then he punched Stevie to the ground and started kicking him. Stevie lay there crying and saying sorry but Danny wouldn’t listen.
He kicked all of Stevie’s front teeth out. Then he put his foot so hard into the back of Stevie’s head that his lazy eyeball popped out.
While Stevie lay there on the ground, in a pool of his own blood and piss, screaming for his mother, Danny stamped on the eyeball. Laughed as it popped open under his Nikes and ground it into the tarmac. When he was done, he pulled out his cock and pissed into Stevie’s open eye socket. Then he went back inside and finished his pint. It was an hour before someone thought to call an ambulance.
The police asked around a bit afterwards, but no one round here talks to them and their heart wasn’t in it. My heart was. I can feel it pounding as I crouch next to the urinal.
“You didn’t think I’d let you get away with it did you, Danny?” I whisper. “There are some things you just can’t walk away from.”
He did think he’d walked away from it though, and he bragged about it to anyone who’d listen. I heard him one night down the King’s Arms. Standing at the bar he was, proud as fucking punch, telling everyone how Stevie had it coming. “Taking the piss he was,” that’s what Danny said. Can you believe that? He reckoned Stevie was ‘taking the piss’.
So I went home and got a hammer, a chisel and some super glue. Then I waited for Danny to leave the pub. Caught him on his way home. He was full of beer and soft as shit. Putting him down was a piece of piss, I’m not a defenceless wee lad like Stevie.
Then I went to work with the hammer and chisel. Not like you’re thinking. I did take out Danny’s front teeth, but that was later. First I went at those bricks I’d laid in the pub’s outside wall. Shame really, I’d done a bang up job on them, but I made good when I was done and you’d never know I opened that crawlspace again.
That’s where I left Danny, lying on his side with his wrists and ankles bound. That’s where I used the superglue.
“You know what Danny?” I whisper, keeping an eye on the door in case someone comes in. “I read somewhere that the human body can survive for up to two months if it has a regular supply of liquids.”
I picture him lying there, just like his dad, with his lips glued to a pipe. But unlike his dad he’ll take a long time to die. Cos Danny’s lips aren’t glued to an exhaust pipe, they’re glued to the sluice pipe from the urinal.
“Taking the piss, Danny, that’s what you said about little Stevie, do you remember? But now you know what it’s really like to ‘take the piss’.”
THE CASTIGATION CRUNCH
Sundays were a real bitch in Hell. God rested on the seventh day of His world building spree, so His Angels were always on a ‘go-slow’ when it came to processing new arrivals.
This meant the ‘can’t pray, won’t pray’ brigade got shunted downstairs without any chance of a reprieve. Even those with otherwise spotless records. No last minute change of heart for them. No ‘haven’t I got egg on my face, do let me recant’.
They didn’t even get to stop off at the first level of Hell (otherwise known as ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Heaven’) where the virtuous non-believers usually landed. First pointed out by the poet Dante and now the initi
al stop of his Inferno tour bus as it made its weekly rounds of the ‘Homes of the Kitsch and Heinous’.
All this meant a huge increase in the daemon Ashmodial’s workload. The squat, hump-backed brute had spent the morning arguing with a group of new arrivals who felt it most unjust that they were going to spend eternity being tormented in a fictitious construct to which they were ideologically opposed.
One of them even had the gall to try and bribe him. A naked bookish wretch by the name of Humphrey Suchs. “You can’t buy your way out of Hell,” Ashmodial told him, his stunted wings flapping in annoyance. “This is eternal damnation. See the clue there is in the name. It’s eternal, it doesn’t stop for anything, definitely not money. There are some things that don’t have a price, ‘specially when you’re dead. I can see you’re a fish out of water here. This is not a place you’re going to recognise, Suchs.”
Ashmodial wasn’t surprised to find the scoundrel was an economist. A profession that practically guaranteed you a place in Hell. Most economists were sent to the fifth level sector where Marx and Engels presided. Here they were forced to apply crippling regulations to a moribund market in order to feed and clothe a growing army of poor and indigenous people. Ashmodial had something different in mind for the wretch however.
Suchs was stretched out over a lava filled crater in the Seventh level when Ashmodial next saw him. His wrists and ankles were bound with razor wire so taut his limbs were popping out of their sockets. Flesh eating larvae burrowed their way under his charred skin but he still seemed pretty cheerful.
This disconcerted Ashmodial. He was just reaching for Suchs’ notes when they were snatched from him. He rounded on the individual responsible only to find it was his boss Lucifer. This was all Ashmodial needed, a surprise inspection by the top brass. This Sunday wasn’t getting any better.
Lucifer had come in his formal aspect, complete with cloven hooves, horns and a pointed tail. He even had the pitchfork he carried when greeting visiting dignitaries. Ashmodial was puzzled as to why he’d gone to such trouble.
“Humphrey Suchs,” said Lucifer. “It’s not often that we get a sinner of your stature in Hell. Economic adviser to world leaders, best-selling author and personal guru to fading rock gods, we are honoured to entertain you.”
“Actually,” said Suchs. “I’m rather glad you’ve got a copy of my résumé, because I have a few propositions I’d like to run past you.”
“You want to proposition me? You have some gall, Suchs. Your economic reforms caused untold suffering to millions of innocent people.”
“My point exactly, just consider what I could do down here, given the right opportunities.”
“I’m listening,” said Lucifer.
* * *
A month later Ashmodial was accompanying Suchs as he showed Lucifer the results of his first set of reforms. Lucifer arrived in his Dark Gentleman aspect. He was done out in formal evening wear and carried a gold handled cane. His jet black hair was slicked back and the only daemonic concessions he made were a pointy goatee and tiny horns.
Ashmodial wasn’t sure quite why he’d been chosen as Suchs’ personal assistant. When Lucifer had set Suchs free and put him to work, Suchs had pointed to him and said, “I want that daemon to come along as my personal assistant. In fact I insist upon it.” Ashmodial wasn’t sure if Lucifer agreed because Suchs had insisted or Ashmodial had done something that really, really annoyed him. If it was the latter then Lucifer couldn’t have hit on a better way to punish him.
“And now I want to show you what I’ve done with the DR department,” said Suchs, his blistered skin now covered by a coarse hair shirt. Lucifer raised a quizzical eyebrow. “DR department?”
“Daemonic Resources, it’s the new name for personnel. Under the previous regime we had an average of five daemons tormenting every soul. This was extremely inefficient and hardly cost effective. A systemized downscaling of the workforce means that we now have one daemon to every five souls. Contracts are issued under a system of competitive bidding meaning that only the most sadistic and aggressive daemons are now working in the field and the SYI is up a record breaking twenty five points.”
“The SYI?”
“Suffering Yield Index, another of my recent innovations allowing us to quantify the exact amount of pain and misery we’re causing at any one moment.”
“And how has the rest of the workforce, as you dub them, responded to your reforms?”
“Not very well,” said Ashmodial. “They’ve gone on general strike.”
“A very fortuitous turn of events,” said Suchs. “If a daemon actively refuses to harm a damned soul then this can only be construed as an act of kindness. And an act of kindness, as you know, is the only transgression a daemon is capable of making. This means that every infernal entity engaged in this industrial action can therefore be reclassified as a sinner and, as we know, all sinners are subject to Hell’s eternal wrath. In a stroke the tormentors become the tormented and the number of victims under Hell’s dominion has undergone a fourfold increase.”
Before Lucifer could make any comment they arrived at the entrance to Hell. What had once been the most thriving and bustling section of Hell was now a desolate wasteland. “What’s happened here?” said Lucifer. “Where are all the–”
“Admissions staff?” said Suchs.
“Yes,” said Lucifer. “What have you done with them all?”
“Sacked,” said Ashmodial. “Every one of them.”
“Not every one of them,” said Suchs. “I’ve maintained a skeleton crew to man the gates every third Thursday.”
“But the backlog of entrants will be immense,” said Lucifer. “It could take years to get into Hell.”
“More like decades,” said Suchs. “And the paperwork they have to do beggars belief. This is the one innovation that I’m most proud of. As you’re no doubt well aware, the most excruciating thing about any form of torture lies in the anticipation. In fact this is often so terrible that the actual torture often comes as a relief. Previously the damned learned of their fate within hours of arriving. Now it can take up to twenty or thirty years and the whole time they’re caught in a bureaucratic nightmare that’s positively Kafkaesque in its proportions. Can you imagine the torment they’re going to go through?”
Ashmodial saw Lucifer do something he very rarely did—smile. “I’m impressed Suchs, very, very impressed.”
* * *
“Haven’t you finished yet?” said Suchs, adjusting his frayed tie and smoothing the ill-fitting suit jacket that covered his hair shirt. Ashmodial was struggling with a tangle of USB cables. “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” he said. “I’ve never seen a lap-top before. I didn’t even know we had them in Hell.”
“That’s because you don’t keep abreast of the latest developments in torment and damnation. If you did you’d know there’s a whole department on level four where miscreants with a fear of public speaking are forced to give Absolute Power Point demonstrations on subjects they know nothing about for all eternity. Now hurry it up, I’m due to outline my plans to corrupt the entire afterlife any minute.”
“I don’t see how you’re going to corrupt the entire afterlife with a Power Point demonstration.”
“Not a Power Point demonstration, an Absolute Power Point demonstration because, as everyone knows, Absolute Power Point corrupts absolutely.”
Before Ashmodial could reply Lucifer strode into the space and seated himself behind the large boardroom table Suchs had procured for the presentation. He was sporting his Fallen Angel aspect. His hair fell in golden ringlets about his face and he carried the now extinguished torch that had once won him the title of Morningstar.
“So what have you got for me today?” Lucifer said. Suchs clicked his fingers. Ashmodial killed the lights and switched on the projector. The slide on the screen behind Suchs showed a map of all the levels and domains of Hell. “Now as you know,” said Suchs, “Hell is divided into nine levels. Each one
overseen by an Arch Daemon and devoted to punishing a specific set of sins.”
“Is there a point to this?” said Lucifer.
“There is.” Suchs clicked through to the next slide which showed a graph of an exponential growth curve. “Each level of Hell expands in a direct ratio to the number of souls it houses. Hell however is an eternal state, so it should be exempt from the normal rules governing time and, most importantly, space. Why then is Hell limited in its size and influence by the number of souls it contains?”
“Do you have another way of determining its size?”
“I do. What I’m proposing is the formation of a Future’s Market.” The next slide showed three fat daemons each squatting on a large pile of souls and exchanging great wads of cash with each other. “If you multiply the percentage of souls that commit each individual sin by the projected population growth, you arrive at a fairly accurate estimate of the future size of each level of Hell. So why not allow those levels to expand to their estimated sizes in lieu of their future population. You can also allow the different levels to trade in this new real estate, determining the value by the fluctuations in sinful behaviour. In periods of economic growth, for instance, Greed is at an optimum, while in a recession Envy receives a welcome boost.”
“And what would be the eventual outcome of this scheme of yours?”
Suchs clicked on to the final slide showing, a diagram of an enormous Hell dwarfing a tiny little Kingdom of Heaven. “Hell will not only become the largest and most powerful territory in the afterlife, but you and the ruling elite will become fabulously wealthy.”
“Suchs, I like the sound of that. I like it rather a lot.”
* * *
Ashmodial struggled up the steep stone steps with the scalding hot massimo latté. He didn’t want to think about what he had to go through to find one in the depths of Hell. He spent a lot of time trying not to think about what he was going through at the moment.