He gropes in the air for the pull cord to the hanging bulb. He finds it. Pulls. The room dimly presents itself, and he turns his eyes toward the kitchen table. He recoils. Her body sits there in her green velvet Tudor dress and her neck is ragged along the axman’s line and her head is gone. He looks at the tabletop. It’s not there. He looks around the room. Nothing. Her body is motionless, her hands crossed in her lap.
“Anne?” he calls.
There is no answer.
“Darling, I’m home,” he cries.
No answer.
He draws near to her body. He leans forward and picks up one of her hands. It’s warm. He bends to it and kisses the knuckle on her middle finger. The hand does not respond. He puts it gently back on top of the other one.
Anne’s head is not on the floor near the chair or under the table. It is not on the kitchen counters or in any of the cabinets. He sweeps around their little living room and it is not on or beside or behind their couch, their chairs. He is doing this systematically, going outward from the body that had to find its sightless way to the kitchen table.
He goes into the bedroom, which is dark. The TV is off. He shuffles his feet gently to the end table and turns on the lamp. Her head is nowhere to be seen, not on the floor, not on the bed, nowhere. Hatcher moves to the closet and opens the door.
And he is looking directly into Anne’s face. Her head sits on the shelf. Her great, dark eyes are full of tears. Her cheeks are wet.
“Anne,” he says.
She closes her eyes and squeezes out a rush of tears.
“I wanted to do more,” she says.
“I know,” Hatcher says.
“I wanted to be more,” she says.
Hatcher lifts his hand, reaches out, draws the back of his fingers across her wet cheek.
“Motherfucker,” she says, softly, sadly. She closes her eyes. And after a moment, she says, “Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.”
And Hatcher makes a loose fist and thumps his right forearm on his chest. And again. And a third time. On her behalf. And his own.
After this, Anne lets Hatcher put her back together and she takes off her gown and he takes off his suit and they lie beside each other naked in the bed in the dark, and on this night they do not even try to have sex. They lie listening to each other breathe until they both, surprisingly, fall asleep.
And the next day, from Broadcast Central in the Great Metropolis where all rivers converge, all storms make a beeline, all the levees look a little fragile, and the anchorman, Hatcher McCord, is looking particularly fragile tonight, the Evening News from Hell is well under way. Cerberus has rabies again and is raging his way through Everland, the densely occupied molester estate on the edge of the city. Michael Jackson and Gary Glitter inadvertently swap severed penises in the aftermath. Bobby Fischer, though always playing white, is mated for the thousandth straight time by a chess-playing computer named Hadassah. The Chicago Cubs lose.
And with the news finished and the preview aired of the Barbara Walters-Oprah Winfrey boiling-tar-pit naked wrestling match and with the eventual end of a classic This-Is-What-You-Want-But-You-Can’t-Have-It-In-Hell commercial—a long, relooping version of the McDonald’s commercial where everything the Hamburglar touches turns into a McDonald’s Cheeseburger, including his own head—Hatcher goes to a live remote with the new entertainment reporter, who thinks he has finally remembered his own name, although only the first one. Hatcher improvises the lead-in: “Now, at the site of the free Power to the Denizens Concert, our only partially brain-dead entertainment editor is reporting live. Take it away, Nick.”
The entertainment reporter formerly known as Mineisbigger and now known as Nick, still unable to remove his terrorist mask, is standing in a bright light with his microphone. Behind him is a welter of bodies lunging and fighting and slashing—there are obviously sharp weapons involved because there are pulsing plumes of blood everywhere and flying body parts—and beyond, distantly, is the stage, also crowded with a brawling mob. Nick says, “Yes, Hatcher, the vast crowd here at the free concert finally couldn’t contain its anger. They’ve listened for several hours to the All Star Polka Choir made up of Presley and Hendrix, Joplin and Marley and Jagger, Cobain and Shakur and Lennon and Madonna, Houston and Selena and Coolio and Morrison—both Morrisons—all dressed in lederhosen and Alpine hats and playing accordions and fighting among themselves about who will sing lead vocals on such classics as ‘The Polish Sausage Polka’ and ‘In Heaven There Is No Beer.’ As you can see, the crowd couldn’t take it anymore, the flash point being Madonna’s version of ‘Who Stole the Kishka.’ But Hatcher, I’ve got an exclusive interview here and some hot news about the Evening News from Hell.”
And with this, Nick looks off camera and makes a motion, and Robert Redford, dressed in white shirt, dark suit, and bright red tie and beaming a fixed smile that makes the deep creases of his face seem somehow boyish, steps into frame beside Nick.
Nick says, “Bob. I understand you’re in negotiations to become the new face of the Evening News from Hell.”
Redford nods gravely. “That’s right, Nick. I’ve always wanted to play a network anchorman.”
And now the crowd behind them swells, and a tsunami of blood and body parts washes over Nick and Bob and the camera.
Hatcher, with absolute, suave anchorman cool, says, “Thanks, Nick. That was Nick Mineisbigger reporting live, though presently decomposed, from the Power to the Denizens Concert.”
And Hatcher goes on with the news and he finishes the news and not once does he give his bosses even a tiny, corner-of-the-mouth twitch of a clue that he is concerned about his job. Nor does he show even a brief eye-sparkle of a clue that he is pleased to be thus torturing Satan and Beelzebub over their inability to read their subjects’ minds. And he is surprised at himself over his inner calm. He does not want to give up this chair. But he knows whatever is afoot may end up with him keeping his job and thereby torturing Nick and Bob primarily and him only if he lets it. But any way it plays out, he is ready to accept that and go on.
So when he steps out of Broadcast Center, he finds Judas Iscariot crouching near the door. The ex-apostle leaps up at the sight of him and rushes forward. He talks very fast, his hands fluttering before him. “You’re here. That’s good. At last. I had a hard journey to get to you and it’ll be a hard journey back and there’s not much time, there’s no time, man, time is slipping into the future. I figured I owe you this. But just for you, you know, off the record, deep background. You understand? Deep throat stuff. So here’s the deal. I heard the screaming in the night. A bunch of the other signs had already occurred and that was a big one. I heard a screaming in the night sky and there was just one more thing and that one thing came to pass today. You know what finally shows up at the Automat? Lamb chops. Lamb chops. Behind every little door. Every last one of them is lamb chops. Only three nickels away. And nobody’s buying. We’re all crying, ‘Sacrifice! Sacrifice!’ And we all just sit there fasting when there’s finally meat, and we’re all righteous at last. Then one dumb shit—Thomas, of course—he puts his three nickels in and we’re all going, Don’t do it, man, but he’s doing it, and we’re white-knuckled and gritting our teeth, but it’s okay, the righteous thing is only about us, see, about each one of us individually. Thomas can fuck himself over if he wants to, but that’s just him and it’s not about us. So Thomas sits down and he starts eating, and after a moment he jumps up and he cries out, ‘It’s tofu! It’s just tofu!’ Like he would know tofu, right? Like they can make a whole lamb chop out of tofu, right? I don’t think so. I don’t think so. And so the old boys tear him apart. Limb from limb. And they throw his parts into the street. And that’s according to the prophecy as well. Trust me. So it’s going to happen. Soon. Real soon. He’s coming back for us. Come to the Automat and look at those chops and turn away quick. Maybe you can hitch a ride out of here.’
Judas starts backing away. He says, “I’m sure of it this time. We’re all of
us sure.”
And he vanishes into the crowd.
Hatcher gets the car just in case he can figure out the wild seething in-
side himself. He sits in the backseat and does not yet tell Dick Nixon
where to go. He’s unsure why he’s hesitating. Judas’s druggie persona,
perhaps. His own unworthiness. But I’m still a newsman, he tells himself.
I need to step back and observe and report. I at least should go
watch the others being taken away from here, even if I am not worthy.
Or watch as they watch and nothing happens. Even for that. Judas seems
to believe deeply that a Harrowing is imminent. As, apparently, do the
others from the Book. And all the prophets were wild-talking eccen-
trics. Judas is from that tradition. Trying to think it out, Hatcher finds
himself panting and restless in the backseat of the Fleetwood. I have to
stop thinking, he thinks. I have to stay in the moment and in this body and I
have to act.
He leans forward and is about to knock on the partition and head for the corner of Peachtree Way and Lucky Street. But if it’s true. If this turns out to be true. He can’t go without Anne. He knocks on the partition. It slides back. And Hatcher directs Dick Nixon to swing briefly by the apartment. The car leaps forward. Hatcher still seethes inside, but now from an intense awareness that he is heading in the opposite direction from a way out of Hell. He turns his eyes to the window. He watches the flying, broken bodies as he cuts a great thumping swath through all the damned in order to get Anne and escape.
Hatcher dashes up the circular stairs and along the corridor and he’s embarrassed to wonder this, but he wonders if he’s running along this corridor for the last time, for the last time ever, and he sees the Hoppers’ door is open, up ahead, and he does not want to slow down for anything and he pushes his legs, and this time they stay strong and quick even as they pass the Hopper apartment. But in his peripheral vision he sees the couple sitting there in their overstuffed chairs. And he stops himself. And he steps back, and he stands in their doorway.
Peggy is saying to Howard, “It’s true. It’s always been true. From the first time on. You never tell me you . . .” And she catches on the word.
Howard says, “There you are. How can I be expected to tell you something that you can’t even remember yourself what it is.”
“Pardon me,” Hatcher says.
The two Hopper faces turn to him.
“You should come with me . . .” Hatcher begins.
“Oh we couldn’t do that,” Peggy says instantly.
“No,” says Howard. “Thanks, but never.”
“We can’t get up,” she says.
“Not at all, ever,” he says.
“This is where we are,” she says.
“Right here,” he says.
“I understand,” Hatcher says and he moves to his own door and he’s surprised at himself over the impulse he just followed and he tells himself there’s nothing he can do for anyone else. He can do only for Anne now, if this is real, the best he can do is for Anne and for himself.
He touches the knob to his door. And the Hoppers suddenly terrify him: Will Anne go?
He steps in.
Anne is near the bedroom door, her back to him. Her head is on. That’s good. She is wearing still another Edwardian tea dress. That’s not good.
“Anne,” he says.
She turns to him and she consciously puts on a little smile. She has something to say and he is very glad he has something to say first, and because it is the only way to keep her, he leaps fully into faith. It’s real, he tells himself. It’s going to happen.
“Wouldn’t it be better,” he says, “to leave Hell altogether, with me?” She looks at him wide-eyed, as if the axman has just been called off. “Can you do this?” she says.
“Yes,” he says. “But we have to go now.”
She does not say another word but is beside him and they are rushing along the corridor, perhaps for the last time.
And once again Hatcher finds himself grateful for Richard M. Nixon’s merciless driving. But as they plow into the writers’ neighborhood, the impulse that put Hatcher in the Hoppers’ doorway comes upon him again, with an even stronger moral imperative. He does not think it out but leans forward and knocks on the partition and directs Nixon to an address nearby, and they soon pull up in front of a grimy brick tenement. He tells Nixon to keep the engine running.
“Where are you going?” Anne says, the first audible words she’s spoken since the apartment.
“I owe somebody something,” he says.
When they first got in the car, Hatcher told Anne where they were heading and with only a nod of recognition to him she began to quietly pray for absolution, softly pounding her chest in mea culpas. Now, as he opens the door, she says, “Do we have time?”
“Yes,” he says, though, in fact, he’s not so sure. But he does owe Beatrice.
He dashes for the entrance, realizing this is the street-side front of the tenement that Virgil led him to a few nights ago. He pushes through the door and he staggers to a stop and he has to consciously adjust his center of gravity to keep from falling down. The whole place is tilted to the left, and mounting before him is a wide staircase paneled in William and Mary oak and with an iron banister with grillwork of ormolu garlands, and a steam horn sounds in the distance and a ship’s bell is ringing and a multitude of voices are crying out, wordlessly, far off, and a smell of salt water fills his head and he feels a chill on his feet—a rare sensation in Hell—and he looks down and water is spreading out from the deep shadows on either side of him, lapping at his shoes, and Hatcher knows this is the Grand Staircase in the first class section of the Titanic. No, he cries to himself. This is, in fact, a typical, cheap illusion, a movie setting in Hell of the Grand Staircase in the first class section of the Titanic.
Nevertheless, Hatcher’s first reflex is to run. To turn around and bolt from this place and get back in the car instantly and take off. But he tells himself not to play the game. He doesn’t have to play the game. He has a mind that is free. But movie illusion or not, this is the only staircase he has to work with, so he dashes up, past the bronze cherub holding a lamp, onto the landing and up another flight, a vast cut-glass dome above, and he is not looking closely but he can see that all of it—banister and paneling, cherub and stairs and dome—are covered in a thin coat of green slime and he’s smelling mold now and rot and he goes up to the fourth floor and cuts down the corridor.
The carpet is thicker under his feet and the walls are paneled oak but it’s the same layout as the film noir tenement, and the corridor—the whole tenement—lurches a bit and his own free and independent brain isn’t doing a fucking thing to make this all go away and he sprints for the door at the far end and he arrives, breathless not from the sprint but from a rising fear as cold as the North Atlantic. If he gets sucked into this little Hell game, he may miss the Harrowing. The door says 4D. There are vague rustling sounds inside. He knocks. The sounds stop but no one is coming to the door and no one is talking and he calls out, “Beatrice.” And there is silence.
He does not have time for this and so he tries the knob on the door and it turns and he pushes in. Not to a first class state room on the Titanic but to the same seedy tenement apartment 4D as before, with the same sagging couch in the center of the floor. But the room is tilting. It is full of the smell of the ocean. And on the couch is Beatrice, naked, on her back, her legs hooked over the shoulders of the dingy-white naked marble body of Publius Vergilius Maro, also known as Virgil, who continues quietly to pound away Roman style at Dante’s girlfriend.
They do not stop their fucking but they do both turn their faces to Hatcher. The faces show no trace of pleasure, of course.
Hatcher finds himself compelled to shoot his cuffs. He pats his pockets, but he can find no smokes, so he simply squares his shoulders and s
ays, “I thought we had an understanding, doll. But what do you expect in this crazy world? I don’t blame you. You figured you had a chance for happiness and you took it. Me, I can only offer you a long shot. The longest of long shots. A way out of Hell. So here I am. But you have to make up your mind now. Because chances have a way of disappearing on you. Especially when the odds are long.”
Hatcher hears himself. He’s not saying this quite the way he expected.
But Beatrice seems to get it. And she doesn’t. “I can’t go with you,” she says, her voice quaking from the boffing being administered by Virgil. “I can’t. The ship’s going down and all the lifeboats have sailed.”
From behind the closed closet door, where last time a Renaissance Pope imitated a police car siren, Celine Dion begins to sing, “My heart will go on.”
And Hatcher backs out of the room, closes the door, turns, and takes one stride and another down the hallway, passing the door behind which, if he stopped to listen, he could hear the beating of his own heart.
When the Fleetwood takes the sharp left turn as Peachtree Avenue Street Street turns into Peachtree Way on the run up to the corner of Lucky Street, Hatcher opens the driver compartment partition and sees the back of a crowd up ahead. Before they pound through the candidates for Heaven, he tells Dick Nixon to pull over to the curb and stop.
Hatcher grabs Anne’s hand and throws the door open and they slide out of the car and move quickly up the street. The back of the crowd is all cloaks and animal skins and sackcloth tunics, and as Anne and Hatcher approach, they can hear a clamorous bleating as if from a vast drove of goats, and Hatcher thinks of animal sacrifice—this has been an ongoing theme of the past few days—and he wonders if there are actual goats now being slaughtered to buy the Old Ones a way out of Hell.
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