by Martha Long
With that the doors at the back of the place flew open and flames licked in as a roaring hot furnace belched up fumes and smoke, baking the room. Everyone now started to drown in sweat.
‘MERCY! I beg of you, Nick, my good man, do show us chaps a little mercy!’ grovelled a fat, white-faced man wearing a three-piece suit and dark sunglasses.
‘No deals, old sport. No can do! Your fate has already been sealed by the highest court in the land!’ said Nick, waving his finger up above. ‘It’s not personal, old boy!’ Then watched intently, looking very interested, with the eyebrow raised, as the man slowly sank down, disappearing under a mass of heaving bodies all wanting to put distance between them and the open doors. The heap suddenly untangled and took off; a huge rumble shook the big room as masses of lawyers all raced for the front, wanting to wait their turn beside Nick. Nick looked down at the now cleared space, seeing the remains of two lawyers lying spreadeagled, flattened out on the floor.
‘Nice work,’ Nick smiled contentedly, looking from the splattered to the angry-looking lawyers all lined up now beside him.
‘NEXT! TERRORISTS!’ shouted Nick, looking around the room.
A group shuffled forward, some with their heads and arms missing. Suddenly a high-pitched voice screamed up, ‘DIS IS THE IRA! NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY! Dere’s two of us here an we’re not tryin te get in, we’re givin youse all TWO MINUTES TE GET OUT! DERE’S A BOMB PLANTED!’
‘Naughty, naughty! We can’t have you wet Nellies bringing the roof down over our heads!’ said Nick, looking to Peter.
‘Oh, no! Quite out of order that,’ Peter agreed.
‘DISPATCH!’ Nick suddenly roared, pointing his finger at the back doors. Instantly the doors flew open again and out rushed ten hefty bald eunuchs! The Irish Republican Army pair screamed and made a run for it, straight for heaven’s door. Gates suddenly appeared and slammed shut with a boom, locking them out. Not to be bet, one dived at the bars, squeezing his head in, then immediately lit up with sparks flying as he got himself electrocuted. He didn’t have time to react as he was scraped off and hauled away by surrounding eunuchs. They carried the pair out moaning and screaming – they were now heading fast for the back doors – then it was all quiet as the doors slammed and everyone turned now to see next what was happening at the front.
‘I think perhaps my lot next. Agreed?’ said Peter gently, waving his finger down at his own list.
‘Oh, yes, old boy. One does tend to get carried away when having such fun! Terribly polite of you to let me,’ Nick smiled. ‘But if I may just beg your indulgence one more tick?’ he said, waving the finger then dropped his face looking down, hungrily searching his eyes up and down doing a headcount. ‘All present and correct,’ he smiled happily, rubbing his hands then giving them all a cheery wave.
The damned glared back, some looking baleful. Others cried up at him but definitely nobody was looking happy.
‘Heavens, give me patience,’ muttered Peter before lifting his voice to shout, ‘SAINTS! Please come forward and stand directly behind me,’ he said, nodding at all the faces shuffling past him. Some looked crucified, carrying little black wooden crosses grasped to their chests; others carried shopping bags filled with miraculous medals, whips for flagellation and little statues, and one rattled past with heavy chains strapped around his bony chest covered with a hair shirt.
Suddenly a little man shuffled past, looking up very confused at Peter, still shell-shocked.
‘Ah, you look like a newly departed just arrived a smidgen too early. You do not know you are dead yet! Please take your place back among these people at the far back. In time I shall call your group. Some have not quite arrived yet,’ he said, looking from his papers then lifting his head, holding his hand over his eyes, trying to see into the far distance.
‘In that case I shall now take up again,’ said Nick, looking down at his book. ‘I do think my list is longer,’ he smirked. ‘Now then, these shall have to be called by name. They need a little encouragement,’ grinned Nick, bowing his head to Peter.
‘Oh, by all means carry on. My list is short,’ sighed Peter, trying to smile back.
‘Jackser, your hour is nigh! Come!’ Nick boomed, lifting his wigged head from his notes.
Jackser’s spirit lifts out of the bed and travels over, still grabbing hold of his ghostly cap. He has that clutched between his hard leathery hands, mashing it to bits with the nerves on him. ‘That’s me, Sir!’ he gasps, bowing his head and making mincemeat out of the cap.
I grinned as I watched, thinking he’s as terrified as he always was when faced with trouble.
‘Ah, yes, Jackser!’ Nick said softly, lowering his head to take in the shivering mass of jelly that’s now quivering and shaking, making its way over to him. ‘Yes! You are on the J list,’ Nick says politely, while Peter is trying to smile down as Jackser floats past, but his nose turns up as if he’s getting a very bad smell.
‘J, Sir?’ Jackser enquires. ‘Wha would tha be, Sir? Ye see I’m not a very edumacated man! I’m not very well up wit this kinda thing!’ he puffs, hearing it come out in a hoarse gasp. It’s the ripple of fear running through him at the thought, Jaysus! He may not be able to get out of this one. Now he’s having a terrible thought. Maybe me hour has truly come? Oh, lamb a Jaysus, no! Not tha! He blesses himself quickly, praying for a miracle.
‘J list,’ Nick explains patiently, ‘in fact it is J.T.H.E.M. It is an abbreviation for ‘Journey through hell everlasting more’. But we dropped that recently! Oh, about seven, eight hundred years ago. We had too many black-plague souls to get through!’
Jackser listens with the mouth open and the eyes staring out of his skull. It’s all going over his head, but the terror is rising in him. He hasn’t figured out why, yet. But, holy Jesus! he’s thinking. I’m now at the mercy a these people, an tha bleedin Sally one is nowhere te be seen!
‘Eh! Excuse me, Sir, for interruptin!’ he bows, blinking the eyes and crushing the cap with the terror. ‘But, eh, this J.T.H.E.M. thing ye say. Wha would tha be about, Sir? If ye wouldn’t mind me te be enquirin.’
‘What are you on about, man? Oh, yes!’ Nick says, lifting his head then lowering his voice, after forgetting to be businesslike. ‘Yes! You are to be dispatched to … Let me see your group again.’ He peers down, studying his list, looking very serious with a slight lift of his nose. ‘Hmm, yes! Over there,’ he points, waving the bunch of papers in his hand. ‘That is your transport. It will take you to begin your Eternity. A journey through everlasting hell. Saecula Saeculorum. Yes! For everlasting more.’
Jackser looks, letting his face collapse into the pains of hell. Then it hits him! Yeah, he’s about to get himself well and truly hanged. The badness has caught up with him. I watched as his eyes flew and the brain ticked. He sniffed, taking in breaths of air, wanting to help the brain cells along. Suddenly his face turned to granite and the eyes stared daggers. Nick smiled as he reached into the pocket of his silk coat, taking out a packet of hand-rolled Havana cigars. He got them when an American gangster ordered a big crate from Cuba, but when he opened the wooden box it exploded, blowing his head off. Someone had planted a bomb in it. Nick found this packet in the pocket of the gangster.
He looked at it, seeing the box still saturated with blood, then took one out, sucking the soggy cigar. ‘Delicious. Hmm, the added taste of very fine old wine,’ he whispered, taking a long drag then blowing into Jackser’s face, seeing him vanish in a cloud of smoke.
‘I have me rights!’ screeched Jackser, coughing and spluttering as he tried to get his breath back. ‘I want the missus up here pronto! Shift yerselves and get me Sally up here this minute. I’m goin te instruct her now te contact Bertlamm Savageman, me solicitor. He’ll sort this out quick an proper. Youse landed me in the wrong place! I’ve no business bein here talkin te the likes a youse! Where’s the head man? Who’s in charge a this kip?’ he roared, waving the fists around then taking off when he saw Peter staring over at him, look
ing a bit interested.
‘Oh, time for a break. I shall indulge you!’ Nick said, taking long drags, enjoying his smoke. ‘Go on! Trot along over. Perhaps Peter might like a few words with you,’ he said, waving him off, then taking another deep drag on his Havana with the head thrown back.
‘Are you the head fella a this place?’ Jackser demanded, stabbing his finger up at Peter, raising the eyebrow and snorting the nose.
‘Indeed!’ Peter murmured, looking down at him disdainfully. ‘Quite the little list you have stored, all pointing against you. Let me see,’ he said, looking down at another list that showed all the wrongdoings for not getting into his place. ‘A chartered horror of quite grotesquely inhuman suffering left in your wake. Tut, tut. Your mother suffered a slow and tortured life at your hands, until death brought her to us. First night on arrival, when she should have slept in her eternal peace, alas she rolled in her grave with agony. She watched as you sold the key to her house, leaving your brothers and sisters to sleep on the streets. They never forgave you. Then, of course, you honed your evil ways on little ones. The innocent, unprotected children flowered from your seed, two from the seed of others. These two were held by you in an iron grip through a tortured childhood. Tut, tut. Not an impressive account of your life by our standards. All these children given to you as a gift to nurture, you bent, broke and twisted.
‘Mad to escape your poison, one took a premature exit. He, now, is here with us. Others must labour on in a twilight world of no-man’s-land. They are neither here nor with the living. Yes, that is your legacy, Jackser. Now! Reap what you have sowed. Go!’
Jackser stares with his mouth open and his body frozen in a half-twisted turn. He is staring at a wide-open, inky-blue space with a hole in the middle. It pulsates with a whooshing vacuum of air roaring into a black void. When you listen, you can hear the rain crashing and the wind screaming. It sounds like the Banshee, the screams of the old woman thought long ago to bring a warning of death. More voices are added. It is the howling of wolves coming from a far distant, dark forest. One that is barren of all human life.
‘GO!’ commands Faust, giving Jackser a push, sending him moving towards the black void. I watch as he gets sucked in with a smacking of air. Then he is floating away, fast getting carried towards a black space of nothingness. Then the screams erupt. ‘No! No, stop! The pain! Get away from me, Mother! No! I don’t want yer pain, Harry! For fuck’s sake, stop! Jesus! The whole lot of youse are after me! Why are ye’s givin me all your torments? Oh, Jesus, I can’t take it, somebody help me! The pain! The pain! Oh, Jesus, the pain of it. No! Oh, no! Don’t torture me. I’ll be good! Give me another chance! I swear te the lovin Jesus I won’t harm anyone ever again.’
The screams grew fainter as he went further into the great emptiness. I could barely hear his last cries of terror as he disappeared into the far distant, suffocating blackness. ‘I wasn’t all bad, please! Just let me rest,’ was his exhausted plea as it came faintly whispering back, an echo from the great deep beyond of all eternity.
Amen! I flicked my eyes open, feeling very satisfied with the thought that Jackser may soon meet his maker. Then I hope he suffers the hellish pains of all damnation, something like my imagination just fired up. Yes, that and more. The bastard damned himself to hell!
I sank deeper into the chair, looking around to see everyone had clapped out. I wonder where the ma is? I thought she’d be up here haunting his bedside, on the alert for further orders to do his bidding. But, no, not a sign. She must have slipped her noose and slinked off while Jackser was taking a snooze. Oh, that’s very daring, Ma! Just wait until Jackser wakes up and finds you missing! Tut, tut! I wouldn’t mind, but she’s normally very obedient. Oh, yes, I can still hear her now. ‘Jackser! I’m fuckin suffocatin here! When can I take me next breath?’
‘You’ll fuckin breathe when I tell ye te breathe, Missus, an not before! Do ye get tha?’ he snorts, strutting his stuff as he hikes up the trousers that are hanging at half-mast on his bandy legs.
Hmm, happy days. Maybe she’s back in the flat doing a tango, flapping with one of Jackser’s plastic flowers gripped between her teeth.
No, Martha, miracles do not happen, I thought sadly. The ma is long a beaten woman. Any life left in her by the time she met him was soon ripped out of her.
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ I sighed, feeling really fed up now. I looked around, seeing not a sign of life. Even Dickie is back in his bed, stone dead to the world, probably dreaming about his next smoke. I snorted out me breath, peeling the eyes on Jackser in frustration, wanting to play a game of cat and mouse.
‘Hey, Jackser! Are you awake?’
I waited – nothing.
I gave him a poke. ‘Jackser! Wake up! I want to talk to you!’
His eyes flew open, staring in shock. I leant in, studying him, wanting a good look at the face that drew so much terror I thought I would die young – very, very young – because he would kill me.
He stared back hard, letting the eyes narrow and the mouth curl into a snarl, knowing I was coming the hound with him, thinking I could get the better of him. I stared harder, letting a smile into me eyes, seeing his clear and a sudden look of fear creep in. I nodded slowly, letting the smile play on my lips.
‘You’re an old man now, Jackser; it comes to us all,’ I said, shaking my head sadly, looking tragic until a slow grin spread across my face, lighting it up with a malicious gleam.
‘This is your first time in hospital, isn’t it, Jackser?’ I said, waiting to hear his answer.
Not a muscle moved but the eyes changed, glittering into a rage, now looking more treacherous. My heart leapt! I’m getting somewhere; he’s forgetting himself again, thinks he’s the old Jackser.
‘Gawd, you must be really sick! Does that worry you? I mean, you were always afraid of that. Jesus! It could be serious,’ I said, shaking my head at him, looking very worried.
‘Fuck off,’ he growled, letting it come up from his belly. Then he turned his head away, breathing more heavily now, wanting and wishing he could tear me limb from limb.
I grinned, giving a big sigh of satisfaction. ‘That’s right, you get some sleep, Jackser, and don’t worry yourself. I’ll just sit here and pray you wake up again,’ I said softly, tapping his big leathery hand.
He shovelled air up through his nostrils, growling, ‘Whore’s melt, I’m warnin ye …’ Then he let go and sighed into the pillow, giving a little keen, wanting to cry.
I stayed quiet, just watching him, then a thought hit me. ‘The ma’s not here, Jackser! Do you think she could have left you? Maybe cleared off and gone to England? I mean, it’s very odd. There’s not one soul next or near to see whether you’re dead or alive. I’m the only one here bothered to come in and look after you. Jesus! You could be dying,’ I breathed. ‘You look like that to me. But do they care? This is bleedin shocking!’ I sniffed, leaning over him to get the message across. ‘What a pack of ungrateful swine that lot are!’
I waited, hearing his brain ticking, then he let out a big gasp, ‘Ye’re right! I’m bad …’
‘Oh, indeed you are!’ I interrupted. ‘You are looking very, very bad,’ I said slowly. ‘You may never get outa here, Jackser!’ I warned, lowering my voice to a whisper, putting the fear of God into him.
‘The curse a Jaysus on the lot a them,’ he moaned, lifting the head to look at me, with the mother of all sorrows crying in the voice.
‘Tsk, unbelievable. Not one of them here now to help you in your hour of need,’ I snorted, creasing me face nearly crying at the heartbreak of it all. ‘Jaysus, Jackser, you’re cursed! It looks like you may die alone,’ I said quietly, letting it sound final.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus, help me,’ he prayed, dropping his head on the pillow and closing his eyes.
‘Yeah, your worst nightmare come true,’ I muttered, gritting through me teeth in satisfaction.
Jackser dozed off and I pulled the chair in closer to the bed. I gave a big stretch, tryin
g to get the tiredness out of my bones. Jaysus, I’m banjacksed. This heat is sapping all the strength outa me. I’m ageing by the minute, I thought, looking around at my future. No, I won’t be like these unfortunates; I’ve looked ahead and planned for all that. Two things is all you need to beat old age. One is health. I might give that a miss but I can get meself one of them fancy souped-up wheelchair jobs – have wheels will fly. The other is money – just enough for independence so I don’t get bunged into a home. Too much and the kids might poison me to get at it. No, I intend to get away with murder when I hit old age, because the very old and the very young are not expected to have sense. No way will they get me to make up the numbers in a geriatric ward; they’ll be bleedin paying me to leave.
Shagging hell, I’m feeling knackered. This room would kill you. It’s like a hothouse. I leaned up, dragging the chair closer and dropped me elbows on the bed, resting my face in me hands. I closed my eyes then stopped breathing. What’s that smell?
I opened me eyes, landing them on Jackser’s thick woolly socks with the feet sticking out the side of the bed. Bleedin hell, that smell is inhuman! Then I thought of something. Never in all my born days since I knew him did he ever have a bath. No! It would be a shave, wash the neck and ears, then he was done. Washed for another week. That happened on dole day, when he went to collect his money for not working. I wonder did the ma ever do that? No, she very seldom went out. I was the gofer: go for this! Go for that!
Take a bath? Never! That was kamikaze! ‘You could get yer death a cold from sittin in one a them!’ he would say, shaking his head, not able to get over it.
The ma fed his madness. ‘Oh! Tha’s very true,’ she would agree, sounding haunted and hunted. Then she would repeat her story. ‘Sure, I knew a woman ye know, God rest her, she went te an early grave after bein put inta one a them aul baths,’ me ma would whisper, blessing herself.