Chapter 19
"Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart."
― William Shakespeare
"So then, which religion was true?" Mary asked, with a gleam in her eye. She looked between Bryan and Persiphus. "Which God forsaken troth? I've seen mine share of death and suffering at the hands of the religious. I see no difference betwixt those folk hither in Hell; we all suffer the same."
Mary found herself with little to do as Vagabones helper now that things had settled down. There was no one to turn into a mouse. So she had begun frequenting Cat's many restaurants and coffee shops and feasting on gossip. People were endlessly fascinating.
This restaurant was decorated like a 500 BC roadhouse, with hewn wooden benches, complete with bark and splinters, and a rough hewn table. The floor was dirt, and there was little light inside. The door was missing, but it mattered not at all since the weather was permanently good in Asphedolus.
The restaurant was a favorite of Persiphus, who came from that era. He and Bryan had become good friends.
Bryan poured himself another beer from the tap and sat down. "All religions claim to be the only one."
Persiphus spit his beer across the table and choked. "I saw the Buddha. I fought for his father. He is the one who showed us the path away from suffering."
"And yet, hither thou art," Mary said with a wink and a laugh.
Persiphus laughed and gave her a friendly slap. "I can't be bothered with trivialities," Persiphus said with a mischievous smile. "I fall to temptation like any soldier who kills with little conscience, and frequents the house of the rising sun. The fortunes are stacked against me. Maybe next time." He toasted and then drank heartily from his tankard.
"Next time?" Bryan said skeptically. "There is no next time."
"And yet, hither I am." Persiphus mocked. "Is this not second chance enough for you?"
Bryan smiled, then looked away wistfully. "I should have set my sites on being like some religious sage. Then I wouldn't be here."
"Ha!" Mary barked.
"I think maybe I will do that. This is my second chance. I'm going to set that as my goal. Maybe I'll get to Heaven." Bryan rose and left.
Persiphus, with a smirk, watched him leave. Mary said to him, "I suppose thou art going to becometh a monk and followeth Buddha?"
"Twenty-five hundred years and counting, and I've not made a speck of progress, except I've quit killing people... mostly."
"Well, thou can't killeth anyone hither."
Persiphus laughed. "Not one speck of progress." He rose to leave, then turned to Mary. "Maybe I should look up the Buddha's followers and see if I can put myself right."
"A good wish upon you with that. Just as long as thou don't cometh back hither to punish me."
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Interesting things were happening. Mary had to spread the news. She found Cat at one of her coffee shops, this one decked out to look like a 1980s disco, with disco music playing in the background. Cat fancied disco. She danced to it as well, pointing a knife alternately at some distant star, then across her body and down at the floor. The dance floor was all hers.
When Mary spotted Cat showing a young and very tall woman, Cary, how to set a table, Mary rushed in and sat on a stool. "Doth thou knoweth what those crazy larks, Persiphus and Bryan art doing?"
"Of course not! Not psychic, thou knoweth."
Mary giggled gleefully. "Those gents hath decided to 'get religion.'"
Cat pointed a table knife at her. Cary dropped to the floor and crept under a table. "And so thou spared us sufferin' and turned those gents into mice? Aye?"
Mary whooped with delight and slapped her knee. Cat continued to frown. "Whither is the mirth in that, pray telleth me?"
"Oh, lighten up, Cat, this is hilarious," Mary replied in the fashion of the day.
"Right. I has't fond memories, thee knoweth. I wast e're laughing as one of those sweating, stinking, clergy swine layin' on top of me, didst his business. Can't thee see, I beest still smiling." If death had a face, it was the look on Cat's face.
"Thou knoweth I wast hanged for being a witch, by the churlish religious. But these two gents art harmless and wilt amuse us."
Cat snorted. "Tryeth all those lads wanteth but they wilt knock at the pearly gate, and St. Peter wilt not answer, and this shalt passeth."
Victor entered, hesitated when he spotted Cary, and then went to a table near her. Cat saw him looking at Cary. Cary was trembling at the sight. Cat gave her a go ahead nod.
Cary approached Victor's table. "What would you have, good sir?"
"Most peaches here are spoiled by rot. Yet you are unblemished."
Cary looked horrified and ran into another room. Victor looked away.
Cat went to Victor. "What would thee like, big lad?"
Victor's face was full of loneliness. "Pie and coffee." Cat patted him on the shoulder, then let her hand linger comfortingly as she walked away.
Mary was touched. "She's new. Giveth t time."
Victor slunk further into his chair, his face contorted as if someone punched him. "I put on clothes, so I'm not naked, but no one wants a 12 feet giant. I'm just a freak."
"Maybe thou should worketh for Cat serving tables. People wilt findeth thee acceptable. Fondness carryeth no burden."
"They will refuse being served by me! It's useless!" Victor jumped up and rushed out of the restaurant, nearly knocking over John, who was just entering. The big man ran into the street and collapsed in tears, stopping those walking who stood momentarily and stared, then moved on. This was Hell; nothing unusual here.
John started out to see Victor. Victor saw him coming, then jumped up and ran. At 12 feet tall, his stride quickly outpaced John, who let him go, and then, out of breath, returned to the restaurant to see what had set Victor off.
John sat down on a stool and looked from Mary to Cat to Cary. "What got into Victor?"
Cat giggled. "Yeah that lad tore from hither like he hadst a dragon in his cod piece, didn't he."
"What?"
"Poor sod! A hex on hine, compliments of Cary."
"What? Hine?" He looked to each. "That's my friend who just barreled out of here in tears, obviously in pain, and you're feeding me horse feathers in explanation. Please speak to me in words I understand!"
"I rejected him. I'm sorry. I was abused and big men frighten me." Cary bowed her head in shame and shrank away.
"Sorry to hear that. And thanks for explaining."
"That lad wilt heal," Cat said. "Men doth. 'Tis women carryeth a broken wing all their life."
"What in the world are you saying?!" John looked from Cat to Mary in exasperation.
"Men get over rejection. Women don't," Mary explained.
"Yes, they do. We all do."
"Perchance in thy world. In mine, women carryeth their scars close to their heart. If 't be true thee aren't married by 18, life is ov'r," Mary explained.
"Right. After that thee art still a serving wench, serving beer and sex," Cat added. "As I wast."
"Tis a man's world."
The frustration in John over not being able to solve problems, or even understand them, exploded. "No! It's not a man's world! This is Asphedolus. Johnstown. It's what we make it. This is getting so frustrating. You speak in languages others can't understand. You eat different food. You love fighting. You have ridiculous codes of right and wrong, like this "man's world" thing. You think it's OK for Victor to be hurt. Nothing is refined, you're backward! It's not right!"
Cat pouted. "I dragged this disco cafe right out of the 17th. Century, I did." She pointedly looked around at her handy work.
John sighed. He was berating someone who had worked very hard and made amazing adjustments. Cat was far from the person he met on the path who wouldn't let him pass without stabbing him. "OK, I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. But William has been driving me crazy with his pirate code of ethics. He and Cat would rather stab someone than tol
erate him."
Cat laughed. "That I would."
"Or turn him into a mouse," Mary added.
"You all dragged your language and cultures into Hell." John looked between the two. "I'm sorry, I'm getting carried away. I'm really worried about people finding their only answer is the Lake Of Fire, and I'm taking it out on you."
"No problem, John. If we thought our homeboy was disrespecting us, we would have just stabbed you," Cat replied, mimicking language from John's era.
John fell off his stool laughing. When he recovered, he said, "I needed that," then left.
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Jerry, like many demons before him, had discovered that the wall between the world of the living and the world of Asphedolus was not that difficult to pierce. People couldn't see him, and he had heard he could influence some of them, but he couldn't actually harm them. He tried to avoid them, and so far he had done so. He felt very uncomfortable in that world.
He loved farming, and a lot of farmers in the land of the living were lately missing farm equipment, animals, tools.... At first Jerry just took really old stuff. There was always a rusty old disc lying around, and an old 1960s tractor needing repair, stuck in some old barn.
His darkened decaying skin was perfect for night time raids, and night was perfect for digging them up. But repair parts were hard to get, and Johnstown was becoming littered with things that didn't work. He mostly gave them to the residents of Hell for goodwill... well, mostly to get rid of them, but he could kind of see the goodwill angle now that he had been in Johnstown for a while.
The residents of Johnstown didn't seem to mind doing all of the planting and harvesting by hand. In fact they enjoyed it. But Jerry had larger plans. What exactly, he didn't know, but he had discovered he loved farming and farming equipment. So $100,000.00 pieces of equipment were finding their way to Johnstown, and insurance, he figured, paid for it, so it was OK. His was the greater need. Well, could be a need. He was prepared.
One day he was driving his tractor, cultivating wheat for the bread and flour used for Johnstown, when he saw a man standing in the middle of the field. When his tractor was close, he shut it down and looked at the man.
"Do you need something?"
"What do you have? I have people who want things. I'm told you're the man to see."
Jerry knew immediately what kind of person this was. A trader who made a bundle, while using Jerry as the middle man who took all the risks. Jerry started his tractor and let off the clutch. As the tractor moved forward, the man ran in front of it. Jerry kept going. He didn't mind slicing and dicing this guy with his disc. When the man saw Jerry wasn't going to stop, he jumped out of the way and then jumped onto the yoke that attached the disc to the tractor, then pulled the lever to raise the disc. Jerry stopped. He was going to have to deal with this guy.
"What kind of things?"
"All kinds. You've seen motorcycles in Hell. And all kinds of other things. People want parts of their life back."
"Sucks to be them. I got nothing."
"Please."
"What do you get out of this?"
"Power. Just power. Nobody in Hell has money, but it's currency. And I can make it profitable for you, too.
"I got what I want right here. And right here, we give people something that helps them. Forgiveness. Self respect. A chance to either make themselves better or worse. This is the best I have ever had. Look, I can be thrown out of here, so I'm not screwing this up. Now go."
Jerry started his tractor again. The man jumped onto the hitch behind him, climbed up and sat on the wheel cover. Jerry kept the tractor running.
"You got yours. I can give you a lot more. Power."
"We have a code here. 'Do to others what you would have them do to you.' It works."
"That's just silly nonsense. You always break even. I say, ' Do to others before they do to you. That way you are always ahead of the game."
"No."
"What's it going to hurt? You go among the living, take a few things, give them to me, and nobody is hurt. You get power. I can get several slaves working your fields."
"Man, you have no idea how well this place works. We don't have slaves. We have people who love what they do."
The man snorted. "Do to others what you would have them do to you?! That's not the natural order of things. What about masochists? They only want pain. What about people who want to suffer for what they've done? You're just messing this place up with ideas like that. C'mon, you got some strange fetish you want to help others, help me out here."
"This place works! It really works! Now get off my tractor! How did you get in here anyway?"
"A friend got me in. This curtain thing only works if you want it to, as you probably already know."
"Get off my tractor!" Jerry pushed him away with his foot and pushed the throttle up, drowning the man out with engine noise. The man clung tenaciously to the wheel cover.
"Look," the man shouted. "If you see a baby doll, I know a little girl who wants one."
Jerry shouted back, "For what? To tear the arms and legs off. What is a little girl doing here?"
"She's... a young woman. She killed her abuser and then shot herself. She's... childish."
"I'm weeping crocodile tears for her. What are you going to get from her, sex?"
"No, she's my... friend. Just get the doll, OK?" He jumped off the tractor and as he walked away he shouted back, "I'll be back!"
"Bring the girl. We'll give her a life."
Liars Truth Page 19