Стивен Бойетт - Mortality Bridge

The demon exchanges a look. “I suppose you’d like to be put right behind Frances here.”

“Franz.”

““Whatever.””

“No, I’m going to the Battlements, and I’d—”

“The Battlements. Tourist boy wants to go to the Battlements.”

“And him without a camera.”

“Why you want down there, organ bucket?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Old story too from what I hear.”

“Guess we shouldn’t ask him to play us a song.”

“Maybe if it’s depressing.”

“Know any depressing songs, bloodbag?”

“A shitload.”

“Shitload he says. Can you play and walk at the same time, wormfood?”

“Yeah.”

“Then here’s the deal—”

“Watch it, there, hermano. Spoken deals with these things are binding as gravity.”

“What, you think I’m an amateur?”

“Just covering our ass.”

“The deal is, you play us some seriously depressing music and you can tag along. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Play anything happy or bouncy—”

“—or even a little bit uplifting—”

“—so much as one single note that doesn’t make me want to open a vein—”

“—and I’ll make you eat your own heart—”

“—with a side of fries.”

“Deal?”

“Deal.”

“My, he didn’t even hesitate.”

“Sure of himself, isn’t he?”

“Come on then maggot chow, it’s troubadour time.”

“There’s just one thing,” says Niko.

“A catch.”

“Always is with monkey spawn. What is it?”

“I can’t play my guitar and carry the case at the same time.”

“Well don’t look at me.”

“Or me.”

“I will be happy to carry your case, sir,” Franz says, “if it will allow us to proceed on our way.”

“Impatient all of a sudden, isn’t he?”

“Well his end’s in sight.”

The demon cackles in unison.

Niko opens the case and removes Dobro, slide, pick, and shoulder strap. He holds the case out to Franz and says Thank you.

“It is my pleasure.”

They walk side by side, the demon bringing up the rear. Niko tunes the Dobro. Franz’s intense and birdlike gaze flicks everywhere as Niko begins to play long upbending chords.

“I am familiar with the decadent American jazz,” says Franz after a few minutes. “But this is different I think.”

“It’s called blues,” says Niko.

“Ah. The rural music of the oppressed American Negro. I am hearing of it but have not heard it myself.”

“Then shut up, Fats—”

“—and you might hear some now.”

“Franz.”

““Whatever.””

Franz stumbles as he’s prodded from behind.

Niko plays. Not thinking about it much, not even worried about the demon’s threats. If he doesn’t know how to play music without a note of happiness, he’s never played a note at all.

Niko is reluctant to strike up a conversation with the naked soul beside him. Whatever hope the man holds for reaching the front of the Ouroboros line, he is doomed to an eternity of suffering and deprivation and to get to know him will only lead to helpless pity and frustration at the man’s suffering. Yet that reluctance also bothers him. As below so above, is that it, buddy pal? Mitigate your pain by backing off from feeling altogether. What kind of life is that? We all lose friends and relatives and lovers. Everything goes away. People die. Those two words encompass all the tragedy of the living world. At the core of life there lies a coiled waiting horror that is death. Niko’s always felt it slumbering there. All his life he’s drowned it drugged it lulled it with his music. And looking back now understands he saw it wake a little bit with every cigarette or shot or measured spoon or needleprick, felt it tremble closer with each shuddering climax, heard its lungless breath in every anguished note he ever played.

He mutes the guitar strings.

“Boy howdy. That was—”

“—depressing.”

“Play another one.”

Niko snorts. “You guys are gluttons for punishment.”

“Shit. Have you seen the gluttons yet, meat pie?”

“If he’s going over the Ledge he will.”

“Over the Ledge?” Niko drops back even with the demons.

“Now now,” Dexter says. “You’ll find out about the Ledge soon enough. We have a little wager on you—”

“—and we don’t want to influence the outcome,” Sinister finishes. Dexter yawns as Sinister talks and Sinister absently sticks his finger in his brother’s gaping fanged mouth. Dexter stops midyawn and snaps at the finger and narrowly misses biting it clean off.

The demon prods Niko and Franz and resumes walking beside the line, which has also started shuffling forward again. “You.” Dexter prongs Niko with the trident. “You want to know who’s being punished for what. What do you think these people are guilty of?”

Niko glances at Franz.

“It is all right,” says the softspoken Czech. “I am curious if their assessment of my, my sins agrees with my own.” A hint of amusement in the large brown eyes.

“From what I’ve gathered,” Niko says, “I’d say these people were bureaucrats.”

Dexter grins and even Sinister looks pleased. “Hand the man a Kewpie doll,” says Dexter. “But bureaucracy ain’t no sin. So why are they being punished?”

Niko frowns. He thinks about the protocol of lines and forms, Franz’s eagerness to comply and to assure the demons that he knows the system.

“Maybe they liked making people comply with procedure even when there was a shortcut. Or maybe they liked using the system to thwart people.”

Dexter nods. “Now that’s a complicated sin. On the one hand it’s a kind of tyranny, because they’re wielding power unjustly. On the other hand it’s irresponsibility, because a bureaucrat uses dogma to avoid using his will to decide.”

“Irresponsibility is a sin?” says Niko.

Franz surprises them all by saying, “To consciously refuse to exercise free will by hiding it within a bureaucratic system is to demean the very quality that renders Man special in the eyes of his creator.”

“Or so the dogma goes,” says Sinister.

“So you’re punishing them forever for being weakwilled?”

“For squandering. If a lion doesn’t use its teeth it gets punished by starving to death.”

“Look at your own name for yourselves—”

“—homo sapiens—”

“—thinking man—”

“—and then look at these fine examples—”

“—oxymorons if ever there breathed any—”

“—human beings who relegated their forebrains to a handbook.”

“I believe I begin to understand,” says Franz.

“You only think you do, Hans old buddy,” says Sinister. “Franz.”

“Whatever. You haven’t been punished as a hypocrite yet.”

“I am to be punished as a hypocrite?” Now Franz looks genuinely fearful.

“You’re telling tales out of school,” Dexter tells his brother. Sinister shrugs. “I yield to your greater experience.”

“Stick around, kid, and I’ll tell you about when they invented rocks.”

Dexter’s quip prompts Niko to ask where demons come from. Dexter smiles toothily. “You ever own a cat?”

“I’m a dog person. Mostly.”

“I have owned a cat,” says Franz.

“It ever die?”

“Yes.” Franz raises an eyebrow. “Once.”

“Well then—”

“—it’s probably around here somewhere.” The demon waves to indicate the corrupt vast cavern around them.

“I don’t get it.”

“Music boy don’t get it,” says Dexter.

“Insurance boy do.”

“Tell him, insurance boy.”

Franz indicates the demon before them. “They are the souls of cats.”