Robert Butler - Hell

“Pee-kow. Pee-kow.” Satan is still shooting his invisible rifle. His bullets apparently are ricocheting. And then he abruptly stops and falls back into his overstuffed chair, the fire behind him flaring up, the flames rushing out of the fireplace to lollop over Satan’s head for a moment and then recede. “I feel so much better after that,” Satan says. He leans toward Hatcher, narrowing his eyes at him, smiling faintly, and he wiggles his eyebrows. “We all have so much satisfying fun inside our heads, don’t we.”

By Hatcher’s deepest reflexive assumptions, this should reinforce his conviction that Satan is hearing every thought. But it doesn’t. To his surprise. On the contrary.

This new impression is oddly reinforced by Satan now saying, “You don’t want me to say ‘shoot’ again, do you? You know how I can go on.” Hatcher does indeed know how the Old Man can go on. But his throwing it in now suddenly seems like a shrewd guess at Hatcher’s thoughts, the kind of thing a self-conscious manipulator can use to feign insight, or an immortal ruler to feign omniscience.

But Hatcher doesn’t have the luxury of considering this further at the moment. Satan does have his powers. He waves his hand and the jumpsuit begins to burn and itch.

So Hatcher begins. “Why you?” he asks. “Why this job? We all want to know about ourselves, but let’s start with you. Why are you here?” As soon as he asks the question, the jumpsuit stops burning and itching and, in fact, even stops troubling his mind, which, however, troubles his mind.

“I’ve got father issues,” Satan says. “Oh boo hoo. Oh boo fucking hoo, you say. You’ve got your own father issues. Everybody down here has father issues. Yes. It’s true. And mother issues. Boy, don’t even ask me about that. Think of me and women. Talk about an absent mother. Think of poor me. But think of poor you. All of you. Parents. Holy shit. What a mess. It’s what makes us all down here one big modern extended family. We have to help each other. Give me a hug. Huggiehuggiehuggie.”

And Satan jumps up and throws his arms open wide.

Hatcher knows he has no choice in the matter. He stands and as soon as he’s on his feet, Satan is upon him, holding him, pounding in a manly way on his back with both hands, bussing him on both cheeks. To Hatcher’s surprise, none of this is physically painful. It’s just the lumpy awkward thereness of a drunken-party farewell. Satan continues to pound and buss and Hatcher doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Do you hug Satan? What could it hurt now? Your fate is already sealed. Hatcher lifts his arms and puts them around Satan and gives the Old Man a couple of light pats on the back.

Instantly Satan stops. He says, “Good. There. Doesn’t that feel better? I’m okay, you’re okay. It’s all about family values.” And Satan throws himself back down into his chair. Hatcher sits.

“Next question,” Satan says.

“Can I ask you to talk a little more about your father, how that went wrong?”

Satan rolls his head and digs a knuckle into the corner of an eye. “It always goes wrong, doesn’t it? Somehow? It’s just some sons deal with it more indirectly, more hypocritically, if you will, though far be it from me to criticize. You mortals have to play your little games. But me and my dad. I was his Lucifer. I was young and beautiful. He made his face to shine upon me. He made my face to shine. Yes. He made me the man I am today. He made it all, don’t forget. I just do his dirty work. See, he doesn’t have an editor in his brain. Things pop out and he makes things go in a certain way and then the next moment he steps back and goes whatthefuck. When that happens, he can blame it on me. Sometimes he goes whatthefuck and then a moment later he just goes wellfuckit and takes the credit for it. Same kind of shit, either way. He and I talk all the time. ‘Here, you want the credit for this one?’ he says. ‘Nah,’ I say. ‘Not that.’ ‘Really,’ he says, ‘this one’s yours.’ ‘Okay okay,’ I say. But I don’t have any choice. What kind of relationship is that? When it comes down to it, he can do no wrong and I can never do anything right. Fucking shit happens in the world, but if he does it, fine. That’s Dad’s holy fucking will. If I do it, then it’s, ‘I’m so disappointed in you.’ Fuck that. Next question.”

Hatcher’s philosophy of smart interviewing employs a process he thinks of as reincorporation. Get some things on the record in one realm and then reincorporate them when you get to the questions about a different but inconspicuously related realm, the latter being what you’re more interested in. So Hatcher’s instinct now is to press Satan on his own reasons for being in Hell. He says, “But things did change between you. Was there some event…”

Satan waves his hand to stop Hatcher from completing the question. Hatcher clenches in anticipation of some sort of serious pain. Punishment for presuming to press the Prince of Darkness himself for personal information. Go ahead, Old Man . Hatcher waits. Satan hesitates. Then, on a dangerous impulse fed by a number of little clues — Satan’s mistaking him for a hunter being the most recent — Hatcher’s inner voice goes on. Don’t you hear me, motherfucker? Give me your best shot. Bring it on.

But Satan begins to answer Hatcher’s question. “So we were sitting around the dinner table, and he’s going, ‘The whole meat thing, the burnt offering thing, the cut-the-throat-this-way and the drain-the-blood-that-way thing, I’ve had a bellyful of that.’”

Satan himself is working one realm to get at another, and it would be wise for Hatcher to listen carefully if he wants real answers, but instead, he’s got a new line of inquiry shaping up and he’s testing it some more. He keeps his face earnestly fixed on Satan raving on, but mostly focused on his own inner voice, which keeps trash talking. You can hear me, Old Scratch. Old Scratch-your-crotch. Old Scratch-up-your-butt. Blow my head off. Toss me in that fire behind you. I dare you.

But Satan raves some more. “So I go, ‘Eat, old man. Eat your meat. Yum.’ And he goes, ‘Maybe all this sacrifice shit has got to stop.’ And I go, ‘You’re just saying every dumbshit thing that comes into your infinite fucking mind. And since it’s infinite, there’s going to be some major dumbshit things that come up.’”

Go ahead and fix my ass good for these fuck-you thoughts I’m having. Do something to show me what an immortal omnipotent omniscient bad-ass you are.

“And of course it wasn’t too long before the old man came back around. Kill the other guy. Kill yourselves. Kill anything that moves. That’s the way to please You-know-who and get to You-know-what.”

Whoa. You can’t hear me.

“But it was too late for him and me.”

We all assume you know what we’re thinking.

“He realized I saw through him and he didn’t like it.”

But you don’t.

Satan suddenly leaps up from his chair. His face flushes as red as the throat blood of a bullock before a tabernacle.

Hatcher gasps and recoils. I’m wrong. Now it comes. The worst thing ever.

But Satan simply cries, “I did it in defense of the double cheeseburger! Those cows died for you!” And he throws himself back into his chair. His face turns white. “Next question.”

Hatcher is panting. This is a dangerous moment, he knows.

Satan sees the state Hatcher is in. He cocks his head at him, and again Hatcher fears he’s been wrong.

But Satan says, “Yes. Exciting. It’s all very exciting. Ray Kroc’s in the kitchen even as we speak. Cooking up a firestorm of Big Macs. Calm down now and ask me the next fucking question.”