Robert Butler - Hell

Hatcher looks back in time to see the furrow of puzzlement pass over Cheney’s face.

“Literally,” Beelzebub says. “She’s a succubus.”

Cheney still doesn’t get it.

“She’s off now back to the mortal realm to fuck the new prime minister of France. In the middle of his dreams, you see.”

Cheney shrugs.

Hatcher says, “Perhaps the former vice president will do a ‘Why Do You Think You’re Here?’ interview.”

Beelzebub says, “Hatcher’s got the nose for news, doesn’t he? What do you say, Dick?”

Cheney shuffles his feet. “I have no comment on that, really. I had other priorities in life.” His face goes more or less blank, and he waits.

Beelzebub glances at Hatcher and winks. Then he says, “Well, Dick, thanks for stopping by. Go on out in the street now.”

Cheney nods and without another word or gesture slides past Hatcher and through the office door.

“So, my boy,” Beelzebub says. “Congratulations.”

It’s official. Hatcher takes a deep breath. “Thanks.”

“I see your minionhood has emboldened you to come by the office.” Beelzebub waits one beat and then another, clearly to make Hatcher worry about his attitude toward this.

Hatcher is exhilarated to realize that he doesn’t give a fuck. He keeps his face placid.

“I’m glad,” Beelzebub finally says. “What’s up?”

“I was interested in my encounter with J. Edgar Hoover.”

“Ah yes. He has his ways, doesn’t he?”

“Yes he does. I’d like to do a ‘Why Do You Think You’re Here?’ interview with him. In his office.”

Beelzebub takes this in, and his face begins to vibrate ever so slightly. His eyebrows are great, flaring arcs of needle-rigid hairs, and the right one lifts high while the left one sinks low. He leans toward Hatcher and cocks his head as if he’s reading Hatcher’s deepest thoughts.

Hatcher knows better. He cocks his own head now, lifting his own right brow and lowering his own left brow. He leans toward Beelzebub, splitting the slight remaining distance between them. After a long moment of silence between the two faces, Hatcher says, “Hoover and his earthly power are known to a great many of the denizens. Imagine how all-powerful it will make our Big Boss look for everyone in Hell to see Hoover whimpering around trying to understand his eternal damnation. On his own administrative turf.”

Beelzebub’s eyes widen. Both eyebrows pop up together as high as they will go. He pulls back a bit. “Dude,” he says. “You surprise me. Not surprise, of course. Delight. I am just delighted to see how you are coming along. The surprise I refer to is that your pansy-ass world is capable of now and then sending along someone with something on the ball.”

Hatcher returns his own eyebrows to their default position and he smiles an aw-shucks smile. “Thanks,” he says, thinking, If any office in Hell keeps track of where everyone is, it’s got to be Hoover’s.

Shortly thereafter, Hatcher sits down in the recording studio and finds a script waiting for him. Beyond the glass window, Dan Rather is fidgeting in work overalls and a Lone Star Feed & Fertilizer ball cap, trying to figure out the mixing board before him. The former CBS anchor has been around Broadcast Central for a while, but Hatcher hasn’t known where he’s been working, exactly, and when he’s seen him in the halls, Hatcher can never approach him. Rather is clearly banished from the air, and whenever anyone seems to be approaching him, he backs frantically away, crying, “I don’t know the frequency!” With the glass partition between him and Hatcher, however, he stays put but fumbles around at the knobs and sliders on the board.

Hatcher looks at the script. It’s for the Satan interview. There is a brief introduction — the segment isn’t even called an interview here — and there is the final “Satan wept.” Hatcher is simply to record his voice and the piece will be assembled, with someone else no doubt stepping in technically after Rather has suffered long enough.

Hatcher puts his headphones on. Rather notices this and reaches to remove his cap. He instantly starts wrenching mightily at it — he’s tried unsuccessfully to do this before — but the cap won’t budge. Finally, Rather puts his headset on over the cap, leans forward, and presses the talk button. “Courage,” Rather says.

Hatcher doesn’t quite know what he means by this, never did quite know when Rather occasionally used it to sign off from his evening news.

Rather’s hands are fluttering and hesitating and fluttering again over the mixing board. He says, with his best West Texas twang, “Me and this job are like a hen trying to hatch a cactus,” though the remark seems not to be directed outward.

“Dan,” Hatcher says.

Rather looks up.

“Good to catch up with you,” Hatcher says. He’s not sure Rather recognizes him, though they spent years vying for the same viewers.

“I’m Hatcher McCord.”

“I know who you are.”

They look at each other through the glass for a long moment. “Can I ask you a question, Dan?”

Rather nods, but he instantly asks his own question. “Are we all here?”

“We?”

“The newsmen. In Hell.”

“I haven’t seen everybody.”

“Murrow?”

This is a sad thing for Hatcher. “So they say. When I asked about him, Beelzebub said he was smoking.”

“Why don’t I think this has to do with Ed’s cigarettes?”

Hatcher nods at Rather with his face scrunched to say, I know what you mean.

Rather thinks for a moment and then says, “You know, there wasn’t a single person on earth who didn’t have millions of other people expecting them to go to Hell.”

Hatcher hasn’t thought of it this way. “You’re right,” he says.

“Courage,” Rather says.

“Courage,” Hatcher says. This was the question he had for Rather, about this word. Oddly now, it feels apt.

“I think I can start this thing up,” Rather says.

Hatcher picks up his script. “All right.”

Rather nods and Hatcher begins to read, “When I visited your great Father, the Supreme Ruler of Eternity, in his comfy cozy… ”

Hatcher stops. “Let me start again,” Hatcher says into the microphone.

Rather’s hands move to the board, and he says, “Whenever you’re ready.” Hatcher looks at the words before him. Until a short time ago, whenever they gave him something to say, he’d read it out as is. He dared do nothing else. But all of a sudden, with this typically overwrought script before him plumping up Satan — like so many that Hatcher’s done before — he can barely make his mouth shape itself around the words. He knows it’s because he feels his thoughts are his own. This is a serious danger, he realizes. Breathe free and get burned. He still can’t make his publicly verifiable deeds his own. He still dare not change a thing in his work. He topples his head forward in this recognition. Then he lifts his face once more, takes a deep breath, and looks Rather in the eyes.

“Hatcher McCord take two,” Rather says.

And Hatcher starts over. “When I visited your great Father, the Supreme Ruler of Eternity, in his comfy cozy living room, he greeted me with a hug, so typical of his magnanimity.”

The script asks him to pause. He does. Then he reads, “Not that he didn’t charmingly remind me who was the boss.”

Another pause. “Then he spoke with passionate eloquence.”

Another pause, and now the big climax. Hatcher summons his will, unctions-up his voice, and says, “Satan wept.”

He stops. He looks through the glass, and Dan Rather gives him the thumbs-up. Then Dan looks sharply down at his mixing board with acute concern. “Whoa Nellie,” he says. “It’s doing something.”