Lawyers in Hell (45 page)

“For amusement.”

“Amusement?”

“Of course.  Anyone – excuse me, any being that runs an operation built around punishment and torture and pain and suffering must be some kind of sadist, don’t you think?”  Monty’s host gently clapped his hands together.  As the female slave filled his cup with coffee he asked Monty, “I trust that Mari has seen to your comfort.”

“Yes, indeed, sir.”  Monty held up his cup and took a sip.  The thick, dark liquid was strong and bitter.  After the food and drink offered in New Hell, however, he found it ambrosial.  He set the cup on the table and stared at it for a moment.  He shook his head, a wan smile on his lips.

“Is the coffee not to your liking?”

“It’s fine. Strong, but fine.”

“Then I fail to understand your facial expression.”

“Who are you?”  Monty looked up.  “What’s
really
going on here?”

“I doubt that my name would mean anything to you.”

Monty leaned back and crossed his arms.  “You’re probably right,” he replied.  “Religion was never the strongest part of my life, which probably explains why I’m in this mess.  Since I’ve been here I’ve been raped by an old woman whose pussy sprouted tongues covered in sores that felt like sandpaper.  Since then, every time I get hard, the pain is harsh.  Imps insulted me and took me places on elevators that only had one destination, yet delivered me to different places.  I found myself assigned to work as an ombudsman and legal advisor in a nursing home filled with former nursing home owners and caretakers.  My secretary is a succubus so provocative that I find myself with a perpetual erection and constant agony.  I’ve breathed air and fumes and gasses that would gag a maggot.  I’ve had drink that – on its best day – was flat and tasteless, although most times it had the flavor and consistency of industrial waste.  I eat the food because for some reason dead people need to eat down here.  Alive, I would have been afraid to dump it into the garbage for fear the EPA would hunt me down and throw me in jail.

“Suddenly, I find myself yanked out of my dreary office to a desert palace.  The air smells like perfume.  The hard-on I get from looking at this beautiful woman doesn’t cause me excruciating pain.  The coffee tastes like strong, bitter, wonderful coffee.  The fruits look fresh and smell enticing.

“So, I find myself waiting for the sound.”  Monty took a deep breath and let it out in a long, drawn-out sigh.  “I’m waiting for the thump of the missing shoe.  I’m tired of being someone else’s play-toy.  Who or what are you?  Why have you brought me here?  Is it to remind me of what I no longer have?  Just
how
much shit do I have to shovel for you and
where
do you want it dumped?”

His host’s black eyes glittered as he looked at Monty.  Despite the hand rubbing across his beardless chin and hiding his mouth, Monty could tell he was smiling.

“I realize this is hell,” Monty continued.  “It’s all part of the grand, celestial game to make me and other sinful mortals suffer.  I get it.  Can we dispense with all of this and let me get back to the hell I was already in?”

“In spite of all that was done to you, you still have the courage to demand respect.”  The man stood.  “You have the intestinal fortitude to look me in the eye and demand that I treat you as a man.”

Monty shrugged.  “What are you going to do to me?  Kill me?  Send me to hell?  Sorry.  Already dead.  Already there.  I’m not courageous.  I’m just tired.”

“I believe I have chosen well.”  The tall man spread his arms.  His body shifted and changed as Monty watched.  “You asked for the truth and you shall have it.  Behold!”

Marty swallowed, but the hard lump in his throat refused to budge.  The being in front of him could only exist in a nightmare.  The head rising above the silk shirt collar and smooth lapel was a lion’s – long, sharp teeth, rounded furry ears trimmed in black, tawny mane streaked with sable strands, and long, twitching whiskers.  Its thin black lips curled upward in a snarl.  Its nostrils flared and its gold-colored eyes with their vertical pupils sparked as it spoke.  Two pairs of wings sprouted from its back and twitched menacingly.  A scorpion-like tail curved back and up over the being’s head.  After his experience with the Welcome Woman upon his arrival, Monty really did not want to know what was squirming inside of the football-sized bulge at the being’s crotch.  He shuddered at the memory.

“I am called Pazuzu,” the being’s voice rumbled across the marble floor.  “In Babylon of old, I was worshipped and feared.  Believers filled my temple with gold and myrrh and silk and precious gems.”

Monty scrambled backward, his eyes never leaving the horror towering above him.  When the creature failed to pursue, he stopped.  The more he looked at the demon, the more familiar he seemed.

“I-I’ve seen you somewhere,” he stammered.  With the light behind its wings, it formed a haloed silhouette that was mildly frightening, but more and more something of memory rather than nightmare.  Suddenly, he had it. “A movie! 
The Exorcist
!  You were the demon that possessed that girl.”

Pazuzu seemed to shrink a little.  “Is that what I’ve come to?  A motion-picture monster? Is that how I’m remembered up there?”

“Don’t knock it.  It was a pretty scary movie when it came out back in the seventies.”

“Yes, well, that is the problem, I’m afraid.  Image and following.  Nothing’s been the same since Jehovah sent his rejects down to the fiery pits.”  Pazuzu began to pace as he spoke. “First we had all of that sulfur smell drifting into our little paradise.  Then, Jehovah sends his followers all over the deserts, pillaging Palestine, eliminating the Pharaoh’s troops.”

Pazuzu turned with a chuckle.  “I have to admit, though, that his trick with the Red Sea when he had it drown all those soldiers was classic.  How stupid were those officers?  Come on, even a Philistine could have seen it was a trap.  I mean, could it have been more obvious?”

Monty shook his head.  This was not how he expected the conversation to go after the creature changed form.

“When they came out of the desert, though, that’s when it all started going to hell – literally.  Sodom.  Gomorrah.  Jericho.  I don’t know what was going on in the desert all those years, but when they came out they started kicking some major ass.  Yeah, they had their setbacks, but for the most part they were unstoppable.  When they took on Babylon and Damascus, well…”  The demon stopped and shook his head.  He sighed.  “I guess we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves.  We just didn’t take them seriously.  And, we didn’t think Jehovah would intervene as often as he did.  The gods all thought there was some sort of unwritten code or something.  You know, I fight you, you try to kill me, but we leave the mortals out of it.

“Things kind of quieted down for a while.  Yahweh had Jerusalem and Canaan and all those countries down by the Jordan River.  Ra and his bunch had Egypt.  We had Persia.  There was a balance of power and everyone was happy.  Not Yahweh, though.  It should have been enough that he had hell and the area around the Sinai and the Eastern Mediterranean.  No,
he
had to have more.  He wasn’t going to be happy until he had it all.

“So along comes this carpenter.”  Pazuzu paused and looked directly at Monty.  “I ask you.  Who would take a carpenter and his band of hippies seriously?  Would you?  We certainly didn’t.”

“Is there a point to this story?”  Monty started to refill his coffee cup but Mari was quicker.  She materialized by the table and filled his cup.  She held a silver tray piled with fruits toward him.  He took a huge strawberry from the stack and leaned back.

“What?  Do you have somewhere to go?  Are you in a hurry to listen to Madame Greylocks’s whining?  If so, I’ll send you back.”

“No, no,” Monty responded quickly as smells and sights and sounds from the rest home flooded his memory.  “I’m not in any hurry.  I was just wondering where this history lesson was leading, that’s all.”

Pazuzu looked closely at him, eyes narrowed.  Finally, mollified, the demon continued his discourse.

“We did not take the carpenter seriously and that was our undoing.  How were we to know that his bloody death would create a sub sect of Yahweh worship that would grow until it swept around the world like a wildfire fanned by a Santa Ana wind?

“That was bad enough.  We felt it had somehow missed us.  None of our followers seemed interested, until another upstart god entered the contest.  His name was Allah and his champion was Mohammed.  Those who avoided the Christ banner leaped for the Prophet’s call to arms.”

Pazuzu sighed.  “And, here we sit, like a bunch of Kathy Griffins on a polytheistic D-list.”

“So, who is this
we
you say are on the D-list?”

Pazuzu waved dismissively.  “I doubt that you’ve heard of them.  No one cares about the old ones anymore.”

“Humor me, please.”

“Do the names Apsu, Marduk, Mummu, or Ba’al mean anything to you?”

“I’ve heard the names Marduk and Ba’al before.  Not the others.  As I recall, they weren’t all that nice.  Didn’t that last one require his followers to throw babies into his statue’s burning belly?”

“Propaganda.  Lies spread to demonize a culture being conquered.  So, you actually know nothing about them.”

“I guess I don’t.”

Pazuzu sighed.  “That’s exactly what I mean.  There was a time when the mere whisper of our names caused fear and anguish.  Nations trembled before us.”

“So, what does this all have to do with me?”  Monty sipped his coffee.  Despite Pazuzu’s protest, he was pretty sure about the baby issue.  When he set the cup back on the table Mari quickly refilled the cup.  She handed him another fist-sized strawberry.  “And, where do you get these magnificent strawberries?” 

Monty bit into the berry and allowed the sweet yet slightly tart juice to trickle down his throat.

“Well, to put it succinctly, we want to regain our position in the celestial hierarchy, and we want you to help us.”

Monty choked.  Once his coughing subsided and he wiped the tears from his eyes, he laughed.  “You’ve got to be kidding me.  How on earth – I mean, how in hell am I supposed to do what you, a demon, cannot?  Or will not.  I’m sorry but taking on His Satanic Majesty and his legions of demons is just a bit out of my league.”

Pazuzu tilted his head back and laughed, a sound not too dissimilar to a volcanic eruption.

“Take on Satan and his demons,” he said, still chuckling.  “What a concept.  What an ego.  Did you really think we would even consider such foolishness?”

“That’s what it was starting to sound like to me.”

“No, no, no, no, no, my friend.”  Pazuzu changed back to human form.  “I – we have nothing so dramatic in mind.

“We know that we have neither the power nor the numbers to take on Satan and his gang in a stand-up fight.  Even if we should try such a thing and find ourselves winning, Yahweh would step in and throw his angelic host into the fray.  No, my friend, a head-to-head conflict is a losing proposition.”  Pazuzu took a sip from his cup.

“We plan to take a page from Yahweh’s own book.  It will take a long time, but we have eternity in which to work.  We shall work from within.  An insurgency, if you will.  We will encourage some events already taking place, such as Che Guevara’s intermittent revolution.  And, we shall add to that some minor irritants – political itching powder, if you will – designed to weaken the belief that the status quo is invincible.  Stir the pot a little and add a dash of promise and voila!  Suddenly, the powers that be no longer exert the same control and New Hell becomes New Babylon.  No muss, no fuss, no god wars.”

Monty stared at Pazuzu for a long time.  “Do you really think that will work?” he finally asked.

Pazuzu shrugged.  “Why not? And, even if it doesn’t, so what?  If nothing else, it will relieve the tedium of eternity.  Think about it.  Do you want to spend forever listening to the same bitching and griping, day in and day out?  Eating the same tasteless food?  Drinking the same rancid water?  Wouldn’t it be nice to have the zing and zest of a secret mission to add a tang to your existence?”

Monty paced while he considered Pazuzu’s words, unmindful of the breach of protocol.  Finally, he turned to the being.  “So, what do I have to do?”

“Right now, nothing.  Watch and wait.  There will soon come a time when they pull you out of your current torment to have some fun with you.  They will probably put you into some kind of no-win scenario.  I don’t know what it will be, but I have faith that you will recognize it.

“When they do, go along with it.  Make them believe that you are trying your best, giving it your all.  In the meantime, look for your opportunity to turn it in a way that they didn’t expect.  They are bored bullies and they are not nearly as smart as they think they are.”  Pazuzu chuckled to himself.  “No, my friend, not nearly.  When the time comes, pull your switch.”

Monty shook his head, his doubts plain on his face.  “How could that possibly help you?”

“By itself, it won’t.  But, if you do it here, and someone else does it over there, and something happens in this alley, then the actions accrue and the image that the demons might not be all-powerful begins to spread.  As it spreads, their control weakens.  The more they try to fight it, the worse it gets.”

“So, what’s in it for me?”

“In the short run, probably nothing.  In the long run, maybe nothing still.”  Pazuzu winked.  “Then, again, maybe you’ll get another good cup of coffee.”

Suddenly, Monty was sitting behind his desk.  In his hand was an Infernal Action Request form.  Opposite him Mrs. Johanssen was staring at him, her expression uncertain.

“Well, I was hoping that you would take it up with whoever’s in charge of these things,” she finally said.  “You look like such a nice man.  They’re bound to listen to you.”

Monty took a deep breath and instantly regretted it.  The mixture of smells – rest home neglect coupled with the rotten egg stench of sulfur – was too much.  He barely turned over the trash can in time as his stomach violently ejected everything he’d eaten and drunk.  After several minutes of spasmodic upheaval, he was finally able to sit upright and wipe his lips with a coarse, brown tissue.