Tales of Old Earth (10 page)

I put my hands on my hips. “Now, don't
you
start in on me! I was a porter on this train back when your mama was sucking tittie.”

Sugar seemed to swell up then, a great black mountain with two pinpricks of hellfire dancing in his eyes. “You watch what you say about my mother.”

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. But I didn't back down. “Just what you intending to do?” I shook my finger in his face. “You know the regs. If you so much as touch me, you're off the train. And they don't let you out in Manhattan, neither!”

“Can't say I much care.” He put those enormous hands on my shoulders. His voice was small and dreamy. “After this run, I don't much care whether I keep this job or not.”

All the while he spoke, those hands kept kneading my shoulders. He laid one huge thumb alongside my face and shoved my head to the side. I didn't much doubt he could crush my bones and snap my spine, if he wanted to. He was that strong. And I could see that he'd enjoy it.

“I ain't said nothing!” I was terrified. “I ain't said nothing about your mama.”

Sugar considered this for a long time, that sleepy little smile floating on his face. At last he said, “See that you don't.”

And he turned away.

I exhaled. I can't say I knew Sugar at all well. He was a recent addition to the crew; the conductor before him took to visiting the juke joints and gambling dens of Ginny Gall during stopovers and lost his precariously-held spiritual balance. But if ever anyone was meant to be a badman, it was Sugar. He was born just naturally brimming-over with anger. They say when the midwife slapped his bottom, the rage in his voice and the look on his face were so awful that straightaway she threw him down on the floor. He was born with a strangler's hands and a murderer's eyes. The rest of him, the size and bulk of him, just grew, so's to have a package big enough and mean enough to contain all the temper there inside.

And they also say that when the midwife lifted up her foot to crush Sugar to death, his mama rose up off of the bed and thrashed her within an inch of her life. She was one of those tiny little women too, but her love for her baby was that strong. She threw that midwife right out of the room and down the stairs, broken bones and all. Then she picked up Sugar and put him to her breast and cooed at him and sang to him until he fell asleep. That's the kind of blood flowed in Sugar's veins, the kind of stuff he was made from.

There was a sudden lurch and the train started to move again. Whatever was going down, it was too late to stop it now.

With Billy Bones and Sugar refusing to talk to me, there wasn't any chance none of the girls would either. They were all three union, and Billy was their shop steward. Me, I was union too, but in a different shop.

The only remaining possible source of information was Old Goat-foot. I headed back for the concession stand to fetch a bottle of rye. I had it in a paper bag under one arm and was passing through the sleeper cars when a door slid open and a long slim hand crooked a red-nailed finger.

I stepped into the compartment. A ginger-colored woman closed the door and slid between me and it. For an instant we just stood there looking at each other. At last she said, “Porter.”

“Yes'm?”

She smiled in a sly kind of way. “I want to show you something.” She unbuttoned her blouse, thrusting her chest forward. She was wearing one of those black lacy kinds of bras that squeeze the breasts together and up. It was something to behold.

“If you'll excuse me, ma'am,” I said uncomfortably. “I have to get back to work.”

“I got work for you right here,” she said, grabbing at me. I reached for the doorknob, but she was tugging at my jacket, trying to get it open. I grabbed her by the wrists, afraid of losing a button.

“Please, ma'am.” I was just about dying of embarrassment.

“Don't you please ma'am me, boy! You know I got what you want and we both know I ain't got long to use it.” She was rubbing herself against me and at the same time trying to shove my head down into her bosom. Somehow her brassiere had come undone and her breasts were slapping me in the face. It was awful. I was thrashing around, struggling to get free, and she was all over me.

Then I managed to slip out of her grip and straight-arm her so that she fell on her back onto the bunk. For a second she lay there looking rumpled and expectant.

I used that second to open the door and step out into the hall. Keeping a wary eye on the woman, I began to tug my uniform back into place.

When she realized I wasn't going to stay, her face twisted, and she spat out a nasty word.

“Cocksucker!”

It hurt. I'm not saying it didn't. But she was under a lot of pressure, and it wouldn't have been professional for me to let my feelings show. So I simply said, “Yes'm. That's so. But I'm sure there are plenty of men on board this train who would be extremely interested in what you got to offer. The dining room opens soon. You might take a stroll up that way and see what sort of gents are available.”

I slipped away.

Back when I died, men like me called ourselves “queers.” That's how long ago it was. And back then, if you were queer and had the misfortune to die, you were automatically damned. It was a mortal sin just being one of us, never mind that you didn't have any say in the matter. The Stonewall Riots changed all that. After them, if you'd lived a good life you qualified for the other place. There's still a lot of bitterness in certain circles of Hell over this, but what are you going to do? The Man in charge don't take complaints.

It was my misfortune to die several decades too early. I was beat to death in Athens, Georgia. A couple of cops caught me in the back seat of a late-model Rambler necking with a white boy name of Danny. I don't guess they actually meant to kill me. They just forgot to stop in time. That sort of thing went on a lot back then.

First thing I died, I was taken to this little room with two bored-looking angels. One of them sat hunched over a desk, scribbling on a whole heap of papers. “What's this one?” he asked without looking up.

The second angel was lounging against a filing cabinet. He had a kindly sort of face, very tired-looking, like he'd seen the worst humanity had to offer and knew he was going to keep on seeing it until the last trump. It was a genuine kindness, too, because out of all the things he could've called me, he said, “A kid with bad luck.”

The first angel glanced up and said, “Oh.” Then went back to his work.

“Have a seat, son,” the kindly angel said. “This will take a while.”

I obeyed. “What's going to become of me?” I asked.

“You're fucked,” the first angel muttered.

I looked to the other.

He colored a little. “That's it,” he said. “There just plain flat-out ain't no way you're going to beat this rap. You're a faggot and faggots go to Hell.” He kind of coughed into his hand then and said, “I'll tell you what, though. It's not official yet, but I happen to know that the two yahoos who rousted you are going to be passing through this office soon. Moon-shining incident.”

He pulled open a file drawer and took out a big fat folder overflowing with papers. “These are the Schedule C damnations in here. Boiling maggots, rains of molten lead, the whole lot. You look through them, pick out a couple of juicy ones. I'll see that your buddies get them.”

“Nossir,” I said. “I'd rather not.”

“Eh?” He pushed his specs down his nose and peered over them at me. “What's that?”

“If it's all the same to you, I don't want to do nothing to them.”

“Why, they're just two bull-neck crackers! Rednecks! White-trash peckerwoods!” He pointed the file at me. “They beat you to death for the fun of it!”

“I don't suppose they were exactly good men,” I said. “I reckon the world will be better off without them. But I don't bear them any malice. Maybe I can't find it in me to wish them well, and maybe I wasn't what you'd call a regular churchgoer. But I know that we're supposed to forgive our trespassers, to whatever degree our natures allow. And, well, I'd appreciate it if you didn't do any of those things to them.”

The second angel was staring at me in disbelief, and his expression wasn't at all kindly anymore. The first angel had stopped scribbling and was gawking at me too.

“Shit,” he said.

Three days they spent bickering over me.

I presented something of a political problem for those who decide these matters, because of course they couldn't just let me go Upstairs. It would have created a precedent.

The upshot of it was that I got a new job. They gave me a brass-button uniform and two weeks' training, and told me to keep out of trouble. And so far, I had.

Only now, I was beginning to think my lucky streak was over.

Old Goatfoot looked over his shoulder with a snarl when I entered the cab of the locomotive. Of all the crew only he had never been human. He was a devil from the git-go, or maybe an angel once if you believe Mister Milton. I pulled the bag off of the bottle of rye and let the wind whip it away, and his expression changed. He wrapped a clawed hand around the bottle and took a swig that made a good quarter of its contents disappear.

He let out this great rumbling sigh then, part howl and part belch, like no sound that had ever known a human throat. I shuddered, but it was just his way of showing satisfaction. In a burnt-out cinder of a voice, Old Goatfoot said, “Trouble's brewing.”

“That so?” I said cautiously.

“Always is.” He stared out across the wastelands. A band of centaurs, each one taller than a ten-story building, struggled through waist-high muck in the distance. Nasty stuff it was—smelled worse than the Fresh Kill landfill over to New Jersey. “This time, though.” He shook his head and said, “Ain't never seen nothing like it. All the buggers of Hell are out.”

He passed me back the bottle.

I passed my hand over the mouth, still hot from his lips, and took a gingerly little sip. Just to be companionable. “How come?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. They're looking for something, but fuck if I can make out what.”

Just then a leather-winged monster larger than a storm cloud lifted over the horizon. With a roar and a flapping sound like canvas in the wind, it was upon us. The creature was so huge that it covered half the sky, and it left a stench behind that I knew would linger for hours, even at the speeds we were going. “That's one ugly brute,” I remarked.

Old Goatfoot laughed scornfully and knocked back another third of the bottle. “You worried about a little thing like that?” He leaned his head out the window, closed one nostril with a finger, and shot a stream of snot into the night. “Shitfire, boy, I've seen Archangels flying over us.”

Now I was genuinely frightened. Because I had no doubt that whatever the powers that be were looking for, it was somewhere on our train. And this last meant that all of Heaven and Hell were arrayed against us. Now, you might think that Hell was worry enough for anybody, but consider this—they
lost
. Forget what folks say. The other side are mean mothers, and don't let nobody tell you different.

Old Goatfoot finished off the bottle and ate the glass. Then, keeping one hand on the throttle all the while, he unbuttoned his breeches, hauled out his ugly old thing, and began pissing into the firebox. There were two firemen standing barefoot in the burning coals, shoveling like madmen. They dropped their shovels and scrambled to catch as much of the spray as they could, clambering all over each other in their anxiousness for a respite, however partial, however brief, from their suffering. They were black as carbon and little blue flames burned in their hair. Old Goatfoot's piss sizzled and steamed where it hit the coals.

Damned souls though they were, I found it a distressing sight.

“Y'all have to excuse me,” I said uneasily. “They'll be opening the casino round about now. I got work to do.”

Old Goatfoot farted. “Eat shit and die,” he said genially.

Back in the casino car, Billy Bones had set up his wheel, and folks that on an ordinary day gambled like there was no tomorrow had pulled out all the stops. They were whooping and laughing, talking that big talk, and slapping down paper money by the fistful. Nobody cared that it was a crooked game. It was their last chance to show a little style.

Billy Bones was in his element, his skull-face grinning with avarice. He spun the wheel with one hand and rested the other on the haunch of a honey in smoke-grey stockings and a skirt so short you could see all the way to Cincinnati. She had one hand on Billy's shoulder and a martini and a clove cigarette both in the other, and you could see she was game for anything he might happen to have in mind. But so far as Billy was concerned, she was just a prop, a flash bit of glamour to help keep the money rolling in.

LaBelle, Afreya, and Sally breezed by with their trays of cigarettes, heroin, and
hors d'oeuvres
. They were all good girls, and how they got here was—well, I guess we all know how good girls get in trouble. They fall for the wrong man. They wore white gloves and their uniforms were tight-cut but austere, for they none of them were exactly eager to be confused with the damned. Sally gave me a bit of a smile, sympathetic but guarded.

We had some good musicians died for this trip, and they were putting in some hot licks. Maybe they sensed that with the caliber of competition Down Below, they were going to be a long time between gigs. But they sure were cooking.

Everybody was having a high old time.

This was the jolly part of the trip, and normally I enjoyed it. Not today.

Sugar stood by the rear door, surrounded by a bevy of the finest honeys imaginable. This was nothing new. It was always a sight how they flocked to him on the southbound platform at Grand Central Station, elegantly dressed women who weren't even dead yet, rolling their eyes and wriggling their behinds something outrageous. Sooner or later one would ask, “You ever seen … him?” and then, when he squinted at her like he couldn't quite make out what she was getting at, “You know—Lucifer? The Devil.”