by Tim Marquitz
Removing a battered cassette player from his daypack, Stewart began loading C-batteries into the duct-taped back. Having dropped the portable radio one too many times, he’d broken the back hatch. The recorder still played, thanks to a healthy spread of silver duct tape.
Careful not to hit the record button, he pressed play until it caught with a noticeable click. A single speaker announced rain along with a distant ringing of church bell. Thunder crackled from the cassette-payer and Chief praised, “Hell yeah, Ozzy’s fuckin’ cool!” Toni Iommi’s distorted guitar pounded out power chords as Red-Feather nodded at the book, “Let’s do it.”
Stewart flipped open the book to a tab made with a bubble-gum wrapper. Clayton couldn’t read too well, so Junior orated, “Alright bro, repeat after me. I stand before the almighty Satan, my Lord, my God—”
From the single speaker of the little radio, Ozzy Osbourne darkly told the horror of witnessing the face of Lucifer, who in turn, pointed back at him. Clayton repeated after Stewart, “I renounce Jehovah, and his son Jesus, and the vile Holy Spirit—”
Ozzy cried with a wizened warning, Oh noooo! Please God help me!
Ignoring Ozzy’s haunting reprimand, the boys ended their invocation, “—I proclaim Lucifer as my one true god,” and simultaneously they bellowed, “ALL HAIL SATAN—Yeah!” Across the echoless desert, the shout absorbed like in a vacuum.
Smiling, Chief asked, “Should I light the pentagram now?”
Closing the black bible, Stewart said, “No, we need an offering of blood to seal this deal.”
“Blood?” Clayton’s zeal and courage tarnished with the thought of cutting himself with Stewart’s sharp knife.
“Hey, you want to see Mötley Crüe and Ratt, right?” All week, the rock station in Bullhead City had been offering tickets for the upcoming show in Laughlin. “There’s only one day left to win tickets, Satan’s favor costs blood. But don’t worry, pussy, I got you covered.”
From out of the backpack, Stewart withdrew the last item. Mew, sounded from within his cupped hands. He lowered his hands toward the nearest burning candle. A small ball of fluff, white with cream swirls looked up with innocent blue eyes and admitted once again, Mew.
“No way,” Clayton said. “Being Satanic is cool, but killing Lil’ Kitty isn’t.”
“Our lord wants blood; yours, mine, or this little guy’s.”
Mew, echoed a diminutive protest.
Stewart continued, “Cat Lady just had another litter, she won’t miss one runt kitten.” In the background, the cassette tape changed songs, this one leading with a mean bass solo from Geezer Butler. “If you want to see the Crüe, we’ve got no money—this is our price.”
Chief took a step back, “It’s your knife. Why do I have to do it?”
Junior sighed, “So far on this path, you’re my bitch. I read the rite, I brought the candles, the anointing mixture,” he waved the knife, “and the blade. Do you wanna be my whore in hell? You know that’s how it’s gonna be, so you better man up.”
“You tricked me, fucker. You’re the god-damned devil. Give me the cat.” Clayton took the blade with one hand, and received the kitten with his other. “How do I do this?”
“I don’t know. Just make sure all the blood gets in the pentagram.”
Clayton gritted his teeth and held the knife to the kitten’s chin. In a raspy imitation of a thug’s voice, “Should I cut its throat?” Mew, the kitten pleaded. He ran the sharp blade just off the kitty’s fluffy belly down to its little tail, “Or should I gut it for our Dark Lord?”
“Dude, quit fuck’n with me—just do it.”
So Clayton did it, and Lil’ Kitty’s blood went everywhere.
#
It is true; marijuana proved to be a gateway drug, at least for Clayton. Satan dropped the ball. They didn’t win their tickets for the rock show. Instead they went to a party in the desert. These parties happen every weekend, only this weekend, everyone pooled money for a keg of cheap beer.
That was the first night Chief tasted the bitterness of his Hopi blood, beginning an insatiable want for more, more…more.
A year later, Stewart graduated while Clayton ended high school with a failed GED. Stewart didn’t understand what was happening to his old friend as they drifted apart. Stewart still bought pot off Clayton’s mother, but they rarely ran together anymore. Chief had found king alcohol, a new best friend.
Unable to buy booze, Clayton made friends who were old enough to buy for him. The Chief couldn’t buy enough beer to satisfy his thirst, so he graduated to straight whiskey. This course eventually grew too expensive, so about a year after high school, Clayton chose a new path.
Speedy’s EZ Mart fell victim to Red-Feather and his drinking friends. They called it a booze-run; casually waltzing into the store, picking up a bottle in each hand, then bolt for the front doors. Once outside, a car waited with doors open and the engine idling. Tires chirped across the lot, spitting gravel at a dumb-founded clerk at the glass doors.
Clayton didn’t know the store manager took the loss out of the night clerk’s paycheck. This knowledge wouldn’t have changed Clayton’s behavior, but he might have felt a smidgeon of shame. The tenth time on a run, Chief grabbed a couple bottles and made it halfway to the glass doors before the shotgun came up.
Lord Satan collected one of his lost souls. The epitaph read, Clayton “Red-Feather’ Mitchel, Oct 18th, 1969 to June 5th, 1989.
Shortly after Chief’s burial, broken-hearted Stewart got arrested on felony mischievous mayhem charges in Bullhead City. Right in front of a security camera, he’d hurled a couple bricks through the windows of a different Speedy Mart. The State of Arizona demanded twenty months of Stewart Heldon’s life, a payment he served in prison.
Days after his release, Stewart Jr. left Needles. Hollywood needed extras—and extras become movie stars. All hail Satan.
#
Stewart stared through the scratched plastic window at the passing traffic, thinking, Here we are, 2009, the same day as yesterday, which will be no different from tomorrow.
The bus lurched forward again. Stewart didn’t understand why this bus always stopped where no one waited, opened its doors for thirty seconds, and then closed the doors before pushing back into traffic. Each way—both to and from work—easily forty minutes of his life burned for nothing. If not for all these needless stops, he’d be at work already. He’d ride twenty more minutes and then walk the last couple blocks to work.
Years ago, riding this damn bus from southeast L.A. to San Fernando Valley filled him with barely suppressible rage. As the years passed, his hatred matured to apathy. Apathy served better. Achieving total surrender to his failed life, hate wears too heavy on aging shoulders. Apathy, however, just doesn’t care. Almost twenty years had passed since Clayton died, as well as his youthful dreams. Fantasy was a luxury for richer souls.
He’d achieved what he’d left Needles to do. Stewart became a cast-call extra for an agency that sent disposable actors to several hot 1990’s shows. Shows like Mystery Savant, America’s Least Desired, Fear Control, and the ever popular child television hit, Micro-Rangers. Stewart had been an extra on each of those shows at least once.
He even reached the dream of becoming a paid actor…well, sort of. His big break had come in 1995 when cast for an episode of Fear Control as one of the contestants. However, the show had been falling in ratings, and suffered for commercial producers. Instead of high speed trapeze tricks, or jumping over burning cars with nitrous-injected motorbikes, Stewart was cast to eat bugs.
Worms, crickets and roaches—a real shit sandwich—but he needed the role, so he ate ‘em, and even managed to do it with a smile. The show’s ratings continued dropping, the program canceled mid-season, and Stewart’s professional audition tape showed him smiling with cricket legs protruding from creased lips.
That, was acting.
That path is ended.
Five mornings a week, Stewart took the bus from his roac
h-infested apartment complex; a landscape decorated with dying palm trees and forever-green water filling his community pool. From his “luxury apartment,’ it was an hour bus ride in each direction to the plastic injection molding plant in San Fernando. Stewart spent the last fourteen years as one of three-hundred employees to make plastic console buttons for GM’s cars. Sometimes his company made catheter tubes and colostomy bags. This was the variation of his life—making buttons to push and bags to fill with shit.
This was as good as it gets in sunny California for an ex-con who failed as an actor.
Wearing a powder-blue work shirt with his name sewn in red, Stewart looked at the muddled ink on his left arm. It was his only tattoo. He’d gotten it in prison. Blue-black ink announced the time smudged abbreviation—A.H.S—all hail Satan. Sarcastically, Stewart thought, Great, good ole Lucifer, what a bunch of shit. Stewart wondered if he should have stayed in Needles and dealt drugs like everyone else still trapped there.
The half-filled bus stopped again. This time someone stepped on. As the new arrival crossed the doors’ threshold, the air in the bus seemed to pop, like an airplane losing cabin pressure. Conscious of it or not, everyone looked up at the new passenger, Stewart included.
Wearing a black silk suit and looking very dapper, the new arrival wasn’t complete without a matching cloak with a soft fur lining. His feet walked in black shoes, wing-tipped and polished like mirrors. The man led with an ebon cane of polished yew. A ruby ring sparkled on his middle finger.
California has always been known for its heterogeneous culture and styles.
Stewart felt uncomfortable observing the most beautiful man he’d ever seen. Stewart wasn’t gay, not even in prison for an extra pack of smokes, but this man radiated beautiful divinity. His face, clean shaven and youthful, resembled chiseled alabaster, like a living sculpture created by Michelangelo.
The man gave a curt nod to the driver, who in turn closed the doors and began moving down the road. Only Stewart noticed the instruction, all the other passengers had already gone back to watching their empty lives roll past their windows.
Sitting across from Stewart, the silk suited man reached into an inside pocket, and withdrew two blue pieces of thick paper. “Ahem,” He cleared his throat. “These are for you.”
Stewart examined two tickets in the man’s hand. The man with slick black and greased back hair wouldn’t look at him. Not sure if he was being addressed, Stewart said, “Excuse me?”
The man in the black waggled the duo of tickets in the air. “Take them, they’re yours. Mötley Crüe, with special guest Ratt, playing at the Rivertown Casino, Laughlin,” he paused before adding, “That’s in Nevada.”
“What?” Stewart stared at the waving tickets. His face twisted like he’d licked a lemon, “How? Who…” He caught the bitter scent of brimstone and ash before managing to croak out, “No way, is it you?”
The well-dressed rider nodded, “Yep, it’s me. Sorry it took so long, but I always come through. Believe me, these were tricky to get.”
Feeling disoriented, Stewart dizzily stated, “It’s been nearly twenty-three years.”
“Hey now,” He tapped the steel capped cane upon the grated metal floor, “I’m the only one working this gig, alright? Everybody expects something from me, and you people seem to forget I’m a one man show.”
Stewart shook his head, “Wait, a legion of angels fell with you, what happened to all of them?”
Cold, vacuous eyes met Stewart and frosted his heart. “Imagine you convinced a third of your co-workers to overthrow your boss. As a reward for their allegiance, you promised them an equal slice of the pie. However, your takeover fails, and you and every co-worker who chose your side gets fired.” The ruby ring glistened as Satan added, “Do you think Belial and I have coffee together, now that we’ve been kicked out of Paradise?”
Stewart slowly shook his head, “I guess not.”
“I haven’t seen any of them since Yahweh threw us out. As far as they’re concerned, I might as well be wearing a scarlet letter.” Lucifer handed both tickets to Stewart, practically pushing them into his hand. “So here you go, thanks for the soul, now I’ve got to go, so please excuse me.” Satan stood up and stepped into the aisle.
“No way,” Stewart protested, “These tickets really are for the show in 1987, this is bullshit.”
“It is what you asked for.” Lucifer released a frustrated sigh, “Look, I have a spreadsheet. I diligently document every favor asked of me, I assign everyone a claim number and fulfill the debt as fast as angelically possible. I’m not omnipresent like Him. So here you go, my part in this is paid.”
“I trusted you as my God, and yet you pull this crap on me. I can’t believe this shit, man.”
Satan stopped mid-step on his way toward the back exit, and faced Stewart with his index finger raised, “I am not man.”
Stewart held the stare of the Hollow One, and eventually Lucifer nodded, “Okay, fine. You’re right, this is a shitty deal—even if it is what you asked for.” Darkly, Lucifer chuckled, “I’ve made good on most of my investments since I finally got Yeshua out of my hair. Hell…I’m lord of this world.” A grin spread like a game-show host as he said, “How about we start from scratch and make a new deal? What do you say?”
Stewart rubbed both tickets together between finger and thumb, “Are you serious?”
“Whatever you want, I’ll play—just fire away. Do you want a hot young woman to worship you? A better job? Maybe a million bucks?”
“Who needs a job when you’ve got a million bucks?” asked Stewart.
“Women flock to millionaires,” Lucifer rang the buzzer, letting the driver know the next stop was his.
Captivated, Stewart couldn’t believe this. His dark lord honored his bidding. After twenty-three long years of sucking shit, Stewart’s payday had finally come. Maybe a bit late, but all those years of worthless suffering were about to hit the jackpot. “Praise you, my Lord. Alright, what do I need to do to get one-million dollars?”
Lucifer nodded slowly, “Get off one exit before your normal stop. Turn right at the first alleyway and you will find a pistol on the ground. All you need to do is pick it up, take it to your work, and throw it in one of the industrial dumpsters behind your workplace. As a result of this favor to me, there will be two other people who owe me big favors—see how this works? It is like a pyramid scheme, but everyone wins.” As the bus eased to a stop and the hydraulic doors decompressed, Satan promised, “After the gun’s been handled, I’ll find you and we’ll hammer out the details.”
Before Stewart stated how this would make him late for work, the devil stepped off the bus and vanished as fast as he’d appeared. Everything continued on the bus as if it was Monday morning.
It was Monday morning.
Long faces marked the other downtrodden passengers, but Stewart felt fear, and a lifetime of failures pushing up from within. The dreaded internal dialogue voiced—what if the gun isn’t there?
If he arrived late for work, his asshole foreman would climb all over him. He might even get written up for tardiness. He’d be one step closer to being fired, and those jerk-off white-collars in upper management loved firing ex-cons. In all truth, making colostomy bags wasn’t the shittiest job out there, and he knew this from experience.
Lowering his head, he gazed at the two tickets in his hand. Irrefutable proof of what had just transpired. He nodded with certainty, the gun’ll be there. Stewart stood from his seat and walked to the back door just like his Lord and Savior had done a moment before. He pressed the buzzer and impatiently waited for his ride to end.
Barely a mile-and-a-half from Ferva Plastics Incorporated, he expected to be about ten minutes late, which would make it easier to ditch the gun without being seen. Pick up gun, toss in dumpster, apologize to the foreman, and then wait for Lucifer to tell him the next step to receiving one-million dollars. Easy.
Stewart found the alley, a narrow canyon between two
commercial strip malls. He could stretch both arms and touch the mottled red bricks of each wall. Congesting the pathway were several black bags filled with refuse, tossed into the alleyway from the backdoors of shops. Stewart walked down the corridor, stepping over garbage bags and avoiding unrecognizable puddles of putrid muck.
Halfway in, he saw it, a blue-steel revolver lying in the middle of the alley. He picked up the old .38 Police Special and spotted rust along one side of the barrel and cylinder. Looking into the cylinder revealed three copper tips of live bullets, but the other three chambers, including down the barrel possessed empty casings. A shiver brushed Stewart’s spine as he realized he held a true smoking gun.
Sweat dotted his brow. Beyond any doubt, this was a million-dollar favor. After pushing the gun into his waistband, both exits tightened like they were viewed through fish-eyed lenses. His feet moved nightmarishly slow in flight to the familiar street. The alley elongated and constricted, darkening claustrophobically.
At a swift jog, Stewart stepped over a trash bag and his toe caught on top, tipping it over and spilling a tin can and a beer bottle. Both clanked noisily down the alley. Shit, he thought as he slipped across the top of that puddle of unmentionable slime, yet somehow he’d managed not to fall in it. Keeping a hurried pace, Stewart exited the confining alley and inhaled deeply.
He did it—come on one-million bucks. Smiling, he scraped the yellowish brown muck from his shoe onto the curbside before heading to his next waypoint.
His victorious moment fell short as a police car slid to a halt in the street to his left. Bright red and blue strobes flashed in his eyes as he turned to look. Both doors sprung open and an aggressive voice ordered, “Hands up! Hands up!”
Stewart raised his hands while shaking his head. The nearest cop hurried and wrenched Stewart’s arm behind his back. The cop at the driver’s door warned, “Watch it, Matt. He’s got a pistol in his waistband.”
