“Silence! You speak only lies!” Jesus, seething and trembling with rage, leapt forward and reached for the gilded door handle. Before he could pull it, however, the devil snapped his long fingers and the doors locked with audible clicks, like guns being cocked. Jesus whipped his head around and glared at his host. “Let me out,” he growled through clenched teeth. “You are the prince of deceit, and I should never have agreed to this. I demand to be let free.”
The devil refilled his glass, unperturbed by Jesus’ outburst of stubborn boorishness, and said calmly, “Actually, you are freer now than you have ever been. Nevertheless, you did agree to ten minutes, so if you refuse to give that to me, you become the liar. Now if you would kindly sit the fuck down and listen to me, we can get on with our lives.”
Chest heaving with anger as his injured ribs throbbed in painful protest, Jesus sat back down, his bloody face beset with a damningly grim scowl.
“That’s better,” Satan said, his features ominously enshrouded in the haze of cigarette smoke. “Now, as I was saying, God has stripped you of the divinity which had previously allowed you to perform your silly parlor tricks and…”
“Resurrection is no parlor trick, serpent.”
“…and His expectation is that your search for the most devout of Christians will be far more conclusive if you can gather them without having to prove your divinity with that showy mystical shit.”
“How else am I supposed to prove my divinity? And what gave Him that ridiculous idea?”
“I did,” the devil said, grinning through the smoke. “Here’s how it happened. We were having drinks a couple weeks ago…”
“My father would never cavort with the likes of you.”
Satan laughed throatily. “Oh, how little you do know. Your father and I have been great friends for millennia; our relationship is one of the many things that the Bible didn’t get right. My departure from Heaven was most amicable, and though God and I have had our disagreements, never has there existed between us any real hostility.”
Jesus narrowed his eyes. “If you two are such great companions, then why do you seek now to turn me against Him with these claims?”
Another laugh from the devil. “I seek no such thing, silly boy. I am merely an arbiter of enlightenment; I believe strongly in man’s right to choose based on knowledge of facts. God, in His infinite wisdom, despises knowledge, and that is where we disagree most. He wishes for His people to know as little as possible, for the unknowledgeable are far more apt to be the obedient little lapdogs He so prizes.” He flicked his cigarette out the window and then lit another, his handsome face momentarily illuminated sinisterly by the flickering flame of his Zippo. “Think, Jesus, back to that whole Garden of Eden debacle. The forbidden fruit…it came not from the tree of evil or the tree of deception or what have you, but from the tree of knowledge. Why, then, would your father desire so strongly to forbid His children from possessing that knowledge?”
Christ was silent, brooding in his frenzied confusion and avoiding eye contact with Lucifer, whose words and tone were becoming increasingly convincing, despite Jesus’ most valiant efforts to resist his influence.
“I never sought to corrupt anyone,” the devil continued. “Only to enlighten them. God was, and is, fervently in opposition to this desire, so we merely agreed to disagree, and I took my leave. He set me up with a delightfully comfortable abode deep below the universe, and I can assure you that it is not the miserable pit of fiery doom that your followers so foolishly believe it to be.”
“What is it, then, if not a lake of torment and flame?”
That smile again, those flashy white teeth gleaming like priceless jewels in the darkness. “The Hotel Empyrean, a lavish six-star hotel residing in a place outside of time.”
“There’s no such thing as a six-star hotel.”
Lucifer waved a dismissive hand. “One could argue,” he said, “that there’s no such thing as anything, but that’s beside the point. My hotel is the ultimate exhibit of lavishness and excess, a resort reserved only for the best, and thus more than worthy of its six-star rating. It is a paradise for the enlightened, a place where shunned sinners are welcomed with open arms and granted every gratification they could possibly imagine. It fills me with limitless joy to see the surprised expressions of delight upon the faces of my guests when they first arrive. They are filled with the lie that they will be denied paradise because of their transgressions and are instead given the gift of eternal indulgence. I’ve been to Heaven, so I can say from personal experience that life at the Empyrean is much more fun.” He cackled his hyena-like laugh, which was becoming less and less grating upon Jesus’ ears. To his dismay, actually, it was almost becoming comforting.
“None of this can be true,” Jesus said dismally, burying his face in his hands. “If the claims you make are indeed valid, then everything I’ve ever known is in fact a lie. If I choose to believe you, I must in turn choose to believe that my father has deceived me for the entirety of my existence.”
Lucifer shrugged casually and sucked his cigarette. “Listen,” he said, “I personally don’t give a flying fuck what you believe. I’m just laying the facts out before you. After all, you are human now…a mortal man just as any other, and thus I think you ought to have the opportunity to know the real way of things. Your dad will inevitably be rather pissed at me for spilling the beans, and He’ll probably chew me out a little, but He’ll get over it.”
“You never finished telling me how He came to decide that I should be sent down without the powers that come with my holiness.”
“Oh, yes, that…see, I’m a bit of a gambler, and I do love making bets with God. The stakes usually amount simply to bragging rights, because I can of course have whatever I want and thereby God has very little to offer me. I’m still gloating from my victory over Him when we bet on last year’s Super Bowl. But anyway, your father has always been extremely cocky about the whole Job scenario. That was one that I really thought I could win, and it pained me deeply that that pious little farmer didn’t give in. Regardless, seeing as how God is so confident in the faithfulness of those who claim Him, especially after besting me with Job, it was very easy for me to convince Him to bet on you.”
Jesus’ dirty face was growing pale. “I…I don’t understand,” he said. This was largely untrue, but he was unwilling to accept the idea that his father would strip him of his powers just because He’d made an arrogant bet with the devil.
“Oh, but you do understand,” said Satan, as if reading Jesus’ mind…and perhaps he was. “I wagered that you would be unable to gather even the most ‘faithful’ of followers if you didn’t have the capacity to perform miracles by which to prove your identity, and that you would throw in the towel before even beginning to initiate Rapture. He accepted, and that’s why you’re in this current predicament of powerlessness.”
Jesus’ heart had dropped to his stomach, and he found himself unable to swallow, much less speak. He was consumed with anguish and, frightfully, resentment towards his father. How could He use His own son as a pawn in a ruse to one-up His alleged drinking buddy? It was an unfathomable betrayal, and for the first time in his life, Jesus was rendered inert by a nigh complete loss of faith.
“I know this is a lot to swallow,” the devil said. “But the truth often hurts. And again, I must stress that I have no care whatsoever in regards to whether or not you choose to believe me. You have been handed the facts, and you may do with them as you please.” He glanced at his enormous and outrageously expensive-looking watch, frowned, and said, “I’m afraid my ten minutes is up. As much as I’ve enjoyed your company, you are free to go.” The doors unlocked with another snap of his fingers.
Jesus did not move. He sat rigidly in place, breathing heavily, his hands shaking with nervous tremors. When he was at last able to conjure words and verbalize them in an intelligible fashion, he said, “Give me a fucking cigarette. And…and pour me a g-…pour me a goddamn drink.”
Jesus had
just finished the last grimacing gulp of his third glass when the limousine came to a stop and the back door was opened by the driver, who was adorned flashily in a shimmering silver tuxedo and a velvet purple top hat. The back of his head thrummed with a pleasurable buzzing sensation, and he nearly fell to the ground as he stumbled out of the car, only to be caught and bolstered upright by Lucifer, whose quick and graceful reaction caused Jesus to slightly soften to his presence. Perhaps it was just the booze, but Lucifer must have noticed it because he smiled with warm geniality when their eyes met.
In spite of his mild intoxication, Jesus quickly recovered from what he perceived as a brief moment of weakness on his part, a lapse in his judgment that had just for a moment allowed his will to be bent by the devil. He pursed his lips in a thin frown and averted his gaze, looking around and observing his surroundings with eyesight rendered dizzy by the liquor. They were standing outside a tall, dingy brick apartment building, with moss creeping up from the foundation and its face pocked with a number of broken windows. There was a small courtyard off to the right, surrounded by untended shrubs and consisting of a lopsided picnic table, a rusty grill, and a headless gray statue of a naked woman with a sinister-looking stone cat in her arms.
“You live here?” Jesus asked, looking up at the high-reaching building that seemed so in contrast with the devil’s otherwise decadent taste.
Lucifer laughed. “Of course not,” he said, amiably clapping Jesus on the back, causing the latter to wince and cringe. “I live nowhere. Real estate, though, is a hobby of mine, and I got a killer deal on one of the apartments here after the husband of the tenant’s adulterous lover broke in and stabbed him to death some time ago. Women scorned may be bitches, but it’s the scorned men who tend to be the ones who go into drunken rages and get all knife-happy. The husband took his own life shortly thereafter and is now a resident at the Hotel Empyrean. He spends his days there, gleefully drinking himself into oblivion and killing his wife’s young lover over and over and over again. My housekeeping staff says he’s starting to get rather creative. A week or two ago they came in and found the poor kid hanging from the ceiling fan by his own intestines while his killer was having drinks with Jack the Ripper in the hotel bar.”
“That is…an abomination.”
“Do you say so? I find it delightfully comical, but I guess we just have a different sense of humor. Anyway, I haven’t rented the apartment out yet, so I figured I’d take you up there so you could shower and change before we go out.”
Jesus looked dazedly at the devil, too tired and drunk to protest. “Where are we going?”
“First things first, dear boy. You’re going to need clothes, so while you’re bathing I’ll have my driver go pick some shit up for you.” He looked Jesus up and down, mentally appropriating approximate lengths and widths, and said, “I’d say you’re probably a 34-waist and a Medium shirt size, yes?”
Jesus shrugged. “If you say so. I wear only robes and the occasional loincloth.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna fly down here, Tarzan. Fear not, we’ll get you squared away. Priority number one, though, is getting you a fucking shower. You look like absolute shit and you reek of sweat and rejection.”
Jesus rubbed self-consciously at his bloody, muddy face and looked down at his dirt-crusted feet. Still devoid of the will to protest, he sheepishly followed Lucifer into the apartment building, head hanging low like that of a scolded dog.
The apartment itself hadn’t yet been refurnished, so it was little more than a claustrophobic cluster of small rooms with drab carpeting and peeling, smoke-yellowed walls. It stank horribly of mildew and stale cigarettes. Jesus, even in his alcohol-induced good cheer, was rendered immediately uncomfortable.
“I know, I know,” said Lucifer looking around at the apartment. “Not the nicest of places, but I’m sure I can get some drug-addicted schlep or broke college kid to fork over a few hundred a month for it. I’ve been meaning to send someone to clean it up a bit, but you know how things are.”
Jesus nodded, though he certainly did not know how things were, and it was only because of that disillusioned lack of knowledge that he had been convinced to come here in the first place.
“The bathroom is down the hall and on the left. I’ll leave the clothes out for you once my driver returns. I must warn you, however, not to open the door at the end of the hallway. That’s the bedroom, and you don’t want to go in there.”
“What’s in the bedroom?”
Lucifer shrugged casually and lit a cigarette. “Probably nothing. Still, better safe than sorry, because sometimes the dead tend to linger.”
Warily eyeing the door in question, which was sealed so ominously against the darkness of the unlit hallway, Jesus said, “Didn’t you say the young man who was murdered is down at your hellacious hotel, at the mercy of his torturous killer?” He swayed a little on his feet and had to steady himself against the wall, trying to blink away his dizziness.
Lucifer chuckled, but Jesus was unsure of whether the amusement lay in the inquiry or merely the simple fact that he was too inebriated to stand up straight. “The dead,” the devil said, “or, rather, my dead…the ones who don’t go up to play geriatric bingo with you and your angelfolk for all eternity…are not forced to abide by the restrictively narrow confines of mortal existence. To my dead, everything is, if you will…relative.”
Jesus was unable to process this, so he just said, “Yes, right, I shall now go bathe,” and proceeded waveringly down the hallway and into the tiny bathroom, closing the door behind him.
The first thing he noticed was the sink; its pearlescent porcelain basin was faintly stained with pinkish streaks, as if whatever red substance had once been there had received only the most halfhearted of scrubbing jobs. Next was the once-white shower curtain, now browned by mold and mildew. The dour scent was overwhelming, and for a few moments Jesus felt the poisonous gorge of liquor begin to rise from his stomach and into his throat, but he choked it back and let his robes fall around his ankles, leaving him naked in front of the mirror.
Never before had he looked upon his own nudity and felt so ashamed. For the first time, he looked at the scars of his crucifixion and hated them, thinking to himself, For what? For what purpose did I allow myself to suffer at the wicked hands of men? To absolve the sins of people who claim to follow me, yet scorn and reject me once presented with my presence? To please my father, who sees me as little more than a chess piece in an egotistical and self-righteous game of showy arrogance? Swords in my side, nails in hands and feet, a savage crown of thorns upon my head…all for nothing, all for a lie, and here I am in the care of the devil, with each passing second feeling less remorseful about traitorously keeping such company. He ran his fingers along the jagged scar on his side, looked through the holes in his hands, turned and looked over his shoulder at the vulgar reflection of the whiplashes up and down his back. All of it, useless. Everything a lie, a sham, a malevolent funhouse of smoke and mirrors, my eyes obscured by a woolen blindfold pulled over me by own father. And the Greeks thought they knew of tragedy. Sophocles, you didn’t know shit.
He wiped tears from his face and climbed into the shower, turning the faucet and letting mercifully hot water pour down upon him, inhaling the steam and feeling shockingly content in his current state of being, drunk and warm, the filth of the day’s failures falling from him and seeping down into the sewers where it belonged. He looked down and watched the dirt and blood circle around the drain in a whirling cyclone, sucked gurglingly down into the abyssal hole. Inexplicably, there was a bar of unopened Dove soap and a violet bottle of Aussie shampoo perched on a ledge jutting from the shower’s wall, and with these Jesus washed himself clean. When he finally shut off the water, he felt purer than he ever had in his life.
Drawing back the shower curtain, he found his new attire laid out for him, as promised. Hanging from a hook on the back of the door was a burgundy cardigan and a white collared shirt, and folded on the sin
k were Armani khakis, Calvin Klein socks and briefs, and a pair of black nylon gloves. On the floor was a pair of polished brown loafers, mercifully without laces. Having never worn anything of remote semblance to these foreign articles of clothing, he had difficulty getting them on, even falling several times as he attempted to pull on the pants. He attributed this to the drink, and while he was aware the devil was probably laughing to himself in the other room at the sounds of his struggles, he was too drunk to give a shit.
When he emerged from the bathroom, looking more or less put together in spite of the strenuousness of his efforts, he flexed his hands in the gloves and said, “Why do I need to wear these?”
Lucifer, who had been casually sitting against the wall smoking a cigarette and reading something on his iPhone, stood up and said, “Because, dumbass, you have fucking holes in your hands. That shit’s just nasty. It’ll gross people out.” He stubbed his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe and then went into the kitchen, dropping it down the sink and then suddenly raking his manicured fingernails through his hair, scraping at his scalp as if attempting to satisfy some wretchedly unbearable itch.
“What are you doing?” Jesus slurred, wavering again on his heels and joining Satan in the kitchen.
Without answering, Satan leaned over the counter and shook his head wildly back and forth like a dog drying itself after a bath. A powdery rain of white dandruff floated down onto the counter like a tiny snowstorm of dead skin. Satan then took a Louis Vuitton wallet from his pocket and procured an AmEx Centurion card, which he used to align the dandruff into a neat line. Next from the wallet came a three-dollar bill that the devil deftly rolled into a thin tube; he held it out to Jesus, who took it questioningly and looked down at it between his fingers. He raised his eyes to meet Lucifer’s, and then looked at the line of white powder on the counter. Swallowing loudly, he asked, “Do you truly wish me to…”
Just to See Hell Page 16
