Satan Burger (17 page)

Scene 20

The Man Who Loves Everything

I flow a few miles, emptying into rivers, taken by the people-current toward Satan Burger, ignoring the faces on the water surface.  When I get there, the lot is brimming; persons climbing the steps to get out of the people-ocean, some falling off.  They’re screaming insanities at each other.

Then a
swish
of thinking bleeds into my emotions, a grind-spinning view of the area above me, on the hilltop.

And what I see is:  Satan Burger is gone.

I swim to the steps for a closer look, but there are too many people, too many rage-frustrations inside of me.  The sickness gets stronger.  I get claustrophobic.

I start climbing.

Halfway, I meet a familiar face.  It’s soggy in the rain and I’m surprised I recognize him with my acidy eyes.

"Satan," I call.

He notices me and squeezes in closer.

"What happened?" I scream over the insane ones before he reaches me.

The insane ones hand out jabs and tickles.

Satan Burger was destroyed," he yells, getting closer . . . His face is sooty and blood-cut, his nice clothes are rip-sliced apart too.  As ironic as it sounds, he looks like he’s been to hell and back.  I can’t even see his gay-pride button.

He shouts, "An earthquake hit, tore the whole building in half, into pieces."

I shout, "But there aren’t any earthquakes in New Canada."

"It doesn’t matter," he yells.  "Child Earth did this, the little shit.  He was pissed off that I was stealing the souls of his new toys and sent an earthquake after me.  I should’ve never touched the fucker."

"What do you mean,
touched
?"

Still screaming: "I’m responsible for putting breath in this planet’s lungs.  I touched it.  I have the touch of life, remember.  I made it alive.  I made almost every planet in this damned universe alive, with my
gay
fucking hands."

The sense of the whole situation hits me, and I say it to myself: "Earth is a demon?"

"I’m getting out of here," Satan yells.  "I suggest you come with me."

"Go where?"  A headache spikes me.  "Where is there to go?"

"Through the walm," he says.

"That’s crazy.  You could end up anywhere.  Even in a place without oxygen and die."

"I’m willing to take the risk if you are."  Satan grins darkly.

"Where is everyone else?" I ask.

"Who cares."  Satan drops himself into the water crowd.  "Come on, let’s go before another earthquake hits."

"Where are they?" I scream-ask again, but Satan gets carried away by the people current.  He lets the crowd take him.  The distance between us is suddenly very BIG.

From the edge of the parking lot, he yells, "I’ll see you in
hell
," which is the common thing for him to say when departing.  Sadly, it makes him laugh.

Then his body is gulped away from my sight.

I find another way up the steps, on a side path, and I’m able to get up pretty quick, but on the wrong side of the hill.  This side is open, and I have to stop to breathe in some
space
. . . Then I realize I need some time to sit. I find a rock underneath a demon-tree, who shelters me from some of the irritating rain.

"He’s right, Leaf," says a nearby voice.

I don’t turn around right away, still breathing in the space, trying to relax this dizzy head of mine by squeezing my eyes closed . . .

"Who are you?" I finally ask.

I hear him sitting next to me.  Dead leaves crackle.

He says, "I am Jesus Christ."

When I open my eyes, I see a roll-pudgy man with a beard wearing a janitor’s outfit.  A tag on his shirt tells me, "This is Jesus."

I can’t say anything, or maybe I can’t think of anything to say.  I’ve never met the messiah before and I’ve never met anyone who ever has.  I don’t seem to care.

He continues, "Satan was right.  The walm is your only out."

My mouth doesn’t say anything

He says, "You have to save your immortal soul."

Then I shake my head.  "I don’t know if it’s worth saving anymore."

"Don’t say that!" Jesus says, waggling sense into me.  "That’s the walm stealing your lifeforce that made those words.  You have to fight it."

I realize Jesus is right.  Sort of.

Richard Stein always wanted to meet Jesus Christ.  Of course, he never got to.  Maybe he did
after
his death, but I’m not sure how the afterlife situation works.  I don’t know if you get to talk to Jesus right away or if you have to wait a hundred years.  I think I’m one of the only living people to ever meet Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. I should probably feel special or something.  But I don’t.

Richard Stein was very Jesus-curious during his early thirties.  This Jesus-curiosity caused him to accept Jesus into his life.  But Richard Stein didn’t like God.  He didn’t like the way God capitalized the word "He," in regards to Himself.  God seemed too-too superior to Richard Stein, and Richard Stein called superior people like Him
Hot Shots
.  This is the way I figured it:  "God is the ultimate authority figure, and people like Richard Stein don’t like authority figures."

Jesus was a lot like Richard Stein, though.  Jesus was a human, he could be killed, stopped.  He was the savior, but still needed saving.  He could walk on water, but could still drown.  He caused the better organization of society, but also caused wars over faith in him.  To Richard Stein, Jesus was both a saint and a devil, and that’s what he liked about him.

Richard Stein always wanted to meet Jesus so that he could see what he looked like, what clothing styles he liked, what foods tasted best to him, what regrets he’s ever had - all the small things that would make Jesus more human.  He especially wanted to know if Jesus
hated
anything.  He wondered if Jesus hated Satan - or if he pitied him, or was frightened by him.  He wondered if Jesus hated evil and sin.

Once Richard Stein said, "I already know that Jesus hates sin, I just want to hear him say that he
hates
something."

If Richard Stein was in my position, he’d have a whole bundle-pack of questions lined up for the savior.  He would have loved the idea of Jesus being a BIG fat guy, ugly instead of the beautiful image people paint.  But of all the questions he would’ve had, I can only think up one for him.

I ask, "Why are you wearing a janitor’s uniform?"

At first, I figured he wore it because he was the janitor at Satan Burger, but Satan said his demons did all the cleaning, so I just had to ask him.

He responds, "I am the janitor of mankind, not the
shepherd
as the BIG bible says.  I clean up the dirty parts of society, the dirty sides of men’s souls.  It is the job I was born to do, and I don’t get paid anything to do it."

"God won’t pay you anything?"

"Well, God isn’t the person who would pay me if I got paid.  He hires accountants from an agency to handle all of his income.  But his chief accountant doesn’t think there is a reason for me to be the janitor of mankind, so he does not pay me.  It is volunteer work."

I say, "It sounds too hard to be volunteer work."

"Hard work doesn’t bother me.  To tell you the truth, I
love
to work."

"What?"  I’m shocked to hear
love
and
work
in the same sentence.  Jesus is beginning to seem crazy.

"Work keeps my life in order.  Keeps an even amount of hard times and good times in my life.  When I work, I learn to appreciate the free time I have, I don’t waste it on trivial things like music and television."

"You don’t like music or television?"

"Are you joking?  I
love
those things."

"I don’t like commercials," I tell him, wand-spindle voice.  "That’s what makes television a waste of time."

"Commercials are better than nothing," Jesus says.  "If there were no commercials, what would fill the spaces where the commercials are supposed to be?  The announcer would say ‘we’ll be back after these messages.’ There would be three minutes of black space.  There would be nothing.  Wouldn’t you prefer commercials over that?"

I guess he’s right, He
is
Jesus, but I think television networks would just make television shows longer if there weren’t any commercials instead of add in black space.  Jesus knows best though.  "I guess you’re right, but commercials represent corporations and money.  And money is the ultimate evil."

"No, I don’t believe so.  Money is extraordinarily
good
.  Money gives people a reason to work.  Without work we’d still be sleeping in caves."

"Oh."  I seem annoyed by his replies. 

There has to be something that Jesus Christ doesn’t like.  I’ve already asked him about the three evils of the world.  Richard Stein always said that nothing is more evil than work, money, and commercials.

"Is there
anything
that you don’t like Jesus?" I ask.

"I love
everything
," he responds.

"You can find good in every single person, every single object?"

"Of course."

Thinking of Richard Stein, I say, "But there is
one
thing you hate.  You hate
evil
."

Jesus just shakes his head.

"People don’t understand evil," Jesus says, pinching a piece of sand.  "Nobody realizes how absolutely necessary evil is."

He pauses, staring at the street people in the rain.  The water drops are getting slender, and shrill-winding waves start in.

He continues, "Satan wasn’t the person that started it either.  Of course, the bible says he did.  But
God
was the one responsible for evil, and everyone in heaven knows this.  He made Man with an evil side, but told him not to use it.  God expected Man to succumb to his dark side eventually,
wanted
Man to, because without evil there is no God.

"After evil was invented, there had to be an opposite to it.  That is where good came from.  So you see why I have to
love
it?  Good comes out of evil.  Without bad in the world, there cannot be good, because there is nothing to compare good with.  That is one reason why I am not in heaven.  Heaven is a terrible, boring place.  It is too
perfect
.  It is
paradise
.  Sure it seems nice, but there is no evil there, no conflict, there is no such thing as satisfaction.  And people forget how beautiful satisfaction can be."

He gives examples.  "Nobody works in paradise, so there is no such thing as coming home after a hard day of work, and just sitting on your ass, doing absolutely
nothing
and getting absolute pleasure from it.  Even
love
is boring in heaven, because there is constant love all around you there, and no hate at all.  So love is nothing special.  And you never go through the hardships of falling in love, which is what gives the winning of love a feeling of victory.  And all the food is perfect in heaven, so you can’t compare it to bad food.  And there is no excitement in heaven, because conflict and danger makes excitement. There is also nothing there to fear.  Everything is comfortable in heaven, so even comfort isn’t satisfying.  You last about two months in paradise before you get completely bored.  And if boredom doesn’t find you, you’ll become one of the
heaven zombies
."

The word
heaven zombies
makes me turn my head to the crowd of insane ones.  I ask myself, "Are
they
the same as angels are?"

Jesus says, "There
is
one thing that I do hate.  I hate it with passion. I
loath
it . . ."

He hates perfection.

"What are you going to do?" I ask Jesus, ready to leave.  "Are you going to go through the walm like Satan did."

"Never."

"Why?  You’ll lose your soul if you stay."

"I have already lost my soul, so it is no use going."

"What?  You seem perfectly fine."

"That’s because I am Jesus.  Jesus is supposed to be filled with love.  It is just routine for me to act this way, emotion has nothing to do with it.  And also because of routine, I will never leave my people.  I am their last protector.  Even if I still had soul, and still cared about things, I probably would’ve stayed."

But then it would’ve been out of love, not routine.

Jesus says, "I need you to do something for me, Leaf."

I nod.

"I need you to survive."

I nod again.

"I have been writing a BIG history book."  Jesus pulls out an old-skinned pack.  Patting it - a hard drumming.  "This is the book of Man, all the events since man’s birth are in it.  And it has been handed down and down and down, until it reached me.  Man will never die if he is kept in memory.  Memory saves people from oblivion.  So I need you to get through the walm with this history book, and save it.  Then you need to continue writing in it.  Write about you and your friends, the society that you start within whichever world you end up in.  Breed and build your numbers, see if you can create a human civilization again.  Before you die, hand it over to the next generation.  And hand it down and down and down.  Until there is only one human being left alive."

"What about the humans we leave here?  What is going to happen to them?"

"They have no emotions," Jesus says.  "They are not human beings anymore."

He places the history book in my lap.  Then a hand on my shoulder. "And the very last human alive must bury this history book on a high peak, and the words written on the tombstone must say this."  He draws the words in the dirt:

HERE LIES THE HUMAN RACE.

Scene 21

Flying Fish

I climb the hill to the ruins of Satan Burger and see a flock of flying fish scavenging for scraps of food.  The fish aren’t the winged, footed fish-birds that I once saw in the midget president territory.  These are normal-looking fish that seem to have confused the air with the water, swimming through the oxygen with their flappers, and getting rained on quite a bit.  Maybe the fish confused the air with water because they are insane.

I walk up, up, watching the fish dive down to the Satan Burger rubble to piles of burger-wastes, dead customers, bloody demon corpses.  I see Mortician up there.  He’s climbing on top of the rubble.  He’s probably looking for water, or maybe for his pirate hat, but I don’t say anything to him.

At the flat edge, Christian is relax-sitting on a piece of sign.  Smoking a cigarette with comfortable breaths - a pile of cigarette boxes near him taken from the broken cigarette-dispenser demon.  I go to him.

The only thing I can hear is the train-roaring wind and Nan’s cries coming through it.  I see her once I get to Christian.  She’s on top of Gin’s body, wrapped around him, punching him for not working right.

"What’s wrong?" I ask Christian.

"Not much," he says, shrugging.  "Not much."

"What happened to Gin?"

He looks over at the corpse on the ground.  "He’s gone."

Finishing his cigarette, Christian stands up and looks at Nan.  "While Nan was unconscious, after the earthquake took down Satan Burger and knocked her asleep.  Gin ate a Satan Burger, right there.  He put his nostrils inside of Nan’s mouth while he ate it, and his soul wandered out through his nose holes, just like Satan said, and it was absorbed inside of her.  He was gone before Nan woke up.  Gone to . . . oblivion."

I watch Nan pushing at him, screaming, swirling.  Gin’s body parts are still moving, still alive.  Breakfast runs around Gin’s face.  It smacks him, but the face is soulless tissue."

"Satan was wrong," I say.  "There
are
people that will give up their immortal soul and go to oblivion to save another person’s life, even if that person doesn’t love him."

She loves him now.

"What’re we going to do?" Mortician asks.  He jumps down from the rubble toward Christian.  "Satan’s gone and he was the only one who could help us."

"We’re basically fucked," Christian says, lighting another cigarette, this one a menthol.

"What do you think, Nan?" Mortician yell-asks her.  "What do you wanna do?"

It takes her many cries, getting them all out. A gash bleeds down her forehead.

Mort asks her again.

More talking between Mort and Christian.  Then she interrupts with her answer: "I want to
die
!  All what I want to do is die.  That’s the only thing I was guaranteed in life, how come I can’t anymore?  If only there was an afterlife, any sort of small afterlife, I wish Gin and I could go there.  I wish we died last week, when death was working right."  But they pay no attention.

"Give up, Mortician," Christian says.  "You know we’re fucked."

Mort says, "I know we’re fucked, but our souls are running out.  We might as well do something before we’re boring zombies like everyone else.  Let’s do something
fun
."

"We aren’t fucked yet," I finally tell them, wondering if they would’ve thought about it themselves.  "If we go through the walm, we can find another world.  One where we won’t lose our souls."

"Dumb
ass
," Christian says.  "Whichever world we end up in will still have a walm in it, and it will still eat our souls.  You can’t get to a walmless world by going through the walm."

"But then we’d be new people," I argue.  "New people don’t lose their souls to the walm here, so I’m positive we’d be fine."

Christian shakes his head in an
I don’t know
fashion.

"Let’s do it," Mort says.  "Even if we lose our souls, at least it is something we can do."

"But how are we going to find the walm?" Christian asks.  "We’ve never been there.  It’ll take us forever to find it in this city, especially with all these crazy people around."

           "I think there is someone who knows where it is," I say.

           "Yeah?  Who’s that?" asks Christian.

           "Stag and Lenny."

           "They’re gone," Christian says.  "The Silence took them.  Nobody comes back from the Silence."

           I shake-spin my head.  "I’m willing to go.  I’ve been inside of it twice already.  I’ve been inside of its stomach bag, and I have returned.  For some reason it will not digest me.  I’m probably too disgusting.  One of them still has to be alive somewhere inside of it.  I’ll find the Silence and get them out."

           "I’ll come too," Mortician says.  "It sounds like fun."

           I say, "No, you don’t need to go.  I should do this alone."

I go to Nan on my way down the hill.

"Nan," I say.  "Stay here, okay?  We’re going to go through the walm once I get back.  I’m going to get us out of this place."

She’s calm.  Well, she’s not as hysterical as she was before.  "I’m not leaving Gin," she says.

           It’s a hysterical idea.

           "You
have
to come," I say.

           I sit down next to her and the corpse.  All of Gin’s living body parts are cut off and hugging Nan’s lap.  There is Breakfast, Battery, Encyclopedia, Selenson, Tofu, Beer Mug, and the Medusa Hairs.  I wonder if part of Gin’s soul is inside of his living parts.  Did some of it survive?  Nan seems to connect to them.  She holds the body parts like she would Gin.  Her behavior doesn’t frighten herself.  

           "Nan, please," I say.  "We’ll escape and be
free
."

           "I want to die," she says.

           "You can’t do that here," I say.  "Come with us and live a life.  Eventually, you’ll die and your soul will go somewhere.  If you stay here, you’ll never die.  And your soul will leave you.  You will live for eternity without a soul."

           "I don’t want my soul anymore.  Once my soul is gone I won’t be sad anymore.  I won’t ever have to deal with my emotions ever again."

           "What about the good emotions?  Like love and joy and pleasure and excitement.  Don’t you want them?"

           "They aren’t all that great.  I’ll give them up if it means getting rid of sadness."  Nan pets Breakfast, crab-crying.  She’s a little girl again.  All of her toughguy features are gone.  "I’ve had too many depressing moments in my life.  I can’t ever escape sadness and
hate
.  Never.  If I go with you through the walm, it will follow me.  It has always followed me, going to another world is not even far enough to escape it.  I want to stay.  I want the walm to rip that sadness right out of me and grind it up inside of that machine.  I want sadness to be
destroyed
.  So I’m not going with you.  This is my only escape.  My only
revenge
."

           "This is hard for me to say, Nan," I put my hand against her polite-fleshed shoulder.  "But the future of mankind depends on you."

           "Don’t say that," she growls.  She knows what I’m about to say.

           "You’re the only woman left.  Without you, mankind will go extinct."

           "Let it," she says.

           "Don’t be selfish."

           "Humanity doesn’t deserve saving.  And there’s no way I’m going to fuck any of you three."

           "You don’t have to fuck any of us.  Someone will jerk off in a cup if you want.  We’ll figure it out somehow.  Don’t worry about it being me, if that’s what you’re thinking.  There’s no way I’d force my shitty genes on anyone."

           "It’s not going to work, Leaf.  I don’t want to take part in making a society of inbreeds."

           "It worked with Adam and Eve," I say.  "Plus, it was Jesus’s idea.  You, of all people, have to listen to him."

           "I don’t like Jesus anymore.  He’s a fat guy.  I liked him before because I thought he was the guy in all the paintings.  That Jesus is sexy.  And even if
that
Jesus told me to become Eve, I would refuse."

           "I see."

           "I just want to die," she says.

           "Good," I say. "Then come with us and die there."

           She sits in silence for awhile, thinking, pouting.

           Then she says, "Whatever."

But "Whatever" might mean "I’m sorry, Leaf.  I’ll go with you and see what happens.  Maybe I’ll change my mind in the future, but we’ll have to see.  I just wish I could
die
."

           "I know, Nan," I say to myself.  "I wish we all could die."

           She’s staring at the ground and holding me with one of her arms.  I don’t remember when she put her arm there, or for what reason.  I grasp her hand, and squeeze, pretending she is physically familiar to me.

           Under the rain’s patting, I hear her say, "I’m already pregnant."

           I’m not surprised.  But for some reason, she gives the same response when I tell her, "I am too."