Awake in Hell (10 page)

That
thought is actually enough to distract me for a minute and I almost lose the
little girl. I swerve around a pothole the size of a moon-crater and pull over
(actually, pull up on the curb) and jump out of the car. I sprint down the
block and around the next corner where she has already bounced her pretty ball
and ringlet curls around.

“Kid!”
I say breathlessly as I stoop over to try and get more oxygen in my unfit (and
also imaginary) lungs.

She
stops bouncing and looks at me quizzically. Then she looks behind her as only
as a child could, or would for that matter. She bends over backwards and tilts
her head all the way in the other direction so that she’s looking at the world
upside down. I laugh at the sight of her. I can imagine me doing that when I
was her age. Actually, I can imagine me doing that at pretty much any point in
my life, but I’m pretty sure I would not have been that adorable when I did it.

“Hey!
Found her!” she yells behind her and then stands upright and gets a small rush
to her head. You can see the dizziness pass through her eyes immediately
followed by a wide smile and a sparkle of sheer delight in her eyes. Good
grief. This kid is fucking hilarious.

“Do
not get too attached to that feeling,” I say. “Because when you get older it
will become more difficult to get. Just say no, right?” Her response is a
precious giggle.

I’m
so busy looking at this little girl and enjoying all the cuteness that I don’t
see the man abruptly come behind her. I hear him before I see him.

“Hey,
Weez
.” he says, with a twinge of intimacy that gives
me chills.

“Hey,”
I say back. I have no idea what else to say.

I
look up and once again I am faced with the most perfect pair of eyes ever
created — bluest blue, and so kind. His eyes smile before the rest of his
incredibly gorgeous face. This is the beautiful man from my nightmare last
night. How could I have seen him in my dream before actually meeting him? Of
course, if he’s a hallucination than he’s from my brain anyway so the whole
chicken before the egg question is moot — since it’s all eggs and it’s getting
more scrambled by the minute.

I
stand up very straight, and stick out my chest. This is a hardwired thing that
I always do when I’m faced with a
hottie
. It’s like
Pavlov’s dog experiment. He looks kind of geeky, with the glasses and the hair.
But it’s geeky in a “sexy male librarian in a porn movie” kind of a way. He is
looking at me too.  Yet not at my breasts, which I am basically presenting
him like something on Mutual of Omaha’s, Wild Kingdom. Instead, he’s looking
directly into my eyes.

“So
tell me
Weeze
, are you happier today than you were
yesterday?” he asks.

“Probably,
if I’m being honest.  But I don’t think all of my tomorrows are going to
be wonderful,” I say, sweeping my arm around to take in my environment. So,
this little idiom must be a thing with me.

He
laughs in response. “I will say this, for a Weasel, you sure are pretty.”

A
weasel? This guy is a total stranger and he just called me a rodent. I think.
I’m not exactly sure what species the Weasel falls under, but whatever it is,
being called one is probably not a compliment. So why am I smiling? And why do
I feel this tremendous warmth toward this strange and beautiful man and his
little girl?

“Well,”
I say teasingly, “I may be a weasel, but you are not going to get any points as
a bodyguard or babysitter if you keep letting little Princess here wander
around Hell all by herself!”

He
smiled a sad smile at me that once again landed on the back of my neck like a
pair of ghostly lips. I actually shudder. Then he says “We’re just waiting.”

“For
what?” I say as he casually puts his arm on the little girl’s and guides her in
the opposite direction of me. I will admit, watching him walk away is almost as
good as him standing right in front of me, but he doesn’t answer my question.

“Hey,
you! Pretty boy!” I yell after him. He just holds up his hand and waves as they
turn the next corner, and once again disappear.

Okay,
so back in the car and to my next fare. If I were a cab driver in the world of
the living, I may be too distracted to drive people around today. But for now,
I think I will be fine. I slow down to a crawling pace to pick up the poor
schmuck who has been waiting now for over an hour. I expect him to jump in the
car and go directly for my throat, but no such luck. This guy is a walking ad
for Prozac.

I
assume he’s a newbie. New arrivals tend to either be furious that they ended up
here or they just weep for days or weeks or months. This guy is one of the
latter. He jumps in the backseat and blows his nose on the sleeve of his
burgundy velveteen jacket, which, by the way, is paired with trousers so orange
they look like you could juice them. Under the jacket is a wooly turtleneck
that makes me itch just to look at it. He’s young. Looks like he’s in his early
twenties and with his red swollen eyes and those little snot bubbles coming
from his nostrils, he looks even younger. This guy reeks of pathetic anguish.

“Where
to buddy?” I ask in my best cabbie voice.

“How
do you know my name?” he asks with a genuine touch of surprise.

“I
don’t... or didn’t, Sherlock. Surely you’ve been called ‘Buddy’ by strangers
before? And seriously? You’re real name is Buddy?”

“Yes,
to the name question and no, to the other one. I didn’t actually meet a lot of
people before
I
…” he crumples into despondent sobs
before he can say the word died. That is a tough word to say when you are
actually in it.

“So,
you’re a small town guy, too? I was from Shithole, USA myself.” I am now trying
to make small talk. Aren’t I an awesome cab driver?

“Funnily
enough, no,” He says through tears, and not just a little bit of snot. “I was
born and raised in Brooklyn. But I had a very religious mother. Well, she was
fanatical. I think if we actually knew any of our neighbors they would have
called child services and saved me from a life of torment.”

Crap.
My small talk skills need massaging.

“Sorry,
about all that. I just need to know where you want to go.” I ask, trying to get
this back on track.

“Where
would I like to go?” he says wistfully as he takes another swipe of his endlessly
seeping nose with his sleeve. “I would like to go to school. Instead of being
home schooled by a woman who believes that William fucking Shakespeare was one
of those liberal homosexuals with an agenda to promote cross-dressing and
molesting young boys while he wrote filthy pornography to display in front of
the unwashed masses. Or that the theory of evolution is a plot by the Jews to
snuff out the one true faith! And don’t even get me started on what she thinks
of math, poetry, or any of the core subjects that any person should know if
they are to become a productive member of society. And computers? Do you know
that I was seventeen fucking years old before she’d even allow a computer in
the house? And then, only because the Good Reverend Barker, from the God’s Way
Television Network, decided to get himself a website complete with prayer lists
and the ability to make donations from the comfort of your own home with a
debit or credit card! I had to wait until she was asleep so that I could get
online and give myself some facsimile of a reasonable education!”

Holy
shit. This guy has some issues. However, I’m driving a cab, not operating a
confessional.

“Well,
you do seem
kinda
smart,” I say, trying to be nice.

“
Kinda
? I have an IQ of over 170! I could have written my
own ticket. MIT, Harvard, Yale, anywhere! Even with a public school education.
But no, public schools have dances and dances are just fronts for teenage girls
giving each other abortions in the restrooms while the
boys
gang rape the hormonally charged prostitutes that the state hires to be
teachers. That, by the way, is a direct quote.”

If
it wasn’t so terrible, it would be kind of funny.

“Wow.
But you know, everyone thinks their Mom is crazy....” I said. Bad thing to say
— real bad. It would probably be best if I stopped talking altogether.

“Crazy,
Mom? No. Crazy Mom tells you that you look thin even though you are thirty
pounds overweight and she cooks enough food to feed a small country and expects
you to eat it. Crazy Mom collects little cartoon frogs and places them on
shelves all over the house. Crazy Mom buys you ugly sweaters every Christmas
from QVC and makes you wear them out in public. Crazy Mom may be exasperating,
but you always know she loves you.” Buddy is now in full blown rant mode, and I
need help. I start looking down the curb hoping someone, anyone, will show up
and try to hail me down. I see her ahead. A woman who looks about thirty-five
but dressed like she’s seventy-five in a dull, gray polyester suit with a skirt
that falls to her shins, is standing just ahead of us with a panicked look on
her face. With Buddy still screaming in the backseat, I pull off to the side
until I’m directly in front of her. I lean over and open the passenger side
door and say (over the sobbing rants of the mad man in the back) “Hey, need a
ride somewhere?”

She
looks down and heaves a sigh of relief. “Would I!” and lets herself in the back
where Buddy is now coming to a crescendo of anger and bile.

“...but
my horrific bitch of a mother never, ever made me feel anything but shame and
guilt, as if I had asked to be born or was some sort of punishment brought down
upon her by her angry, vengeful God!”

“Okay
Buddy.  Now it’s time to ride quietly and share the cab with this nice
lady,” I said. I realized I was talking to him like a five year old instead of
the genius he apparently is, but I don’t care. I’m getting a headache.

“That’s
okay. I don’t mind. I used to be a psychologist in the world. I’m Hazel, and
your name is?” she says to Buddy while she offers her hand.

Buddy
looks a little terrified of this female hand in front of him. He turns into one
of those beaten dogs you can get from the animal shelters. The kind that really
wants to love again but just isn’t sure he can trust you.  So you have to
put treats in your hand and coax him out from behind the couch. She is able to
get his hand in hers without the use of Milk Bones and he timidly smiles at
her. “Buddy. My name is Buddy.”

So,
Hazel, according to the conversation I am now able to overhear in my backseat,
while I drive around aimlessly since no one has yet given me an actual
destination, was a marriage therapist when she was alive. However, she was also
pretty much addicted to having sex with married men; so, her track record was
not stellar. In fact, she was personally responsible for at least 20% of the
divorces in Wichita Kansas during the late 70’s and most of the 80’s. She was
killed in a hit-and-run car accident while crossing the street.  Ten-to-one
odds that the chick behind the wheel was a former patient of hers. Looking at
her in my rearview mirror with her shoulder length mousy brown hair and
matching dull brown eyes set a bit too close together, along with her button
nose and seemingly absent chin (her face just kind of runs down into her neck),
it’s actually pretty impressive. Part of me wants to turn around and say ‘Well
done!’ and offer her a high five. But unfortunately the exchange between my two
fares has wandered back to Buddy, and like a marathoner on an endorphin high,
he’s gotten his second wind.

“The
thing that really pisses me off…” he’s now saying, only not angrily anymore.
Now, his voice is more reserved. His tone more resigned. “Is that I felt
superior to her because I refused to be held down by a belief system that would
allow someone like her, to condemn someone like me. When she would drill into
my head all the ways I could end up in Hell, I would laugh at her on the
inside. But then, she finally drove me over the edge the day I found the
letters from the State of New York.  I
  confronted
her about the fact that my father had been seeking custody of me, for my entire
life. She had kept him from me, telling me he had died before I was born. She
told me that I would never be allowed to use a woman as a vessel to breed my
own filth the way he had done to her. Forget the fact that she drove him away
with her tirades and her insanity. She blamed me for him, and him for me, and
hated us both. That little fact came home to roost, was the day I knew one of
us was going to die. At first I thought I’d kill her. I mean it’s not like she
didn’t have it coming. But then I thought, when you die you stop. There is no
remorse, or suffering, or regret. I didn’t want to give her that gift. If anyone
was going to finally have peace and quiet it was going to be me. So I went into
the bathroom and took every pill bottle my mother had, ran a bath, got a glass
of fruit punch Kool-Aid and sat in the tub taking every single pill. Mom had
about twenty different bottles of old pain medication that she had refused to
take when she was in pain but she also never threw away. She also had some
anti-depressants and a prescription for her diabetes. Who knows what else I
took. There were probably some antibiotics and some harmless beta blockers or
something in the mix,
  But
in the end, whatever
it was, did the job. And it turns out she was right. She was right about
everything. And I had to come here. I came here because I wasn’t good enough to
even earn my mother’s love.” He said that with a certainty that made me sad. I
noticed he was not crying anymore, his hands now moving through his sandy blond
hair instead of across his wet face.