Dead Nolte (22 page)

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go wash in the Jordan and watch the sun rise.”

“O
ne
day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way
and no longer needed God. They picked one scientist, the smartest among them,
to go and tell God that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God
and said, ‘God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point
that we can clone people and do many miraculous things on our own, so why don't
you just go on and get lost.’

God listened patiently and kindly to the man and after the
scientist was done talking, God said, ‘Very well! How about this? Let's have a
man-making contest.’

To which the scientist replied, ‘OK, great!’ But God added,
‘Now we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.’

The scientist said, ‘Sure, no problem’ and bent down and
grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, ‘No, no, no, you go get
your own dirt!’" Jeremiel grinned at Michael.

“You told me that one before, once when we took
Nebuchadnezzar out to graze, except you used magicians and then again when the
Moors invaded Spain, then you used alchemists.”

“Just trying to lighten the mood.”

The wiper blades had disintegrated and the arms that had
held them were now trying to saw through the windshield. Both angels had refused
to give the other the satisfaction, by admitting defeat. Jeremiel had known,
the overuse of the blinker would grate on Michael’s last nerve, and Michael
knew that snapping off the control was childish, but neither was going to
apologize first. They’d had the blinker argument before, also the seatbelt
argument. In fact, at one time or another they had argued about everything in
Creation.

Jeremiel is partial to the Gospel of Luke, Michael likes
John. Jerry likes The Greatest Story Ever Told, but Michael likes Jesus of
Nazareth. (Both agree that Charlton Hesston’s portrayal of Moses was
ridiculous) Jerry's a Ford man, Michael likes Chevys. Jerry insists Mana was a
low calorie, carb free, starch, Michael swears that it was high caloric and
protein based. Jerry thinks Tom Cruise is straight, Michael is certain he’s
gay. Jerry likes pepperoni, Michael likes anchovies.

Sometimes, they would take opposite positions on a subject,
just to kill the boredom of watching and waiting. Neither meant the other ill
will, but every once in a while, things would come to a head and boil over,
like snapping off the turn signal. Michael had overreacted, but Jeremiel
wouldn’t fault him, there were times when he too, had snapped and Michael had
covered for him.

Once, after Michael had disarmed a bus bomb in Tel Aviv,
Jeremiel had detonated it while Michael carried it to safety. For a
seventy-cubit radius, there were bits and pieces of the archangel everywhere.
Earlier in the day, Michael had told Jeremiel, that he was nothing more than a
‘glorified crossing guard’ and it had pissed him off to no end.

Later, the next day, when Michael caught up with him in
Jerusalem, newly incarnate, he didn’t mention the incident, nor did he mention
it to anyone else, ever.

Both of them had fought back insanity and displayed great
will and endurance, while ignoring the repetitious cacophony of screeching and
scratching that waved untiring before their eyes, for quite some time. It was
Michael who cracked first.

“PULL THIS MOTHERFUCKER OVER!” Before the car had come to a
stop, Michael had flung open the door of the car and leapt over it and onto the
hood. Clawing madly, he captured and snapped off each wiper arm in turn and
held them high above his head in victory. The sound of grating glass was replaced
with an almost physical silence.

Jumping off the front of the car, he threw the arms deep
into the night. “You caused that torture by starting your blinker shit,”
Michael yelled, trying to place the blame, for his loss of the unspoken
competition, on Jeremiel. He flopped into the car and slammed the door behind
him. The silence was broken only by the faint hum of the engine and the
tick-ticking of the right turn signal. “How do you think I can get rid of
that?” He said as he reached under the dash.

Jeremiel’s fist struck Michael’s chin at almost the speed of
light, the angel crumpled forward unconscious, his face pressed against the
dash. Grabbing him by the back of his Sons of Anarchy cut, Jeremiel pulled him
back onto the seat into a semi-sitting position. “Oh you poor thing, look how
tired you are.” He said, as he put the car in gear and pulled back onto the
highway. Fiddling with the radio, he found some music that was almost in
perfectly time with the clicking of the turn signal.

Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a man of wealth
and taste...

A sharp crackling came from the rear of the car. Jeremiel
rolled down the partition to find Gabriel grinning from ear to ear.

“You know he’s going to be pissed when he comes to.” Gabriel
nodded at Michael’s limp form in the front seat.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I kind of lost control for a
moment, he’s not as mechanically inclined as he thinks he is and he was
attempting to work on the electrical parts of the car. He had to be
stopped.”
 
Jeremiel flashed a cheesy
smile into the mirror.

“Michael is more of an ‘Even Steven’, than an ‘I’m sorry’
kind of guy, in my experience.”

“Nah, he’s let me slide on much worse.”

Gabriel scooted closer to the partition. “Turn that off, I
hate that song.” He looked down at Michael and gave a shudder. “He is not going
to be happy at all. I wish I could separate you two until he cools off, but
we’re going to take a more hands-on approach to this situation.”

“He’ll be okay.”

“Well, whenever Sleepy-time comes around, we need you to
capture the escapee in the diaper. Just hold onto him and follow the other two.
They want to sell the shekel, but stall them until Baal arrives. For some
reason, we need you all together. I don’t think that Baal’s a player in all
this, I think we just need to keep him from screwing up whatever is going on.”

“Why don’t we just destroy the coin, send the idiot into the
abyss and move on? Why do you have two archangels on an escapee?” Jeremiel
asked. “Is this about removing Baal?”

“I think it’s bigger than that, but it’s not yet available
to me.” Gabriel’s face became grave. “The two with the shekel don’t know it,
but they are going to New Orleans to meet Azazel.”

The mention of Azazel surprised Jeremiel. She had ruled over
the Watchers, from the time of Adam until the flood, when they were taken away
from her and confined. With nothing to rule over, she became bitter and power
mad. “What do you want us to do with her?”

 
“Just make sure she
ends up with the coin. The naked man wants it and now Baal is after it, we need
to make sure Azazel gets it. Everything I’m telling you came from the top.
Something is happening. The Seraphim are really singing. No one but the Trinity
can understand them.” Gabriel patted Jeremiel on the shoulder. “I think we’re
going to the show.” Gabriel leaned over the back of the seat and patted Michael
on the shoulder, “Tell him I said hi when he wakes up.” Gabriel switched
dimensions and was gone.

When the Seraphim last sang anything other than ‘Holy, Holy.
Holy,’ the Christ was born. If they were going to the show, and everything was
going to reset, Michael was going to be pissed, he had always thought he was
going to be in charge of the Trumpets and Bowls, not babysitting a demon and a
diaper-clad dead man.

***

T
he
lights in the shop were all lit, but from the seat of his enormous automobile,
Baal could not see a shop keeper through any of the windows. He saw that
Pennzoil was on sale and that a large coffee reduced the price of a Snickers,
but nothing that told him whether or not the establishment was open for
trade.
 
He blasted the horn several times
until a young man poked his head up from beneath the counter; he stared blankly
in Baal’s general direction but gave no indication that the focus of his
attention included the dark prince. A few more blasts of the horn and shoulders
manifested beneath the head of the young man. Two more had brought the fellow
to unsteady feet.

Though the clerk maintained a blank
expression, he saluted Baal with his middle finger. The courtesy revealed no
military discipline and any centurion would have had the man flogged for his
effort, or obvious lack of. Baal depressed the pad on the steering wheel and
held it; a long sustained bellow erupted from the beast he sat in. He would not
be dismissed by a lowly shopkeeper.

The clerk shuffled around the counter and shouted through
the partially opened door. “It’s self-service!” As the young man turned to step
back into the shop; Baal produced another long blast and motioned for the clerk
to come to him. The clerk moved slowly and cautiously toward the vehicle,
dragging his heels in an awkward fashion which caused him to stumble over
something that wasn't there. His head bobbed like a chicken’s from one side to
the other and up and down, he appeared to be searching for the big truck’s
occupant.

It wasn’t until he was at the pumps that he gave any
indication, that he had truly seen Baal. “Hey man, you’re one of them little
fellers, ain’tcha?” the young man said, as he approached the driver’s side of
the truck, his neck seemed to extend telescopically upward a full two inches as
he strained to look in the window. “I couldn’t see you in there.” More than a
few teeth were missing from the man’s seemingly perpetual smile.

“My good man, Baal is in need of petroleum.” Baal had
slipped into the third person, a habit that had taken him centuries to retire.

When he was viewed as a god, referring to himself in the
third person seemed natural, almost obligatory, but constant chiding from
angels and other principalities, obviously jealous of his standing among
humans, had caused him to become self-conscience of it. Recent stressors were
most likely the basis for his regress, although he did feel more like the old
Baal than he had in years. A feeling he found not entirely unpleasant.

 
“Well mister, you can
tell Baal to help himself whenever he’s ready, this here's a self-serve pump.”
The man’s smile became friendlier and created two more vacancies in his oral
situation.

“Sir I am Baal and Baal is at somewhat of a disadvantage
when it comes to exiting and entering this monstrosity.” He replied tersely, he
could feel the connection between himself and the shekel growing weaker, he had
precious little time to waste on imbeciles, and it was quite clear that any
elaborations on his predicament would be wasted on one so evidently unable to
understand basic oral hygiene.

“I getcha buddy, you want me to pump Baal’s gas for
him.”
 
The man’s smile never wavered or
faded. “Well, as much as I’d like to, I can’t do that. This here’s a self-serve
pump. Over yonder is the full-service.”

“Sir, Baal needs fuel and Baal is willing to pay generously,
were you to put it into the vehicle for him.” His patience was thinning. “Baal
will pay you one hundred U.S. dollars to operate the pump.”

“Sheet, dawg, this mud puppy prolly holds twice that much in
the tank.” The young man shoved his hands in front pockets of his baggy
trousers, rocked back on his heels and stretched his grin to include a few
devastated molars. “Did anyone ever tell you, you look like a little Dr. Evil,
one of them Mini -me's?”

 
“Bullocks!” Using the
steering wheel for support, Baal drew himself to his feet; he stood on the seat
and leaned out the window as far as he could. “Sir, please place the fuel, in
the vehicle and Baal will pay you for the petroleum and compensate you two
hundred pounds for your inconvenience!”

“Pounds of what, sir?” The man’s smile shrank slightly in
his confusion.

“Blast it, man! Baal meant dollars, two hundred U.S.
dollars!” Baal heard his voice crack. If he would have had any hope of fueling
the vehicle himself, he would kill this human, here and now, just for sport.

“Make it two-o-five and Baal’s got hisself a deal.”

“Baal says sold.” Baal scratched the side of his head,
confused as to why the man would stifle the momentum of a negotiation that had
been rising in one hundred dollar increments with a final raise of five
dollars. It was obvious the man was simple, so a recreational dispatch of the
moron’s life was out of the question. The fellow was protected by his own
stupidity.

The foul odor of petroleum permeated the vehicle as it raced
into the tank, though not fast enough for the principality, he could feel the
shekel fade with every liter pumped. Finally, the nozzle clacked, signaling the
tank was full. The simple minded fellow squeezed the lever repeatedly until
petrol sprayed out and onto his unlaced shoes. The urge to kill the man was
almost unbearable. The simpleton repeated the process for the second fuel cell.

After several minutes and another splash of flammable liquid
to his footwear, the man returned to the demon. “You can tell Mr. Baal, that it
comes to one eighty-five, plus the two oh five equals…three seventy on the
button.”

Baal wondered how these inferiors survived on a daily basis.
Pulling a fat wallet from his jacket pocket, he removed four one hundred dollar
bills and stretched his short arm out to the grinning idiot.

The young man quickly snatched them from Baal’s hand. “I’m
going to have to run inside and check these with my marker and gitcher change.
Mr. Burdett said to check anything bigger than a ten.”

“Fuck Mr. Burdett,” Baal said as he fired up his monster. He
jerked down on the shifting lever and poked the accelerator hard with his walking
stick. The monster truck began to leap and bound away from the fuel pumps, its
enormous tires barking out screeches and yelps.