Doomed (32 page)

Nana leans close to me and confides in a stage whisper, “He called me the C-word!”

“We’ve been over and over this,” Papadaddy says, placating. “I did not.”

She coughs. “You called me the C-word, and then you went off to find Maddy at that nasty traffic island.”

My grandparents, they Ctrl+Atl+Bicker. They sulk. The patient, observant supernaturalist in me is sorely taxed. Finally, seeking some resolution, I ask, “Papadaddy? Listen. Did you, by any chance, go to the byway restroom and get your elderly wiener ripped off?”

He looks at me, aghast. “June Bug! How could you even ask me that?”

“Because it happened!” Minnie shouts. “Some monster ripped up your privates and you bled to death like a pig!”

“That didn’t happen.”

“I saw your dead body!” Nana says, “Don’t they watch the news in Heaven?” Her gnarled hands frame large, imaginary
words in the air. “All the headlines blared: ‘Movie Star’s Pa Killed in Toilet Torture.’ ”

At this impasse in what is obviously a well-rehearsed stalemate, even as the continent of Madlantis founders in deep seas and flame-bedecked Boorites dash past us like human comets, I realize I’ve been mistaken. It’s obvious: Papadaddy Ben’s soul floated away, and another spirit took possession of his former body. Some ghost or demonic force used the shock of the paramedics’ paddles, like a juvenile delinquent hot-wiring a car and taking it for a joyride. Like I just now used Mr. Ketamine’s corpse. This strange wiener-wielding corpse rustler is who accosted me in the upstate toilet. Not my precious papadaddy.

Thinking fast, I cagily redirect my grandparents’ ire by asking, “Nana, do you know what I miss most about being alive?” Not waiting for an answer, I blurt out, “Your delicious peanut-butter cheesecake!” To my papadaddy, I say, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to say good-bye when you died.” Pitching my words with an especially childlike sincerity, I say, “Thank you for teaching me how to build a birdhouse.”

I throw my chubby ghost arms around them in an awkward embrace as two red-tinted headlights approach. A strange automobile—spattered with blood, fringed with dripping strands of coagulated blood—cruises magically, silently up the steep side of the erupting mountain. At this most sweet moment of our reunion, a gleaming black Lincoln Town Car comes to a stop beside us.

Gentle Tweeter,

Nodding his head at the Lincoln Town Car, Mr. K’s ghost says, “This is my ride, right? I’m going to Heaven, like you promised, right?”

The driver’s door swings open, and a uniformed chauffeur steps out. First his polished, hooflike boots emerge, then his gloved hands, glistening and leathery, followed by the brimmed cap that must hide the two bony rinds that poke up through his not-combed hair. As he stands, he adjusts a pair of mirrored sunglasses that hide his eyes. He carries a sheaf of pages bound along one edge like a screenplay. This he lifts and begins to read from, aloud. “ ‘Madison felt faint with terror and confusion.’ ”

And I am, Gentle Tweeter, I do. I feel faint with terror.

“ ‘Her great, meaty knees wobbled, weak with horror,’ ” he reads, as if dictating my existence.

In fact, my knees are shaking.

The chauffeur reads, “ ‘Madison had served her maker well. She’d delivered billions of God’s children to the Devil’s clutches.’ ” He turns a page of his manuscript and continues. “ ‘Madison had betrayed even her own parents and condemned them to eternal damnation!’ ”

And, so it seems, I have.

Even Babette sidles up to savor my humiliation. To smirk at the sight of my defeat, asking, “How’s your psoriasis?”

“ ‘Little Madison,’ ” the chauffeur reads, “ ‘would soon render unto Satan every living soul whom the Almighty had labored to create. All that God loved, Madison had ensured that they would be given over for Lucifer to molest until the end of time.…’ ”

The chauffeur pauses in his speechifying. He opens the rear door of the Town Car, and Mr. K readily climbs inside. The driver leaves the door open, and additional blue ghosts make a beeline for the car’s rear seat. The rapidly accruing spirits of Boorites burned to death, suffocated on toxic fumes, or drowned in the surrounding seas, these recently departed flock enter the door the driver holds ajar. They stuff themselves within. So many, so quickly that they blur, they pack themselves into this, this vehicle they think will ferry them to the heavenly hereafter.

“ ‘Madison thought she was so intelligent,’ ” the chauffeur reads. “ ‘But she was not. In truth, she was stupid. The silly cow, she’d brought about the downfall of all humanity.…’ ”

Slowly, so as not to draw his focus, I shuck my cardigan sweater. Stealthily, I don the defiled shirt, doing up the buttons gingerly, lest my fingers come into contact with the crusty spooge that so richly patterns the stiffened bodice.

“ ‘Little Maddy,’ ” the driver reads, oblivious to my actions, “ ‘would have no choice but to submit herself for Satan’s repeated carnal pleasures.…’ ”

Positioning myself to protect my aged grandparents from the Devil’s wrath, I pry open Mr. Darwin’s gummy book and display the defaced chapter about Tierra del
Fuego. There, the sonorous travelogue remains unreadable beneath a thickish coating of horrors. Most prominent on those two facing pages is the outline of a squished ding-dong silhouetted in red.

“ ‘Poor, fat Madison Desert … whatever … Trickster Spencer,’ ” reads the Devil, “ ‘would soon become the dark lord’s concubine!’ ”

And although the satanic driver has yet to notice the open, bloodied book and its vile illustration, many others do take note. Nana and Papadaddy both peer at the dinger outline and commence to giggle. Likewise, the golden angel of Festus takes a gander and his eyes widen in mirthful recognition. Other souls, those burned-alive spirits in transit to the Lincoln Town Car, they also venture a glance at the gory exhibit I present, and they, too, begin to snicker.

Paying them no mind, the chauffeur turns to a new page of his missive. “ ‘Madison will serve Satan in Hades, and she will bear him many odious children.…’ ”

Gathering my courage, I push the befouled book forward for his inspection. “How?” I shout. “How will mighty Satan consummate such an unholy union?”

His speech interrupted, the Devil looks up from his script. Reflected in both lenses of his sunglasses are the pages of the
Beagle
book.

“Mighty Satan,” I ask, “were you not jerked off by Darwin’s gore-slickened observations about the Cape of Good Hope?”

The driver slowly lowers his sunglasses, revealing yellow goat eyes, the irises running side to side.

Written down the outside margin in my nana’s hand, the words
Atlantis isn’t a myth. It’s a prediction
.

“Were you not,” I persevere, “in fact
castrated
by your only intimate encounter with the diminutive Maddy Spencer?” By now, Gentle Tweeter, despite all my decorous upbringing, in defiance of all my self-censoring social conventionality, I’m screaming. “Satan, oh dark one, does your wiener not ache at this proof that little Madison gelded you? Did she not reject your evil advances in the not-sterile environs of a public upstate potty?”

Stymied by my revelation, the liveried Devil can only stammer.

Gentle Tweeter, I have succeeded in my last-Halloween vow to kick some satanic ass. The damage inflicted at my chubby hands has far surpassed any I dream I’d ever had of my own ability. Here is proof that I exist as someone beyond Beelzebub’s sweaty pedophile fantasy. What mere fictive character could so cripple her author?

More telling than any verbal response, the driver’s crimson hide flushes even deeper scarlet. His horns elongate, lifting his cap. His claws lengthen, pushing off his gloves.

Heedless of the cataclysm taking place around me, I keep up my harangue. Immolating plastic mountains create a flaming skyline. All creation is this mix of tragedy and farce as a trio of people approach. The succubus, Babette, my former best friend, leads my mom and dad forward, prompting them with the murderous point of a large, ornate knife. It’s the same antique blade with which Goran executed the pretty Shetland pony.

The sight of my parents, brought forth in the Devil’s presence, clearly to be utilized as hostages, this unnerves me. Regardless, I boldly thrust out the corrupt book, asserting, “Show us, dark master, if anything remains of your
butchered wing-wang.” Puffing my chest to showcase the gummy chambray shirt, I demand, “Is this
not
your
demon seed
?”

Livid and trembling, Satan dashes his script against the ground. He turns and reaches into the Town Car, extracting something pale. Dangling from his fist is an orange rag. Given a vigorous shake by his outraged arm, it emits a plaintive
meow
.

Ye gods. It’s Tigerstripe.

Before I can shush him, angel Festus seconds my challenge. “Yes, Prince of Lies, show us your chopped-off pee-pee.”

Nana escalates the chorus, shouting, “Show us! Let me see your twisted little wormwood!”

And in response, wicked Satan calmly turns to the demon holding my parents, and he says, “Kill them. Kill them both now.”

Gentle Tweeter,

You think it’s going to be a breeze, watching your mother get murdered, but it’s not. I’ve witnessed my mom get lynched by redneck backwoods sheriffs, and I’ve watched her bludgeoned by the henchmen of Big Tobacco, and chomped on by the bulldozers of Big Coal, and garroted by the hit men of Agribusiness.

Once my mother was bitten in half by a renegade manatee. Blood poured out of her eyes. Blood gushed from her ears. Her guts pushed up and out of her mouth. That’s how I knew she was dead. It took days to film. It took an entire team of special effects wonks just to get the blood right. Easily a hundred people were present on set. Stylists and makeup people, grips, dialogue coaches. Caterers. You name it. All of these people stood around, yawning and eating potato chips, and watched my mom gasp and choke on her own gore.

The happy memories of ordinary kids might include their homemaker mothers phoning Bulgari to have jeweled tiaras sent ’round for approval, or Tasering the Somali maids, but my fond recollections include looking on as my mother was burned at the stake by a cabal of Big Pharma drug companies.

I’d sat in a folding chair and peeked between my chubby
fingers while she was stoned by angry Puritans. I’d perched on my father’s lap and held my breath as her lovely face disappeared into a rank pool of quicksand.

And she never flinched, my mom. She never winced.

The director shouted, “Action!”

And my lovely mother died beautifully every time.

She died bravely. She died cleanly. She died thin and noble and calm. When the script dictated, every time, she died perfectly. Her final words were always so eloquent.

She never required a second take.

My father, my dad I’ve heard expire loudly and wetly through a hundred locked bedroom doors.

Whatever I expected, it’s not like that in real life. On the flaming peak of that plastic volcano, as the continent of Madlantis sinks into the Pacific Ocean, Babette lifts the large knife and plunges it into my father’s heart. A beat later, at Satan’s command, she swings the ornate cake knife in a wide arc to slash my mother’s throat.

Gentle Tweeter,

The Camille-shaped and Antonio-shaped balloons of blue ectoplasm inflate. Floating before my eyes are the international tycoon and the media superstar. Their ghost eyes meet mine.

Just as I feared it would, back there in the PH of the Rhinelander hotel, my ghost heart balloons like an aneurysm full of hot tears. It bloats like a deceased kitten in the backseat of a limousine. It’s astonishing, but the heart of me engorges like a rapidly inflating, much-turgid man-banana in a fetid toilet. And just like all those things, my heart explodes.

Forgive me, Gentle Tweeter, but what takes place at this juncture is not something one can keyboard. Such are the limitations of emoticons. Upon contact with my parents’ ghosts, I suffer all the emotions which failed to manifest themselves in my life. And for the first time since Los Angeles and Lisbon and Leipzig, I’m happy.

Gentle Tweeter,

My mother looks over the melting, flaming landscape that surrounds us. Baroque ruins stand outlined in smoke against the ember-filled skies. Scalding ocean waves sweep inland as the continent sinks lower. Superheated convection winds carry the poisoned fumes of everything to kill everyone and everything everywhere.

Surveying this scene of total planetary annihilation, my sweet mother, her ghost, gasps and says, “How lovely!” She says, “It’s just the way Leonard predicted.…”

In ancient Greek times, she explains, a wise teacher named Plato wrote the story of the destruction of an enormous island nation called Atlantis. Plato, she says, was quoting an Athenian statesman who traveled to Egypt and learned the Atlantis disaster story from priests in the temple of Neith. Blah, blah, blah.