Purgatorium (15 page)

The men rejoice in laughter and excitement. The dealer deals the next hand out. I look at my hand. A ten, queen, king, ace of hearts, and a Queen of diamonds. So close to a royal flush! I think.

I glance down at my jacket breast pocket, seeing the card that I need is right there! My heart starts beating faster. Excitement. Danger. But there’s no way in hell I could get away with that, I surmise. They’d all see it.

Staring at the Queen of diamonds in my hand, I feel only anger towards it. How this one small object can ruin a man’s life.

With the money I had already won and the winnings from this hand, I could get my life back in order, finally finish my book that I have been working on, even get it published. Perhaps the players would be so engrossed in the game, I suddenly think, they wouldn’t even notice, especially if I kept my hands up near the pocket to partially cover it! My heart pounds faster; I can feel it in my temples.

Continuing to stare at this unusable card, I force myself to make the decision.

The sound of glass breaking near the bar turns everyone’s head. Lisa looks up, slightly embarrassed at having dropped a glass.

I rapidly check the eyes, through the masks, of all at the table, including the dealer. They are all looking over at Lisa. I see my opportunity and quickly make the switch.

They all laugh. “Maybe the bartender’s having a little too much fun?” says Ace. He turns his head back and looks directly into my eyes. Ace’s eyes seem only to reveal good humor.
Phew!
I think. No one’s noticed!

One more round of dealing goes by with players discarding and picking up new cards. Ten, Queen, and King all go in. Ace looks up at me, down at his own cards, then back at me. “Well Jack, this is it. All or nothing time,” he says, his eyes revealing that he is grinning beneath the mask. He pushes all his chips in.

Well I can’t turn back now, I think. I take all of my chips, push them to the center of the table. The dealer says, “Call!”

The King lays down. “Flush!” says the dealer.

The Ten then flips up. “High card!” shouts the dealer.

The Queen flips each card one at a time. “Four of a kind!” the dealer yells again.

Ace finally lays down. “Straight flush!” says the dealer.

Ace waits in silence, and the other players turn their heads towards me. Ace looks up at me as well, everyone waiting. I slowly lay out a Ten of hearts, Jack of hearts,
Queen
of hearts, King of hearts, and finally, an Ace.

“A royal flush!” shouts the dealer. Terrified at being found out, I look at Ace, careful to lean on my elbow and keep my hands folded and up to block clear sight of my breast pocket. Ace says nothing. The dealer slides all the chips over to me.

“Good hand, Jack! Good hand! All’s fair in games of chance!” Ace says to me. I am shocked at Ace’s apparently cavalier response. All that money was just pocket change to Ace, I deduce.

I look at my Jack of hearts card, just laying there by the dealer. I get my hand ready to grab it just as the dealer goes to pick it up. I see him put it back in the stack with the others, leaving me with just my thoughts of getting caught.

What if he counts the cards and sees that there is one extra in the deck? Seeing that it is the Jack of hearts, they will know it was me! Maybe if I just confess now they will go easy on me since I came clean.

The dealer hands me a briefcase, “That is one-hundred thousand dollars for the winner. Until next time, good game everyone.” The dealer leaves as I look into the open briefcase full of money and grow excited.

My emotions are going wild as I think of all the things that I can finally do! At last, I can get the life I have always dreamed! I calm myself, fearful of being discovered. I am suddenly paralyzed with indecision. How am I going to walk out of here? They will surely see that I am not wearing my Jack of hearts card anymore.

At just that moment, Lisa walks over carrying a martini and places it in front of Queen, then puts her hand on my shoulder.

“Good game, gentlemen, but I am now taking the winner away for my amusement purposes,” she says to everyone, smiling widely. “Jack promised me a dance and that’s a promise he’d better keep!” Everyone laughs.

King reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a room key with the number six on it. He tosses it to me. I quickly grab it in midair and return my hands to their folded position in front of me to conceal my breast pocket again.

“La Hire, your room six. Word is the stereo system is astounding, especially from inside the bedroom.” The players chuckle as one of them says, “Well let’s not all be sore losers tonight gentlemen! Bring in the entertainment!”

A door opens at the back of the room and four women come in from behind the curtains, each taking a seat on one of the players’ laps. Lisa picks up a remote control and turns on the stereo, which begins playing lounge-like house music. The women begin kissing the lips of the players’ masks. Lisa takes my hand. I stand up and we head back towards the sliding wooden doors.

We walk through the first set of double doors. She pushes my mask up so that it is sitting on top of my head, revealing my face again, then opens the other set of wooden doors. As we walk through, she turns to me and says, “You owe me a drink, La Hire.”

“My name is not—” I try to tell her as she closes the doors behind us. We turn and walk through the curtains back into the main gaming room.

“Tonight it’s La Hire! Tonight you become someone you’re not. Tonight you can be whoever you want to be. So…be La Hire. And what does La Hire like to drink?”

I can’t help but feel dangerous as I order a drink from the bartender. “Gentleman Jack, double, neat.”

“Jack likes Jack,” she laughs. “I like Jack too, especially Gentleman Jack,” she says, running her hand over mine and smiling.

“And one for the lady too, then,” I say, stimulated by her touch, but preoccupied by how much money I just won. I feel almost lightheaded from all the excitement of material success and power I just achieved. “Tonight is going to be one lucky night!”

We clink our glasses together and throw back our drinks. I put my glass down on the bar. As I look back at Lisa, I feel dizzy and everything starts to blur. I smile back at Lisa, she laughs and pulls my mask back onto my face.

Wham!

I feel the pain of a blow to my face, but the room is hazy and I can’t tell who or what hit me. Everything fades to black, and I hear a familiar beeping noise in the distance. I feel the mask on my face, but it has slid to the side. The beeping gets louder.

25 Minutes

I open my eyes, feeling moisture on my face. My surroundings slowly come into focus. I can hear my watch beeping, but I cannot move my arms. I look down at my left wrist and the beeping stops.

My watch reads 25:05.

I see my arms are tied to the arms of a chair. I try to move my legs, but they are tied too. I shake as I look around the freezing room. The walls are a metallic light blue color and there’s a metal door in front of me. Frost and condensation cover everything. To my right there are dozens of empty meat hooks.

A meat locker?
I think, despairingly. Who put me here? What in the world is going on? I begin to panic. I also feel something on the left side of my face. I look over at it, trying to focus. With blood on the inside. My blood?

Looking back at my wrist, I panic even more: 25:25.

Wait! I’m not where I need to be. Those horrible dark skeletal creatures are going to be coming for me!
I think as I struggle to free my legs and arms. Suddenly, I feel the slap of a hand on my right cheek. Surprisingly, I feel no pain, just shock. I look up, angry to see
Michael
standing in front of me.

“That’s what you get for almost getting us reaped. You better be glad I got you out on time before the tree could spit you out from only God knows where!” Michael slaps me again, just a little bit harder this time to where I can almost feel it.

“Was that fun?”
Michael
asks, smiling. I want to scream at him, but I can’t make my mouth move. No sound comes out. Michael takes out his playing card from his vest pocket and wipes the blood around my face.

“Let’s get back on track again, shall we? Now where were we?” Michael takes out the book he had shown me this morning. “I would have gotten you out sooner but I had to go back for this, baby.”

He shows me a picture of my office window, making me assume that he has lost his mind. I look down at my watch again, my panic building.

“Don’t worry, they can’t sense you when your body drops below a certain temperature, which is all a part of the next chapter. You see Reapers have those heat sensor eyes, all predator-like. We will be safe in here for the time being. Which has somehow happened before. Don’t ask me how. But anyways, reapers may act dumb but there is a brain in that skull of theirs. No matter how small it may be.”

I watch Michael get a chair and scoot it over to me.

“I know what you are about to think, so don’t bother thinking it. Cheating for money at a card game was not the pain I was referring too. The mental pain aspect comes from your sins. All humans have a certain amount of sins bounded to their soul. It takes a lot of self-knowledge to find those sins that are bounded to you, because a sin is just another name for demon. It gets in real deep-like and doesn’t ever want to let go. Let’s take the coffee shop memory for example. Didn’t you wonder where that soft prideful voice came from? Telling your young self what to say and do? That was your demon speaking to you.”

That was my demon?
I continue to think. It sounded so…human.”

Michael walks around me in circles as if he were hearing my thoughts. “The only reason you can hear it now is because you are through the looking glass. You are looking out at yourself on the other side just like what your demon has always done. The alive past version of you just thinks that what he is actually thinking is his own thoughts. But really it’s his demons. It’s the devil’s way of inflicting mental chaos unto the world.”

I am in control of my own thoughts. I decide on what I say and what I do!

I begin trying to move my way out of the chair. Michael appears in front of my face and says, “Humans can’t say that they are pure, because they are not. There are sins that everyone faces in their life: Gluttony, pride, envy, lust, wrath, sloth, and greed. Can you find which one is bound to your soul?”

I look away from him and think, I can’t be a sinner. I don’t know anything about me. So I cheated at a card game. Whoopee!
Devil come take my sinful soul now!
I think sarcastically to myself.

Michael then whispers in my ear, “Have you ever wondered what happens when you leave the sink on in this place?”

Michael kicks away his chair and swiftly shoves my face up against the sink, hanging on the wall beside me. He yells, “You think this is a game?!” I am stunned, not understanding what is happening. Michael turns on the faucet.

A loud noise is heard coming through the pipes, making its way up to the nose of the faucet. Michael plugs the drain and I watch as brown puss comes flowing out.

What is that?!
I think, disgusted.

“This is punishment.”

The brown chunky liquid fills up the sink while Michael holds on to my head and forces me to the brim.

“By you going into that tree, you compromised everything that we have worked so hard at perfecting! There are no more redoes or restarts for you anymore! After this week, your heart will flatline.”

I stare at the brown chewy liquid, afraid of it, my sin, and of dying.

“This, my soul brother, is a metaphor of your whole existence. Wanting to be pure, but your sinful nature always leaving you dark and chunky. If you could smell this you would know it smelled like a mix between Uriel’s feet and Raphael’s farts. That’s right, angels fart. It’s a blessing and a curse. Blessed to God that you can’t smell them. It’s stanky. I mean real talk stank-ey. Try and smell it.”

Michael dunks my head into the pool of brown infested liquid. I take in all the chunky fluid as it enters my mouth, then lift my head back up.

“Are you angry yet?!” Michael dunks me again. I bring my head back up as he wipes away the brown vomit from my face.