from Purgatory: Five Years in Cleveland, a book by ME!

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            A knock at the boss’ door was not taken lightly.  It was as if he was the Supreme Being himself.  I was hesitant to bother him at all.  It was such a trivial matter, but one that hadn’t taken care of itself.  And I surely wasn’t the one capable of willing it away.   

            “Come.”  The guttural voice inspired both fear and respect.  He was seated at a modest desk in a cramped office stacked with contracts waiting to be filed.  A fiery horizon burned through the windows and cast a reddish glow on everything in the room.  The boss’ skin, too, had a reddish quality and I had always wondered if he had been born that way or if it was a condition brought on by the intense work in such a place as this.  It seemed like the boss had been here a million years, but it had probably been only half that long. 

            “Sir,” I began, “there is a problem with one of the new people.  He isn’t showing the  . . . desired reaction to his daily routine.”

            Even in a chair, the boss cut an impressive figure.  He leaned back exhibiting a massive upper body and a cliff-like brow.  His eyes burned right through me, making me feel small and weak. 

            The boss growled, “Lionel, is this my problem?  You see the work I have to do.”  He swung his arms wide to gesture to the stacks of contracts that needed his authorization.  His wingspan was an impressive ten feet. 

            “Sir, I do appreciate the work you are doing, as do all of my colleagues.  You taught me everything I know.  You are beyond all criticism.  I do not come to you to complain or to raise issues.  I acknowledge my limitations, sir, and I come to you for help.”  That was the way, I thought.  Admit your weakness.  He likes that.  

            Stroking a jet-black goatee, the boss considered my plea.  “Very well, Lionel.  I will speak with him.  I can still inspire the proper reaction in my new recruits, eh?”  He raised his eyebrow and looked in my direction.  I nodded nervously in agreement. 

            I left to fetch the necessary files from the cabinet down the hall.  Peering over the railing of the fourth floor I scanned the crowd on the first floor for the young man I was so worried about.  I found him leaning against a wall with his hands in his pockets.  He stared off into space, completely unaware of his circumstances.  The fire was burning all around him.  The young man nonchalantly checked his watch, as if time meant anything here.  In such a crowd as ours he still stuck out like a bloody thumb.   

            “Thomas Kurtz, please report to the boss’ office. Thomas Kurtz, please report to the boss’ office.”  There could have been thousands of Thomas Kurtzes in that crowd, but they all knew which one the boss wanted to see.  The young man barely shrugged when he shoved himself off of the wall and slumped over to the elevators.  He had no idea what he was about to encounter. 

            I sat across from the boss.  Kurtz was marched into the office and he sat in the chair next to mine.  He looked around the office only momentarily, and then simply gazed out the window with a blank expression at the fiery sky.   His countenance didn’t portray stupidity or catatonia.  Though I knew it was impossible, I couldn’t help but think that the man seemed bored. 

            It was the same look he had when I had first put him on the rack.  Then I had moved him down to Layer Seven to slow roast over a bottomless pit.  I swear he had his arms folded across his chest as he dangled there for two years.  Then I had to get serious.  Disembowelment.  Decapitation.  Peeling toenails and fingernails.  Slugs.  Rats.  Snakes.  Spiders.  Bullets.  Rocks.  Spears.  Kurtz never reacted. 

            “Lionel,” the boss said, “why don’t you leave us.  Mr. Kurtz and I have a lot to talk about.”

            “Sir?  I just thought I could prepare the gentleman — ”

            With a quick look the boss cut me off.  In his eyes I saw horrible acts that I had never imagined and felt terrible emotions that threatened to destroy me.  I looked away, squinting in pain.  Arising, I put my hand on Kurtz’s shoulder and wished him luck.  I knew that what I had just seen in the boss’ eyes was just a glimpse of what this young man had in store.  Kurtz looked up at me blankly.   

            To take my mind off of Kurtz I went down to the seventh floor.  It was my favorite spot to people watch.  There were three rooms side-by-side that I observed from a viewing area.  One of our managers led a new man past all three rooms and made a gesture for the man to take a look into each one.  The first room was filled with rabid dogs, wolves and coyotes.  At the center of the room, four people – two men and two women – were bound to a large wooden column.  The animals attacked these people, tearing away chunks of flesh that grew back only to be eaten again.  The people had their mouths wide open, screaming.  The new man moved on to the second room where about 50 people were clawing and fighting each other to reach a cell door key suspended from the ceiling.  They were equipped with various tools, including sticks, shovels and ladders, which they were using to fend off their competitors.  Any time a person got close to the key the others would knock that person down.  The third room was half filled with feces, and one man and two women stood waste deep in it.  They were sipping coffee from coffee cups.  They chatted with each other and smiled.  The new man, who had breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the third room, looked to the manager and pointed to his choice.  This man was admitted to the cell where he waded into the pool of filth and greeted his cellmates.   The new man, in order to break the ice, told the following joke to his cellmates:

            “A man dies and goes to Hell where he is greeted by the devil:

Devil: Hey, why are you bumming out?

Man: If you died and went to Hell, you’d be bumming out too.

Devil: Hell isn’t what you think it is. It’s fun down here. Say, do you drink?

Man: Sure, I love to drink. Why?

Devil: Well, you’re gonna love Mondays because on Mondays all we do here is drink. Hell, we have whiskey, tequila, rum, vodka, all the booze you want to drink. We drink ‘til we puke, then we drink more.

Man: Ah, that sounds great.

Devil: Do you smoke?

Man: Damn right I do!

Devil: Cool! You’re gonna love Tuesdays. We get the finest cigars from all over the world. Smoke all you want. You don’t have to worry about getting cancer because you’re already dead anyways.

Man: No shit!

Devil: You like gambling?

Man: Hell yeah!

Devil: Great! On Wednesdays, we have gambling night here in Hell. We have poker, slot machines, roulette, craps, black jack, horse racing.  You name it, we got it.

Man: My wife didn’t used to let me play poker.  

Devil: Now you can. You like to get stoned?

Man: I love getting stoned! You mean…

Devil: That’s right man, because on Thursdays, it’s stoner night here in Hell! Help yourself to a huge bowl of crack, smoke a joint the size of a nuclear sub, do all the drugs you want and you don’t have to worry about overdosing because you’re already dead anyhow.

Man: Awesome! I never thought Hell was such a swinging place!

Devil: Are you gay?

Man: Uh, no.

Devil: Oooh, you’re gonna hate Fridays!

            The three cellmates laughed at the new man’s joke and they all sipped from their coffee cups.  A minute later a guard tapped his night stick on the third cell door and said, “Coffee break’s over, get back on your heads.”  Going down to the seventh floor and seeing things like this always made me feel better. 

            I rode the elevator back to the fourth floor.  As I approached the boss’ office I heard him faintly say, “Lionel, could you come here please.”  It didn’t sound like the boss.  The voice was much more earthy and worn.  It sounded downtrodden.  It sounded human. 

            I entered the office and closed the door.  The boss stood by the window looking out to the blood red horizon.  He had poured himself a drink and was gulping it, keeping the bottle in his other hand.  I watched the boss slam two glasses of whiskey down his throat before he spoke.  “I saw Kurtz’s file.”  The file was on the boss’ desk flipped to the first page.  “I don’t suppose you remember his background?”

            I truly didn’t remember anything strange, and I said so.  The boss countered, “You may not remember, but you saw it.  You inspect all the new files.  You looked it over and then looked it over again when you noticed his . . .  problem.”  The boss gulped another whiskey, then added, “His problem that is now our problem.” 

            “I don’t understand.  His file is just random facts about his life.  That shouldn’t have any bearing down here.”

            The boss turned at last and I saw grief in his eyes.  His shoulders were heavy and he slouched over his desk.  Picking up the first page of the file, he read, “ ‘Kurtz, Thomas Frederick.  Born 1976, New York, New York.  Died 2001 in …” 

            The boss didn’t continue but somehow I knew the rest.  It came back, the memory of reading the location of Kurtz’s deathplace, a small insignificant detail, but a detail that threatened to unravel all the work the boss had done for so many eons. 

            Died 2001, Cleveland, Ohio.  The problem with torturing a New Yorker who moves to Cleveland is that no supernatural hellish torture compares to the one the man put on himself. 

            The boss said, “After I read this first page of the file I knew it was over.  No interrogation was needed.  I simply asked, ‘Why?’  He said, ‘A woman.’”  The boss slumped even lower.  I poured myself a drink and another and another and my boss and I sat in his office drinking and saying nothing.  Later, the boss decided that Thomas Kurtz should be returned to Cleveland to suffer more in the mortal world.  Reanimation was usually done for those wrongly sentenced or for contracts that turned out to be invalid.  This was different.  Kurtz could not exist is such a place as this.  And we didn’t want him. 

            As a final comment on the Kurtz issue, the boss pointed his index talon to the immortal plane above and said, “And if the competition has a problem, tell them they can have him.  I’d like to see what they come up with.”