Awake in Hell (9 page)

First
of all, as everyone knows, leather does not breathe — at all. It absorbs heat
and multiplies it and turns it into a smelly liquid form that then coats every
nook and cranny of your body. Leather is bad. And down here, leather is tragic.
I don’t even want to know what the inside of my cab is going to smell like at
the end of the day.

And
secondly, leather should never, ever be worn by anyone over the age of thirty
for any reason whatsoever. Hear me living people? Take notes on this. My sorry
tale may turn out to be the greatest lesson some poor sap may ever learn. But
if you learn nothing from my pathetic life, learn this... stop wearing leather!
Now, a leather jacket is fine, and that is a classic look that almost anyone
can pull off. And a leather vest? Maybe. Particularly if you ride a motorcycle
or want people to think that you do. Leather skirts? Only if the time/space
continuum has a glitch and it becomes permanently 1987. But leather pants?
Absolutely not. Leather pants are a privilege people! Something you must be
young and thin to enjoy.  Unless you are Steven Tyler (and even he was
starting to look a bit ridiculous in them when I left the planet), take the
leather pants the fuck off.

Having
said that, it’s time to put mine on. I hate this place.

After
spending an extraordinary amount of time trying to pull on a pair of leather
pants in boiling heat, I finally leave my apartment winded and pissed off.
Despite that, and the nagging sensation of impending exhaustion from last
night’s nightmare marathon, I’m feeling pretty positive about today. Today
should be tremendously successful by Hellion standards. And no one needs to
worry about me accidentally helping someone or inciting any unnecessary hope
because today my mood is pretty much black enough to make me feel almost
qualified to be a cab driver in Hell.

I
follow the directions to the dispatch office of the cab company, printed on the
small post-it
Deedy
had given me. This time, wiser
and more jaded than I was during my first temp experience, my eyes are peeled
the whole way there looking for Will and his sneaky, spying self. Just as I am
approaching the dispatch bay, I see him ducking behind a gas pump. I walk past
and say, “watch out, Will, huffing those fumes will give you a killer migraine.
Ask me how I know,” and I keep on walking laughing out loud.

Thanks
to the Second Chance Temp Agency, I’ve laughed and cried more in the past few
days than I would have thought possible just a few weeks ago.

I
walk into the tiny glass enclosed office within the car bay. The smell of
gasoline and oil is thick in the air, and with the heat it seems like another
person inside the garage with me, like a new, stinky imaginary friend. It looks
like they have about six or seven cabs — cabs. Not nearly enough for the size
of Hell. However, since the idea of having plenty of cabs in Hell is borderline
ridiculous, and you’d have to be brain damaged or new to actually ride in one,
it really shouldn’t be a surprise.

I
walk into the office and expect to see a diminutive man with a cigar and a
temper like Danny
Devito
in Taxi. Instead, I find
myself face to face with a GIANT. I mean an actual giant person straight from
central casting for the latest fairy tale movie! This guy is HUGE, big broad
shoulders that have to span at least four feet. He is so tall that even though
we’re in a decent sized office, he has to kind of stoop over when he stands or
he’ll hit his head. And he’s got the largest feet I’ve ever seen. I can hear
Linda’s voice in my head saying revolting things about the probable size of the
rest of his anatomy, based on those clown-shoe sized feet, and I can’t help but
glance at his waist for a teensy minute.

He
lumbers from behind the desk and comes toward me with a grin that is
proportionate to the rest of his body. His teeth are atrocious. Gaps where some
are missing, others just black and rotting in his head, and the rest are just
yellowed with age and stains. He’s wearing a pair of ordinary jeans, which is
kind of surprising, although they are quite short and fall well above his
ankles. However, considering he’s got to be almost 7 feet tall I can only
imagine these are probably very similar to what he wore in life. His shirt is a
little juvenile. A

T-shirt
with a childhood cartoon character on it. And it’s kind of feminine. I search
my memory banks for a name of this cartoon.
It’s
something-something-bears. With colorful stuffed bears with rainbows and shit
plastered on the front of them. His is kind of lavender. At any rate,
humiliating yes, but uncomfortable? No. He grasps my hand and his enormous hand
envelopes mine until you can no longer see it. I am literally quite frightened
for a moment or two that I may pull back a stump where my hand used to be. He
pumps my hand with great enthusiasm and says, “You must be Louise! I’m Tim. I’m
so happy to make your acquaintance!” He says it kind of slowly and very
deliberately. I shudder as I imagine why he’s found himself here, in this
horrible place. I get snatches of, “Of Mice and Men,” and wonder if he
accidentally hurt someone. But if it had been an accident, he wouldn’t have
ended up here, right? I disengage my hand from him and weakly return his smile.
“Thanks,” I reply. “Ready to get to work!”

“
Okee
dokey
!” He says again with a
huge grin. “We’ve got three cabs to choose from. One is pretty beat up, it used
to be Carl’s. He liked to take customers right up to the door. Occasionally he
took customers THROUGH the door,” Tim pauses for single beat then bursts into
laughter at his own joke. After a minute of that, he wipes a laughter induced
tear out of the corner of his eye and continues, “The other two just arrived. I
don’t know where they come from, but I think it might be from the same place
where you got that outfit,” again with the pause only this time long enough to
give me a sorrowful look, as if he’s finding my fucked-up closet choice more
pitiable than his!
Harumph
!  “So no guarantees,
sorry.”

“Fine,”
I say, with just a touch of an offended tone, due to the whole ‘poor little
Louise stuck in leather’ look. “I will happily take one of the new ones out for
a test drive!” I didn’t bother to even ask what happened to Carl, since I
figured he wouldn’t tell me anyway and I was terrified of the possible answers.
The biggest one being that Carl was fired, which would set precedent that it is
possible for a person to actually get fired as a cab driver. And my track
record is two for two on the whole getting shit canned thing.

“Good
for you!” Tim says, with just a hint of condescension. I’m really not sure
whether to like Tim, to pity him, or to punch him in the throat. It’s a strange
conflict. He does make me feel just a wee bit anxious and very uncomfortable
over his actual presence here. We all believe that there are some basic rules,
and those rules help us make sense of the world around us, even if that world is
this one. A week ago, I would have said with all the confidence in the universe
that there were no innocent children in Hell, but then my new little blonde
friend started appearing. And I would have asserted that if you’re slow or
mentally challenged, you’re pretty much guaranteed a ticket to a penthouse in
the afterlife. But here’s Tim with his
gappy
smile
and his overly concerned looks regarding my wardrobe and now I don’t know what
to think. With a shudder, I decide to stop thinking and just go to work
already.

“Thanks
Tim. Got the keys?”

“Yup,”
he says and goes back to his desk. He grabs a set of keys with a large “3” on
the
keyring
and tosses them over to me. “Be careful
out there, kiddo,” he says with a hint of sincere concern. I immediately regret
considering to hit him. He walks up to me and places one of his giant hands on
my shoulder. I look up and into his eyes and again I am overwhelmed by a wave
of discomfort. His eyes are so kind. It’s not just hard, it’s damn near
impossible to believe that he could have done anything to warrant being damned
for eternity.

“I
mean it. It gets rough out there. Don’t let it get to you,” he says. Then he
pats my shoulder a couple of times and turns his back to me.

I
swear, as I’m heading out of his office toward bay three for my cab, I can hear
him sniffle as if he’s crying. I wonder for a moment if he’s crying over his
own fate or if he’s crying for me.

As
soon as I get inside my car I feel at home. In the world of breathers and
breeders, I never cared about my car. I had a driver’s license and occasionally
I even had a car, but it was usually a piece of shit beater car that I used
simply to get from point A to point B. I never understood people who named their
car or took photos of their car and framed them or spent more on their car
payment than my parents did on their first mortgage. I thought of my car as a
tool, an occasional place to sleep or fuck if there was absolutely no
alternative. But my car was never an extension of myself. So I never got
people, especially men, who had a more intimate relationship with their
transportation than they had with wives, mistresses, or children.

But
that was then. This is now. And today I get it. Because after working at a call
center in a teensy weensy cubicle that looks exactly like the 42 others on
either side of it, I understand why people feel at home when they are in a car.
It’s like sacred space, small enough to feel intimate and everything adjusts to
fit you — just you. I adjusted all the mirrors and the seat. I wish I had
something really personal and me-like to hang from the rear view mirror. I’m
wondering if the radio works and I’m about to try it when the smaller,
cb
-like radio below it goes nuts. I hear Tim’s slow-speaking
tone come over and say “cab 3, cab 3, Louise, you out there?”

“Tim,
I’m directly in front of your office in the car bay!”

“Oh
good... wait a second,” he said and then his giant head popped up from nowhere
in the window. He gives me a great big smile and a wave then disappears again.

“Did
ya
see me?” he says with an obvious smile.

“Of
course I did!” I say laughing.

“Okay,
well I have your first pick up. It’s on Moss Ave and 3rd Street.”

“
Okee
doke
. Is there a map or
something in here?” I say looking around.

“Nope.
Sorry.” He says.

“Not
a problem!” I say and back out of the bay with a huge grin.

This
job should be a cake walk.

So
here I am. Driving around like a maniac, not even caring which direction I’m
going with a guy in the back seat screaming like I’m torturing his mother or
something. It took me about 45 minutes to find the address where I picked him
up, so he was pretty pissed off by the time I pulled up and gave him my best
winning smile. He got in the car and starting blathering on about needing my
corporate office’s number as well as taking down my tag number and screaming
about how he was going to be contacting them to complain. So, I’m thinking he’s
real new in town. I’m thinking I might just earn a promotion or something on my
first day as a cabbie. This job fucking rocks like The Who, baby!

I
notice, with just a twinge of disappointment, that his destination is right
ahead. I have to brake pretty hard to stop within a block past it and the guy
literally leaps out of the cab and runs behind me screaming. I pull away
chuckling and think to myself that I just might be able to make the next guy
boot if I try really hard. But, then I’d be stuck in a car that has no working
air conditioning and smells like vomit. So maybe that is not such a brilliant
idea.

I
get on the radio and call Tim. “Dropped off my first fare. Ready for the next
one!” I say with great enthusiasm.

“Good
Job, Louise!” Tim answers with equal, if not greater enthusiasm. “You are a
natural at this!” he says with a bit of awe in his slow speech. You just
gotta
love Tim. Then he comes back on the radio with my
next fare, approximately ten minutes from here unless I take the long way
around, which of course, I am because I’m that committed to being successful at
something down here in Hades. And it’s fun.

So
I turn the corner toward the left (my fare is to the right) just in time to
catch a view of something that sends my mind reeling and sets my foot directly
on the brake — a red ball bouncing around the corner up a block. I can’t see
who’s behind that ball, but I have a clue. I wait with breathless anticipation
as the ball turns the corner and the bouncer comes into view.

Yep.
It’s her. The same little blond girl that I am now convinced is here solely to
drive me over the edge of my sanity. A hellish vision of something seemingly
normal and innocent to make me question my own eyes and what little is left of
my earthly brain.

Why
is she here? Why am I suddenly seeing her? Her appearances are becoming more
frequent and yes, I’ve already put it together that her sudden entrance into
Hell coincides with my working for
Deedy
. But I still
don’t understand what she is supposed to be telling me, or making me do, or
whatever. I’m not even sure she is actually here. No one else seems to see her.
People walking down the streets of Hades should be staring at a blonde, smiling
child bouncing a ball down the street, the same way breathers back on Earth
would stare at an alien walking down the street, bouncing a head or something.
Yet she gets no reaction from anyone.  Which leads me to believe, she is
here solely for me, or a hallucination. Can you have acid flashbacks in the
afterlife?