Having spent half my life tooling around in these car-service cars, I
know the drill. I take a step, another step, a third step toward the car, and
the driver wordlessly opens the rear door and steps aside for me to enter. He
makes a slight bow and touches the edge of the clipboard to the edge of his
visored hat in a little salute. Once the legs of my skort are safely ensconced
in the seat, the driver swings the door closed with a thud, the solid sound of
a quality-made American land yacht, so heavy and muffled that it ends any
suggestion of the living, breathing world outside. The windows are so darkly
tinted that I find myself in a cradling cocoon of black leather, the smell of
leather polish, the cold feel of air-conditioning, and the soft gleam of murky
glass windows and brass interior trim. The only sound comes from behind the
old-school partition that separates the front and rear seats. Submerged under
the overall smell of leather is another, fainter smell; it's as if someone has
recently peeled and eaten a hard-boiled egg in this car, a tiny stink of sulfur
or methane. And there's the smell of popcorn... popcorn and caramel... popcorn
balls. The little window in the center of the partition is shut, but I can hear
the driver take his seat and click his seat belt. The engine starts and the car
moves forward in slow, languid motion. After a long moment the front of the car
tilts upward. It's the same sensation one associates with the long climb up the
first hill of a roller coaster or the impossibly steep ascent needed for a
Gulfstream to achieve takeoff from the little alpine airport of Locarno,
Switzerland.
The padded and upholstered leathery womb that is the backseat of a Town
Car... anytime one finds oneself in such a place she ought to assume she's en
route to Hades. In the magazine pocket sits the usual assortment of trade rags,
including the
Hollywood Reporter, Variety,
and a copy of the
Vanity
Fair
with my mom grinning on the cover and spouting her Gaia, Earth First!
gibberish on the inside. She looks Photoshopped almost beyond recognition.
And yes, my parents have taught me well about the Power of Context and
Marcel Duchamp, and how even a urinal becomes art when you hang it on the wall
of a classy gallery. And pretty much anyone could pass as a movie star if you
put their mug shot on the cover of
Vanity Fair
magazine. But that's how
come I so, so, so appreciate crossing into the afterlife aboard a Lincoln Town
Car as compared to a bus or a pole barge or some other cattle-car, steerage
form of sweaty mass transit. So I again thank you, Satan.
The steep rising angle of the car's trajectory and the resulting g-forces
settle me deeper into the leather upholstery. The little window in the driver's
partition slides aside to reveal the chauffeur's sunglasses framed in the
rearview mirror. Speaking to me via his reflection, the driver says, "If
you don't mind my asking... are you related to the movie producer Antonio
Spencer?" Of his features, all I can see is his mouth, and his smile
stretches to become a spooky leer.
I retrieve the copy of
Vanity Fair
and hold the cover photo of my
mother beside my own face, saying, "See any resemblance? Unlike my mom I
have pores..." Already,
I'm falling asleep, drifting off. Sadly, I sense where this
conversation is going.
The driver says, "I do some screenwriting, myself."
And yes, of course, I saw this reveal coming from the moment I first
saw the car. Every driver is named George, and every driver in California has a
screenplay ready to fob onto you, and since the age of four—when I came home
from Halloween trick-or-treating, my pillowcase loaded with spec screenplays,
I've been trained to manage this awkward situation. As my dad would say,
"We're not reading for new projects at this time..." Meaning:
"Go peddle your spec script to some other sucker for financing." But
despite a childhood of arduous training in how to gently and politely dash the
hopes and dreams of moderately gifted, earnest young talents... maybe just
because I'm exhausted... maybe because I realize that the eternal afterlife
will seem even longer without the distraction of even low-quality reading
material... I say, "Sure." I say, "Get me a clean copy, and I'll
give it a read."
Even as I'm drifting off to sleep, my hands still gripping the
Vanity Fair
with my mom's face on the cover, I sense that the front of the
car is no longer climbing into the sky. It's leveled off, and, as if we've
crested
a mountain, we're slowly beginning to tilt downward
in a slow, perilous, straight-down plunge.
From the rearview mirror, still leering, the driver says, "You
might want to buckle up, Miss Spencer."
That said, I release my magazine and it falls down, through the
partition hole, and lies flattened against the inside of the windshield.
"Another thing is," the driver says, "when we get to our
destination, you don't want to touch the cage bars. They're pretty dirty."
The car plummeting, plunging, diving impossibly fast, in
ever-accelerating free fall, I quickly and sleepily fasten my seat belt.
Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison. By their nature, stories told
in the second person can suggest prayers. "Hallowed he thy name... the
Lord is with thee..." With this in mind, please don't get the idea that
I'm praying to you. It's nothing personal, but I'm simply not a satanist. Nor,
despite my parents' best efforts, am I a secular humanist. In light of finding
myself in the afterlife, neither am I any longer a confident atheist nor
agnostic. At the moment, I'm not certain in what I believe. Far be it from me
to pledge my faith to any belief system when, at this point, it would seem that
I've been wrong about everything I've ever felt was real.
In truth, I'm no longer even certain who I, myself, am.
M
y dad would tell you, "If you don't know
what comes next, take a good long look at what came before." Meaning: If
you allow it, your past tends to dictate your future. Meaning: It's time I
retrace my footsteps. With that in mind, I abandon my job at the telemarketing
phone bank and set off on foot, carrying my new high heels, wearing my trusty,
durable loafers. Clouds of black houseflies hover, buzzing, dense and heavy as
black smoke. The Sea of Insects continues to boil in eternal rolling, gnashing
chaos, its shimmering, iridescent surface stretching to the horizon. The
prickly hillocks of discarded finger- and toenail parings continue to grow and
slough in scratchy avalanches. The desert of broken glass crunches underfoot.
The noxious Great Ocean of Wasted Sperm continues to spread, engulfing the
hellish landscape around it.
And yes, I find myself a thirteen-year-old dead girl gaining a fuller
knowledge of her own trust issues, but what I'd really rather be is an Eastern
Bloc orphan abandoned and alone in my misery, ignored, with no possibility of
rescue until I become indifferent to my own horrid circumstances and
unhappiness. Or, as my mother would tell me, "Blah, blah, blah...
shut
up, Madison."
My point is, I've made my entire identity about being smart. Other
girls, mostly Miss Slutty Vandersluts, they chose to be pretty; that's an easy
enough decision when you're young. As my mom would say, "Every garden
looks beautiful in May." Meaning: Everyone is somewhat attractive when
she's young. Among young ladies, it's a default choice, to compete on the level
of physical attractiveness. Other girls, those doomed by hooked noses or
ravaged skin, settle on being wildly funny. Other girls turn athletic or
anorexic or hypochondriac. Lots of girls choose the bitter, lonely, lifetime
path of being Miss Snarky Von Snarkskis, armored within their sharp-tongued
anger. Another life choice is to become the peppy and upbeat student body
politician. Or possibly to invent myself as the perennial morose poetess,
poring over my private verse, channeling the dreary weltschmerz of Sylvia Plath
and Virginia Woolf. But, despite so many options, I chose to be smart—the intelligent
fat girl who possessed the shining brain, the straight-A student who'd wear
sensible, durable shoes and eschew volleyball and manicures and giggling.
Suffice it to say that, until recently, I had felt quite satisfied and
successful with my own invention. Each of us chooses our personal route—to be
sporty or snarky or smart—with the lifelong confidence that one can possess
only as a small child.
However, in light of the truth: that I did not die of a marijuana
overdose... nor did Goran reveal himself as my romantic ideal... my schemes
have brought nothing except heartache to my family... Thus, it would follow
that I am not so smart. And with that, my entire concept of self is undermined.
Even now, I hesitate to use words such as
eschew
and
convey
and
weltschmerz,
so thoroughly is my faith in myself shaken. The actual
nature of my death reveals me to be an idiot, no longer a Bright Young Thing,
but instead a deluded, pretentious poseur. Not brilliant, but an impostor who
would craft my own illusory reality out of a handful of impressive words. Such
vocabulary props served as my eye shadow, my breast implants, my physical
coordination, my confidence. These words:
erudite
and
insidious
and
obfuscate,
served as my crutches.
Perhaps it's better to recognize this degree of personal fallacy while
still young, rather than lose one's fixed sense of self in middle age as beauty
and youth fade, or strength and agility fail. It might be worse to cling to
sarcasm and contempt until one finds herself isolated, loathed by all her
peers. Nevertheless, this extreme form of psychological course correction still
feels... devastating.
With that crisis fully realized, I retrace my route, returning to the
cell where I first arrived in Hell. My arms swinging, the diamond ring which
Archer gave me, the finger ring, flashes heavy and stolen. No longer can I
present myself as an authority on being dead, so I retreat to my enclosure of
filthy bars, the comfort provided inside a lock, the rust and grime scratched
by the pointed safety pin of a dead punk rocker. Doomed within their own cells,
my neighbors slump, gripping their heads between their hands, so long frozen
and catatonic in attitudes of self-pity that spiderwebs envelop them. Or they
pace, punching the air and babbling.
No, it's not too late for me to devote myself to being funny or artsy,
energetically flopping my body around on some gymnastics mats or painting moody
masterpieces; however, having failed at my initial strategy, I'll never again
have such faith in a single identity. Whether I channel my future into being
the sporty girl or stoner girl, the smiling cover on a Wheaties cereal box, or
an absinthe-guzzling auteur, that new persona will always feel as phony and
put-on as plastic fingernails or a rub-on tattoo. The rest of my afterlife,
I'll feel as counterfeit as Babette's Manolo Blahniks.
Nearby, oblivious souls sprawl within their cages, so sunken in their
shock and resignation they fail to shoo the houseflies that crawl along their
soiled arms. These flies freely roam across their smudged cheeks and foreheads.
Black flies, fat as raisins, walk across the glassy surface of people's
staring, dazed eyes. Unnoticed, these houseflies wander into slack, open
mouths, then emerge from nostrils.
Behind their own jail bars, other condemned souls tear at their hair.
Enraged souls, they rend and shred their own togas and vestments, ripping their
ermine robes, their shrouds and silk gowns and tweed Savile Row suits. Some of
them, Roman senators and Japanese shoguns, dead and damned to Hell since long
before I was even born. These tormented wail. Their specks of raving slobber
mist the fetid air. Their sweat runs in rivulets down their foreheads and
cheeks, glowing orange in the ambient Hellish firelight. The denizens of Hades,
they flail and cower, shake fists at the flaming sky, pound their heads into
the iron bars until their blood blinds them. Others claw at their own
countenances, raking their skin raw, scratching out their own eyes. Their
broken, hoarse voices keening. In adjacent cells... in cages beyond cages...
trapped, they stretch to the burning horizon in every direction. Countless
billions of men and women yammer, despairing, shouting their names and status
as kings or taxpayers or persecuted minorities or rightful property owners. In
this, the cacophony of Hell, the history of humanity fractures into individual
protest. They demand their birthrights. They insist on their righteous
innocence as Christians or Muslims or Jews. As philanthropists or physicians.
Do-gooders or martyrs or movie stars or political activists.
In Hell, it's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us.
In the distance, following the same route on which I've so recently
returned, a bright blue spark floats. The spot of bright blue, vivid against
the contrasting blaze of orange and red fire, the blue nimbus bobs along,
edging between faraway cages and their shrieking occupants. The blue speck
passes the dead presidents gnashing their teeth, ignores the forgotten emperors
and potentates. This blue spot disappears behind heaps of rusted cages,
vanishing behind crowds of lunatic former popes, obscured behind the iron hives
of imprisoned, sobbing deposed shamans and city fathers and exiled, scowling
tribesmen, only to appear a little more blue, a little larger, closer, a moment
later. In this manner, the bright blue object zigzags, coming nearer,
navigating the labyrinth of despair and frustration. The bright blue, lost
within clouds of flies. The blue, cloaked in occasional pockets of dense, dark smoke.
Still, it emerges, larger, closer, until the blue becomes hair, a dyed-blue
Mohawk haircut atop an otherwise shaved head. The head bobs, perched upon the
shoulders of a black leather motorcycle jacket, supported and borne along by
two legs clad in denim jeans, and two feet shod in black boots. With each step,
the boots clank with bicycle chains which are looped about the ankles. The
punk-rock kid, Archer, approaches my cell.