Bad news, friends. I died.
I was trudging along the banks of the Red River, as you do during an unseasonably warm North Dakota Winter. With the trees gone and the prairie grass tamped down by deer, you can get much closer to the water than in the Summer, but usually it’s colder ‘n the heart of a Saskatoon Psychopath and there’s liable to be a foot or two of snow on the ground, so you’re mostly stuck indoors, gaining winter weight.
Not this winter, though. This was a couple days after the anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and it was still in the high 40s. Heaven on earth.
So, I was trudging along, tossing rocks and kicking out rotted stumps when I came upon a peculiar sight. There was something wedged between two bare elm trees not ten feet from where I stood. It was red and green and, this being the Holiday season, I assumed it was some kind of out of the way Christmas decoration. But I pushed on to investigate, and, to my surprise, saw three words printed in big block letters on the mystery object.
The words were these: The Phoenix Lights.
I was taken aback. Why, that very morning I’d cracked open a book on The Phoenix Lights, the most famous UFO sighting in the Americas, maybe the world.
I whispered, “Synchronicity,” because that’s what UFO weirdos do.
Convinced that I’d stumbled upon some sort of cache of secret information, finally, or, at the very least, some sort of incoherent message from The Phenomenon – I rushed toward whatever it was, and this is where I died.
My foot caught on an exposed root. I put out my hands to grab hold of a branch, and the branch snapped like a box of angel hair pasta over a bubbling pot of water. I tumbled, foot over fedora, down the river bank and on to the icy surface of the mighty Red. Shaken but okay, I stood up, brushed the dirt and cockleburs from my body, lifted a foot to ascend the bank and heard another crack – too many cracks for one day, if you ask me – felt the ice give way below me, fell backward again, and crashed through the thin ice, into the frigid, mud dark water. I felt a jolt of unspeakable cold, gasped, filled myself with water that tasted of clay, and was sucked Northward and to the bottom of Fargo’s preeminent body of water.
Next thing I remember, I was completely dry, which struck me as odd. I was back on land, in a dense green wood, ominous in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Poetical, somehow. The ground was rocky and inclined. This wasn’t North Dakota. What was it?
I heard a low growl. Not good. Low growls are almost never good. Even high growls aren’t great. I heard a low growl and saw an enormous black bear slowly approaching me, snout wet, eyes wild with malice or hunger or both. I looked about for somewhere to run. There was a clearing! I started in that direction, but – Alas!- coming through the clearing was a guy I went to high school with who I’d blocked on Facebook. REALLY didn’t want to talk to him.
But it was this guy or the bear. I was frozen in indecision.
Then, from above, an urgent whisper.
I looked up. There was a man in the branches of a large Sycamore Tree, partially obscured. He looked older. Well dressed. A stranger. Not ideal, but better than the other two options. I briefly hoped he wouldn’t be the chatty kind of stranger and then ascended the tree as quickly as I could.
There in the branches of the Sycamore was a man I immediately recognized. He was Kurt Vonnegut.
“You’re Kurt Vonnegut!” I whispered.
“Guilty as charged,” said he.
“But your d-d-d-dead!” I hissed.
“You and me both, kid.” He smiled kindly.
“Huh. I’m . . . dead? I guess that adds up. Why does your voice sound so weird?”
“Never mind that. Poo-tee-weet.”
We heard a roar and a scream, and both looked down to see my highschool acquaintance being devoured by the enormous bear.
“What in the hell is going on here?!” I asked, no longer whispering.
“You said it, son. You kicked the bucket. Passed on to your great reward. So it goes. You’re just outside of hell, bucko.”
“Adds up. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to lead you through. Like a spirit guide, kind of thing. Lucky you.”
“It’s an honor. What are we waiting for?”
“The bloodthirsty bear.”
“Right, the bloodthirsty bear.”
Hours passed, and we sat in silence, watching the bear devour my classmate, whose political opinions justified this fate.
I had questions, but realized this was all most likely a product of my own imagination, the firing of the last few neurons in my brain, a quick dopamine dump before lights out, and didn’t want to look foolish in front of imaginary Kurt Vonnegut.
When the bear had finished its meal and shambled off, Kurt suggested we do the same.
We passed through a ragged gap in a stone wall. There was a sign above it which read, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”
“Yikes,” I said. “Is this safe? Will we be able to get out of here?”
“Sure”, replied Kurt Vonnegut. “Just stick by me, kid, and we’ll be out of here faster than you can say Kilgore Trout.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Vonnegut tilted his head and gave me a wry smile.
“Aaaaah. You got me! All right, abandoning hope, starting . . . NOW!”
We passed though the entrance of Hell and into it’s first circle, Limbo.
“This is Limbo,” Vonnegut told me. “Unbaptized souls and all that. You don’t really believe in a literal heaven and hell, though, so it’s mostly just people you have no opinion about.”
“So this IS just a projection of my dying brain then? I was kind of hoping I was wrong.”
“It feels real, right?” Vonnegut asked. “So what’s the difference?”
He had a point.
Through the entrance, as my guide had said there would be, were thousands of people I felt nothing for, milling about, looking bored. I hardly recognized most of them, but a few looked vaguely familiar – half forgotten teachers staring into the middle distance, people I’d worked with pacing about, the entire cast of Leave It to Beaver, perpetually fighting off naps.
Soon we came to a river, kind of like the Red but more sulphureous and fiery, and with exponentially more damned souls waiting at it’s bank and shrieking in its bubbling waters.
“This is going to be a lot like Dante’s Inferno, huh?” I asked Vonnegut.
“It’s going to be whatever’s going on in the secret recesses of that idea machine in your skull. Probably your limited understanding of Inferno based on dozens of half readings with a bunch of random personal memories tossed in.”
“Cool, cool. Where’s the ferryman, I wonder?”
And there he was, suddenly, materializing in the sulfur mist, Sharon. Ch-aron? I’m not sure how to pronounce it.
The ghastly oarsman docked his boat, and bid us aboard.
“How do you pronounce your name?” I asked.
“Sharon, or Ch-aron. I’m not sure,” he said.
“Checks out,” I said to Vonnegut.
We hopped on the boat and headed for whatever I thought the second circle of hell would be like.
Turns out, we had to deal with Minos first, a hideous half man, half octopus, with the face of HP Lovecraft, who determines which circle of hell the damned will be relegated to.
“Let me handle this guy,” Vonnegut said. “He’s a real son-of-a-bitch.”
Minos’s greedy tentacles reached for me, but Vonnegut slapped them away.
“Not so fast, Jack,” he said. “We’re just going to scootch on by you, if you don’t mind.”
Chiron didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged what I assumed were his shoulders, wrapped a tentacle around Charlie Daniels, screamed, “Circle Three: Glutony!” and tossed the husky troubadour behind him like a spent can of Tiki Punch Shasta, fiddle and all.
Vonnegut and I kind of awkwardly edged past him, through the thin crack between his grotesque, slimy body and the stony outcrop at his side. He smelled like an old tin of sardines.
To get to the second circle of hell, we had to walk down a very steep flight of stairs with no hand rail. There was an elevator, but it was constantly nearly full of talkative strangers with poor personal boundaries. Horrific.
The second circle was for the lusty – sexed up men and women who couldn’t get enough of fucking and sucking, and were now condemned to be blown about by a terrible wind, symbolic of how in life they allowed themselves to be led by their penises and vaginas and buttholes and what not.
Still trying to catch our breaths from the long descent down the stairs, we were buffeted by the sexy gale, nearly swept off of our feet. Hugh Hefner blew past us, stupid robe flapping, his bony frame unable to keep him attached to the ground.
To combat the wind, to keep from blowing around in circles like that lecherous old wrinkled dick and the strong scent of cologne, talcum powder, and sex musk he left in his wake, Kurt Vonnegut hopped on my shoulders, and I piggy backed him through the wind-worn expanse, toward the next staircase.
On our way we encountered some of the most celebrated musicians and actors who ever lived:
Jim Morrison, still trying to write terrible poetry, even as the sheet of paper he was holding kept blowing out of his hand, only to be replaced by another piece which would invariably blow away before the pen in his right hand could reach it’s surface.
Noted rapist Errol Flynn, forced to perpetually sword fight the wind, which kept blowing the prop sword back at him, poking him in the eye.
Pope John XII was there, as were Janis Joplin, Lord Byron, and Wendy the Snapple Lady – a bit of a surprise – all struggling against the dastardly cyclone blasts in ways unique to their particular dirty deeds.
After what seemed like hours of struggle, we reached the staircase and Kurt Vonnegut alit from my back.
“Thanks for the lift, Hoss,” Vonnegut said. “You’d make one hell of a pack mule.”
“Thanks,” I said, “I have kids. You’re an excellent backpack.”
Down the stairs we went, toward Tier 3, for the gluttonous.
I assumed we’d meet Charlie Daniels there, and wasn’t wrong. He was being pelted by the icy rain, already beginning to melt into the blob of jelly that all residents of Tier Three must become. As such, I wasn’t able to identify any of the other denizens – it’s hard to put a name to a what looks like a pupa filled with lime jello – but I assume former President Howard Taff – namesake of taffy – was down there somewhere.
It’s hard to know what to do in an icy rain. Do you run or does that just cause the rain to hit you at a higher velocity? Do you walk, or does that result in being hit with more rain?
We chose to run, and it hurt like . . . well, hell. Cerberus the three headed hound waited for us at the other side. Thinking fast, I picked up one of the screaming blobs and hurled it at the vicious hellbeast, leaving my upper body looking like I’d just been a guest on Nickelodeon’s You Can’t Do That On Television.
It worked. While Cerberus tore into the damned soul, we hurdled past him and down the stairs, two at a time, like hyper active junior high school students.
“Way to use your old meat computer, kid,” Vonnegut said. “You’re really getting the hang of hell.”
Circle four is a massive hill surrounded by huge, perfectly round boulders. It’s inhabited by two categories of the greedy: Misers and spendthrifts, who begin their terrible chore at separate sides of the towering mound. Each cursed soul is assigned to a boulder and must push it up the hill, Sisyphus style. When they get to the top, they are inevitably met by someone from the opposite side and argue about whether it is better to spend one’s wealth extravagantly or to horde it. Obviously the spendthrifts are right, it’s not even a question. Anyway, the argument gets heated and somebody slaps a boulder and it goes careening back down the hill and then the other guy pushes the other boulder and then the whole thing starts over.
You can imagine who inhabits this place, I don’t need to tell you. A bunch of assholes on one side and some cool dudes on the other, mostly.
As we walked around the hill, Henry Ford told us we looked like a couple of Jews, and Vonnegut told him to go take a flying fuck at a donut. We high fived, and then looked kind of embarrassed about the high five and got on our way.
The fifth circle of hell is the most fun. It’s for the wrathful.
“You’re going to go just nuts for this circle,” Vonnegut told me. “As a figment of your imagination, I know you love celebrity feuds and spite – who doesn’t? – and this circle is chock full of those, but in a bubbling, boiling swamp of human waste.”
He was right, of course. There, sunk to their chins in what looked like a massive, hot sewage treatment tank, were every argumentative dingus I’d ever known or known of, all yelling at and grappling with each other. The din and odor were almost unbearable, but the sight was absolutely beautiful.
There was William F. Buckley, earlobes dipped in shit, screaming at a guy I’d blocked on Twitter last year. And Rush Limbaugh, new to the place, choking on the murk while being manhandled by my Great Grandmother.
It seemed to go on forever, each combative duo more satisfying than the last.
“My father is going to spend eternity here, I’m sure of it,” I said.
“So it goes,” replied Vonnegut.
“How are we going to get through this shit?” I asked Vonnegut.
“Probably some sort of boatman,” Vonnegut replied.
No sooner had he said this, than a hideous manbeast in a rowboat materialized from the hazy mire. He nodded at us and we hopped aboard.
Crossing the festering swamp, I saw ever more pleasing conflicts.
Richard Nixon with John Lennon in a full nelson.
Buddy Rich giving Huey Long the business.
As the boat neared the far shore, it began to shake. Someone was grabbing its edge, trying to pull us into the horrid muck.
We looked to the side and saw a feces splattered man with his hand on our craft.
“Jim Morrison! I thought you were in the second circle!”
“In life I was so shitty that they put me in two circles simultaneously!”
“Well, get off our boat, you wretched goofball, we’ve got more circles to see!”
I stomped on Morrison’s hand and he want flailing back into the gurgling waste, where he belonged. It felt good.
We arrived at the steps down to the sixth circle of hell, or so I thought. I’d forgotten that the circles of hell were divided into two categories: the first five circles for those who sinned through judgement and the next four for those who were actively malicious.
Dividing the two were the river Styx and the City of Dis.
Obviously I hadn’t totally forgotten it, or it wouldn’t be here. But I’d forgotten it in the moment.
“Listen. We’re just going to kind of skip over this whole business, if that suits you,” Vonnegut said. “There’s a lot of symbolism here that you really haven’t delved into and it’s just going to be a mess. This is already dragging a bit, don’t you think?”
“I do,” I said. “Let’s skip it.”
And so we did.
Upon further discussion, we just skipped the sixth, seventh, and eighth circles as well. Too bleak. Those guys that killed themselves and then become trees? Yeah, no thanks. Not getting into that.
And so we entered the frozen center of hell, steeled ourselves against its frigid winds.
All the expected no-goodnicks were frozen in it’s icy depths: Hitler, Stalin, Pol-Pot, Mussolini, Aleister Crowley, like two thirds of the Popes, GG Allin, and the entire bloodline that led up to the 45th president of the United States.
At the center was the Great Beast himself, the fallen angel, Satan, a massive three headed monster. In my hell, all of the faces looked like the worst president in history, the aforementioned Donald Trump, which is to say they looked like Jim Belushi wearing a Musollini mask made from ham fat after he’s been bobbing for apples in marmalade. Horrifying, but not unexpected.
Each head had a massive set of flapping wings, which were the source of the frigid wind.
In each of its mouths were cheeseburgers made from the bodies of slave owners and Puritans and former Presidents and slave owning former Presidents.
“Quick,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before he finishes his burgers and starts talking.”
“You got it, kid,” Vonnegut replied. “The bum news is we’ve got to go down his leg to get out. It’s going to be just awful.”
We did it anyway, and it was awful. I don’t want to talk about it. Halfway down, reality did a loop-de-loop and we were climbing up again, toward a light.
“Is that purgatory?” I asked.
“No, you haven’t read The Purgatorio. Pretty much no one has. That’s the end of the line for us. It’s been good knowin’ you, Messerschmidt.”
“Same to you, imaginary Kurt Vonnegut. Maybe I’ll slip in the shower one day and we’ll meet again.”
“Poo-tee-weet,” he said.
So I climbed into the light and out of hell.
Next thing I knew, I was was back on the muddy shore of the Red River, wet, cold, and shivering, but no worse for the wear, as they say. I grabbed the bag that said “The Phoenix Lights”. It was just a tent. But I needed a tent, so I took it, and headed home.
The end.