Naked, on the Edge

As You Have Made Us

Their chapel is a gutted service station at the edge of the blistering city, situated between an abandoned warehouse and a lot choked with briars and detritus. They only come to pray at midnight, for that is when no one is there to stare at them or shoot them for sport.

There is nothing left to the station but four walls, a sagging roof, a restroom in the back that requires a key that has been long since lost, and a counter with a shattered glass case that once held candy, quarts of oil, and colorfully illustrated maps to places far away. The floor is covered with leaves blown in on countless winds and bits of glass or metal or cloth the worshippers leave behind as offerings. Sometimes they cut off tiny pieces of themselves, too, pieces decayed and dead, and leave those, but the vermin that scour the small building in the wee morning hours find them and clean them away, carrying the bits home as treats to their nested families.

There are teens and children, men and women, none so old as most of their kind die before they are forty. They come from the darkest, most hidden places in the city. They are the hated ones, the abandoned ones, those looked upon by the Ordinaries as less than human. They are the Discards — distorted and twisted, deformed and ravaged. Born to destitute mothers who have drugged themselves so badly that nothing whole could grow in their wombs, dumped out with the trash. Rescued by their own, one generation to the next, squirreled away and fed and kept warm as best as can be done, clothed with cast-offs, sheltered wherever shelter might be found.

Their pastor is Ryan. He is like them in many ways, thirty-four, dark-haired, jobless, homeless. His is missing an eye and one of his ears is melted down his neck. His left arm ends at the elbow at three nubbed fingers that flex poorly. He limps violently, for his right leg is twisted. Ryan sleeps on the damp earth in the cellar of an empty garage. The Discards love to hear him preach, though his sermons are short. Most of the services are dedicated to prayer and songs.

Each night, they shamble to the chapel. Ryan locks the door behind them, lights the candles. Those who have knees kneel to pray. Hands, where there are hands, rise toward the heavens. Eyes, where there are eyes, close in humble respect and penitence. Tongues, where there are tongues, recite the prayer of acceptance:

“We are as You have made us. We ask nothing but nourishment for our bellies, covering for our bodies, and darkness in which to hide. We ask that the Ordinaries find other means of entertainment than us, and that when it is our time to die, that You remember us well.”

Ryan always brings food for the service. Half-rolls, cooked potatoes and chicken scraps, lumps of cheese, mangled pastries. The Discards never ask where it comes from, the tasty and plentiful offerings, wanting to believe in at least one miracle. He would tell them he found them in bins behind diners if they asked but they don’t. They pray, listen, sing, eat, and then wander off through the shit-black shadows.

It is a cool, late September night when the new Discard comes, inching along in a wheelchair that looks like scrap from the early 20th century — scarred wood, caned backing ripped and rotting, two large wheels with one small, wobbling one in the back. He is no worse off than the others, thin, dead legs, hands twisted and skeletal, and a big hole where his right cheek should be. The bones and teeth that are visible through the hole are blackened, and his breath smells like a fire-pit that has been doused in urine. No one makes a fuss over him. They merely nod and offer him weary looks that accept him into the fold.

He rolls toward the counter where Ryan is shrugging out of his tattered coat and tells Ryan that his name is Ben. Ryan looks at him, says, “Bless you, Ben,” and then inclines his head toward an open space beside one of the benches where those who are able to sit, sit.

Ben maneuvers his chair to the assigned spot, thumping into some of the others as he goes. A woman drops down onto the bench beside him. Her head is oddly shaped, as if someone has crushed it in a vice. Her skin is scaled like that of a shedding snake. She looks at Ben and tries a smile. It is the ugliest thing Ben has ever seen, outside the Master when he is enraged.

Ben watches as the rest of the Discards find their places. He breathes in and out through the hole in his cheek as his nose is clogged. He hates this place. This station, this city, this fucking world. He grinds his stubbed molars together, recalling how much the Master wants Ryan, how much he drooled over the prospect of such a tasty morsel sucking his dick then being roasted and served on a skewer for dinner. Ben hates the Master yet must please him. To please him is to suffer less. To not please him is to suffer profoundly. Ben shivers, as much from fear as from cold. He is always cold.

And now, added to the cold, a damned headache. It started the moment he got inside the station, hurting like someone digging at his brain with a nail. He’s not sure if it’s the Master’s doing. It might just be the shitty air inside this shitty place, unfiltered through the shitty hole in his face, the fucked-up face of the fucked-up body the Master gave him for this task.

A one-legged devil walks into a bar, lookin’ for a good, stiff whiskey…

The Master never appreciates Ben’s jokes. He has no sense of humor at all. Yet Ben can’t help it. He was always a joker before, always quick and witty in hopes of a laugh, and can’t help himself now. He offers puns or wisecracks or stupid stories, hoping someday to make the Master like him more. Hate him less. Whatever.

Ben crosses his arms, hard. The chair creaks beneath him.

The prayers begin, then the songs. There is nothing melodic about the wailings of the twisted creatures, and it’s all Ben can do to keep from putting his hands over his ears. It makes his head hurt worse. He pretends to sing and pray, as well, moving his jaw, waggling the stubby tongue the Master gave him.

The service lasts several excruciating hours. At some time during Ryan’s speech about earthy temporals and eternal peace, some of the Discards begin to scrape at themselves and drop pieces of flesh on the floor. Ben knew they did this, had been told by the Master, but seeing it makes his gorge rise. Ryan says nothing, as if he doesn’t notice, doesn’t mind, or has some strange understanding of the acts. Some of the Discards wriggle in place, working out sounds and smells that cause Ben to tuck his nose under his elbow. The place grows hot and thick with the stink of blood, diarrhea, and resignation.

What do you get when you cross the devil, an angel, and a politician…?

Another joke that fell flat.

Ba-dump-bum.

At long last Ryan raises his good hand and offers the final benediction. The Discards who are down push themselves up. Those who are up push themselves forward, and, silently, they eat the food Ryan has spread out on the countertop. No one speaks, but they nod their thanks then wander away. Several hold hands as if they are lovers, or friends, or are just afraid they might tip and fall over. The rest keep their distance from each other. Out of fear or respect, Ben can’t quite tell.

Not that they matter.

It’s Ryan who matters to the Master. It is Ryan who has the Master’s tongue and loins tingling in delicious anticipation. If Ben can’t please the Master with humor, he’ll please him with obedience.

The last Discard, a child who looks more simian than human, blows out the candles in the windowsill by the door.

Then there are only Ben and Ryan in the shadowed station.

Ben sits in silence, rubbing his temple, trying to press out the pain in his head. Ryan stands at the counter, gathering the plastic trays, wiping off the crumbs. For all his hideous deformity, Ryan moves with a certain grace that pisses Ben off. It’s all for show, though. Certainly Ryan knows Ben is sitting there, watching him. And so Ryan has to play his part as long as there are eyes…or eye…to see. When he leaves this place, he tries to get himself drunk with left over puddles of beer found in bottles on the side of the road, and then he jacks off into the empty bottles, breaks the bottles, and proceeds to cut his legs with the shards. He hates himself more than any person has ever hated himself, so says the Master. And the Master should know. He watches. He sees. He hears. He tastes the fear and the angst within the human race, and he savors it all.

“So…” begins Ben.

Ryan looks up from the trash bag where he’s secured the plastic trays, ready to drag them back home to use again tomorrow night.

“How can I help you, Ben?”

“Actually, I was just wondering how I could help you.” Ben replies. The words sound hissy without a cheek to help hold in the air and fashion the sound. Couldn’t the Master have given him a body that wasn’t quite so pathetic? One that at least had an intact face? “Seems nobody else is willing to hang around long enough to ask.”

“Yeah, well.”

Ryan slings the bag over his shoulder and limps from behind the counter. He looks like Santa in a child’s worst nightmare.

Santa, Ben thinks suddenly. Poor little Julie was scared of Santa, even a smiling Santa in his white beard and red suit. I tried to tease her, to make her laugh so she wouldn’t be scared. It didn’t work too good but I tried….

He shakes his pained head and clenches his jaws. The last thing he needs are memories of Julie. “Master, don’t make me think of her, not now,” he whispers.

“What’d you say?” asks Ryan.

“Nothin,” says Ben. “I’ll get the door.”

The night air is a bit fresher than that inside the station, scented with wet leaves and exhaust. Ben struggles with the chair; why he had to be this crippled to do the job is beyond him. His head continues to pound. The wheels snag in deep gravel, and Ryan reaches over to takes the chair handles to wriggle Ben free. Ben is caught immediately by the heat roiling off Ryan, pouring from his body in waves. Clearly, the man has some kind of sickness. Ben holds his breath until Ryan steps away; a knee-jerk reaction, left over from the days when he was alive and catching someone else’s disease was a thing to avoid.

Ryan then says, “See ya, Ben,” and turns north to head into the deeper bowels of the city. His strides are lopsided and wretched, though he picks up a good speed. Ben stares after, then calls, “Hey!” He shoves the heels of his hands against the wheels and, with great effort, chases after Ryan. It’s harder steering the thing than he would have imagined. When he reaches Ryan, he is panting.

“What do you want?” Ryan doesn’t seem angry, just tired, distracted.

Ben makes sure he stays at least five feet from the preacher. The man’s body heat is still detectable. “Listen. I got a couple bucks in my pocket. How about a beer?”

“Beer?”

“Yeah, you know. Bud. Miller. Corona. A beer?”

“I know what a beer is.”

“Well?”

One of Ryan’s brows furrows; the one over the bad eye looks paralyzed. Then he says, “If it’s on you, okay. I’m flat broke. But you sure you want to be seen in public? The rest prefer their privacy. This is a dangerous city, especially for us. Ordinaries have little patience with Discards.”

Ben cringed at the name. He was no more a Discard than he was God. He was what he was, a dead, joke-cracking fuck-up who’d gone to hell for living a miserable life he’d pretty much forgotten after seventeen years. Now he spends all his time just trying to humor and please the Master, trying to keep him off his back, trying to keep hell’s tortures to a minimum. “I’ll be all right. Where’s the nearest store?”

The nearest store is up a couple blocks past empty tenements, some closed junk shops, and several bars with blacked-out windows. The store is half the width of a typical shop, with only enough room to squeeze down the narrow aisle between the counter and the single row of shelves. Unable to fit inside, Ben watches from the street as Ryan limps in with the wad of bills Ben has given him and selects a six-pack. The guy at the counter — old, white hair, sneers — growls, “Didn’ I tell you damned freaks to stay out of my shop?” until he sees the money in Ryan’s hand. Then he shuts up.

A freak preacher walks into a store to buy some beer… Ben can’t think of a punch line for this one. Later, maybe.

Ryan comes out with the six-pack, stands holding it in the puss-yellow light that leaks from the shop’s door. Just looking at Ryan makes Ben’s head hurt all the more. That damned ear and screwed up eye. The arm that looks like it should belong to some freaky doll. He tries not to let his discomfort show.

“So, where you live?” asks Ben, though he knows. The Master has shown him all he needs to know, told him all he needs to hear. In won’t take long to toss out the hook and reel this one in.

Ryan says, “Not too far.” The way he says it lets Ben know that Ryan’s ability to keep up the kindly minister act is waning fast. He’s tired. He’s starting to sound irritated.

The devil was sitting on a tombstone one afternoon, waiting for the next soul to come along….wait, you’ve heard this one? Shit…

The empty garage is a dung-hole, that’s certain, situated at the back of a small, ruptured parking lot. The faded sign, “Martin’s Auto Repairs,” has long been down off the top of the building and is propped up against the front wall. Ryan hobbles on, over the potholes and briars, the beer case thwapping against his leg. He glances both ways before pushing through the door of the garage. Ben follows with effort, grimacing, his brain rattling in his skull.

The place still smells of the work that had been done here years earlier. Sweat and oil and gasoline and cold metal. Yet it is as hollow and forlorn as the service station where the Discards go to pray.

Ryan opens a small door near the back and descends the narrow steps. Without looking back he says, “Shut the door behind you, and flick the lock.”

Ben sits in his chair at the top of the stairs and glares down. He shivers hard, so cold not only in this forsaken place but cold beneath his flesh. “How the hell…” he begins, but Ryan calls up, “Just crawl down. It’s not that far.”

Fuckedy-fuck! Ben thinks. He has to keep with his charge, but now he’ll be even more gimped. Again, the Master is having him on, somewhere out there in the darkness, enjoying Ben’s misery.

What do you get when you cross a hole-faced, sluggish mutant with a set of cellar steps? One big splat at the bottom, that’s what.

Rim shot…

He shivers hard inside his skin.

Thump-thump-thump-thump. The rough wood of the steps scrapes the palms of his hands, leaving countless, needle-sharp splinters. His ass bounces heavily, his dead legs trailing at odd angles. He works hard not to lose himself and become the splat, the butt of his own stupid joke.

No candles in the cellar, only two battery-powered camping lanterns. It’s hard to see at first, and Ben’s eyes adjust only partly. There is a cot in a corner. A pile of blankets on the floor. Windows up near the ceiling, covered in wire mesh.

As he slops off the bottom step, he is hit in the face with the stuffy heat in the room. It’s like someone has turned a radiator way up. It’s Ryan’s sickness, whatever it is.

Shit on it all.

Ryan sits on the cot and rubs his knees with his good hand. Then he snatches a beer bottle from the carton on the floor and twists off the top with his teeth. Ben finds this mildly impressive.

“Your place sucks,” says Ben.

“You shut and lock the door?”

“No, I couldn’t. You know I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Ryan. His voice is softer now, drained, weakened. He’s almost ready for my offer. This shouldn’t take long. Good!

“Hey, Ryan,” says Ben. The pain in his head flares again. He grunts through his teeth.

“What?”

Ben drags his sorry body across the concrete floor toward the cot, over a damp drain hole in the center, through several dried and flattened mouse carcasses. “How long you been livin’ here?”

“A while.”

“You always been like….that? All messed up?”

Ryan shrugs. “Why?”

“Born that way?” Ben cocks his head, and the jaunty motion, meant to display cocky confidence, only makes the pain worse. He pretends it doesn’t. “How do you say it in that prayer? ‘We are as you have made us?’”

“Why do you want to know, Ben?”

“All that shit you talk about to the other…Discards. Telling them to accept how they are. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking brain damaged? I know you hate the way you are, the way they are, hell, the way I am right now. Look at me. A bag of human garbage on your floor! Could it get any worse?”

Ryan takes another swig of the beer. “Could it?”

Ben arranges his legs beneath him and pulls a beer from the carton. It’s so very hot near Ryan, like being too close to a bonfire. He fumbles with the bottle but his hands are sweaty and he can’t get a grip on it; Ryan takes it, opens it, gives it back.

Ben scoots away from Ryan and the man’s body heat, clutching the bottle. He takes a draw; some goes down his throat but the rest trickles out through his cheek-hole. The brew is wet and cool, but doesn’t taste as good as he remembers from his living days. Or maybe the Master has decided his crappy tongue should have crappy taste buds. He drinks the rest hard and fast, tilting his head to get it down, draining the bottle in just moments.

“Why’d you follow me home, Ben?” Ryan has finished his beer and he drops the bottle onto the floor. It falls over and rolls toward the drain hole, clack-clack-clack, past Ben and through the dead mice.

“You don’t believe the crap you tell those monsters,” says Ben. “I know you don’t. You only do what you do because there is nothing else for you to do. Pretend it’s not so bad. Pretend you…they…are as they are because of some kind of fucking divine intention? Do you ever look at yourself? Do you ever listen to yourself? It’s like watching a bad comedian on the stage, dying with every joke. You’re pathetic! Well, my friend, I’m here to turn your sorry life around.”

Ryan reaches for another beer bottle but what Ben has said makes him pause. His good eye blinks. He paws at his melted ear with his stubbed fingers. It looks as if he is now trembling, ever so slightly.

Good. This is good. I’ve got him now.

Ben tries to sit up as straight and tall as he can for a man on the floor with bum legs. He needs to appear confident, in charge. Pain continues to pulse back and forth beneath his skull. The sooner he gets this done, the sooner he can get out of here. The Master will have his hands otherwise full with others he is tormenting, and will leave Ben alone for a while.

“It can be different, you know,” says Ben. He glances about, sees a floor-length mirror nailed to one of the damp walls. It is covered for the most part with a ratty, mildewed bath towel. He drags himself over to it, panting, catches his breath, then gestures. “If I pull down this towel, you’ll see what I see. You’ll see what the world sees. You’ll see something no one in her or his right mind could care for. You’ll see why people in the city take potshots at you when they get to feelin’ feisty. You’ll see why nobody would ever come close to you, let alone touch you, Ryan. As He made you? You mean God? He made you a piece of shit, a cosmic joke, that’s what.”

“I don’t need to look.”

“Yeah, you really do.” Ben starts feeling a bit better, now that he’s into the job and through with the small talk. He yanks the towel away and watches as Ryan considers himself in the mirror. He can’t quite read the expression, but it certainly isn’t one of joy.

“When was the last time you got it on?” Ben asks.

Ryan coughs, doesn’t answer. He reaches for another beer, cracks off the top, swigs, burps, takes another drink. He gazes again at the mirror.

“Did you ever get it on with something other than your hand, Ryan? Ever get some real juicy pussy? Pussy with a smile? Free, willing pussy? Not one you had to be buyin’, Ryan?”

Ryan says nothing.

“You know, you could be a good-looking guy, if you wanted to be. Time to step up and take your golden ticket, boy. Time to claim what you deserve. And I’ve got it for you.”

Ryan looks away, up toward one wire-covered window. “Cover the mirror, Ben.”

“No, no, look again, Ryan. See what you are, and let me show you what you can be.”

“I don’t want to.” The voice is very soft now. The one eye appears sad. Ben’s spiel is working.

“Seriously, look again.” Ben pats the mirror. “Do you see yourself as you can be? I see it. So can you. Look, right there in the mirror! Tall, straight, whole man, handsome, confident! This could be you. Women will want you, fucking throw themselves in your direction! You’ll be sought after to work for companies who want an enigmatic, entracing front man with just that right look. You’ll make money. You’ll be rich. You’ll be more powerful than you could have ever imagined. You’ll never have to live like this again; hell, you’ll never have to think about this part of your life again.”

Ryan struggles up from the cot and limps toward the mirror. As he gets closer, a wave of heat rockets off the man and catches Ben in the face like a slap. Ben wobbles, feels himself losing his balance even as he is sitting on the floor. What is wrong with Ryab? Why is he so goddamned hot?

But Ben keeps talking. He has to. No choice. Get it done. Get it done! “Just say the word, Ryan. Just say your soul isn’t worth that much to you, anyway. Offer it up. An easy trade. Crappy soul for a perfect, flawless, incredible life.”

Ryan is closer now, glancing back and forth between the mirror and Ben. The heat from the man is blistering. The hair on Ben’s head crisps. His skin reddens. He scoots away. Sweat pours down his check, neck, arms, and buttocks in slick, salty waves. His heart pounds.

“Just say the words, Ryan!” Ben manages, his tongue baked dry. “Just say, ‘I want to be handsome, I want to be rich, I want to be out of this body. I give my worthless soul for such a treasure!’ Say it, Ryan! And I promise you, you’ll start living your new life!”

Ryan stops a few feet from the mirror. Then he looks at Ben and smiles for the first time. The smile is unexpected.

Relaxed.

Peaceful.

Ben is pissed and scared. “What are you smiling about? Are you taking the deal or not?” He can barely breathe now; the heat burns his eyes and nose and the hole in his face. “Shit, what is wrong with you? Do you know who I am?”

“Who are you, Ben?” asks Ryan. The voice is different now. It isn’t tired. It isn’t drunk. It’s calm, steady. Terrifying. Commanding.

“I’m a representative of the Master! Don’t fuck with me!”

“What Master?”

Ben blinks, swallows a gulp of stagnant air. “The Master! The Dark One! The Lord of Eternal Torment!”

Ryan chuckles softly. “There is no such thing, Ben.”

“Of course there is!” Ben scoots back even farther, slamming up against the cinderblock wall. “Wait! No, no, oh shit, wait! Are you him? Disguising yourself? Are just screwing with me because you can? I was trying to do what you wanted me to do! Don’t hurt me anymore! Please!”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Ben.”

“You’ve said that before! You lie! You’re the Master of Lies!”

“You’re mistaken,” says Ryan. “Now I ask you again. Who are you?”

Ben drives the heels of his hands against the floor, as if he could get away by sliding up the wall. The heat continues to stream off Ryan. Ben is certain it will soon melt his skin away.

“Who are you, Ben?” Ryan repeats kindly.

“I’m dead, I’m one of the dead! One of the cursed!”

“Why do you think you’re cursed?”

“Fuck you, Ryan!”

“Why, Ben?”

“I killed my daughter, okay? She was twelve. I was drunk, drove my new convertible into a tree. I…I…” Ben closes his eyes. He does not want to think of it, to remember it.

“Tell me, Ben,” says Ryan.

“Fine! Fuck, you want to know? She smashed into the windshield. Split her head wide open. And I left her there to die! I blamed everybody but myself! The guy who sold me the car. The man who sold me the goddamned beers. I blamed Julie, for God’s sake, for begging me to let her have a ride! Fuck me, right? Three days later I killed myself, still blaming everyone else. So I went to hell. Now I do whatever the Master tells me to do. I’m one of his groveling, obedient minions. He torments us. He torments me! Sometimes I get out to claim a soul, and if I’m successful he gives me a little break. But then he’s back to the tortures. But…but…you know all that! You’re him!”

“I’m not him.”

“You are! I can feel it! You’re hot like the eternal flames they told us about when we were kids! Hot like the lake of fire!”

“You say you’re in hell?”

“Hell yeah, I’m in hell!”

“And you mentioned eternal flames? The lake of fire?”

“Yeah! All that Biblical crap!”

“Then why do you feel so cold all the time?”

“I….what?”

“If hell is fire, why are you cold all the time?”

“Shit, why’d the chicken cross the road? Why’d the angel buy an umbrella? Why’d the devil rob the barbershop? I don’t know! Who really knows anything?”

Ryan nodded gently. “Think about this, Ben. When those who are frozen come close to something that is warm, they hurt. They feel the warmth as painful, as if it were fire.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ryan! My head aches! I’m burning up! Leave me alone!”

“Look at yourself in the mirror, Ben.”

“No!…Why?”

“Just look.”

The voice is so certain, so authoritative, Ben finds himself reluctantly dragging his body back across the floor to the mirror.

“What do you see, Ben?”

Ben stares into the reflective glass. He sees himself as he was when he was alive. Ruddy-skinned, healthy, whole. Not handsome but not the worst looking of mankind, either.

“What do you see?”

“Fuck you.”

“What do you see?”

“Me. As I was. You know that, though, don’t you?”

As Ben stares at his reflection in the glass, something stirs from behind it. It rises deep and dark, a silhouette of ominous shape. No clear features but a perfect and terrifying darkness, stretching out with arms that end in clawed fingers, a head huge with nubs that lengthen upward into pointed horns. Then, punctuating the darkness, two coal-red eyes and white, razor-sharp teeth.

“There!” shrieks Ben. “There! See him? He’s there! He’s coming for me! I didn’t do my job! Can’t you just let me have your stupid soul?” He spins about on his ass to face Ryan.

Ryan continues to smile, patiently, kindly.

“He’s there!” Ben cries. “In the mirror! Look!”

“You want him to be there, so he is. Just a reflection of what you think should be there.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Who are you, Ben?”

“I already told you!”

“You don’t really know. You haven’t figured it out.”

“Figured out what?”

“You are Ben. You are as I have made you. Free to do wrong, free to do right. I have to admit, though, you’ve tangled yourself up pretty bad. You couldn’t wrap yourself around the terrible thing you did, figured you could never be forgiven, so what the hell, you up and put yourself in hell. Peopled with all the crap you believed, even hoped, would be there. The Master. The tortures. The demands. The horrors you’ve faced. The pathetic chores, trying to steal souls. This twisted body you gave yourself for this, your latest, unnecessary venture.”

“No! All that was real! It all is real!”

“You wanted them to be real. It’s been your death-dream. You never stole a soul from anyone.”

“I did too!”

“Did not.”

“Did too!”

Ryan chuckles. He crosses his arms. His nubbed fingers grip his elbow. “Time to get warm again, Ben. We can take it slow, if you want.”

Ben recoils. “Listen to me. Just shut up and hear me out! The Master told me all about you, Ryan. He told me where you preached, and there you were! He told me where you lived, and here you are! It wasn’t just lucky guesses!”

“I made those suggestions to you, and you assumed it was your Master talking. You were so into the hell game with all those self-imposed rules and expectations. But you’ve played at it long enough. It was time you and I had a little talk. Face to face.”

“Who are you?” Ryan wails. Then he stops. He shakes his head. He stares.

“Oh, Christ.”

Ryan laughs lightly. “Not this time. Just Ryan.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“Shit…just look at you!”

“I know. A bit dramatic.”

“So you really aren’t a preacher?”

Ryan just smiles.

“Who are all those others? The Discards?”

“Some are angels in human form, here to help me out. Others, they’re truly as they are. As I have made them. Good people. Perfect. Innocent.”

“You preached to them as a person, what, for months already? And what about them now? You’ll go off and leave them alone?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got it covered. One of the angels’ll take over. And I’ll be watching and listening, of course.”

Ben’s fists, which were clenched, begin to loosen. He licks his lips, runs his tongue along the hole in his cheek. “You put on this whole scenario just for me?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you think you’ve put yourself in hell long enough?”

“I…” Ben mind crashes back to the wreck, his drunken stupor, how he’d crawled out of the car and ran away, thinking if he didn’t see his daughter dying then she surely couldn’t be dying. But she was. And she did. Thinking he could not have done what he did. But he had. Julie, the little girl scared of Santa. The older girl who loved every stray dog that ever came along. The almost-a-teen, excited because her father had just bought a brand new yellow convertible. The kid who knew nothing of drunks and idiocy and irresponsibility. Reduced by his pathetic defenses and denials that he took his own life to escape. Ben begins to weep.

“You okay, Ben?”

“I’m….I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for what I did. I’m so goddamned fucking sorry! What I did was horrible! The worst!”

“It was.”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

Ryan nods. “I know.”

Ben clenches his skeletal fists. “Oh, God, Julie, forgive me! Please forgive me!”

“That’s all we wanted to hear. Now come here.”

“No! I can’t! You’re too hot!”

“You’re warming up already.”

“I can’t!”

“Come here. It’ll be fine.”

Ben wipes tears and snot from his face, and slowly, hesitantly, scoots over to Ryan, his hands palming the uneven flooring, his twisted legs scraping out behind him like thin, fleshy contrails. He feels Ryan’s intense heat licking his skin, but as he gets closer and bears into it, it eases. When he reaches Ryan’s feet, there is only warmth.

“See?” asks Ryan.

“Yeah. Wow.”

“You ready to shed that skin of yours? It’s really just an illusion, anyway.”

“I guess.”

Ben looks down at the floor. He sighs. All this, all he’s been through, his imagination. His spirit wrangling itself, punishing itself.

He looks up.

There, hovering over him, standing where Ryan had stood, is the Master. Dark, cold, red-eyed and claw-handed, snarling and stinking of ash and sulfur. Ben shrieks and covers his face and wails.

“Ben, I’m kidding with you!”

Ben looks up again. Ryan is there once more, a sheepish smile on his distorted face. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Not funny?”

“Damn! No, not funny!”

“Okay, okay. I apologize. But dealing with sin and death and life and eternity, sometimes you can appreciate a sense of humor. You know that. You’re pretty funny yourself. You crack me up sometimes. All those jokes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I like that.”

Ben feels the corners of his mouth tug into a small smile.

“Hold still now,” said Ryan. He reaches out and touches Ben’s forehead, and in that instant Ben finds himself standing straight and steady. His headache is gone. He is warm. And Ryan is no longer in the Ryan body, but is transformed into Light.

“Just don’t tease me like that anymore, okay?” Ben asks.

“I won’t. I promise,” says God. He reaches for Ben’s hand. Ben’s fears fall away. “I love you. And I never break my promises. Oh, and did you hear the one about the one-legged devil who went into the car wash, looking for a whiskey?”

“Yeah. I made that one up.”

“Oh, that’s right. That was good…really good! Got a big chuckle out of that. Glad to have you back, Ben. Glad to have you back.”