Chapter Three of The Ditchwalkers

Number Twenty-nine turned onto the long, empty highway, feeling pathetically lonesome. He couldn't believe he had been assigned to this sappy little town, with these pasty, God-fearing people, whose idea of a Friday night out was watching the local children participate in the church cakewalk. He laughed smugly to himself. Hell, he was on a cakewalk. Except his number was never called. So, he walked around and around again, hoping the torture would stop, praying to the deep, dead, black sky that he'd have the luck of the draw and the insanity would just go away.

Only occasionally did the night look tolerable, and that was when he'd pass hotties like the one back on the dirt road. Her long, strong thighs and round buttocks had held his gaze for longer than he had intended. And he certainly hadn't planned on getting caught gawking. He pictured her jean-clad figure fading with the evening light. He imagined taking a private walk with her. How nice it would be to hold her slender soft hand in his, to feel the ends of her long silky hair tickle his face as it blew in the wind, to turn his face toward hers and lose himself in those cool green eyes. To pull her toward him and hold her against his body while she went weak with desire.
He sighed. That might have been possible in another life. His vision of pleasure was suddenly blurred by the reality that life and death are rarely compatible.

Number Twenty-nine had once been Mort Krisner. Mo, for short. A quiet kid from Milwaukee, he used to ride his red ten-speed to his dad's corner drugstore each late spring afternoon after school. He had tried to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a pharmaceutical rep, but his life went sour, and Mo turned into a devil-may-care user instead of a legitimate distributor. Somewhere between the Tylenol and the amphetamines, he lost his code of ethics. At thirty-eight, he was dead in an alley. Drug deal gone bad.

Mo had never been concerned with the afterlife. In fact, he'd been so stoned during the last few months before he died he wasn't too bothered with mortal life either. He remembered, as a boy, attending Sunday School with his friend Allen. The thrill of the ringed butter cookies and sweet pineapple juice never outweighed the pain and embarrassment of the paisley clip-on tie his mother insisted he wear, so he began making excuses why he couldn't make it each weekend. Finally, Allen quit inviting him.
In the tenth grade, he was busted for stealing prescription cough syrup from the drugstore when his Dad wasn't looking. He had a pretty profitable racket going, selling shots of the thick, numbing liquid for a buck a pop. His friends could get a cheap high, and Mo was making free money and gaining popularity.
When his mother found out, she immediately enrolled him in parochial school. There, he'd ignored the warnings of his Bible teacher, who dabbed old-lady toilet water on her neck and wrists before she began her lessons. He still remembered the stinging smell.

Her petite frame would saunter into the classroom and approach his desk. Looking down at his crooked part with her steel blue eyes, she would mockingly say, "The Rapture is coming soon. Do you want to be left behind?" Her porcelain cheeks rippled as she spoke, and Mo could barely reply, unable to breathe from both the overpowering perfume and the fear she produced.

These days Mo from Milwaukee, walked a different kind of straight and narrow. Down one ditch, up the next, he wandered from road to road seeking freedom from Purgatory. How he ended up at this pit stop named Providence was beyond comprehension, seeing as he pretty much felt he deserved to rot in Hell. He imagined that some part of his life, some decision he had made, some consideration he had given a stranger had earned him respect or perhaps pity from God. He wasn't sure which. Somebody, though, thought enough of Mo Krisner, saw good in this shell of a badman to believe that two wrongs can make a right.

Mo had tried to forget his arrival in Purgatory's reception area, but the sight, smells, and smugness of the place still haunted him. Having led a pretty under-the-table life, he hadn't necessarily expected to travel from pitch-blackness toward that famous proverbial light. However, he didn't realize the trip to Badland would include street time.
But he quickly found out that his anticipation of the afterlife was naïve at best.

* * *
Dropped into a cinder tunnel upon his last mortal exhale, Mo entered a rocky cave through a pair of silver swinging doors. A red glow lit the antechamber and illuminated smoky swirls that danced across the floor. The second-chance saloon of sorrow stunk like rotten eggs. Mo felt like he was in an oven.

A loud lady threw her grating voice toward Mo. "Next!" He swiveled toward the sound and saw her behind a tall metal counter. Her skin was carrot-colored from a combination of too much tanning and nicotine. Her shoulder length gray hair was frizzy, and she was road mapped with wrinkles.

Mo looked around. Except for the lady and him, the glowing lobby was empty.

"Hey, Mac. Belly up to the bar," she commanded with her gritty voice. She motioned with her large hand for Mo to come closer. Her thick yellow nails were long and snagged.

"Name's Mo, not Mac." He stepped to the chest-high counter.

"Mac, Mo, Jack, Joe. No difference. You're only a number down here, Bud."

"What is 'down here?'" he asked.

"Ever heard of Purgatory?" she answered with a question of her own.

Mo's heart picked up an uncomfortable pace. "That place in between whiskey and wine? Too many times."
He began to hope he was having a real bad nightmare. He thought back to high school, where lectures on the fate of losers and liars were the standard. Mo had been too young, too invincible, and too skeptical to take the notion of Purgatory seriously. Besides, working off one's sins after death in order to escape the Devil's doghouse defied logic. Since most of his life had been one major sin anyway, he had completely dismissed himself as a candidate for any kind of pleasant hereafter.

He added with a strain of sarcasm, "Mother Francis the Good Nun from Nantucket threatened me with tales of 'better-be's.'"

"What are those?"

"You know, 'Better be good. Better be righteous. Better be celibate.' The whole 'You're gonna die and go to Hell' rap."

"Oh, this is worse than Hell, honey. The heat is unbearable." She wiped her sweaty forehead with back of her thick hand. "But I will say this is one of the better franchises. Lots of interesting stiffs down here."

"You mean there are other joints like this?"

"They're all over. These are wicked days. Death is everywhere. We'd be backed up with thousands of plug-uglies if this were the only Faustian foyer around."

Mac stepped back on shaky legs. He wasn't sure if it was his own fresh death, the reality of this place, or the truth in her voice, accompanied by major halitosis, that had him weak.

"I'll only say this once, so listen closely." Mo was relieved to know that this oration would be quick. Although many of his senses were deadened, his nose seemed to be working well. Her breath was acidic.

"This is Purgatory. Now I don't know what that means to you, but down here we do things our way. In fact, it's our way or the highway, Mac."

"Mo. It's 'Mo.' Can we get the name right?"

"You won't need that name anymore down here."

Mo sighed. He was trying to remember where he had been before he got "down here." He was still numb from the high he had going before the alleyway altercation. What a way to end a party.

"Well, let's get started. You're responsible for remembering your number. We can't do that for you. Forget your number and you're a goner." She pushed a clipboard toward him and handed him a pen. "Sign here."

Mo looked down. "What's this?" he asked.

"Your contract. You know-what you can and can't say or do. The house rules." The woman sensed Mo's confusion and added, "Your purgatorial better-be's."

Mac strained to read the small writing in the bad lighting. He felt he was being pitched a junkball. "And what if I don't sign?"

"No matter. You're locked in at the current interest rate. Death is death, I guess."

Mac's face paled. "What do you really mean by 'death?' Are you talking black and still and cold in the ground?"

The woman gave a graveled laugh. "Black, maybe. Still and cold? Never. Put on your walking shoes, Wonder-boy. Now, the sooner we get these preliminaries out of the way, the sooner you can get to work."

"Work? For who?"

"The big guy. Ol' Scratch, himself. A.k.a. Satan. No rest for the weary, baby. Go left through that corridor, take the second fissure on your right and you'll find the chain gang."

Mo had always had a preset notion of this rest stop called Purgatory, and it didn't include an obnoxious receptionist like this one. This holding cell herder made it sound like the inmates were running the asylum. Finding out he would be working for the prince of evil wasn't exactly his idea of a red-letter day.

Mo couldn't understand why he wasn't quick on the draw, why he didn't turn and run, try to escape, or even yell profanities. He should have been panicked or pissed off or something. Instead, he felt helpless about this whole lava lounge scene.
He dropped his shoulders and arms in defeat, and his hands brushed his pant's pocket. The Michigan roll was still there, left from the foiled alleyway exchange. Maybe the broad would take a bribe. He pulled the wad of money out and slapped it on the counter.

"Put your bucks away, Buddy. The only thing that'll save you down here is lots of luck. Besides, Beelzebub doesn't take kickbacks."

The pit of his stomach was heavy like wet concrete and his legs trembled under the weight. All that was left to do was go with the arrangement. He couldn't reverse death. That was pretty final. Given this old poison pan's explanation of Purgatory and the fact that Mo was the one living this crazy nightmare, he quickly decided that those nuns upstairs had it all wrong. Lucifer was in the house, and Mo wasn't going to be the one to challenge the rules this time around.

He took the pen from her ugly hand, scribbled his name on the dotted line, and turned to follow the woman's directions.

"Hey, mister, wait a minute. You need your number." She pulled the contract from the clipboard and separated the carbons.
"Here." She handed Mo a pale pink copy of the document he had just signed. "Your number is at the top."
Mo glanced down and saw a faint "1" in the upper right hand corner of the page. "One?" he stated, wondering if this place was his own private horror show.

"Yep. One." She raised her index finger, which was thicker than a jumbo carnival frank. "Everybody starts at one. Don't worry. You'll get promoted soon. Wrench some hearts, cause some pain, reel 'em on in. You look like the type who'll do just fine down here."

There was that "down here" phrase again. Mo tilted his head back and looked up, wondering how far down he really was. The ceiling of the room was only a foot taller than he was. Maybe that explained the claustrophobic feeling he was having.

"Next!" the woman shouted. She was clearly finished with Mo.

Mo slipped down the hall of the cave, and before he could reach the next turn, the contract began to smoke and caught fire in his hands. He dropped it and within seconds it was gone, its ashes crumbled and blown away by the drafts of the cave.
He heard an echo down the hall. Hog Caller Hannah bellowed another "Next!"
***

Number Twenty-nine walked on, scoping out the few-and-far-between houses, the business establishments, the gas stations, all in search for someone who was curious enough about him to ask where he was headed or from where he'd come. He hadn't felt much like trying, though, until tonight. He had walked for her tonight. On a hope that he would find her again. And he had, if only briefly.

Deafened by the now frigid gusts of wind that seemed to seek sanctuary in his eardrums, he marched forward with little to no knowledge of or concern for the occasional car that passed and sometimes honked in warning. His feet, numbed from the hard-packed winter soil, ached for elevation. Even his shoulders were fatigued, tired of being thrown forward by pocket-thrust hands and elbows.

"Man, what time is it?" he mumbled. He quickly answered himself in a mocking tone, "What in the hell do you care, Mo? Excuse me, Number Twenty-Nine. You're better off up here in the real world than in Loser-freakin' Purgatory."

Ever since his first stopover in Purgatory, the mercy had been aggravating. In fact, Mo was beginning to believe that this whole Purgatory initiative reeked of a bad idea. Just get it over with. You either make it or you don't. At least the unknowing would be over if Mo had gone straight to Hell. At this going pace, though, he had a fairly certain fate of eventually meeting up with the big Mephisto. Number twenty-nine was a far cry from paradise. Number 272, or Number 666--the winning number--for crying out loud, would be more like it-farther away from the beginning of this insane journey.

Mo had indeed entered Purgatory as Number One. Only with buy-in from each individual human with whom Mo came in contact did his number climb. He sucked at this. Position twenty-nine just didn't cut it. Only twenty-eight takers and he'd been at it for over a year-ten petit thefts, three adulteries, one murder, and, Mo's specialty, fourteen drug addictions. If something didn't happen soon, he'd be punching the time clock in Hades for all eternity, and nights and weekends would no doubt be worse than this current job description. Mo might as well be back as Number Four again.

Originally, Mo couldn't understand why, if his role was to obtain soulful agreements, Providence was the assigned place to solicit. He thought it was like trying to sell health club memberships to seventy-seven year old paraplegics. The market just wasn't there. Providence, with a holy and saved-yesterday congregation on virtually every corner, was not the place to tempt the innocent. Providence simply didn't hold the promise that a town like, say, Chicago or Miami or New York did. Not enough infidelities, auto-thefts, rapes, or double homicides. The benevolent guidance of God resounded in this town.

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