Water-Skiing Down The Styx Read online

  “What happened?”

  “The dog.”

  “What dog?”

  “Her dog.”

  “Did it bite you or something?”

  I am somewhat abashed. So this isn't on my record yet? By tomorrow the entire Friday evening poker game will know. “The dog I bought her for Christmas one year. It became very attached to her.”

  “So what's wrong with that? Dogs are supposed to be attached to their owners.”

  “Not this way,” I say. I can see he's waiting for an explanation. “I always said Sadie was a bitch.” I grimace. “The dog agreed.”

  “Ah, yes!” says Hermes with a big shit-eating grin. “Now I remember.” (More likely he's just plugged into some Satanic computer.) “Sadie decided the dog was preferable to you, since it didn't lie or drink or cheat on her, so she dumped you for it.”

  “It was perverted,” I mutter.

  “How so?”

  “Bestiality is a sin,” I explain.

  “I never heard that,” answers Hermes as the strains of You Light Up My Life waft over his end of the table. “God made all living creatures, not just corrupt sex fiends and overweight waitresses.” He grins again. “For what it's worth, the dog's in heaven.”

  “And Sadie's here?” I ask, puzzled.

  “Sadie was about as faithful to the dog as you were to her,” remarks Hermes. “Also, she never brushed him, and she was too cheap to buy him his shots each year.”

  We finish the dessert du jour (angel food cake, never risen, dryer than the Sahara), and head back to the Styx.

  I clamber back onto my skis and off we go. Another few miles and I see the Gates of Hell yawning above a moat of molten lava. We zip up to them, and just when I think we're going to go through and I might get to see what's beyond them, Hermes hits a hard right and we pull up to the Big Guy's palace, which looks exactly like the Chrysler Building except for being a sickening orange, but at least it's got a water view.

  “End of the line,” says Hermes, as I clamber onto the bank.

  I walk up to Passport Control, which materializes a few feet ahead of me, and just as I'm about to explain that I don't have a passport, one miraculously appears in my hand. I turn it over to the guard, who looks like a heavy in an old Warner Brothers movie.

  “Is your name Leonid Breshnev?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “Neither is mine,” he says. “I hate that name.” He pauses. “I'm not real thrilled with Judy Garland, Arimas Papadupolas, or Seattle Slew, either.”

  “I'm not any of them.”

  “Don't interrupt,” he says. “I have 17,362,014 other names I don't like. We'll have to go through the list one by one and see if you're any of them.”

  “Why not just look at the passport?”

  “It could be a forgery.”

  “But if I have a name you don't like, I could lie and say it's not mine.”

  "Zut alors!" he exclaims. “I never thought of that!” He stares at me. “Okay, we'll boil it down to essentials. Are you now, or have you ever been, Veronica Lake?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you wasting my time?” he demands. “Pass on through.”

  I walk past him and enter the palace. A nubile half-dressed redhead takes me by the hand and leads me to the Big Guy's private quarters. When I arrive, I find myself in a room about two hundred feet on a side, carpeted with white fur (still snarling in places), with a long mahogany bar along one wall. There are dozens of half-naked women, each more beautiful and alluring than the last.

  The Big Guy gets up from his chair, where two of the women are fanning him with ostrich feathers.

  “So what can I do for you?” he asks, taking a sip of his cold drink.

  “I have a complaint to register,” I say.

  “Go to the Complaint Department.”

  “I didn't know you had one,” I admit.

  “I don't.”

  “Then how can I complain to them?”

  “You can't,” he says. “But think of the tsouris you'll spare me.”

  “Enough obfuscation,” I say.

  “Obfuscation,” he repeats. “Isn't that the science of what we euphemistically call female problems?”

  “No,” I say angrily. “It's what you're doing to avoid addressing my problem.”

  “You want me to stamp an address on it?” he asks curiously. “I thought you just wanted me to put it back where I got it.”

  “That's precisely what I want!” I yell. “Give it back to me!”

  “You're sure?”

  I look at all the gorgeous woman giving me sultry stares. “I'm sure.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Abra kadabra.”

  Nothing happens.

  “Sonuvagun!” he exclaims. “I thought those were the magic words.” He frowns. “Zippity doo dah!”

  Still nothing.

  “Damn!” says the Big Guy. “What the hell were the words?” He closes his eyes for a moment. “Ah, I've got it!” He pauses dramatically. “Buy low, sell high.”

  I am still without my organ.

  “Hmm...” he says. “That's the problem with knowing too many incantations.” He paused. “In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight ... No, that's not it.” Suddenly he smiles. “Of course! Presto change-o.”

  Suddenly my presto changes, and I am the complete me once again. I gaze at all the women, and the newest portion of my anatomy begins to respond to them.

  The Big Guy looks down and grins. “You sure are happy to see ‘em, aren't you?”

  “Are any of them ... uh ... available?” I ask.

  “They're all for you.”

  “Really?” I say.

  “Absolutely,” answers the Big Guy. “Come on over to the bar and grab yourself a cold drink, and then select whichever of them you want for the night.”

  So I follow him to the bar, and I pour myself a tall one from the tap ... but as I lift it, all the beer dribbles out a hole in the bottom of the glass.

  “I've been meaning to fix that,” says Satan. He hands me a fresh glass. “Try another.”

  I pour another. Same problem.

  I walk a few feet down the bar, pull down a glass from the overhead rack, and fill it. It all pours out the bottom again.

  “Damn it!” I snap. “Is there anything in this room that doesn't have a hole in the bottom?”

  “Oh, yes!” giggle all the women. “We don't.”

  I stare at them with a terrible sinking sensation in my gut and points south.

  “That's the hell of it,” says the Big Guy. A satisfied smile crosses his face and he turns to me. “You know, I've been waiting seventeen millennia to use that line.”

  Ever since then, I don't like hell very much.

  * * *

  At www.fictionwise.com you can: Rate this story

  Find more stories by this author

  Get story recommendations