I can't roller skate very well. I never enjoyed it, was never good at it, but my first kiss was in a roller rink, a Penelope Finkel. I put my arm on her shoulder and put my little lips against hers and my tiny tongue went into her mouth. It wasn't what I expected at all. I thought there was going to be a reverberating pulse of something, but it was just someone else's orifice and my tongue was in it and the other mouth seemed smaller than mine. Penelepe Finkel was a little older than me, but she was a bony girl with an abbreviated face and after that exploration I was certain that her mouth was also rather minute.
The best sex I ever had was with Angila Anciny. I thought I would love her for the rest of my life, but two weeks later she was dating Charles Sumners. Angila Anciny was in the roller derby, used to knock girls down and enjoyed skating over their fingers.
So, this is it. It is artificially dark and the cheesy strobe lights are bouncing all over the walls. No music. That's one positive element to this whole thing. I don't think I could stand some top forty pop right now. A spotlight comes on and another big albino stands in the beam, looks at a little piece of river rock.
"Your last words were: "I'll see you in Hell, Tom Streakle."
"Yeah so?"
"Well, here we are." The albino points. Tom Streakle is a dozen feet away on my right. The albino continues to speak. "Now it begins."
I put every bit of soul, of force, of power, all that I can muster, and I put it in my voice, even the bit of gravel that makes motorists quake. "Wait. Just wait, one god damn minute."
The albino cocks his head. "Yes?"
"Let me just get this straight. This is Hell and I'm here because of my last words? That is why I'm here?"
"Yes."
"So, If I had said something else, like I'll see you in eternal bliss Tom Streakle then that's where I would be right now?"
The big, muscled, almond eyed creature shakes his head. "It's not that simple. Right now, we value symmetry. The point of greatest grace is to have your first utterance match your last. In your case as in most others the first utterance is gibberish nonsense. A child noise. If you can match that in your dying, you achieve symmetry and supplemental grace is extended."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Music starts to play. The albino is gone. The song is that song that you've heard ten million times so that it has bored a hole into your brain. It's the song you never liked the first time you heard it but now its playing again and its way beyond the point where you liked it in an ironic way and it's never going to be anything but a sentimental, trite, cliché ridden, sugary goo, of meaningless, empty, soul killing, only with a sharp barbed melody that you can't pull free from. And now the dark black floor with the gum and the spilled soda is heating up and your bare feet are starting to blister.
I look over at Tom. We are both pretty vulnerable right now. I can't quite hate him in the same way. Not right now. I have had dinner at Tom's house. He wasn't so bad a long time ago. His feet are burning just like mine. He's hopping from one to the other. This floor is just a giant griddle and now we are bouncing across it like sliced butter.
"Oh Lord make it stop. Please Lord give me refuge." I plead. A genuine outcry of a stricken person.
The burning flesh in my nose does not stop. The sensation on my naked feet does seem to slightly recede.
The albino has returned. The floor is cool. "You've made a genuine vocalization of symetry you uttered those exact words the day your daughter and your wife were murdered. What do you ask of me my son?
"Just make it stop."
The thing cocks his head. "I can offer you a brief respite. One of you will fry until the body ceases to pump its blood. Then you will be reborn and travel back to this place to watch your partner cook and pop and die."
"That's our choice?"
"No, there's more. You must also agree to love your partner unconditionally and eternally."
"That's impossible."
The albino holds up his hand his first finger to his thumb. "All I have to do is snap my fingers and it is so."
"Fuck that." Charles is shaking his head. "That bastard ruined my life. He took away my family. I won't ever speak to that monster. I could never love him."
I kind of snort. I can't help it. Because that's just like that sordid bastard, to play the victim after what he did to Martha and Genie. I look into the albino's giant eyes. "He's not human."
"That is the choice." The lordlike being says as the floor starts to heat back up. I can see that there is no choice.
"Do I have to say it?"
"You have to choose."
"This is no fucking choice."
The floor is getting hotter. How bad could it be? One brief respite where I get to watch that bastard burn. It isn't a choice, it's just math.
"I choose the love thing." I scrape out of my parched throat.
"Ah fuck so do I" Charles yells.
Then just like that, I know. I mean, I know. Like the way I know I am. The way I know suffering is bad, that's the way I know that I love Tom Streakle. It's not just knowing. It's seeing. I look over at Tom and I don' t see thin bony legs, the beer belly, the wiry arms, the jutting chin, the thick skull, the wavy blond hair. I see his eyes, the solid blue.
It's not just seeing. Its experiencing. I feel him, but it's not Tom. It's what he is inside. Past the persona of the rich show off playboy there is the real Tom. A Tom he never got to fully explore because I ended all that. Still that Tom is there. A seed of wonderful potential. I see, experience, and know that innocent playful child that he is at his core. When all the defense mechanisms, all the stupid posturing is gone, that's what he is at the bottom of all the layers. And when I look into his eyes, I know, I feel, and I see. And I am seen. My darkest shadows are in the light and brushed aside and forgiven and he recognizes the authentic me. And he loves. And I love him.
"Which one of you will be the first to burn?"
I race towards Tom I push his body off the rink push him against the wall. "Tom I can't stand to see you suffer. Please, let me go first."
He throws me and I land on my back. He rushes at the Albino. "I will burn first." The albino is gone. I run into the rink, my feet on fire. I hold Tom in my arms. "I won't let you go Tom. I won't. And he knows that I mean it and his body relaxes in my arms. As the floor burns my feet and my legs and before I can't take the smell of skin frying, I lean into his ear and with tears burning off my cheeks. I whisper, "I'll see you in hell, Tom Streakle."
