But most of the parents forgot to tell their children that they were lies once the children were grown up. And the children told their children the same things, thinking they were absolutely true, and the children’s children told their children, and so on.
Then, for awhile, no one knew what to believe, because parents didn’t know what the right thing to believe was, so the little girls were scared of their stomachs getting all fat with a four-pound wad of gum, and little boys thought they were going to go blind, and everyone says their friend’s cousin’s uncle’s sister-in-law’s son’s girlfriend’s brother is a blind warted cross-eyed mute with arthritis who had to have surgery to get all the gum out of his stomach.
At one point, all the parents got together and made up their minds to go ask “The Professionals” whether these things were true or not. But a few days before The Professionals could be contacted for questioning, all of the parents developed a new interest in staring at their walls and shrugging.
Gin and Nan head to the stairs; Nan holds him as he walks. Normally, Gin wouldn’t like to be babied by Nan — she usually thinks he can’t do anything without her help — but this time he doesn’t mind. She’s being nice and caring, which are two things he never gets out of her. Maybe this time he really does need her help.
Lenny stays jerky in his autotruck. Nan yells at him, “You just gonna stay there or what?”
Lenny peeks his nerdy head out of the window. “No, I can’t go in. I can’t handle the smell of corporate death burger. I’ll just listen to some music. I got the new Cauliflower Ass and Bob tape yesterday.”
“Okay, Lenny.” She doesn’t seem to mind leaving him.
I called Lenny’s head nerdy, because that’s what Lenny is. He’s one of those nerdy punks that dress in classic dork clothes with pocket protectors and thick dork-glasses. Most of the time, a nerdy punk’s glasses aren’t even real, they’re just plain glass or sometimes clear plastic, just to emphasize the nerdy punk style.
In other words: NERD = PUNK.
Nerdy punk is one of the most unusual styles of punk. It is not a style of music though, just a clothing style. Hopefully, there will be a super cool nerdy punk band someday, playing all nerdy punk songs, at a nerdy punk music festival with dozens of other nerdy punk bands. Skinheads will go there too. And nerdy punk will never sellout since trendy people hate everything and everyone that is nerdy.
Satan tells us this:
“I’m sure you’ve heard about the walm. It is the door that lets people in from other worlds. This may seem like magic to you, but it is not. Magic is easy. The walm is more on the technical side. Technology is hard. What is the one thing you would not sacrifice for anything in the world?”
Our faces give the expression that we took the question as rhetorical. He realizes this and continues.
“Your soul. Nobody will ever give up their soul. Really nice Christian people will say they’d give up their life for anyone else to live. They say this because they mean it, and really would give up their life to save someone else, no matter how evil or wretched. However, they only say this because after they die, God is going to love them and accept them into Heaven with the greatest of honors. But they would never give up their souls for anyone. They sacrifice themselves so that they’ll go to Heaven. Would you go to hell or oblivion for someone else? Would anyone do it? Your soul is your everything. Without it, you are nothing.
“Think about this: would a Christian still follow all the Christian rules and standards if he discovered for an absolute fact that God and Heaven do not exist?”
“Maybe,” Christian says, backing the people that call themselves his name.
“Well, you’ll see pretty soon who will and who won’t. Because, as of now, God has turned His back on the world, and nobody else is going to Heaven — no Christian, no human. Everyone either stays here or goes to oblivion. There’s no paradise where the world’s headed. No hell either.”
“What are you getting at?” Mort asks.
“What I’m getting at,” Satan says, “is that souls are leaving people’s bodies all over the world. They are getting sucked out of the left nostril of every human being. Every night, every day, all day long. Haven’t you noticed? The whole world is emotionless. Nobody cares about anything anymore. It’s all because they’ve lost their souls. And it all has to do with the walm. You’ve heard about sillygo, right? Sillygo is created from human souls. Souls are what empower that stupid door so that it will stay open and bring in new people and new animals. In just a month or so, not a single person in the world will have a soul because of that thing. Which puts me out of business. I am a soul collector. My job is to own souls. Without human souls, I’ll be out of business. Without my business, I’ll no longer be the devil. If I’m not the devil, I’ll be human, and then I’ll lose my own soul to sillygo.
“That’s why I opened Satan Burger. I sell hamburgers that are so good that people will trade their souls for them. And, with those souls, I’ll always keep going, and sillygo will never catch me.”
Christian asks, “Yeah, but how are you going to get souls from people if sillygo has taken them already.”
“That’s the beautiful part,” Satan says. “The walm will always provide me with new souls. I’ll be in business as long as the walm is in business. And if the walm goes out of business I’ll be fine, because I won’t have to worry about sillygo stealing my soul after that.”
“I don’t believe you,” Christian says. “If this is true, how come it didn’t affect us?”
“You are young. Young people usually have more spirit in them. That’s why you’d be perfect working here. I won’t pay you in money, but I’ll pay you in souls. As long as you work here, you’ll still have soul. And soul is the most valuable possession you can ever have. No matter who you are.”
ACT TWO
Rising Action
Scene 7
Problems With a Hand
Inside of Satan Burger:
Gin is not taking to being dead. He’s not been dead for twenty minutes and already he’s going moldy. His skin is all white now, all of the blood cells under his skin have suffocated and died, and his muscles and joints losing flexibility. His mind is getting iron-muzzy and weak, like it wants to rest in peace after death, inside some cozy grave. It doesn’t want to live on and on until forever, because forever is a long and boring period to spend in one place. His thoughts go claustrophobic inside the skull, wishing to burst out, leave his corpse and go to Punk Land or some place like it, where bodies do not live. But he’s trapped, always-already trapped.
A VCR asks for their order. Of course, a VCR can’t speak, so it makes rewinding and fast-forwarding sounds to communicate. Gin and Nan don’t understand, so they do not order. Actually, they are getting rather scared.
“Nan is outside,” I say.
Everyone gets up to go see her. The chairs are relieved at our departure, a whistling of sighs, especially the chair that held me weakly. Nobody asks how I know Nan’s outside, nor do they care. They just assume I know what I’m talking about and go.