A Gentle Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

Tuesday had no face. Her gray skin ran down her collarbone, her flavor cold, her animal eyes fixated on a point far beyond me. For every world there is a lower world. Beyond her world of Mimi’s trailer and bruises beneath the hips there existed a fairy world in these asphyxiated, hollow nested trees.
    “Julie was going to get married. Then she died,” Tuesday said.
    “I know, you told me. Did Julie kill herself?” I asked.
    “No, but you already knew that.”
    I said nothing.
    “What do I have if I don’t have you?” she asked.
    “The Triple Goddess, I guess. Or God, if he hadn’t died,” I said.
    “You won’t marry me because I’m not a virgin,” she said.
    “No, that's not it,” I said.
    “Then why not?”
    “Because I don't know you.”
    “That's not so strange,” she said, “I've never known anyone before.”
    The coyotes began to howl. We shrank. The deadwood rose up like ribcages, like the dead fields where my father used to drag horse corpses to rot and return to the earth. Sometimes death happens, he said to me once. Death always happens.
    A shot rang out.
    I grabbed Tuesday’s hand and we ran out away from the copse , toward Mimi’s trailer, jumping over wet fennel and thick weeds and death death death, the color flash of her dress. Another shot. Mimi’s back porch lights came on and we appeared in the light, flushed and wild-eyed. Mimi came busting through the door in her blue flannel nightgown with a .12 gauge at her hip. The children peered out from behind her with dripping fists and red arms.
    “Tuesday,” Mimi said, “you hear that shot? What the hell is going on out here? What you doing out here, girl?”
    “Momma,” she said.
    “Terribly sorry about this, Mimi,” I said.
    “Officer Redding, is that you?” Mimi asked.
    The coyotes stopped howling. The grass rustled behind us. I grabbed Tuesday by the shoulders and whirled her around in front of me to try to protect her. Mimi raised her gun. I ducked down, caving my body around her.
    The prophet of the Triple Goddess came through the grass into the light, squinting, sweat on his glass-fish skin, his shotgun raised above his head.
    “What the fuck are you doing out here, Gregory?” Mimi said.
    “I heard trespassers. They were talking outside my house. They were going to steal my Grandma’s old rocking horse. That thing is probably worth five hundred dollars by now. It's a real antique.”
    “You’re still a damn fool, Gregory; it’s just Officer Redding and my girl Tuesday. They don’t want to steal your Grandma’s damn rocking horse.”
    The prophet of the Triple Goddess lowered his gun.
    “Officer Redding,” he said. He looked at me. “You came to my house earlier. For dinner.”
    “Yes,” I said. I realized I was still holding onto Tuesday, my nails constricting her collarbone. I released her. She took a few steps back, toward Mimi. Mimi still pointed her gun at the prophet's chest.
    “Ah,” the prophet said, “hello Tuesday.”
    “Hello Gregory,” Tuesday said.
    “I suppose if there isn’t going to be any issue, I better get home,” I said.
    “Bill,” Tuesday said.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just really sorry.”
    I left with the sweat sticking to my scalp, with the warm imprint of Tuesday’s hand in mine, her kiss on my forehead like a mark of Cain.
    I got back home and turned on the television and lay in bed with my head between my elbows and my nails in my scalp. They were still constantly running coverage on the new policies of the Triple Goddess on the news channels, and the Triple Goddess often appeared in persons and made speeches about how much better the world was going to be now, how much different, now that the evil demiurge Jehovah was dead.     
    I scratched at my forehead and scraped my skin underneath my nails and cried.
    **********
    The next time Thatch and I got called back to Mimi’s trailer, it was because Tuesday was missing.
    “I know that girl wouldn’t have