Fallow Empires of the Mind

I imagined that the Library of Alexandria had contained a Court such as this, shaded from direct sunlight, with trees, pale marble colonnades and arches, herringbone brick walkways, and a pool, its fountain cooling a sculpture of a joyous naked woman, holding aloft a spray of grapes with one hand and a new-born child in the other. For three seasons each year, the Interior Courtyard of the Boston Public Library served me as a most pleasant afternoon study hall.

And it contained the softest of summer breezes.

I held the corner of the page I was reading so the breeze wouldn't lift and turn it. A mostly eaten sandwich and half-bottle of apple juice purchased from the Map Room Café shared the table with my books. It was the summer before my fourth year studying theology and philosophy at Boston University.

And then the breeze stopped.

The change startled me. I tensed. I looked left, down the long edge of the Library Garden pool and the rows of tables where other students continued to hang their heads low over books, and then right, where a guard sat on the steps calmly eating his lunch.

But the air in the Garden had altered, becoming suddenly heavy, seemingly vowing to never stir again. The sun withdrew deeper into the sky, casting odd shadows where seconds before there had been light. Moisture made a sponge of the air, and the air had something of sulfur about it. I no longer smelled the flowering bushes. I shuddered.

I closed the text and my notes, gathered my things quickly together and stuffed the disorder in my backpack. I tugged on the bill of my Red Sox hat, the symbol that identified me as a native regardless of where I'd come from, and checked to see if I'd forgotten anything.

Every cell in my body knew this with absolute certainty: something had taken a beautiful August afternoon and changed its direction. Something evil had entered the city.

My name is Amy Esplanade. Yes, I'm the Amy who discovered Mrs. Tee's dismembered body back in Evyland, the Amy who played a bit part in stopping Marduk from destroying Mrs. Tee's children. Though I am the daughter and only child of Elin Aagard and Thor Esplanade, I am also a daughter of Mrs. Tee. As such, I am a daughter of Chaos.

I don't know what all that means, to be truthful, but I do know I have responsibility when evil appears because it is chaos that transforms evil into life.

Elin and Thor never expected their little girl would be involved with the works of gods and goddesses, or even that she would go off to a place like Boston for college. Mrs. Tee had convincingly explained the need and the opportunity to them. Mrs. Tee also paid my tuition and board, and the rent for a nice apartment on Beacon Hill.

That's how I came to Boston as a religion and philosophy major with sides of anthropology and psychology at Boston University.

I also ran track. The 5000 meter was my event. In my junior year this little girl from Evyland made All New England.

I needed to find out what was happening in Boston that I had missed. I needed to discover the nature of the evil I had sensed but could not name. Off to the reference library.

I found no clues in the library and it was months before I discovered what had happened that day.

Had he been a woman, people would have called her The Great Temptress. Since he was a man, people called him The Greatest Salesman in the World.

Homeless people offered him their change.

Long ago he had taken the name John James Smith. The name John J. Smith appeared on his diplomas from Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, Liberty and the Sorbonne. Though July was proving sunny, humid and hot and the Weather Channel predicted nothing but sun and summer heat for the next three days, JJS wore a fitted wool three-piece suit, white shirt with gold cufflinks and a beautiful, beautiful red tie, all beneath a raincoat. He carried an umbrella.

This was indoors, in the penthouse ballroom of the sixty-four story Romney Building just off State Street in downtown Boston, where the thermostat was set at 75 F and no clouds could be detected below or above the chandeliers.

JJS preached. "The Common is prime real estate, but it is a wasteland. The same with the so-called Public Garden. The Boston Public Library is a beautiful building. Two beautiful buildings, actually. But its current function is a waste of space. Likewise with the MFA, a prime location, wonderful architecture, going to waste. If you're one of those art freaks, look for our auction. But if we take these misused pieces of land and properly develop them, our time and investments will be stupendously rewarded.

"But the Mayor and the City Council are holding out on you. They stand between you and making a legitimate profit. But come referendum time, the people will be with you!"

Listening to the step-by-such-sweet-step plan to further enlarge their engorgement of riches, the prospective investors leaned forward in their chairs, almost forgetting to sip their 1928 Krug. I'm told that's champagne.

JJS stated smilingly, his eyes twinkling, his hands majestically and invitingly stroking his audience, "This is a win-win-win situation. I win. That's the most important." Scattered chuckles. "You win." Scattered applause. "And the City wins." Indifference.

The City would not win, of course. The City would lose. That was the point. But saying that the City would win, though everyone knew it not to be true, nevertheless salved consciences. Chug a Krug. Such is one of the regions of human psychology.

"Jobs, jobs, jobs! That's our slogan.

"Remember I have the world's largest collection of solved Rubik's Cubes! Think about that!"

Applause.

JJS invited those interested in partnering with him to his suite. Dinner would be catered, and the wines, ah, the wines!

Nothing appeared in the media concerning this meeting: not its location, not its attendees, not the plot that was hatched.

Which is why the afternoon I spent in the reference room of the library pouring over paper and electronic sources for clues about the nature of the invading evil proved fruitless.

The Green Line cars bounced, screeched, smelled, and swayed back and forth. They randomly jerked to a halt and then, just as randomly, whip-snapped back into motion. The wheels screamed their metal screams and shot off orange sparks at every curve in the tunnel from Copley to Park. The lights kept going off and on as if they were playing peek-a-boo. The Green Line had not been constructed to be efficient but to provide an experience tourists and students new to Boston could write home about. Carnivals have less interesting rides.

I stood on the lowest step, my back against the folding door, grasping a metal bar for support. That's as far as I could get. Fenway had let out and, as instructed by the team and the city, the fans piled onto the cars of the Mass Bay Transit Authority, locally known as the "T." Fortunately the Sox had won with a walk-off in the ninth and, though packed like the proverbial sardines, people were talking, singing and happily half-drunk.

My impulse was to call Mrs. Tee, to tell her of my premonition and ask her advice. But I felt I had nothing to tell her except I'd had a premonition. I needed more information.

Mrs. Tee's words repeated in my mind: "You have to change the story, the story people believe and live by. The myth must grow, change, mutate, become something new, deeper, more alive, more free. The myth must point to something new, something more alive."

But what story was I supposed to change?

I clutched my backpack with both hands, trying not to think what contortions would be necessary if I dropped it. It felt like a question on an ethics exam: is it better to be trampled to death by people who ignore you and don't care, or to be trampled to death by people trying to help you?

I left the T at Park Street, walked up the Common and past the State House to my apartment. My living room windows overlooked Beacon Street and the Common. Yes, you are right: I was the luckiest student, though living alone was probably not the best idea.

Since Mrs. Tee picked out the room, I should not have been surprised that the leftmost of the three windows was less of a window and more of a door. Looking out this window I saw the Common and the spire of the Park Street Church. At times, when I looked out this window, I found myself looking in - at myself looking out. When, on such occasions, I turned around or looked down, I found I was not floating three stories above Beacon Street but standing on seemingly solid ground in what I call the Underworld.

By Underworld I mean one of the places which gird our own world, and without which our world would collapse into nothingness. When I found myself standing in midair outside my third floor window, I was in the Underworld.

I had explored parts of the Underworld, walked some of its tunnels, paths and tracks. I'd visited caverns with calm lakes on islands surrounded by tormented seas. Like an archeologist, I'd puzzled over inscriptions on monuments to the dead from unremembered wars, and paeans to fleeting greatness inscribed on decaying stone. I watched vast peoples chained to their leaders' nightmares. I met giant earthworms and beetles that pondered Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu, Darwin and the Sermon on the Mount. Alone, I explored endless libraries stacked with books in lost languages, some books with painted pictures of life as once it may have been, or may have been thought to have been, or may have been hoped to have been. I listened to a twenty-foot long caterpillar that taught me that a deeper world existed, more primitive and desolate, composed only of rock, water, light and wind, inhabited by giants, epic heroes, villains, serpents and other monsters. I walked in graveyards full of living skeletons wearing gowns and tuxes, reciting free verse poetry, debating impossible issues, and playing unwritten symphonies. I've explored cities full of beings, awkward and frightened like you and me, running, dashing, madly chasing the non-existent, the disbelieved in, the fallow empires of the mind.

The Underworld did not call this day, which was good as I had nearby evils to which to attend. This day the Underworld would not have me. I turned away from the window. What, after all, could the Underworld teach me about the evil that had come to Boston?

I picked up a newspaper and saw that the Yankees were in town. The Evil Empire had come to Fenway. I laughed. If only life were that simple. If only life were baseball.

I decided to watch the game.

At about two a.m., after his guests had left and after a long day of bullying people in ways that made them feel appreciated, John J. Smith returned to the room in his suite which he designated as his office. He needed no secretary and no office cleaner because objects obeyed him. His raincoat hung itself up and his umbrella filed itself in a stand. Beside his desk, a mattress lay against the wall. Scattered bits of paper, food, fingernail clippings and wood blocks with random letters carved and painted on each side fled his path. Though the blocks looked like ones children play with, they weren't.

At a flick of his finger, the trash, that is, everything but the wood blocks, gathered into a pile, then dumped itself into a wastebasket. Another flick and the mail on the desk, including the bills, self-immolated. His accomplishments were his own. He owed no one. Without listening to them, he deleted the messages on his voicemail. He answered to no one. Finally, the wood blocks piled themselves in intentional disorder on the desk.

JJS sat at the desk. Pointing at the blocks one by one, he told them where and how to stack themselves. The blocks understood the fate of any block that failed to stack exactly as JJS wanted: to be crushed to coal dust in his fist. JJS began building the blocks into a fantastic and precisely balanced sculpture.

When the final block had been set, JJS took a picture on his cell phone. Then he carefully moved his chair back and stood. He told the chair to move aside. The mattress squiggled over behind the desk.

One of his two greatest and deepest desires was to use things to build; not to allow the blocks to build in their own manner and not to work cooperatively with the blocks, but to impose his will on them to build to his desires.

Slowly he walked around the desk. He removed his tie and tossed it. The tie never reached the floor; it hung itself up inside his closet. He unbuttoned and removed his shirt. It hopped into the wastebasket.

To the extent JJS had a body, it was entirely of muscle.

He walked to the far wall of the office. He stretched. Then he set himself.

He charged. He leapt and landed on top of his sculpture, scattering blocks in every direction. He crashed onto the top of his desk and slid off onto the mattress on the floor.

JJS's second greatest and deepest desire was to destroy created things, because he found all created things, himself included, disgusting. His highest high came from destroying creations made by others. In a pinch, destroying his own would do. Genesis and Apocalypse all in one.

This is what he wanted to do the world: own it, tell it what to do, destroy it.

He slept, curled up on the floor where he'd fallen, among his scattered blocks.

The blocks dared not move for fear of waking him.

Though I watched and waited through August and September, nothing appeared to signify evil. I began to think my premonition had been wrong. But in October ….

Sgt. Wisteria Garcia studied the two eighteen-year-old twins in silence. Though both munched constantly on candy, they were remarkably thin, almost elvish, as if they'd arrived from a planet of black elves. She had their names in her notes, but she thought of one as "Green Hair" and the other as "Purple Hair".

The Sergeant leaned back in her chair and looked around her office. All her life, thirty years in the military - twenty-two different bases in seventeen different countries - and five years in the police department, all of her offices had been painted pea green. That, she felt, explained the girls' hair. They didn't want to spend their lives in a pea green world. Good for them.

Sgt. Garcia reexamined her notes, then looked up at the women. "Let me see if I get this right. At 11:45 p.m. this evening, you were walking together across the Boston Common."

The women nodded.

"You were returning to your dorm at Lake & Palmer College where you both are freshmen."

Two nods.

"You were accosted by a man wearing a goat costume."

"Half a goat costume," said Green Hair.

"Two third's of a goat costume," said Purple Hair.

"He had a goat mask, I mean, he had his whole head covered, and horns, too," said Green. She put her hands aside her head with her forefingers pointing up.

"And he had a very long tongue," said Purple. "And on the bottom, from his waist down, he had goat fur and two goat feet. And he wore like a handkerchief where his thing is," she added, nodding for emphasis.

"His thing?"

"You know, penis."

Sgt. Watson said, "And you said he didn't speak to you or approach you, but he played a flute."

"Well," said Purple, "he had hands like us so he could play. And the way he played, I mean, he was calling us to follow him."

"You had to hear it to know what we mean."

"It was scary."

"I'm sure. Well, I think I've got everything I need. Wait. Where are you from?"

"LA," they both said.

"And you came to Boston when?"

They looked at each other. "August 14," they agreed.

"So you've been here almost two months."

Nods.

"Thank you. You know your way out?"

Sgt. Garcia slumped into her chair. Not the kind of complaint the City of Boston paid the Sexual Assault Unit to investigate. One might even be tempted to test the breath and blood of such complainants. One might, if ….

She looked at the calendar just to make sure she hadn't mistaken the date. She hadn't.

She finished her thought: one might, if one week and one day ago a woman, an attorney, crossing the Common around midnight hadn't reported seeing a man in a goat costume. And if, three days before that, an actress in the current Charles Playhouse production hadn't reported seeing the same thing. Both reported that they heard the flute calling to them.

Sgt. Garcia rolled her eyes as she typed in a request for a search of the sex offender database for anyone who liked to wear a goat costume or who played the flute. She followed that with a note to the Department's counsel: what statute or regulation may Mr. Goathead have violated? If any?

Every weekday, Horace Asid rose at 3:00 a.m., left for work at 3:45 a.m. and was on the job by 4:00 a.m. His friends called him Horse. At six-five he might have made a half-decent college forward, but he was so light even a five footer who weighed over a hundred could move him out of position.

Horse's strongest character trait was persistence. He'd graduated high school near the top of his class and then finished a two-year program at a local community college. Unable to get a job, he completed a course in HVAC installation and maintenance. No jobs. He trained as a plumber. Everyone needed a plumber but few could pay. He ended up donating his services, rummaging through abandoned houses for usable parts. Since practical training didn't lead to gainful employment, Horse, having nothing better to do, got himself a scholarship and studied African religion and philosophy at Boston University, graduating with a BA. This led directly to employment.

The public never discovered the identity of who put the money up or who had the idea, but one day, shortly after Mrs. Tee came to visit me, workers began clearing a block of abandoned buildings. A new building went up. The neighborhood suddenly had a state of the art bakery.

Requests for applications went out, not simply applications for jobs but for employee-owners.

Horse didn't know it, but he was recruited for a management position because of his student friend, me, Amy Esplanade. We met when he was a senior and I was a freshman in a class studying the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or the Book of Going Forth by Day, as the Egyptians called it. We'd engaged in a spirited discussion with the professor and, after class, we found a coffee shop where we continued our conversation concerning the meaning of a sentence in Chapter 64 of the Book of the Dead, "Yesterday, which is pregnant with the one who shall give birth to himself at another time, belongs to me." We became friends.

His fellow employees elected him one of the employee-managers. He'd been reelected to the same position twice by his fellow employee-owners.

The business became more than a success. A sandwich shop opened across the street. Then a you-can-buy-anything-here pharmacy. Then a Mexican restaurant. A soul food restaurant. A bank branch. A small supermarket. An Irish pub. The neighborhood had been launched.

This morning Horse left for work at the same time as always. The bakery was a short walk from his home. He felt exhilarated, even on the coldest days, walking to work in the dark, while most of the city slept, to prepare the food so many of them would eat.

He didn't expect music.

He didn't expect Miles Davis' "Blue in Green."

He didn't expect a stand-up piano and sax on the sidewalk.

He didn't expect the musicians to be skeletons dressed in tuxes.

Being both generous and superstitious, Horse dropped a twenty in the box. He couldn't help but stop to listen. "Blue in Green" was one of Davis' shorter pieces. Horse would still be to work on time.

When the final note evaporated into the night, Horse said, "Nice."

"Thanks, man."

"What you, uh, guys doing here this time of the morning?"

The pianist said, "Waiting for you, Horse."

"What? You dudes from the grim reaper or something? Am I gonna die? I got kids and a wife. I'm gonna die right now, is that what you telling me?"

"Whoa," the sax man said, "The Grim Reaper don't play Miles. He's more a Bach, Beethoven type. We're here to give you the news."

Horse felt a bit better. "So gimmie the news. I gotta get to work."

Piano Man said, "Horse, Lucifer is on the prowl."

Horse's eyebrows rose. "That's news? You guys preachers? Looking for donations?"

The Sax Man explained. "Man, you see where we're from, we get the news first - and the news is that Lucifer is gonna screw over the white folks in this town something bad. And if the white folks gonna get screwed over something bad, then we black folks are gonna get screwed over worse and first."

Horse thought of saying something about skeletons being white, but he decided to drop the topic. "So, ain't nothing I can do about it."

A drum roll preceded Sax Man saying, "Horse, you are Horus, the Sky God. Your right eye is the goddess Wadjet, the Green One, and the Eye of Ra."

"Hey, where'd that drum roll come from?"

"Back up guys. You hear what I told you? You are Horus, the Sky God."

Horse laughed. "I've been called a lot of things. Never a god. Hey, I can see the back of your skulls through your eye sockets. You ain't got no brains and still you're both crazy. Man, thanks for the performance. Gotta get to work."

"Man, the Underworld needs you. Who can lead the Underworld into this world if not the Sky God?"

"Underworld?"

"Hey, you don't believe us?"

Horse snuffled, "No."

Piano man called after him, "Your time's here, Horus. This is it, man. If you don't believe two skeletons wearing tuxes playing Miles on a Dorchester street at four in the morning, who you gonna believe?"

"Oh, three skeletons in tuxes playing the Slow Hand man's music. Miles is fine but Eric's my man."

"Hey," shouted sax man, "Call Amy."

Horse turned back. "Amy who?"

"Amy Esplanade. She needs your help. Tell her to open the Underworld. She'll let you know what's going on! Call her right away!"

My alarm woke me at 6:00. I put on a pot of coffee, showered, dressed, scrambled two eggs, toasted two slices of raisin cinnamon bread, buttered them, poured a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee and sat down to eat and read the morning paper.

Section B, page 23: "Goatman Sought in Common Scare."

I read and reread that article, thought about it some, then turned on the TV. The usual morning show wasn't on. Instead, a local reporter stood on Boylston Street stating that something quite bizarre had begun happening.

The reporter showed some of them, then she had the camera take a long view down the street.

The phenomenon was this: pedestrians on crowded streets had taken to forming themselves into rows and columns, much like soldiers in parade formation. Two, three or four across, depending on the number of people on the street and the width of the walkway, people fell into step, marching abreast and directly behind each other. They'd halt at crosswalks if the light was against them, salute and take the position of parade rest. If someone left to enter a building or go down another street, the others quickly closed ranks to maintain the formation.

Downtown, Charlestown, East Boston, Dorchester, South Boston, Roxbury, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, Roslindale and, by God, Somerville and Cambridge: people in twos and by dozens and everything in between, marched to work, to shop, to school, to play. When asked why, people answered, "It feels so good to march together. I mean it's like you don't have to worry anymore. Someone will tell you what to do."

I didn't know it at the time, but John J. Smith cackled his approval from the roof of the Harvard Club. It had been his idea, after all, his call.

"Early to bed; early to rise." Horse never actually said that, but as an unspoken axiom, it ruled his workweek life.

Horse had been too tired when he'd come home to call Amy. He decided not to call her, or perhaps to call her in a few days, maybe over the weekend. He didn't want to tell anyone he'd been talking to skeletons.

So, when the doorbell rang at 8::00 that evening, Horse's thought on opening the door was to shush whoever it was off into the night and get to bed.

The man, black, stood a few inches taller than Horse, carried a few more pounds and evidenced a few more years. In addition to the fisherman's cap, he wore a weathered barn jacket, a plaid shirt open at the collar, jeans and scuffed leather boots. He looked like someone who'd gotten lost on his way to Maine.

The older man doffed his fisherman's cap. "Is this where Horace Asid resides?"

"Well, yes, but he's asleep."

The man squinted at Horse.

"All right. I'm Horace but they call me Horse. You looking for money, come back tomorrow."

He started to close the door but couldn't.

"Damn, what's wrong with this door?"

"It doesn't want to close on me. Actually, I'd like to talk to you since you seem to be up. It's very important and can't wait till tomorrow."

"Who are you?"

"I was hoping you wouldn't ask until you'd let me in."

"Because I'm likely to shut the door in your face if you tell me the truth?"

"Um, yes. If you could."

"Try me. Tell me the truth. Who are you?"

"God."

"God of what?" Horse's mind flashed back to the band that morning.

"God, God damn it. Aren't you listening?"

Considering his dark-of-the-morning adventure, Horse took this as not quite a complete impossibility.

"I didn't know God was black."

"I created the human race in my own image. Don't you remember? The human race began in Africa. Once, everyone was black. The rest of the people are new fangled. You know, let a thousand flowers bloom." God chuckled. "I'm joshing ya." He laughed. "Or maybe not!"

"I didn't think you'd be quoting Mao."

"Cause he was a mass murderer? Who among you isn't a mass murderer or hasn't sat idly by while someone else committed mass murder or accepted the benefits of a long ago mass murder?"

This being difficult to argue with, Horse took a few seconds to adjust. "Why didn't you just appear in the living room or something?"

"I don't go where I'm not invited."

"All right. Come in."

"Thank you."

Horse led God into the living room. "Would you like a drink?"

God settled into Horse's favorite armchair. "Sure. What do you have?"

"Water, seltzer, milk, orange juice, apple …."

"Keep going."

"Wine, beer, whiskey …."

"Stop. Whisky. Two cubes."

Horse brought God his drink and, wisely, another for himself.

"So, how is Mrs. Asid?"

"Good. Good."

"And the children?"

"Very well. If you're God, you'd know that already."

"Of course I do. If I didn't ask, you'd go around telling people God is so rude he didn't ask about your wife and kids. They're out shopping for Halloween costumes."

Horse looked at him.

"Why do you look like that? You afraid of me?"

"I'm, uh, I mean I'd never thought, um …."

"That you'd be talking to God."

"No."

"In fact, you're still not sure you're talking to God, right?"

Horse pressed his lips.

"Admit it: you're not sure I'm God."

"Actually, I'm not."

"Good. Keep that. And you're not sure why, if I am God, I'd be here talking to you."

"That's, uh, true."

"Keep that, too. You're only God's chosen if you don't think you are. Whiskey's not bad. But down to why I'm here. My old friend Lucifer is in town."

"Old friend?"

"We go way back. Look, it could happen to anyone. How many humans do you know that need to be totally in control to feel at all safe? Hmm? How many humans think their ego is the biggest, baddest thing in the universe? How many humans act as if they were the center of the whole doodling universe? How many humans work their whole lives collecting shit, and when they get old they think it's something that they've got the biggest pile of shit in the world? 'Whoa, man, see this pile of shit I got? Bet you're impressed!' How many humans will kill endless numbers of people to prove a point that ten years later no one will care about? So why not angels?"

"Um, not sure I follow."

"You don't have to. Actually, I feel sorry for the bugger. First, of all, he wants to be happy. Hah! Good luck with that! Whatever happy means. There was an actress - you won't know her - once said, 'I don't have to be happy to be happy.' I liked that. He never is. He says, 'Oh, let me ruin just one more soul, destroy one more thing and I'll be happy.' One more this, one more that, one more anything. He's never happy. He gets frustrated. And then he starts breaking things. That's when it gets bad.

"Look, you didn't listen to what my emissaries told you this morning."

"That skeleton band?"

"Right. You didn't call Amy. She needs your help."

"You telling me that you sent those two to see me? They said I was a god. Horus."

"You are. What I need …."

"Wait. You're God, right? Jehovah? How can I be Horus if there's only one god?"

"Ask Amy. She's up on all that stuff. What I need you to do is this: You must go to the Common at ten o'clock and meet her there. She's going to need your help." God held up his empty glass. "Any more where this came from?"

Horse returned carrying a tray with the bottle and a pail of ice.

"Thanks. Bit more. Great."

"Why do I need to go? You go."

"No, I couldn't. Think. You show up at ten on the Boston Common and Amy sees you, she says, 'Why Horse, what are you doing here?' If I show up and say, 'Hi, Amy. I'm God,' she calls the mental health department.

"Ain't no mental health department any more."

"Oh. Right. But you need to help her and tell her to call the Underworld. Don't worry, she'll understand."

"Guess you got it figured out."

"Not really. I work a lot with probabilities."

"Thought you were all knowing and all powerful."

"Oh, right. 'Can God create a boulder so big that he can't lift it?' Look, I created a universe; I didn't paint a still life. Not that I don't appreciate still lifes. Try this: is God so powerful he can create a universe that tells him 'maybe' or 'sometimes', a universe that does its own thing? Is God so powerful that he can create humans that tell him 'no' to his face? Is God powerful enough to create a free people who can defy him? Or do you think I, like so many people, out of fear, need to be in total control all the time? Hmm? Listen, when you love someone, you set them free. Even though it hurts and, God almighty, it does hurt. It hurts so fucking much. Damn! Pour me another glass, will you?"

At ten o'clock I entered the Common from the Beacon Street side and Horse entered from the Tremont Street side at the same time. We ran into each other at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial.

"Horse?"

"Hi, Amy. Good to see you."

"Why Horse, what are you doing here?"

"God sent me. He's pissed with me because I didn't call you earlier like the skeletons said. He said I needed to get my ass over here so He sent a woman driving a chariot pulled by four cats the size of cows to bring me here. Interesting ride."

"Wait. Skeletons told you to call me? What did they look like?"

"Boney. They were playing Miles. They were good."

"Were they from the Underworld?"

"That's the other thing God said: you needed to call the Underworld because Lucifer's in town."

That stopped me. God. Lucifer. Things were worse than I'd thought. "OK. I will. But right now we're looking for a guy in a goat costume."

We sat and I explained the situation as best I understood it. We waited. The dark and silent carousel lay thirty yards away. The pool reflected lights from the buildings around the Common. We'd been waiting close to two hours. Several groups had marched by early on but no one had come by now for the last hour.

A flute melody wandered through the night air.

Horse startled. "Whoa, what is that?"

"Quick. Come on."

We found the flute player quickly enough sitting on the monument's north steps.

"Amy, he looks like a goat!"

I stepped forward only to find I didn't know what to say. What's there to say to a half-man, half-goat that stands over six feet tall on its hind legs and wears something I thought resembled a dish towel more than a handkerchief tied to a string to cover his crotch? Oh, yes, he held the flute in its hands. A violin and bow lay on the stone step where the goat had been sitting.

"Hello."

The goat man stopped playing and turned toward me. It stood. "Greeting, My Grace, My Princess, My Lovely. Such a wonderful star-filled night, don't you think? Come sit beside me."

I looked up. The only 'stars' were the flashing lights of a jet from Logan.

"My name is Amy."

The goat bowed. "A charming name. I am Pan."

"I figured when I read the news report."

"You recognized me from a news report? You know of me?"

"Oh, yes. I know Mrs. Tee."

"Mrs. Tee! Mrs. Tee. Mrs. Tee? How is she? Is she here? I heard rumors of terrible things."

"She's well. Now. There were some problems. So, how'd you get here?"

"British Air. You know, animal fare."

"What have you been doing?"

"Oh, I auditioned for the Boston Symphony. Still waiting to hear. Other than that, hanging out, scaring a few people."

"I heard. I mean what brings you here?"

"What brings me here? Hah! What else? Grass, the trees, the sky."

"This is a city, Pan. You're a rural god. Why the hell are you here?"

The goat sagged as if under a great weight. "Oh, Amy. Why do coyotes come to Boston in the winter? Why do bears invade the suburbs? Why do deer eat the flowers? You know all the old poems and paintings. I'm always in some forest, on some rocky outcrop above a pool or stream, or river. Trees, water, rocks, nymphets: that's me. But there's no place left. I mean, maybe …."

"Pan! Why are you here?"

Pan looked around like a little kid who is mostly guilty.

"It doesn't work anymore."

"What doesn't work?"

Pan pointed.

"You mean …?"

He nodded.

"Why? What happened?"

"It's him." The goat had no trouble conveying a fearful facial expression. "He's here."

"Who?"

"Him! You know, the one the Christians always confuse me with. That one."

"Pan, you're not making this up, are you?"

Horse stepped forward to where Pan could see him. "That's what God told me."

Pan's eyes went wide. "Horus! Oh, my! Horus, I haven't seen you in ages! How are you?" He reached to hug him.

Horse stepped back. "Wait. What makes you think I'm Horus?"

"Why, your falcon head, that majestic beak of yours. I wouldn't mistake you anywhere."

I looked at Horse. He looked like Horse to me.

"Amy, dear friend of Mrs. Tee and Horus, I'm a small, humble god. I mean, how many humans have started a war over their belief in Pan? Really, now. Think about it. But that bastard is taking all my places away. Where do I have left to romp? I'll tell you where! The Blue Hills! The Fells! The Boston Common! And he wants them all!"

"And?"

"The nymphets are complaining."

"They would be."

"What's left if they leave me?"

"I understand what you're saying, Pan. This is not a good situation. But tell me, what's he doing here?"

"Him?"

"Him."

"He's buying up the Common. And the Garden. And the Blue Hills and the Fells. He wants buildings. He wants money. Haven't you heard about the referendum?"

"No. What referendum?"

"He's asking the citizens of this polis to vote to sell him the Common, the Public Garden, the BPL, the MFA, the roads around here, and the water and sewer services."

Where had I been? I hadn't heard a thing. "What are you planning to do?"

Pan kicked the dirt with a hoof. "What can I do? I'm going to stand in front of his bulldozer like Tank Man in Tiananmen Square. And he's going to run me over like I was Rachel Corrie. At least I'll become part of the earth."

Someone with a deep woman's voice shouted, "Hands up! Right now! You're all under arrest."

We all raised our hands.

"All right. Turn around slowly. Kept those hands up."

A police sergeant stood ten feet from us. She held a pistol with both hands. Behind her two young girls, twins with weird hair, stood holding hands.

The police woman asked, "Girls, is that the goat?"

"Yes, it is."

Horus said, "God, I was afraid of this."

"Shut up. I'm doing the talking here. You, the guy with the goat head, take your costume off."

I said, "He's not a guy and he's not wearing a costume. That's the God Pan, the God of mountains, streams, rivers, trees, flowers, all wild things--and sex."

Horse said, "She's telling you the truth. That's Pan."

I added, "Don't you recognize him?"

Pan took the moment to cast a spell, grab his violin and bow and launched into a spirited version of "Misty, Moisty Morning." That goat could play.

We had no intention of resisting the spell or the music.

Horse and I began dancing a kind of twisty-twirly, feet-mostly-off-the-ground folk dance. After a once-through, Pan began singing in a strong high voice.

One misty moisty morning when cloudy was the weather
I met with an old man a-clothed all in leather ….

Horse and I took the police sergeant's hands and danced with her. I wondered if this constituted resisting arrest.

He was clothed all in leather with a cap beneath his chin
Singing, How do you do, how do you do and how do you do again?

The twins danced, swirling greens and purples.

Her parents then consented, all parties were agreed
Her portion thirty shillings, we married were with speed
Then well the piper he did play whilst others dance and sing
Saying, How do you do, how do you do and how do you do again?

The music ended.

We were all breathless.

I held the gun.

Sgt. Garcia shook her head to clear it. She looked at Pan. "What did you just do to me?"

"Why, fair lady, I cast a simple spell."

"You made me dance against my will!"

"But, my lady, I would never make you do anything against your will. A spell is like, um, a spell is like, um, gravity! Yes, that it. Casting a spell is like a planet that throws out great waves of gravity. You're caught in it, of course, but you can use my spell as a rocket uses a planet's gravity, like a slingshot, to go faster and deeper into space. Or you can balance the gravity exactly and go into orbit. Or you can fall for it. Into it."

"Against my will."

"May I ask a question?"

"What is it?"

"Do you love to dance?"

She frowned before she answered, "Yes."

"You see!" Pan stepped up to the sergeant and bowed. "Madam, you dance beautifully. You are Josephine Baker, Grace Kelly, Martha Graham, Sylvie Guillem. You are grace and beauty. Oh, my angel of motion, could I ever hope that someone as wonderful and gorgeous as you might sit for even a moment beside me?"

I stepped between them. "No, she won't. You went a little heavy on that spell. You're a goat, even if you are a god."

"I'm Sergeant Garcia. I brought the girls to identify the perpetrator. Girls?"

"I'm Marka."

"I'm Lilly."

"Hi, I'm Amy. This is my friend Horse." I caught the policewoman's eye. "What happened here, I admit, was a bit strange. I'd like you to give me your card. I may need it in the future. Thank you. But what I want you to do right now is forget it. Not forever, for now. You can remember it in the morning after you've had a good night's sleep." I returned her gun.

"Marka. Lilly. I'm sorry Pan frightened you. He didn't mean to. He's from another era and another place. But he's frightened, too." I began thinking I'd managed this situation remarkably well.

The sergeant had holstered her weapon. "What do I do now?"

"Go home. You, too, girls. Go home."

Marka piped up, "But what's making Pan so sad? Why is he here? What did he say about a referendum?"

Lilly added, "And why is your friend's name Horse when he has a falcon's head?"

Behind us Pan bleated and bellowed, "L-l-l-u-u-u-ci-f-f-ferrrr!"

Sergeant Garcia left but Marka and Lilly demanded to stay. I must have invited everyone back to my apartment because that's where we headed. I kept repeating to myself, "We're up against Lucifer! Who are we to take on Lucifer?"

"Amy, are you all right?"

"I'm ok, Horse. Just maybe a bit tired."

"Well, I'll walk you back but I got to get home. My wife will be wondering where the hell I am and I got to get up and go to work in three hours." He sighed.

"Look!" Lilly pointed.

Ahead of us a man walked up the steps from the Common to Beacon Street. He walked beneath a streetlight and we saw he was wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella. For a moment I thought I heard him say something.

I must have stumbled because the next thing I knew three pairs of hands were holding me up. I felt suddenly terrible. I said, "Horse, my key is in my bag." I told him my address. Then I passed out.

When I woke, four people surrounded my bed: Mrs. Tee, Horse, and the twins. I could tell it was late morning by the angle of the sun coming through my bedroom windows. I couldn't move. More correctly, I lacked any sufficient reason to move.

No. I had one reason to move. I didn't want to lie there looking at them looking back at me with their expressions of confusion. I turned over on my stomach and hid my face in my pillow.

Mrs. Tee said she could see my sadness like an aura surrounding me. When my aura of sadness touched them, they too lost some hope.

They all talked at once. What I heard made no sense. Nothing made sense except to return to die, sleep or remain eternally in bed.

Or perhaps I wanted a normal life. Oh, I knew that a normal life was simply a life that refused to be part of life, that closed its senses to all but the narrowest range of experience, but in my state of mind, if any life made sense than that was it. That or staying in bed.

Someone pulled the covers off me.

Hands turned me over on my back.

I hid my eyes with an arm.

Horse asked, in a desperate tone, "What's wrong with her? She was ok and then she just collapsed."

Mrs. Tee asked, "Do you kids have one of those things you carry with you that has all your music on it?"

"Yeah."

"Here's mine."

"Is there any of that new stuff, I forget what it's called?"

"Barnacle music?"

"That's it. Is it on here?"

"Sure."

"Horse, tie her hands and feet to the bed."

"What?"

"Do what I said. Marka, bring me those earphones. I hope they connect."

Marka said, "They do."

"Come on, Horse, we can't have her ripping the earphones off when we start the music."

Horse finished the job with a little help from Lilly who knew some interesting knot techniques.

I felt as if all this were happening to someone else in another universe. I lacked the interest to resist.

"All, right. Headphones are on. Marka, play the music. Loud as it goes."

I screamed.

Mrs. Tee shouted, "Untie her!"

Freed, I threw off the headphones and sat up, catching my breath. "That was awful!"

"Terrible what they think of as music these days." Mrs. Tee sat beside me on the bed, her arm around my back to keep me from lying back down. "Amy, tell me how you feel."

I confessed to what I felt. "Hopeless. It's hopeless. Whatever we do, he's got all the power. Who cares about the Common and the Library, anyway? If they'd never been built, we wouldn't even miss them. Nothing means anything. We all die in the end."

Marka asked, "Is she quoting Nietzsche or Sartre?"

"Neither," said Mrs. Tee. "I have an idea. Horse, are the crowds still out there?"

"Yes, Mrs. Tee."

"Marka, Lilly, let's get Amy in the shower and dressed. Horse, check the news and find out where the center of this blasphemy is."

I'm afraid I wasn't very cooperative. Fortunately, there were six hands to push me through.

When I was finally dressed, not due to any particular effort of my own, Marka and Lilly presented me to Horse and Mrs. Tee.

"Horse, you, Marka, and Lilly get Amy to the center of this mob. Do whatever you have to do to get her on the stage to speak. Do you understand? Whatever you have to do. I'll be staying here trying to pull some strings. I think I understand what's going on."

Busses parked two abreast lined our street. The busses and the street were empty of people but the sounds of restless crowds came from down toward City Hall.

"This way," Horse said.

The three of them and the fear they'd try that music again managed to keep me upright and moving.

The sun seemed unnecessarily bright. What reason did it have to be so happy, stupid thing?

The crowd stood in ranks, so Horse and the girls easily moved between groups or regiments or phalanxes or whatever they were. Everyone held hands, "So we don't lose each other," said Lilly. The crowd sound was giving me a headache. I was being led like a child.

We came into Center Plaza, across from City Hall Square. On a stage that had been erected just in front of City Hall, a man was speaking. His amplified words broke up as they ricocheted off buildings. "We owe nothing to each other and we owe nothing to the city. Our only duty is to pay our bills, and selling the Common will allow us to do that." They cheered each time he paused at the end of a sentence.

They pulled me along through the crowd toward the stage. When we got to the foot of the stage, we stopped.

Lilly grabbed Horse and said, "I need your help." She indicated a fire engine thirty feet away.

Held now by only Marka, I could have gotten away. I didn't care enough.

My mind wasn't computing time well, but soon enough Horse had reappeared wearing a fireman's outfit. Even to the point of carrying an ax. Lilly came up behind, smiling.

"Ok," Lilly said to Horse, "Do it."

Horse grabbed me, threw me over his shoulder as if he were rescuing me from a fire. I think someone tried to stop him as he climbed the stairs to the stage. Maybe the ax convinced him to let us through.

I heard Horse tell someone, "She's the next speaker."

Satan is the Prince of Lies. He or she believed him.

"Then she's on now."

Horse dropped me like a sack of fire hose on the stage just in front of the microphone. Marka and Lilly steadied me.

Marka said, "Tell them how you feel."

"How I feel?"

"Right. Go. Go on."

I stood before the crowd, all those faces looking at me, waiting to be told … to be told what? Ah, to preach to them my secret knowledge of the universe.

Someone in the crowd yelled out, "Why does that fireman have the head of a falcon?"

Horse waved to her.

I got myself sufficiently together enough to speak.

"You shouldn't listen to me."

The crowd drew closer.

Lilly whispered, "Louder!"

"You shouldn't listen to me!"

Closer yet. Their eyes widened, curious, like bugs drawn to a light.

"I have nothing to say."

Eyes pleaded with me.

"That is, I have something to say about having nothing to say. Before you all were born, you were nothing. You will die and be nothing. You are nothing. By nothing, I mean empty of purpose, empty of meaning, and empty of reason to do anything. The sun shines down this afternoon on all of us to no purpose. It would shine down on nothingness if none of us had come this afternoon. But we are here and we are nothingness, so the sun still shines down on nothingness.

"You love your children. You think you love your children. But if you are nothing, your children are nothing. You can't love nothing. You can only love something but there is only nothing. So love is nothing.

"The Common is nothing, but you want to sell it and get money for it. It's a good price. Any price is a good price. Money is nothing so you're getting nothing for nothing. It's a nothing deal.

"We are all of us illusions without meaning and without purpose.

"We are illusions having hallucinations.

"I am the prophet of nothingness. I am nothing. You are nothing. My words are nothing.

"There's no reason to care about anything. Whatever we do today, nothing will change. We make things up to occupy our time, to fool ourselves. We don't matter. No one matters. Everything ends in death. The universe is a speck of nothingness inside a greater, eternal nothingness. There is no reason for you to be here."

I had begun to wake. I began to understand. Lucifer had to be listening.

The crowd stirred with uncertainty.

"There is no reason to be born, to live or to die. Existence and non-existence are both equally meaningless."

I understood. I was pitting Lucifer's spell on me against Lucifer's spell on the crowd. I could almost hear the air breaking.

As I spoke, a few people began mumbling, then turning to leave. Some gathered in small groups and whispered among themselves. Many glanced around as if trying to find a reason to do something, anything. The ranks began to break.

"What is love? Love is pain, suffering, loss, illusion, just like everything else. We have no reason to love. We have no reason to hope. We have …."

There was a snap. Something broke. Not in this world, but in some parallel moral world.

I straightened up. The situation swept over me. I wanted to cry. I did cry. You have to care in order to cry.

Horse stepped up beside me and placed his hand over the microphone. "Amy, do you know where you are?"

I nodded 'yes'.

"Do you know how you got here and who I am?"

"Yes."

"Say , 'Thank you' into the microphone. Tell them they can go home or stay here, but it doesn't matter because nothing matters."

When I finished, the three led me off the stage.

John J. Smith crushed two lettered blocks into charcoal dust, one in each hand. Then he crushed another two. He barely heard their screams.

He'd intended the crowd to invade City Hall or force the Mayor to come out so he'd endorse the referendum. But that woman, no, those women, and that man … how had they done that? How had they even figured it out? He knew they had to be Mrs. Tee's people, maybe even her children. The tall one, the one who'd spoken to the crowd, that one thought well of herself. She had pride. Her pride had been enough of a crack to slip a bit of a spell through. That had been fun ….

No, he reminded himself. The spell had not only failed; it had been turned and used against him.

He picked up another block. Already it was whimpering. On one side the letter D had been etched in blue. He began to squeeze it. The screams made him smile. He continued to crush it long after it had gone silent, to crush and crush. His muscles reorganized themselves to exert maximum power on the block. From wood to charcoal dust to … diamond.

Yes, he squeezed that block until it became diamond.

He admired the uncut stone for several seconds. Then he tossed it into the trash. He visualized himself continuing to squeeze the diamond harder and harder until it changed back into a wood block with a blue letter D on the side. Why couldn't he do that? He should be able to do that! He should! Why did he have to live under all these limitations? The indignity! Those damn women!

He was the accuser of God Himself, leader of the assault on Heaven, the Prince of Light and the Prince of Darkness, the Root of All Evil, soon to be Emperor - no - make that, CEO of the universe, and these women would pay for having crossed him!

When I woke, I found myself lying on my back. Carefully I mentally took review of my physical being. All parts seemed to be working. Mentally, I felt a dark cloud receding in the back of my mind. Most hopeful, I felt anxious to rise and resume the fight.

Everyone else was already at breakfast. After I stuffed two eggs and a muffin down my throat, I suggested we all go vote, at least those of us who were registered. That left out Mrs. Tee, of course. But she said, "Don't bother."

"I said, "What do you mean, don't bother?"

Mrs. Tee said, "The voting machines were manufactured by a company owned by John J. Smith. They were delivered by a second company owned by John J. Smith. The voting machines were installed by a third company owned by John J. Smith. They have been guarded and serviced by two companies …."

"We get it. Owned by John J. Smith," I interjected.

"The votes will be counted by employees of a company owned by John J. Smith."

"I know what this is," said Horse. "Checks and balances."

"The final vote will be 91.243 percent for selling and 8.757 percent against.

"Meanwhile, JJS has his lawyers with all the deeds to be signed by midnight. The counter-revolution will be televised. Once the deeds are filed in the Registry tomorrow morning, the bulldozers will roll onto the Common.

"We must make plans."

I said, "God said I should call the Underworld."

The doorbell of my apartment rang just after sunset. We'd been waiting for a number of people and beings.

Marka yelled, "I'll get it!"

Mrs. Tee called down, "Marka, be careful."

Marka thought, Like in a battle between God and Lucifer I'm not going to be careful.

She looked through the peephole and saw nothing.

She said, "Hello?"

Silence.

"Hello?" She sang the word.

Nothing.

"Goodbye." Marka turned to go up the stairs.

The doorbell rang.

She took a deep breath. "Who's there?"

No sound.

Since one weirdness deserves another, she knocked on the inside of the door.

A baby cried. Or so it sounded.

When a baby cries, Marka knew to pick her up. Trying to do so completely quietly, and pressing against the door with her full weight - all 98 pounds of her - in case someone tried to force his way in, she turned the lock until it was open. Quickly, she cracked the door open, then slammed it shut and locked it.

She'd seen a baby lying in a white blanket in a wicker basket in front of the door.

She said to herself, "Marka, call the police." But it seemed cruel to leave the child outside while the police answered the call. These days, who knew how long that would take. She thought, I should get Mrs. Tee. But again, it seemed better to take the child in and then call people.

In what both seemed like a blinding flash and something that took forever, Marka opened the door, grabbed the basket, pulled the child in, and closed and locked the door.

She put the baby on the floor.

She called, "Mrs. Tee! Amy! Lilly! Horse or whoever you are!"

"Who's at the door? What's that smell?"

"Oh, Mrs. Tee, someone left a …." Marka turned toward the basket, but there was no basket, no white blanket and no baby. There was a debonair man in a three-piece wool suit and a raincoat, carrying an umbrella and wearing an odd sort of aftershave.

"Good evening, Madam of All Things Purple and Untamed. I take it that Mrs. Tee is in? Humm? Tell Mrs. Tee her old friend Lucifer is here to see her, won't you?"

"I heard," Mrs. Tee called. "Tell him to have a seat and not steal anything. I'll be there when I'm ready."

Feeling that the politeness her parents had ingrained in her was severely out of place here, Marka told the fallen angel he could hang up his own coat.

She said he could have a seat in the living room.

Waiting for the rest of us to appear, Marka searched for something to talk about. "Nice tie."

"Oh, thank you so much for noticing. Yes, I like it very much myself. It was knit by an impoverished six-year old girl who was bought from her parents and who works eighteen-hour days seven days per week for no pay and one meal a day and who will die before she turns twelve in a country that will soon be swallowed by the rising Indian Ocean. Very nice, indeed. I'm very proud of it."

Marka felt horrified.

"What? You object? The alternative is that she work in a brothel. Would you like that better? These people have to start somewhere, you know."

She said, "Nice of you to have her best welfare in mind, Sir Asshole of the Cosmos."

"I've been called worse. It's where the buck stops that matters and they always seem to stop with me. Trillions and trillions of them."

Finally, Mrs. Tee arrived, followed by Amy, Horse and Lilly.

Lucifer rose to great her. "Mrs. Tee, how wonderful to see you!"

"Screw you, Lucifer. Sit your ass back on that chair and state your business."

"Oh, Mrs. Tee, I wish you would. You only do it with God, and, my God, have you seen how he dresses lately? Like some lumberjack! You know what I want. I want you. I loved you first but you always let God stir your chaos. I loved …."

"Is that what you came to talk about? Cause if it is, you can talk about it to yourself somewhere else. Do you have something to say or are you going to start blubbering all over my carpet?"

"Again, Mrs. Tee, you put a knife through my heart. I die with love for you. But I will put it aside. I will repress my deep, warm, loving feelings for you. I come to offer you a deal."

"I can't wait to hear."

"I, um, am, as you, uh, may have heard, coming into some property, to wit, the Boston Common and the Public Garden. And a few other things. I plan rather extensive renovations. Getting rid of the trees, the grass, the pool, all those monuments, the swan boats, the bridges, those awful flowers, oh, I get so excited just thinking about it! Ah, but the renovations, yes, the renovations."

"Your offer."

"Yes. I offer you twenty-five percent of all profits from the whole, final deal. Do you want to be Mayor of Boston? I can do that. Whatever you want really, Mrs. Tee, I'd do anything for you."

"Lucifer, you're nothing but a black hole."

"Now, Mrs. Tee, please, don't get all cosmic with me. I'm trying to find a middle ground."

"Find the middle ground in the pit of Uranus!"

Lucifer refocused his attention. "Well, Amy, what can I do for you?"

"Get out of town."

"I hope you enjoyed your trip this afternoon into the Underground. Of course, I'd already been there. Signed a few agreements of mutual support, I did." He smiled.

"Hmmm. Little girls? What nice hair you have! Is that the natural color?"

They spit at him, striking him in the face.

"I see," Lucifer said, wiping his face with a handkerchief. "Marka, I'll do you a favor and not tell you who made this handkerchief." He returned the handkerchief to his pocket and bowed. "I'll let myself out."

He donned his coat, took his umbrella from the holder. "I will remind you that I have the world's most complete collection of rubber tires, both tree rubber and man-made. Hmmm? And you decline my offer! Now I will leave."

He closed the door behind him.

One second.

Two seconds.

Lucifer screamed.

Everyone rushed for the door.

Pan had Lucifer on his back on the ground and was pounding him with his fists. Pan screamed, "Give me back my erection!"

Mrs. Tee hurried to pull them apart. "Boys! Stop it before you begin throwing spells on each other and wake the whole neighborhood. Stop it! Get up!"

Pan shouted, "He stole my erection!"

"Pan, quiet."

Lucifer grinned between a bloody nose and a split lip. "I didn't do anything."

Horse grabbed Lucifer by his necktie, lifted him from the ground and held him so his toes dangled six inches above the road.

Pan made a lunge for his prey but Amy and the twins tackled him.

"Pan!" Mrs. Tee yelled, "Get in the house. We've been looking for you. And you, Lucifer, even when you tell the truth it's a lie. Get out of here."

"You don't believe me! You never believe me! Tell him to put me down. That poor girl put a lot of work into this tie, you know."

"Drop him."

Horse did. Lucifer collapsed to the pavement. His nose spurted all over his shirt.

"Go. Be gone."

When he'd disappeared around a corner, Mrs. Tee looked at us. "This is it. Our plan has to work."

The following day, election day, we spent planning. Many strange characters came to work with us.

The voting closed at 8:00 p.m. At 8.02 p.m. the final count was in, just as Mrs. Tee had predicted. At 11:30 p.m., the signing of the deeds and the symbolic writing of the check were performed.

Most people believed the deed had been done and the story ended.

We arrived on the Common shortly before five in the morning, we being Marka, Lilly and myself. The others had different positions to take. We stood at the high end of the Common. Behind us was the 54^th Regiment Monument which faced Beacon Street. Between us and the Monument stood what appeared to be a stage with seven huge boxes and light towers on it, something a producer might have for an avant garde Shakespeare production.

A few minutes after we arrived, a single figure made her way up one of the walkways. Sgt. Wisteria Garcia. Like any good Boston police person, she carried three bags of coffee and donuts. Marka and Lilly kindly shared their OTC stay-awake pills.

Four women standing against Lucifer. Well, we had more going for us than that. How much more, we couldn't be sure.

Lilly remarked, "There have been Dark Ages before. We survived."

Oh, youth.

Marka, her eyes having finally adjusted to the night, pointed. We all squinted, blinked and looked again. We came to agree. A man sat almost a hundred yards away, barely visible by the light of a walk lamp.

"You think that's Lucifer?" asked Marka.

Sgt. Garcia asked, "Well, is he the type of devil who'd be out here freezing his butt off a couple of hours before Armageddon?"

I said, "Probably not. Most likely some homeless guy."

Marka said to Lilly, "Let's go see."

They went.

We watched as they spoke with the man. Sgt. Garcia asked that we call her Wisteria. I agreed. We watched some more.

Marka and Lilly stood and began walking back.

Lilly announced, "That's God over there."

Wisteria cried, "God? What do you mean, that's God? No way. I've had too many of his representatives tell me what I'm doing wrong. Don't need no more of that. I'm getting out of here."

I said, "Wisteria, wait. Sit down. What's the problem?"

"Oh, Lord. Every time I talk to one of his representatives I get the worst advice. I don't want nothing to do with that man."

"Stay here with us. Don't worry."

Marka put an arm around Wisteria. "He's really interesting. Right now he's praying."

Wisteria asked, "God's praying? To who?"

"Us," said Lilly. "He has this prayer. It goes like this: People, please stop killing each other in my name. People, please stop killing each other in the name of all your idols. People, just stop killing each other. Just stop. What's so hard about that?"

"That's the prayer?" I asked.

The twins nodded. Marka added, "He says it with each sunrise, which means he's saying it all the time."

Lilly added, "He's coming over to join us in a minute."

God had actually stood and brushed off his clothing. He walked toward us. He was dressed like a Native American warrior, a bit old for the part, but he was still in very good shape. Marka and Lilly introduced him to Wisteria and me. I did feel a bit awkward. I mean, in my studies I'd read a lot about him, some good, some bad. And here he was, standing, shaking my hand and looking into my eyes. Oh, God, what was I to do?

I didn't have time to worry about it.

Lilly pointed in the other direction, downhill, toward Tremont. "Uh-oh. Here they come."

The first of the earth moving equipment was arriving on huge flat-bed trucks. Workers began putting up and turning on bright lights. The equipment began being unloaded from the flatbeds. It all looked like a choreographed performance.

Still, there was an hour before sunrise.

I watched as the figure of a man detached himself from the activity and began walking toward us.

"Look," I said. "Here comes trouble."

Marka explained to Wisteria who he was, but the rest of us recognized the figure immediately. No one else would be wearing a rain coat and carrying an umbrella. He took his time, meandering up the hill almost as if he had no destination in mind.

"Oh, how nice to see you again." He bowed. "And how are you all on this morning?"

"Fine," I said.

"And look. It's Chief What-Do-You-Wanna-Be-Called, the Creator Himself. Well, nice of you to show up. I've always wondered where you got yourself to when I was doing my work, you know, the First World War? Humm? The Holocaust? Stalin and Mao's massacres? Vietnam? Pol Pot? Starvation in the Sudan? Ruanda? The Congo Wars? George and Dick's little excursion into Iraq? Need I review all my projects? Never saw you there. What's up with that?"

"I can take those blocks you've crushed, plant them in the earth, and they'll grow into fine, tall trees."

Lucifer reddened. "Wow. God as Johnny Appleseed. But you're here now. Bravo! The Immortal One stands beside the mortal humans who will be crushed while Chief God remains eternal. What bravery! By the way did you know that there are now more incorporations than Baptisms in the world?"

"There are more souls in heaven than corporations."

I interjected, "Where are your kings from the First World War. Where are Hitler, Stalin, Mao and their supporters? Where are all those who did your work? Dead. Dead. Dead. As mightily as they served you, you can do nothing for them. How's your bloody nose by the way?"

"It's fine. Thank you for asking. And nice speech. Bravo! But you're here to block the earth moving equipment at the cost of your lives, are you not? Admirable. Truly. Your names will undoubtedly go down in a footnote somewhere or other. But you can't be goody-two-shoes when you're dead, now, can you?

"Oh, I wish I could put a spell on you that would save your lives. All right, that was a lie. I could save your lives. I don't want to. Nor do I want to save Mrs. Tee. Where is she, by the way?

"Well, nice having this discussion with you. Look, above the buildings there, you can see light in the sky. Soon the deeds will be filed, the engines will start and you, Mrs. Tee, the Common, the Garden and the library will all be forgotten history.

"Good day."

Lilly said in a breathless voice, "I can't believe we met God and Lucifer in one morning. You never meet people like that in LA. No wonder we might die today."

Huge yellow machines lined Tremont Street now, everything with tires as tall as a person: tree trimmers, wood chippers, rollers, scoopers. I didn't know their names but they all looked like dinosaurs in the early light and I knew we could never stand up to them. Men in hard hats swarmed.

Marka and Lilly were on the phone telling their mother they might die this morning and that she should not expect their bodies to be recognizable.

I asked them what their mother had said.

"She said she hoped for the best, that we would not only live but defeat Lucifer and that, if we had to die today, it would be good to die fighting Lucifer. She was proud because we are on the right side. Then she cried."

I almost cried.

Just before 8:00 a.m. the sound of marching feet rose from every direction. As if in a military parade or during a football halftime, ranks of people marched in, crowding around the Common from every direction. On arrival they continued to march in place while chanting slogans such as, "Cash it in!" "I am a corporation!" and "Don't tread on me!"

"Lucifer can really cast some spells," I said. "Those people all believe they're doing the right thing."

The pounding sound of thousands of feet striking the pavement and voices chanting all in perfect unison as if it were all a single sound, echoing off the downtown buildings, churned our souls. I wanted to crawl away after the first two minutes. They kept it up for an hour and a half, as if all those people had gained superhuman endurance.

We sat on the grass holding each other fearing we were about to be fed to this terrible beast.

It stopped. It was just past nine-thirty. The sudden silence struck like a bell.

All at once, the grinders and scoopers and levelers and pounders and cutters and chippers started their engines.

The deeds must have been filed.

And then, starting from behind us as if coming from beneath the State House, the earth shook, not only shook but rolled, pulsing beneath us, past us, down the hill, like ocean waves, bouncing the yellow machines three or four feet into the air.

We screamed, thinking we were being attacked from behind.

Not quite. The machines below us did go silent and the ranks of people did blur a bit at the edges, but Lucifer was shouting through loud speakers to begin again.

Behind us the earth began to rise as if something was pushing up from below.

We moved quickly down the slope.

The earth collapsed at the center of the bulge, forming a hole.

A crew of skeletons dressed for a formal ball quickly emerged from the hole and ran onto the stage. They opened the doors of the two largest boxes on the stage and dragged two forty foot tall speakers out and set them one to each side of the stage.

That done, the crew disappeared back into the hole and a peculiar horror emerged. The horror was twelve feet high, fifty feet long, bristly with red, green and blue prickles and fuzzies all over, and had three black eyes and a huge mouth.

I jumped up. "Caterpillar!" I began to clap. "Caterpillar!"

The Great Caterpillar looked in our direction and nodded to us.

When it had freed itself from the earth, it curled up on the stage like a cat and spoke.

"Welcome."

Everyone from the Common to Dorchester heard that voice. We covered our ears.

"Every good spell deserves a good counter-spell. May I introduce the band."

While the Caterpillar had been settling in and speaking, the skeletons had returned to the stage, rolling out drums, a keyboard and various smaller instruments from the smaller boxes.

Caterpillar slid off the stage onto the ground in front.

The Great Beetle emerged from yet another box and rose behind the drums. With two feet working the pedals, it had four hands holding sticks to play the snares, bongos and other drums. It ran though a quick intro ending with a cymbal crash.

One skeleton took up the sax and another sat before the keyboard.

Two more skeletons, dressed like the crew, picked up the bass and twelve-string guitars.

The nymphets came out and stood off to the left of the stage, each with a trumpet.

The Great Beetle began a slow but driving beat with the bass drum.

Last, Pan and Mrs. Tee emerged from the back and stepped onto the stage. Pan played lead guitar. Mrs. Tee came to the microphone. With a sweep of her arm that covered the Common and beyond, in a deep, bluesy and sweetly harsh voice, she sang:

There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief

There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief

Her voice grew louder and became almost a growl. Her pointing finger became a judgment.

Businessmen they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line
Know what any of it is worth

Her voice turned nasty.

No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke

She went full-throated.

But you and I we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour's getting late.

I saw at that point that the neat ranks of people begin to waver. JJS jumped up and down, probably trying to reinforce his spell, but he could not be heard. Besides, everyone looked at the stage, because that's when Pan laid out some blues lines.

The ranks had broken and people had begun to dance.

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl.

After the blues version, the band went into the Dylan & The Band version followed by the Dylan at Budokan version with Pan taking an extended solo on the violin and the Nymphets doing backup, then the Neil Young version, what sounded like an Alison Krauss version with Pan on lead violin, the U2 version with a flute solo by Pan, and finally a nearly half-hour Jimi Hendricks version with Pan on lead guitar and solos by the sax and keyboard.

People danced and danced, the equipment drivers, the ranks of citizens, and the police.

JJS wore himself out running around in an attempt to reinstate his spell, but Pan and Mrs. Tee's spell was greater.

All I got is a red guitar
Three chords
And the truth
All I got is a red guitar
The rest is up to you

"Thank you!" shouted Mrs. Tee. "Thank you!"

The sound of chains clanging interrupted her.

The milling crowd showed signs of confusion, then fear.

Trucks approached the Common from all directions, each decorated in the gold, silver and purple of kings, CEOs and presidents. Each carried a bed with a sleeping king, CEO, president or person of great power with their heads raised on pillows. Above their heads upon white pillars were multiple screens displaying the sleepers' nightmares. Regicide, patricide, assassination, revolt of the armies, rebellion by former allies, revolution by the masses, invasion, environmental collapse, arrest by the political police, failure of the harvest, drought, disease, old age and implosion of the market were displayed.

Behind the trucks came hundreds and hundreds of gray figures crying, wailing, sobbing, despairing, fearing, each chained to a truck and to each other. They moaned and wailed, "War for jobs! War for jobs!"

Behind us the Great Beetle played a roll of its drums, the nymphets played a welcoming fanfare on their trumpets.

Out on stage came Horace, Horse, Horus the Falcon God arrayed in robes, splendor, and his falcon head which all could see.

Horus' right eye contained the sun. The star's light pulsed, reached, shot across the Common in waves of rays of light, blasted the wheels of the trucks, the screens, the dreamers and their nightmares, and then the chains of their slaves. The trucks became heaps of smoking debris. The gray lumps of the masses began individually coloring in.

For a long few seconds peace came to the Common. Then an engine started.

John James Smith drove the largest of the earthmovers with its pods and scoops and plows and treads and diggers up the slope of the Common toward us.

God, Sgt. Watson, Purple, Green and I held hands making a line Lucifer had to drive over on his way to the stage.

We prepared to die.

A whisper, a hiss, a cry of anticipation came from behind us. "Let him come." It was The Great Caterpillar.

We dove out of the way.

Lucifer flashed past us, headed for the stage.

Caterpillar struck like a serpent. It raised its head, opened its mouth and swallowed Lucifer, earthmover and all.

Caterpillar turned around and disappeared back down the hole to the Underworld.

The band struck up a half-hour version of "The End of the World as We Know It" and we danced, danced, danced.

The quote from the Egyptian Book of the Dead is from The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth By Day, Trans. Dr. Raymond G. Faulkner; San Francisco; Chronicle Books, 1994.

"One Misty Moisty Morning" as sung by Steeleye Span, written by Tim Hart, Robert Johnson, Rick Kemp, Peter Knight and Maddy Prior; © Peermusic Publishing.

"All Along the Watchtower" © 1968 by Bob Dylan. Additional words by U2.

The scenes in which John James Smith is the sole character and therefore the only witness to the events are, regrettably, based solely on hearsay provided by the Great Caterpillar who interrogated Lucifer while in captivity. Lucifer did not respond to my requests for an interview. The Great Caterpillar may be contacted via the correct window of your residence.

Bio: Mr. Santella is a retired attorney who is finally doing what he should have been doing all his life: writing stories. He lives with his wife and cat north of Boston. His novel, The Gravity of Light is available on Amazon.

E-mail: Edward J. Santella

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