THE JOHN BRUNI MUSEUM OF MEDIOCRE (AT BEST) SHIT #54: REDNECK PROMETHEUS

[When you're a young writer, your mind overflows with your influences. Sometimes you're so close that you don't even know that you're imitating someone else's work a little too much. When I wrote this story, I thought I was being pretty clever. It took me a while to realize that I was imitating two authors so much that it was like I had written a collaboration between them. There was barely a trace of me in there, and while pastiche is a valid form of writing, I try to steer clear of it, myself. One of the influences is pretty obvious, but maybe not the second one. Let's see if you can guess them both. Hint: The obvious one once wrote an introduction for the not-so-obvious one.]

With his hair on fire, an eye popped out of his head, his balls in his mouth and a poker up his ass, Buddy realized he was in the wrong place.

Okay, maybe he did rape that fifteen-year-old hitchhiker, but the kid had that look in his eyes, like he wanted it and hard. Nope, it couldn’t be that one.

Then there was the time he fed a dog a steak with ground up glass in it. Cruelty to animals didn’t count, so it couldn’t have been that, either.

Maybe it was the time he set fire to the school because they gave him detention. Yeah, that was probably it, especially since the janitor had died in that fire. No, wait, his father had paid off the judge and the school board. That debt was squared.

Nope, Buddy couldn’t figure out why he was burning in Hell; all he knew was that he didn’t like it, and he wanted out as soon as possible.

When the demons finished torturing him for the day, Buddy stretched out on his bed of spikes and waited for his body to regenerate so the tortures of the next day could start fresh.

The way he figured it, this Hell thing lasted forever, and there was no way he could put up with that, no sir. It wouldn’t be so bad if he could be the one torturing people instead . . . Hm. Maybe he could cut a deal. After all, Heaven might just be a bunch of praying and hymn-singing. Buddy was willing to bet there wasn’t beer in Heaven. Probably wouldn’t have NASCAR coverage, either.

He decided that after torture tomorrow, he would see the big man himself for a job.

-

Buddy waddled down the road of groaning, burning souls with his intestines dragging behind him. The demons had been pretty nasty that day; they had cut off his legs and made him eat them raw, bone and all. Now he was bleeding from the holes in his gums where once there had been teeth. It had taken him a while to fish his dick out of the hole they had drilled into his skull, but despite all this, he still wanted to try his plan.

Pandemonium didn’t look nearly as frightening as one would expect. Rather than the hideous, dripping, flaming, crooked castle most had in mind, it was a pleasant office building. Buddy was quite relieved to discover that it was air-conditioned inside. He had spent most of his life in Georgia, and he never knew such a cool feeling.

“What do you want?”

Buddy looked up to see a demoness with three breasts behind the desk. She looked down her noses at him, a grimace on her cleft lips. Black pus dripped from her nipples.

Buddy returned her grimace and said, “I wanna see Satan.”

“He’s all booked up for eternity,” she said.

“Make room, goddammit,” Buddy said. “I got a grievance.”

“Of course you do. This is Hell.”

“Listen, bitch. Just ‘cause you’re working in this nice office don’t mean I can’t lay a whuppin’ on you.”

“Don’t make me call the hounds,” she said.

At that moment a tall man with red skin and long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, dressed in a coal black suit, walked in. He patted his flaming briefcase out, but before he could continue, he saw Buddy trying to climb up the desk in the lobby, screaming about how he was going to piss in the secretary’s mouth.

“What’s going on here?” the red-skinned man asked.

“Mr. Beelzebub,” the secretary said, “this man—”

“I wanna see Satan,” Buddy interrupted.

Beelzebub stared at Buddy for a moment, then started laughing.

“Yeah, yeah, ha ha, now let me see Satan,” Buddy said.

“Mr. Satan is a very busy man,” Beelzebub said.

“I got a business proposition for him.”

“Business, huh?” Beelzebub considered it for a moment before he said, “You can talk to me about it. If I think Mr. Satan should listen after I have talked to you, then I will send you up. Fair enough?”

Buddy nodded.

“Excellent. Follow me.”

Beelzebub’s office was, like the rest of Pandemonium, very pleasant. Except for a tank containing a giant fly (at which he stopped so he could feed it a frog), it was very relaxing. There was even a Monet on the wall.

Buddy climbed up into a plush seat across the desk from Beelzebub.

“What can I do for you, Mister . . . ?” Beelzebub’s eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Name’s Buddy.”

“Last name?”

“Buddy’ll do.”

“What’s your Social Security Number?” Beelzebub asked.

“You’re shitting me,” Buddy said.

“I shit you not.”

Buddy gave him the number, and a moment later a set of folders rubber-banded together appeared in Beelzebub’s hands.

“Let’s see here . . .” Beelzebub stopped and uttered a short laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Buddy asked, although he had a pretty good idea.

“Nothing,” Beelzebub said. “Now, Mr . . . Redneck . . . what can I do for you?”

“You can never mention my last name again, for starts. Just Buddy is good.”

“All right, Just Buddy, but how about telling me . . . why didn’t you get your name changed? That’s almost as bad as a guy I once tortured by the name of Harry Dickass.”

“It cost too much money.”

Beelzebub shrugged. “What can I do for you, Buddy?”

“I don’t really care much for this place,” Buddy said.

“Not many do. That’s the point.”

“The way I figure it, I wouldn’t like Heaven much, either.”

“Reincarnation is out of the question,” Beelzebub said.

“In that case, I was wondering if I could torture people instead’a being tortured.”

“Ah, you seek a job. Not many have the stomach for it.” Beelzebub looked through the folders. “Let’s see here . . . at age four, you bashed a fellow preschooler’s teeth out with a rock. Interesting.”

“Rubbed me the wrong way,” Buddy said.

“And your father paid the kid’s parents off. Here’s a slew of animal cruelty. Typical. Oh, wait! You raped a cat when you were thirteen?”

“Cut its paws off so it couldn’t claw me,” Buddy said. “My first sexual encounter.”

“Speaking of sexual encounters, you raped a male hitchhiker, a minor at that, when you were twenty. He tried to stab you with his boot knife, but you . . . castrated him?”

“You could call it that. I stomped his dick till it fell off.”

“Ooh, a gang rape. Did you really skullfuck her?”

“Yeah. Thought the boys’d get a laugh out of that one.”

“You burned down the high school because you were given a detention. The janitor caught you, so you ripped up his face with a broken beer bottle.”

“Stuck it up his ass when I was done.”

“Then he died in the fire, and your father greased more palms. Excellent work.”

“Thanks.”

“You killed one of your bosses at thirty-two. Over what?”

“He didn’t like the way I stacked boxes, and he yelled at me a lot.”

“You castrated him, put his dick in his mouth, stapled his lips and made him watch while you raped his wife, daughter, baby son and dog. Impressive.”

“Had it coming.”

“You slit their throats before raping your boss and feeding him his own intestines while you pissed on him.”

“Through a hole I gouged in his cheek with a rusty nail.”

“And that got you the death penalty?”

“Yep.”

“It also says you killed a couple of people in prison. You made one of them masturbate with a handful of razor blades?”

“He got on my nerves. You just don’t stare at another guy in the shower.”

“I must say, your resume is wonderful, almost perfect. However, this is still Hell. You will be promoted to the position you want, this resume assures it. But you will have to endure ten lifetimes of torment first.” Beelzebub smiled. “It was a pleasure to meet you, and I look forward to working with you in the future. Have a nice day.”

“Wait a minute,” Buddy said. “I don’t want to wait ten lifetimes.”

“Sorry, but them’s the rules.” Beelzebub’s smile didn’t waver.

“Well, fuck your rules!” Buddy was pretty fast for a guy with no legs. He used his arms to boost himself onto the desk, but before he could attack, Beelzebub grabbed him, tore his head off, and threw it out a window.

Buddy’s head had enough time to think that attacking Beelzebub was a bad idea before striking the ground and shattering like some bad Letterman joke.

-

The demon pulled Buddy’s guts out through his asshole and fed them back through his mouth. Already, the usual castration had happened, and this time his severed dick was stuffed through his septum like a nose ring. As Buddy settled into a vat seething with Ebola, he decided that the only way he’d get out of this “ten lifetimes” bullshit was to take over Hell. The way he figured it, there were billions of souls being tortured while there were only, at the most, a million torturers. If nothing else, he would have the numbers, and his people will definitely be motivated. Why not give it a shot?

That evening, while he grew back together, he talked with a couple of guys he had known while alive (they had been in on the gang rape). They seemed game, and word passed through Hell.

After the next day’s torture, Buddy was visited by Hitler, Pol Pot and General Sherman. All were eager to help.

“We don’t deserve this,” Hitler said. “No one does.”

“All I wanted to do was serve my country,” Pol Pot said.

“No, you wanted to serve yourself,” Hitler said. “I wanted to serve my country. You wanted to keep anyone from overthrowing you.”

“Shut up, the both of you,” Sherman said. “We have work to do.”

“Yes. What is the plan?” Hitler asked.

“Okay, this is how it’ll work,” Buddy said. “We have to storm Pandemonium. That’s where Satan is. Way I figure it, we’ve got a few billion soldiers on our side. When I was in Pandemonium, it wasn’t all that fortified. Satan and his crew are probably pretty powerful, but they can’t stop us all. We need to get our way up to Satan’s office and make him relinquish control of Hell to me.”

“To you, eh?” Pol Pot asked.

“Don’t worry,” Buddy said. “Remember that the point is to make Hell a fun place to live. For us, anyway.”

“We get to have slaves, right?” Hitler asked.

“Can’t see why not,” Buddy said. “Just don’t tell our soldiers yet.”

“When will we march?” Sherman asked.

“In the morning,” Buddy said. “Before the torture, when we’re at our strongest.”

It wasn’t a problem storming Pandemonium. In fact, no one noticed until the entire first floor had been taken. By then, the higher-ups came charging down, led by Beelzebub. They managed to do some damage, but the twenty or so High Demons didn’t have a chance against the billions of souls eager for the torture to stop. Even the mighty Leviathan fell and was torn to pieces.

Buddy and his three lieutenants, however, saw none of this. They waited outside until word came back that the souls had fought their way to Satan’s penthouse. Only then did the four men enter Pandemonium.

They (including the billions of souls) walked up six hundred and sixty-six flights of stairs (there was no elevator) before they found themselves at Satan’s door. Buddy knocked.

“Come in!” called a rather jovial voice from the other side.

Buddy turned to his army. “If something happens to us, charge Satan and put him down.” He looked back to Hitler, Pol Pot, and Sherman. “Let’s go.”

Buddy opened the door, and they stepped into a lavishly furnished room with beautiful rare plants (although Buddy had no idea they were rare); original artwork by artists like Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet and, naturally, Goya; and the centerpiece, a jacuzzi. In the jacuzzi sat a tall naked man with red skin and flowing black hair down to his shoulders. He had three dicks, and each of them had a girl sucking it. Buddy thought one of them was Marilyn Monroe, and the others were probably supermodels from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

“Hey, hey, look who it is,” Satan said, grinning. “Okay, ladies, beat it. I’ve got business.”

The women licked their lips and got out of the jacuzzi. Marilyn winked at the Prince of Darkness before she left.

“Well, if it isn’t Hitler, Pol Pot, and Sherman,” Satan said. “I like your work, but you’re out of your depth.” He snapped his fingers, and Buddy’s lieutenants vanished.

“What’d you do to them?” Buddy demanded.

“I sent Hitler off to the, uh, ‘shower room.’ Sherman will be burned and raped for all eternity. Pol Pot will enjoy being the practice dummy for Hell’s School of Depravity and Creative Torture. I hear the students all wear glasses.” He chuckled.

Buddy didn’t understand what was so funny, and he didn’t care. “I’m sure you know why I’m here.”

“Ah yes. Down to business. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for someone like you. I admire those other guys, but after the first couple of centuries, their type gets boring. Besides, it’s easy, even commonplace, to get into Hell due to war. It’s second only to technicalities in the Bible like blasphemy and jerking off. However, every once in a while, someone like you comes along and earns his way to Hell in their own unique way. I admire you more than all the war criminals put together.”

“I’m touched,” Buddy said. “Does this mean you’re going to surrender peaceably to me?”

Satan grinned. “Your plan was absurdly simple. I’m surprised no one thought of it before. A mutiny in Hell.” He laughed again. “That brings back memories.”

“Glad for you,” Buddy said.

“You still fucked up,” Satan said. “Your mistake was the same as mine. I was under the illusion that I had control. I was wrong.”

“I didn’t fuck up,” Buddy said. “I got an army. You think you can take that on?”

“Still don’t get it, do you? Even I was smart enough to know when God was squeezing my balls. Take a look outside.”

Buddy, keeping an eye on Satan, opened the door. No one was there. “Where are they?”

“Where they belong,” Satan said. “Daily torture.”

Buddy’s eyes widened. “Fuck.”

“I have total power over Hell,” Satan said.

There was a moment of silence before Buddy asked, “What’s going to happen to me now?”

“Well, it’s not like I can cast you farther down,” Satan said. “You can’t get lower than this. I’d give you a job, but that would be too kind.”

“Forgive me?” Buddy asked.

“Not in my job description,” Satan said. “It’s too late for forgiveness, anyway. All that’s left is punishment.”

“Well, about those ten lifetimes—” Buddy began.

“No, you no longer qualify, Mr. Redneck. Your torment will last for eternity.”

-

With a barbed needle in his dickhole, shattered glass rubbed into his scalp, a palm tree up his ass and vultures eating out his guts, Buddy could no longer think coherently. He was too busy screaming.