Only Americans Burn in Hell Read online

It isn’t the people using their smartphones!

  It’s that books got defined down!

  There’s one working standard for judging quality!

  Is this tedious narrative bound in paper less boring than watching peoples’ slack faces as they ride a crosstown bus?

  I don’t blame anyone for using a smartphone to alleviate boredom while riding public transit. I know that pictographic messages about sexual encounters with Santa Claus are slightly less boring than reading novels about Life in Our Time.

  So, no, reader, I’m not like that crank.

  I don’t blame anyone for getting addicted to their smartphones.

  I only blame people for their terrible attempts at reviewing my work.

  Vonnegut, Vonnegut, Vonnegut!

  He invented the short sentence!

  He invented the short paragraph!

  He invented jokes!

  Chapter Four

  Child, Be Strange

  Before going to Los Angeles, Celia had left Fairy Land on one previous occasion.

  This was when she went to the city of London on the island of Great Britain.

  She traveled in the Year of the Sulky Octopus, which roughly corresponded to 1608 AD, 1017 AH, and 5369 AM.

  Celia had arrived in the middle of the Little Ice Age, which was a long period of freezing winters and terrible cold.

  Celia went to London a few days after Christmas, which was a holiday that celebrated the birth of an itinerant preacher from Galilee who’d promulgated an ideology of love, non-violence, and forgiveness.

  Somehow this ideology of love and forgiveness, which was called Christianity, had been transformed into a religion responsible for tens of millions of deaths.

  History is so fucking weird.

  More Vonnegut!

  He invented Jesus!

  Prior to Celia’s first departure, Fern had returned with news from a peregrination abroad: Tom a Lincoln, the book by Richard Johnson, had been adapted into a play.

  “A play?” asked Celia. “Whatever is a play?”

  “Some people are chosen to embody roles around a theme. The chosen people speak words as if they themselves were their embodied roles.”

  “You say that they have made a play of my life?” asked Celia.

  “Yes,” said Fern.

  “Someone will speak as me?” asked Celia.

  “Yes,” said Fern.

  “I must attend,” said Celia.

  Fern could not go to England with her mother.

  She’d been away from Fairy Land for about a year.

  Whenever Fern returned from a vacation, she’d stay on Fairy Land for at least two years, which was long enough to chase away even the slightest hint of the island’s collective depression.

  One of Fairy Land’s more aggressive women was drafted into service as Celia’s escort.

  Her name was Rose Byrne.

  When the women of Fairy Land had banished or murdered all of the island’s men, Rose had been one of the more violent and vocal agitators.

  Rose had argued against banishment. She wanted to kill all the men.

  She hadn’t killed all the men, but she had murdered more men than anyone else on the island.

  She’d cut off their heads.

  She’d hung them from gibbets.

  She’d boiled them in oil.

  She’d drowned them in ale.

  She’d crushed them with rocks.

  She’d buried them in sand, covered their heads with honey, and let their skulls be picked clean by ants.

  About two centuries before Fern first left the island, Rose began taking her own trips away from Fairy Land.

  Rose’s trips abroad were very short affairs.

  She only left long enough to sail a skiff to a distant land, get blotto stinking drunk, and then brutalize unsuspecting men in dirty taverns.

  But the violence tourism had taught Rose how to travel, which made her useful as Celia’s companion.

  Celia was the Regnant Queen.

  She wasn’t traveling by boat.

  She did some faery bullshit and opened a magic window to London.

  The magic window opened in Southwark, on the south side of the river, between the bear-baiting ring and St. Saviour’s church.

  A bunch of awful London people stood around, gaping at Celia and Rose Byrne.

  The awful London people had seen a lot of things in their miserable London lives, but they’d never witnessed the spontaneous materialization of a fairy queen and her disagreeable companion.

  One of the awful Londoners was a drunken scoundrel.

  He only had one eye.

  The scoundrel began dancing like a chicken, in the hopes that Celia or Rose would give him coin for alcohol.

  “Let us anon, lady,” said Rose. “Before I rip this one’s arms from his shoulders and beat him about the head with his own appendages.”

  “Come on, missus,” said the scoundrel. “Come on, I’m a righteous chicken and I’m a-dancing for you!”

  Before Fern left England, she’d put a faery glamor on the location where the play of Celia’s life would be performed, which was the Hall at Gray’s Inn.

  Gray’s Inn was one of the four Inns of Court, which were places where upper-class families sent their sons to train as barristers.

  A barrister was a fancy lawyer.

  The inmates of Gray’s Inn were learning to exploit England’s ad hoc legal system.

  This training helped the inmates’ families abuse the poor and retain an iron hold over the country’s unjust social structure.

  It was good work if you could get it.

  Which you couldn’t.

  Because you were poor.

  Celia cast a spell.

  The spell created a long thin tendril of magical light, like a ropey strand of saliva, that led from the faery glamor on Gray’s Inn to Celia’s location in Southwark. The tendril snaked through the streets of London, creating the most effective route to Gray’s Inn.

  It was a little like getting directions from a smartphone, but without supplying every stupid fucking detail of your sad little life to the sociopaths who operate megalithic American corporations.

  Celia and Rose left the Londoners and followed the tendril.

  “Come on, missus,” cried the one-eyed scoundrel after Celia and Rose. “Come on, don’t you want to pluck me old feathers? Don’t you want to tug on the old beak? I’ve got some nice meat on me old chicken bones!”

  The tendril led Celia and Rose over London Bridge.

  There were human heads on spikes attached to the bridge’s southern gate.

  Celia and Rose passed through the gate, taking no notice of the human heads, which were in various stages of decomposition. It was nighttime, so the heads weren’t very visible, and, anyway, a bunch of men’s heads on spikes was nothing new to the women of Fairy Land.

  London Bridge was lined with buildings and shops on either side, and the passage was narrow, and as Celia and Rose followed the tendril, they often found themselves in darkness illuminated only by the tendril’s light.

  The tendril brought Celia and Rose into Holborn, which was mostly countryside in the greeny northwest of the city.

  The tendril brought Celia and Rose through the Holborn gate of Gray’s Inn.

  There was a crowd of people, all headed in the same direction as Celia and Rose.

  “What a great number have come to see this play of my life,” said Celia.

  “Why would they not?” asked Rose. “What else would the dogs do? Bark at sparrows, chase cats up trees, and, by the smell of them, shit themselves every other Tuesday.”

  Just past the gate, there was a little bookshop under the sign of a white bear. It was tended by a man named Henry Thomes.

  Henry Thomes stood in front of his shop, crying out at passersby.

  “Books, books, books,” he shouted. “Books of the Red-Rose Knight. Parts one and two. Books of the Red-Rose Knight. Read about the Red-Rose Knight in Tom a Lincoln!�
�

  Celia stopped.

  “The book has two parts?” she asked.

  “The writer published the second but last year.”

  “I will have this second part,” said Celia.

  “For you, the cost is but four pence.”

  “Pence?” asked Celia.

  “Pennies,” said Henry Thomes.

  “The swine asks for money,” said Rose. “We have spoken of money, lady. Do you remember?”

  “Money,” said Celia. “I have no money.”

  “No money, no book,” said Thomes.

  “Would you take some ham?” asked Celia. “I believe Rose is carrying cured ham on her person. We could share it with you.”

  “What am I to do with your old hog?” asked Thomes. “What I need is coin.”

  Celia and Rose followed the crowd into the Hall at Gray’s Inn. They entered into a temporary autonomous zone called the Kingdom of Purpoole.

  Almost every Christmas season, the young men of bleeding privilege who studied at Gray’s Inn would throw a huge party, creating a pseudo-monarchy of Purpoole, in which one of their number would be made Prince.

  The Prince would rule for the season with his own courts, ministers, and government.

  He was expected to put on masks, revels, plays, and dances. The current Kingdom had been established on the 12th of December.

  A pupil named Thomas Rudde, of Higham Ferrers near Northampton, was made the Kingdom’s prince.

  As the two women entered the Hall, the subjects of the Kingdom of Purpoole were escorting guests to their seats.

  Prince Thomas was watching over his court.

  Prince Thomas was drunk as a skunk. He’d been drunk for sixteen days.

  He saw Celia.

  Some of the tendril’s magic light had rubbed off on Celia. She glowed with the power of Fairy Land.

  “How now,” Prince Thomas cried from his throne. “Who is this that comes amongst us? See how her face and bosom glow with light of the waxing crescent! Why, I shall avail myself of her company.”

  The Prince leapt from his throne and took Celia’s arm in his own.

  Prince Thomas was too drunk to notice that Rose Byrne had taken out her sword and was about to murder him.

  Celia raised her hand, staying Rose’s assault.

  “Sweetest creature,” said Prince Thomas. “Who art thou with thy fiery raiment?”

  “I am Celia, Regnant Queen of Fairy Land.”

  Prince Thomas laughed and laughed and laughed.

  “What a jape!” he cried. “Which man of Gray’s Inn has architected such a jest?”

  “Why are you laughing at my lady?” asked Rose.

  “Many jibes arise throughout a Christmas Revel, but I know not of any previous happenstance when a character from imagination has come to life and presented herself at our court.”

  “My lady is no product of imagination,” said Rose. “She is the Regnant Queen of Fairy Land. She has come to see the play.”

  “Tell me,” said Celia. “What is your name?”

  “I am Prince Thomas of this, the Kingdom of Purpoole.”

  “I thought us in the Kingdom of England,” said Celia.

  “In these walls, I am the true prince. All that happens within is for my benefit and by my leave.”

  “As we are both monarchs,” said Celia, “shall we not watch the play together?”

  “Excellent,” said Prince Thomas. “I have no throne for a queen, but my minions will find you some grand chair upon which to rest your bones and flesh.”

  “Who whispered to you that my flesh wanted rest?”

  Prince Thomas roared with laughter.

  The play was presented by the Queen Anne’s Men.

  The audience sat around three sides of the great hall. The fourth side was kept behind a curtain, which was used for scene changes during the play.

  Celia watched.

  Celia watched.

  Celia watched.

  At first the play was pretty fucking boring, some old shit about whether or not King Arthur could fuck the Red-Rose Knight’s mother. Then the living incarnation of Time came out and showed a bunch of other shit that happened, none of which was that interesting, and then an abbess put King Arthur’s bastard son, who was a baby called Tom a Lincoln, into the hands of a shepherd. Then Time came out again and Tom a Lincoln was much older and he and his fellow shepherds took up weapons and abandoned their sheep. Tom’s friends crowned him with a laurel of roses, thereby making him the Red-Rose Knight, and then all of the former shepherds camped out on a heath and robbed people, and then they ended up dragged to the court of King Arthur.

  King Arthur and the Red-Rose Knight fought each other until their sublimated incestuous homoeroticism convinced King Arthur to accept the Red-Rose Knight as his son, and then the Red-Rose Knight and King Arthur kicked the shit out of the French, and then the Red-Rose Knight took some of Arthur’s men on boats and they went sailing around the world. Time came back on stage and said some shit. And then finally, the Red-Rose Knight and his men turned up on Fairy Land.

  And Celia was there, watching herself, watching a man dressed up as Celia, watching as the man dressed up as Celia spoke words that Celia had never said and acted out deeds that Celia had never done.

  The sexual morality of Fairy Land wasn’t prudish, but it was an out-of-body experience to watch a fictional iteration of yourself bed down with a makeshift knight.

  In its many lies, Richard Johnson’s Tom a Lincoln had contained no mention of Rusticano.

  But in the play at Gray’s Inn, Rusticano was about 30 per cent of the action.

  A musical intermission occurred after the Red-Rose Knight left Fairy Land. There was a great amount of social mingling, with young rakes talking to women, and an outrageous amount of drinking.

  “You are far more fair than the one who acts out your story,” said Prince Thomas.

  “I am not a man,” said Celia. “Of course I am more fair.”

  “You would be surprised,” said Prince Thomas. “Many of the boys who play as ladies are very comely, and it is said that most are paid catamites. I promise you, my queen, that the Celia of our drama shall find himself enveloped by one of Gray’s brutes before the night is through.”

  “The lust of men can be overpowering. It was not the case with the true Red-Rose Knight. He mewled like a kitten.”

  “Some men, often those who are princes, are known to roar like lions.”

  “A sound that I am certain could shake my bones,” said Celia.

  Celia didn’t pay attention to the rest of the play, which was claptrap about the Red-Rose Knight leaving Fairy Land and getting another girl pregnant and then Celia killing herself by jumping off a rock.

  It wasn’t much different from Tom a Lincoln.

  After the applause died down, Prince Thomas turned to Celia and asked, “How then, my fair elf queen, did you like the play of your own life?”

  “It was very strange,” she said. “But was it a good play? We have no such entertainments in Fairy Land.”

  “It was passable,” said Prince Thomas. “I have seen better, I have seen worse. But look at you, still your dusky skin is illuminated by the light of moon. My word, lady, what kind of woman are you?”

  “I have told you,” said Celia. “I am the Queen of Fairy Land.”

  “A queen of Clerkenwell, more like, a sister of Luce,” said Prince Thomas. “What a jest! Dressed as a queen! Did they send you here to inquire of me, my girl, as you inquired of the Red-Rose Knight? Are you this prince’s tribute? Is it my bed that next you target?”

  “Where do you sleep?” asked Celia.

  “I keep a chamber in the south court. Beyond this door and a small walk.”

  “Is it fit for a queen to consort with a prince?”

  “Our two kingdoms, my queen, are not as of other kingdoms,” said Prince Thomas. “So why should our congress be ruled by their practices? My lady, you arise in me the sacred demon of ungovernablenes
s!”

  Celia followed Prince Thomas to his chamber in the south court.

  It was tepid British sex with the chinless scion of an upper-class family.

  But it’d been almost a thousand years since Celia had fucked.

  She took what she could get.

  When Celia emerged from Prince Thomas’s chambers, she found Rose Byrne standing outside of the building.

  “My lady,” said Rose Byrne. “Have you finished with your antics?”

  “I believe so,” said Celia.

  “Let us anon. Fairy Land is waiting.”

  “A word,” said Celia.

  “Yes, my lady?” asked Rose Byrne.

  “You saw the false Rusticano.”

  “Who could miss the spectacle?”

  “When we return to Fairy Land,” said Celia, “you are free to speak of the play in any fashion that you might wish. My one request is that you not inform anyone of the false Rusticano.”

  “I do as you command,” said Rose Byrne.

  “I would not have him know of the insult,” said Celia. “For the peace of us all.”

  As they walked towards the Holborn gate, Rose handed Celia a small book.

  “Part II,” said Rose, “of Tom a Lincoln.”

  “How did you come by this?” asked Celia.

  “I had some time while you were at your frolic,” said Rose. “I convinced the little man that he wanted my cured ham.”

  “Was there any violence?”

  “Only a bit,” said Rose.

  Chapter Five

  Wonder Women

  Then about four hundred years happened.

  The industrial revolution poisoned the Earth’s atmosphere, the United States of America was founded on the dual principles of genocide and human slavery, and soccer became very popular.

  And Fern lost herself in Los Angeles.

  Which meant that Celia had, once more, to leave Fairy Land. She took Rose Byrne with her.

  Those four hundred years, by the way, were some of the most monumental in the planetary existence of homo sapiens.

  Fern had warned Celia about the changes, back before her disappearance, and Celia had caught some glimpses on Fairy Land’s woolen television.

  If you asked people living in Los Angeles during the Year of the Froward Worm about the last four hundred years, they’d almost certainly talk about things like the Internet, smartphones, and air travel.