JACK THE RIPPER IN HELL

Stephen Hunter

I found myself, rather suddenly, at the front door of a great hall of the sort that dominates and has dominated the English countryside for hundreds of years. This was itself an astonishment; as a skeptic of long-standing, I had expected nothing but nothingness and more nothingness, an eternity of nothingness. It sounded rather keen, actually. But no, there I was, before this large house.

It had lots of windows, gables, walls, chimneys, bushes, gardens, nooks, crannies, stables, ponds, crests, crowns, the usual muckety-muck that the tiny percentage of druids, dwarves, and fools bred to rule have always occupied. Forthwith, the imposing door was opened by a snooty footman in livery, from his slippers to his pouffy periwinkle, complete-to-obviously-insincere beauty mark upon his powdered face, his splendid red-silk tunic over ruffles and flourishes, his tight pantaloons, his white silk stockings and his buckled slippers. He was a bit fat, however, and his gracefulness was somewhat undercut by the ample size of his ass.

“Hell?” I inquired.

“Indeed,” he said. “You are expected.”

“Why, of course I am!” I replied.

He led me through the great house and of course it was lit by candle, not gas, its rooms were spacious, if jammed with bric-a-brac, damask hangings depicting long-forgotten hunting triumphs, dead animal heads from same, intricate furniture with much refined carving upon it, wood chiseled to flower and beast and texture of great ingenuity, and everywhere porcelain figurines of dubious taste. Far be it from me to criticize hell, but most country houses are assembled with better wit. They needed to redecorate the place!

In several rooms, it appeared that formal balls were being held. In one, I saw, sweating profusely, the emperor Napoleon dancing an Irish jig. I waited for the music to stop but it never did and he danced and danced, though his face radiated embarrassment and discomfort.

“He got his,” I said to the servant, who was too imperious to notice me.

We climbed a grand stairway, went through a room where a man I believe to be Attila the Hun, or possibly Genghis Khan, was attempting to needlepoint a lovely thrush onto a stiff cloth brace but couldn’t quite get the hang of it, much to the chagrin of his instructress, a small, sanctimonious English lass of about eight.

“You are not paying attention,” she rebuked him sternly. “It’s five then three.”

He too was getting his, unto eternity, and I could read the suffering from his tragic eyes.

Finally, I found myself in what I took to be the Head Man’s office. He was there, too, though not what I expected. This being eternally 1755 or whatever, horns and tails and blazing red faces were definitely recherché. Instead our Dear Boss sat daintily cross-legged at his desk, behind a feather quill, attending to paperwork in great swirly penmanship, itself a specimen of ruffles and flourishes. He, too, had a periwinkle (perhaps hiding the stubs of horns?), a blue silk tunic over the usual frothy folds, powder on his face (hiding the red complexion, it being hell and all) with a completely ridiculous beauty mark. Everywhere that there wasn’t blue silk there was white lace. He eventually laid down his quill, and took a snuff break, forcing some appalling brown and sugary substance up his left nostril. He had a nice sneeze, very satisfying, and then turned to face me.

“Dr. Ripper, I presume?”

“That is I, sir. And you are He, of many names but eternal malice, are you not?”

“I am indeed, sir.”

“Interesting place you have here,” I said. “I thought it would be more sulfurous fires and screaming as hot irons were applied.”

“That’s all in the cellar. We can arrange it for you, if you are so interested.”

“If there are other options, perhaps we should discuss them.”

“That is the point. I like to chat with new boys and discuss what lies ahead. It’s just better that way, I’ve found.”

“I think it’s quite responsible of you,” I said.

“One tries,” he said.

At this point, he reached inside his tunic and emerged with a pince-nez which he wedged onto the bridge of his nose. He turned, retrieved the document upon which he had been laboring, and seemed to read its truth.

“Five, I see,” he said. “Rather brutally, too, I’m afraid. I do so hate messes.”

“If you examine carefully,” I said, “you’ll note that the so-called ‘messiness’ was all achieved post-mortem. It looked far worse than it was. Only one, which I deeply regret, suffered, when strangulation became necessary. Mistakes do happen. For the others it was a swift blur, perhaps a sting or pinch, and then they went away. In all cases, wherever they ended up, it was a better place than they’d been.”

“Allowing that you speak the truth as you see it, I must point out that that is your diagnosis of the situation. They, and I have discussed this with them quite thoroughly, none of them had any eagerness to leave the place they were. It was not the best place, to be sure, and none were ‘happy’ in the way that a wealthy young woman with a brilliant fiancé and an unlimited wardrobe budget might be happy, but none was so at ends that she would have chosen death over life.”

“Well said. However, by my way of thinking it was necessary to achieve certain ends which were of paramount importance to me. I weighed their needs against mine and found my case more convincing. Banal, sir, I am sure, but banality is the commonplace of murder, is it not?”

“Quite so. The dreary tales I hear of why so and so had the absolute right to tup so and so. It’s the worst part of the job, but one must do what one must do.”

“I hope that you appreciate that. I will not stoop to the argument that they did not matter. Of course they mattered, to self and loved ones and, in the abstract, to the conventions of society which cannot formally accept the insignificance of any individual, even if every battle, flood, fire and shipwreck proves how meaningless the individual is. Thus, considered objectively, it’s hard to argue that my crimes in any way but the formally legalistic would be considered a sin. Am I not right in suspecting your interest here is sin, not legal finding?”

“You are, sir, indeed. My profession is sin, my expertise is sin.”

“Then again, allow me another tangent.”

“Please continue.”

“You have people here who have killed in the millions. I didn’t see him but I guess Tamerlane is here.”

“He is. Downstairs. We don’t like to show new boys what we had to do with that chap. Quite horrifying. Involves broken glass on an endless stairway to heaven. He bleeds out, screaming, then awakens to do it all over again. Forever. Oh, well, it was his choice.”

“And Alexander the Great.”

“The cities that one put to sword. Appalling. Hundreds of thousands, all totally innocent. He’s on a cross. If it was good enough for my friend Jesus, it’s good enough for him.”

“My point exactly. So far beyond me.”

“Yes, but you, sir, are self-aware. Tamerlane and Alexander never thought they were sinning. You knew you were sinning. So in a certain way, your five weigh more heavily than their millions.”

“I take your point. However, sir, it does seem to me that simply sticking me on a skewer and rotating me over coals for a million years is rather beneath you. It is clear from your surroundings that you are a man of taste and discrimination. I might have done with fewer porcelain collies, but that’s another issue altogether. Surely you have subtler stratagems in mind for so bold and profligate a brute as me than the old up-the-arse and onto-the-fire routine. I would be so disappointed.”

“You flatter me, sir, and, alas, it is true that one aspect of hell the various religious fellows have never quite comprehended is the importance of flattery. I, after all, invented flattery. It is one of the most basic of sins, and the one sure road to my cellar, more specifically the skewer/flambe wing of the cellar.”

“That is justice,” I said.

“But flattery applied to me, as is yours? I do so enjoy it! Oh, yes, goody goody! Most are too terrified. They beg and mewl. It’s so unfortunate and it does them no good at all. I find your sangfroid truly amusing, to repay flattery with flattery. Jack knew his knife but when it came time to pay up, he could try to outtalk der teufel selbst.”

“I have always been the chatty sort, sir. I have a gift for jibber-jabber.”

He leaned back. “This is the fun part of the job. Coming up with just the right thing for a true bad boy.”

“Napoleon doing a million years of jigs was quite a stroke, if I may say so.”

“Yes, I rather thought so. Now…What for Jack? Hmm, your vanities would seem to be a positively gargantuan sense of self-entitlement, which causes you to do monstrous things.”

“It is true. I must get my way and when I do not, there is hell to pay. Well, not this hell, but a sort of earthbound hell, one might say.”

“Among the reasons you believe you are so entitled is that you consider yourself a man of taste, of erudition, of intellect, a superior being in all matters.”

“Alas, it’s true.”

“It’s amazing, by the way, how much higher the intelligence of those under my rule than those under His. I’m sure it’s blissful Up There, but how could it not be with just dumb clucks and fat hens and the like. The parties must be such a bore.”

“Perhaps, if I may, a suggestion,” I said.

“Yes, yes, do go ahead. I’m all ears.”

“A fitting sentence would be to turn my taste against me. Force me to read doggerel and bromide forever. An eternity spent with Bunyan in the various lands of the Pilgrim’s godawful Progress would be quite severe.”

“Yes, I see the point, but fear you are lying to the devil. Bunyan, though no Shakespeare and no Marlowe, was at the same time not without talent. Though rather drear from a philosophical sense, the Progress shows vision, passion, and exquisite language. Could you have made up a phrase as apt as ‘slough of despond’?”

“I fear not, sir.”

“Yes, I must aim lower, by far. But you have shown the way. I do like to invite participation. It seems so damned democratic, doesn’t it?”

“Three cheers for democracy,” I said.

“Yes. Anyhow, whom for Jack the Ripper? Hawthorne. Frightful and dull. Alas, a genius. Disapproved of puritans, which was his saving grace. Do you like the sea?”

“I abhor the sea.”

“Then perhaps another American, Melville, who writes endlessly of whale hunting.”

“I must say, that sounds rather interesting.”

“Yes, yes, it is. I mean to punish you and would only reward you. It will not do. Hmm, I wonder—oh yes, yes, I have it!”

“Oh, God,” I said. “Please…Not Dickens.”

“Ha ha ha,” he laughed. “Worse than Dickens. In fact, Dickens despised him, that’s how bad he was.”

I saw in a second about whom it was he was disquisitioning. Talk about a slough of despond! That is where I was to be sent for an eternity far longer than one involving flame, penetration, and roasting haunches.

“Please, sir,” I said.

“ ‘It was a dark and stormy night,’ ” the Devil chortled, amused by himself.

“I beg you, sir. You reduce me to tears!”

“Ha ha ha. Jack the Ripper, in hell, reading the collected works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, forever. ‘It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies) rattling along the housetops and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled the darkness’!”

“I beseech thee!”

“Beseech away, Dr. Ripper. It’s so deliciously low! Trite, banal, utterly without interest, and yet it goes on and on and on. No wonder he’s in heaven!”

“Even,” I was reduced to pleading, “the operas?”

“Especially the operas,” sayeth the Devil.