Landis, Jonathan
JOURNAL ENTRY 08

"Oh good God, you're killing me with all this," the president says, his hands over his face.

"All due respect, Mr. Commander," Belial offers, "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs."

Belial turns to me. "Breaking. eggs, right? Yeah, that's right. Breaking eggs." To my left, Zagan and Zepar snicker to one another, mumbling "eggs" repeatedly and giggling with each echo.

Though I was well aware of Belial's private meetings with the president, this is the first time I've been asked to accompany him on such a visit. Standing toward the back of the room with Zagan and Zapar are Jude Pendington (one of Belial's less kindly assistants) and a mentally disabled man named Paul who must have a role in all this, but what it is I'm not sure I want to know.

For the last few weeks, I've been scouring the T.O.G. for women that meet Belial's list of requirements for the Nephilim project. I was asked to approach the celebrities first, which proved to be easier than I had imagined. All of our first groups of volunteers enjoy some level of fame. Why I was asked to gather three different groups I'm not sure. Either Belial is confident that the project will be a swift success and wants groups quickly circulated, or he is apprehensive and wants the back-ups in right away.

I can't say I've read the forms in their entirety, a shortcoming I share with all of our volunteers. The parts I've scanned seem pretty grim but are laced with Belial's trademark self-empowerment propaganda. If the Nephilim project means certain cruel death to each woman, I'm not terribly troubled by the idea of it. I only see Corrine's face in each of them. Every time I shake a woman's hand, every time I smile and say, "Belial has asked me to speak to you specifically about a very special opportunity," my mind flashes back to my apartment and I see the woman I'm smiling at bent over my coffee table with some muscular Neanderthal behind her. A part of me wishes the worst on them. On all of them.

This is where my mind drifts as Belial continues to haggle with the president of the United States. The whole thing is pretty amusing. Jude Pendington studies every detail of their discourse; Zagan and Zepar take to playing Paper, Rock, Scissors. Paul, the simple man he is, looks lost and confused. Perhaps a little sad. I wonder why he brought so many of us here.

"Heroes!" Belial says, giving the president a mock-salute with the wrong hand. "American heroes! That's what these women will be called."

"Believe me," the president scoffs, "I understand how puppeteering works; this is America for God's sake. We choose our heroes and our demons."

"Well, boss, I won't lie to you. We may be headed for a teeny weenie mess." Belial giggles, pinching his index finger and thumb together to indicate the insignificance of the referenced mess. "We're not entirely sure what we're doing. But we'll figure it out."

"This better be as important as you say. We've got everything geared up for this freak show, and you better make it work. All I know is your lunacy and two sentences written in the good book several thousand years ago."

"Yeah," Belial laughs. "The Bible is so funny."

"I don't care what it is. Do you have this or not?"

"Oh, I have it, buster." Belial nods solemnly but can't resist a smirk. "Remember, if you want to take this thing outside the fences so to speak, this is an integral cog in the machine."

"It better be."

"Oh, relax. The guys pulling your strings will have their shiny Ziz dollars for universal currency and their pretty new world government by the end of this joke. They've been too stupid to get it right on their own. If it weren't for my intervention, you pinkies would still be circulating your silly little pawns and boogey men and wars and economic crises. Perhaps I should head back to the center of the earth and watch you guys blow up more buildings and blame it on the dark meat so the other pinkies can buy what you're selling."

"Watch it, Belial."

"I'm watching," he says in an assuring coo. "We're watching, aren't we, boys?" Belial gestures at our group, and we all mumble a disjointed "Yes sir".

Some kind of menace hangs in the air like a bittersweet funk. It isn't hidden. Belial speaks out about ruthlessness and destiny and reshaping the course of history. No one expects to have clean hands by the end of all this. Standing in the Oval Office, for the first time since the morning I caught my wife, I wonder how all of this will end.

"Pay the right people and make sure this is in every home in America by the end of the month," Belial says, handing the president some documents. The president scowls at the papers, thumbing through them.

"Irreversible damage to the brain?" The president reads aloud. "Korsakoff's psychosis? You expect people to swallow this?"

"In eye-catching, decorative bottles, boss," Belial promises gleefully.

"You may be older than dirt, Belial, but maybe you haven't noticed a little technique the U.S. Government employs when we want to... persuade popular opinion. It's called subtlety. You want us pushing a commercial beverage that essentially incapacitates the American people."

"Only the folks who enjoy excess, of whom there are many in this great land. Boss, you're reading about some over-the-top scenarios there. We aren't pushing anything that isn't already out there; we just want our finger on the button. We're just selling liquor."

"Liquor?" the president repeats, looking back down at the documents.

"It's the American way. At least 100,000 dead every year. Three times the combined illegal drug death rate, five times the homicide rate, and twice the U.S. deaths in the entire nine-year Vietnam War. Add the hilarious 25,000 alcohol-induced accident deaths and 13,000 alcohol-related suicides, and you've got something as American as apple pie and baseball. True hope for the message I've been preaching, Mr. President."

"Is that so?"

"It is. If the pinkies in this country would spare twenty five billion dollars a year for ten years they could end child malnutrition, preventable disease, and widespread illiteracy worldwide. But they won't. They will, however, spend thirty-one billion dollars this year alone on beer. Just beer. They would literally rather pay more to destroy themselves than pay less to save the children of the world. And do you know why?"

The president eyes Belial contemptuously.

"Because," Belial says, "whatever feeding some dying kid does happens outside of themselves and is therefore irrelevant to their greater good. Let the kid worry about his own food. Let America worry about herself."

"Just stick to the God-forsaken plan," the president sighs, handing the papers back to Belial, who bursts into roaring laughter and gestures for us to head out of the office.

On the way back to the helicopter, Belial asks if I'm ready to see history in the making.

"Of course," I say. And it's true. I really am.