It began when the air in his apartment changed. It grew heavier, becoming almost filmy, and had a faint but definite acrid smell. When he started to feel hotter and woke up in the night perspiring, he looked in his bathroom mirror. His hazel eyes looked watery and his hair seemed grayer—his whole face looked as if the pale gray of his hair had spread over, it covering his normal color. Was it the flu? His doctor ruled that out. Of course, his doctor knew about his somewhat hypochondriacal nature, also knew he’d been a painter once. He all but said it was due to his easily stimulated imagination or to staying inside too much where he now worked with his computer. But whatever it was persisted—his apartment still felt occupied—and tonight when he felt something move (not on the floor exactly, but over it) and the air smell worse than ever, he finally became convinced that hell had invaded it and he ran out of his place to find a bar.
Would his drink never come? He’d taken a wrong turn and missed his usual place and was now at one that seemed to be run by the lazy and will-less. When it finally came he took two deep swallows and closed his eyes, trying to imagine he was at a beach or else in a grove filled with pine needles that led to a clear lake.
“Hey, bud,” someone said, forcing him to open his eyes. Sure enough, a surprisingly well-dressed man was sitting next to him, and Mason immediately tried to recall whether the man had actually said, “Hey, bud” or “Hey, bro.” “Bro” would be more ridiculous, although a warmer attempt at communication, whereas “bud” was more appropriate for the occasion but also, somehow, more anachronistic.
He moved his head a few degrees toward the man and nodded, then returned to his drink. Already he’d made up his mind to leave probably after his first drink and definitely after his second. He wouldn’t go home, of course, not after what happened. Instead, he’d go to the bar he meant to go to in the first place, where people left you alone.
What was this now? The man had turned toward him again and cleared his throat. He was either going to gargle in front of him or else assault him with more words.
“Hell of a wind out there tonight,” the man said. His blue eyes darted around uneasily as if a wind was moving them.
“You got that right,” he said, to say something, but worried that now he’d encouraged the man too much. Then a silence followed while the man drank. Perhaps it would be over now. Once more he altered the angle of his head to his left, but the man began talking again anyway.
“You come to this place much?”
“No, this is my first time. Took a wrong turn somewhere and wound up here. What about you?”
“I’ve come here once or twice, when other places were too crowded.”
“Yuh, there’s not much here, is there?”
“It’s pretty minimal,” the man said.
“Sort of how I picture hell,” he said, then regretted his words, shivered even as he thought of his apartment, but the man laughed.
“I hear you,” he said.
Hear what? Know what? Just what do you think you could know about me, he thought, thinking of his home with a shudder, and how could you know it, Mason wanted to say, but of course had to keep what had happened to his home a secret.
“There’ve been many nights when I felt the same way, when it was like being in a part of hell. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen anymore, but it used to.”
He turned toward the man again.
“So, what’s the secret? Why doesn’t it happen anymore?”
The man sighed a little. It was barely audible but Mason heard it almost as if the man felt he was the one being put upon.
“You really want to know? OK, first I had to absolutely come clean with myself.” The man paused as if to let the impact of his fatuous revelation sink in. He cleared his throat portentously again before resuming. “Then I heard about an organization that could help people like me, people being eaten up by their sense of injustice, and fortunately I gave them a chance and went to their meetings, and that’s really what turned me around.”
Mason nodded rapidly a few times. It was odd not to know if he were interested or not. “What’s the name of this organization, or is that a secret I shouldn’t be asking about?”
“It’s called the Global Justice Society, GJS for short, and I’m actually heading over there for a meeting in a few minutes.”
It had been a long time since he’d thought about that word— “justice.” It sounded both vengeful and satisfying and so ultimately unreal.
“What does the society do exactly? Sounds like it has a pretty ambitious agenda.”
“It does have an ambitious agenda and now that you mention it, it has a pretty intimidating title, I suppose. But the society really works with just one person at a time.”
“How so?”
“It interviews you to determine the source of injustice in your life and, more importantly, what you can do about it, and then it puts you into the right division that will help you get what you deserve.”
“That sounds more like heaven than any society I know of.”
The man laughed. “You have a good sense of humor, and I don’t blame you for being skeptical,” he finally said. “When I first heard about Global Justice I was, too. I mean ‘Global Justice,’ that sounded way too grandiose for me. But the thing about the society is, it doesn’t try to change the world, just help one person at a time in the way they need to be helped. That’s really it.”
The man talked a little more about it and then invited him to go to their meeting, adding that they served hors d’oeuvres and free drinks.
Incredible that he was walking with the strange man from the bar in South Philly en route to a justice society meeting, no less. Just before they began their walk the man told him his name was Archie—which didn’t help. He hadn’t known an Archie since the character in the comic strip he used to read as a kid, and yet he went with him anyway. They walked down Broad Street past the University of the Arts. While they walked Archie talked more about the society (although he hadn’t asked him to), as if he were a tour guide obliged to point things out. Mason didn’t listen to much of it. It was a January night and quite cold out and they were walking further away from his apartment with each step. Maybe I dread going back there even more than I realize, he thought. Maybe I can never return. He did manage to hear Archie say that tonight there was an awards ceremony at the society, held by the literature division but open to the general public. When he asked what kind of award, Archie said, “The National Book Awards—the Justice Society National Book Awards, that is. You look confused, but really you don’t think that any of the other world’s literary awards are fair, do you? That there’s one scintilla of justice in their selection? They’re as corrupt as can be, just like the Academy Awards or any other of their awards. It’s all deals and politics. That’s one of the things we correct at Global Justice.”
He mumbled something, letting the wind eat most of his words while they kept walking. At the outskirts of Center City Archie took a left on Walnut Street, explaining that the meeting was being held at a private residence. Soon, in fact, Archie was ringing the buzzer in what appeared to be some kind of code until the door opened and they went inside. About thirty people, quite dressed up for the occasion, were seated in the large living room of a three-story townhouse. He had to sign some obligatory papers asking for his name and address.
“It’s a good thing we’re fast walkers,” Archie said, “looks like the ceremony’s about to start any minute.”
Mason nodded then watched Archie waving and shaking hands with a few people near him and saying, almost proudly, as he pointed to him, “I’ve brought a guest,” after which he felt obliged to smile and shake hands himself.
He couldn’t pay much attention to the ceremony because he kept visualizing his apartment and wondering if hell really had taken it over, and if so, how he could ever go back there to get his things.
From what he could tell it was an absurdly bloated ceremony, as most ceremonies were, filled with meaningless thank yous and transparently ridiculous attempts at self-modesty. He didn’t even hear the names of the first few awards. Instead, he was remembering taking a bath as a child and wondering how many years his father, then in his late fifties, had left to live. His father had been dead for a long time now, and lately he’d been wondering during the baths he still took how many more years he had left himself.
Finally, a hush fell upon the room and he heard the master of ceremonies say, “And the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction is Geoffrey Crumple.”
Instantly the room burst into applause, and a bearded man in horn-rimmed glasses and a suit that was too small for him rose to accept the award. He’d never heard of Geoffrey Crumple. He was not the best-read man in Philadelphia but he still read, fairly avidly in fact, until a few years ago, and yet he’d never heard of him. Even more absurd was why this modest, local ceremony was called the National Book Awards. Clearly it was not the real National Book Awards, so why steal its title?
As the Justice Society cleared the chairs for the reception, which he thought he would attend just long enough to get some free snacks and drinks, he asked Archie about this.
“Geoffrey Crumple is a brilliant novelist and deserves the National Book Award far more than the person who supposedly won it.”
“Where can I buy his books?”
“Geoffrey’s too uncompromising a writer to be published commercially. You can read him for free on the Internet. Just go to his website, www.crumple.com.”
“Are the other winners published exclusively on the Internet too?”
“Yes, all of them are. Just pick up a program before you leave and you’ll find their websites.”
He nodded and mumbled, “Will do.”
“So, Mason, what do you think? Pretty impressive ceremony, wasn’t it? You’ll have to come next week. We’ll be awarding the Nobel Peace Prize—it’s maybe our biggest event of the year.”
This time he nodded silently then turned toward the table at the far end of the room where a bar was set up and excused himself. Now he only needed to stick to his program—have his drink or two with some of the hors d’oeuvres on the table and make his exit, stopping to say a brief thank you to Archie, but absolutely not giving him his address or any other contact information. The last people he wanted to hear from, especially given his state of mind recently, were Justice Society members. Though they seemed like benign enough lunatics, they were lunatics nonetheless, with their National Book Award and Nobel Peace Prize. At least, in their total devotion to healing their own egos, they didn’t appear to be harming anyone else’s, although it could be argued that their delusional ceremonies were increasingly separating them from reality. Not that he couldn’t understand their kind of separation firsthand—he had merely to think of his apartment—but that was really all the more reason to keep these people at bay who were now joking and laughing and drinking as if a real event of consequences had just taken place that they were all privileged to attend.
He put down his mostly emptied drink, thinking he would get some food from the hors d’oeuvres table. These lunatics were well financed, he thought, as he put some olives onto the chef salad he was constructing. Just then he noticed a quite pretty redhead in a purple dress a few feet away from him in the fruit section. He looked at her and thought he hadn’t felt attraction, much less love, for anyone for a long time. There was injustice for you. I wonder if the Justice Society ever deals with people like me, he thought, as he unconsciously moved into her section.
“You look like you’re building quite the culinary masterpiece,” the redhead said, indicating his salad, which was embarrassingly large. He immediately decided he wouldn’t add any fruit to it.
“Once again, my eyes want what I can’t or shouldn’t have,” he said.
“I know the feeling.”
Apparently everyone knows everyone else’s feeling, he thought, and yet people were so alone.
“I haven’t seen you here before. Are you in the arts division?”
“I’m here for the first time, actually, so I guess I’m not in any division at all.”
“Well, welcome to the Justice Society. My name’s Julia.”
He told her his name and they shook hands. He hadn’t held a woman’s hand in some time and wasn’t eager to let it go.
“So what do you think of the society so far?”
He finally released her hand and looked slightly past her, where Archie was talking to someone but also apparently looking at him.
“It’s all very new to me. I’m not sure I completely understand.”
“I know I was confused at first,” she said. “I was like ‘who are these people and what do they think they’re doing?’ Is that how you feel?”
“Hey, you want to talk about it for a little while? There’s a table over there where we could sit, unless you’re with somebody?”
“No, no, I’d love to talk with you about it,” he said, as he followed behind her. Now, don’t sound angry, he said to himself as they were sitting down, and control your sarcasm. Then he resumed looking at her face, which was even more pleasing in this setting.
“So how can I unconfuse you?” she said, just before taking a bite of her fruit salad. He couldn’t seem to concentrate on an answer and ended by releasing perhaps the most ineffectual gesture in his repertoire, a shrug. This, in turn, provoked a brief look of frustration in her. Then he could see her concentrate again as she rephrased the question.
“I guess I don’t understand what you don’t understand,” she said, smiling pleasantly at him again. “Go on, fire away. Like I say, I’ve been there, I won’t take offense.”
“For one thing, I don’t understand why the society calls them the National Book Awards. There already are National Book Awards.”
She looked directly at him with a serious look on her face. “These are our National Book Awards.”
“So you think the winners all deserve them?”
“Of course. We support each other totally in the society, and you can’t support someone if you don’t believe in them, can you?”
“Even though all the winners self-publish on the Internet?”
“We’ve learned not to confuse ‘success’ with merit. Certainly not success in the other world.”
“What do you mean by ‘other world’?”
“The unjust world. The world outside the Justice Society.”
“So you don’t find it strange that the best books of the last year were all written by members of your society?”
“Kind of a miracle, isn’t it?” she said, smiling broadly, without a trace of irony.
He looked at her closely and thought he wouldn’t hate being in his apartment so much if she were in it with him, even though she was a little crazy. Besides, he thought, what she believed was no more delusional than what a lot of religious people believed, what with their talking snakes and virgin births and resurrected people. But now he had to keep the conversation going. She had that concerned look on her face again.
“So, are you up for any awards, too?”
It must have been a good question because she smiled again. “I’m in a different division, nothing to do with writing or any awards.”
“So, what determines which division you’re in?”
“That’s what the interview process is for before you become a member.”
“You can’t choose yourself?”
“Of course you help choose, but you need guidance, too, to make such an important decision. The guidance counselors at GJS are super. They help you find where you really need justice in your life the most and that’s the division you enter.”
He continued to look at her closely.
“Can I ask what division you’re in?”
“Sure, we have no secrets from each other. I’m in the marriage division. I’ve had a very unjust love life, so far. I married a couple of cheaters from the other world so now I’m waiting for my reward.”
“How is that going to happen, exactly?”
“The society will find me a husband. I have faith in them and so I can be at peace with myself until they do.”
“I wouldn’t think you’d need any help with something like that.”
“Why thank you, Mason.”
She was smiling so fully and spontaneously he decided to say more. “You’re so pretty I’d think every man you’d meet would want to marry you.”
“My goodness,” she said, putting her hand over her heart, “such a wonderful compliment. At the society we call them ‘sweet justices.’ So thank you for the sweet justice, Mason.”
He smiled and felt himself blush, though he tried to stop it. He decided he should ask some “serious questions” then, so she’d think he really wanted to be a member (otherwise how would he ever see her again), and asked her how and when the society started. She told him it started just three years ago and that next month there’d be a big anniversary celebration. When he asked her who started the society, she quickly said in a reverential tone, again completely bereft of irony, “Our founder, Mr. Justice.”
“Is it just a coincidence that his name is ‘Justice’?” Mason said.
“We don’t know or care what his name was in the other world. Most of the members think of their former names as being slave names. I mean, if there’s no justice in your life you really are a slave, don’t you think? Julia Seeker is my new name, my real one. Except for the IRS I never use my other one.”
He cleared his throat, reminding himself again not to sound sarcastic (which he thought had cost him a number of women in the past). “So is Mr. Justice here tonight?”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he were? But no, he’s in L.A. developing our West Coast branch. I did get to meet him once—he’s an amazing man.”
“You mean you’re not just a local group?” he blurted.
“Oh no, our mission is much bigger than that. We started right here in Philadelphia but then branches followed pretty quickly in New York and Boston and in D.C., too. And now we’re in the West Coast, in Santa Cruz and L.A., and soon we’ll be in London and Madrid.”
“They certainly could use some justice in D.C.,” he said with a smile.
“Gotcha. But really everyone needs justice everywhere, so I’m not surprised by our success.”
He asked her then how they grew so fast and whether they advertised a lot. Again she had an immediate answer, as if she knew his question in advance, saying they weren’t about being a big, slick organization that advertises a lot. “We don’t really have to advertise,” she said, “’cause you know what our best form of advertising is?”
He made a gesture to show he was completely mystified.
“Word of mouth. When you have a great idea that the world really needs, people tell each other. It’s like Founder Justice says, ‘the need creates the demand.’ How did you find out about us, for example?”
He looked across the room at Archie, who still appeared to be staring at him. “I just started talking with a guy named Archie in a bar and he told me about it.”
“Oh, yes,” she said with an uneasy expression. “Well, the important thing is you’re here now.”
“So anyone can just come in to your meetings?”
“Of course, we’re not secretive. We have no hidden agendas or secret rituals and we ask for very little money beyond our dues, too. Any full-fledged member can swear you in. If you’d like, I could make you a member tonight.”
He raised his eyebrows, as if to slow up his response. “That sounds quite possible.”
“I’ll have to ask you a couple of fairly personal questions,” she said, pushing back a few strands of auburn hair from her eyes.
“That’s OK, but do you think we could go someplace a little quieter, maybe get a cup of coffee and do it there?”
The uneasy look flitted across her face again. “I’d love to, but unfortunately there’s a senior members’ meeting after the ceremony and sometimes they go on for a pretty long time.”
“Of course,” he said, noticing that Archie had just gotten out of his seat and was walking toward him in a straight line.
“Could you possibly give me a number where I could call you to set up my membership meeting with you?”
She looked a little hesitant. “Sure, if you like, but anyone here could do it.”
“But I’d feel more comfortable doing it with you since you’ve taken the time to answer all my questions.”
“Gee, thanks again for the sweet justice.” She began writing in earnest on a scrap of paper. “My cell is probably the better number to try me on,” she said.
Just as she handed it to him, Mason looked up and saw Archie standing two feet in front of him.
“Hello, Julia,” he said.
“Hi, Archie.”
“Hello, stranger,” Archie said to him, in a voice that made him immediately uncomfortable.
“Do you think I could borrow Mason for a minute?” Archie said, not looking at Julia as he asked the question while also continuing to stare at him in a way that suggested he’d just learned some incredible secret about him. But he couldn’t know anything about what was happening at his home or, more importantly, what Mason now believed caused it. He hadn’t let anything slip about it when they talked in the bar, had he? At any rate, Mason soon found himself standing up from the table.
“Of course you can. I think Mason’s gonna be another terrific new member,” she said. Then she looked at him and quickly mouthed the words “call me” before they both said good night.
With Mason in tow, Archie walked about ten feet from the table and spoke to him in a low, commanding voice. “You seem to be completely charmed by Julia.”
“She’s very nice.”
“I hope you think you’ve talked enough with her and might be ready to leave with me now.”
“Leave, where?” he said, trembling a little, in spite of himself.
Archie looked closely at him—his eyes had stopped darting. “Am I misunderstanding something here?”
“Could be,” he said.
“I thought you were with me tonight?”
“I walked over here with you. I don’t remember discussing any other plans.”
“Then obviously I’ve misread the situation.”
“I didn’t know there was anything to read into.”
“I guess I owe you an apology, as well,” he said, but his voice was still icy.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s just one of those things.”
Archie continued to look hard at him. “I don’t agree. I think someone should be sorry because it’s a very awkward, unjust situation for me and it didn’t happen by chance. I, myself, have never misread a situation like this before, have you?”
“Maybe once or twice.”
“Once or twice,” Archie said softly, but with unmistakable sarcasm, “and tonight makes thrice. So what’s the deal—do you go both ways?”
For a moment he was stunned. It had been a long time since anyone asked him anything about his sex life.
“These days I’m not going any ways but when I did, it was only with women.”
“I see. I see very clearly, but I still think you misled me. At any rate, I’d strongly advise you not to mislead Julia or to try to take advantage of her in any way. In case you don’t know, she’s a candidate for a justice society marriage, and I’m on the committee that will help select her spouse. You’ll find that I’m on a lot of committees, that I’m quite a prominent member of the Philadelphia branch, so stay clear of her, and for that matter I wish you’d stay clear of the society in general.”
Mason nodded and turned away from him. He’s crazy, he thought. They all are. He had to admit he wasn’t unsympathetic to the idea of a replacement world that finally made its inhabitants feel proud of themselves, just not one in which someone like Archie played an important part. He thought of Julia then and felt his heart beat. She had gone to the other side of the room, but they exchanged a look before he left the building.
As soon as he shut the door of his apartment he knew for sure what had happened. Again he didn’t see anything specific move on the floor but felt it all around him instead, like the invasion of a new atmosphere. Even in the dark he knew it was different by its persistent, now strongly acrid smell. Then he turned on the living room light and saw it in the filmy look of the air, as if he were living underwater.
It was all much stronger now—there was no longer any doubt. He didn’t know it would be like this, never thought that hell could be portable and travel to him. It was like the instant recognition of a cruel foreign language—learning its modus operandi. So this is how it looks and smells and feels after it invades you. It waits like a thief till you leave your home and then surrounds you as soon as you open the door. Doesn’t say a word to you but lets you know it’s there. That was how the real hell worked, he thought, not with devils or fires, although he was perspiring and there was a strange feeling of heat in his place—heat, that is, with a kind of cold filling in the middle.
Will I scream? Should I scream? He thought. Would it even be right to ask for someone to help him, which might mean placing that person in hell, too? His life was not that precious to him. He was just a man alone, worrying about money like everyone else, worrying about death like he used to worry about his father’s death as a child in the bathtub. A man who had sinned many times, he knew, but not spectacular sins, he didn’t think, no more than most people, and yet he had been selected, targeted, and finally captured and all without knowing why, of course, which was the way of the world.
He wondered if he could trust his thoughts. Did hell already control them? Would he be able to tell?
He reached in his pocket and withdrew the piece of paper where Julia had written her phone number. Stared at it in the sickeningly watery light of the room as if he expected her number would have been burned off the page or just gone missing. He said it aloud three or four times until he memorized it, then walked toward his phone. It didn’t feel safe to even walk, as if the air was full of a kind of invisible quicksand.
Then he stopped. He couldn’t call her while this was going on, not at night anyway, when hell made its fullest appearance. A minute later he left his apartment heading for a hotel in Center City, where he spent a largely sleepless night.
He called her the next morning from his hotel room. It was her office, where she was a secretary.
He apologized for disturbing her at work, mumbled something about wanting to become a member, and invited her either to lunch or an after-work drink. She chose the latter option, which was perhaps encouraging, he supposed. She worked in Center City, so he chose the most expensive place he knew that was near her office, figuring if things worked out he could take her to Le Bec Fin or some other chichi restaurant for dinner.
He got off the phone with a smile on his face that quickly disappeared once he realized (how could he not always realize?) that he couldn’t do his job because his computer was back in his apartment. He wondered how many of the clothes he’d packed had that acrid smell. It was there in most of them, but he found one uninfected outfit that he quickly put on his bed to wear. He was so relieved by this discovery that he fell asleep on the bed with his clothes on.
When he got up there were still three or four hours to kill, so he went to a branch of the public library near Rittenhouse Park and read about hell on the Internet, looking for an account similar to his. He found a couple of ambiguously similar reports but nothing exactly like what had happened to him. Perhaps part of hell’s “genius” was to never repeat itself in its dealings with people.
He left the library earlier than he needed. On the way out he noticed its bulletin board was plastered with notices about the Justice Society’s National Book Award Winners. He felt his heart beat. They may be delusional but they were definitely hellbent on replacing, piece by piece, the world that had excluded them, until they occupied it much the way hell occupied his home. He shook his head as if to expel the thought, then began walking through the park toward the restaurant to meet Julia.
She was wearing a white dress and he was in black. We look like pieces in a chess game, he thought, a game he was never good at. Yet he couldn’t stop looking at her dress, which seemed to sparkle in the dark restaurant where they sat, and when he told her she looked beautiful he meant it.
“It has a symbolic significance,” she said.
“What does?”
“My dress. The society officially annulled my other marriages for being grossly unjust, and now that they’ve expunged them I can wear white again.”
“So you’re able to date again, too?” he asked.
“Sure, as long as they’re approved by my marriage committee. My whole marriage is in their hands.”
“Is Archie on that committee?”
“Yes, actually, he is. How did you know?”
“He mentioned it to me.”
“Oh. He must think highly of you. Usually you have to be a member to know something like that.”
She was trying to compliment him but he felt his face fall. So Archie had told him the truth about that and also that he’d never let her go out with him. Of course Julia didn’t think of this as a date anyway, merely a chance to “do a justice” as she called it, by signing up a new member.
He swallowed his drink quickly. “Am I allowed to buy you a drink?”
“I shouldn’t really, but I guess one won’t hurt my judgment. I’m going to have to ask you some pretty serious questions before I can pledge you, though.”
He turned just in time to order drinks from the waitress, who seemed to understand his intent and brought them right away.
A few minutes later Julia began questioning him in earnest. “You’re going to have to tell me about your injustice. I know it’s very painful, but you have to tell us so we can place you in the right division and help you better.”
He finished his drink and said, “I don’t think of my life as being particularly unjust.”
“Nobody likes to.”
“My personal disasters have happened to a lot of people. I got older, I wound up alone, my career fell far short of what I wanted, and like everyone else I recently lost a lot of money, but I’ve got enough to get by.”
“Their world is an unjust world. We’re going to replace it … and sooner rather than later.”
He looked at her, letting her words vibrate in the atmosphere. He was convinced she meant them. “There is one very unusual thing, I think, that has happened to me recently,” he said, figuring he had lost her anyway. “Should I tell you?”
“Of course, that’s what I’m here for, that’s why the Justice Society exists.”
“It’s going to sound extremely weird and scary, too.”
“Just tell me. You can be sure I’ve heard a lot of things.”
“I don’t doubt that. OK. But first can you tell me what hell means to you?”
“Hell, the concept?”
“Hell is a ‘place’ the unjust created to punish their victims. It’s just a concept the powerful use against the weak. That’s what hell means to me.”
“That’s what it used to mean to me, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I used to believe like you did that it was just a concept invented by people in power, that it wasn’t real. But something changed.”
“What was that?”
“This isn’t easy to tell you.”
“Go ahead. You can tell me anything. I have a just heart now,” she said, staring into his eyes.
“OK. Recently I found out that hell is real and that it travels—it’s portable.”
Predictably, she looked confused.
“It came to my home and took it over. It’s living there now, OK?” He looked hard at her, waiting for her to talk. “So now you’re probably plotting how to get away from me as soon as possible.”
“Not at all. I’m not like that. I won’t leave … until the membership process is finished. You’re safe with me, really, and with the society, too. You have a new home with them. Believe me, the justice society is strong enough to take on hell,” she said, forcing a laugh, which he decided to do as well.
Then she turned as the waitress passed by and ordered another drink.
“So you want to tell me how this all began?” she said. He told her about the distinct sense of something moving over his floor, about the change in air, the smell, his night sweats. She listened to him closely, looking very serious, not trying to dismiss it all at any point. Why did it take him so long to meet a woman like this? Why did he only meet her now, when it was too late?
When he was done talking he was afraid to look at her. “I notice you aren’t saying anything, now that I’ve finished my story. So, I’m sure you think I’m just crazy.”
“Not at all. I was wondering if you’re a religious person?”
“No, no way.”
“Were you raised as one?”
“No, my father considered the question of God beyond the comprehension of man, which is the truth of course. So I guess he’d be labeled an agnostic.”
“Forget the labels. The other world likes to label you to death. What about your mother?”
“She was a far more conventional person. She made me go to Sunday school for a while when I was a kid before she gave up. But she wasn’t as big an influence on me as my father was, anyway.”
“Still, she probably made you aware of sin and of hell, too.”
The new drinks came and she swallowed hers quickly.
“So this must be a new one for you to listen to?” he said. “Kind of hard to know what to say, isn’t it, hearing something like this.”
She looked down at the table when she spoke, for the first time not making eye contact with him. “Actually, something like this happened to a friend of mine not too long ago. A woman who had suffered a lot …”
“What? Here in Philadelphia?”
“Yes.”
“What happened? Could you help her?”
“I did help her. The society helped her.”
“What about me? Can you help me?”
“You have to become a member first. You have to believe in it before it can help you.”
“Lack of belief is one of my sins, but sure, OK.”
“Here,” she said, withdrawing some papers from her pocket-book and unfolding them while she spoke. “Sign these,” she said, handing him a pen. “And then you’ll also need to pay your membership dues for the first year, which is only two hundred dollars, though you’ll probably end up wanting to donate a whole lot more than that—everyone does.”
He signed the documents then wrote a check in the half dark of the restaurant. She had a big smile when he gave them to her.
“Congratulations, you’ve just left the other world.”
“I’ve always wanted to, so now I finally have,” he said, with a little laugh.
“But seriously, to help you, you need to tell the society about the injustice in your life. You need to tell me now.”
“You don’t think having hell take over my apartment is unjust enough?”
“Tell me what happened before that.”
“You think my behavior caused it to happen?”
“Of course not. That’s what the other world wants you to think. You’ve left that world now and you’re taking your first steps in the new one, but you still need to face what happened to you before. For instance, in your work, did you do want you wanted to?”
“Does anyone?”
“Did you achieve what you deserved?”
“I was a painter once. I had some talent, I thought, but I didn’t know the politics, didn’t know how to succeed.”
“The art division can help you there. What about in your love life?”
“I didn’t know how to treat women.”
“Nobody in the other world does.”
“I ruined every chance I had.”
“Your life isn’t over there either. The marriage division will find you a partner, I know that firsthand.”
He looked at her longingly.
“Do you have any children?” she said.
“No. I was the child I tried to take care of,” he said, remembering himself as a seven-year-old then, alone in his bathtub.
“It isn’t too late for children either. The Founder will soon have some exciting news about getting children into our lives, or into the lives of those people who want them.”
“OK. All of that sounds great, but none of it’s gonna happen as long as I’m literally living in hell, right?” he said, more angrily than he wanted. He felt the veins might even be sticking out near his forehead, veins his hair was no longer there to cover.
“You’re not in hell anymore,” she said, looking at him calmly.
“How can you know that? Is that what happened to the other woman you helped?”
She nodded. “She was given justice, and hell can’t survive in a just environment.”
“So can you really help me?”
“What would you like me to do?”
“No, it wouldn’t be right. It could …”
“Do you want me to go to your apartment and face down your hell? Is that it? I’m not afraid to. Is that what you want?” she said.
It was almost preternaturally easy to get a taxi, as if the two of them were never really in the restaurant at all.
Mason sat with a kind of rigid attention, as if he were a soldier assigned to guard himself, while Julia kept assuring him about their trip to his apartment. But when they got out of the cab he started muttering, “I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s a sin, don’t you see? It’s a sin.”
“The only sin was your enduring the injustice in your life and now you’ve finally done something about that.”
“No, no, I’ve sinned against others, always putting myself first and now I’m doing it again.”
“Hush, Mason,” she said, putting her hand to her mouth as they approached the door to his building. “I’ve done this before even though I shouldn’t be doing it now. I mean I’m breaking the rules a bit ’cause it’s work outside my division, but I think they’ll understand. Is this your building?”
“Yes, I’m on the ground floor.” Then he told her to turn back even as she was turning the key in the lock. “I was often disappointed to find out the world was real,” he said, “that things stayed in their place after we left them.”
“Why? What does that mean?”
“Because that made my failures real, too.”
“Don’t talk that way. Is this your door?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Don’t worry. I have my cell phone with me if anything’s wrong.”
Your phone won’t work here, he thought.
“Give me your key. I’ll open it.”
He handed the keys to her thinking he’d just given her the key to hell.
And then they entered his apartment as easily as if entering a smooth pool of water. Immediately he could feel the heat and smell the bitterness in the air, which seemed to have grown still stronger. She turned on the kitchen light and gasped, then tried to muffle it, hand to her mouth. They each took a step forward and stopped. The air was coiling like water stirred by wind, and though it was invisible, there was an unmistakable sense of movement around them.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. She looked like she’d been electrocuted, eyes rolled back in their sockets for a second like Little Orphan Annie’s. Then they both looked at the door behind them, which was shut.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but she wasn’t listening, had instead begun talking out loud more to herself than to him.
“This is worse than what I saw before, this is worse. I shouldn’t have come here, I wasn’t supposed to and now I’ve ruined myself at the society, now I’ll never get married.”
“Why? What?”
“I broke my pledge, don’t you see? I’ll have to confess it.”
“What should I do?” he said. “What can I do?”
“Go to a hotel. Don’t come back here, it’s too late.”
He decided not to tell her about the Holiday Inn where he was already staying.
Then she started dialing her cell phone. “Archie, is that you?” she said. “Can you come here right away? I’m in trouble. I have an injustice to confess. I’m so ashamed and scared. Please come here as soon as you can. I’m with member Mason.”
A moment later she asked him for his exact address, so she could give it to Archie.
“He’s coming. Archie’s coming to save us. I wouldn’t touch anything if I were you—it’s probably all infected.”
“No, I won’t,” he said.
“Archie said to inhale as little as possible and not to move until he knocks.”
He nodded, wondering if he would throw up from the air and everything else that was making him sick. Then they waited without moving, like statues.
“When is he coming?” he finally asked, feeling like a child, and wondering if he’d just spoken in a child’s voice.
“He’s just a few minutes away. Be strong,” she said, but he could hear her crying softly, like a muted violin, then wondered with a shudder if it was really hell that created that image in his mind.
The knocking came in triplicate, reverberating like drumbeats. The two of them came unfrozen and ran to the door, which opened quite easily despite his fears that it wouldn’t.
In the hallway she fell into Archie’s arms, sobbing. He held her while staring bullets at him.
“I’ve committed an injustice, please forgive me. I only meant to help him.”
“We’ll discuss it,” Archie said tersely.
“Please don’t tell the Founder, please.”
“You know I’ll have to.”
“But he’ll expel me, he’ll …”
“We’ll discuss it later,” he said firmly, separating himself from her so he could look her in the face. Then he turned his gaze on Mason.
“You,” he said, pointing a finger at him. “In the name of the Founder, I hereby expel you from the Global Justice Society forever.”
Then, grabbing her hand, they walked briskly, almost running to the front door, which roared like thunder as it shut behind them.
He stood still, staring at the outside door after it shut behind them. Or rather, he stood in place but was shaking as if the hell winds of his apartment were still blowing through him. He realized he was stunned by the suddenness of their disappearance even more than by hell’s sudden invasion of his home. It’s as if the door murdered Julia, just as a different door brought her into my life, he thought. Was hell just a variation or subset of time? Then he began shaking more, and his teeth also started chattering, as if determined to play their part in the sickening symphony his body was playing in spite of his efforts to stop it.
“This is the end of reality,” he thought, as he ran toward the door. Yet it opened as if only too eager to let him escape into the streets. “Taxi,” he started yelling, “taxi,” already yearning for his hotel.
He was sitting in the bathtub with only the hotel’s bed-table light on. It was like dusk. He felt he’d been in the tub a long time but really he didn’t know how much time had passed. Tomorrow he would look for a new apartment and buy a new computer, too. Some new clothes also, he supposed. Certainly he wouldn’t miss his old place. Without a woman in it all that time it had already been like hell long before hell took it over.
He shut his eyes. He didn’t want to think but it was hard to stop. He saw an image of Julia’s face, which quickly disappeared, then an image of his father, which stayed. It was just a picture of his father’s face smiling at him when he was a child. Hell hadn’t destroyed that, at least. Yes, that was a kind of justice, he thought. That and this good hotel bath water.