248. Taichi the Doorkeeper and Peter the Freebooter

248. Doorkeeper Taichi and Peter Freebooter

Aunt Nekutarin transported us to a spot in a beautiful, thick wood where we stopped before an enormous boulder. It stood under a sort of arch, a great long stone laid horizontally over two vertical, pillar-like ones. Bells of oven-baked clay painted blue or red hung from the horizontal stone.  

“There are many hells,” she said. “We will try at Yomi. That is boring hell. Boring because nobody does anything there. Nobody attacks you with a drill to make holes in you, no. Not that kind of boring. You just exist in darkness hoping for better times, and that is most tedious. Tedious hell, that is Yomi. The first thing that must be done is move that boulder so we can have  access to the hole  that will lead us down there.”

“I can’t believe this is an entrance to a hell, Auntie,” I said. “It looks strange, and because of that, a little disturbing. But it doesn’t look necessarily sinister. The entrances to hell I know, these are dangerous places. They aren't as innocent-looking. Caves that let out gas that knocks mortals down, and can even make the fay dizzy, or dreadful places like Hater’s Well, full of spit and spat curses that still resound if you listen closely. The least frightening entrance I know of is probably through a school, and you  get into that school through a door in a cave and after a tiff with a mean and bitter doorkeeper.”

“You want something sinister? You wait and see.”

“I don’t want something sinister, but I don’t want to go to a boring place either,” said Alpin, but the Peach Boy Five were already heaving and pushing the stone, groaning all the while. Aunt Nekutarin finally tapped the stone with her peach wand and the boys were able to roll it aside, since it was now a normal enormous rock and no longer heavily protected by stay put spells. A huge cloud of smoke wafted out of the hole, smelling like sandalwood and cinnamon. Some of us had a coughing fit, but no one collapsed and we soon got over it.

“What are you doing here?” asked a huge demon who popped out of the hole too. In case you ever happen to have to address him, his name is Taichi.

“There we have him,” I thought, “the mean and bitter doorkeeper.”

He had horns on his head, like Moll Avery, but he was not in uniform. At least I don’t think a loincloth is the uniform of a doorkeeper anywhere in any world. He appeared to be pretty much like a wild creature, with a large head of white hair  that looked more like a weird furry hat and darker hair hanging down over to his shoulders. His eyes were red, probably from the smoke that had come out of the cave. He was further animalized by a pair of tusks neath his nose, and a discouragingly blood-red  mouth with terrible teeth. Strangely, behind him came an enormous fridge, almost as big as Alpin’s Frostine.

“Oh, yummy!” said Alpin. “They do have food here!”

“NO!” Aunt Nekutarin raised her voice and left no doubts as to the fact that there would be nothing to eat. “You eat the food of the dead, you remain with the dead forever. All you can safely eat is the odour of incense. Whiff it. It’s good for you.” 

“Eat a smell?” asked Alpin with surprise.

“The souls of departed mortals are safe while their yet living families burn incense for them,” explained Aunt Nekutarin. “When the relatives stop doing that, the souls are forced to eat the local food and lose all hope of returning home or leaving hell for a better place on their own.”   

“Madam,” said the demon, “I see you know where you are. But you can’t be here. You are not dead,” said the demon. “You are obviously not even mortal. However, if you wish to come in, you must put those peach wands in the fridge. And your crystal balls if you have them, and any mobile phones too.”

“Please, kind and honourable sir,” said the lady Nekutarin, bowing low, “we cannot deposit our only protection. We do not want to disturb you, or the peace of this place. We only wish to return something that may be yours!” And she pointed to the demon tree.

“That piece of junk isn’t ours,” said the demon. “Try in another hell, Ma’am!”

And he retreated, blocking the hole with the stone as he descended with the fridge.

“You should have yelled at him, Aunt Nekutarin,” said Alpin. “That is the only language hellish doorkeepers understand.”

“We cannot try elsewhere. It is too dangerous. The other hells are in Jigoku, the worst place ever. There is beating hell, where they beat souls to a pulp, cutting hell, where they dissect them, cutting them into tiny pieces, crushing hell, where they get crushed with weights, hells with trees with leaves like razor blades and spiders that have been growing for four hundred years. Many hells, all godawful. I am forced to describe them using a word I do not like to employ.”

“Why don’t we just go see my acquaintances?” said Uncle Richearth. “They can take the tree to the lowest regions themselves. We don’t have to visit those. Just the VIP rooms.”

“And we can have caviar and cava and those gourmet sandwiches you spoke of, eh?” said Alpin. “It´s a much better plan than sniffing incense, Ole Aunt Nekutarin!” said Alpin.

“I’m scared that if your uncle goes into his hell with thos traitorus false friends of  his, he won’t come out,” she said. “That would be very bad for everybody, and apalling for him.”

“No,” said Uncle Rich. “Don’t ask me why, but Old Nick has a weakness for me. He practically eats out of my hand.”

Uncle Rich transported us to a huge hotel, it looked like ten stars, not five. But there was something about it that was not…alive. The sensation got worse when the very properly uniformed doorman saluted Uncle Rich and held the door open for all our party. After walking for about a mile of black marble, we reached the concierge’s desk. There was a huge aquarium behind it, and when I say huge, I mean it rose up all the many floors of the hotel to the sun roof at the very top of the uilding. The first thing I saw in it was lobsters pinning down each other like wrestlers. 

“Hi, Joey,” said Uncle Rich to the concierge. “Tell Nick I’ve come to see him.”

“I can’t,” said the concierge, a grey-haired old man with the look of an undertaker. “He´s not in.”

“I have to ask again,” Uncle Rich said to us. “You have to do everything at least twice here. It never comes out right the first time. Like if you drop a pencil, you have to bend to pick it up and then it slips out of your hand again. And you have to bend for it again. And…oh, oh, look at Joey. He is going to have to bend a third time for that key.”

The concierge bent down six times to retrieve a key that kept slipping from his fingers. There was a shark behind him now, in the aquarium. 

“He’s really out,” Joey said to Uncle Richearth when he finally got fast hold of the key. “I’m not toying with you. Nor fishing for a tip, don’t give me anything, we know each other. But I can give you a key to a suite if you want to wait there. It might be ages. How about if you see Peter instead?”

“Peter the Freebooter?”

“If you are here to play poker, he and a few friends just said they might begin a round in about a half hour.”

“I don’t play with Peter Bootmaker. Or anyone but the number one boss.”

“Who employs  himself in vice, will look Peter Booter in the eyes,” boomed a deep voice.

And then, Peter the Freebooter himself appeared. A  devil with horns and a fierce moustache, Peter Booter is one of the governors of hell. I have heard that he  is in charge of keeping lighted all the cauldrons where the souls of evil mortals are boiled. There are many rumors about the origin of Peter. But there is one I find the most convincing. He is said to have been once mortal, a bootmaker turned pirate and to have obtained this important post in hell because in life he boiled the heads of his many enemies in barrels of fuming tar. This is probably true, because he showed up in  working clothes, red overalls, with a hole in the back of the pants for his tail, and very thick firefighter gloves. He drew off one of these gloves, which were, I thought, abnormally  large, to shake Uncle Rich’s hand.

“Back off!” cried Uncle Rich, laughing, instead of sounding cross like grandpa when he doesn’t want someone near him. I saw that Peter Booter’s hand had the longest, sharpest nails I had ever seen. I don’t think I will easily see any more frightful.

Peter Booter’s apparel suddenly changed. He was now wearing a suit made of playing cards.

“Come on, Richie,” he said, “you aren’t afraid of me.”

“No,  which is why I’m not playing with you,” said Uncle Rich. “I don’t do that. Where is Mr. One?”

“Your daddy is probably in his golf course,” said Peter. “Why would he be here?”

“No! I mean, the local Mr. One.”

“What do you want from him that I can’t do for you?”

Uncle Richearth showed him the cage with Feeseepkee and the tree with the little devils.

“I might as well take the tree,” said Peter. “Those imps will feel at home here. What do you want for it?”

“How about the fellow that makes those gourmet sandwiches you serve here while people play cards?”

“For that tree of lice?” Peter seemed more surprised than indignant.

“The cook is for my father. He lost a cook and I think he might fancy this one.”

“Hmm. If your father fancies him, how can I refuse?” mused Peter. “Joey, go fetch the poisoner. But…,” he began, turning again to my uncle.

“No catches!” said Uncle Rich. “I insist on that.”

“No, no catch. Only I am not taking the creature in the cage. He is all yours.”

Uncle Rich tried to sell Feeseepkee to Peter as hard as he could, but the devil would not be persuaded.

“That wretch is not guilty of anything. He can’t help producing monsters. He doesn’t do  it on purpose. Besides, no harm has come from this yet. The imps, however, enjoy doing their thing. You know that when you hear them curse. Their creator probably doesn’t even know what he is doing yet. Is it his first tree?”

“Well,” said Uncle Rich, when he finally gave up arguing, “at least tell me whom he belongs to, so I can return him to his own. You probably know that. One thing I know is they don’t want him in Japanese hell either. The Shintoists won’t have him and Aunt Nekutarin advises against consulting the Buddhists. I thought those blokes were all about sweetness and light, but Auntie has told me all sorts of horrors about their hells.”

“Will you try with the moors? You just bury him somewhere in the desert if they won´t take him, Rich. Maybe you’ll even find black gold.  Underground is where he belongs, not here. Really deep, eh? Unless you want to cause someone trouble.”

“I never want anything like that,” answered Uncle Rich.

When we were about to leave, with the cook and Feeseepkee and without the tree, Alpin raised a ruckus.

“We´re leaving without having tasted the sandwiches and the canapés? No way!”

He began to shout and scream and to run all over the place trying to find and raid the kitchen, and Rich and I caught him each by an arm and he began to kick and try to sit on the floor. It was taking us real hell to drag him away.

“This one,” mused Peter Booter, pointing directly at Alpin's bellyutton with one of his monstruous nails,  “I would take. What do you want for him?”

“Sorry,” apologized Uncle Rich, “but I can’t let you have him. My wife would kill me. This is my brother-in-law.”

“Wow! What is your wife like?” asked Peter. “Would I be interested in her too?” 

Aunt Nekutarin frowned. 

"We´re out of here!" she said, pushing Alpin towards the exit with her peach wand as if she were Mother Goose.