AFTER IT WAS DARK, he opened the hatch and found the teeming faithful gathered in the room beyond, waiting to hear The Word. Ig emerged from the chimney, and the crawling carpet of snakes-a thousand of them at least, lying on top of one another, braided together in mad tangles-cleared a path for him to the heap of bricks in the center of the floor. He climbed to the top of the little hill and settled himself with his pitchfork and his second bottle of wine. From his perch upon the low mound, he ministered to them.
“It is a matter of faith that the soul must be guarded, lest it be ruined and consumed,” Ig told them. “Christ himself forewarned his apostles to beware him who would destroy their souls in Hell. I advise you now that such a fate is a mathematical impossibility. The soul may not be destroyed. The soul goes on forever. Like the number pi, it is without cessation or conclusion. Like pi it is a constant. Pi is an irrational number, incapable of being made into a fraction, impossible to divide from itself. So, too, the soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you. The soul would be no good to the devil if it could be destroyed. And it is not lost when placed in Satan’s care, as is so often said. He always knows exactly how to put his finger on it.”
A thick brown rope of snake dared to climb the pile of bricks. Ig felt it moving across his bare left foot but paid it no mind at first, attending instead to the spiritual needs of his flock.
“Satan has long been known as the Adversary, but God fears women even more than He fears the devil-and is right to. She, with her power to bring life into the world, was truly made in the image of the Creator, not man, and in all ways has proved Herself a more deserving object of man’s worship than Christ, that unshaven fanatic who lusted for the end of the world. God saves-but not now, and not here. His salvation is on layaway. Like all grifters, He asks you to pay now and take it on faith that you will receive later. Whereas women offer a different sort of salvation, more immediate and fulfilling. They don’t put off their love for a distant, ill-defined eternity but make a gift of it in the here and now, frequently to those who deserve it least. So it was in my case. So it is for many. The devil and woman have been allies against God from the beginning, ever since Satan came to the first man in the form of a snake and whispered to Adam that true happiness was not to be found in prayer but in Eve’s cunt.”
The snakes writhed and hissed and fought for space at his feet. They bit one another, in a state close to rapture.
The thick brown snake at Ig’s feet began to twist around one of his ankles. He bent and lifted her in one hand, peering down at her at last. She was the color of dry, dead autumn leaves, aside from a single orange stripe that ran along her back, and at the end of her tail was a short, dusty rattle. Ig had never seen a rattle on a snake, outside of Clint Eastwood movies. She allowed herself to be hoisted in the air, made no effort to get away. The serpent peered back at him through golden eyes, crinkled like some kind of metallic foil and with long slotted pupils. Her black tongue flicked out, tasting the air. The cool material of her skin felt as loose on the muscle beneath as an eyelid closed over an eye. Her tail (but perhaps it was wrong to speak of tails; the whole thing was a tail, with a head stuck on one end) hung down against Ig’s arm. After a moment Ig looped the viper over his shoulders, wearing her like a loose scarf or like an unknotted tie. Her rattle lay against his naked chest.
He stared out at his audience, had forgotten what he was saying. He tipped his head back and had a sip of wine. It burned going down, a sweet swallowed flame. Christ, at least, was right in his love of devil drink, which, like the fruit of the garden, brought with it freedom and knowledge and certain ruination. Ig exhaled smoke and remembered his argument.
“Look at the girl I loved and who loved me and how she ended. She wore the cross of Jesus about her neck and was faithful to the church, which never did anything for her except take her money from the collection plate and call her a sinner to her face. She kept Jesus in her heart every day and prayed to Him every night, and you see the good it did her. Jesus on His cross. So many have wept for Jesus on His cross. As if no one else has ever suffered as He suffered. As if millions have not shuffled to worse deaths, and died unremembered. Would I had lived in the time of Pilate, it would have pleased me to twist the spear in His side myself, so proud of His own pain.
“Merrin and I were to each other like man and wife. But she wanted more than me, wanted freedom, a life, a chance to discover herself. She wanted other lovers and wanted me to take other lovers as well. I hated her for this. So did God. For simply imagining she might open her legs to another man, He turned His face from her, and when she called to Him, as she was raped and murdered, He pretended He did not hear. He felt, no doubt, that she received her due. I see God now as an unimaginative writer of popular fictions, someone who builds stories around sadistic and graceless plots, narratives that exist only to express His terror of a woman’s power to choose who and how to love, to redefine love as she sees fit, not as God thinks it ought to be. The author is unworthy of His own characters. The devil is first a literary critic, who delivers this untalented scribbler the public flaying He deserves.”
The serpent around his neck let her head fall to lovingly graze against Ig’s thigh. He stroked her gently as he came to the point, the crux of his fire sermon. “Only the devil loves humans for what they are and rejoices in their cunning schemes against themselves, their shameless curiosity, their lack of self-control, their impulse to break a rule as soon as they hear tell of it, their willingness to forsake their immortal soul for nookie. The devil knows that only those with the courage to risk their soul for love are entitled to have a soul, even if God does not.
“And where does this leave God? God loves man, we are told, but love must be proved by facts, not reasons. If you were in a boat and did not save a drowning man, you would burn in Hell for certain; yet God, in His wisdom, feels no need to use His power to save anyone from a single moment of suffering, and in spite of his inaction He is celebrated and revered. Show me the moral logic in it. You can’t. There is none. Only the devil operates with any reason, promising to punish those who would make earth itself Hell for those who dare to love and feel.
“I do not claim that God is dead. I tell you He is alive and well but in no position to offer salvation, being damned Himself for His criminal indifference. He was lost the moment He demanded fealty and worship before He would offer His protection. The unmistakable bargain of a gangster. Whereas the devil is anything but indifferent. The devil is always there to help those who are ready to sin, which is another word for ‘live.’ His phone lines are open. Operators are standing by.”
The viper around Iggy’s shoulders gave her rattle a dry little shake of approval, like castanets. He lifted her in one hand and kissed her cold head, then set her down. He returned to the chimney, the snakes boiling away from his feet to allow him to pass. He left his pitchfork leaning against the wall, just outside the hatch, and climbed inside but did not rest. For a time he read his Neil Diamond Bible by the firelight. He paused, twisting nervously at his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought.
“Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from,” he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. “Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.”