Chapter Thirty-Eight
Better ruined ten times than dead once.
(Judaeo/German proverb)
The Ark itself, clearly the main attraction of the park, is a suitably massive structure, engineered in several different types of local wood. (In fact, most everything except ‘gopher wood’, which is what old Noah originally built it from. But you try asking him what the heck that was!)
To add to the ‘authenticity’, the replica vessel hosts a respectable assortment of real, live animals (but not the xylophagous ones – wood-eaters to you!) and also features finely crafted animatronic models of the many other creatures, some now extinct, that he might well have taken with him on his Mediterranean cruise.
As a further treat, the attraction offers a walk-through of the sort of living quarters the big guy and his family would have used. And possibly even the rooms to which they’d flee when they couldn’t any longer stand the stench.
What really singles this ark out from the other biblically themed attractions, however, is that it sits in a large expanse of water and every hour, on the hour, it rocks like crazy in a makeshift storm.
Fake lightning, thunderclaps, sounds of God’s ancient creatures getting biblically overexcited, the works.
People have been known to get seasick just from the motion, so it is probably best to enjoy the experience before lunch or wearing those wristbands from your local pharmacy.
What keeps the real animals sane in there is a secret known only to the park’s veterinarians.
Right now, a board beside the entrance booth boasts, in Hebraic-style lettering: Passeth not! Next Flood – 3.00. An attendant, sitting in the entrance booth in his predictably ancient gear, halts our threesome. He points imperiously to the board.
“Sorry, folks, we don’t saileth until three. Eth.”
Big Louie reaches up and knocks him out cold with his gun butt. He then turns to a shocked Arnie and Noreen.
“Hey, it’s just work. Some of my best friends are Jewish.”
When the curious threesome climb the wooden ramp into the currently empty attraction, some more reluctantly than others, they find the imposing structure big, dark and – although none would profess to be regular ark-goers – pretty authentic.
Unsurprisingly, the animals behind the reinforced glass – raccoons, aardvarks, squirrels, are all in twos.
“Ain’t this great?” says Big Louie, waving his weapon around enthusiastically. “My kids would so love it.”
“Oh, are they also…?”
“Don’t go there, Noreen,” warns Arnie, before turning to address their potential executioner man to man.
“Hey, fella, let the lady go, why don’t ya?
She’s got nothing to do with this. And ooh, I just remembered – and I kid you not – it’s my birthday today.
Howsabout that? So, it’s this lady’s too. Happy birthday, Noreen.”
“Thank you, Arnie, but it’s not my birthday,” corrects a slightly puzzled Noreen. “Not until December.”
“Huh?” says Arnie.
Big Louie just shrugs thoughtfully, but he can hear Melisande’s voice in his ear, even though she is clearly still on shore, attending to other business.
Don’t listen to the lousy schmoozer. You’re being paid to do a job.
Friggin’ do it! The hitman nods, berating himself for almost forgetting that the customer, however vindictive and possibly demented, is always right.
Very slowly, because he refuses to be rushed, he raises his weapon.
“I’ll make it swift and painless,” he promises.
Suddenly, a brilliant flash of lightning seems to set the ark ablaze.
This is accompanied almost immediately by deafening claps of thunder that reverberate from every loudspeaker in the craft, cleverly concealed in massive and well-spaced rams’ horns, because the original prototype probably didn’t have a state-of-the-art sound system.
Despite it not being three o’clock, the ark slowly begins to pitch and roll.
Instinctively the vessel’s three human inhabitants glance out of a small side window.
They notice that the stunned entrance-booth attendant has fallen onto his starting lever.
And is very slowly and unconsciously pushing it towards maximum tempest.
The animals – even those that have been skilfully crafted in LA workshops – begin to yelp and howl as the awe-inspiring light show, soundscape and highly calibrated motion control all mount in simulated, godlike wrath towards their peaks.
The two chimpanzees in the cage beside them are particularly exercised.
(The use of real beasts for these purposes had been widely condemned by California’s animal lovers, who came head to head with fundamentalist Christian organisations, with the latter declaring that it was both instructive and authentic and if God hadn’t wanted Noah’s animals to weather the storms at sea, he would have commanded Noah to build a plane.)
“Shit!” says Big Louie, addressing his prospective victims. “Okay, now normally, I let my marks – that’s what we call them, for those of you who’ve never been in a hit before – normally, I let you do the ‘last words’ shtick.
It’s corny, but folks say they like it. But time’s getting on and I ain’t a good sailor. So – ladies first.”
Pointing the gun directly at Noreen, who is literally out of her depth, Big Louie roots himself squarely on the rocking terrain and starts to squeeze the trigger.
Without even thinking – perhaps because if he were to think, he’d think twice – Arnie dives sideways, throwing his smallish body right in front of Noreen’s slightly larger and much woollier one. Directly in the path of any intended bullet.
“Run!” screams her saviour, over the apocalyptic din.
Big Louie’s finger is pressing down further and harder.
“Arnie! No!” cries a horrified Noreen, as the hitman fires.
They all three hear the sound as the bullet leaves the gun.
Yet to their surprise, they can also see this same lethal bullet – actually watch it – heading dead straight but unusually slowly, compared to what they assume is a bullet’s normal velocity, towards Arnie’s (eternally) exposed chest. Straight and apparently unstoppable, as bullets tend to be.
Even the curiously slow ones. Until, at a particularly crucial moment, just millimetres from the intended target, this very same bullet is caught quite deftly in a rather elegant, outstretched hand.
A dark and familiar hand, especially to Noreen.
Lyle’s hand.
“Number one with a bullet,” he says. “Ain’t that the truth?” The smile is as sparkling as ever and the linen suit just as uncreased.
“How the hell did you do that?” asks a seriously impressed Big Louie, who is well accustomed to guys catching a bullet but rarely quite like this. “And who the fuck are you?”
“You don’t want to know,” says Arnie, wondering with some dread, despite his obvious relief, how the smooth-talking Devil with the to-die-for voice is hoping to exact his gratitude.
“He’s a friend of mine,” comes a voice from they know not whither, if we’re going to stay in a biblical vein.
They all spin around wildly until their eyes end up in the monkey cage. Sitting between two monkeys – doing the old ‘see no, hear no, speak no evil’ trick – is none other than your old friend Ambrose. Or me, as I like to call myself.
Arnie looks baffled. Well, to be honest, everyone looks baffled, but our Mr Garth looks baffled from way back.
“A friend? A FRIEND!” he says, looking from me to Lyle and back to yours truly again.
It doesn’t help that Lyle is smiling. Well, hell, we’re both smiling.
Arnie still isn’t, but you can’t have everything.
“Hey, what gives, you guys?” he demands to know.
And seriously, who can blame him? “I got a day to live, maybe less; I got no soul, ’cos of you dipshits; this lady’s got two; I’m going straight to hell on my birthday; and you’re… smiling!”
Noreen and the little chap are just stood stock-still and staring. They might as well have been put together in the same workshop that made these fake animals. God knows what they must be thinking (well, of course, being omniscient…).
Time to leave my cage.
So, I bid goodbye to my fellow primates, who are still rolling around a bit but are clearly used to it, or maybe drugged down to the keester with anti-nausea pills, and take a little stroll through the plate glass. Neatly done, even though I say so myself.
And now I come right up to Lyle.
I try to keep a straight face, by not looking at his ultra-gorgeous one, but I’m sorry, sue me, I just can’t do it. Within seconds, Lyle and I are leaning on each other for support, cracking up like a couple of drunken school kids.
“No soul!” I snort.
“Straight to hell!” cries Lyle, the tears rolling down his immaculately sculpted cheeks.
Of course, by this time, Big Louie has had enough. After all, we’re interrupting his business. It’s a workday and time is money. I understand this.
“You two freaks,” he growls, which actually is still quite alarming, despite the higher pitch. “Freeze!” He points his gun at both of us, which isn’t too tricky, as we remain quite huddled.
“No, friend, you freeze,” I reply, quick as a flash.
And let’s just say icicles instantly hang from his cute little nose and the guy isn’t going anywhere in a hurry.
I don’t do this sort of thing often – hey, I’m basically just a civil servant – but it’s good to have a trick or three up your sleeve.
This time, Lyle and I give each other a special high five.
“I got that from Batman Returns the video,” I tell him.
“Well, he doesn’t ‘return the video’, that’d be pretty damn boring. ” There I go again. Me and my apercus.
“Excuse me,” says Noreen Millburn, putting her hand up, which isn’t really necessary but appreciated all the same. “Would somebody please mind explaining? This is my first time in North America.”
Arnie turns to Lyle with an important question. “You’re not… Satan?”
“Afraid not, Arnie,” Lyle giggles, “I do a good Satan though.”
“And a terrific Liza Minnelli!” I add, because I believe in credit where it’s due. “Okay. Denouement time. The ‘lost soul’ scenario – y’know, bad day in the sorting office, baby boom, uh oh, where’s his soul? Oopsy! It’s… well, I kid you not, it’s bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” Arnie gasps. “It’s what?!”
“Bullshit, Arnie,” explains Noreen. “It’s what bulls—”
“I know what it is, Noreen.” The poor man looks so bewildered. “Ambrose, I thought you people forgot to give me a soul.”
“As if!” I tell him, with a rather appealing smile. “You’ve had one all the time, kiddo! Not a biggie, granted. But the little dude’s in there somewhere, you silly sleazeball.”
“Yeah?” Arnie points towards Noreen, who has no idea what’s going on. And remember, we’re still in the midst of a perfect storm here. Thunder, lightning, tossing. The works. “Well, what about goody two-souls? Saint Noreen.”
I let Lyle take up the slack, now that he’s managed to dial down the hysterical laughter.
“Oh, nutty Noreen here,” he says in that to-die-for voice.
“Nutty but beautiful Noreen, she has got a great big gorgeous soul. Widescreen, Dolby, the full monty, the big kahuna. But trust me, Arnie, it’s still just a single. ”
Noreen’s face is a picture. Well, even more of a picture. “Excuse me, Lyle,” she says, again with the raised hand (what is this – third grade?). “But who exactly are you?”
“Well… I suppose you could call me – the Ark Angel!” Now he’s laughing so much, he’s got stuff coming out his nose, which only he can make look cool.
“I am so sorry, Noreen, I truly apologise, but this guy, this Ambrose, he always makes me crack up. It’s what makes the job bearable.
I mean, it’s not like there’s a salary.” He gives her the softest, kindest, most unsatanic smile.
“Okay. Truth time. I’m just a simple clerk, Noreen.
In the depot. Like Amby here. Logging souls in, logging souls out.
In and out. In and out. They don’t call it eternity for nothing. ”
“We got bored,” I add. “Hey, we’re only flesh and blood.”
“No, we’re not,” says Lyle. Such a pedant.
Time for backstory. The real one. No more unreliable narrator stuff, which I have to tell you again, in case you feel just a tad duped, is an acknowledged literary device. I got it from Agatha Christie herself. A real lady. You can imagine how thrilled she is to be with dead people 24/7.
“So, one day,” I explain, “when we were particularly bored—”
“Bored to death,” contributes Lyle.
“Was I expositing?” I chide him. “So, one day – one very tedious day – we decided to set ourselves a challenge.”
“What sort of challenge?” asks Arnie.
Fair question.
“The very hardest ever devised,” I tell him. “To see if we could hook up the two least likely people in the whole entire universe. The vilest, scuzziest, sleaziest, most unedifying man…”
“That’s you, Arnie,” adds Noreen, helpfully.
“And the sweetest, kindest, dearest woman,” says Lyle.
“Ain’t that the truth,” says Arnie, looking over at Noreen with a look I’ve hitherto never seen on his face but always been hoping against hope I just might.
“We simply wanted to see, with all the obstacles and challenges and setbacks we could throw in your way, if you two poles apart could ever fall in love,” I conclude.
“So… have you?” asks Lyle hopefully. Such a softie.
Noreen and Arnie just gaze at each other. In silence. In wonder.
“Jesus Christ, who do you have to screw to get a hit on this fucking ship?”
They all turn to see Melisande. She is soaking wet and pointing a little gun. She fires without waiting for an answer, as it was a rhetorical question.