Trouble in Paradise

When a busker makes too much noise during mandated quiet hours, a middling goon is tasked to take him down.

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Outer-Sanctum Duty, bored stiff. I was playing solitaire, losing, as usual, when Az picked up his fiddle and started plucking.

“Wanna keep that down?” I hissed. “The Boss is trying to get some shut-eye.”

Az replied with a dumb, wet grin. He’d been grinning like that ever since he got promoted—with zero experience, might I add—to the position I’d worked years for.

I put my head in my hands.

True, I was out late last night playing darts at the Saint’s Club, where the infestation from the Central Sewer’s gotten so bad I nearly thought the giant weasel behind the counter was the barback. My wife doesn’t even stir when I stumble home in the wee hours, on account of her tuberculosis. And our two little cherubs climb out of bed each morning dirty as rats.

But despite my piercing headache, I felt an inkling of something like hope.

I heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy.

Apparently, the Boss’s bodyguard got smote last night. He stepped out of line and they threw him down the Hole.

That meant a vacancy.

I felt more than the usual hunger, and not because I was still subsisting off yesterday’s hindquarter of fried dove. I needed money: for my wife’s illness. For my little rascals’ future.

I could make it—just as soon as I had some way to prove my salt.

Then some unholy alarm began to ring. It was a tingling, bleating, screeching sound: like a a horde of goats, or a murder of crows.

Az and I froze and stared at each other.

From the Inner Sanctum, there came a deep creak. The big iron door swung open.

A soothing quality of light poured out from the crack, so different from the light out here: warmer, lovelier, richer.

Gabriel, the Boss’s right-hand man, stood framed by its ethereal glow.

Az and I straightened. Gabriel leaned on the doorframe, curling a strand of perfect honey-blond hair around his finger. He was always positioned perfectly to block our craned-neck glimpse at the Boss.

“What happened?” I whispered.

“It’s that unheavenly busker,” Gabriel murmured, in a liquescent tone. “The one who made all that trouble last week, stealing a corner from the castrati.”

I puffed up; put on my best tough-guy whisper.

“And on a week like this, when he knows the Boss is sleeping!”

Gabriel inspected his well-manicured nails. “Well, I have bad news. The Boss is awake.”

“No!”

“I’ll make sure he goes quiet,” I hissed.

“And you’ll make sure he stays that way. Boss wants him vanished.” Gabriel stifled a yawn. “Take him to the Hole.”

I stiffened, but got to my feet.

“No problem,” I mouthed. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Take Azazel,” said Gabriel, waving. “Kid needs experience.”

He shut the door. The light dulled. The soothing harmonies vanished, leaving only that buzzing, shrill sound.

Az smiled at me with his wet, red lips. He was a real dope—a soulless, praise-hungry parasite. But he was Gabriel’s cousin. That came with certain benefits.

Stay positive, I thought. This was an important job. The Boss needed his rest after all the work he’d done.

And we’d make sure he got it.

---

Az swung his club in wild circles, practically skipping. Meanwhile, I limped on account of the swelling in my joints from my untreated gout.

We walked past peeling posters with slogans like “For Harmony” and “Towards Purity” and shiny, newer ones that showed the Boss tucked in tight, with a sleeping cap on his head. Others screamed: QUIET ZONE: ENFORCED UNTIL SUNDAY and MANDATORY: ALL MUST WHISPER with images of leather-clad bodyguards looking very stern.

At last, we came toward the corner in question.

The busker was a slender guy, a little reddened from sitting outside. He’d set up a little sign with his name and a little jar to toss in coins. In his hand was his instrument.

It was immaculate. It looked to be handcarved out of rich wood and polished with oil. The fine silver strings glimmered in the light.

He began again to play. From afar, it’d been warped; but up close, a sublime, glorious beauty revealed itself. The song soared and dipped and fluttered, entangling the air with a quivering static.

It was like the lute was powered by something more than his fingers—possibly lightning. It caused the hair on my arm to stand on end. It caused my brain to flicker. How else can I describe it?

I could…see things in the music. Really: I saw a pasture of perfect green; a warm and shining sun; the breeze gentle on my skin. A garden, perfumed with wildflowers. The sky a pure, unpolluted shade of blue. A lush tree teeming with apples—red, plump, and tempting…

And I’d never even been to a place like that.

That’s what I mean when I say this guy was a real devil on the strings.

I thought, with fear and admiration: This is real music!

It was exactly the sort of thing the Boss wanted pushed down the Hole.

I exhaled and shook myself. Next, I shook Az, who was staring slackjawed. Then we got to business.

Az woke up quick. He reached the busker before I could take another step.

“Hey!” Az hissed. “Didn’t you see the signs?”

The busker’s smile was charming. “Well, surely, we all don’t need to be quiet? Not for a whole week?”

He wasn’t even trying to lower his voice. He was just speaking at a normal volume, as if he owned the place. I stared in amazement.

“We got orders from the Boss himself to remove you,” Az huffed. “So get up!”

“But, surely, we might come to a sort of agreement,” the busker said, laughing. “Can’t we strike a deal?”

Az was out of air. Being only allowed to whisper did that to you. He made a sharp sign that the busker should get up, right now, and mimed what was about to happen if he continued to negotiate.

It was pretty violent. But the guy just shrugged and went right back to strumming his electric lute.

“He ain’t getting up,” I whispered, feeling dazed.

Az grabbed the busker on one arm and gestured for me to grab the other. Though it hurt my joints something outstanding, we hoisted him straight up from his seat and started dragging him away. His lute clanked to the ground. It was an ugly noise.

“Oh, please!” the busker cried out, “Have some sympathy!”

“Orders are orders,” I mumbled.

It’s what I always say when they beg.

The streets weren’t too crowded on account of the ban on noise, so we got to the Hole easy, without anyone stopping and staring.

The Hole was the Boss’s latest creation. It’d been dug out in an abandoned warehouse in the former Arts District. The whole block stunk like eggs and rotting meat, and sweltered in a terrific, putrid heat due to all the factories in the area.

The Hole itself was about big enough to throw a few guys down at once, and black enough to make you believe it might never end. We were told it led to a horrible place where flames licked you at all angles and green rats feasted on your flesh and birds with humanoid bodies poked you with giant spears. Why a place like that even existed, I had no clue. But that wasn’t any concern of mine.

We got the busker right on the edge—after a lot of struggle and pain, might I add—when the guy suddenly got serious. He faced Az.

“Wait! You play the fiddle! Don’t you?”

Az stopped pushing. He narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah, I do,” he murmured. “Why?”

“Ah!” cried the busker as he swayed over the Hole. “I’ve heard you’re the best in town. A formidable opponent! How about a wager?”

Az scratched his face with one hand. By the Boss, my muscles were shaking like a choirboy’s vocal chords holding the guy up by myself!

“What kind?”

“A musical duel!” the busker cried. “If I win, I keep my life! If you win, you can have the secrets of my lightning-lute!”

This guy was charismatic, and he made a tempting offer. Do it, I thought. Don’t worry—I won’t tell the Boss!

“Just imagine!” continued the busker. “The glory of musical virtuosity! That I can give you, and much, much more!”

“Thanks,” Az said. “But I’ve got some good things coming down the line.”

The busker glanced down nervously as some loose gravel tumbled in. He suddenly gripped my hands very tightly. It startled me.

He was so close to my face, staring up into my eyes so keenly. His deep amber eyes glittered with desperation.

“And you! You liked my music, didn’t you?”

“I—I guess,” I whispered. My eyes darted to Az. “It was…fine.”

“The Boss told you not to listen—but you wanted to,” the busker said. “You saw it, didn’t you? That beauty can exist in this world, and truth can be found on your own. I’m talking about free will!”

I gasped, involuntarily. Az released his hold completely to cover his mouth with both hands.

“I can teach you,” cried the busker. “Oh, I’d like to. When you listen to it—when you learn to play it for yourself!—your eyes will be opened—”

I could feel it—the greenness of that meadow spreading through me with every word he spoke. Was it possible? That I could choose: here and now?

I could choose. I could suddenly pivot. I could stop walking this preordained path I was on. Change directions. Change my life!

But then I was seized with an electric fear! I saw our roles reversed—it was me teetering on the edge of the Hole, rather than me throwing another guy down!

So I let go.

Then he was falling: down, down, down. His last words echoed up from the black nothingness.

“—and you will know good and evil!”

I stumbled back to lean on the warehouse wall. The busker’s last words kept echoing back to me.

Az crouched near the Hole, staring into it.

“What a freak!” he said.

“The poor fellow,” I muttered.

For a moment, there was silence between us. I looked up to see that Az was staring at me with narrowed eyes.

“That’s a strange thing to say, Bee,” he said. He picked up some gravel and let it rain down into the Hole. “With all he was saying about free will and all. That’s a real strange thing to say.”

And then, I could see Az dressed in the bodyguard;s tight black-leather uniform with its four wings. And he was standing on my precious green pasture, which was turning into gray concrete right under his black boots!

I got to my aching feet as Az rose to his.

My one advantage was that he was real close to that edge.

---

Untold years pass, and my troubles only seem to get worse. The wife made a miraculous recovery, then left me for a righteous Inner Sanctum angel. Kids are in the castrati now—so no grand-babies are forthcoming. I still suffer terribly from gout. And Gabe never really believed my story that Azazel just ‘slipped’ into that Hole.

I never made bodyguard.

Sometimes, when I get a break from the Boss’s mission to squash rumors about a rebellion in the level down below, I find myself heading to the warehouse housing the Hole. While this city gets fouler and fouler, it seems to smell sweeter in there all the time.

There’s music playing down there—all different kinds. And the smell of fresh apples.

It helps me forget about some of the things I’ve done. I start to see that green pasture in my mind, and I wonder where the hell that place is.

I start thinking, Is this really paradise?

Do I belong up here?

I start thinking maybe I ought to see for myself what’s down that Hole.

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