Chuck Palahniuk - Damned
“Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison,” declares the whip-tongued thirteen-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk’s subversive new work of fiction. The daughter of a narcissistic film star and a billionaire, Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas, while her parents are off touting their new projects and adopting more orphans. She dies over the holiday of a marijuana overdose—and the next thing she knows, she’s in Hell. Madison shares her cell with a motley crew of young sinners that is almost too good to be true: a cheerleader, a jock, a nerd, and a punk rocker, united by fate to form the six-feet-under version of everyone’s favorite detention movie. Madison and her pals trek across the Dandruff Desert and climb the treacherous Mountain of Toenail Clippings to confront Satan in his citadel. All the popcorn balls and wax lips that serve as the currency of Hell won’t buy them off.
This is the afterlife as only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine it: a twisted inferno where The English Patient plays on endless repeat, roaming demons devour sinners limb by limb, and the damned interrupt your dinner from their sweltering call center to hard-sell you Hell. He makes eternal torment, well, simply divine.
→ I Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. I’m just now arrived here, in Hell, but it’s not my fault except for maybe dying from an overdose of marijuana. Maybe I’m in Hell because I’m fat—a Real Porker. If you can go to Hell for having low self-esteem, that’s why I’m here. I wish I could lie and tell you I’m bone-thin with blond hair and big ta-tas. But, trust me, I’m fat for a really good reason.
To start with, please let me introduce myself.
→ II Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Please don’t get the impression that I dislike Hell. No, really, it’s way swell. Tons better than I expected. Honestly, it’s obvious you’ve worked very hard for a very long time on the roiling, surging oceans of scalding-hot barf and the stinking sulfur smell, and the clouds of buzzing black flies.
→ III Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Please don’t feel hurt, Satan, hut my parents raised me to believe you didn’t exist. My mom and dad said you and God were invented in the superstitious, backward pea brains of hillbilly preachers and Republican hypocrites.
→ IV Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. I thought I saw you, today, and waved madly like some fevered groupie to get your attention. Hell continues to unfold as an interesting, exciting place, and I’ve begun to learn some rudimentary demonology so I won’t feel like an idiot forever. Really, there’s almost no time to feel homesick.
Today I even made friends with a boy who has dreamy brown eyes.
→ V Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. After a somewhat rocky start, I’m having simply the best time. I continue to meet new people, and I’m sorry about the mix-up… just imagine: me mistaking just some regular ordinary, nobody-special demon for you. I’m learning something new and interesting all the time from Leonard. On top of that, I’ve concocted a way-brilliant idea for how to overcome my insidious addiction to hope.
→ VI Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. I assume that membership in Hell gives you access to a zillion-million A-list celebrities.... About the only person I’m not excited to meet is my dead grandpa. My long-dead Papadaddy Ben. Long Story. Please credit the impulse to my youthful curiosity, but I can’t resist the opportunity to get sprung and take a quick look-see ramble to check out the lay of my new neighborhood.
→ VII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Like so many tourists, we’ve embarked on our little walkabout to explore Hell. We take note of the general topography. We view a few interesting landmarks. And I’m prompted to make a small confession.
→ VIII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. It might amuse you to hear we were beset by a demon of thrilling size. This precipitated the most amazing act of heroism and self-sacrifice—really, from the least likely person among our company. In addition I’ve included more of my own background, in the event you’re interested in learning more about me as an interesting, fully faceted overweight person.
→ IX Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Before I tell you the following you must promise, cross your heart and hope to die, that you won’t EVER share this secret with another person. I mean it. You see, I’m well aware that you’re the Prince of Lies, hut I need you to swear. You’ll have to guarantee your confidentiality if we’re to have a relationship of any significant depth and honesty.
→ X Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Please do NOT get the idea that I’m some Miss Trollopy Van Trollop. It’s true that I’ve read the Kama Sutra, hut why anyone would bother to attempt such revolting gymnastics remains largely a mystery to me. In regard to sex, mine is a kind of complete intellectual understanding with no real aesthetic appreciation whatsoever. Forgive my uneducated distaste. While I know what organ stimulates what, the bizarre, sordid business of phallus and orifice interaction, the exchange of chromosomes required for procreation of the species, I have yet to grasp the appeal. Meaning: yuck.
→ XI Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Don’t take the following as a scolding. Please regard what I’m about to say as strictly constructive feedback. On the plus side, you’ve been running one of the largest, most successful enterprises in the history of… well, history. You’ve managed to grow your market share despite overwhelming competition from a direct, omnipotent competitor. You’re synonymous with torment and suffering. Nevertheless, if I may be bluntly honest, your level of customer service skills really suck.
→ XII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. If you can tolerate yet another admission on my part, I’ve never been very adept at taking tests. Trust me, I’m not trying to lay the blame elsewhere, but I loathe the kind of game-show context in which so much of our lives is determined: proving my memory and mental skills in a sedentary situation under the pressure of limited time. While death has its obvious drawbacks, it is a blessing that I now have an unassailably valid excuse to not take the SATs. However, it seems that I’ve not entirely dodged that dreaded bullet.
→ XIII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Don’t get the idea that I’m way homesick; but lately, but I’ve been thinking about my family. This is no reflection on you or the fabulousness of Hell. I’ve just been feeling a tad nostalgic.
→ XIV Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. I know what you’re thinking… to you I’m just some spoiled, rich brat who’s never had to work a day in her life. In my defense, I’m proud to say that I’ve obtained full-time employment. A genuine job. As of now I’m a regular working stiff—if you’ll pardon the terrible pun. What follows might seem ragged, but please consider it an impressionistic slice o’ death. A glimpse into a day in the death of me.
→ XV Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. I hope this won’t sound too confusing, but I do hereby and forever abandon abandoning all hope. Honestly, I give up on giving up. I’m just not cut out to be some hopeless, disillusioned wretch with no aspirations for the rest of eternity, sprawled catatonic in my own feces on a cold stone floor. In all probability the Human Genome Project will, someday, find that I carry some recessive gene for optimism, because despite all my best efforts I still can’t scrape together even a couple days of hopelessness. Future scientists will call it the Pollyanna Syndrome, and if forced to guess’, I’d say that mine has been a way-long case history of chasing rainbows.
→ XVI Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Over the phone today, I made a new friend. She’s not dead, not yet, but I can tell we’re going to be way-total best friends.
→ XVII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. I suspect that my parents had an inkling about my covert plan to seduce Goran. This night, while they’re both out, I’ll profess my love as vehemently as Scarlett O’Hara throwing herself at Ashley Wilkes in the library of his Twelve Oaks plantation house.
→ XVIII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Little by little, I forget my life on earth, how it felt to be alive and living, but today something happened which shocked me back to remembering—maybe not everything—but at least I realize how much I might be forgetting. Or suppressing.
→ XIX Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Please don’t get the impression that I’ve always boasted a brilliant intellect. On the contrary, I’ve made more than my share of mistakes, not the least of which was my misconceived idea of what constituted French-kissing.
→ XX Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. People say the world is a small place… well, in Hell this must be Old Home Week. Really, everyone seems to know me and vice versa. It’s like alumni week at my boarding school, when all the old mossbacks would totter around campus all misty-eyed. Everywhere that you look, it seems as if a familiar face is looking back.
→ XXI Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. My last sighting of my beloved Goran had been the night of the Academy Awards. If Hell is—as the ancient Greeks claimed—the place of remorse and remembering, then I am slowly accomplishing those tasks.
→ XXII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Please don’t take this as a criticism, but you really ought to upgrade your word-processing equipment. The readability of your dot-matrix printer especially way sucks, not to mention those perforated tracks that hang off the edges of every printed page.
→ XXIII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Unpleasant as death might seem, the upside is that you only suffer it once. Subsequent to that, the sting is gone. The memory might be enormously traumatic, but that’s all it is: a memory. You won’t be asked to perform an encore. Unless, just possibly, you’re a Hindu.
→ XXIV Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Ask me the square root of pi. Ask me how many pecks are in a bushel. Ask me anything about the truncated, tragic life of Charlotte Bronte. I can tell you exactly when Joyce Kilmer died in the Second Battle of the Marne. I can tell you the combination of keys, Ctrl+Alt+S or Ctrl+Alt+Q, which will access the security cameras or manipulate the lighting and window treatments of my sealed bedrooms in Copenhagen or Oslo, those rooms my mother has air-conditioned down to meat locker… down to archival temperatures, where the electrostatic air filters prohibit a speck of dust to ever settle, where my clothes and shoes and stuffed animals wait in the darkness, locked away from sun fade and humidity, patient as the alabaster jars and gilded toys which accompanied any boy pharaoh into his eternal tomb. Ask me about the ecology in Fiji and the amusing personal habits of tony Hollywood gadabouts. Ask me to describe the political machinations embedded in the all-girls culture of a tres-reserved Swiss boarding school. Just do NOT ask me how I’m feeling. Do not ask if I still miss my parents. Don’t ask if I still cry from being so homesick. Of course the dead miss the living.
→ XXV Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. It’s not true that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. At least, not all of it. Some of your life might flash. Other portions of your life it might take you years and years to recall. That, I think, is the function of Hell: It’s a place of remembering. Beyond that, the purpose of Hell is not so much to forget the details of our lives as it is to forgive them.
And, yes, while the dead do miss everything and everybody, they don’t hang around the earth forever.
→ XXVI Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. It dawns on me that I’ve never adequately thanked you for sending the car, and I ought to; it was an extremely sensitive, thoughtful gesture on your part. You acted very kindly toward me at a time when I desperately needed such courtesy, and I want you to know that I’ll always appreciate that generosity.
→ XXVII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. By their nature, stories told in the second person can suggest prayers. “Hallowed he thy name… the Lord is with thee...” With this in mind, please don’t get the idea that I’m praying to you. It’s nothing personal, but I’m simply not a satanist. Nor, despite my parents’ best efforts, am I a secular humanist. In light of finding myself in the afterlife, neither am I any longer a confident atheist nor agnostic. At the moment, I’m not certain in what I believe. Far be it from me to pledge my faith to any belief system when, at this point, it would seem that I’ve been wrong about everything I’ve ever felt was real.
In truth, I’m no longer even certain who I, myself, am.
→ XXVIII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Please consider amending the famous slogan currently synonymous with the entrance of Hell. Rather than “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...” it seems far more applicable and useful to post, “Abandon all tact...” Or perhaps, “Abandon all common courtesy…”
→ XXIX Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it.
→ XXX Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. Whether you are or you are not, it hardly matters… because I am here. The prodigal daughter. Little Maddy Spencer has come home to roost.
→ XXXI Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. My mom used to say, “Madison, you’re a worrier.” Meaning: I fret over everything. Meaning: EVERYTHING. Now I’m worried that I’ve won. My ascent to power seems to have been too easy. In my life, in my parents’ lives, the rewards have come with so little struggle. The homes in Dubai and Singapore and Brentwood. The afterlife goes on; however; it’s not quite death as usual. Something seems fishy, but I can’t put my finger on it.
→ XXXII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. How miserably hypocritical, you might say, but no sooner am I offered a chance to flee Hell than I yearn to stay. Few families hold their relations as closely as do prisons. Few marriages sustain the high level of passion that exists between criminals and those who seek to bring them to justice. It’s no wonder the Zodiac Killer flirted so relentlessly with the police. Or that Jack the Ripper courted and baited detectives with his—or her—coy letters. We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. At this point I’ve been in Hell for a longer period of time than I’ve ever spent in any of my earthly homes, in Durban, in London, in Manila. Worse than feeling merely conflicted, I’m miserable at the thought of leaving.
→ XXXIII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. I have my kitty. I have my boyfriend. I have my best friend. I have more dead than I ever did while alive. Except for my mom and dad.
→ XXXIV Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. My dead posse and I are planning a little pilgrimage back to hobnob among the living. And to plunder the earth for its wealth of candy.
→ XXXV Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. If you’ll forgive me, I need to jump backward for a moment. Funny… me asking for the Devil’s forgiveness.
→ XXXVI Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison. But I guess you already knew that. If you’re to be believed I guess you know more about me than I do. You know everything, but I suspected that something was not right. At last we meet face-to face......
→ XXXVII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison, and I’m not your Jane Eyre. I’m nobody’s Catherine Earnshaw. And you? You’re certainly no writer. You’re not the boss of me; you’re just messing with my head. If anybody wrote me it would be Judy Blume or Barbara Cartland. I have confidence and determination and free will—at least, I guess I do......
→ XXXVIII Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison Desert Flower Rosa Parks Coyote Trickster Spencer.
You’ve thrown down the gauntlet. You’ve brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. But if I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist… then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master.
When I return to Hell, prepare to die by my hand. Or be ready to kill me.
|
