The Undertaker's Devil - 5. The Morning After

Sunday, November 13, 1881

Ritter opened one eye a fraction, testing it against the searing daylight. He heard whistling downstairs. Was that what had awakened him? He closed the eye again, promising himself to try re-opening it in a few days when it wasn’t so bright in the world outside his eyelids.

Reaching up one hand, he checked his head for blunt trauma, but felt no blood. He checked for rodents that might have crawled into his mouth and died, but found none. No dust storm in there either. So far so good.

Sammy. It was Sammy whistling. He was also doing some kind of dance which involved jumping and landing on the floorboards with as much force as possible. Surely the entire building was shaking? No. But Lord, it was loud.

No, Samael was only walking. Still, Ritter suspected him of walking with boots on. Cruel bastard.

Memories of the previous evening trickled in, more coherent at the beginning, more disjointed at the end. Roll call. Statements of noble intentions. Teasing salutes to fellow members. Singing those God-awful songs from the war. Singing wonderfully obscene parodies of those songs, one of which he sang later to Samael. Reminiscences of Baton Rouge, guarding the garrison from unreconstructed Confederates who hadn’t quite received the message that the war was over and they had lost.

And drinking, lots of drinking. Toasts of celebration. Toasts of commiseration. Toasts to the dead, toasts to the living. A toast of condolence for Ritter’s dead wife. A toast to the future Mrs. Ritter, because of course Ritter would remarry one day. And Ritter was thankful for that toast, because it meant that the old stain had not followed him to Tombstone. At least, not so far.

Maybe the evening made him overconfident. Maybe he thought he would never get caught again. Or maybe he grew careless because desire can be denied only so long. Or maybe he was just drunk.

How he got home was hazy, although there was some darkling flash of being with one or two of his comrades outdoors, so probably they came with him part of the way.

But once he got home, certain things stood out. A ribald song. Sammy’s hand on his privates. Sammy’s mouth around his cock. Sammy eagerly swallowing Ritter’s spunk. Sammy — beautiful, resourceful, creative, smart, kind, tortured, misguided Sammy, a greater temptation than he had thought still possible. Carnally astonishing Sammy, who must be a devil; Sammy the undeniably pure of heart, who could only be an angel.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The words echoed from a time so long ago as to seem like another life. They had meant something to him, once. And then they meant something else.

Ritter’s father Isaac, born in another century, cut from cloth of the century before that, already middle-aged when his son Andy arrived, terrorized his son with threats from Scripture. When he discovered fifteen-year-old Andy in the barn with another boy, their trousers down and their shirts askew, Isaac grabbed Andy and carried him to the attic, grabbing a razor strop along the way. He threw Andy down on a disused bench and forced him to recite the Lord’s Prayer while he beat him. When Andy could no longer speak but could only scream, Isaac began repeating the Twenty-Third Psalm as he continued applying the strop: “…Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me; surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…”

It was only one of many similar beatings. And so the Bible had come to mean pain and taunts and cruelty to Andy. The scars on his back and buttocks remained as testament to his religious instruction. Yet he could never shake an ingrained belief in God — a terrible and vengeful God.

Pain always brought back the memory of that beating and humiliation. Right now his head hurt like hell, so of course he fell into the echoing cesspool of his early life. I must save Sammy from this, he thought. I have to help him before it’s too late for him. I have to pull us both back up to the cliff’s edge and never fall again.

Slowly he tilted out of bed and pulled on his trousers. One leaden step at a time, he inched out of his room. Gripping the banister, he made his way down.

There Samael was bustling about, bringing biscuits and fried eggs in from the cookstove, pouring coffee. “Morning,” he said briskly.

Ritter managed to reach his desk and sat down. “How can you be so damned cheerful?”

“Cause I ain’t hung over.” Samael leaned over to kiss Ritter on the forehead.

“Ow,” Ritter said.

“Drink some coffee.” Samael set a cup by him.

“Sammy, about last night — ” Ritter began.

“Coffee first, and breakfast, and a couple of glasses of water, then talk.”

“Coffee, good; breakfast, questionable.” Ritter drank his coffee.

While Samael was out of the room, Ritter tried desperately to think of how to say what must be said in the face of Samael’s high spirits. Ritter, you idiot, this is bad. How are you going to turn this around now?

Samael reappeared and pushed the plate of eggs and biscuits closer to Ritter. “Eat up. You’ll feel better.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Sure you can.” Samael eagerly mopped up egg from his plate with pieces of biscuit and washed it all down with coffee. “And you’ll be glad you did. Come on. One bite at a time.”

Ritter took one bite of egg and one bite of biscuit.

“Good start, Andy. Now another bite of each.”

Ritter breathed heavily and pushed the plate away. “Sam, we have to talk.”

Samael continued eating. “I’m listening.”

“We can’t continue to do what we did.” Samael swallowed and turned his face away from Ritter. “For your sake as well as mine. Sam, we have to stop while we still can. I don’t want to lead you into corruption.”

“Too late,” Samael said brightly. “I was already corrupt when you met me.”

“You’re young, Sam. You have a chance to live a normal life. We can still back off from this.”

Anger seeped into Samael's voice. “Didn’t you listen to anything I told you? I’m already done for. I ain’t never gonna be saved in some church baptism. I can’t back off. I don’t want to back off.”

“We must, Sam.”

“And now you won’t even call me Sammy.” Samael wiped his eyes. “What if we’re both evil? What if we’re both bad? What if there ain’t no hope for either one of us? We could still be happy together.”

“I told you we could still embrace and even kiss, but we can’t go any farther. We can’t — ”

“Well, that ain’t enough. I want more than a hug and a goodnight kiss.”

“I’m so sorry about last night. I had too much to drink and I showed bad judgment.”

"‘Scuse me. I’m gonna start washing up.”

Ritter followed him to the back porch, where Samael pumped water into a pot.

“You’re young, Sam. You don’t know the world the way I do. It is a cruel place.”

Samael put down the pot of water and glared at him. “Oh, I know it’s a cruel place. I know first hand. You might remember that if you ever listened.”

“I’m sorry. Of course you — ”

Samael grabbed Ritter’s hands. “I want you. Can’t you see? I want you so bad. I can’t settle for a squeeze in the hall and a peck on the cheek. I want to do it again, what we did last night. And I want you inside me. And I want to fall asleep with you. I want to be naked in bed with you. Don’t you want it, too?”

Ritter glanced nervously at the neighboring buildings. “Of course I want it.”

“Not very bad, I guess.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself. I want it bad. Very bad.”

“But if you can’t let yourself do it, I can’t stay here. I can’t be around you and stay away from you.”

“Sam, it’s just that I slipped last night and gave you false notions. We were doing fine until last night. We can go back.”

“False notions! You know what you gave me last night? Hope. And now you snatch that hope right away from me. I ain’t going back.”

“Please don’t be angry with me. I’m trying to keep us both from ruin.”

“You know what?” Samael faced Ritter squarely. “I think I liked you better drunk.” He loaded a plate with potatoes and shoved it into Ritter’s hands. “I boiled you some potatoes. They’re good for hangovers.” He walked back inside to his room.

Ritter followed and found him putting on his hat and coat. “Please don’t leave.”

Samael re-tied a boot. “You should eat those potatoes. They might help you get your head screwed on right. I gotta to go someplace and think. Alone.” Then he stomped out of the room and out to the street, slamming the front door behind him.