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Dante’s Inferno
Mel Waldman
The Late Fifties or Early Sixties
When you ride split seconds, anything can happen. They were driving along a country road. The truck came out of nowhere, on the wrong side of the road.
August 1969
At 3 AM, the young couple descended the stairs and entered Dante’s Inferno, a Manhattan basement restaurant on 11th Avenue.
It was dark, surreal, and empty. They passed through two sections labeled the Vestibule and the river Acheron and took a booth in the area labeled Limbo, the first circle of Hell. They held hands and waited for the waitress to come over.
“What do you want?” the tall, anorexic waitress asked.
“A tab with lemon,” the woman said.
“A vanilla malted,” the man added.
“No vanilla malted.”
“Huh?”
“That’s right. No vanilla. We got chocolate and strawberry.”
“Strawberry.”
“Okay.”
You see, far away in the past, before this moment, in the snap of a finger, or in between, cause things happen fast, it happened.
He gazed at her and she smiled wickedly. On the table was a red candle glowing wildly in a small heart-shaped glass.
“What is it, Michael?”
“You look lovely, Maria. Your blonde hair flows like a cascading waterfall. And your azure eyes are more beautiful than the blue Manhattan sky at sunrise.
“Thank you, my dark and handsome poet.”
Suddenly, the waitress returned with the drinks. “Here you are. Anything else?”
“No.”
The ghostly woman scurried off, vanishing in the darkness.
They were driving along a country road.
“I don’t like this place, Michael. It gives me the creeps.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“Don’t know. What do you think?”
“I think I’m in love. But the ambiance is eerie.”
“I love you too-forever!”
“Really?”
“Of course, you silly man.”
They were going down this dark road and it was late at night.
“I think we ought to go, Michael. Are you finished with the malted?”
“Yes.”
The road was pitch-black and out of nowhere a truck appeared. This huge monster crashed into their Volkswagen. Head on collision.
“I’ll leave a nothing tip, Maria. Don’t really like this place either.”
“Yes. It’s weird.”
And the windows blew into bits. The driver got cut up. Her mouth was ugly, with the blood gushing, and she was a Christian Scientist. Her companion was untouched. Why?
The companion told the driver, when they rushed to the hospital, to let them cure her. The Christian Scientist finally agreed.
“Waitress, how much is the check?”
They cured her. In a split second, the end almost came. It didn’t though, and that was years ago. After, they went to court against the truck driver, and the case went on for a very long time, until the present.
“How much is the check?” Michael growled.
The driver almost scarred for life was not scarred. The companion, a young blonde, prayed to Saint Jude. And humbly thanked her favorite saint.
The companion believed in miracles. The driver forgot to pray, for she was obsessed with the lawsuit. But without a witness, she had no case.
A few years passed and the two women became close friends. And the driver’s friend saw things clearly that moment when glass flew and faith dripped into the cellar of a cold woman’s blood, with corpuscles running and flowing wild. Who knows where god was then?
The case dragged on for years. Only the driver sued. The companion chose not to.
“Hey waitress, how much is the check?”
She needed her friend’s signature to win the case. The other side wanted to pay the friend off. But she couldn’t be bribed.
Well, this life is a funny thing. Over the years, the driver got very rich, and the companion got very poor. Yet always, the lovely blonde prayed to Saint Jude. She was rewarded, I guess. She met me; we loved, married, starved together, and waited for baby. Also, she signed the paper, and the driver won the case.
“It’s 85 cents.”
“Okay.”
The driver promised to reward her with cash. However, she was going to Florida to celebrate. She nonchalantly asked her if she could wait.
We were almost starving, you know, and the driver was quite wealthy. No. I don’t think she could wait. We couldn’t.
My wife told the driver she couldn’t wait, while reminding her that the other side could have paid her off. The Christian Scientist replied: “But I thought you were my friend. If not, I would have paid you off myself.” My wife told her to wait till she returned from Florida.
The driver disappeared in Florida.
I left a 10 cent tip.
“You’re alive,” I whisper silently in the lonely landscape of my soul.
“Yes.”
“After a head on collision.”
“Yes.”
“And we’re madly in love.”
“Forever.”
“I love you, Maria.”
“I love you, Michael.”
“Light a candle for Saint Jude.”
“I will.”
“For both of us.”
“Yes, my darling.”
“And someday...”
“We’ll have a baby too.”
We left Dante’s Inferno. Yet perhaps, the eerie place never left us. In any case, two years later, our son David was born. My love for Maria deepened and my love for my precious son was incomprehensible. At times, the love I felt for my wife and son was intolerable. My soul was theirs.
But then David got ill-deathly ill. And we watched our 2 year old boy suffer every day with a rare form of cancer. He was our soul. And when he died, we crumbled.
Maria had a nervous breakdown. I didn’t. She left me behind to see clearly the injustice of this dark universe.
She’s in a psychiatric hospital on Long Island. I used to visit her every day. Now, I only see her on the weekends. She doesn’t know me. She’s in a different world-a safer place. The doctors say she may come out of her catatonic state some day. Yet it’s possible she may never return.
My soul is dead. Sometimes I descend the dark stairs and re-enter Dante’s Inferno. It’s a creepy place, for sure. It’s dark and surreal, but I feel at home there.
I sit in a booth in Limbo and imagine Maria sitting across from me. We were madly in love and had dreams. We even believed in miracles. I suppose our love illuminated the darkness. We had hope then.
