Sunday, August 17, 2003 5:38 PM Joe Coluccio

My Divine Comedia - Canto One or so.

"What am I doing here?" a young man in dark gray striped Giorgio Armani with red power tie over bleached white shirt tapped loudly on the pure white radiant table.

A golden name plate announced Leonardo. The old guy standing behind sandboarding his fingers. Fine Firenzen eyes, face like red chalk, long white hair that curled wildly into his beard. He was wearing a white golf shirt with a koala bear emblem, tan slacks and brown shoes with high gloss tassels. "I believe you were hit by the 56C as you ill advisedly tried to cross rush hour traffic at Fourth and Grant."

"You nitwit, that wasn't me. It was the guy next to me. I just bent over to pick-up the quarter that he dropped. He ran out into the traffic!"

The old man shrugged his shoulders. "Heart attack then."

"It most certainly was not a heart attack! I just had a check up. My cholesterol is way down and my veins and arteries are, to quote Doctor Hennessey 'supple and clear as a baby's'."

"Brain tumor?"

"Impossible, just got a clean chart on a CAT scan!"

"Cancer?"

"It was none of those. I'm as healthy as a horse. Can't you just admit you made a mistake? Just send me back down the escalator."

"I invented that you know?"

"What?"

"The escalator! Before I came on board you had to climb a really long set of steps."

"Swell! What about me? I have a staff meeting at one, and a proposal due at five. Nothing'll get done if I don't get back!"

"You ever hear of a man called Miyamoto Musashi. Wrote Go Rin No Sho. The Book of Five Rings?"

"No!"

"He says that the samurai should always be ready for death."

"So?"

"Well, one of the things you do to prepare is to always have your life in order."

"Sounds great but I'm not a Samurai! Besides, you duffuses mucked everything up! You should have taken the guy next to me. A whole Port Authority Transit Bus smacked into him. What about him?"

Leonardo flips through an account book that rests on a table next to his throne. "Oh, you'll be glad to know that he's fine. Slipped under the wheels and then slid into the storm sewer. Had a terrible smell of decaying vegetation about him in the ambulance, but he's been released from the hospital with some minor contusions. Says he has a whole new lease on life." The old man looked at him beatifically.

"What? Is that supposed to make me happy?"

"No, I guess not. From the looks of things his wife isn't celebrating either."

"This isn't fair! I wasn't bothering anyone. Just a taking a quiet minute on the street for a smoke and POW, you grab the wrong guy."

Leonardo gives a look of sympathy that really says nothing.

"Look, if you don't have the authority to send me back, I want to talk to your boss?"

"Now that might be a mistake. I'd really advise against it."

"What's the matter? Afraid you'll get busted for incompetence?"

Leonardo laughs pleasantly "No, no not at all. See, my boss does the judgin'"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Did you ever read the Divine Comedy?"

"No."

"Dante?"

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"Hhhm must have had an American education You are a Christian?"

"Even more than that, I'm Catholic!"

Leonardo gestures with his hands in a full circle sweep, "Well? Midway twixt this life and the next? The pearly gates and all that? You finally get weighed on the scales of universal justice?"

Something akin to hidden knowledge broached appears in the knit brows of the man. "The Pearly Gates? Like in all those lawyer jokes? I thought St. Peter was at the Pearly Gates."

"And so he is, so he is, but first you get the tour from me. Kind of an orientation to your peculiar inchoate beliefs."

"Look, whatever your name is..."

"Leonardo from Vinci, a small town in what is presently called Italy."

"Sure, look, Leo, this tour…ah …do you think you could…you know…get me close to the outside…help me over the wall…let me find my way back to the bus stop?"

"Out of the question, Waldo…"

"Shhhhh! Hey…don't say my name so loud, it's embarrassing. Everyone calls me Skippy."

"Skippy, I'm afraid that death is relatively irrevocable."

"How about that going back as a newborn stuff. There's the ticket! You could reincarnate me."

"Are you sure you're Christian?"

"Hindu," pauses as tight thought lines appear on his forehead, "Moslem. I mean, if that helps."

"It would help me immensely. I'd love to have Suleiman set you up with a dozen vestal virgins but you were born in the western tradition and rules, my dear, Skip, is rules."

"Okay, but I know my rights! I have the God given duty to try to escape."

"This isn't Stalag 13. I will, however, let you pick the first stop on our voyage."

"Vegas! I always wanted to go to Vegas!"

"Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, dreary and unimaginative as they are, those are the choices."

"Is there a casino with a good floor show in Hell?"

"Senior Skippy! Andiamo!"