The God of Hell lives on the first floor of my building. I see him every day when I come home from work. He sits there in his little brick and tile shrine, ruling over my neightborhood. He's done a pretty good job -- very few robberies, and no deaths in my building, at least none that I know of.
He's a pretty modest guy. He actually doesn't have a statue in the shrine, just a little wooden plaque. Some of his celestial buddies, like the boddhisattva Guanyin and Leigong, the god of thunder, are party animals and demand their own statues, but the God of Hell's pretty mellow.
He smokes like a motherfucker, though. There's a little ghost money furnace next to his shrine, and he's always asking people to burn those little yellow sheets in it. The smokestack ends right in front of my air conditioner, so I can tell when he's really spending a lot to refurbish Hell, because my cold air starts smelling like a campfire.
I kind of wish he'd keep his place cleaner. All the brick is moldy, and the ceiling of his place is a pure dull black from all the candles he burns. Plus, he has a lot of cockroaches. But it's probably not my place to complain. I'm sure he's busy running the Bureaucracy of Hell, and I think I've smelled Guanyin burning things when he's out. She's like a bad houseguest or something.
In his off hours, I think he spends a lot of time reading. He's always got stacks of Buddhist sutras laying around. He's got pretty eclectic tastes; he reads Buddhist get-rich manuals, Buddhist recipe books and Buddhist travel guides to Hell, as well the usual Buddhist prayer books. He lets people look at the books, and I don't think he minds if you take them permanently. At least, he's never asked me to return the ones I've taken, and I pass by him every day, so it's not like he hasn't had a chance to ask for them back.
He also listens to some pretty cool Buddhist music. It's not exactly going to hit the club charts, but it's good, basic music. It's certainly nothing you'd mind your neighbors pumping at 3 AM. The God of Hell's got one up on all those P2P people; he lets you keep the tapes.
He also loves entertaining his friends. A few times a year, he gets some puppet performers to come and act out all his favorite stories. I hope they make him pretty happy, because they're noisy enough to wake me up from the deepest sleep. They also block the street so the only things that can get through are scooters. The God of Hell demands a front-row seat, so the cars gotta suffer. The puppets must keep him happy, because they come back, year after year, like tornadoes in the Midwest.
The God of Hell likes to feed and be fed. He's always eating grapefruit and bananas, and sometimes he goes for almond cookies and creme cupcakes. He's a nice guy -- he gives the neighbors his leftovers, and there's usually a lot left when he takes his fill. He likes pizza, too. I think the God of Hell prefers Pizza Hut over Dominos, because that's what I always see on the little aluminum table in front of his shrine. Pizza Hut pizza with corn, pineapple and ham, that's what he likes.
Sometimes, I see the women who get the pizza after he's through with it. They're usually sitting on the curb next to the God of Hell's place. I only ever see the two of them; I guess they must like their pizza, because they finish off a pizza apiece. Well, after the God of Hell takes his cut.
They once offered me some pizza. "Miss! Miss! You pizza?" But I have different tastes from the God of Hell. They might like corn on their pizzas down in the Ten Thousand Buddhist Hells, but in Minnesota, corn belongs on the cob. Besides, I don't feel comfortable sharing pizza with him, when I complain about him so much.
He's not the best neighbor in the world. He's a bit messy and noisy, but I have to admit he's friendly. And at least he's less trouble than the second-floor neighbors.
