“Naah” I replied, downing the dregs of my glass, “I got so much past to consider, wastin’ good brain matter on “perhaps tomorrow” doesn’t interest me. Just keeping up with “right now” takes up all my time.”
“I find it’s almost an obsession with most people” he continued “They always want to know things like how they die, who they marry, where they end up. Usually in that order, now that I think about it. Somehow, the method of their demise always takes precedence over everything else.”
I swear it’s queer, but I kept wondering how the hell he got that damn fedora on over those horns.
“I gotta ask you something, man” I said “Where do you get your dry goods?”
The Devil looked down at his sports jacket a moment & then smiled at me. “Well, the tailor’s not alive anymore, so it doesn’t surprise me you don’t recognize his work. He did the royal attire for Lothair of France, during the time of the Carolingian kings.”
“Oh” I said, somewhat impotently.
The Devil peered at me “You have no idea who Lothair was, do you?” he asked.
“Dude, I had no idea there were French royals in the
“Not Carolinian, they didn’t come from South…Oh, never mind. It’s not important.”
“Sorry”
“I said never mind.”
The CD changer rotated, and Dizzy Gillespie started belting out the 1969 version of “
“I’ll never go back to
The Devil smiled “Thass right, white boy.”
We sat there, just soaking up the music for a while. I don’t have too many friends that I can do that with, just sit and be silent without the need to fill the air with so many useless words. This always seems to happen after the evening has wound down a bit, it just comes down to two blokes and a bottle.
Presently, I asked, “What brings you around these parts, anyway? You come to collect on our contract?”
“Oh no, you got plenty of time left. There’s a rape-homicide going on a few miles down the road, and since I was “in the neighborhood”, so to speak, I thought I’d swing around.”
“Really?”
“Yep, the rapist is going to let his guard down at the end of the orgasm, and his victim will stab him repeatedly in the head and neck area. He’ll bleed out long before anyone finds him, and she will go home and never report it."
“So, which side are you on?”
“Side? I’m not on anybody’s side. Hell no, I’m just there tallying the results, Kid. I’m not the one who instigates these things, I’m just the goalkeeper for humanity. I’m the groundskeeper on monster island. Everybody loves to place the blame on me for everything bad that happens, but…I really don’t have any input at all. Hell, most of what I do these days is pretty boring. Administrative duties, mostly.” He paused a second “Really, all I seem to do nowadays is rack ‘em up and mow ‘em down.”
“What do you hear from the religious front these days?” I asked.
“The…the what?”
“You know, the Christians, Catholics…Those people. Churchy-types. Aren’t you in some kind of stalemate until Jesus comes back, or something? I think I read that, somewhere.”
“Puh-leeze. Those morons have a hard enough time lobbing rockets at each other without my input, trying to decide who’s more holy and who’s not. I get better programming from that shit than anything that’s been on HBO for the last 10 years.”
“What about Oral Roberts?”
“Huh. That was succinctly worded. What ABOUT him? Who cares? And anyway, who in they’re right mind names their kid something like ORAL? That’s like naming your child Adolph, you just know that little tadpole is gonna need some therapy later on. Same thing if you name your daughter Velvet, or Roxanne. Sooner or later, she’s gonna be stripping on a pole somewhere, sure as sheep.”
“Ummm…Falwell?”
“Falwell? Fucking FALWELL?? What the fuck is this, memory lane? Hey kid, the Eighties called. They want their controversial hypocrites back. Shit, I thought you were gonna ask me to dish on the Osteens, or something.”
“No, not really,” I replied, “I guess I’m not that familiar with them. Not my generation, if you follow me.”
“Yeah, that’s always the case” He sighed, “There’s always a disconnect between the now and the 10 or 15 years ago, and the timeline just seems to get shorter and shorter. That’s been my biggest problem, just staying current.”
I snickered at this. “What’s so funny?” asked The Devil.
“Well, you. I mean, no offense, but you’re having a problem staying current? Aren’t you responsible for al this shit that’s going on now? Didn’t you invent most of it? How are you having a problem?”
The Devil chuckled. “Kid,” he said “I haven’t “invented” anything since the whole fiasco with Eve, the tree and the apple. Not a damn thing. You screechy bastards always come up with shit that’s way more ingenious than I ever could hope to.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Well, take the guillotine, for example. Or child porn. There’s Napalm, if you want to get creative. Don’t get me started on psychologists and their ilk. That stuff is all on you people, I had nothing to do with it.”
The Devil took a swill from his glass and let the liquid go down real slow before he spoke again. “Oral. Fucking Oral. You just know he got his ass beat in school from first grade to the damn prom.” Then he shook his head and reached into the beer fridge I keep behind the dining room table. “We need to get a move on. I ain’t near drunk enough, and we still got two more bottles to go through.”
“B’sides,” he said as he popped another cork “You can never keep this shit cold long.”
10 comments:
Very nice Boobe, I like. Thing is, I believe most of it to be true also.
I'm beginning to see signs of your insomnia...
Cool story, though!
Go over this one again. It's piddly stuff, but it matters:
"you're dry goods?"
And from the Department of Redundancy Department, you surely didn't say "nodding his head." did you?
I fixed "you're", good catch.
Nodding his head, I kept. It paints a picture that I like, and although its splitting hairs one way or the other, I want the effect it gives.
Second thought, I DID change it. Tell me if the new way creates the same scene for you.
You don't know the devil. Sorry to deflate your bubble, dude. He doesn't have time for you. He's working on the world leaders. You weren't talking to a demon, either. Neither the devil nor his demons know the future except for what was told to them from God about what will happen to him and his followers (abyss, gnashing of teeth, etc.) They do lie, though, so maybe it was a demon. Doubt it, though. They're more experts on the past.
Um, Natalie?
There's a thing called a Metaphor. A good one contains both tenor and vehicle.
There's another saying, in Latin: "quod erat demonstrandum".
Your post sort of reflects the metaphor.
About me knowing or not knowing the Morningstar....How would you know?
You don't even know me.
Yep, "nodding to the beat" is better.
"Nodding his head" is redundant. What else could he nod with?
You wouldn't say: "he sniffed with his nose," or "heard with his ear," or "kicked with his foot." Since there aren't any other body parts that perform those functions, it isn't necessary to delineate them -- one cannot shrug anything but one's shoulders, and "shrugged" is enough.
Unless, of course, the effect for which you are looking is, you know, poor writing ... ?
Is there any way to tell me these things, oh I don't know, PRIVATELY? Like, in an email? Where God and the rest of the world won't pick at my literary scabs?
Remember that writing class in Beaverton? I did tell you all this stuff. You took notes ...
Unngh....
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