Sympathy for the Devil (29 page)

We both knew Doug Bob was dead.

Something was splashing around down by the creek. "Aw, shit," I said. "Doug Bob was--is our friend. We gotta go look."

It ain't but a few steps to the bank. We could see a man down there, bending over with his bare ass toward us. He was washing something big and pale. It weren't no goat.

Me and Pootie, we stopped at the top of the bank, and the stranger stood up and turned around. I about shit my pants.

He had muscles like a movie star, and a gold tan all the way down, like he'd never wore clothes. The hair on his chest and his short-and-curlies was blonde, and he was hung good. What near to made me puke was that angel's body had a goat head. Only it weren't no goat head you ever saw in your life.

It was like a big heavy ram's head, except it had
antlers
coming up off the top, a twelve point spread off a prize buck, and baby's eyes--big, blue and round in the middle. Not goat's eyes at all. That fur kind of tapered off into golden skin at the neck.

And those blue eyes blazed at me like ice on fire.

The tall, golden thing pointed to a body in the creek. He'd been washing the legs with purple soap. "Help me with this. I think you know how it needs to be done." His voice was windy and creaky, like he hadn't talked to no one for a real long time.

The body was Doug Bob, with his big gut and saggy butt, and a bloody stump of a neck.

"You son of a bitch!" I ran down the bank, screaming and swinging my arms for the biggest punch I could throw. I don't know, maybe I tripped over a root or stumbled at the water's edge, but that golden thing moved like summer lightning just as I slipped off my balance.

Last thing I saw was the butt end of Doug Bob's ragged old knife coming at me in his fist. I heard Pootie crying my name when my head went all red and painful.

The Devil lives in your neighborhood, yours and mine. He lives in every house in every town, and he has a telescope that looks out the bathroom mirror and up from the drains in the kitchen and out of the still water at the bottom of the toilet bowl. He can see inside of everyone's heart through their eyes and down their mouth and up their asshole.

It's true, I know it is.

The hope I hold secret deep inside my heart is that there's one place on God's green earth the Devil can't see.

I was naked, my dick curled small and sticky to my thigh like it does after I've been looking through the bathroom window. A tight little trail of cum itched my skin. My ass was on dirt, and I could feel ants crawling up the crack. I opened my mouth to say, "Fine," and a fly buzzed out from the inside. There was another one in the left side of my nose that seemed ready to stay a spell.

I didn't really want to open my eyes. I knew where I was. My back was against hot metal. It felt sticky. I was leaning against Doug Bob's bus and part of that new Bible verse about Uncle Reuben under the driver's window had run and got Doug Bob's heart blood all down my back. I could smell mesquite smoke, cooked meat, shit, blood, and the old oily metal of the bus.

But in all my senses, in the feel of the rusted metal, in the warmth of the ground, in the stickiness of the blood, in the sting of the ant bites, in the touch of the fly crawling around inside my nose, in the stink of Doug Bob's rotten little yard, there was something missing. It was an absence, a space, like when you get a tooth busted out in a fight, and notice it for not being there.

I was surrounded by absence, cold in the summer heat. My heart felt real slow. I still didn't want to open my eyes.

"You know," said that windy, creaky voice, sounding even more hollow and thin than before, "if they would just repent of their murders, their sorceries, their fornication, and their thefts, this would be a lot harder."

The voice was sticky, like the blood on my back, and cold, coming from the middle of whatever was missing around me. I opened my eyes and squinted into the afternoon sun.

Doug Bob's face smiled at me. Leastwise it tried to. Up close I could tell a whole lot of it was burnt off, with griddle marks where his head had lain a while on the smoker. Blackened bone showed through across the cheeks. Doug Bob's head was duct-taped to the neck of that glorious, golden body, greasy black hair falling down those perfect shoulders. The head kept trying to lop over as he moved, like it was stuck on all wompered. His face was puffy and burnt-up, weirder than Doug Bob mostly ever looked.

The smoker must of been working again.

The golden thing with Doug Bob's head had Pootie spread out naked next to the smoker. I couldn't tell if he was dead, but sure he wasn't moving. Doug Bob's legs hung over the side of the smoker, right where he'd always put the goat legs. Cissy's crazy knife was in that golden right hand, hanging loose like Uncle Reuben holds his when he's fixing to fight someone.

"I don't understand..." I tried to talk, but burped up a little bit of vomit and another fly to finish my sentence. The inside of my nose stung with the smell, and the fly in there didn't seem to like it much neither. "You stole Doug Bob's head."

"You see, my son, I have been set free from my confinement. My time is at hand." Doug Bob's face wrinkled into a smile, as some of his burnt lip scaled away. I wondered how much of Doug Bob was still down in the creek. "But even I can not walk the streets with my proud horns."

His voice got sweeter, stronger, as he talked. I stared up at him, blinking in the sunlight.

"Rise up and join me. We have much work to do, preparations for my triumph. As the first to bow to my glory you shall rank high among my new disciples, and gain your innermost desire."

Uncle Reuben taught me long ago how this sweet bullshit always ends. The old Doug Bob liked me. Maybe even loved me a little. He was always kind to me, which this golden Doug Bob ain't never gonna be.

It must be nice to be loved a lot.

I staggered to my feet, farting ants, using the ridges in the sheet metal of the bus for support. It was hot as hell, and even the katydids had gone quiet. Except for the turkey vultures circling low over me, I felt like I was alone in a giant dirt coffin with a huge blue lid over my head. I felt expanded, swollen in the heat like a dead coyote by the side of the road.

The thing wearing Doug Bob's head narrowed his eyes at me. There was a faint crinkling sound as the lids creased and broke.

"Get over here,
now
." His voice had the menace of a Sunday morning twister headed for a church, the power of a wall of water in the arroyo where kids played.

I walked toward the Devil, feet stepping without my effort.

There's a place I can go, inside, when Uncle Reuben's pushing into me, or he's using the metal end of the belt, or Momma's screaming through the thin walls of our trailer the way he can make her do. It's like ice cream without the cone, like cotton candy without the stick. It's like how I imagine Rachel MacIntire's nipples, sweet and total, like my eyes and heart are in my lips and the world has gone dark around me.

It's the place where I love myself, deep inside my heart.

I went there and listened to the little shuffling of my pulse in my ears.

My feet walked on without me, but I couldn't tell.

Cissy's knife spoke to me. The Devil must of put it in my hand.

"We come again to Moriah," it whispered in my heart. It had a voice like its metal blade, cold from the ground and old as time.

"What do you want?" I asked. I must of spoke out loud, because Doug Bob's burned mouth was twisting in screaming rage as he stabbed his golden finger down toward Pootie, naked at my feet next to the smoker. All I could hear was my pulse, and the voice of the knife.

Deep inside my heart, the knife whispered again. "Do not lay a hand on the boy."

The golden voice from Doug Bob's face was distant thunder in my ears. I felt his irritation, rage, frustration building where I had felt that cold absence.

I tried again. "I don't understand."

Doug Bob's head bounced up and down, the duct tape coming loose. I saw pink ropy strings working to bind the burned head to his golden neck. He cocked back a fist, fixing to strike me a hard blow.

I felt the knife straining across the years toward me. "You have a choice. The Enemy promises anything and everything for your help. I can give you nothing but the hope of an orderly world. You choose what happens now, and after."

I reckoned the Devil would run the world about like Uncle Reuben might. Doug Bob was already dead, and Pootie was next, and there wasn't nobody else like them in my life, no matter what the Devil promised. I figured there was enough hurt to go around already and I knew how to take it into me.

Another one of Uncle Reuben's lessons.

"Where you want this killing done?" I asked.

The golden thunder in my ears paused for a moment, the tide of rage lapped back from the empty place where Doug Bob wasn't. The fist dropped down.

"Right here, right now," whispered the knife. "Or it will be too late. Seven is being opened."

I stepped out of my inside place to find my eyes still open and Doug Bob's blackened face inches from my nose. His teeth were burnt and cracked, and his breath reeked of flies and red meat. I smiled, opened my mouth to speak, but instead of words I swung Cissy's knife right through the duct tape at the throat of Doug Bob's head.

He looked surprised.

Doug Bob's head flew off, bounced into the bushes. The golden body swayed, still on its two feet. I looked down at Pootie, the old knife cold in my hands.

Then I heard buzzing, like thunder made of wires.

I don't know if you ever ate a fly, accidental or not. They go down fighting, kind of tickle the throat, you get a funny feeling for a second, and then it's all gone. Not very filling, neither.

These flies came pouring out of the ragged neck of that golden body. They were big, the size of horseflies. All at once they were everywhere, and they came right at me. They came pushing at my eyes and my nose and my ears and flying right into my mouth, crawling down my throat. It was like stuffing yourself with raisins till you choke, except these raisins crawled and buzzed and bit at me.

The worst was they got all over me, crowding into my butt crack and pushing on my asshole and wrapping around my balls like Uncle Reuben's fingers right before he squeezed tight. My skin rippled, as if them flies crawled through my flesh.

I jumped around, screaming and slapping at my skin. My gut heaved, but my throat was full of flies and it all met in a knot at the back of my mouth. I rolled to the ground, choking on the rippling mess I couldn't spit out nor swallow back down. Through the flies I saw Doug Bob's golden body falling in on itself, like a balloon that's been popped. Then the choking took me off.

I lied about the telescope. I don't need one.

Right after, while I was still mostly myself, I sent Pootie away with that old knife to find one of Doug Bob's kin. They needed that knife, to make their sacrifices that would keep me shut away. I made Pootie seal me inside the bus with Doug Bob's duct tape before he left.

The bus is hot and dark, but I don't really mind. There's just me and the flies and a hot metal floor with rubber mats and huge stacks of old Bibles and hymnals that make it hard for me to move around.

It's okay, though, because I can watch the whole world from in here.

I hate the flies, but they're the only company I can keep. The taste grows on me.

I know Pootie must of found someone to give that old knife to. I try the doors sometimes, but they hold firm. Somewhere one of Doug Bob's brothers or uncles or cousins cuts goats the old way. Someday I'll find him. I can see every heart except one, but there are too many to easily tell one from another.

There's only one place under God's golden sun the Devil can't see into, and that's his own heart.

I still have my quiet place. That's where I hold my hope, and that's where I go when I get too close to the goat cutter.

On the Road to
New Egypt

Jeffrey Ford

One day when I was driving home from work, I saw him there on the side of the road. He startled me at first, but I managed to control myself and apply the brakes. His face was fixed with a look somewhere between agony and elation. That thumb he thrust out at an odd angle was gnarled and had a long nail. The sun was setting and red beams danced around him. I stopped and leaned over to open the door.

"You're Jesus, right?" I said.

"Yeah," he said and held up his palms to show the stigmata.

"Hop in," I told him.

"Thanks, man," he said as he gathered up his robe and slipped into the front seat.

As I pulled back onto the road, he took out a pack of Camel Wides and a dark blue Bic lighter. "You don't mind, do you?" he asked, but he already had a cigarette in his mouth and was bringing a flame to it.

"Go for it," I said.

"Where you headed?" he asked.

"Home, unless you're here to tell me different," I said, forcing a laugh.

"Easy, easy," he said.

After a short silence, Christ took a couple of deep drags and blew the smoke out the partially opened window.

"Where are
you
going?" I asked.

"You know, just up the road a piece."

We stopped at a red light and I looked over at him. That crown of thorns must have itched like hell. I shook my head and said, "Wait till I tell my wife about this."

"She religious?" he asked.

"Not particularly, but still, she'll get the impact."

He smiled and flicked some ashes into his palm.

We drove on for a while through the vanishing light, past fields of pumpkins and dried corn stalks. A few minutes later, night fell, and I turned on the headlights. I didn't see it at first, but a possum darted out into the road right in front of the car.
Bump, bump,
we were over it in a microsecond. I looked at Christ.

He shrugged as if to say, "What can you do?"

"... and Heaven?" I asked as the car traveled into a valley where the trees from either side of the road had, above, grown together into a canopy.

"Angels, blue skies, your relatives are all there. The greats are there. Basically everybody is there. It gets a little tense sometimes, a little close."

"You said that 'basically' everybody is in Heaven," I said. "Who isn't?"

"You know," he said, "those other people."

We kept going past the fences of the horse farms, the edges of barren fields, until Christ had me stop as McDonald's and order him a quarter pounder with cheese, and a chocolate shake. I paid for it with my last couple of dollars.

He said, "I'll pay you back in indulgences."

"Hey, it's on me," I said.

He wolfed down the burger like the Son of Man that he was.

"So what have you seen in your travels?" I asked.

"You name it," he said, sucking at his shake. "The human drama."

"Do you ever stop anywhere?"

"Sometimes. I'm always on the look-out for an old Howard Johnson." There was a short pause and then he said, "Could you step on it a little, have to be in New Egypt by eight."

"Sure thing," I said and put down the pedal. "You meeting someone?"

"I've been seeing this woman there on and off for the past couple of years. Every once in a while I'll appear, give her a little push and then split by sunup."

"She must be pretty special."

"Yeah," he said, and took out a flattened wallet. "Here she is."

He showed me an old photo of this forty-five-year-old ex-blonde-bombshell in a leopard bikini.

"Nice," I said.

"Nice isn't the word for it," he said, with a wink.

"What's she do?" I asked.

"A little of this, a little of that," he said.

"No, I mean, where does she work?"

"At the funeral parlor. She sews mouths and lids shut. She lives in a small house in the center of town. When I get there, she's usually in bed. I step out of the armoire, minus the robe, and slip between the sheets with her. We eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil for a few hours and then lay back, have a smoke."

"Does she know who you are?"

"I hope by this time she's figured it out," he said.

"She'll end up going to the tabloids with the story," I warned.

"Screw it, she already has. We were in that one recently with Bigfoot on the cover and the story about the woman who turned to stone on page three."

"I missed that one, but I remember the cover."

All of a sudden Christ sat straight up and pointed out the windshield. "Whoa, whoa," he said, "pull over like you're going to pick this guy up."

Only when he spoke did I see the shadowy figure up ahead on the side of the road. I could see it was a guy and that he was hitchhiking. I passed by him a few feet and then pulled over to the shoulder. We could hear him running toward the car.

"Okay, peel out," Christ said.

I did and we left that stranger in the dust.

"I love that one," said the savior.

A few minutes passed and then I heard a hatchet of a voice from the back seat. "You fuckers," it said. I looked in the rearview mirror and there was the Devil--horns, red skin, cheesy whiskers in a goatee. As I looked at him his grin turned into a wide smile.

Jesus reached back and offered a hand.

"Who's the stiff at the wheel?" asked the Devil.

"You mean fat boy here?" Christ said and they both burst out laughing. "He's cool."

"Nice to meet you," said the Devil.

I reached back and shook a hand that was a tree branch with the power to grip. "Name's Jeff," I said.

"I am Legion," he hissed.

Then he stuck his head in the space between us and shot a little burp of flame into the air. Christ doubled over with silent laughter. "I got a bag of Carthage Red on me, you got any papers?" the Devil asked, putting his hand on Christ's shoulder.

"Does the Pope shit in the woods?" asked the Son of God.

The Devil got the papers and started rolling one in the back seat. "Jeff, you ever try this shit?"

"I never heard of it."

"It's old, man, it'll make you see God."

"By the way," Christ said, interrupting, "what ever happened with that guy in Detroit?"

"I took him," said the Devil. "Mass murderer, just reeking evil. He hung himself in the jail cell. They conveniently forgot to remove his belt."

"I thought I told you I wanted him," said Christ.

"I thought I cared," said the Devil. "Anyway, you get that old woman from Tampa. She's going to make canonization. I guarantee it."

"I guess that's cool," he said.

"Eat me if it isn't," said the Devil. They both started laughing and each patted me on the back. The Devil lit up the enormous joint he had created and the odd pink smoke began to permeate the car.

It tasted like cinnamon and fire and even with only the first toke, I was stunned. Paranoia set in instantly, and I slowed the car down to about thirty. I drove blindly while in my head I saw the autumn afternoon woods of my childhood, where it was so still and the leaves silently fell. I thought of home and it was far away.

When my mind returned to me at a red light, I realized that the radio was on. New Age music, a piano, some low moaning formed a backdrop to the conversation of my passengers.

"What do you think?" Christ had just asked.

"I think this music has to go," said the Devil. His fingers grew like snakes from the back seat, and he kept pressing the scan button on the radio until he came to the oldies station. "Back seat memories," he said.

Somehow it was decided that we would go to Florida and check out the lady who was going to become a saint. "Maybe she'll pop a miracle," said the Devil.

"No sweat," said Christ.

"My wife's expecting me home around nine," I said.

The Devil laughed really loud. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "I'll split myself in two, and half of me will go to your house and boff your wife till we get back."

Christ leaned over and put his hand on my knee. "Don't be an idiot," he said to me with a smile. "I have to be in New Egypt by eight."

"You can do things?" I asked.

"Look," said Christ, nodding toward the windshield. "We're there. Just make a right at this corner. It's the third house on the left."

I looked up and saw that we were in a suburban neighborhood with palm trees lining the side of the road. The houses were all one-story ranch styles and painted in pastel colors. When I pulled the car over in front of the house, I could hear crickets singing quickly in the night heat.

Before we got out, the Devil leaned toward the front seat and said to Christ, "I'll make you a bet she doesn't do a miracle while we're here."

"Bullshit," said Christ.

"What do you want to bet?" asked the Devil.

"How about
him
," said the savior and pointed that weird thumb at me.

"Quite the high roller," said the Devil.

As we were walking up the driveway to the front door, the Devil lagged a little behind us. I leaned over and, in a whisper, asked Christ if he thought she would perform.

He shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Have faith, man," he said. "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."

"I heard that," said the Devil. "I don't like whispering."

We walked right through the front door and into the living room where a woman was sitting in front of the television. At first, I thought she was deaf, but it soon became clear that we were completely invisible to her.

The Devil walked up behind me and handed me a sixteen-ounce Rolling Rock. "There she is in all her splendor," he said, as he handed a beer to Christ. "Doesn't look like much of an opportunity here unless she's gonna get better looking."

We stood and stared at her. She was about sixty-five with short hair dyed brown and wearing a flowered bathrobe. On the coffee table in front of her sat an ashtray with a lit cigarette in one of the holders. In her left hand she held a glass of ark wine. As the daily reports of mayhem and greed came through the box, she shook her head from time to time and sipped her drink.

"What's she done?" I asked.

"She brought a kid back from the dead a few months ago," said the Devil. "A girl was hit by a car outside a local grocery store. Mrs. Lumley, here, was present and just touched the girl's hand. The kid got right up off the stretcher and walked away."

"Strange shit," said Christ. "We don't really know how it works."

"You mean," I said, "that you can't make her do a miracle?"

"Not exactly," said Christ.

"That's a bitch, isn't it?" said the Devil. "Now drink your beer and calm down."

The Devil walked around behind Mrs. Lumley's chair and used two fingers to make horns behind her head. Christ went to pieces over that one. I even had to laugh while we watched her pick her nose. She was at it for a good five minutes. Christ applauded her every strategy, and the Devil said, "The one that got away."

"We better sit down. This may take a few minutes," said Christ.

The Devil and I sat down on the couch and Christ took an old rocker across from us. The evil one rolled another huge joint and listened intently to the report on television of a murder/suicide in California. Mrs. Lumley began singing "The Whispering Wind" to herself in between sips of wine while Christ hummed in a duet with her.

"I've had more fun in church," said the Devil, as he passed me the joint. Again, I tasted the cinnamon and fire, and I took big gulps of beer to soothe my throat.

Christ begged off and just rocked contentedly in his chair.

The news eventually ended and
Jeopardy
came on the television. "Wait till I get my hooks into
this
asshole," the Devil said, nodding toward the host of the show.

"He's yours," said Christ. "It's on me." Then he pointed his finger at Mrs. Lumley and made her change the channel to a
Star Trek
rerun.

While we waited for something to happen, the Devil showed me a trick. He took a big draw of Carthage Red and then exhaled it in a perfect globe of smoke. The globe hovered in the air before my eyes and turned crystal clear. Then it was filled with an image of my wife and kids reading bedtime stories. When I reached for it, the globe popped like a soap bubble.

"Parlor tricks," said Christ.

Eventually, Mrs. Lumley got up, turned off the set, and went into her bedroom. We followed her as far as the door, where we looked in at her. She was kneeling next to the bed, saying her prayers.

"I hope you like the heat," the Devil said to me.

Then Christ said, "Look."

Mrs. Lumley lay on the floor, her body twitching. A steady groan escaped through her clenched teeth. In seconds, her skin had become a metallic blue and her head had doubled in size. Fangs, claws, gills, audibly popped from her features. She turned her head to face us, and I could feel she was actually seeing us with her expanding eyes.

"Shit," said the Devil, and turned and ran toward the door.

"Let's get out of here," said Christ, and he too turned and ran. I followed close behind.

By the time we got outside, the Devil was sticking his head out of the back-seat window of the car. "Move your asses," he yelled.

I ran around the front of the car and climbed in the driver's seat as fast as I could. Mrs. Lumley, now some kind of rapidly changing blue creature, growled from the front lawn. I turned on the ignition and hit the gas.

"What the fuck was that supposed to be?" said Christ, catching his breath as he passed us each a cigarette.

"Your old man is out of his mind," said the Devil. "It's all getting just a little too strange."

"Tell me about it," said Christ. "Remember, I warned you back when they first walked on the moon."

"This is some really evil shit, though," said the Devil.

"The whole ball of wax is falling apart," said Christ.

"I actually had a break-out in the ninth hole of Hell last week," said the Devil. "A big bastard--he smashed right through the ice. Killed one demon with his bare hands and broke another one's back."