stomach growled. I couldn’t even remember the last time I ate.
I went through the motions of getting ready for a night on the town; again, I couldn’t really remember the last time I had taken a shower, brushed my teeth, or shaved. I had some stubble, but I have a pretty meager beard that’s a bit shy of the daylight, so I can go a fairly long time without shaving and not look too bad. It had been a couple of days since the last shave; had it really been the full week? I didn’t know.
I dressed casually. Orly’s down the street had a nice quiche, with layers of different cheeses baked into it. A really good quiche, it was. I liked it.
Just as I reached for the doorknob on my way out, the doorbell rang. A bit perturbed, because I was really hungry and the prospect of being slowed down didn’t sit well, I opened the door and issued a somewhat less than polite, “Yes?”
Standing there in khakis and a blue polo shirt, the devil flashed a grin. “Finally hit the wall, eh? Probably famished.”
“Pretty hungry,” I replied, opening the door for him to come in. But he stayed put.
“Let’s go, then,” he said. “Nothing better than good food and conversation.” Basically, he invited himself to dinner.
I guess I must have been craving companionship, so I stepped out the door, closed it behind me, and off we went.
I couldn’t have had a finer companion. Small chit-chat all the way to the restaurant wove an aura of intimacy between us. He occasionally would place his hand familiarly on my shoulder as he leaned toward me to give emphasis to some little one-liner, usually of quite ironic import. By the time we reached the restaurant, we seemed fast friends.
It wasn’t crowded, and a little sign declared “Seat yourself.” We headed off for a little table in the corner, away from the few people who sat around nibbling greens or enjoying some after-dinner coffee. We pulled menus from the little stand on the table, though I already knew I wanted the quiche. The devil quickly eyed the offerings, then sheepishly looked at me.
“Not to be forward, dear Timothy,” he stated, “but you do realize I don’t really carry cash or have a credit card.”
If I had been as suave as the devil himself, I would have responded about two seconds sooner and without the initial “er, ah,” before getting around to saying, “No worry. I’ll take care of it.” Then, trying to cover up my lack of smoothness, I winked at him and said, “I owe you, anyway.”
“Indeed?” the devil asked, a look of surprise (though fake, I realize now) on his face. “How so?”
I placed my menu down in front of me and leaned forward, a conspiratorial tone of voice, a loud whisper, issued from my lips. “I’ve been writing,” I said.
“Oh ho!” the devil replied, a careful elation spreading across his demeanor like paint being spread over a wall with a roller. “Tell me!” he demanded, as if he simply had to know all the details.
“So many images, feelings, insights,” I said, on the verge of a breathiness that, from a woman, might sound a little like seduction. And there was a carnalness, a sensualness, to my newfound ability to wrap my mind around the frozen shapes in my mind and convey those things to paper. An act of creation, in the fleshiest sense possible. So new to me; so powerful.
“They hang there, in my head, and I try out different words for them, poking, prodding, sensing what’s right, what’s wrong, what works!” Even thinking about it, my whole body trembled, as if I verged on verbal orgasm.
“Easy, isn’t it,” the devil said, a look of understanding and confidence reaching out to envelop me, “when you really see things for the first time.”
But before I could continue, I realized a waiter stood by the table, head cocked, examining me as if I were some exotic creature, a cockatoo in a cage perhaps. With some reserve, he asked, “Are you ready to order?”
Quickly, shyly, quietly, because he knew I was paying, the devil said to me, “Just a caesar salad, please, and a glass of water.”
I nodded my head and looked up at the waiter. “The quiche lorraine for me. Iced tea. And a caesar salad and a glass of water for my friend.” I gave a half-smile to the waiter, letting him know the order was complete.
“Ah,” the waiter said. “Salad and water for your friend. But you’ll be paying?”
“Well, yes,” I said, a bit put off at such a forward question before the meal was even served. But, then, I had ordered for the devil, so I supposed it to be a fair question.
“Yes, for me and my friend,” I said.
With what seemed a rude sound, the waiter stormed off.
“Bee in his bonnet,” the devil said, shaking his head. “People aren’t so polite anymore, are they?” he asked me.
“No, maybe not,” I half agreed.
“Or maybe ‘polite’ isn’t the word,” the devil continued. “There’s a lack of decorum, of understanding of place in the world. He’s a waiter. We’re the customers. See it for what it is, Timothy. Look with your new eye. Don’t be pushed around.”
I thought on that for a minute. True, the waiter had been rude. And as I thought on the event, it did crystallize for me; the gift the devil had given me to see things in a different way worked whenever I wanted it to, not just at the computer.
“That’s right,” the devil said, interrupting my thoughts, or so I thought; turns out he was simply continuing them. “The eye of the writer is all-seeing, Timothy. The same detachment that has served you so well at the keyboard can be exercised, must be exercised, anywhere, everywhere.” With self-satisfaction, the devil proclaimed, “You have been given the writer’s gift. Use it well.”
The writer’s gift. It sounded so extraordinary; felt so extraordinary. The devil was right; it made a difference. My grasp of grammar, or even of style, had not changed—but I had, at least a little.
“Do you see what happens when the world is not controlled, unorderly?” he asked. “People are taken advantage of—all the time. I got one word for them—and for you mostly, Timothy: fight. Don’t go down without a fight. It’s unhealthy. You’ve let people push you around all your life, thinking it’s because you’re nice, and you don’t really care about life’s little insults. As if you’re above it all. Look inside you, buddy-o. I think you’ll find that you’re not. Your soul sits atop a mountain of resentments.”
The vision came to me; every little hurt, every little insult, every little shove appeared in my mind, captured in a moment in time, frozen for my inspection. I moved to one in particular, and wrapped my mental hands around its icy form—and my soul burned as if it had touched dry ice. I snarled in pain and anger.
“Sir, your meal,” the waiter declared, looking down at me as if a madman. “And your ‘friend’s’ salad and water? Shall I place it here?” Sarcasm dripped from his voice; his words stank, hanging in the air like some acrid eruption of a paper mill smoke stack. He contemptuously placed the salad and water in front of the devil and quickly turned on his heel and started to walk away.
I snapped. “Hey!” I yelled, calling attention to myself, the few others in the restaurant jumping a bit in their seats. But I didn’t care.
