Читать книгу The Devil Likes to Sing - Thomas J. Davis - Страница 9

Frantic days of writing—just for practice, so every computer bit and byte was trashed at night—brought on odd dreams at night. After a week, I began to wind down a little, and for the first time since the devil’s visit I thought I might need to leave the apartment for a while. Maybe a nice dinner out. My 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.

The waiter turned slowly, a look of exasperation on his face. “Yes?” he asked.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” I said, emphasizing hell, just for fun, thinking it a private little joke between the devil and me, “but I’m a paying customer. A regular customer. I will not be treated in this fashion.” I felt my face flushing; the red worked its way up my neck to the top of my head. I had never used this tone of voice on a stranger; but I liked it. Rage boiled up within me, and I simply let it go.

“Bring me the manager,” I demanded, throwing my napkin onto the table for good measure. The fellow’s name was Jerry; six of seven nights he worked this shift, overseeing things. He knew to see me, being a regular customer. And he knew I had money; there had been enough stories on the sales of my little books in the Trib and Sun Times for me to be on the radar screen, at least, for most of the locals. I tipped very well; I treated large numbers of people, at times.

Jerry appeared out of the kitchen, a puzzled look plastered on his face. He had heard the commotion and came out to investigate.

“A problem?” he asked, looking at me then giving the waiter the once-over.

“Yes,” I declared. “This waiter is simply too rude to put up with. Have I ever complained about the service here, or the food, in any way?”

Jerry allowed as how I had never done such a thing.

And then, something came over me. Maybe the images that had popped into my head had been too much, brought back too many bad memories. I blurted out, “Fire him!”

“What?” Jerry asked, not believing what he had just heard.

I took on the best dead-level tone I could muster, despite the fact that I was shaking inside. The rage had hold of me, and I thought my insides would explode. This was new territory for me, but I was determined to explore it as fully as possible.

“Fire him, or I never come back,” I demanded. “And I’ll tell all my friends never to come again.”

I could see Jerry considering it, but I couldn’t tell where he’d come down.

“I’ll write something,” I blurted out, “send it to the papers. Talk about the decline of ‘decorum’ in restaurants.” I stole a glance at the devil, and he gave me a little smile, obviously pleased I had picked up on his observation. Then I delivered the coup de grâce. “And Orly’s will be front and center,” I declared, “as a prime example of everything that’s wrong with restaurants today.”

That did it. Jerry was a manager, and a good one. He knew a business decision when he saw it. My stature as an author helped me here; actually, I probably couldn’t have broken into the Trib except on the obituary page, truth be told. But all Jerry knew was that I was a famous writer (which meant he didn’t know enough about the biz to recognize that “rich” didn’t necessarily mean “famous,” not in the sense of influence or appreciation), and so he turned to the now-wilting waiter and said, “Come in for your check tomorrow. You’re fired.”

The waiter began to babble a bit. “Leave now,” Jerry said, “or I call the cops.” Jerry turned to me and said, “I’ll get you a new waiter,” then turned to go back to the kitchen, without looking to see if the newly unemployed had left yet or not. His posture was clear—he fully expected him to be gone, or he would call the police.

The waiter turned and walked slowly out the door.

Maybe it was the adrenaline rush; I wasn’t really hungry anymore.

And so I looked at the devil to see what he was up to—mostly he had moved the salad around on his plate. “Let’s beat it,” I said to him, getting up without waiting for his agreement, slapping thirty bucks on the table for the bill. A waiter rushed out toward us, but I simply called back over my shoulder, “We’re done.”

The walk home was quiet. The devil hummed some song or another—maybe one of his operas, but I wasn’t sure—while I went over the scene again and again in my head. My stomach knotted up—I realized I was hungry. I’d have to order a pizza because I hadn’t eaten very much in several days. A weird feeling. Like what I had done was just right; I shouldn’t have had to take that waiter’s guff. I was the customer, for crying out loud. And it was like all the times in the past when I had let things slide; but seems they just slid right down into some place in my memory where the scoreboard flashed “zero” for my side, and I was tired of always being so far behind.

But it was wrong, too. Wrong for me. It wasn’t like me to yell at someone like that. I was a nice guy; in all the good ways that attribution can be meant, and all the bad ways. People did walk all over me, at least more than they should. But I also think some people’s lives were, at least for a little while in some place or another, a little more tolerable because I had been nice to them when I didn’t have to be. Why did the wrong sorts have to take advantage of that?

Before I knew it, we were back at the apartment. I called one of the multitude of pizza parlors in Hyde Park that serviced the academic community, which meant a whole lot of penny-pinching grad students who rarely had the money for a really good tip. I sat down to wait. Finally, the devil spoke.

“Write before you forget,” he said.

“Write what?” I asked, beginning now to feel a huge let-down after the little scene in the restaurant.

“What you were thinking before,” the devil said. “Use this. Don’t waste your writer’s eye, and don’t waste your experience.” As if reminding me ever so gently of things Jill had said, he exhorted, “Grow, Timothy, grow. Put this to good use. Remember the images from the restaurant, the ones that spurred you to do something you’ve never done in your whole Milquetoast life.” I started to object, but he simply threw up a hand and, rather gently, said, “Grow.”

And so I sat down at the computer. This time, I decided to give my writing more of a story form, complete with a title.

“The Slow Death of Nice People”

My fingers flew. The story opened with a clear-eyed analysis of a recent slight. I had been in McDonald’s, waiting forever for service. The line was six deep when I first walked in; after five minutes, it was still five deep. After fifteen minutes, one person still stood in front of me. I watched as every move of the server played as if in a slow-motion movie. I had an appointment, and now I was going to be very close to being late—I hated being late. And the entire McDonald’s staff acted as if intent on keeping me in their restaurant as long as possible.

Finally, another server came up and keyed in to the register. I started to step over, finally ready to give my order, when someone from behind me, who had just come in, sped around me to the register, rattling off his order before he had even taken his last step or two up to the counter.

I used all the pent-up anger I had writing the scene. A coherent story took shape. I barely realized the devil was there. He must have turned on the TV; at some point, I thought he must be watching some soap opera, because I heard about a guy who had just come home from losing his job, and before he could even explain to his wife what had happened and how unfair it had been, she scooped up their baby and left. Sounded like for good. But that’s all I caught. Too caught up by the muses.

As I typed the last word, I heard a familiar guitar riff, a sound from my past. I turned and saw the devil, guitar in hand, step up to the mike that now stood in the middle of my living room. Colored spotlights swirled about him as he sang “Taking care of business.” His hair had gone all permed, just like ol’ Turner used to wear it, and he played through the whole chorus, sounding for the world like Bachman Turner Overdrive coming over the radio.

For a moment, I remembered something from St. Augustine. He believed the devil had no real substance of his own—it was all borrowed, stolen, taken. And, for just a second, that insight flashed into my head, like a revelation. The devil can never really be anything more than an imitator. He’s an aper, pure and simple.

But then the devil gave a sweep of his hand and a bow, my moment of insight disappeared like a bad magic trick, and he said, “Good for you, Timothy, good for you.” The devil had effectively and quickly pulled my attention back to myself. “Put it down, these feelings, the reality of these feelings. It’s a start. Keep working at it. You’ve practiced long enough. Make a good short story out of this. From the way it sounded, you’ve already got the first draft.”