What Would Satan Do?

by Anthony Miller

  In the middle of this brick-and-mortar wasteland, there is an intersection. And at that intersection, on this particular Sunday, the former Lord and Master of the Underworld waited, pointed in the general direction of the Governor’s Mansion.

  The Devil sat. His engine idled. He rolled his neck and shrugged his shoulders and sat some more. He glared at the stoplight. It was not a very nice stoplight. Not that that’s really saying anything – they all suck. But this one was a particularly mean, old stoplight.

  Most folks don’t know that stoplights have personalities. Sure, most of us indulge in the occasional anthropomorphization of objects – labeling this boat a “she,” or that broken can opener a “complete fucker.” But there aren’t that many people out there who really believe (or who will admit to believing) that inanimate objects have feelings (or, in the case of broken can openers, loathsome, nefarious agendas). And the few people who really do believe in that sort of thing are mostly raving idiots who shouldn’t be trusted with ships (or can openers, for that matter). This works out pretty well, on the whole, because most inanimate objects are, in fact, just that: inanimate.

  Except for stoplights. Stoplights have personalities. Some are nice. Some are wistful. Some are complacent. Most are assholes. Their hopes and desires and dislikes and dispositions run the gamut – just like people. But unlike people, stoplights can’t actually do anything about any of these things. This is especially galling (for stoplights) because most were, in their past lives, gods of one sort or another who outlived their usefulness, and are now, quite understandably, pissed at only being able to shine red, green, or yellow.

  People eventually cease to believe in or pray to or sacrifice for or need or even care about most gods, and when a god becomes obsolete, he (or she or it) gets reassigned. And due to the fact that the universe is an infinitely weird and fucked up place, most end up reassigned as stoplights. This particular light happened to have been the Greek goddess Enodia (in charge of crossroads and gates) in a past life.

  Satan – a god only in disposition and, anyway, still relevant enough to escape relegation to the mytho-galactic parts bin – continued to sit at this bitchy stoplight. He waited. On any other day, the Devil’s normal response to the interminable, evil stoplight would have been to do something decisive. Something rash even. Like stomping the accelerator and laying twin strips of quarter-inch-thick rubber across the intersection and maybe exploding some nearby buildings for good measure. But not today. Today, Satan was tired – ridiculously, impossibly tired. He had, after all, just come off a string of more than fifteen hours of mostly uninterrupted driving. And so he just sat, feeling wiped out, and maybe just a little bit weary.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d been in this state, but exhaustion wasn’t really something he’d gotten the hang of. His first experience with fatigue had come at the end of his first full week in a human body – a seven-day marathon of debauchery and rage-fueled obliteration of pretty much anything and everything close to hand (including an unfortunate family of squirrels in Farragut Square). The Devil had thought then that he’d broken something. Or that the body was defective maybe, and that he ought, perhaps, to try exchanging it for another. But then he’d collapsed and slept for almost thirty-six hours straight.

  When he awoke, refreshed and just a tiny bit giddy, he surmised that this was just one of the limitations imposed by the human body he chose to inhabit. It was just like it had been with the snake, which he’d been able to make talk, but not fly (which would have substantially increased the awesomeness of the Book of Genesis). He accepted this – mostly because he liked the waking up bit so much – and put himself on a regular, almost-human sleep schedule. He never quite got the knack, however, of recognizing when exhaustion was creeping in and clouding his mind. But then, when you view the world through insanity-tinted lenses, everything seems fucked up, and it’s hard to tell when you’re not quite thinking straight.

  He sighed, mostly too tired to care that the only thing that crossed in front of him were a few leaves and bits of trash carried by an intermittent breeze. He gripped the steering wheel with human hands and worried: Had he been right to come to Earth? Had he been right just to leave like he had? To leave, and live as a human, abandoning the world and His Plan to work themselves out? Of course, he had figured that, without him, things couldn’t go forward. That was The Plan, after all, wasn’t it? He was essential, wasn’t he? It was his job to instigate things – he felt sure of it. Mostly sure, anyway. How could it possibly happen without him? It couldn’t. No way. But then, all the signs seem to suggest that that’s exactly what was happening.

  The ex-goddess Enodia continued to be a stubborn bitch, but the Devil hardly noticed as he sat, lost in his thoughts, watching as zero cars crossed through the intersection in front of him. He also failed entirely to notice the monster-sized truck that came up behind him (of course, the Italian guys who build the cars claim that Lamborghini drivers don’t really need to bother looking at what is behind them), or the low-pitched urrrping sound of its knobby tires attempting to slide to a stop. Nor was he aware that the truck, emblazoned with flames, images of the Confederate flag, and various stickers professing the driver’s loyalty to the National Rifle Association and to the Lord Jesus Christ, Savior and King, had, in fact, been following him for nearly twenty miles. He did, however, register a jolt as the behemoth smashed into the back of his Lamborghini, crushing the hand-crafted engine.

  The stoplight finally changed to green.

  The next thing Satan was aware of was his window being shattered with a crowbar, and bits of glass spraying his face. A pair of hands reached in and grabbed his jacket, trying to drag him through the small opening. This will not do, he thought. The hands disappeared, and the Dark Lord heard a surprised scream. He glanced out the space where the window had been and saw that there were at least three men.

  “Oh, shit! What the fuck is that?” said one of the men.

  “He turned Jimmy into a newt!”

  “That’s not a newt, you dumbass. It’s a komodo dragon.”

  There was another scream, though this one sounded more like a scream of pain than fear.

  “He bit me. Get it off! Get it off!”

  “Don’t kick Jimmy, goddamnit!”

  “He bit me!”

  Inside the car, Satan reeled. His cheek hurt. He reached up and felt something hard and sharp on his skin. It was a glass shard, and it came off easily, as if it had just been sitting there on the surface of his face. When he pulled his hand back to look at it, he saw that it was covered with blood. In fact, his whole hand was covered in blood. A strange, new sensation enveloped his body. His head felt lighter than normal. His heart rate shot up, like it did when he got angry, but instead of the urge to destroy things, all he felt was a very strong desire to sleep.

  The men outside, having apparently come to grips with Jimmy’s ascension to the komodo dragon plane of existence, returned their attention to the car. Or, rather, the individual inside the car. Hands reached in again, clawing and pulling. Satan scooted away from the door, but the men yanked it open. He reversed course, and started to get up out of the car, just as one of the men grabbed him by the lapels. Tight jeans, thought the Devil, much too tight. He tried to set those pants on fire, but there was only smoke. He tried again.

  “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!” said the man, whose arms were now burning. He let go of Satan’s jacket, and toppled backward onto the cement. The Devil stood, wondering why the whole man hadn’t caught on fire. But his wondering was cut short by another one of those first-experiences-for-Satan-in-a-human-body moments – that of having a crow bar crash down on his skull.

  The next thing he was aware of was that he was being dragged by the arms, his head lolling this way and that, across the asphalt, and away from his beloved – and now destroyed – automobile. He struggled to separate the throbbing sensation in his head from the pang he felt at losing another Lamborghini. He thought that he’d just
have to get another one, and he wondered for an instant what color he’d choose this time. But then he was confused about what kind of car it was or where he’d got it. And then he couldn’t remember what he was thinking about. Or where he was. Or what he was doing there.

  His thoughts shifted to the dull, throbbing sensation in his head, and the sting of something – blood? – running down into his eyes. That was certainly unpleasant. But then, there seemed to be a lot of unpleasantness right now. He seemed to be moving; sliding backwards. It was all very confusing. Something clicked and he remembered that he was being dragged somewhere by two men. Ah, yes, he thought. I’m being attacked by assholes. Assholes in need of killing, no doubt. He put his legs underneath him and twisted upward, trying to tear himself out of the grip of the two men. But it was no use – his body lacked the strength. He tried again, and one of the men kicked him.

  “Ow! Why are you trying to—” he asked, and for the second time in less than a minute, something heavy and hard crashed down on his head.

  When he came to a moment later, he was leaning up against a dumpster. Bolts of pain shot down his neck and back, and he felt as if he were going to split in two lengthwise. Standing in front of him were two men who looked as if they did all their clothes shopping at truck stops. They were arguing in urgent half-whispers, but he couldn’t make out any of the words. One of them had a gun, which he was waving in Satan’s general direction as he argued. Finally, the other man tore off his hat – a mesh baseball cap advertising some sort of bait and tackle shop – and used it to smack the man who was holding the gun. He shoved the gunman toward Satan.

  “Do it already.”

  The man with a gun hesitated, pointed the gun at the Devil, and fired.

  Satan felt a searing, burning sensation in his belly that blossomed into a hurt that seemed to cover the entire spectrum of pain all at once. Layer upon layer of pain radiated outward – down his legs, up his chest. The muscles in his abdomen clenched up of their own accord, doubling him over onto his side. His throat tightened, and he let out a raspy groan as he struggled to breathe in. It was cold – terribly cold. He needed to get out – out from the body – so that he could get these – destroy these men—

  The gun fired again, and Satan collapsed in a heap of spent flesh.

  Chapter 26. Rule No. 37: Always Take the Body with You

  Whitford’s mid-afternoon snack seemed to want to help out as he answered the phone. “Brr-r-r-ello?” His face was impassive as he listened to the tiny voice coming from the handset, but then a smile appeared and spread over the wide expanse of flesh. “You found him? Already? That’s—” He stopped, reining in his enthusiasm. “That’s good news. So, okay. Where’s the body?” He paused again, and then sat forward, smacking the desk with his hand. “What? They didn’t? Well, tell them to go back and get it. Get it.” The squeaky telephone voice got louder and more urgent. “No,” said Whitford. “I don’t care. Just get it.” He hung up.

  Chapter 27. Satan Wakes Up to Bunny Slippers

  It was bright. The sky was the kind of profound and enticing and cloudless blue that only seems to show up on Mondays, when it’s time to head back to work or school or jail or whatever. It was also hot. Unusually hot – unusual, that is, unless you’re from Texas and you’re used to fucked-up, hot days springing up suddenly in the middle of what is supposed to be, but never is, the cool season.

  In the middle of the enormous sky, the midday sun lingered, blinding and oppressive, and beat down like a giant, 2-nonillion kilogram ball of incandescent, boiling gas parked a mere 93 million miles away. A very slight breeze blew in, offering a tantalizing hint of cool relief, but then decided it was way too hot to spend the day hanging around blowing on things, and flitted off to find some shade. A nearby fountain burbled.

  Satan lay slumped in an awkward heap by the side of a ripe-smelling dumpster, his pinstriped suit dusty and in tatters. One arm of the jacket had disappeared entirely, and the underlying, blood-stained shirtsleeve looked as if it had had a run in with an automatic-juicer-and-julienne-fry-o-matic from some late-night infomercial. His fancy shoes were gone, and his socks were nowhere to be found. Despite the state of his apparel, however, Satan appeared to be whole and completely unscathed. A little dead looking, maybe, but there was no blood actually on his body – coagulated or otherwise – and nothing really to indicate that he had, in fact, been wearing the clothes when they had been so thoroughly abused.

  An odiferous man in a faded blue, floral bathrobe and bunny slippers shuffled up. In his hand he held an oversized placard that read, “Repent! The End Is Nigh!” He noticed the pile of distinguished-yet-disheveled gentleman next to the dumpster and scooted over to have a look.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Satan continued to look dead. The man laid his sign aside and, kneeling down, jiggled Satan’s collar. Satisfied that Satan was not actually dead, the man rose. One of the members of the order of rodentia ventured out to investigate, thinking (or smelling) the man to be one of their brethren, but the man cleared his throat, and the rat scurried off.

  “Wake up,” said the man, nudging Satan with the cute, bunny-nosed end of his footwear. Satan stirred, but then was still again. “You need to wake up,” said the man. “It’s almost three o’clock. Naptime is at an end.” He stepped back, took a deep breath, and reared up to deliver a good, swift kick to Satan’s backside. But Satan groaned, and the man un-cocked his lethal slipper.

  Satan’s eyes flicked open and darted around, taking in his surroundings, while his body remained motionless, and stuck in its awkward position. Finally his eyes alighted on the oddly-colored, rodent slippers in front of him, and made their way slowly up to the Rasputinesque countenance of the man in the floral robe. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I,” the man stepped forward with a dramatic sweep of his arm, “am Eli.” He stood as erect as his aged and weather-beaten body would allow, and placed his right hand over his breast. He made his eyes all squinty and pointed what he thought probably looked like a good, steely gaze off into the unknown distance. After allowing the profundity of the moment to steep adequately, he turned back and beamed at Satan.

  Satan eyed Eli suspiciously. The man had all kinds of odd symbols scrawled on his arms and legs. They might have been tattoos except for the fact that they looked less like the work of a trained tattoo artist than that of an inebriated weirdo with a predilection for wandering around the city in a bathrobe. He decided that the man was probably just a harmless idiot, and moved on to more pressing matters. “Okay, then. Excellent. Now, who am I?”

  Eli did not hesitate even an instant before answering. “You sir,” he said, “are the man I found lying beside this dumpster.” He pointed a grimy, blackened finger at the spot where he’d found the Devil and, in fact, where the Devil still lay.

  “Very good,” said Satan, nodding, feeling that this was indeed a good answer. Progress. He took a deep breath. The fickle breeze was back, and for a moment the rank smell of the garbage was gone, replaced by the scent of chlorine from the nearby fountain. It soothed him, but then he remembered where he was, which was next to a stinky dumpster, apparently behind a building somewhere. His eyes darted some more. The rest of his body continued not to move. He looked up at Eli. “How did I get here?” he asked.

  “That, I am afraid, I do not know.” Eli looked at the ground and shook his head sadly.

  “Hmmm...”

  The breeze came back again. This time it brought a sheet of newspaper advertising some specials at a nearby drugstore. They watched the paper flap back and forth for a moment, and Eli started to pick at some lint on one of the pastel flowers on his robe. The Devil thought at first that this might be the man’s way of passing an awkward, silent moment, but then Eli kept at it, and the Devil began to wonder whether the man had forgotten the conversation altogether. He was just about to say something when Eli looked up from his robe.

  “Did you get shot?” Eli pointed at the front of Satan�
��s shirt, which had a nasty blood stain down the front.

  The Devil fingered the hole, pulling the fabric to the side. “I don’t know,” he said. His body ached, and the spot on his skin under the bullet hole felt rough and hot to the touch. But there was no blood and no wound. In fact, he seemed to be just fine.

  Eli leaned over, offering Satan a hint of the olfactory bouquet that was the result of a long-standing estrangement from showers and bathing generally. “Yeah,” he said. “Looks okay to me.”

  Eli stood, looked around here and there, and kicked at the ground with his toe. It wasn’t clear to Satan whether the man was attempting to extract an irritating pebble from his footwear or responding poorly to something the ground had apparently said to him.

  “It’s very bright,” said Satan. He was starting to sweat and wished that the breeze would quit fucking around with that paper and put itself to good use.

  “Yes. Yes it is,” said Eli, nodding. He stared off into the middle distance in the manly way of someone who has just received a bit of well-stated wisdom. “It is indeed.”

  “I had a car,” said Satan, remembering out loud. “I loved my car.”