I met the Devil once in a bar on 54th street. Funny little fellow, wore a striped suit and tie that had seen better days, kept drinking water and calling it wine. And he said to me, the Devil did, he said: “You’re Death, man. It’s who you are. It’s what you do.”
“But I don’t enjoy it anymore,” I told him. “Not like I used to. Human beings don’t want to die anymore; they’ve got this idea they’re supposed to live forever. No one’s ever happy to see me. Used to be there were diseases so awful, death was a relief. Some very nice suicides. Sylvia Plath – now, there was a woman who wanted to die.” I looked up at the ceiling, where green mold blossomed like a wildflower meadow. “‘Dying is an art,’” I recited, “‘I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I guess you could say I’ve a call.’” I looked down. I sighed. I sipped my pale ale. “Those were the days.”
The Devil nodded. Fiddled with his dingy tie. He stank of garlic sweat, and had long, dirt-encrusted nails; tufts of fur curled from knuckles that seemed somehow too large for his fingers, but he was a good listener. I felt like he understood me.
“Folks should be happy to see me. All this noise and mess up on earth. Down there, it’s quiet. No screaming children, no nagging spouses. No neighbors who think they can play the trombone. And the beds are comfortable.”
“Sure,” he said, “Add a tree and a garden and you’ve got Eden.”
“I know, right? And everyone wants to go there.”
He suggested I hire a marketing firm. “I’ve got just the guys,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said. I was trying, but I couldn’t seem to shake my melancholy. I leaned my cheek in my hands and stared at my beer bottle, gleaming in the dim neon lights from above. “Not like I had much of a choice either,” I said. “Back in the day.”
The Devil ordered another glass of water. I stared at the beer bottle. Clear glass, firm curves. It looked happy; it was a happy beer bottle. Like it always meant to be a beer bottle, that’s what it became, and it was good at it. And had a lot of friends.
“My brother just figured someone had to be Death. I got the job.”
“Brothers,” the Devil muttered and belched. “What about a woman? Or a man? A companion’s the trick. Someone young and fresh.” He rolled the rs in ‘fresh,’ forked tongue snaking out and licking his dry lips. “One of those three-headed dogs, maybe? Nah, you’ve already got one of those.”
“Not anymore,” I said, and felt my shoulders slump; my whole body slid lower in the bar stool. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” The Devil repeated, even as the bartender arrived with his water. He smacked his lips loudly before sipping. “Dead? Nah, can’t be dead, can he?”
“Ran away.”
He laughed. Slapped his fur-knuckled hand on the bar and laughed: a dry, wheezing sound. “He dumped you!” He managed, then laughed again, flinging his head backward. “Your dog dumped you!”
I hadn’t thought of it like that before, but he was right. My beloved beast of the underworld, who cheerfully devoured any soul who tried to escape, had escaped himself. I was a creature so pathetic my dog had dumped me. Even the beer bottle couldn’t cheer me up now. I groaned and buried my face in my arms.
“Ah, cheer up, man,” the Devil said, “Companion’s the trick, like I said. I’d give you a demon but they’re screechy. Eat a lot, too. You have to keep them in babies or dolphins – ”
“No, please. Thank you. Not my scene. It’s a kind thought.”
He shrugged. Scratched his ass. Yawned. He probably had things to do, just like I did, but neither of us seemed anxious to go back to work. We’re in customer service, after all. Hard-working, poorly paid, little more than guides and hosts, for all we’ve got fancy titles. But that’s all we’ve got. Neither of us decides who dies, by what, or when it happens. I’m Death, sure, but I don’t decide who dies. Fate does that. The Devil can’t make anyone do anything either. Just entice. Persuade. It’s a lot of work.
In fact, we weren’t so different, he and I. Sure, we were from different worlds, but so were Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Romeo and Juliet. The Devil smelled even worse than my dog had, but he was a good listener. He’d gotten a bad rap, that was all. Just like I had. Maybe –
“Don’t even think it,” he growled.
“Think what?”
“I’m not joining you. Bored stiff myself down there. All silence and comfy beds. Like a bloody hospital. I’m the Devil, man. You don’t even have disco music.”
“True,” I said. Then I thought of something. “I play the flute.”
“The flute!” The Devil exclaimed and shook his head. “The flute!” He repeated, like he wasn’t sure what the word meant. “Sorry. Like you said, not my scene.”
“I understand,” I said, and sighed. Tried to sip from my beer but the bottle was empty, the lip of the glass cold. Nothing was right in the world. “Maybe you could visit?”
“That even possible?”
“No. Maybe. Never tried it. Death is supposed to be non-negotiable.”
“I’m not visiting.”
“That’s fair.”
“Ever tried it yourself? Dying?”
I looked at him. Was he serious? He looked back. His eyes were like a chicken’s eyes, pebble-hard and without whites, ringed by red flesh. The hair on his knuckles stood on end like a rooster’s comb.
“No,” I said, slowly. “Never tried it. Not sure where I’d end up.”
“Sure.” He scrunched his sharp-chinned face in thought. “What about a duck?”
“A duck,” I repeated, and sat up straighter. “Oh, I like that,” I said. “I like ducks.” And it’s true, I do. They always seem so cheerful, ducks, waddling about like they do. Quacking. “And a duck wouldn’t mind dying, would it?”
“Oh no,” he said. “Ducks don’t mind. Gives them something to do.”
We toasted to ducks, to specific ducks the Devil had known, to the entire species of Duck more generally. We kept drinking. I woke up hours later. Maybe days. The Devil was gone. A hangover slammed into the sides of my skull like a bell. I was next to a river. Smelled salt, trash, and dead fish. By the water, fat seagulls fought even fatter rats over scattered piles of plastic and old food. I stumbled to the water’s edge and puked at my own reflection.
It was as I was straightening up and wiping my mouth with my beer-stained sleeve that I saw – her. She was a duck. The duck?
Round beak, flat feet. Shiny wings. Yet she didn’t seem to be a particularly cheerful duck, wasn’t waddling or quacking. Her wings were slick with oil.
“Hello, Duck,” I said, kneeling before her. Seemed the polite thing to do. Not that I’d had much experience with ducks, you understand. Their deaths aren’t in my job description.
The duck regarded me gravely. Her wings glistened. We studied each other. The rats screeched and squealed. The sun climbed the hills of trash behind us.
After a while, I felt like the duck and I had come to an understanding, what with all the staring, so I cleared my throat and said: “Duck. Would you like to die?”
With a shrill shriek, she stomped into the water, flapped her dirty wings, and flew away.
I sat down. I never wanted to get back up.
I must have nodded off a bit; it was afternoon when I woke; the sun was setting. I saw a woman. True, she wasn’t a duck, but she had a bit of a duck’s gait to her, waddling toward shore as she was, round hips swinging like a sickle.
She wore bright red overalls and boots dangled from a crook in her finger. She was walking barefoot across all that trash, rock and sand, and there was broken glass there, so I opened my mouth to shout, stop! – but nothing came out, because there was something about her face, about how she was walking, or maybe just the fact that I was there, by that river, but I suddenly knew that this woman wanted to die.
At last! At last. She was beautiful, too. Sturdy. Her overalls were the red of the morning sun. Of an opened vein. She’d abandoned her boots on the sand and begun to wade into the grimy water. Before I knew it, I’d jumped into the river with her.
“Who are you?” She asked.
“Death.”
“Huh. Nice suit.”
I couldn’t read her face. I’m good at reading human faces, but I couldn’t read hers.
“Will you get out of my way, please?” She said, “I’ve got stones in my pockets and places to be. You’re blocking my path.”
“Sorry,” I said, smiled, and gestured at the water. “Please.”
But she didn’t move. We stood there in the river, staring at each other – or rather, I stared at her; she was looking at something else. The horizon, maybe. The oily water. She’d started to cry, but soundlessly, without effort; her face didn’t crumple; the tears just fell. She shivered. I wanted to touch her.
It was this that got me into trouble. I should have let her be. Of course, I should have. She was hesitating. Folks do, sometimes. They get all fussed and bothered and ready to die, only to balk. Annoys me. Usually. All that work to go fetch them and now I have to let them be. Wait another day, another decade, only to go fetch them all over again. But that's the job. I'm not supposed to interfere.
But for her - for her, I hung my jacket around her shoulders. The sleeves were long, and the cuffs sank in the water.
“Your jacket stinks,” she said.
“Sorry.”
She sniffed. Wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Stared at the river.
A fish floated by, belly-up.
“What’s it like?” She asked. “Death?”
“The beds are very comfortable,” I said. “High class, deluxe. Like sleeping in a five-star hotel every night!”
She didn’t seem impressed. Didn’t move. Didn’t look at me. I wasn’t sure what else to say. Everything’s gray generally doesn’t appeal to people.
“Ah, it’s perhaps a bit quiet sometimes,” I admitted, “but I – well, I play the flute.” She turned her head and looked at me. “Sometimes,” I added hurriedly. “Only – only sometimes.”
“I’m a flutist,” she said, and sniffed. “I used to play in the orchestra.”
She was perfect. Yet she still wasn’t moving. She didn’t want to die either.
“What if you just came to visit?” I said.
“What?”
“Don’t – die. Just visit. I’m the God of Death, after all. I can take you to the underworld – if you want to see what it’s like, you know, to be dead. But if you come alive, you can leave too. You can leave whenever you want.”
“I can leave whenever I want?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you. There’s got to be a catch.”
“No catch.”
“I’m not sure – ” She glanced back at the shore, that look on her face that humans wear when they want to end an awkward conversation, but aren’t sure how to do so without being impolite.
“You’ll meet my dog!” I said. “He’s got three heads!”
Her eyes widened. “I’ve never seen a dog with three heads before.”
“Here’s your chance! Think of it like a vacation. A vacation with comfortable beds and a three-headed dog.”
“A vacation,” she repeated, before glancing at the shore once more, then at the city beyond, then out at the water again. “I am tired,” she said, almost to herself, before searching my face intently. “And I can truly leave whenever I want?”
“Oh yes,” I said, “I have guests all the time. The Devil paid a visit just the other day…”
We left the river and climbed the stone staircase. Night yawned around us.
In the underworld, night is without end, without light, without stars or planets. For the first time, I found it beautiful. For the first time, I felt like I was home.
Her hand trembled, and I took it. Held it. I was never going to let her go. I heard her heartbeat, steady as a song. Steady as a song, its music fading to silence.
In that silence, I spoke her name for the first time. She did not answer. I said it again and again, and still, only the silence answered me.