6. Sympathy From The Devil

Mr D turned to the middle-aged man with the towel over his arm.

‘I should be greatful for an Evian.’

Today he looked like that Britisher guy from the 1960’s who’d played him in a movie about 20 years after his own sell by date. That guy with the ruined elegance of A Macarthur Park cake. Stamp, that was it. He raised an eyebrow over one of those hurtsickle eyes and said,

‘I watch too many movies too.’

I finished my food while he watched me with the calm gaze of someone who knew every damn’ thing worth knowing but had no need or desire to share it.

‘Let’s go outside for a smoke, Gabe.’

‘What about the bill. I gotta pay – ‘

‘I have it in hand,’ and then it was no longer in his hand but in a pile of Spanish doubloons on the table.

The forty-ish guy with the towel just managed to keep his eyes in his head.

‘For everything else there’s Mastercard.’

The Devil’s laughter was a wry chuckle as we walked out into the street and the sunshine.

Outside the colour , noise and smell would have paralysed a synaesthetic. Earthbound women wore colours so bright they generated the heat that some of the skirts and halters suggested. Palenque, Chabacano and Spanish mingled with accented English at decibel levels meant to reach across a canyon not a sidewalk. Street stalls were selling everything from frijoles to fajitas and an aroma of Ajilimójili salsa hit the nose like a mallet.

‘So Gabe, how are things?’

‘Pretty screwy, if you really want to know.’

The eyebrow went up again, ‘Oh? How so?’

‘A job, maybe you know the kind? A real double bind.’

‘Our favourite. You know, me and the other fellow.’

His eyes looked skyward, then he caught himself and smiled.

‘He likes all that kind of thing: Morton’s Fork, Catch-22. I don’t so much. Besides, it’s a funny thing for a believer in free will, all that tosh. Oh yes, Gee Oh Dee loves all that too. I don’t. Anyway, Gabe, you don’t reckon much to free will after a few games of chess with Old Grimmy. He doesn’t even play to win, you know. Gets to Zugzwang and he does that laugh that sounds like someone guffawing down a well and you want to ask why the fuck he never lets go of the scythe even if he wants to visit the doughnut in granny’s greenhouse.’

He took a deep breath and apologised.

‘It gets me down, this job. It really does.’

I said nothing, just stepped off the sidewalk to avoid a bickering couple.

Mr D sighed, adjusted the crotch of his baggy pants and said,

‘Go on, Gabe, tell me about it. You never know, I might find it interesting.’

I filled Mr D in. All through the five minutes it took to tell him he seemed to be chewing the inside of his cheeks.

‘Oh Gabe, you do my blackened heart good, you really do.’

He smiled and vanished, again. No puff of smoke, just erased himself in an instant. And no-one but me noticed at all.