Better the Devil...

[jack_babalon]

"They say that God makes problems
just to see what you can stand
before you do as the devil pleases
and give up the thing you love"
-Elliott Smith, Pitseleh


Woke up with the Gallows Throat this morning. I was all rattle cough and grinded whispers. Then the Devil showed up. I was three months late on his due. I had been throwing out his bills with the rest of the junk mail and now here he was in person to collect on the debt. He's got a foul smelling cigar clenched in his grin and both his wife beater and boxers are stained with things i'd rather not mention. His bone white cowboy boots creaking the floor boards of thought as he paced back and forth. Every now and then he would stop suddenly, peek through the windows of my eyes and try to catch a glimpse of me hiding behind the shades. He's tired of waiting now. He's got my name inked across his knuckles and he starts knock-knock-knocking on the front door of my skull! Pounding away with the hell and the fury, pounding away like a whorehouse mattress, pounding away like a fist full of hammers! Now it's all headache fire and there's something ugly chewing on my memories like an old toothpick.

So I open the door. The trap door in my head, the one that I save for the assholes, the angels and everyone else I don't like. The Devil though, having already once taken the ultimate pratfall into damnation, knew well the jokes of man and sidestepped my little trick.

"HEY! I know you're in there! You owe me bitch! You owe me big time and you gotta come out and give me something!"

"What?" I yell through the door. "Can't you see my ass is soul broke, man? I done told you already that Love laid me off late last year and i've been living on hand outs ever since. So I ain't got shit to give you right now and there's nothing in here left to take! Come back at the end of summer... maybe i'll have found something by then."

"...awww hell no!" The Devil shouts back "You better come up with something. You think i'm gonna go back empty handed just because you've been free basing lonliness for the last seven months! Best think again there amigo ... Hey! I got it: Tell me about that play-thingy you did...tell me about Saturday night... tell me about Collective Works. Tell me about the Invisible College!"

"Why?"

"Because I can smell the doubt cooking off you from here kid. Smell of burnt peaches and dust! You've been marinating in bad nerves the last three weeks and now... and now i'm hungry for a little angst! So pay up or speak up! I'll be back tomorrow either way!"

His bone white boots click away with the dull echo of distant cannon fire. I rub the vision out of my eyes and get out of bed, three hours late for work. Oh well just another God Damned Dead line. Just another job that has to be done.

Comments

wow

[esmio06.livejournal.com]

you are incredibly talented. i love reading your work.

Re: wow

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Thanks man,
I appreciate the feedback even though i'm never sure how to respond to such generoisty, other than to say it's nice to hear and even nicer for you to say so.

Re: wow

[esmio06.livejournal.com]

only response i ask for is keep writing. Wish I had found your writings a long time ago, though you got me in trouble the otehr day when I first started reading your stuff. I was engrossed and didnt hear my boss walk up hehe.

[daucus-carota.livejournal.com]

Why, all of a sudden, is Bob Dylan stuck in my head??? Well, turn-about's fair play, as "they" say, so, "The devil went down to Georgia.
He was looking for a soul to steal..."

"play-thingy"... hmmm?

xxx

[catwalk.livejournal.com]

speaking of ye olde angst, i'm sorry i missed the invisible college... again.

one weekend, i swear...