Sympathy for the Devil

The Devil Disinvests by Scott Bradfield

“I don’t think of it as laying off workers,” the Devil told his Chief Executive Officer, Punky Wilkenfeld, a large round man with bloodshot eyes and wobbly knees. “I think of it as downsizing to a more user-friendly mode of production. I guess what I’m saying, Punky, is that we can’t spend all eternity thinking about nothing more important than the bottom line. Maybe it’s finally time to kick back, reflect on our achievements, and start enjoying some of that well-deserved R &R we’ve promised ourselves for so long.”

As always, the Devil tried to be reasonable. But this didn’t prevent his long-devoted subordinate from weeping copiously into his worsted vest.

“What will I do?” Punky asked himself over and over again. “Where will I go? All this time I thought you loved me because I was really, really evil. Now I realize you only kept me around because, oh God. For you it was just, just, it was just business.”

The Devil folded his long forked tail into his belt and checked himself out in the wall-sized vanity mirror behind his desk. He was wearing a snappy handmade suit by Vuiton, gleaming Cordovan leather shoes, and prescription Ray-Bans. The Devil had long been aware that it wasn’t enough to be good at what you did. In order for people to know it, you had to look good, as well.

Roger “Punky” Wilkenfeld lay drooped over the edge of the Devil’s desk like a very old gardenia. The Devil couldn’t help himself. He really loved this guy.

“What can I tell you, Roger?” the Devil said, as gently as he could. “Eventually it comes time for everybody to move on, and so in this particular instance, I’ll blaze the trail, and leave you and the boys to pack things up in your own good time. Just be sure to lock up when you leave.”

The Devil went to California. He rented a beachfront cottage on the Central Coast, sold off his various penthouses and Tuscan villas, and settled into the reflective life as easily as an anemone in a tide pool. Every day he walked to the local grocery for fresh fruits and vegetables, took long strolls into the dry amber hills, or rented one of the Nouvelle Vague classics he’d always meant to watch from Blockbuster. He disdained malls, televised sports, and corporate-owned franchise restaurants. He tore up his credit cards, stopped worrying about the bottom line, and never once opened his mail.

In his heyday, the Devil had enjoyed the most exotic pleasures that could be devised by an infinite array of saucy, fun-loving girls named Delilah. But until he met Melanie, he had never actually known true love.

“I guess it’s because love takes time,” the Devil reflected, on the night they first slept together on the beach. “And time has never been something I’ve had too much of. Bartering for souls, keeping the penitents in agony, stoking the infernos of unutterable suffering and so forth. And then, as if that’s not enough, having to deal with all the endless constant whining. Oh please, Master, please take my soul, please grant me unlimited wealth and fame and eternal youth and sex with any gal in the office, I’ll do anything you ask, please please. When a guy’s in the damnation game, he never gets a moment’s rest. If I’d met you five years ago, Mel? I don’t think I’d have stopped working long enough to realize what a wonderful, giving person you really are. But I’ve got the time now, baby. Come here a sec. I’ve definitely got lots of time for you now.”

They moved in together. They had children-a girl and a boy. They shopped at the Health Food Co-Op, campaigned for animal rights, and installed an energy efficient Aga in the kitchen. They even canceled the lease on the Devil’s Volvo, and transported themselves everywhere on matching ten-speed racing bikes. These turned out to be the most wonderful and relaxing days the Devil had ever known.

Then, one afternoon when the Devil was sorting recyclable materials into their appropriate plastic bins, he received a surprise visitor from his past. Melanie had just taken the kids to Montessori. The Devil had been looking forward all day to catching up with his chores.

“How they hanging, big boy? I guess I imagined all sorts of comeuppances for a useless old fart like yourself, but certainly never this. Wasting your once-awesome days digging through garbage. Cleaning the windows and mowing the lawn.”

When the Devil looked up, he saw Punky Wilkenfeld climbing out of a two-door Corvette. Clad in one of the Devil’s old suits, he looked slightly out of place amidst so much expensive retailoring. Some guys know how to hang clothes, the Devil thought. And some guys just don’t.

“Why, Punky,” the Devil said softly, not without affection. “It’s you.”

“It sure is, pal. But they don’t call me Punky anymore.”

“Oh no?” The Devil absently licked a bit of stale egg from his forepaw.

“Nope. These days, people call me Mr. Wilkenfeld. Or better yet, the Eternal Lord of Darkness and Pain.”

“It’s like this, Pop,” Punky continued over Red Zinger tea in the breakfast room. “When you took off, you left a trillion hungry mouths to feed. Mouths with razor-sharp teeth. Mouths with multitudinously-forked tongues. Frankly, I didn’t know what to do, so I turned the whole kit-and-kaboodle over to the free-market-system and just let it ride. We went on the Dow in March, and by summer we’d bought out two of our closest rivals-Microsoft and ITT. I even hear Mr. Hot-Shot Heavenly Father’s been doing a little diversifying. Doesn’t matter to me, either. Whoever spends it, it’s all money.”

“It’s always good to see a former employee make good, Punky,” the Devil said graciously. “I mean, excuse me. Mr. Wilkenfeld.”

Punky finished his tea with a long, parched swallow. “Ahh,” he said, and hammered the mug down with a short, rude bang. “I guess I just wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten you, Pops. In fact, I’ve even bought this little strip of beach you call home, and once we’ve finished erecting the new condos, we’ll move on to offshore oil rigs, docking facilities, maybe even a yachting club or two. Basically, Pop, I’m turning your life into scrap metal. Nothing to do with business, either. I just personally hate your guts.”

The Devil gradually grew aware of a dim beeping sound. With a sigh, Punky reached into his vest pocket and deactivated his digital phone with a brisk little flick.

“Probably my broker,” Punky said. “He calls at least six times a day.”

The Devil distantly regarded his former chargé d’affaires, whose soft pink lips were beaded with perspiration and bad faith. Poor Punky, the Devil thought. Some guys just never learn.

“And wanta know the best thing about this shoreline redevelopment project, Pop? There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. You take it to the courts-I own them. You take it to the Board of Supervisors-I own them. You organize eight million sit-down demonstrations and I pave the whole damn lot of you over with bulldozers. That’s the real pleasure of dealing dirt to you born-again types, Pop. You gotta be good. But I don’t.”

The Devil watched Punky stand, brush himself off, and reach for his snakeskin briefcase. Then, as if seeking a balance to this hard, unaccommodating vision, he looked out his picture window at the hardware equipment littering his back yard. The Devil had been intending to install aluminum siding all week, and he hated to see unfulfilled projects rust away in the salty sea air.

“One second,” the Devil said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Sorry, Pop, but this is one CEO who believes in full-steam-ahead, toot toot! Keep in touch, guy. Unless, that is, I keep touch with you first-”

But of course before Punky reached the front door the Devil had already returned from his back yard with the shearing scissors. And Punky, who had belonged to the managerial classes for more eons than he cared to remember, was slow to recognize any instrument used in the performance of manual labor.

“Hey, Pop, that’s more like it,” Punky said slowly, the wrong sun dawning from the wrong hills. “I could use a little grooming if only to remind us both who’s boss. Here, see, at the edge of this cloven hoof? What does that look like to you? A hangnail?”

Punky had crouched down so low that it almost resembled submission.

At which point the Devil commenced to chop Punky Wilkenfeld into a million tiny bits.

“Seagulls don’t mind what they eat,” the Devil reflected later. He was standing at the end of a long wooden pier, watching white birds dive into the frothy red water. “Which is probably why they remind me so much of men.”

The Devil wondered idly if his life had a moral. If it did, he decided, it was probably this:

Just because people change their lives for the better doesn’t mean they’re stupid.

Then, remembering it was his turn to do bouillabaisse, the Devil turned his back on the glorious sunset and went home.