Not an official M.F. Journal Installment
Heinrich and Boris I believe their names were.
“What the fuck do you two clowns want?” I sure as hell wasn’t giving them any more tango lessons. They immediately stunk up the place with their thick-matted brimstone hell-stench.
“Where’s Welsh Losser’s contract, punk,” the one that looked like a hyena said.
“The one he signed with The Infernal One almost ten years ago, starting next month,” said the one with the boar’s head. “Give it up, or suffer the fucking consequences – ya little pipsqueak punk.”
“Say, you clowns are beginning to get on my nerves. We’ve been through this before. I told you the first time in Volume 1, if you couldn’t find a hard copy in the Commix archives, you’re out of luck. Moreover, since the contract in its virtual form was the stenographic work of one Dirk Dickerson, it was at best only an interpretation of the words spoken by your Infernal One to Losser in a dream, rather than the actual dictated text. Which suddenly brings me to my next point: Don’t you assholes keep your own files?”
“None of your fucking business, punk.”
“Yeah, maybe we do, and maybe we don’t. But any extant copies carry the same force and weight as the original, and we don’t want that – so give it up.”
“Funny you, being straight out of Hell, should be so consumed with legality.”
Hellfire IS legality, punk! Where the, er, hell do you think the profession comes from?”
I had to admit they had a point.
“Okay, you have a point.”
“Yeah – heh-heh-heh-heh…”
“Heh-heh-heh, heh-heh-heh-heh…”
And then the whole sex thing started.
“Say, Boris, he’s a pretty one, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, Heinrich, real good looking. I like him a lot.”
They came at me with their massive stinking otherworldly sulfur-spurting erections. Huge swollen red heads. Ever-expanding and rotating flaming erectile shafts. Crazed burning expressions, crappy charred breath – the whole nine yards.
“Say,” I said, obviously to distract them and divert their attention, “aren’t you fellas in the least bit curious as to what’s in the box?”
“Box, punk?”
“Yeah – what box… punk?”
“Oh, ah, the one over there, that looks like a treasure chest.”
They looked, and their erections waned, making a sound like ‘nyooooowww…’ Somewhat disconcerted, I thought, they looked back at me.
“And why would we be interested in what’s in that box?”
“Yeah – maybe there’s nothing in that box. We’ve been tricked like that before. And look where it got us. Once bitten, twice shy.”
“No, Boris, that’s fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”
“No, Heinrich, that’s going once, going twice…”
One-two, buckle my shoe.”
“Three strikes you’re out! You’re out, you’re out – you’re fucking out!!!”
“I’m safe!”
“You’re out!”
“Safe!”
“Out!”
“I’m out!”
“You’re safe!”
“Heh-heh-heh…”
“Heh, heh, heh-heh-heh-heh…”
“Okay, suit yourselves – clowns.”
“Why, punk, what’s in the box?”
“Why don’t you find out?”
“No, you tell us first, and then we’ll find out.”
“We-e-e-e-ell, for instance… Welsh Losser’s contract…”
“Welsh Losser’s contract?!”
“That’s right.”
“Um… ah… okay, punk, why don’t you open it up and show us?”
“Here!” I shook my arm and a key slid down the inside of my jacket sleeve into my hand. I tossed it to them. “Why don’t you open it yourselves?”
But as the key arced toward them, they moved away, stumbling and teetering back clumsily on their pointed hooves, as if they suddenly weren’t masters in their element, nearly falling over each other and laying atomic stink bombs from terror. They did a lot of damage to my furniture and home décor the first time, costing me a pretty penny to replace and repair, and this time was turning out no different.
Except the first time, I broke them with compliments, speaking to their vanity, making them blush like little girls and then rendering them harmless in my arms with Argentine Tango; this time, I broke them with fear.
Rearing on my hind legs, I rose and towered over them as a black steed. Belching and baying, they fell down under me. I reared again and came down over and over again on their necks and heads, gouging out their eyes and breaking their tusks. Gathering up their parts and pieces, they shoved them up their asses and went up in flames, launching their fireballs at me, but I froze them with the snorting breath of my nostrils, entombing the demons in blocks of ice. Kicking with my hind legs, I sent them crashing through my turret windows to remain suspended in the air outside above the street until such time as they melted. I leapt through the shattered damage of my flat and rose into the sky.
As the emerald studs in the points of my ears signaled the direction, I turned my stallion-self south over the broad quiet half-frozen Dnipro. Wherever those studs were taking me, it was to my Tango Baby. I already had an idea where she was – hidden away in the ruins of one of The Hunched Cornish’s homes – in Crimea – most probably the ancient Greek trading post of Foros.
As I flew, I wondered how it was the demons could claim to want the Welsh Losser contract, ostensibly to annul it, only to fear the thing itself once they were made to face it. Although I would think simple non-performance should be enough. I mean, why look for the original? To tear it up; to burn it? And what would be the point? The symbolic value of the act? For devils?
I thought I had finally gotten a scintilla closer to the nature of The Beast. Power is not intrinsically evil. He follows power, he pursues it, but he is helpless before it if that power consciously and in good faith remains within the bounds of its given purpose – until that purpose is fulfilled; evil can’t, and won’t, attach itself to and enter it unless the power in some way expresses the desire to grow, for its own sake, out of the bounds of its reason for being. Unless his seed of desire falls down the opening crack of vanity, the devil has nothing to grow.
And then I think I understood. Not only did Welsh Losser not grow power. He had none to begin with. For the devil, that must be very frightening indeed.
Know what I mean?
Manny Face, December 30, 2013