A Crash Course in Divinity and Damnation by Chris Deal

Being that the Panthers were on track for another losing season, the desire to drown my sorry sorrows in some stout was strong. Frayer’s Pub a block away. Their special for the night was $2.00 pints, so the decision was made. An angel and a demon were talking in a conspiratorial tone down at the end of the bar when I walked in. It was heated. Ecumenical this, preordained that. Wasn’t paying attention, I’ll admit. I was mighty thirsty when the chairs on either side of me suddenly had bodies in them, an angel to my right, a demon to my left, close enough to put a head on each shoulder.

“How goes it, Louie?” from the demon, his name Irving. His greasy fedora sat back enough on his head to keep his horns in full view, the way he always wore it. Same with the wrinkled dime store assimilation, the mismatched jacket and slacks smeared and stained. His cauliflower face hadn’t seen a razor in weeks, his hair gray with a few streaks of copper.

“Good night?” the angel Earl asked, his wings held back by an expensively tailored pinstripe three piece, gold watch and all. Pale hair the color pure cloud slicked back. Earl was ethereal, like a model, so damn perfect. The hair on his pointed face was exact, eyebrows and sideburns groomed and plucked impeccably.

Each of them, otherworldly beings they were, were diametrically opposed, and yet there they were, like always, sitting and drinking and bullshiting every damn time I came here for a pint. Now, I’m no statistician, and though I got a couple paychecks working for the Census Bureau a few years back, I spent most of those shifts here, spilling drinks on the forms as I filled them out. Still, I’m thinking these hosts, holy and unholy though they may be, are widespread, more so I’d wager around urban centers like Charlotte. Most of them do their jobs, but I’d say there are more than a few like Earl and Irving here that go through the motions of influence, having been influenced by the lecherous schmucks they encounter on a daily basis on this mortal coil.

“Fair to middling, I suppose. Tender, a stout?” I called, trying to ignore the stench of sulfur from one side and patchouli the other. Long night, it seemed to be turning into.

“April,” the demon said to the bartender, a young woman barely out of college, who managed to survive with all the drunks coming on to her during her shifts. “His drinks are on me tonight.”

“Mighty kind of you, Irv. To what great and unholy purpose does that serve, may I ask?”

“I wouldn’t say unholy,” Irving began, his finger tracing the rim of his tumbler of whiskey.

“Certainly not. By no means,” Earl continued, bringing his glass of zinfandel to his beautiful lips.

“It’s just, well, we’re bored.”

“Incredibly.”

“And it seems there’s nothing really to do here besides drink your drinks and sleep with your women.”

“And, well, since we’re divine creatures, even my good friend Irving here, we have abilities that you people-”

“You people? The hell is that supposed to mean, birdbrain?” a fellow to Earl’s left kindly asked.

“Donny, relax,” Earl said.

“Shut the fuck up, Donny,” Irving yelled with a voice of brimstone.

“Fucking supernatural beings,” Donny muttered into his drink. Earl must have felt bad, because he reached beneath his jacket, pulled forth a pure white feather, and dropped it into Donny’s beer, which was instantly refilled. April looked as if she would say something, but was cut off by Earl placing a coin on the bar, a gold piece from the days before a certain Son of Man came down to this dump. That piece would pay her rent for the remainder of her days, so she pocketed it and placed my drink before me.

“Donny, your drinks are on me this evening.”

He said thanks, and in one whale-like gulp swallowed the drink. The feather got stuck in his teeth, and once he got it free, Donny dropped it back into his glass, and it was instantly full. His eyes glazed over at the miracle.

“So,” Earl started, “we have figured on a way to alleviate our ennui.”

“Shit,” I said, as an unordered shot of bourbon was placed before me.

“Drinking contest,” Irving said, his demonic visage spreading into a Machiavellian grin. “You’ll be my guy, and Donny here will be Earl’s boy.”

“Good versus evil,” Earl exclaimed.

“The forces of Heaven against the evils of Hell!”

“Light against dark!”

“Hey,” Irving muttered, “that’s uncalled for, man.”

“What?”

“You know how I feel about that whole “darkness” thing?”

“Come on.”

“It’s racist,” Irving complained.

“It is a classic metaphor, okay. Really isn’t a big deal.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re light, you’re all that is pure and right in the world.”

“Christ, Irv.”

“I mean, we need to do something about that whole thing. These people, they already have enough issues with race without us enforcing this bullshit stereotype about darkness being evil, and light being good.”

“I know.”

“And don’t get me started on those people who use the religion to enforce their bullshit racism. Christian Identity, my ass. They’re all fucking monkeys to me.”

“How do you think we feel about that? Yeshua is always up there, complaining about them making him look bad. The Son of Man was a Jew living in the Middle East. How can they think he’s some honkey-looking Messiah?”

“Folk see what they want. I tell you, YHWH should have thought twice about that whole ‘free will’ thing and made them see some things for the way they were.”

“You know he wouldn’t have been down for that,” Earl said as he took a long pull from his pint.

“Yeah, well, didn’t stop him from not giving us free will.”

“Oh, we have free will,” Earl said before finishing his wine. The glass was full by the time he could swallow.

“Yeah, we can drink and make some love when we’re in the mood, but we still have to do our jobs. I tell you, I ain’t the biggest fan of damning these people for trifling little things. I have no damn choice in the matter”

“We all have our jobs to do, you and me, Yeshua and Lucifer. Even these people, they all play their parts.”

“Yeah, but I get vilified while all the ladies just flock to you, thinking your wingspan means a damn thing.”

“Guys, drinking contest?” I asked, interjecting in a conversation they had damn near every night.

“Yeah, yeah,” Earl said, waving the argument away.

“Sorry, man. Anyway, drinking contest. You’re mine, Donny is Earl’s.”

“My participation in this, will it condemn me to Hell?”

“Shit, you think I’d really damn you for a little game?” Irving asked.

“Now that is insulting,” Earl said.

“Sorry, but, you know, deals with the devil being what they are.”

“Hardly a deal with the devil. That guy, too, he’s hardly as bad as you folk think him to be.”

“Christ, Irv,” Earl said, exasperated, while he had the decency to ask for another pint instead of making one appear in his glass.

“We’re all doing what we were supposed to be doing, Lucifer more than anyone else.”

“Yeah, you’ve told me that,” I said, not caring to go down that tangent again.

“You know, whatever, whatever. Drinking contest. No, a drinking contest won’t damn you, Donny, this won’t get you into Heaven,” Irving said. Earl starred into his glass.

“Probably the other way around,” Earl added.

“Shut up,” Irving spat.

“You sure about this, Louie?” Earl asked me.

“Yeah, I’m down.”

“Donny, you in?” Irving asked over me and Earl.

“Free beer?” the fat man beside Earl asked.

“Course,” Earl replied.

“I’m in.”

“Louie,” Irving said to me, “since you just got here, and Donny has had a few, it’s only fair you catch up before we get into the nitty and the gritty.”

“Down it,” Earl said, pointing to the bourbon before me. I did. Burning like the holy love of the man upstairs, it did away with a few cobwebs in my head, and the three of them were watching me intently.

April brought two overflowing pints and placed one in front of Donny and me. He belched like a mating camel and put the feather behind his ear. It looked like April was making a mental note to never even let Donny even think he had a shot at her pants. Irving took that greasy fedora from his horned head and placed it on mine. Snug, like it was meant to be there.

“Let’s do it,” Irving yelled, the whole bar looking at him like the conspicuous demon he was. “First to five wins!” Earl raised his hand in the air, like he was waiting to signal the end of days, and brought it down on the bar with a tremendous noise and fury.

I lifted the glass to my lips and the race was on. Donny was fast, gulping the drink like it was manna. He was done with his first while I had a quarter left. He put the pint down to the bar and it was again full. Felt like I bruised my throat getting that oversized gulp down.

Empty glass to the bar and the demonic host made sure it wasn’t for long. Back to my lips and I was clearly behind, as Donny picked up his third. Earl and Irving were cheering us on, and it was as if the choirs of Heaven and the dominion of Hell were in on the applause. I managed to keep up, but as lovely as the sacred drink was, I was a full pint behind as he picked up the forth. Halfway through my fifth, Donny was done, and from his hellish bowels came a discharge like the trumpet to open the seals of apocalypse.

“Shit,” Irv said, crestfallen.

“Who’s the man?” Earl asked. Donny cut his celebration short to rush for the bathroom.

“I feel bad,” Irv said.

“What?” I asked through the embarrassment.

“I’m a demon, man. I thought you’d win, anyway. Everyone knows Donny’s a lightweight.”

“Jonah could fit in that fucker’s stomach,” I yelled.

“You did willingly side with a demon against an angel,” Earl whispered into my ear.

“You fucking bastard.”

“I gave you an out,” Earl said.

“You told me it wouldn’t damn me.”

“I told you a drinking contest wouldn’t. I said not a thing about siding with him.”

“Pricks,” I said, the full weight of the realization crushing down like the stone of Sisyphus.

“Look, Louie, I’ll make it up too you.”

“How the hell you going to make up damning me to Hell?”

“From now on, you come in here, all your drinks are on me.”

“Yeah, that helps.”

“It ain’t that bad there, man.”

“It’s really not,” Earl added, looking a little less angelic.

“What have I told you before? You can’t trust the human perception of the afterlife. Fire and brimstone? Fluffy clouds?”

“Hell’s actually a relatively decent place. A little warm, but that’s just because of how people view it. They think it, and it mostly is,” Earl said.

“We don’t torture no one for eternity. Maybe the real dicks, but cats like you? You can spend all your time in the bars, if you want.”

“Course, you’d have to get a job.”

“Yeah, you can’t help that.”

“Donny, if his fat ass makes it up to Heaven, he’ll have to work too. And, between us,” Earl said, “the booze is better in Hell. I mean, Arthur Guinness is up in Heaven, but besides that, you won’t be missing out.”

“Easier women, too.”

“Bunch of prudes in Heaven.”

“The only real difference between Heaven and Hell, man, is, well, you’re cut off from YHWH. That’s it, brother.”

“And Lucifer, really, he’s not that bad. He’s just a guy doing his job.”

“We all are.”

“Only, we get bored, sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Irvin said.

“Real bored.”

“Fucking divine beings,” I said. “Might as well get me another drink, you bastard.”

“That’s the attitude.”

Chris Deal has published several poems and short stories around the internet, most recently Glasgow Simile in Darkest Before the Dawn and four poems in Bicycle Review.  He also regularly writes about literature at Creative Loafing.  He has several stories and poems coming out in the months to come, and will be publishing a collection of micro-stories through Brown Paper Publishing in early 2010.