“I wish for you to do something for me,” Lucifer says. “It is a simple task which will require a minimal amount of your time. In exchange, I will do something for you.”
Billy’s prepared to reiterate his choice move line, but then he allows himself to grow intrigued. “You’ll do something for me? So, okay, wait. Exactly what?”
“I can see to it that your book gets published,” Lucifer says.
A tiny burst of excitement spikes within Billy, which is almost immediately swallowed by a yawning chasm of skepticism.
“Which book?” Billy says, cautiously.
“The novel,” Lucifer says. “There are people I can get to publish the novel. Short stories, though—that’s a tough sell.”
“A major publisher?” Billy asks.
“I am prepared to promise you a major publisher and a five-figure advance.”
A five-figure advance! Billy thinks, even though a quick mental process in which he tacks zeros onto a one helps him to remember that the figure he’s envisioning might only be $10K. So, he thinks, suddenly canny, let’s deal. And then he realizes what he’s doing.
“Wait a second,” he says. “This is some kind of make-a-deal-with-the-Devil-type shit.”
“Technically,” Lucifer says, “yes.”
“This is one of those things where I end up saying Oh, tell me more and the next thing I know I’m signing away my soul.” He doesn’t actually believe in the soul, but he does know that if the Devil shows up and asks you to sign yours away, you should probably say no.
“Billy,” Lucifer says. He offers the patronizing, patient smile again. “It doesn’t work that way. I’m not interested in your soul.”
“You’re the Archduke of Lies,” Billy says. “How can I possibly believe you?”
“Souls are like ideas,” Lucifer says. “Everybody has one that they think is worth something.”
“Yeah, no,” Billy says.
“But—”
“Just no. I don’t feel safe around you and I sure as hell don’t trust you. And although your offer is very intriguing—and I would love to see my work in print—so if you know anybody and feel like putting in a good word for me …” Noting that he’s beginning to backslide, he makes the decision to just shut up.
“Let me tell you what you’d have to do,” Lucifer says, smiling with the radiant false force of a salesperson.
“I don’t care what I’d have to do,” Billy says. “It could be the simplest thing imaginable. Something I was going to do anyway. Go to the bathroom, take a leak and two aspirin. Then, bam, you’re a famous writer. I’d still say no.” As he says this, he feels a pang deep in his chest, like a piece of gravel hitting a bell, and he realizes that it may not, in fact, be true.
He thinks for a minute about how his life would change if his book got published. He contemplates the feeling of validation he’d enjoy. The ability, at least for a little while, to say You were right to do this. To give up time every day, precious time, the resource that other people seem able to turn into billable hours or functional relationships, to working on putting words together, to making declarations about people who don’t exist, to saying that they did things they didn’t do. To spend money on books instead of clothes or a haircut. To fail out of school because he spent a semester trying to teach himself Polish in order to read a Stanislaw Lem collection he’d bought at a bookseller’s kiosk in Greenpoint (and, not incidentally, because he used Krakowianka, a Polish blackberry vodka, as his primary study aid). If he were holding his book in his hand he’d be able, for once in his life, to look at all his choices and say You were right. What would that feel like? Billy doesn’t know. He would like to know.
But he does know one thing. He knows that if he says yes, in this way, under these circumstances, and he gets what he wants, he won’t exactly be able to say that he earned it. And he wants to earn it.
And so Billy decides. He says, “This discussion is over.” He rises. “Thanks for the coffee.” He heads for the kitchen to get that refill he’s been wanting, leaving Lucifer sitting, blank-faced, there on the couch.
After a minute, Lucifer rises, straps the messenger bag across his chest, dons a pair of aviator sunglasses, and fishes the business card out of the junk on the coffee table. He meets Billy in the kitchen on the way out.
“I’m disappointed,” he says.
“And if you were my dad, that might matter to me,” says Billy. Call your dad back, says Billy’s brain.