The Weirdness(18)

CHAPTER FOUR


WAVING GOODBYE FOREVER


DIETARY CONCERNS • TWO REASONABLE GUYS • FOCUS • WHAT AQUINAS SAID • DORM ROOM WITCHES • SCARY ARCHITECTURE • BECKONING, TECHNICALLY • INFINITE FIRE IS BAD • THE ME GETTING KILLED PART • OH YEAH DON’T FORGET ABOUT GOD




“I want eggplant back, you bastard,” Billy says.

“I understand,” Lucifer says, holding his palms out. “Please be assured that my primary intention was not to cause you undue distress.”

“You didn’t intend to— You vandalized my brain and you didn’t think it would cause me undue distress?”

Lucifer shrugs. “Causing you distress was not my primary intention,” he reiterates. “Let’s call it a by-product.”

“What the hell was your primary intention?” Billy asks.

“I sought to provide something that would serve as a reminder of my visit,” says Lucifer. “I thought it would perhaps stimulate some curiosity in you, a desire to meet again.”

“A reminder?” Billy says. “You’re the fucking Devil; it’s not like I’m going to forget that we met.”

Billy slumps into the chair, across from Lucifer, back in the positions they were in this morning. The setup is taking on a feeling of familiarity. Billy isn’t exactly thrilled about that. He does not want Lucifer as a roommate. He does not want his life to become some kind of theological buddy comedy.

“You gave me permission to adjust your beliefs,” Lucifer says. “I remained within the bounds granted me by that permission. Regardless, you will be pleased to learn that the effect is temporary. It was designed to last for only one exposure to the substance in question.”

Billy considers this. Sure enough, eggplant is beginning to seem good again. He thinks of his sandwich, back there on the table, going to waste, and he feels a vague sadness. His stomach growls.

“But,” Lucifer says. “You didn’t summon me here to talk about your dietary concerns.”

“Summon you?” Billy says. “I didn’t summon you.”

“Actually,” Lucifer says, “you did. You held my card in your hand and you experienced palpable regret that you didn’t hear me out. It’s a delectable emotion, regret. It reads very clearly. There is no mistaking it.”

Billy contemplates protesting this, but he knows that it’s essentially accurate and the idea of constructing a big front of fake outrage just seems too exhausting right now.

“Before this conversation continues,” Billy says, glumly, “I would like to get high.”

“That’s reasonable,” says Lucifer.

“Is it?” Billy says, as fishes a baggie of weed out of the accretion of junk on the table. “Reasonable? Really?”

“Reason is the servant of the passions,” Lucifer says.

“Uhhh, sure,” Billy says. “Why the fuck not.”

He finds his pipe, gets it loaded and takes a long draw.

“You want a pull on this?” he says, proffering the bowl to Lucifer.

“Normally I wouldn’t,” Lucifer says, “being here, as I am, on business. But—how did you put it? Why the fuck not? I admire this as a basis for decision-making. You have inspired me to follow your lead.”

“Mr. Reasonable,” Billy says, watching as Lucifer takes his own draw.

“C’est moi,” says Lucifer, after a long exhale.

“You and me,” Billy says. “Two reasonable guys.”

“Indeed,” says Lucifer.

“Having a reasonable discussion.”

“Precisely.”

That hangs in the air for a minute. Billy takes another draw. Lucifer stares off into space, his face eerily impassive, like something carved out of rock ten thousand years ago, before emotions were invented. It’s creepy. It kind of makes everything that Billy has done or seen or made or thought suddenly feel like piffle. He wonders how he’s managed, so far, to even talk to Lucifer, to just sit here, twice now, carrying on a conversation, like they really were two reasonable guys. Or two guys, at least.

A minute passes. The silence is really creeping him out now. Say something, Billy insists to himself. But now that he’s freaked himself out about even having a conversation he’s not sure what to say or where to begin. He feels like a fruit fly attempting to address a volcano.

Say anything, Billy tells himself. Talk to him like you’d talk to anybody else. You’re just two dudes, getting high. Maybe it can be like a buddy comedy.

“So,” Billy ventures. “I got a question.”

“Shoot,” Lucifer says, without the expression on his face really changing.