Michael's Blog

Current mood:annoyed

So whatever happened to the rule of "Keep to the right?" You ever notice more and more these days that people just wander around wherever they want to, even if it means plowing you under to do it?

I'm walking in the mall - keeping to the right like any sane human being - and all the while I'm being forced to dodge a steady stream of social defectives bearing down on me like cattle at feeding time. I mean, what am I supposed to do, Spidey-crawl up the wall to get out of their way? Your average mallway is a good fifty feet across, and these people all have to be walking on my side of it. But hey, you get out of my way because I'm obviously the center of the universe and all of creation revolves around me and my needs. Come on!

So now I just stop and stand there - it creates havoc, they can't comprehend it. What's he doing? Why is he just standing there not getting out of my way? Should I go around him? I don't know what to do.... And then another one comes up behind the first, then a third, fourth....

I've blocked an entire mallway with these clowns on several occasions - malls don't like me very much.

Anyway, it seems common courtesy is an endangered concept, like saying "thank you" when someone opens a door for you. I used to let it pass, but now I treat these folks to a "you're welcome" so dripping with sarcasm I now have to travel with my own dropcloth.

It doesn't do any good.

Maybe I should try kicking them in the crotch. A few of those and they'd sure as hell learn to keep to the right when they see me coming!

Ever have one of those days when you're just pounded with too much information? Staring at those smoking handprint in my bar, my mind was a total blank; yet mysteriously, my mouth kept working.

                "I am so not getting this, Sister. If you're supposed to be destroying demons, how can you be working with one, and wouldn't the church be just a bit peeved to hear about it?"

                "Normally, yes; but Sister Atilla is a reformed demon."

                I nearly choked on the laugh I was trying to swallow. "Sister Atilla?" I managed to gasp out.

                Said sister leaned forward again and I was standing in the path of an F5 tornado. "Do you have a problem with that?"

                "Hey, if you don't, why should I?" I'm serious; that's what I said.

                There was an eye of the storm silence in our area for an endless moment. "I like this one," she said at last. "He may even prove useful."

                "I was hoping," Sister Sociable admitted. Then to me: "Sister Atilla is a reformed demon, Anthony. Like all the others she was human once, but she lost her way and came to serve Satan for many years. The thing about serving evil, Anthony:  It's so horribly empty, it's rewards hollow and unrewarding to anyone who still possesses even a trace of Humanity. If a demon realizes this in time, they are able to pull back from the brink of damnation and attempt to redeem themselves by serving the church – in very select and specific ways."

                "Sort of a Demons Anonymous thing, right?" Sister Atilla's impossible growl rattled my ribs but I pushed on. "And you're like her sponsor."

                "A bit simplistic, but quite correct. In order to battle the fires of Hell, the nuns of my order must use a fire of our own; the arrangement works out quite well for both sides of the bargain."

                "Wow. Guess I'm more out of touch than I ever thought."

                "Don't get too worked up about it," Sister Atilla said. "It would've been surprising if you had heard about us. Surprising and suspicious."

                "Two beers, Scotch-rocks and a tequila straight up, make it a double." The voice pulled me back into the real world.

                Hope Stillwell was my very first employee ever, and boy was she a gem. She'd walked in the day before I opened, went up and down the mixed drink lists and rattled off just about every way you could serve beer, most of which I'd never heard of. I hired her on the spot and never regretted it. She was good with the customers, an honest worker and a real asset to the bar.

                I think I'm rolling on a bit too much about Hope, but come on. She's a brunette beauty with a quick wit and a wry sense of humor and yeah, okay, I sort of had a crush on her. But then, who didn't? She's that kind of girl.

                "Coming right up," I told her as I assembled the order. She smiled at me and nodded to the nuns, whose presence she took in stride as usual.

                "Good evening, dear," Sister Sociable responded, while Sister Atilla started up with that whole cat and mouse look again, so I hurried up with the drink order and got her safely out of the way.

                "So let's see if I got this straight," I said as I wiped my hands. "The Moonlighter is a meeting place for demons and you've been sent here to clear them out. But how do you know who is human and who is, well, not?"

                "It isn't easy," Sister Sociable confided. "Demons are very clever and draw on their memories of their own past humanity to conceal their true nature. But we can narrow the field a bit. For example, is there anyone in the room you would consider to be a regular? Someone who's here nearly every night and meets up with a friend or two each time?"

                I chewed on that one as I surveyed my little domain. "Well, I've only been here two weeks, so it's kind of early to peg the regulars. Larry Lescjowski over there in the corner, he's been coming in pretty often during the week, but never on the weekends. Works at the plant on Center Street and passes by here on the way home, where apparently his wife is waiting to ream him out a new one. Larry's not to anxious to go home, and having met the wife once I can't blame him."

                "Very good, Anthony. I think we can eliminate Mr. Lescjowski. We're looking for someone who keeps to schedule, regardless of the weekend."

                In that category we had Murray Fahanstein the accountant, Joseph Pignatelli the ambulance chaser, and Ralph Norton the bus driver (his visits were thankfully at the end of his workday.

                The nuns considered. "We should have a talk with Mr. Pignatelli," Sister Atilla grumbled at last.

                "He show any telltale signs?" I asked.

                Sister Atilla shook her head as she and her partner rose from their seats. "I just don't like lawyers."

                I always savor this moment in the story. Here resides my last quiet moment, because after this, it really hit the fan in ways I would never have thought possible.

-To Be Continued