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I was sitting in the bar minding my own god damned business. I had a beer. It was night. When I had walked into the bar, it was day time, and I said to the bartender, I said, What do you have that's a lager? And he said Harp's. And I said excellent. I felt like a real prick when I said that, like I was putting on airs, like I was trying to show this old son of a bitch with a weird Irish accent that was I something else, like I knew a thing or two about talking and I was making sure he knowed it. But he just walked off. Came back with a beer. I gave him a credit card. He came back with the slip to sign, but not the card. I took that as a sign. I scribbled on the slip, worked the beer, night arrived, and with it, every god damned freak in Ballard. It was Halloween. Fuck me for forgetting. Halloween, and this bar, the only one for miles around, was having some kind of costume contest. Actually that's not true. There's another bar about three doors down. Another one a few blocks away. If I had legs, I'd could make it to a dozen bars in ten minutes of walking. I had legs, but not legs for walking. Oh, I can walk all right, I just don't like to when I'm already in a bar and there's a lager in my hand. Everybody's crazy about ale, and that's fine. But lager is less bitter. Less taste altogether, to be honest, but to be honest, I don't much want to think about what I'm drinking when I'm drinking. Harp's. Not Harp, so I'm guessing some fellah named Harp invented it. Well good for him. So I'm sitting in a bar minding my own god damned business, which is not easy to do when there's people dressed up like vampires flitting about and all I wanted to do was watch a little football on one of the three TV screens. I was hungry, too, but one look at the menu and I decided I didn't want anything so fancy that the bartender would have to disappear for a while. My Harp's was two-thirds gone. Or one-thirds full. I don't know the lingo kids use these days for keeping up your spirits. In walks Satan, and boy does he look pissed. I don't mean that as a metaphor. I don't mean trouble walked in, I don't mean some evil motherfucker walked in. I mean the literal, actual, honest to god Satan himself. And let's be straight: not Lucifer, not Beelzebub, not any of that shit. Just regular old Satan. And like I say, he was mad, which would scare any man, almost as much as when he was laughing and having a good time. He was there for me. I had been putting him off for a while. He'd send his emissaries, but I'd give them a line, or some excuse. Killed a few, well, not killed in the proper sense, but you know. Banished with extreme prejudice. I'd signed a contract, you see, and my soul was up for repayment. Which was fine with me, I wasn't doing anything with it. But these demons he'd send, they were also so snidey about it. I don't like attitude, especially off a hoary devil from the underworld. So the last one said if I didn't make good, my case would go up to the head man himself. And here he was. What did you expect him to look like? Just a guy in a suit. Sort of suit that's a step above what most of the regulars in this place would wear to a funeral, but no so far up there that he looked like an asshole. Except he did look like an asshole, but not the kind of asshole that gets uppity and you beat the shit out of in the parking lot, I mean the kind of asshole that puts you on edge and makes you feel shitty and makes you think it's okay to kick dogs and cuss out old ladies. And he takes one look around, the place goes kinda quite, not dead silence but you know kind of a lull, and he goes. Shit, did I forget it was Halloween? Fuck me. Then he spots me in the corner. I'll try again in a few days, Hal, I can't deal with this kinda shit today. Then he leaves. And the bartender comes over to me, and he says, Shit, did I forget to give you your credit card all this time? And I said, fuck, keep it.
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