Chapter 4

The Devil You Say

That evening, we attended the box lunch and country-dance. Angel expressed keen disappointment when she found our version of "box lunches" weren't sexual events. But she was a good sport about it and whammied up a nice little Kentucky fried box of goodies. I bid on her box and Harold Loomis bid against me. Suddenly, I felt a squirmy feeling in my right jeans pocket. I reached in and pulled out a big wad of cash.

"Well, Rupert," I said to myself. "I bet this means Angel the angel wants me to bid up her box."

I heard the heavenly choir go, "Ah!"

"How much do you bid for the rest of her?" Somebody yelled. Everybody laughed.

"A hundred dollars for her box," I yelled and held up a hundred dollar bill.

"A hundred and one dollars," Harold yelled back.

"Two fucking hundred dollars!" I yelled. And Harold bid a dollar more. And so it went, all the way up to nine hundred dollars.

"That's my money you stole from me when I stole your farm, so that money is morally and legally mine!" He ran across the dance floor and grabbed for the money in my hand. "And I out bid you and I want your whore."

Now that was a little too much for the auctioneer, who finally decided he better end the bidding on Angel's box before things got out of hand. So he yelled, "Sold to Rupe Morgan!"

I swaggered up and placed all ten of the hundred dollar bills in his hand. "It's going for a good cause, so I'll just make it a thousand dollars even. The high school football team can use this and a lot more." There was dead silence in the dance hall as I led Angel over to one of the picnic tables set up for the lucky bidders to eat their victory lunches.

We sat and she opened the box. That Heavenly male choir hummed. She handed me some strange looking white fluffy stuff. It looked almost like a fluff of cotton with a solid center.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Manna," she answered.

"I thought 'manna' was how Mexicans said tomorrow." I wondered what the stuff really was.

"Mañana is Spanish for tomorrow," she said patiently. "Eat your food."

"Okay," I said doubtfully. I wasn't one to try too much foreign cooking. Fat back and beans and poke salad was fine for me. If I wanted something fancy, I get me some ham and okra. Then I took a taste. My mouth went to heaven all by its own self. Whatever that stuff was, it was good. "Holy cow!" I grinned. " This is really good." I reached for another one and got my knuckles cracked. It didn't hurt, but it made me draw back.

"Don't be such a redneck. Let a lady have a bite. This is a romantic food." She delicately reached into the box and pulled out more of the stuff. She took a lady-like nibble and pressed it to my lips, and I took a bite. It had a different flavor, but was as good as the first bite.

Up to then I had been sitting across the table from her. I got up and sat right next to her. I was getting horny again. "Not now, silly lamb," she chided me. Wait till we get home tonight after the dance. I have plans for you."

"Just one question. When your plans for me are over, will I be hurt, herniated, halt or lame? In fact, will I still be among the living?" Angel was giving me too much new at one time. I turned to watch Carl Fotheringill proudly escort Desire Mae and Beulah through the front door.

Angel saw where I was looking and said, "Now there's a match made in heaven."

Heaven? I thought to myself. I remembered the previous dance where Beulah learned the fine art of eating pussy and the rest of the dancegoers got to watch a great sex show. Heaven, I thought to myself, I don't think so.

"And you know what? They are they're both pregnant and will deliver in eight and a half months." She looked at the happy threesome for a moment and said, "There."

"There what?" I asked.

"I thought it would be kind of cute if they both delivered twins at the same time." She smiled at me and said, "Angel power."

"Oh," I answered. I was fast running out of smart-mouthed comebacks. Let me tell you, the great sexual side benefits aside, hanging out with an angel is hard on the nerves.

We had our box lunch and chatted with other couples when suddenly right at the stroke of midnight all the doors in the Humper County Community Center blew off their hinges, even the cupboard doors in the kitchen went flying to the floor. When the bathroom door fell away from its hinges, Clementine Stanley was trying to pull her slacks up over her two-hundred-fifty pound ass. She grinned all embarrassed like and struggled all the harder. Willard Flagler took one look at all that divine pork, let out a whoop and ran to her rescue. He whispered something in her ear and she stopped struggling. Willard expertly worked the stretched to the limit stretch pants up over her ass and proudly escorted her to his table.

Suddenly, every window in the building exploded inward, showering everybody with fine bits of glass. The stench of all the worst, sourest and most rancid farts ever let out by human behinds permeated the whole room. "Smells like someone shit his pants," I told Angel.

"Uh oh, I don't like the looks of this," Angel murmured. "Be careful and get ready to duck, my little animated dildo. That smell ain't shit. It's brimstone." She waved her hands in the air and all the broken glass came together in the middle of the dance floor in a neat pile, just waiting for someone to sweep it up and toss it in a trashcan.

"Master!" Harold Loomis shouted and bowed down facing the door. A big, tall individual wearing a pimp suit, complete with a broad-brimmed mink hat came strutting in. He looked around the room and sneered.

"Sit quietly here at the table, no matter what happens." Angel ordered. I sat and decided it was time to be as quiet and inconspicuous as I could.

The stranger looked around at the people in the community center. He sneered and looked down at Harold Loomis. "Get up, you slimy fawning asshole. You are not worthy to grovel in my presence."

"Yes Master," Harold answered him and hurriedly got to his feet.

"Hey, shit for brains," Angel called across the dance floor at the intruder. "You know it's against the rules for you to start a coven and personally preside over it. You wanna spend another ten thousand years in chains?" An aura formed around Angel, a soft, golden glow that illuminated the room with its light. That glow seemed to seep into every part of my very being and heal hurts and aches I never knew I had before then.

"Well, if it isn't the Doctor Ruth of the Celestial Kingdom." The stranger stared across the room at her with a world of hatred in his eyes. His face had a goat-like appearance. His thick lips were not sensuous in any way. They looked self indulgent, cruel and misshapen. There was an evil power about him. He seemed to almost glow with a black, unearthly flame. I was scared just looking at him.

"Master, make her turn that golden light off, please. It hurts me." Harold Loomis looked like he was in a world of hurt, standing there twitching every which way.

"Shut up and suffer, you nasty little slime. You might as well get used to it. You're going to spend an eternity feeling much worse."

"But master, I followed the directions in 'The Devil's Own Handbook' on how to sell my soul to you." I almost felt sorry for the little bastard.

"You didn't tell me you were a banker," the Devil sneered. "I don't have to buy a banker's soul. It's already mine, along with judges and politicians and most preachers. You tried to cheat me."

Harold didn't answer. He bowed his head and slowly twitched his way outside. I heard him scream back inside at me once he was out of Angel's light. "This is all your fault, Rupert Morgan! If you had let me cheat you fair and square, none of this would have happened. I hate the Hell out of you."