Here I am. Standing in front of her grave, watching as she sinks into the ground. If I was still a kid then I’d probably stare wide-eyed, wondering what sort of unseen magician’s trick makes the coffin float and what was in the box. Instead I’ve grown up, so I stand around listening to feeble apologies and trying to keep myself from crying.

She’s not coming back. I keep telling that to myself, turning it over in my mind like a mantra, keeping away the disappointment that hides behind naïve hope.

There he is. When all of the mourners are gone and she’s buried deep down so I can never see her again, I look up to see the Devil standing next to me, his head bowed in what I assume is mock respect. Right now he looks like Al Pacino.

The Devil’s a movie buff. I didn’t know that until he started following me around, keeping me company when the cancer took away Alice’s ability to speak. He especially likes movies about himself, and every once in a while he wanders around looking like the actors who portray him. When he wants to seduce someone, he uses Elizabeth Hurley. Get him really drunk at a party and he’ll stumble around insisting that he’s George Burns. I sometimes wonder if God does the same thing, but I guess he doesn’t have any decent actors to use. Unless he’s a fan of Charlton Heston or Alanis Morissette.

There I go. My head jerks up, I spin on my heel, and I’ve almost marched all the way to the car before he catches up to me.

Here he comes. He follows me the rest of the way to the car, keeping pace with me and walking at my side as though we pretended to like each other. He doesn’t say anything, but keep his head turned to the side, looking right into my face even as I try to bury it in the collar of my coat. His eyes are sad, shiny with prepared tears. His lips remain parted, as though some infinite wisdom will be coming out of them at any moment

“That’s how he’ll try to get you,” I say to myself. “He’ll pretend to care, but don’t you dare talk to him. You don’t need anyone anymore, especially not him.”

It starts to rain, and I adjust the brim of my fedora to keep the wetness from rolling into my eyes. I try to pretend that I’m Humphrey Bogart so I can believe for a few moments that I have a bulletproof soul.

There’s my car. I jiggle the key in the lock three times in the lock to open the door. Then he makes his move.

“Do you want to go to a movie?” he asks me. “Misery loves company and there’s a showing of White Heat at the drive-in tonight,” he says.

Here I go. I slam the door and buckle my seat belt, leaving him to get wet in the rain. I’ve never seen the Devil at the theater, but I’m sure that he’s a terrible moviegoer. Probably the type of guy who sits around smoking cigars and giving away the plots because he’s seen the film a million times.

Top of the world, ma.

***

I go to bed sixteen stories into the sky, the closest to Alice that I could find in an efficiency apartment. The curtains are brown and drawn, unopened after the sunlight hurt her eyes. The rest of the interior is a black-smeared gray, as though Clint Eastwood had painted the walls with a cigar and then spit his tar-black lungs in the corner. I eat a can of re-fried, reheated beans and flop down on a mattress as lumpy as mashed potatoes.

Here I am. All alone in a box. The bed’s too large and the ceiling’s too gray, and that makes me sad. Then a sadistic voice in my head points out how relieved I am not to have to hug a skeleton with bad breath, and that makes me feel worse. I tell myself that I miss Alice, no matter what her form, and fall asleep crying into my pillow. I worry that the tears might make me less of a man, but no one’s watching anyway. God never asked me out to a movie, and Alice didn’t like Cagney.

***

Here are my dreams. They’re all about her.

She sits on the edge of her bed in her underwear, brushing her long brown hair for what seems like hours. The TV across the room is still on from yesterday when I fell asleep to the late night movie. Right now it’s blaring the morning news, talking about an earthquake in Afghanistan or something.

She starts smoothing the wrinkles out of a pair of long brown stockings and I reach out behind her and snap her bra strap. She lets out a little squeal and gives me a playful slap on the shoulder. We spend a couple moments laughing, and I move in behind her to kiss the strawberry-colored bruise that the tiny plastic buckle left on her back.

She gradually gets dressed and we make small talk, occasionally breaking off for a playful pinch or a quick kiss. Our breakfast table is cramped between the small space between the sink and the refrigerator, so we get to sit close to one another while we eat whatever cereal hasn’t been used up before payday. She thumbs through the next few chapters of whatever book she’s reading at the time (in these dreams it’s always Great Expectations, though I can’t remember her ever doing quite that amount of heavy reading before), and I wonder why she wastes her time with those things instead of just waiting for them to come out on film.

“You never get into a character’s head in a movie,” she says.

“I thought you had cancer,” I say, frowning as I realize that the dream must be coming to an end.

“I got better,” she says as she gives me a kiss on the cheek and heads out to work.

I wake up as my hands brush over an old paperback that has long ago lost its cover. I frown and toss the thing to the floor, casting it down to the dust, food crumbs, and cobwebs on the carpet.

I know that this is the real world because she’s not here. No one gets better.

I drift off to sleep again for what must be the twelfth time tonight, hoping that I find one of those dreams again but worrying about how I’ll feel when I wake up and realize that I still can’t have her.

The TV finishes up its showing of Bride of Frankenstein. My eyes close just as the monster blows up the lab with himself and his would-be wife inside.

***

Here comes the morning, ready for its hostile takeover of my room. The sunrays touch the heavy brown curtain, press forward, get ambushed by the dust floating around inside, and retreat to call for reinforcements. My alarm clock plays Beatles music, one of their later and more forgettable songs.

“Bang bang,” says the door.

Here he is. I open the door just enough for him to stick his aging Hollywood face in. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and briefs, probably still pretending to be the noisy neighbor down the hall. He sticks his hand through the opening and offers me a beer.

“I know it’s a little early,” he says, “but I figure that you could use one.”

“What do you want?”

“A night out with a friend.”

I grab the tiny metal crucifix that I had attached to myself when Alice was declared terminal and thrust it out at him, like I was fighting Count Dracula. He frowns at me and takes a step into the hall.

“There’s a rust spot on Jesus’ armpit,” he informs me. Then he leaves and tells me to knock next door if I need anything.

Bastard.

I pry open the window, allowing the sunlight’s cavalry to charge victoriously into my lair. Amidst the imaginary trumpet blowing a victory calls, I toss the crucifix into the quiet morning streets. Smile to myself as I pretend that it lands on someone sixteen stories down and kills them instantly. Then someone else can suffer, and I won’t be the only one.

I close my eyes and imagine what Hell must be like this time of year.

***

Work has been a pity parade ever since she died. People beam and smile amongst one another and then scatter like pigeons when I come near. This girl Phoebe walked by me last week after picking her kid up from daycare. The little girl couldn’t have been more than three years old, and she stared up six feet two inches at my bald head, eyes round like hula hoops. Then her mom hit her on the shoulder and told her not to stare.

Here I am. The circus freak.

I can’t stand to go home after work, but I trudge in anyway and toss my briefcase on the floor. It flops open, scattering papers across the carpet. I put Sunset Boulevard into the VCR.

Here is my life. Old reruns.

I’m ready for my close-up Mr. D-eeeeee-mmmmmm-iiiiii-llllll…

Thirty seconds of white static and screeching machinery later and my tape is gone.

Here goes the VCR, flying across the room. It hits the wall and dents the plaster, voiding my security deposit. Six kicks, another toss, and a stream of curses later and I’ve vanquished the foe. It feels good to win. I turn around to beam at my audience.

No one’s there. Not even Alice’s skeleton with her painful you-make-me-happy-but-I’m-still-going-to-die-on-you smile.

***

So a guy walks into a bar and sits down next to a fallen angel disguised as Viggo Mortensen. Viggo’s just signed Lucifer into someone’s autograph book, and they think it’s funny as Hell. He orders a drink for me, and I take a sip when the barkeep slides the glass in front of me.

“So what’s the deal,” I ask the glass just loudly enough so the Devil might overhear me. “Am I dead too? Am I going to Hell, where I’ll never see Alice again?”

He says no and pats my shoulder. “I’m not that into my job, no matter what the scriptures say.”

We sit in silence and finish our drinks.

“So what do you want?”

“Misery loves company,” he tells me. “Come on over to my place and we can watch a movie.”

***

We watch Casablanca and Ilsa still leaves Rick standing at the airport in the end, which makes us both a little happier with its predictable constancy.

“Tell me about it,” he says, even though I don’t think that I said anything.

“What would you know about it?”

He smiles and breathes in, looking like he’s going to be telling a long story.

“You’d like to think that you’re sad because she suffered for so long, or because it must hurt to die and be where she is now. But it’s really because you’re alone. You’ve been in her presence and you can’t bear to be without her now. It’s the ultimate torture, and there’s nothing you can do but feel depressed. Or maybe you just want to kick the shit out of something and be pissed off for a change.”

“What’s this got to do with you?”

He lights a cigar and takes a puff off of it, blowing the smoke upwards and painting the ceiling gray. “I just enjoy not being the one for a change.”

“The one?”

“For you it’s been less than a month,” he reminds me. “I’ve had to deal with it since the dawn of time.”

“What, did some angel shoot you down?”

He flashes me a sad smile. “In a matter of speaking.”

“Tell me about it.”

His eyelids flutter, as he slips into momentary reverie. “Let’s say that if the cosmos was a film noir, then God would be the femme fatale. She makes Ingrid Bergman look like a troll.”

I skip with the whole God is a woman question and let him continue his story. He’s probably had a few too many drinks by now. Pretty soon he’ll be short and look like he’s a couple million years old.

The story doesn’t come. He stabs out his cigar in a shiny metal ashtray, closes his eyes, and bites his lower lip, trying not to cry. “Now she’s gone and I’m stuck here talking to you.”

Here we are. Sitting in silence, watching the credits of Casablanca. I borrow one of the Devil’s cigars.

The fundamental things apply.

Two weeks later I watched Bedazzled on a new VCR, but Elizabeth Hurley’s breasts just look like Al Pacino to me.

_{Featured Image: János Csongor Kerekes, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0}