Job: A Comedy of Justice

  “You think I am doing that to you?”

  “I know that You are. A game. Cat and mouse.”

  “You are trying to make a fool of Me, in front of My gentlemen.”

  “No, Your Majesty, I cannot make a fool of You. Only You can do that.”

  “Ah so. Do you realize that I can blast you where you stand?”

  “Your Majesty, I have been totally in Your power since I entered Your realm. What do You wish of me? Shall I continue trying to climb Your treadmill?”

  “Yes.”

  So I did, and the staircase stopped stretching and the treads reduced to a comfortable seven inches. In seconds I reached the same level as Satan—the level of His cloven feet, that is. Which put me much too close to Him. Not only was His Presence terrifying—I had to keep a close grip on myself—but also He stank! Of filthy garbage cans, of rotting meat, of civet and skunk, of brimstone, of closed rooms and gas from diseased gut—all that and worse. I said to myself, Alex Hergensheimer, if you let Him prod you into throwing up and thereby kill any chance of getting you and Marga back together—just don’t do it! Control yourself!

  “The stool is for you,” said Satan. “Be seated.”

  Near the throne was a backless stool, low enough to destroy the dignity of anyone who sat on it. I sat.

  Satan picked up a manuscript with a hand so big that the business-size sheets were like a deck of cards in His hand. “I’ve read it. Not bad. A bit wordy but My editors will cut it—better that way than too brief. We will need an ending for it…from you or by a ghost. Probably the latter; it needs more impact than you give it. Tell me, have you ever thought of writing for a living? Rather than preaching?”

  “I don’t think I have the talent.”

  “Talent shmalent. You should see the stuff that gets published. But you must hike up those sex scenes; today’s cash customers demand such scenes wet. Never mind that now; I didn’t call you here to discuss your literary style and its shortcomings. I called you in to make you an offer.”

  I waited. So did He. After a bit He said, “Aren’t curious about the offer?”

  “Your Majesty, certainly I am. But, if my race has learned one lesson concerning You, it is that a human should be extremely cautious in bargaining with You.”

  He chuckled and the foundations shook. “Poor little human, did you really think that I wanted to dicker for your scrawny soul?”

  “I don’t know what You want. But I’m not as smart as Dr. Faust, and not nearly as smart as Daniel Webster. It behooves me to be cautious.”

  “Oh, come! I don’t want your soul. There’s no market for souls today; there are far too many of them and quality is way down. I can pick them up at a nickel a bunch, like radishes. But I don’t; I’m overstocked. No, Saint Alexander, I wish to retain your services. Your professional services.”

  (I was suddenly alarmed. What’s the catch? Alex, this is loaded! Look behind you! What’s He after?) “You need a dishwasher?”

  He chuckled again, about 4.2 on the Richter scale. “No, no, Saint Alexander! Your vocation—not the exigency to which you were temporarily reduced. I want to hire you as a gospel-shouter, a Bible-thumper. I want you to work the Jesus business, just as you were trained to. You won’t have to raise money or pass the collection plate; the salary will be ample and the duties light. What do you say?”

  “I say You are trying to trick me.”

  “Now that’s not very kind. No tricks, Saint Alexander. You will be free to preach exactly as you please, no restrictions. Your title will be personal chaplain to Me, and Primate of Hell. You can devote the rest of your time—as little or as much as you wish—to saving lost souls…and there are plenty of those here. Salary to be negotiated…but not less than the incumbent, Pope Alexander the Sixth, a notoriously greedy soul. You won’t be pinched, I promise you. Well? How say you?”

  (Who’s crazy? The Devil, or me? Or am I having another of those nightmares that have been dogging me lately?) “Your Majesty, You have not mentioned anything I want.”

  “Ah so? Everybody needs money. You’re broke; you can’t stay in that fancy suite another day without finding a job.” He tapped the manuscript. “This may bring in something, some day. Not soon. I’m not going to advance you anything on it; it might not sell. There are too many I-Was-a-Prisoner-of-the-Evil-King extravaganzas on the market already these days.”

  “Your Majesty, You have read my memoir; You know what I want.”

  “Eh? Name it.”

  “You know. My beloved. Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson.”

  He looked surprised. “Didn’t I send you a memo about that? She’s not in Hell.”

  I felt like a patient who has kept his chin up right up to the minute the biopsy comes back…and then can’t accept the bad news. “Are You sure?”

  “Of course I am. Who do you think is in charge around here?”

  (Prince of Liars, Prince of Lies!) “How can You be sure? The way I hear it, nobody keeps track. A person could be in Hell for years and You would never know, one way or the other.”

  “If that’s the way you heard it, you heard wrong. Look, if you accept My offer, you’ll be able to afford the best agents in history, from Sherlock Holmes to J. Edgar Hoover, to search all over Hell for you. But you’d be wasting your money; she is not in My jurisdiction. I’m telling you officially.”

  I hesitated. Hell is a big place; I could search it by myself throughout eternity and I might not find Marga. But plenty of money (how well I knew it!) made hard things easy and impossible things merely difficult.

  However—Some of the things I had done as executive deputy of C.U.D. may have been a touch shoddy (meeting a budget isn’t easy), but as an ordained minister I had never hired out to the Foe. Our Ancient Adversary. How can a minister of Christ be chaplain to Satan? Marga darling, I can’t.

  “No.”

  “I can’t hear you. Let Me sweeten the deal. Accept and I will assign My prize female agent Sister Mary Patricia to you permanently. She’ll be your slave—with the minor reservation that you must not sell her. However, you can rent her out, if you wish. How say you now?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, come, come! You ask for one female; I offer you a better one. You can’t pretend not to be satisfied with Pat; you’ve been shacked up with her for weeks. Shall I play back some of the sighs and moans?”

  “You unspeakable cad!”

  “Tut, tut, don’t be rude to Me in My own house. You know and I know and we all know that there isn’t any great difference between one female and another—save possibly in their cooking. I’m offering you one slightly better in place of the one you mislaid. A year from now you’ll thank Me. Two years from now you’ll wonder why you ever fussed. Better accept, Saint Alexander; it is the best offer you can hope for, because, I tell you solemnly, that Danish zombie you ask for is not in Hell. Well?”

  “No!”

  Satan drummed on the arm of his throne and looked vexed. “That’s your last word?”

  “Yes.”

  “Suppose I offered you the chaplain job with your ice maiden thrown in?”

  “You said she wasn’t in Hell!”

  “I did not say that I did not know where she is.”

  “You can get her?”

  “Answer My question. Will you accept service as My chaplain if the contract includes returning her to you?”

  (Marga, Marga!) “No.”

  Satan said briskly, “Sergeant General, dismiss the guard. You come with me.”

  “Leftanright!…Hace! For’d!…Harp!”

  Satan got down from His throne, went around behind it without further word to me. I had to hurry to catch up with His giant strides. Back of the throne was a long dark tunnel; I broke into a run when it seemed that He was getting away from me. His silhouette shrank rapidly against a dim light at the far end of the tunnel.

  Then I almost stepped on His heels. He had not been receding as fast as I had thought; He had been changing in size. Or I ha
d been. He and I were now much the same height. I skidded to a halt close behind Him as He reached a doorway at the end of the tunnel. It was barely lighted by a red glow.

  Satan touched something at the door; a white fan light came on above the door. He opened it and turned toward me. “Come in, Alec.”

  My heart skipped and I gasped for breath. “Jerry! Jerry Farnsworth!”

  XXVII

  For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that

  increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

  Ecclesiastes 1:18

  And Job spake, and said, Let the day

  perish wherein I was born, and the night

  in which it was said, There is a man

  child conceived.

  Job 3:2-3

  My eyes dimmed, my head started to spin, my knees went rubbery. Jerry said sharply, “Hey, none of that!”—grabbed me around the waist, dragged me inside, slammed the door.

  He kept me from falling, then shook me and slapped my face. I shook my head and caught my breath. I heard Katie’s voice: “Let’s get him in where he can lie down.”

  My eyes focused. “I’m okay. I was just taken all over queer for a second.” I looked around. We were in the foyer of the Farnsworth house.

  “You went into syncope, that’s what you did. Not surprising, you had a shock. Come into the family room.”

  “All right. Hi, Katie. Gosh, it’s good to see you.”

  “You, too, dear.” She came closer, put her arms around me, and kissed me. I learned again that, while Marga was my be-all, Katie was my kind of woman, too. And Pat. Marga, I wish you could have met Pat. (Marga!)

  The family room seemed bare—unfinished furniture, no windows, no fireplace. Jerry said, “Katie, give us Remington number two, will you, please? I’m going to punch drinks.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  While they were busy, Sybil came tearing in, threw her arms around me (almost knocking me off my feet; the child is solid) and kissed me, a quick buss unlike Katie’s benison. “Mr. Graham! You were terrific! I watched all of it. With Sister Pat. She thinks you’re terrific, too.”

  The left wall changed into a picture window looking out at mountains; the opposite wall now had a field-stone fireplace with a brisk fire that looked the same as the last time I saw it. The ceiling now was low; furniture and floor and fixtures were all as I recalled “Remington number two.” Katie turned away from the controls. “Sybil, let him be, dear. Alec, off your feet. Rest.”

  “All right.” I sat down. “Uh…is this Texas? Or is it Hell?”

  “Matter of opinion,” Jerry said.

  “Is there a difference?” asked Sybil.

  “Hard to tell,” said Katie. “Don’t worry about it now, Alec. I watched you, too, and I agree with the girls. I was proud of you.”

  “He’s a tough case,” Jerry put in. “I didn’t get a mite of change off him. Alec, you stubborn squarehead, I lost three bets on you.” Drinks appeared at our places. Jerry raised his glass. “So here’s to you.”

  “To Alec!”

  “Right!”

  “Here’s to me,” I agreed and took a big slug of Jack Daniel’s. “Jerry? You’re not really—”

  He grinned at me. The tailored ranch clothes faded; the western boots gave way to cloven hooves, horns stuck up through His hair. His skin glowed ruddy red and oily over heavy muscles; in His lap a preposterously huge phallus thrust rampantly skyward.

  Katie said gently, “I think You’ve convinced him, dear, and it’s not one of Your prettier guises.”

  Quickly the conventional Devil faded and the equally conventional Texas millionaire returned. “That’s better,” said Sybil. “Daddy, why do You use that corny one?”

  “It’s an emphatic symbol. But what I’m wearing now is appropriate here. And you should be in Texas clothes, too.”

  “Must I? I think Patty has Mr. Graham used to skin by now.”

  “Her skin, not your skin. Do it before I fry you for lunch.”

  “Daddy, You’re a fraud.” Sybil grew blue jeans and a halter without moving out of her chair. “And I’m tired of being a teenager and see no reason to continue the charade. Saint Alec knows he was hoaxed.”

  “Sybil, you talk too much.”

  “Dear One, she may be right,” Katie put in quietly.

  Jerry shook His head. I sighed and said what I had to say. “Yes, Jerry, I know I’ve been hoaxed. By those who I thought were my friends. And Marga’s friends, too. You have been behind it all? Then who am I? Job?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean… Your Majesty?”

  “Alec, you need not call Me that. We met as friends. I hope we will stay friends.”

  “How can we be friends? If I am Job. Your Majesty…where is my wife!”

  “Alec, I wish I knew. Your memoir gave Me some clues and I have been following them. But I don’t know as yet. You must be patient.”

  “Uh…damn it, patient I’m not! What clues? Set me on the trail! Can’t You see that I’m going out of my mind?”

  “No, I can’t, because you’re not. I’ve just been grilling you. I pushed you to what should have been your breaking point. You can’t be broken. However, you can’t help Me search for her, not at this point. Alec, you’ve got to remember that you are human…and I am not. I have powers that you can’t imagine. I have limitations that you cannot imagine, too. So hold your peace and listen.

  “I am your friend. If you don’t believe that I am, you are free to leave My house and fend for yourself. There are jobs to be had down at the Lake front—if you can stand the reek of brimstone. You can search for Marga your own way. I don’t owe you two anything as I am not behind your troubles. Believe Me.”

  “Uh… I want to believe You.”

  “Perhaps you’ll believe Katie.”

  Katie said, “Alec, the Old One speaks sooth to you. He did not compass your troubles. Dear, did you ever bandage a wounded dog…and have the poor beastie, in its ignorance, gnaw away the dressing and damage itself still more?”

  “Uh, yes.” (My dog Brownie. I was twelve. Brownie died.)

  “Don’t be like that poor dog. Trust Jerry. If He is to help you, He must do things beyond your ken. Would you try to direct a brain surgeon? Or attempt to hurry one?”

  I smiled ruefully and reached out to pat her hand. “I’ll be good, Katie. I’ll try.”

  “Yes, do try, for Marga’s sake.”

  “I will. Uh, Jerry—stipulating that I’m merely human and can’t understand everything, can You tell me anything?”

  “What I can, I will. Where shall I start?”

  “Well, when I asked if I was Job, You said, ‘Yes and no.’ What did You mean?”

  “You are indeed another Job. With the original Job I was, I confess, one of the villains. This time I’m not.

  “I’m not proud of the fashion in which I bedeviled Job. I’m not proud of the fashion in which I have so often let My Brother Yahweh maneuver Me into doing His dirty work—starting clear back with Mother Eve—and before that, in ways I cannot explain. And I’ve always been a sucker for a bet, any sort of a bet…and I’m not proud of that weakness, either.”

  Jerry looked at the fire and brooded. “Eve was a pretty one. As soon as I laid eyes on her I knew that Yahweh had finally cooked up a creation worthy of an Artist. Then I found out He had copied most of the design.”

  “Huh? But—”

  “Man, do not interrupt. Most of your errors—this My Brother actively encourages—arise from believing that your God is solitary and all powerful. In fact My Brother—and I, too, of course—is no more than a corporal in the T. O. of the Commander in Chief. And, I must add, the Great One I think of as the C-in-C, the Chairman, the Final Power, may be a mere private to some higher Power I cannot comprehend.

  “Behind every mystery lies another mystery. Infinite recession. But you don’t need to know final answers—if there be such—and neither do I. You want to know what happened to you…and to
Margrethe. Yahweh came to Me and offered the same wager We had made over Job, asserting that He had a follower who was even more stubborn than Job. I turned Him down. That bet over Job had not been much fun; long before it was concluded I grew tired of clobbering the poor schmo. So this time I told My Brother to take His shell games elsewhere.

  “It was not until I saw you and Marga trudging along Interstate Forty, naked as kittens and just as helpless, that I realized that Yahweh had found someone else with whom to play His nasty games. So I fetched you here and kept you for a week or so—”

  “What? Just one night!”

  “Don’t quibble. Kept you long enough to wring you dry, then sent you on your way…armed with some tips on how to cope, yes, but in fact you were doing all right on your own. You’re a tough son of a bitch, Alec, so much so that I looked up the bitch you are the son of. A bitch she is and tough she was and the combo of that vixen and your sweet and gentle sire produced a creature able to survive. So I let you alone.

  “I was notified that you were coming here; My spies are everywhere. Half of My Brother’s personal staff are double agents.”

  “Saint Peter?”

  “Eh? No, not Pete. Pete is a good old Joe, the most perfect Christian in Heaven or on earth. Denied his Boss thrice, been making up for it ever since. Utterly delighted to be on nickname terms with his Master in all three of His conventional Aspects. I like Pete. If he ever has a falling out with My Brother, he’s got a job here.

  “Then you showed up in Hell. Do you recall an invitation I extended to you concerning Hell?”

  (“—look me up. I promise you some hellacious hospitality”) “Yes!”

  “Did I deliver? Careful how you answer; Sister Pat is listening.”

  “She’s not listening,” Katie denied. “Pat is a lady. Not much like some people. Darling, I can shorten this. What Alec wants to know is why he was persecuted, how he was persecuted, and what he can do about it now. Meaning Marga. Alec, the why is simple; you were picked for the same reason that a pit bull is picked to go into the pit and be torn to ribbons: because Yahweh thought you could win. The how is equally simple. You guessed right when you thought you were paranoid. Paranoid but not crazy; they were indeed conspiring against you. Every time you got close to the answer the razzle-dazzle started over again. That million dollars. Minor razzle-dazzle, that money existed only long enough to confuse you. I think that covers everything but what you can do. What you can do and all that you can do is to trust Jerry. He may fail—it’s very dangerous—but He will try.”