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The Devil’s Handshake

Robert Finch

    “So this is...?” “Yes Mathews, this is the site of your final resting place.” It is raining but it simply slips off Mathews’s black suit, a rather torrential rain doing little to change his broad, tall figure and middle-aged businessman’s perpetual scowl lines. He looks down and shakes his head, so little time! Yet it had been a full time, a good forty-six years. For a moment he marvels at all that has passed in his life. In fact in death he sees his life more clearly than ever, exploring memories that come to him as if they had occurred the day before. He smiles a bit retracing his paths before Satan pats him on the shoulder. “Mr. Mathews, we have work to do.”
    Satan isn’t really a man. He is simply a shadow, a silhouette, resembling a human yet fuzzy in the outlines, like an anthropomorphic hole in space. He moves his hands and gestures emphatically as he talks, his words sounding like an echo through a tunnel. “Mr. Mathews, I have an offer to make to you, a business transaction.” “For my soul?” Mr Mathews continues to stare at his grave. He feels like a man emerging from a pool only to experience a chilling wind. In a way, he feels as if a part of him is still six feet under, and in a way, it seems as if the Devil isn’t really here yet, just in the distance over the hill.
    The devil is patient as Mathews stares, finally responding “Yes for your soul, but truthfully, why settle for one soul? I have a job for you to do that I implore you to accept.” The devil waves his hand and the room turns white before fading to a city street. A boy close to adolescence is wondering the streets with bruises, cuts, and scars all over his tattered clothes. Mathews looks on in shock. “Johnathan!” Satan shakes his head and cackles “This is the future. You may see it already, your wife will not take care of your child and will abandon him to adoption. Your son will go from terrible foster home to the next, eventually dying from a very easily treatable case of pneumonia at the age of 15 due to his caretaker’s negligence and unwillingness to allow him to receive medical treatment due to cost.” Mathews staggers, dropping to his knees. The Devil is over the hill. “I...what can I do? You’re saying my soul won’t be enough?” Satan’s “face” deepens in intensity, becoming so black that Matthews’s fears that death may have an end. “Yes, there is a service I would have you preform for me. In return I will make sure that your son will be well taken care of and will live life to its fullest extent. No wordplay, no catch, only your payment and my service.”
    Mathews shakes his head. He doesn’t stop for a moment to think that the image may not be true or that Satan will go back on his word. In a way the vision and Satan’s words have much gravity in a sense, and if Satan had said that the sky is green, Mathews would have believed it. This of course, makes Satan’s job as effective as it is. “I...you know I don’t have a choice. Can I speak to Helen or?” Satan growls “NO. These are my terms and this is the situation. Will you accept my job?” Mathews sniffles, hands over his face. “I guess I don’t have a choice...I can’t let it end this way.”
    The scene shifts once more. Matthews finds himself on another city street, this time in a place in Philadelphia that he recognizes. This is the museum district and it is the dead of night. Matthews checks his watch and finds it to be 4 A.M. Which is surprising being that there is a young child sitting on a park bench. Unlike Johnathan he is wearing nice clothes, simply a white polo and blue jeans, his popcorn hair cut short and the darkness of his skin is apparent even during the darkest fare of the night. He happily kicks his legs, as if trusting in the night and the world itself, though truthfully he just knows that his mother isn’t that far away and soon they will go home. Satan points to the boy. “This is the first part of your job, of which there are five parts. I want you to approach the boy, and convince him to take your hand and follow you. You cannot force him to go with you, you must convince him.” Mathews stares at the boy for a moment and then walks towards him, sitting next to him on the bench. For a moment he shakes his head at the circumstance, serving the very heart of evil himself. But this is for his boy, this is for Johnathan. A moment of hesitation is overwhelmed by a wave of sadness. His death he can comprehend, but not his son’s, not Johnathan’s.
    “Hey. You have to come with me, quickly.” The boy looks to him and slides off the bench onto his feet, looking up at the adult. “There’s no time, hurry, take my hand.” Matthews outstretches his hand and the boy takes it. Satan nods his head “Now take him across the street.” Matthews does so, leading him to a crosswalk with a “please walk” sign. But then suddenly a truck honks and Matthews hears a loud pop, like his old Ford going over a speedbump. He looks to his side and finds the boy is no longer holding his hand. Instead he is on the ground. His face is squashed like a watermelon, and blood is everywhere. A woman screams and the truck, as soon as it had appeared, vanishes into the night. Matthews feels gravity from Satan, his body pulsing in and out. “Good, I have collected the boy’s soul. One child, and four to go.”
    The scene fades and all is black, though through Satan’s throbbing glow Mathews can still make out his outline. In a way Satan seems at home in the darkness, staring at him through socketless eyes. “I sense you wish to speak with me.” Mathews drops to his knees, “I...I didn’t kill him did I?” Satan’s mouth glows bright in an orange slice of a red smile “You did. You will need to kill four others, or your son meets a fate worse than life. I think it’s a good trade don’t you?” Mathews looks up at the Demon. “I...I want Johnathan to live. But do these children deserve to die?” Satan’s “mouth” continues to glow “Does anyone deserve to die? Still, what counts is one simple question to gain from you one answer. Will you do this for your son?” Mathews stands up, instinctively wiping his eyes though in death he cries no tears. “I really don’t have a choice.”
    Satan begins to fade. “I won’t hold your hand in the future, so here are the rules. You must take the child’s hand in some way or another with his or her consent. I feel a handshake works best. Afterwards they will die shortly after, you will see each body fall to the ground or at the very least bear witness in some way. There is no time limit and your body has no need for food, water, or pain, which will be of use for you. The first kill was easy, the next children will not fall so easily into your hands. I will be watching you, you are not allowed to in anyway try to influence the fate of your son or anyone you care about. Even if you try you will be thwarted, do save yourself the effort. Know that this task is designed to stretch your moral fiber, else your soul would be of no use to me. Mathews nods, his teeth clenched. “I will do anything possible...anything.”
    Mathews finds himself in a park. The trees are green and the sun is hot, grass swaying the breeze and children laughing running around the nearby playground and in the general vicinity. Mathews sees one child alone by himself playing with a dog. He cringes. “So this child has to die.” He doesn’t second guess. Mathews knows that what he is doing is wrong, but in his mind he feels that he is choosing between two wrongs, and his son’s death is the worse. He has a responsibility to him, he is responsible for his creation. He cares for the child he is about to kill, and he feels sick to his stomach as he approaches him with an open hand, “Hello there, I’m Jason.” The child eyes him suspiciously, “who are you?”
    Mathews stops for a moment. This isn’t as easy as it was to kill the little black boy in the night, then he had been following orders. But now the orders are far away, and even though he knows that Satan is watching he doesn’t exactly feel as if he is watching over his shoulder. He could stop now and save the boy’s life. He could stop now and save his own soul. Still the words come out “I’m a friend of your fathers. I’m seen this dog before, he’s gotten quite big, I remember when he was a puppy.” Mathews tightens as he lies, but the boy doesn’t notice. “He was a puppy?” “Yes you wouldn’t have remembered, you weren’t born yet, but your parents were very happy when they got him.” The boy smiles, “He must have been a nice puppy.”
    Mathews plays with the boy a while. The boy has a Frisbee and together they throw the toy to the dog who returns the disk to them. Soon the sun begins to grow orange and Mathews worries that he may not have too much time before the father comes. Yet he cannot get the boy’s smiling face out of his head, and the face of the first boy he had killed. Like with a wave of nausea one tries to suppress less one pukes, Mathews holds back his sadness with a smile. “Say, you want to get some ice cream. Take my hand and we’ll go get some.” Mathews looks away, he cannot bear to see a positive response and does not hear what the boy has to say. He only feels the boy’s hand in his larger one, and they walk a bit before the boy collapses and shudders on the ground. Mathews walks away into blackness not wanting to see the scene, but finds his head turned. “Look. See.” Mathews cannot help see the boy on his back as a man, perhaps his father, does chest compressions on the boy. But the boy’s face is forever laced with a smile.
    “You may rest Mathews, but know that I am here. You will not leave my sight until the task is done.” Mathews stares out into the distance and imagines a beachfront. Suddenly he is there, though he hears no birds and feels no warmth. He only sees the rise and fall of the surf and the sound of its crash. He looks out into the ocean for a while before saying “I am ready, send me to the next child.” The knot in his throat persists but the horror is gone from his mind. Still he is tense, and walks into the darkness with racing thoughts. The next child he sees is a young girl in a nursery playing with blocks. There are other children around her but Mathews immediately knows that this is the one he has to kill. No one seems to notice him, and the teachers sit in the corner chatting. For a moment Mathews fears that he will be discovered, though upon realizing that he feels calm and safe, he wonders if in a way he is being protected. He approaches the girl, not more than six, and crouches down and begins stacking the lettered blocks. Suddenly the girl notices him.
    “Who are you?” Mathews smiles “Oh I’m just visiting, do you mind if I play with you?” The girl does not answer, but does build upon Mathews’s structures and laughs when he knocks them down. “My name is Mr. Jason, what’s yours?” “I’m Abby” The little girl continues to shift through the blocks until the teacher calls all the children to the table for arts and crafts. She receive the glue and paper and together they mess around making all sorts of combinations of shapes and colors. Abigail puts a triangle on top of a square, making a house. She draws stick figures all around it, all with frowns. “Are you my Daddy? Mommy said my Daddy would come to me someday when I wasn’t looking for him, even though he’s lost. All I have to do is pray and I pray everyday” Mathews does not answer, only looking to the side. The girl draws a taller, floating stick man with little wings on the back. “This is you Daddy, you’ll stay right.” Mathews forces a smile “For a little while, just for a little while.”
    Soon school ends and Mathews walks little Abigail to the bus. She looks at him smiling now, but he does not let her take his hand. “Why?” “Because when you take my hand I will have to go far away, and I’ll never see you again Abby.” Abigail immediately withdraws her hand as the two of them enter the buss. He sits next to her, and again, no one seems to notice the full grown man on the bus full of children, somehow Mathews knows that the universe is conspiring not to interfere with his task. He thinks for a moment if it is the work of Satan, or the work of God? But some things cannot be explained and he stares out the window as Abigail talks incessantly. “So Ms. Carmen says that when the sun comes out it is warm, but when he’s hiding it’s cold.” Mathews again makes a fake, yet warm smile. And soon the bus opens and Abagail’s mother calls out to her. Mathews follows mother and daughter into their house and sits in the corner as the two go on with their day, Abigail forgetting about the strange man in the house. Mathews watches the sun set and the stars come out through the window, content to just sit for eternity, for a moment imagining that his lack of time limit means he can take his time forever. He is still committed to kill the girl, though perhaps for a little while he can relive the years when Johnathan was young. Suddenly he feels a warmth in his hand.
    “Come quick, you have to sing me to sleep Daddy, Mommy forgot.” Mathews winces, he does not want the time to be now. He follows the girl up to her room and sits by her side, her hand in his. He sings a song he knows, humming the melody of an old Led Zepplin tune as the girl’s eyes close and her body goes still. Soon her face turns a pasty white. Mathews places his hand on her mouth but feels no transfer of air. He kisses the girl on the forehead “Good night Abby” and exits the room and into the place that can be anything. He wills tears to come but they do not, his body has none. Still he hangs his head standing on top of a snowy mountain.
    “So. Do you want to stop Mr. Mathews?” Mathews doesn’t see him but he knows that he is there, all around him is blackness and somehow a circle in the center of the endless black hole beats and reverberates. “My son. My son won’t live unless I truly am torn apart.” “That’s right Mr. Mathews, that is correct.”
    Mathews finds himself in a hospital. The beeps of the machines and the various groans remind him of his own hospital room. His son and wife were there constantly as he slowly faded away, he had lost that battle. Is he losing this one? A little girl runs through the hallway playfully skipping and no one pauses to stop her, even the woman pushing the stretcher simply pauses as the girl passes by. It is a winter’s day and before it had been warm, has time really passed that quickly? Suddenly a wall ripples “You really do have all the time in the world Mathews, there are few things I don’t have my hands in.” Mathews ignores the looming darkness and follows the girl. He wants to do two things. He wants to scream, but finds he cannot. He wants to cut the girl’s throat, but also cannot. His hands clench in a pure rage at all this death around him, the death on his hands and the death of the future, the death of his young son. He stares at his own hand so long that the girl walks up to him. “Hello, are you Mommy’s doctor?” Mathews suddenly realizes that he’s in a white coat with the hospital insignia. But he doesn’t respond, until the girl moves to take his hand and he pushes her away “Don’t bother me.” Mathews says and walks away.
    He sits in the corner looking up at the sun, then the moon, then the sun again. The little girl sits next to him and kicks her legs “Why are you so sad.” Mathews flinches “I-I” “An angel told me I would see you, she said you were an angel of death.” Matthews looks down for a moment before standing up, beginning to walk away before the girl tugs his arm. “Please, you have to save Mom!”
    Mathews follows the girl to the middle-aged woman’s hospital bed. “All I have to to do is take your hand and Mom will wake up, that’s what the angel said”. Mathews shakes his head “All I know is that you will die” The girl furrows her brow in anger “But Mom will live, you have to take my hand! Mom says that people die everyday so that everyone can take their turn to live. Kill me so Mom will live. Please!” Before he can react the girl takes his hand and suddenly collapses. He calls for a nurse but no one notices him, he isn’t even there. So he waits until a shocked cleaning lady comes in a calls for the cavalry, and by that time it’s too late. Mathews stares at the woman’s vital signs, they indeed are starting to rise and get more regular.
    As he sits by her bedside he sees the shadowman. “I sense you have some questions for me.” Mathews stares at the shadow, even though the more he gases the deeper his eyes go, the deeper the darkness encompasses his sight. Eventually he has to look away, but the fire in his eyes doesn’t give out. “You say I have as much time as I need right?” “Yes, yes you do.” The Devil crosses his legs. “As long as you do it I don’t care how long you take, you know...” “Stop, just stop talking.” Matthews’s brows furrow “There is something going on here, the girl mentioned an angel, is God vying for my soul too?” The shadow glows a dull red where his mouth would be “You can say that, in a way, but the truth is I just called in a favor to teach you something. I do have you for eternity you know.” “Yes, I can’t go back after what I’ve done” Matthews looks down. “All I know is this is some sick game you and God are playing, and it involves my son.” The devil sits down “Actually it doesn’t involve your son at all, it’s all about you.” Matthews turns his back and walks through a void “When has life ever been about me?”
    Matthews kicks a stone. This time he didn’t go back to the sanctuary, dream vision, or wherever he had been before. He just goes to the next job. He wants this to be over. But nothing can prepare him for the image in front of his eyes. He recognizes his target instantly only to realize that his job may not be needed, the young kid of around thirteen has a gun pointed upward at his chin. He’s sweating profusely muttering a prayer in Spanish. Surprisingly Matthews can understand it. He is far away but in a second he is right in front of the quivering boy. The boy blinks twice and drops the gun. “You, you’re Superman.” Matthews shakes his head, “Just call me Mr. Satan.”
    Matthews sits down with the child and tells him what he has been told to do. “So you’re here to kill me” Matthews nods. “I would gladly go with you. There isn’t anything left for me here Superman. My mom, she killed herself last month and I want to follow her. Now I’m with my father. He abandoned me when I was born and now he feels obligated to raise me “right”. And right means no Spanish, no rap, and no playing with my friends in the neighborhood. I go to this new school and I have to wear a uniform. I hate it, I don’t know anybody. I’m so alone, but Superman, you’re here to take me away. I want to go away, so, won’t you take me?”
    Mathews stares at the child with a long, dead, gray stare. “Do you want to die alone?” The boy shakes his head “But how else will I see my mom again?” “Would your mother be happy that you killed yourself?” The child shakes his head. “Then know this, I will kill you, but I’ll kill you once you’re truly finished. If I had to chose how I die I’d die with everything rather than die with nothing. Then, being fulfilled, I’d be able to pass on better.” The child nods. “I’ll help you pass on, I promise.”
    The first step was the father. He wasn’t nearly as bad as the child, Fernando, had described. Mathews had met plenty like him when he was alive, just a cozy, upper middle-class man who believed above all else in appearance and decorum. In other words, a culture shock for a boy who had spent his developing years greasing his hair in the inner city. “Fernando, there’s only one thing your dad wants, and that’s a son he can be proud of. If you do well he’ll respect it, and then he’ll trust you to be yourself. Until then you have to follow his rules, understand?” Fernando did, and commenced with what Matthews told him to do. He cut his hair short, started wearing white polo shirts, and with the help of Matthews finally understood what it was to deal with unknowns in equations. When the report card came his father hugged him for the first time. “I knew you could do it.” he whispers as they embrace. The father opens a bottle of beer. “But dad, I didn’t know you drank.” “Oh I drink all the time, I just never let you see me drink. The truth is son I didn’t want to set a bad example, I’ve seen plenty of friends treat drinking the wrong way. But I trust you, and someday, I’ll pour you your first drink when you’re eighteen.” “Eighteen dad?” The father guffaws in laughter “That’s the age limit when I was a kid and I feel it should still stand.” Fernando smiles and in his mind, finally finds meaning in the word “father”.
    Next is school. Even clean cut, Fernando doesn’t quite fit in with the other children, many of them had been there since kindergarten and the cliques were firmly established for years and years. Matthews’s advice is simple, sit at a table...all the tables. Many of the children don’t notice him, they talk without him and he ends up staring out into space. But the fifth table he tries has only one girl, a pasty-haired young woman with gray braided hair. He says hi, she says hi, and they stare at each other for three minutes until Fernando asks “So how long have you been here?” The girl smiles “I’m new, you?”
    Each day he meets with Maria and they talk about everything. They talk about movies, they talk about sports. Fernando even tries to teach Maria a little Spanish, which catches on. Soon they have their own little secret language, though half the time Maria uses English words to fill in the blanks of her ineptitude. It moves around school that they are a couple and the two of them smile at that. They don’t even know what a couple is.
    The day comes, graduation and moving on to highschool. On the day before Matthews approaches Fernando “We had a deal, I’m sorry, but I have to kill you now.” Fernando nods “I don’t want to die but, you’re dead, right? It can’t all be bad.” Fernando takes Matthews’s hand. A pistol appears in the dead man’s hand and they walk to the park by the river. “I’m sorry, but I have to save my son.” Fernando stares at the rushing river. “I know” Then the gun goes off. Matthews doesn’t even pull the trigger, but he certainly aimed the gun and had long ago killed the boy in his mind.
    Suddenly Matthews is once again in a different place, a gray place that is well lit with an air of calm. On the left is Satan, his dark form pulsating. On the right is a figure so surrounded by light that the very substance of the room itself appears to emanate from him. Matthews doesn’t have to think twice to know it’s God. Satan chuckles “I’m afraid that I left out a tiny detail, your soul has a buyer” Matthews drops on his knees and prays, speaking so thoughtlessly that gibberish comes out of his mind. The white mass hovers over to him and a tendril reaches out. Matthews takes it and promptly collapses. “His devotion is good, I’ll leave the sin to you.” And with that the white mass exits, leaving Satan to contemplate on his own, grasping a soul with a chunk taken out of it. He would have had to take the children’s souls anyway, grave digging had never been in God’s interest and as it had been since the beginning, he left the “lower” and more grating and repetitious processes to his most skilled servant. In the end though Satan finds it an interesting way to attempt tasks, going for efficiency by killing two birds with one stone. With a test an ingredient of a pure soul is found, an integral part of an angel, and during that test five souls who had somehow escaped death were reaped. And besides, it made a good show. And what will the next show be called, and where will it be held? Satan makes plans to turn the mundane into the spectacular, for what else can he gain enjoyment out of, this man of immortal years? With a blink of an eye he changes one thing about the world, he makes it shine on the grave of the man who has sinned for love. The mother takes it as a sign from God that everything will be okay, that God will guide her and help her provide for her son. Satan feels a warmth from the broken soul, like a grain of rice ripped of its skin and thus all its nutritional value. But it is useful for Satan. Even the soul of a sinner has some uses, and so the Demon presses his hands together and forms the shape of a crow out of the putty. The crow smells death and flies to it, remembering nothing and happy that it does not, feeling a pang of regret coupled with the thought that sometime before he had done something good. Satan turns his back and goes on to his next task, the task that never ends. He is the gatekeeper to death, and he is the garbage man of God’s Earth.

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