DON'T YOU FORGET ME DOWN HERE, LORD. [PART TWO OF TWO]

I stopped and watched until the smoke died down in the distance. I felt like an idiot. I had just committed suicide. I was going to die out on some lonely highway. So this is fate? But what are you going to do about it? Start regretting everything the minute you’ve jumped off the cliff? No, thanks. I decided I’d just walk on and see what the hell turns up. If it’s death, then hallelujah! I obviously had a fair hand in it. If it’s a pick-up truck with a bunch of innocent farmers, then God be praised. I’d take that just as well.
The hours went slowly by and neither death nor farmer came along. I walked and walked until I had managed to walk myself into a kind of hypnotic spell. All thoughts were gone. I wasn’t aware of anything anymore, except the comforting rhythm of my automated walk. I even began to sing stupid things. Commercial tunes and shit like that, but I wasn’t very aware of it. It just happened.
Just when the sun was on its way down and the whole sky was red and it was certain that I would be discovered dead by the side of the road in a few days, I came to the crossroads.
And sure enough, there stood the devil.
I stopped and looked around myself just to make sure, you know, that I wasn’t hallucinating or something, but there was no mistake about it -- I was standing at the legendary crossroads. And whether you want him to or not, the devil will always be there, waiting.
He sat besides his bicycle. A tall skinny man, with a bicycle helmet, a backpack and those very shiny, purple bicycle shorts.
“Hey!” he called, waving with a wide grin.
I didn’t answer anything.
“Well!” he exclaimed. “What’s a pretty girl in an ugly jogging-suit doing in the middle of nowhere?”
Jesus. He was actually commenting on my jogging suit while wearing spandex, but I was too exhausted to make a point of it.
“Seriously,” he went on, sounding suddenly concerned, like a neighbor who comes over to apologize for his sprinkler system having gone mad, “what are you doing out here? Are you lost?”
“That’s none of your goddamned business.”
He frowned as though confused. I’m not usually like this at all. I’m the all-embracing hippie-type, but the way that he stood there beside his bicycle, wearing all those neat little bicycle details -- those fingerless gloves, the cap and even one of those little bags that go around your stomach -- all that was just about more than I could take on a single day. It was worse than freestyle jazz. It reminded me that I could hate with a passion.
“Hey,” he said cheerfully, after having stared at his foot for while, “how about a drink of water?”
“I’m not going to sell my soul to the devil for a lousy drink of water,” I said. “You’re going to have to think of a better deal than that.”
He looked even more confused now. “What?”
“I know who you are,” I said. “You’re not fooling me.”
“How do you know me? What is this? Did Margaret have anything to do with this?”
Now I was confused. For a matter of seconds neither of us spoke. We just eyed each other, without quite knowing how to proceed. Out in the desert, just two badly dressed strangers, trying to figure each other out while the sky turned from red to purple behind them. I was still convinced he was the devil. People don’t just stand around at the crossroads without being the devil.
“Who’s Margaret?” I asked.
“Look, it doesn’t matter.”
Pause. It seemed like neither of us knew what to say now. Had we embarrassed each other? It was hard to tell.
“So do you want a drink or not?” he asked, probably for lack of something better to say.
“Yeah, alright,” I said. “But you’re not getting my soul for it.”
“Ok.” He handed me his little “Pro-Team!” bottle and watched warily as I drank. He seemed to regard me as something highly unusual. I let him. Who gives a shit?
“Look, should we just pretend we never met?” I asked, handing him back the bottle.
“Sure.”
“Thanks for the drink.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I walked away without looking back.
My encounter with the devil left much to be desired. I didn’t know whether to be offended at the fact that he hadn’t made much of an effort for my soul, or whether to feel relief. Honestly, what sort of a miscreation was I? The devil didn’t want anything to do with me, and neither did weird freestyle jazz rapists. That really didn’t do much for my self-esteem.
It was getting very dark. I thought “shit” a few times, there being nothing better to think of, and walked steadily on. It was absurd. I couldn’t help thinking that it was absurd, walking down that empty, American landscape-- a dirty mess, alone, unwanted even by society’s scum-- wearing a grimy jogging suit. No money, no food, no water. It was romantic almost.
I sat down by the side of the road and, after a while, looked up and said, “Don’t you forget me down here, Lord.”
I felt silly after that, and began to giggle. I was lying in the middle of the road, just giggling to myself like some kind of an escaped mental patient.
So this was fate. Weird. No murder, no bargaining of the soul, no drugs, no glamour -- just the highway and me, laughing.
That’s when the Salvation Army truck pulled up.
Soon I was on my way to a place called “Creektown” with a fat man called Harry and a middle-aged woman called Janet. Well, I felt a lot better. So if it wasn’t drug dealers, rapists and the devil, it was the Salvation Army. Good enough. My little heart throbbed joyfully on. To hell with the underworld.