"A Brief Jerky With the Devil"

or

"If You Fall in Love, Keep an Eye Peeled For God"

[Enter stage left, eating beef jerky noisily. Sit at table stage right.]

So I’m a witty guy, you know? And when I’m out on a date with a woman, I like to let her know this – like be witty. So I’m on a date with this woman at a restaurant, and after the meal the waitress says to me, "Sir, would you care for a martini?" And I say, "I’m not sure. How does one care for a martini? What do they eat?" And my date looks at me and goes, "Ahahahahahahhaheh!" It was unbelieveable. All of a sudden, at that moment, I couldn’t take the dating scene for even a second more. I just got up and walked out. Left her with the check and everything. I think she had to wash dishes. I felt bad about it later, but I had to get out of there. It was just the last straw. Women. [Take bite of beef jerky. Spit it on table.] Shit.

So what do you do for a living? Wait, lemme guess. You look smart. You’re an accountant. No wait, too well-dressed. Life insurance? I knew it. I meet a lot of you guys in my line of work.

Me? What do I do? Nothing interesting, really. No, it’s not really a big deal. No. Well, okay. I’m the Devil. [Beat.] You don’t believe me, do you? [Stand up. Point at random audience member, Jake Hauser if at all possible.] When you were twelve, you had your first crush on your second cousin. When you were fourteen, you went through the entire bible with a highlighter trying to find a sex scene. When you were sixteen, you made up an alternate set of lyrics for "Joy to the World," and though it was far too graphic to recount here, I can tell you that it made repeated use of the phrase "The Lord has come." Don’t feel bad. Nobody believes me the first time I tell ’em.

[Take another bite of jerky. Chew pensively.] You know what I wanna know? Why is it I always fall for the women that are gonna wind up hurting me? Take the last girl I fell in love with. Man, she was great. I met her at work, of course – I dunno, she was either a lawyer or a caster of false idols, I forget which. Anyway, we got along really well. We had all the same interests; we’d both sit over on the edge of pit 42 and watch Hitler get sodomized with a giant menorah every Saturday, and on Sundays we’d go see a Woody Allen flick. The other five days a week she’d have to burn in unholy fire where brimstone choked her lungs and maggots pulled at her festering wounds, but anyone who says you can’t build a relationship on weekends has never been in love.

Anyway, I took her up to earth with me one time so she could watch me corrupt goodness and sow the seeds of evil in man. I think we went to Branson. And I take her out to this picturesque little bridge on the outskirts of town and just my luck, God sees us. So the first thing he does is smite her with one of those big fuckin’ lightning bolts like you always see him using in Fantasia. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been hit with one of these things, but they don’t leave much behind. She exploded instantly. So I’m standing there on this bridge that’s suddenly been covered with blood and reeking gore, and I’m just kicking myself, you know? I’m looking at the wisps of smoke and the fine pink mist that used to be her primary cardiopulmonary system, and I’m thinking, "What made me really believe it would work between us?" There I am holding a charred and severed hand with a bunch of blackened tendons hanging off it – again! – and I’m thinking "When am I gonna learn?" And you know what the answer to that is? Never. I’m never gonna learn because no matter how many times I wind up getting burned, when you’re standing in the flickering light of a million souls set aflame, and you’re looking into her big, blue, slowly rotting eyes, you can’t help but think it’s all going to work out.

[Take another bite of jerky. Chew pensively.] What can you do?