The Best There's Ever Been

“It doesn’t count if you’re already planning your defeat.”

           “Why does it make much of a difference?” I replied.

           If he was going to be winning either way, what did it matter if I had already accepted my fate. And just because I had accepted my fate of losing, didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be trying to find a loophole. There wasn’t a point in just giving up without at least trying to drag him down with me.

           He sighed and the red light dimmed for a moment in his eyes: he seemed disappointed. I got it. He probably had better things to be doing than spending an afternoon in Georgia in November. It was cold, dreary, just a regular grey evening. For someone of his status to stand outside of a bar with the wind in his face and waste time talking to some poor schmuck like me.

           “Do you accept?” he asked again.

           The thing was, it didn’t overly matter to me if I were to win or lose. The way I saw it, I’d either be going to hell today or in another decade or two. And the difference in years just didn’t seem to matter that much to me. Hey, if there was a chance for me to win some gold out of it, maybe turn my life around with a bit of cash, well, why not?

           And he didn’t know much about me either. Once upon a time I had attended Juilliard, studied with the greats, performed in opera houses. I didn’t doubt that he could look all of that up with a snap of his fingers, I just guessed that he was too lazy and maybe too stuck to actually do it. He was the devil after all.

           My own fiddle seemed to sag between my wrist and shoulder, the weight of its age and a few years of difficult times and not enough money spent in its upkeep dragging it down towards the pavement. I didn’t have a crowd, barely twenty bucks in the case laying at my feet, and I had expected to spend it on a sandwich and a mickey on the way home. Another reason why I would be ending up in hell in the end either way.

           He stood up a little straighter, one black boot resting on the stump of an old hickory that had been chopped down to make way for some power lines. His own leather case shined and gleamed between two gloved hands, and he gave me a smirk.

           “I thought you might give me a challenge,” he said, “make this worth my time.”

           “And I thought you were desperate,” I retorted, “You need a soul.”

           He sneered and looked off into the windows of the bar. He was disappointed. I shook my head slightly, fighting a chuckle at the irony of being a disappointment to Satan himself. Quite an achievement for my little existence.

           He snapped open the case with a metallic click and lifted a golden fiddle from the red velvet. I blew a sharp whistle through my teeth, half admiring the beautiful instrument, and half wondering what it would be worth if I pawned it for rent money.

           “I’ll start this show,” he said, poising the fiddle in the crook of one elbow while he drew the rosin across the golden bow. It seemed that an audience began to appear then, skulking out of the shadows. I glanced around uneasily, recognizing that at least not all of them were exactly human.

           He cracked his knuckles and white flame leaped from his fingertips as he slid the fiddle into position. He drew the bow across it once and it screamed, like a child in utter agony calling out for its mother.

           A hum rose up from our onlookers, the cheeky men in trench coats of different sizes with hooded faces and glittering eyes were chuckling and settling against the brick of the buildings and the cement of the curb to listen in. A cold sweat broke across my neck that had nothing to do with the wind, I was utterly surrounded by this band of demons.

           The devil’s foot began to tap, and he set the bow atop the strings, with one last look at me he settled his flaming eyes on the strings and began to play.

           The song was both cruel and beautiful. He started low and built it up, beginning with a minor scale that tremored and flew across the strings, and hitting a crescendo of wails that sounded like the whinnies of black horses dragging the grinding wheels of an iron carriage down a gravel path.

           The demons clapped and laughed and hissed, keeping the beat and a countermelody that wound its way up from the sewers and lay across the track of the music as it unfolded from the devil’s golden violin. And when it finally began to fail and fall, the notes seemed to hang in the air like a fog that curled and licked at our feet and bit at our ankles.

           He held the fiddle against his shoulder with the bow balanced delicately along the strings for a near minute when he was done, eyes closed, back straight, seeming to have grown a foot or two. Then the fiddle dropped, and he slid it back into his case, and as it clicked shut, I saw the flames dance in his eyes as a grin spread across his face.

           He seemed to know that he had won. That I couldn’t possibly be a match for this Prince of Hell and his fiddle made of gold. But it was then, with his henchmen laughing, and the last notes echoing in my chilled ears that I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I had been wrong to plan my own defeat. He was good. He was very good.

           But I was better.

           The devil dragged a crooked chair from beneath the awning of the bar and sat himself down, the fiddle case leaned casually against his knee. He sat back and raised his hands, beckoning me to begin. By now, the crowd had grown to include my own kind, who shied away from the demons in black, but nevertheless curiously leaned forward to see and hear the goings on.

           I nodded and stomped my feet to wake my toes from the cold, lifted my rosin and took my time dragging it evenly across my bow. My fiddle seemed to sag and sigh as I fitted it beneath my chin, but I gave the devil one last look as I held the bow above the strings.

           “Well, you’re pretty good,” I had to admit, “But I’m the best there’s ever been.”