The Tale of Sympathy for the Devil

Gypsy Lou began:

“It was Sunday morning and a good congregation hung out in Pedro’s bar room, sipping sacramental whiskies to ease their hangovers away. Twenty or thirty people hunched over the round tables or leant upon the bar for dear life. But these were decent folks and, as it was before noon on the day of rest, not a single card game had started and not a single flick-knife had sinned that day.
Cigarette and reefer smoke helped keep the daylight at bay and Pedro's kids slouched around with brooms, ushering the broken glass, butts and dust congealed with spit to vague piles near the door. No one could be bothered with conversation. All souls were engaged in deep dialogue with the small shots of liquor before them. A tired whore crossed her legs in an attempt to attract someone's attention - but her cigarette was all she was likely to set her lips to that morning and she knew it.
The lettering on the sign hanging out side had long since faded beyond recognition but that didn't stop the stranger from staring at it. He shook his head with a frown and, setting down his guitar case as a stool, he stepped up with a white handkerchief in his hands. He dabbed away at twenty years of dust and grime until at last the letters of 'Pedro’s Bar' became reluctantly clear.
There was no silence to fall as the stranger walked in and everyone regretted they weren't talking the moment before. To make up for the missed cliché they swung their heads around to stare at him with sullen suspicion. The effect was a little dampened by the painful cracks of their neck joints as they did so.
“I'm a stranger in town!" The stranger said, smiling to reveal a shining set of white teeth that were probably plastic, "Can a man get a whiskey around here?"
No one bothered to encourage him in the art of stating the obvious and so he stepped up to the bar. Before he could open his mouth, Pedro slid in front of him a grimy glass of yellow liquid, the same colour as the landlord's sallow, liverish skin. The newcomer flicked up a pair of inquiring, catlike eyes at this pillar of lard with an all-day sweat and his palms upon the counter.
"Take it or leave it!" Pedro growled. His customer smiled strangely and took his drink in one swallow.
"I'll take the bottle!" He grinned, steam coming out of his nostrils.
"That's fifty dollars." Pedro grunted without moving.
"Do you take credit cards? I guess not, huh? Well, now, let me see." He the stranger said, slipping out a thick roll of 100 dollar bills that sharpened everyone's attention. He paid up and took his bottle and his guitar over to a stool at the far end of the bar.
"Now I have decided to bless you all on this day of the Lord with a little low-down blues from across the Atlantic!" He announced, laying his black hat on the bar and flicking open the catches to his guitar case. In reply came another click from across the room. A skinny man in jeans, boots and a pathetic moustache that twitched as he spoke, pointed his pistol at the musician.
"Just hand over the money if you want to live!" He warned with a shaky amphetamine accent that hinted at the length of his fuse. His target looked up with a hurt expression.
"But how do you know my music will be that bad?" He protested, "I haven't even begun yet!"
"I told you, motherfucker!" The gunman yelled and he fired three times. The musician reached out a lazy hand and caught the bullets. He bit off the cylinder caps and snorted the gunpowder with gusto.
"Ah, nothing like it!" He declared with a grin, "Say, you got any more of that stuff?"
But his attacker had already run out of the door and was crushed by a passing truck a moment later.
Now that he had the undivided attention of his audience, the stranger saddled his stool and dropped his strings down to an open tuning. He tilted the bottle of whiskey down his neck until nothing remained inside. Then, with a satisfied gasp, he smashed the bottle against the counter so that just the bottle neck remained on his little finger. With this traditional slide, he caressed a few bass notes and rustled up some treble. He looked up to make his introductions.
"Well, people, I was born a long... long time ago in a place that none of you are likely to see! Heh! Heh! My name is taken in vain wherever I go and yet people keep trekking on down to those cross-roads to find me. You've all heard of me and have probably laid a good deal of unfair blame at my door - And I love you for it! " He looked up with glassy eyes and looked as though he might begin to cry,
"But I want you all to know that I have been misunderstood - Yes I have! All I’ve ever received is the contempt of the rich and the hate of the poor - Yet all of you come to my door at some time or the other, hoping your credit is good!
And you all have a great advantage over me! Because, you see, there's no one in this old world who could possibly afford to buy my soul - much as I'd like to sell it! So let me sing it to you!"
Blues rippled through his face and his fingers whipped the air with heart-curdling lashes and riffs, sighs of minor notes easing each onslaught. He tilted back his neck and sang in a voice as sharp as broken diamonds, moist as the Mississippi:

“ Yes, I am the Devil and I want to level with you,
Yes I am the Devil and I want to level with you,,
You know God must be a sod to let me do what I do!

I travel light but I'm burdened with sin,
I travel light but I'm burdened with sin,
I'd break the scales if I were to weigh in!

I'm a fallen angel but I'm gonna change my ways,
I'm a fallen angel but I'm gonna change my ways,
Or else I'll get me a good lawyer, come Judgement Day!"

The crowd remained frozen at what they had just witnessed. But Satan just shrugged, packed up his guitar and strolled out the bar without a word, his soul satisfied for singing his blues.
No one inside felt like talking about it and dealt with the incident in their own way - Half found themselves headed to Church for the first time in their adult lives but the other half just hit the whiskey even harder than before. Only at closing time that day did Big Joe discover that the $100 dollar bill was counterfeit.

Chapter 14