The Trials of Tremolo the Tale-Teller: Prologue (In Heaven [Naturally])

"And who shut within doors the sea,

when it burst forth from the womb;

When I made the clouds its garment

and thick darkness its swaddling bands?"

-Job 38,8-9

                In those days, there lived in the land of Kentucky a man of passing iniquity, intimate with all forms of vileness and blasphemy, loathsomeness and villainy, intransigence and oratory. His name, which you may have heard (for even now some speak it with contempt) was Tremolo the Tale-Teller, and verily his evil was without a bound. Speakers, talkers, tongue-waggers, conversationalists, nosy neighbors, announcers, marketers, deceivers, tellers of Monday morning rumors, whisperers through the confessional veil, dogs, late night variety show hosts, sign language interpreters, forgers, flight attendants, sales executives, inviters to games of hide-the-penny-in-the-basket, and Roger… verily interlocutors of all kinds conversed conversationally of Tremolo’s iniquitous iniquity. Maker of bad bargains and puppeteer, they called him, liar, swindler, gambler, raiser of stakes, smoker, joker, midnight toker, drinker of regular instead of diet soft drinks, sometimes leaver-upper of the toilet seat, oft-times buyer of cheap coffee, moocher, loocher, objectifier, faker, hipster, leaner, grinner, lister, fister, flip-flopper, and melon baller. All these names and more they called him, and know ye, reader, that the guilt of him plunged far deeper than any dared imagine.

                Tremolo made his dwelling in a run-down shack on the wrong side of the tracks, and there he practiced his unspeakable arts. Of the arts themselves, it suffices to reiterate that they were unspeakable, though Tremolo would often claim (as we shall see) that, “Really all I want to do is to show people how I do it.”

                Naturally, no one believed him, and the wiser and cleverer of his listeners (of which he had many, irrespective of his unsavory repute among the populace) were largely of the opinion that Tremolo was here speaking in the manner of parable.

                But it is of course poor form to give up too much too soon, and so to proceed…

                One day, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, “Whence do you come?”

                Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “From roaming on the earth and under it.”

                The Lord said to Satan, “Have you seen the man Tremolo? Really, there’s nobody like him on all the earth. He’s had the Commandments Department backed up for months! We’re falling behind, no really, since he’s been thinking up nasty things to do faster than we can ban them.” The Lord added with a bit of a sideways look, “He’s been posing quite a diabolical problem for us up here.”

                Satan took a few seconds to answer, being momentarily engrossed in observing the sons of God, who were rolling around in their diapers and gurgling at one another with a few squelchy mouth sounds that sort of turned Satan’s stomach a little bit. With what you’d really have to call a disgusted look fading from his face, Satan turned to the Lord and shrugged, “Hey, don’t look at me. I know what you’re thinking, and no, Tremolo’s not one of mine, thank you very much!”

                The Lord sighed, waved Satan over into the kitchen, “You want a salad or something, I think maybe I have some tofu chicken in the fridge?”

                Satan made another face, waved his hand dismissively in an almost you’d say automatic motion, “No, that’s all right. Thanks though. I just already ate, is all.”

                Shuffling through the refrigerator, the Lord turned to give Satan an inquiring and almost mournful look.

                Satan flushed slightly, scurried back to check on the sons of God. “I picked up some fast food on the way here, I didn’t know you had anything prepared.”

                “That’s a lie,” the Lord announced airily from the kitchen.

                The sons of God were just fine, and Satan watched with a sort of clinical fascination as they lolled about listlessly, which he supposed would maybe improve their musculature and fine-tune their motor control. The word cute appeared floating through the air in cursive handwriting, all pink and bubbly and full of flourishes. Satan caught the word with one hand and tried to attach it to the potato-shaped sacks of flesh and bone, to no avail. With a sigh he stepped back into the kitchen, “Well, what makes you think it’s a lie?”

                The Lord gave Satan that look again, “It’s a lie.”

                Satan held up the flat of his hand, cocked his head to the right with a practiced motion, “Don’t judge me! Only God can judge me!”

                The Lord chuckled politely and chewed his tofu chicken, to all appearances with a totally appropriate degree of enjoyment. He silently motioned to Satan to sit across the table from him, then asked, “You’re certain you know nothing whatsoever about Tremolo the Tale-Teller?”

                “No, nothing, I told you.”

                “Are you sure you don’t know anything?”

                “I’d never even heard of him till you mentioned him a minute ago.”

                “Hmm.”

                “What makes you so sure I do?”

                “Who’s sure? I’m just making conversation.”

                “No, no, no, don’t get all high and mighty with me, Mr. Lord of All Creation. You’re driving at something here, don’t try to fool me with those mysterious ways of yours.”

                The Lord simply chewed his salad, watched Satan with a faintly amused expression on his face.

                Satan made a face and examined his fingernails intently. Passing on from the nails, he discovered a small cut on the palm of his right hand, one he hadn’t exactly noticed before, and tried to will himself into being as fascinated with it as possible. The silence grew oppressive. Satan heard a clock ticking, probably from somewhere down the hallway, and wondered that he hadn’t noticed it before. Sands of the hourglass… ugh. Across the table, the Lord continued his meal, and Satan suddenly realized that although his host had eaten very nearly a full salad by now, the plate was no closer to being empty than it was when they had sat down. The ticking seemed to grow louder.

                Satan sighed loudly, even (you’d say) histrionically, and spoke up a last, “Okay, okay, okay, I get it. You want me to prove to you that Tremolo has nothing to do with me? Is that what you want? That’s got to be what you want. I don’t even know why I come here, because you just give me the same old runaround and I end up even more confused at the end than I was at the beginning. Or am I just imagining it? What do you want?”

                The Lord’s expression was unreadable, but seemed to bespeak some strong emotion.

                Satan continued, “You want me to prove that Tremolo’s not working for me. Fine, I’ll do it. Aaaaand you know how I’m gonna do it? Easy enough. You say he’s so bad, so bad that he invents new and improved ways to do evil every day? I’ll just get him to do something good… Not like what you’re thinking, don’t even say it, it’s not a, ‘Because I’m the Lord I can vicariously allow evil to take place in the world and through finite evil work an infinite good,’ kind of thing. No, no, no, I’ll one-up you on that, I’ll get Tremolo to do good for the sake of the goodness of it. Just see if I don’t!”

                The Lord wiped his face with a napkin, stood up. “That’s quite a wonderful idea you’ve got there, Satan,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “I wish I’d have thought of it.”