The Onion

John Scarlotti threw the magazine down on the table in front of him, and sighed impatiently, looking at his watch in irritation. He hated waiting. Normally other people waited for him, not the other way around. He stood up, and scowled at the receptionist behind the sliding glass window. She opened the window, and smiled pleasantly.

“May I help you?”

“Yeah,” Scarlotti growled. “How much longer am I supposed to be left waiting out here? I’ve got an appointment!”

“Let’s see, Mr. Scarlotti,” The receptionist scanned her appointment book in front of her. “Ah yes,” she smiled. “You may go in now, Mr. Scarlotti. Please be seated. He’ll be with you in just a moment.”

Silently, Scarlotti went in through the door into a spacious, and well-appointed office. He sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk, and looked around himself in irritation. There was no one else in the room except for him.

“Where is that Doc?” Scarlotti grumbled to himself, but then suddenly wasn’t really sure if he was supposed to see a doctor after all. In fact … he struggled to remember … he didn’t know exactly what he was doing here, or for that matter where here was.

The last thing he remembered. He blinked hard several times. He wasn’t sure about that either. It had something to do with cocaine … lots of it … hidden on the bottom of a lake … or something.

Just behind the large, wooden desk a door opened, and a man entered, smiling broadly.

Scarlotti’s mouth fell open.

There standing before him, was a man who was his exact double – even down to the Armani suit he was wearing. It was just like looking in the mirror, except for the smile. He had a smile that was so warm, and infectious that it was almost as startling as the exact likeness itself.

“Who the –” Is all Scarlotti could gasp.

“Who am I?” The man asked. “I think you already know that John,” he said as he reached out to shake his hand. Scarlotti leaned forward, and shook it firmly.

Then in a moment of time, Scarlotti saw himself as a small boy playing in the yard, praying in church, going to school, and washing up for supper. Then he saw himself as a teenager, getting into trouble with his friends, stealing cars, and fighting in the street with rival gangs. Then came adulthood when he reached the big time Mafioso, setting up gambling schemes, shaking down the local merchants, and protection rackets. Here, he made his way up to the very top of organized crime, running drugs through Tampa, and guns to the Sandinistas. Finally, he remembered the last few minutes of his life on a sailboat, shooting into the water, and the sailboat erupting into flames.

He let go of the man’s hand, and sat back again in the chair, stunned. In only a fraction of a second’s time, he’d just seen his whole life in all of its’ sordid detail, right up to the end, where he … Scarlotti swallowed hard, and rubbed his face … where he died.

He looked up at the man standing behind the desk, smiling pleasantly at him. Scarlotti’s eyes went wide, as he finally realized where he was.

“Kind of a rush isn’t it John?” God said sympathetically, as he sat down behind the desk.

“What?” Scarlotti stuttered. “What’s happening here? Just what’s going on?” He shook his head. “Are you a cop or something?” He demanded, trying desperately to recover some measure of the power, and authority he’d been used to having in life.

“I guess you could call me that,” God laughed. “But I think you already know what’s going on here John. Just like Father Clamente used to tell you, that there’d be a day of reckoning someday for all the things you did in life … and … well John … that day is here.”

God opened up a manila folder file there on his desk, and leaned over it, studying the contents silently for a moment. Scarlotti swallowed hard again, and looked around himself for a moment in panic. This couldn’t be. It had to be a dream.

“Oh it’s no dream,” God said matter-of-factly, looking up from the file. “It’s real. Your body right now, is floating face down in Lake Michigan, just as dead as all of the victims you had killed in your lifetime as a Mafia boss in Tampa,” he closed the file, and sighed, getting up. He looked down at the speechless John Scarlotti, and shook his head sadly.

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,” he sighed. “I’m very disappointed in you. All of those talents, and abilities, and opportunities I gave you, just wasted … thrown away.” God sighed again, and walked over to the large plate glass window. He stared pensively down at something below with his hands clasped behind his back. He laughed for a moment.

“Do you remember John, what happened the first time you tried to kill somebody personally?”

“I-I never have killed anyone personally,” Scarlotti coughed, clearing his voice. This was more like what he was used to, dealing with cops. He sat up straight, and straightened his tie. This bozo didn’t have a thing on him.

“Exactly my point,” God continued to stare out the window. “You never could pull the trigger yourself. You could never overcome the compassion for your victim’s lives if you looked into their eyes. You always had somebody else do it for you.”

Scarlotti’s mouth dropped open. How could he … how could anyone possibly know that?

“Not that it matters who did it,” God shrugged. They were just as dead as if you actually did it yourself, but the point of the matter is that I’m the one who gave you that compassion in the first place. I gave it to you so you could use it to enrich, and enhance the lives of others about you in life, not to just give you the willies when you tried to kill somebody. And then there’s your ability to organize, and lead others. Those too were things that I gave you to start life with.”

God turned around again, and sat down in the chair opposite Scarlotti, who continued to stare at him speechless. There was something about the self-confidence with which God … or whoever this was, spoke that was unnerving. Scarlotti found himself uneasy, and off-guard.

“And then there’s your very high IQ, your motivation, and your tenacity to work hard at achieving your goals, that has stood you well in climbing ever higher, and higher in a successful, hard-working career – a career of crime. A life full of deceit, murder, theft, terror, prostitution, gun-running, gambling, and racketeering.”

God shook his head and closed the file on the desk in front of him.

“Do you have anything at all to say in your own defense before I pass sentence?”

“Sentence?” Scarlotti, glowered at God, as if he were a young, punk DA trying to make a name for himself. “Just like that huh? Don’t I even get a trial? Where’s my attorney? Ain’t I supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?”

“No,” God shook his head. “This is a theocracy I’m afraid, and as head deity, I’m the final authority. My decisions are pretty much final.”

“Hey! You can’t do that!” Scarlotti said angrily. “I got rights! Remember? As I recall, Father Clamente was always saying that your mercy was everlasting, and you had infinite forgiveness. Don’t that count? I didn’t do nothing that everybody else wasn’t doing. They got off. So how come I don’t I get another chance?”

“So you want another chance,” God sat back in his chair, with his fingers to his mouth, considering.

“Yeah. Sure,” Scarlotti leaned back in his chair self-confidently. “I’ll do better next time. I swear.”

God pushed a button on the intercom in front of him.

“Yes Sir?” The secretary’s voice answered.

“You can send in my next appointment now,” he said. “Funny thing you should say that John,” God leaned forward on the desk. “I have somebody waiting out in the other office who has a proposition for you that you might like to consider.”

The door behind Scarlotti opened and in walked another man who looked just like Scarlotti again in every respect – except for the eyes. Burning in this man’s eyes was a sinister, dark, and brooding look that Scarlotti had seen often in the eyes of his most ruthless, and brutal colleagues.

“Allow me to introduce to you the Prince of Darkness, Satan,” God nodded. “But I believe you two have met already.”

“Sure we have!” Satan smiled enthusiastically in a way that Scarlotti had seen used car salesmen smile when closing in on an easy mark. He moved forward with his hand extended to Scarlotti, and shook his hand eagerly, like a politician. “Why John here, and I have been pals for a long time! Ain’t we buddy?”

“Yeah. Sure,” Scarlotti shook his hand. There was something oddly familiar about this man, he thought. It was more of an attitude than anything else was.

“See?” Satan jerked his thumb over at Scarlotti as he took his seat in front of the big desk. “He’s recognizing me already. You ain’t going to even be close in this one,” he taunted.

“Close?” Scarlotti looked back and forth between God, and Satan confused. This was getting really bizarre. There were just too many of himself around to deal with. “What do you mean? What’s going on here? Who are you two clowns anyway?”

“Don’t worry there, John,” Satan laughed, clapping him on the shoulder like a best friend. “I’ll lay it all out for you. It’ll be the sweetest little deal you’ve ever been in, just like all the other deals we’ve done together. You’ll see. You’ll get a cut out of this whole thing, right off the top. I’ll make sure you get a nice big fat slice of the pie, just like I always do. All you got to do is stick with me, and you’ll make out like Jake. It’ll be a snap. We’ll put one over on everybody, and the sweetest part of it all, is that you don’t have to do a thing. All you got to do, is keep on doing exactly what you been doing. Nothing to it. You can do it in your sleep.”

“So what’s the scam?” Scarlotti asked.

“No scam about it John,” God interrupted. “It’s a straight forward deal. You wanted another chance – so now you got it. You get the opportunity to go back to earth again, and turn your life around. All you have to do is just one unselfish thing,” God raised his index finger. “In a week’s time.”

“One unselfish thing?” Scarlotti held his hands out. “Like what?”

“Well, that’ll be up to you to figure out. You’ll have lots of opportunities, don’t worry about that.”

“One unselfish thing?”

“That’s right.”

Scarlotti turned to Satan again.

“So what’s your cut in all this?

“Well now, you remember Job?”

“Job?” Scarlotti wrinkled his brow, trying to remember. “You mean that guy way back in the Bible that had all those bad things happen to him, and still was loyal to God? Yeah. I remember him.”

“Job. The favored of God,” Satan laughed scornfully. “What a sucker he was. Could have had the whole world if he had played ball with me.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“Well, what we got here John,” God folded his hands on his desk. “Is the other side of the bet. Satan here originally agreed back in Job’s time, to continue with the other side of the bet at his convenience when the appropriate subject loyal to him came along.”

“And that’s me.”

“That’s right,” God nodded. “Job was an honest, good, and righteous man, whom I loved, and supported. Satan bet that if he were allowed to afflict poor, undeserving Job with enough misfortune that he’d curse me to my face.”

“And so I’m the other side of the coin – the bad penny so to speak?”

“Yes,” God gestured to his manila file still on the desk. “We more or less established that fact already.”

“So – let me get this straight. You’re going to shower me with goodness and blessings so that I’ll leave this guy, and play ball with you?”

“No. All you get is a simple deal to save your own soul.” God sighed, and leaned back in his chair. “I want to make sure you understand this whole thing John. It’s not about getting the best deal you can here between the two of us. It’s about a second chance to turn your life around, and do the right thing. You’re really being offered a marvelous opportunity here that absolutely no one else in the entire history of mankind has ever had: a chance to go back for a second chance, and clear the entire slate with one unselfish act.”

God paused for a moment, looking at Scarlotti intently.

“Let me tell you a little story once,” he continued. “That illustrates the whole thing quite well. It’s a very old story that was told in the Middle Ages about a selfish, wealthy widow who lived alone, and who loved money more than anything else in the whole world.”

“A sensible attitude,” Satan interrupted.

“She treated her servants cruelly, and was a mean, miserly, unhappy woman her entire life. She eventually died, and went before me in much the same way that you are at this very moment. She was found wanting, and was sent to hell for her greed, and cruelty. While she was suffering in hell, she looked up toward heaven, and saw Michael the Archangel looking down at her with pity.

‘Mercy! Please!’ she called out. ‘For I am suffering terribly in torment from these flames.'”

“Vicious propaganda,” Satan interrupted again. “Don’t believe a word of it.”

“So Michael remembered that during her entire lifetime, this woman had done only one unselfish thing: She’d given an onion to a poor beggar woman one day. He took an onion then, and tied it to a long slender string, and lowered it down to hell where she was. The woman seized the onion, and Michael began to slowly pull her up out of hell.”

“Go on,” Satan sneered. “Tell him the rest of the story.”

God leaned forward in his chair, and folded his hands on the desk.

“Unfortunately, as the woman was being pulled up to heaven, the other miserable residents of hell began to jump up, and grab for the onion too.

‘Go away!‘ the woman kicked at the other people trying to escape hell’s torment. ‘It’s mine!’

Immediately the string broke.”

“See?” Satan nodded toward God. “That’s what happens when you trust him. Same thing’s going to happen to you if you try anything stupid. Just remember the moral to that merry little tale, and you’ll stay on the gravy train with me.”

“If you do this,” God nodded. “Then your entire file is blotted out and both you and I win. It’s not about a bet. It’s about doing what’s right.”

“Aw, don’t listen to that line of bull John,” Satan sneered. “He’s just playing you for a sucker. He doesn’t really care about you at all. He’s just saying that to get you to do what he wants. All that talk about saving souls is the same old malarkey you hear from all those phony-baloney preachers on TV who pray and act holy while they’re picking your pocket and banging the secretary underneath the altar.”

“Bunch of hypocrites,” Satan made a nasal, guttural sound of disgust. “All of them. And him?” Satan pointed to God. “He’s the worst of them all. Think for a moment. What has he ever done for you? Nothing. That’s what. But, just look at all the stuff I’ve done for you. I made sure you were a success John. I was there with every job that went your way, and every drug deal you made. I even took care of the cops now and again just to make sure your career stayed on the right track. Just look at this deal here. He’s offering you nothing. Not a thing you can put in your pocket.

“But me?” He pointed to himself. “I’m offering you the whole world. You play ball with me and just keep on doing like you been doing for the next week, and I’ll give you riches and power like you never dreamt of. Why – you’ll be my right hand man down in hell when you get there.

I’ll set you up on a throne right next to mine, just like a prince. You’ll have more there than you ever could on Earth. And all that talk about hellfire, and brimstone? Bunch of bull. You’ll see. We got a party going on down there all the time – rivers of booze – women like you ain’t never seen! It’ll be a sweet time. Forget about what that jerk’s offering you. It’s nothing compared to what I’m just handing you on a silver platter.”

“But, if you cross me with this pal,” Satan paused, and his eyes burned with malevolence. “Then the deal’s off. You just remember that. You’re mine, no matter what you do! You’ll be scrubbing latrines in hell with your tongue I promise you. We special places down there for double-crossers that surpass by far any picture of hell ever created by the most imaginative hellfire, and brimstone preacher. You’ll play ball with me all right,” Satan nodded. “Or I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

“As I see it, John,” God said, holding up two fingers. “You got two questions you have to ask yourself. “Number one. Who are you going to believe … him … or me? And number two, what are you going to do about it?”

Scarlotti suddenly found himself on the shore of Lake Michigan halfway in the water, coughing, choking, and shivering violently as an EMT bent over him, shining a flashlight in his face.

“Hey!” The EMT called out. “We got a live one over here! Bring a stretcher!”