Daughter of darkness, the Devil delivers Jimmy the woman he wished to have.
"What are you doing?" Joe looked from the bag of stale bread to look at Michael, Lance, and Bill before looking back to Jimmy.
"What am I doing?" Defensive after being caught, Jimmy gave his four friends an embarrassed look. "What do you think I'm doing?"
"Do you really think that lightning will strike twice Jimmy?" Michael looked at his friend and laughed.
"Is it your plan to sit on the bench and feed the ducks while praying to God for a woman who looks like Susan?" Lance smiled his disbelief at Jimmy and waved a hand of nonsense at him. "You're crazy."
"I don't believe that sitting on a bench while feeding some dumb birds is man's porthole to finding love, sex, and companionship," said Bill. "Maybe you should do what the rest of us do. Join a dating site or sit next to some of the horny, old women and settle for some cheap feels of their tits and ass while putting their hands on your cock after they turn off the lights at movie night. Trust me," said Bill giving Jimmy a wink. "Forcing the hand of a woman on your cock, even a wrinkled, old hand while feeling her up makes you feel like you're a horny teenager all over again."
"You guys can have your feels of the old women. I'd rather take my chances praying to God for my own version of Susan. If something like this can happen to Glenn while feeding pigeons and by praying to God for a young, beautiful, blonde, busty, blue-eyed girlfriend, I'm hoping to do the same by praying to God while feeding the ducks," said Jimmy.
"Good luck with that," said Joe. "There's a lot to say about positive thinking. If that's what you want, I hope that works for you."
"I'm praying that what happened to Glenn will happen to me too. That's my plan. If I have to feed the ducks for the rest of my miserable life, I'm going to feed the ducks while praying for God to send me a young, beautiful woman in the way he sent one to Glenn," said Jimmy with jealous anger and raising his voice in frustration.
Even though he didn't believe it would happen, every day, instead of playing cards and checkers, Jimmy headed down to the duck pond to feed the ducks while sitting on the bench and talking to God. At first he felt ridiculous but had he not seen what happened to Glenn with Susan, he wouldn't have believed it. Obviously, with him not able to take Susan's photo, she's a ghost or an Angel delivered to Glenn for praying to God. Nonetheless her being a ghost or an Angel, as real as any human, they all saw her with their own eyes and talked to her as if she was human and one of them. He wouldn't mind having a ghost or an Angel giving him sex for the rest of her life. He could only imagine how ethereal and Heavenly to have sex with a ghost or an Angel would feel. A cheap date, he wondered what ghosts and Angels ate and drank, if anything at all.
Jimmy sat on the bench tossing out crumbs of bread. As soon as the crumbs hit the grass, the ducks left the water for the sake of some free food. There was a half circle of three dozen or so birds quacking, flapping their wings, and fighting over the crumbs. Suddenly, he was enjoying the experience of feeding dumb birds. Feeding them was calming. Having a dog all of his life, until Buster died before coming to the nursing home, feeding birds was like having pets but without all of the responsibility, the cleanup, and the care. Just as in the way that Glenn had named some of the pigeons, Jimmy even started naming some of the ducks. With each one looking a little different from the other, they were easy to name.
"Here you go Donald, Daisy, Daffy, Birdie, and Aflac," said Jimmy passing out the bread so that each duck received and equal share.
He sat like that staring at the ducks while thinking of Glenn with Susan. If something like her can happen to someone like him, why couldn't he have someone to love too. After the disaster of his first two marriages, he swore off women. Yet, he was lonely, horny, and angry. He needed a good woman to make him sane again. Maybe if he hooked up with a ghost or an Angel she wouldn't be a bitch. Suddenly, he thought about Donald Trump and Hugh Hefner. Maybe their women were all ghosts and/or Angels too. Maybe they learned the secret of praying to God for women long ago.
"Dear God in Heaven," said Jimmy looking up to the sky. "I know I haven't been the best man but if you can hear me, I'd like to experience a beautiful, young, sexy woman before I die. I don't care so much about a woman's age, she doesn't have to be half my age in the way that Susan is to Glenn. She can be in her early sixties for all I care. Really, I don't mind her age so much as her attitude and so long as she still looks young and acts young enough to keep me interested in her sexually, if you know what I mean God."
After a few weeks of sitting on the bench at the duck pond, feeding the ducks, and faithfully praying to God every day, Jimmy felt his prayers were going unanswered. He didn't hear God talk to him in the way that others have said they talk to God and hear God talking to them. Other than a duck shitting on his head, he didn't receive a sign from God that he was even listening to him. He didn't know what else to do other than to continue praying to God and feeding the ducks while naming more of them.
Afraid that this wasn't working in the way that praying to God had worked for Glenn, he feared that because Glenn was a better person, perhaps he had God's ear when he didn't. With no alternative left and a big step for him to take, but wanting to have someone in his life in the way that Glenn had Susan, he turned to the only one he thought could help him. He turned to the Devil. Being that when he died, he was going to Hell anyway for being such a mean and miserable bastard all of his life, he asked Satan for help.
"Dear Devil, being that I never prayed to the Devil before, I don't know how to address you," he said looking down at the ground instead of up at the sky. "Should I call you Devil, the Dark Angel, Satan, or Beezlebub? Well, whatever you're called, I need your help. I need a woman Devil but not just any woman. I need someone who will love me for the rest of my days on Earth in the way that Susan loves Glenn," he said looking around to make sure there was no one there listening to him praying to the Devil.
Desperate to have someone in his life, he felt just as ridiculous praying to the Devil as he did praying to God. Only, with praying to the Devil, literally and figuratively, he was playing with fire. Damming himself and condemning himself to Hell for all of eternity by denying the existence of God and the Holy Spirit for the sake of the Devil's help, he was giving his eternal soul to the Devil in exchange for having a woman for however long he had to live. Was it a fair exchange? Was it worth giving his eternal soul to the Devil for the sake of having a young, beautiful, sexy woman for a few years? Being that he was so lonely, so horny, and so envious of Glenn, and being that he was going to Hell anyway, he thought it was worth trading his soul for a woman.
"I want the rest of my life filled with sex. After all the misery I've had to endure in my life and after all the misery I gave to others to endure, I need someone who will make my last days happy ones. Now, she doesn't have be as young as Susan, Satan. So long as she's wicked pretty and has big tits, I'd be happy with her whatever is her age, that is, so long as she's not older than me and so long as she looks younger than me. I want to make my friends, Joe, Lance, Michael, and Bill jealous in the way that Glenn made me jealous with Susan. Oh, and, in case you don't know how old I am Satan, I'm seventy-five-years-old," said Jimmy.
That day, Jimmy returned to the nursing home feeling bad about himself that he wasn't receiving any help from God and that he was desperate enough to ask the Devil for help. Afraid he'd burn in Hell for all of eternity not so much for the bad life he's lived but more because he asked Satan for his help in finding his dream woman. Wanting to stay in bed than to go down to the duck pond and sit on the bench to feed ducks while praying to Satan, the next day was foggy, damp, and cold.
Dragging himself from bed, just as he did every day for weeks before, he sat on his bench with a bag of stale bread ready to feed the ducks. Only, there were no ducks. Obviously, new to all of this praying stuff, sadly, Jimmy didn't know that it takes longer for God to do good than it takes for the Devil to do bad. Perhaps had he known that God was listening, he would have persevered and continued to pray to God. Too late now, he already had the Devil's attention.
With a colorless and cloudless sky above, everything was surreally and depressingly quiet. Accustomed to hearing crows cawing, birds singing, ducks quacking, and squirrels looking for food, there were no birds or animals about. With everything so calm and with not even a wind to make him feel alive, the lull before the storm, as if there was a big storm brewing and coming, everything was so totally quiet, too quiet, and unnervingly quiet. The fog, the calm, and the quiet unnerved him enough to make him feel that he wasn't sitting there alone.