Banking Law

Ice Skating Through Hell

I'm lounging around the Colorado Diablo Bar & Grill on the Eighth Level of Hell last Friday, knocking back my second boilermaker of the afternoon with my old pal, The Prince of Darkness himself. He tells me that I've got five or six years left, at a minimum, before he accelerates the maturity date on my contract with him and calls due my soul for all eternity. I nod and tell him that might work for me (although I'm constantly looking for loopholes), and he gives me that sly grin of his and says "Just screwing with your head, Hoss. You've got five or six weeks, max." Then he erupts with that "BWAAAAAHAAAAAAAHAAAAAAHAAAAA" cackle that just irks the living heck out of me every time I hear it, which is one too many times in my sordid life, let me tell you. Soon, he's doubled over with belly laughter and just about choking himself to death, all red in the face and spitting flames out his nose. I mean, this guy could piss off the pope. Which I believe he does regularly, come to think of it.

Anyway, Old Scratch suddenly turns off the laughter as if a switch had been thrown, sits bolt upright in his chair like he'd just been touched by an (unfallen) angel, and whips his head around like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" before Father Karras threw himself out the window. Simultaneously, an arctic blast of wind comes barreling through the saloon, knocking us both over. In no more than a blink of an eye, the place is covered with ice--all four walls and windows are a sheet of the stuff a good foot thick. To top it off, the iceberg that sunk The Titanic crashes through the front door and comes to rest between me and all of the Jack Daniel's Black in back of the bar, which REALLY frosts me.

"What the hell just happened, Nick?" I ask as The Deceiver picks himself up and starts slipping and sliding around, trying not fall and break his tail. You can tell this guy doesn't know his way around a frozen pond. Me, I grew up in upstate New York, smack in the middle of the snow belt. I could slide on ice before I could walk, which was a good thing, seeing as how many times my parents frequently threw me in snowdrifts late at night until I reached the age of five.

He turns to me and with a look on his face composed of equal parts rage and incredulity, explains: "That quarter-wit Spitzer just wrote something you agree with. Even I never saw that one coming."

As I glided past him to head home, grab a computer, cruise the Internet, and Google "Spitzer+Hell+Freezing+Over," I heard The Beast screaming for his demons, some gal named Nancy, and some guy named Barney to grab the "Space Heaters of Gehenna" and start melting "this Satan-forsaken ice."

Full post as published by Bank Lawyers Blog on June 22, 2009 (boomark / email).