The following short play was presented at a theatre in Barcelona in 2013.
GET THEE BEHIND ME
A short play by John Lane
CHARACTERS
JESUS CHRIST (JAY)
LUCIFER (LOU)
A FEW OF THE DAMNED
THE VOICE OF GOD
PLACE
Hell
SETTING
Lucifer’s office is a wide-open space, dominated on the left by a huge ornate desk and throne-like chair. Another, less grand, seat is opposite. In the top left hand corner of the room, there is a drinks cabinet. Around the walls there are pictures of people being tormented by demons and dotted around the room, some of the damned are being made to stand as living statues. All is tinged with flickering orange/red light. A nasty-looking trident is leaning against the far wall. Other pain-inducing instruments can be seen strewn about the room too.
MUSIC
Something heavy and classical: maybe Verdi’s Requiem Mass
The lights come up to reveal LUCIFER/LOU (seemingly late-thirties) sitting at his desk, peering at a computer screen. At the back of the room, one of the damned moans as he desperately tries to keep hold of what looks like a huge rock in his hands. At the sound of approaching footsteps, LOU rises from his chair and strides across the room, his hand outstretched, to greet JESUS/JAY as he enters LOU’S domain.
LOU (shaking JAY”S hand warmly)
Jay, my boy, good to see you!
JAY
Hey Lou…
LOU
Please, please, come in! Take a seat.
LOU indicates the chair on the other side of his desk. JAY sits down while LOU walks over to the drinks cabinet.
LOU
Can I offer you anything? Water? Orange juice?
JAY
Whisky.
LOU (turning round with a look of amused surprise)
Whisky, huh? What’s up, son? Trouble in Paradise?
JAY (sounding tired)
Not in the slightest.
(JAY sighs)
Everything’s perfect up there. Completely and utterly perfect.
LOU pours them both whiskies and brings them over to the desk, placing one of them down and handing the other to JAY. JAY takes a sip and winces at the drink’s harshness. LOU watches him curiously.
LOU
Excuse me for just a moment would you?
JAY (waving his free hand airily)
Sure, sure…
LOU moves towards the trident leaning against the far wall and picks it up. He moves to the rock-holding damned and proceeds to jab him in the stomach with the trident. The damned screams, dropping the rock and falling to the floor. LOU savagely kicks and stabs at the prone damned a few times before crouching down and punching the unfortunate repeatedly in the face.
LOU gets to his feet and straightens himself out a little as he walks back over to JAY, who sits there gaping at what he has just witnessed.
LOU (flicking his thumb over his shoulder)
Banker…
JAY (eyebrows raised)
Oh…
LOU (sitting down)
He’s lucky I’m in a good mood today.
LOU opens a desk drawer and takes out what looks like a small rock, which he hurls at the whimpering banker.
LOU
So… how’s your father?
JAY (sulkily)
Ask Him yourself.
LOU draws a complicated symbol in the air.
LOU
My Lord?
GOD (speaking through JAY – GOD’S voice will come over the speaker system, with JAY’S lips moving in synch)
WHAT DO YOU WANT LUCIFER?
LOU
Ah, well, um… nothing really, almighty reverence. I was just… ah… checking in… seeing if, you know, you’re… um… alright?
GOD
OF COURSE I’M ALRIGHT! IF I WASN’T, IT’D BE BECAUSE I WILLED IT SO AND I’M HARDLY LIKELY TO BLOODY WELL DO THAT, AM I?
LOU
Since you put it that way, I…
GOD (sarcastically)
I KNOW… I THINK I’LL MAKE MY LIFE DIFFICULT TODAY…
LOU (shifting uncomfortably)
Yes, Lord, sorry…
GOD (still sarcastically)
TELL YOU WHAT… I’LL GIVE MYSELF CHICKEN POX!
LOU
Yes, Sire, I think I get the idea…
GOD
OR WHOOPING COUGH…
LOU (sighing resignedly)
Glad you’re on form, Majesty.
GOD
JUST BE GLAD I’M NOT CHANGING YOUR FORM FOR WASTING MY INCALCUABLY VALUABLE TIME. I’M A BUSY DEITY, LUCIFER… BOTHER ME AGAIN AND YOU’LL SUDDENLY FIND YOURSELF CONTEMPLATING EXISTENCE AS A BIT OF PLANKTON LODGED IN THE DIGESTIVE TRACT OF A SPERM WHALE!
LOU
Yes, Holiness, thank…
JAY
Don’t bother. He’s gone.
LOU
Moody, isn’t he?
JAY
If he can be bothered to even acknowledge you.
LOU
Ah, I see, Daddy doesn’t have time to play catch, eh?
JAY
He spends all His time playing with his new universe set. Obsessed with it, He is… He just sits there all the time painting planets, shaping sub-atomic particles, putting together multi-cellular life forms and firing off big bangs. It’s like He’s totally lost interest in this universe…
LOU
So you thought you’d come and have a bit of fun with your ol’ Uncle Lou, down here in the infernal realms, eh? Get away from it all for a bit, sort of thing?
JAY holds LOU’S eye for a moment before responding.
JAY
Something like that…
LOU
But not that exactly?
JAY
No. No, I was thinking of doing something on a more… permanent basis.
LOU (shocked despite himself)
I beg your pardon?
JAY
I want to stay.
LOU
In Hell?
JAY
I thought maybe I could help out…
(JAY looks suddenly hopeful)
I could be your assistant or something!
LOU (shaking his head in disbelief)
Wait. Just wait a minute while I see if I’ve got this straight… you, the son of God, the King of lambs himself, are looking for an executive position… in the Underworld?
JAY
Would that be problematic?
LOU
We-ell… No, no… I don’t suppose… initially… but, ah… aren’t you worried you might be… um…
(LOU points upwards)
Don’t you think you’d probably be incurring His wrath? I don’t want to claim to be an expert or anything, but I don’t imagine He’d be all that pleased. I mean, what if word got out to the Mortals?
JAY
Come on, Lou! He already knows, doesn’t He? Mr. All-Flipping-Seeing knows everything. It’s probably been…
(JAY makes inverted comma fingers in the air and rolls his eyes)
“Preordained”
LOU
Well I suppose I can’t deny your logic…
JAY
Anyway, I’m here talking to you about it, aren’t I? If He cared that much, He’d be doing something about it…
(JAY folds his arms and crosses his legs in a huff)
But He’s not, is He?
LOU drums his fingers on his chin in thought.
LOU
Hmmm…
JAY (unfolding himself and leaning forward intently, hands outstretched beseechingly)
Oh please, Lou… At least give me a chance! I promise I won’t let you down.
LOU
Listen Jay, I don’t doubt your intentions, lad, but… well, to be brutally frank, I just don’t think you’re cut out for the kind of work we do down here. I mean, can you honestly see yourself peeling the skin off an inmate, ramming a spear up his backside and dipping the bugger in a vat of boiling chili sauce?
JAY shuffles silently in his seat.
LOU
What about cutting off a man’s genitals and stapling them to his tongue, eh? That’s a sort of basic down here, something we give the novice demons. Seriously, you think you could do even that?
JAY (getting up and pacing round a little)
Alright, sure, I admit that I probably wouldn’t be much good at the… physical stuff. I wasn’t really thinking along those lines anyway.
LOU
So what lines were you thinking along then?
JAY (shrugging)
I thought perhaps I could try my hand at the temptation side of the business.
LOU (looking somewhat more relaxed as realisation dawns)
Aaah, I see… you want to be a sales rep?
JAY
Yes! Yes, exactly!
LOU (looking thoughtful)
I don’t know…
JAY
I reckon I could be pretty persuasive.
LOU
I hate to say it, Jay, but you weren’t all that persuasive the last time you walked the Earth, were you?
JAY (all defensive)
That wasn’t my fault! Look at the material I had to work with! I mean… blessed are the meek? Come on! Who was ever going to buy that? Even Christians – my so-called bloody ‘followers’ – mostly can’t be arsed with anything I said.
LOU
I see your point.
JAY
It was alright for Dad. He got to appear as burning bushes, throw down plagues and order mortals to sacrifice their kids. That’s the kind of wholesome fire-and-brimstone stuff people can respect. Then suddenly He gets all mushy and I’m supposed to convert these blood-thirsty monsters of His with a bit of ‘love-thy-neighbour’, after He’d spent thousands of years telling them that, actually, it was perfectly alright to slaughter your neighbour, especially if that neighbour happened to disagree with you about the length of Dad’s beard! No wonder they nailed me up.
LOU
Harbouring quite a bit of resentment, aren’t we, lad?
JAY
Well it was all so bloody unfair!
LOU
Hey, you don’t need to explain it to me, kiddo, of all people. Come on, stop that pacing and sit yourself down again.
JAY reluctantly sits.
LOU
Okay, I can see you’ve got plenty of motivation. That’s always useful in sales. What concerns me is experience. Yes, you had a lousy product to shift, I’ll give you that, but still… acquiring souls to float on the infernal market is a whole different kettle of fish.
JAY
I’m good with fish.
LOU (steepling his hands)
Ye-ess. What I’m trying to say is, well, although you might not be plying the pitchforks yourself, so as to speak, you’re still going to be the one responsible for consigning a mortal spirit to eternal torment. You think you can live with that?
JAY (grinning sheepishly)
Actually, I already do.
LOU (taken aback)
Come again?
JAY
Check your records. You should have a Joseph Smith Jr. down here.
LOU
Joseph Smith Jr.? Wait a moment
LOU consults his computer.
LOU
We’ve got quite a lot of them actually. Pretty common name, you see… could you be a bit more specific?
JAY
He would have arrived, let me see, ah yes, June 27, 1844.
LOU types in a search string.
LOU
Ah, here we go. Unholy fuck, the Mormon dude?
JAY
Yup, him of Latter Day Saints fame.
LOU
What have you got to do with him?
JAY
Well, you know how he claimed this angel came to him in a vision and told him where to go to find this buried book of golden plates talking about how I was apparently walking around America hundreds of years before my birth?
LOU
Yeah…
JAY
Well, it wasn’t an angel. It was yours truly.
LOU
You’re shitting me!
JAY
It was all my own idea. I even manifested the gold plates for a short while.
LOU
You came up with the whole thing? Seriously? Even the bit about people being, what was it, alien intelligences floating around space, sold an idea by God, but not his creations?
JAY
That’s right.
LOU (with new respect)
Oh, that’s good. That’s bloody good. Nothing the Big G hates more than unauthorised orthodoxies. It’s straight into the Pit for that. How in your name did you get Smith to swallow it?
JAY
How else? I pandered to his vanity, didn’t I?
LOU
Don’t tell me… you told him God had chosen him, right?
JAY
Yep.
LOU (cracking up)
Classic!
JAY
Plus I slipped in some hoo-hah regarding plural marriage.
LOU
Whoo… I bet he was into that. I bet he just lapped that up!
JAY
Wait until you hear the clincher. I told him he was one of my direct descendants.
LOU
No!
JAY
And, get this, when it came to deciding who’d get into heaven or not, he’d be on the judgement committee with me and Dad!
LOU (rolling about)
Oh my God, I remember now! He couldn’t believe it when he found himself down here. I wondered why he kept demanding to speak to both of you.
(LOU wipes tears of mirth from his eyes)
Oh, that’s priceless. Priceless!
JAY (with more confidence now)
So, what do you say, then? You going to give me a go or what?
LOU
Are you kidding? Son, it sounds to me like you’re a natural.
LOU stands up and proffers his hand to JAY, who also gets to his feet.
LOU (shaking hands)
You’re in.
JAY (shaking hands still)
You won’t regret it, Uncle Lou.
LOU walks around the desk and puts his arm around JAY.
LOU
Listen, since you’re here, you fancy going to pay Smith a quick visit?
JAY
Why not? I could do with a laugh.
LOU
Come on then.
With his arm still around JAY, LOU leads JAY out of the office.
LOU (voice fading out as they exit the stage)
Tell you what, we’ll swing by the politician’s wing on the way. I’ve got to greet a new arrival, some fellow called Tony…
Lights fade to black to the sound of distant tortured screams.
END