By Anthony Ferguson
Boyle screwed the street directory up in his hands despairingly. He didn’t
understand what was wrong. He had followed the old man’s instructions
perfectly. In order to sell one’s soul, you just had to stand at a crossroads
at midnight and wait for the Devil to show.
He had done exactly that on numerous occasions now, to no avail. He had been through the entire map book and marked off all the crossroads and he’d pretty much tried them all. Did it have to be a particular crossroads? He didn’t think so. The old man said any crossroads would do.
It was only the following day, on his way to the betting shop that the metaphorical possibility of the legend occurred to Boyle. There, it was, right next to the bookies, the Crossroads Nite Club, of course. It had been in town for years and it had a pretty unsavory reputation. Just the sort of place then that one might encounter the Devil.
That night, as the clock ticked toward the witching hour, Boyle drained his glass and sought out the darker recesses of the club. He hadn’t been in here for years, but from what he had seen, it hadn’t changed much, and its reputation was well deserved. In the dark corners of the main room, indistinguishable strangers grasped at one another with all the desperation borne of years of disillusionment. In the toilet cubicles, anonymous dealers dealt to anonymous clients, their eyes glimmering with hatred and resentment.
But still, no sign of the Devil in this dank pit of iniquity. Somewhat annoyed, Boyle wandered out the side door of the club, and stood under the accusing glare of the security lights. Something foul smelling drifted toward him, assaulting his nasal cavity. It seemed to emanate from the alleyway running behind and away from Crossroads. It smelt a bit like decaying flesh, like meat left out of the fridge a little too long.
It was then that he heard the voice. At first, he wasn’t sure if he
was hearing anything at all, but then it came again, “Johnnyyyyyyyyyyyyy”,
soft yet guttural, it seemed to float on the air that brought that foul stench
down the alleyway. His curiosity roused, Boyle moved toward the sound. His
footsteps disturbed an emaciated junkie squatting between a set of bins near
the wall, and he cast Boyle an evil glare as he threw away his fix, before
scurrying off and flitting into the shadows like a rat.
Standing at the back of the club now, his eyes strained into the dim light
for any sign of movement. At first, there was nothing, just a mountain of refuse
and that peculiarly rancid smell. Then the voice came again and Boyle realized
it was issuing from a drain under a grill by his feet.
He paused, uncertain, then knelt in the filth and began to pull the grill away from the black hole. With some exertion, he managed to pry the soiled grate away. Then he squatted there expectantly. A bead of perspiration ran down his face despite the cold, damp air, he really needed a cigarette.
Suddenly a hand appeared at the edge of the pit, its long, gnarled fingers grasping the slimy stained earth. Strong, talon like fingernails dug into the tar to give it purchase. Boyle flinched and stood bolt upright. Then a quiet but powerful voice commanded, “Give me your hand.”
Boyle seemed confused. “What?”
“Help me up.” The voice insisted, as one of the great paws extended slightly forward into the night.
Reluctantly, Boyle grasped the thing’s hand. It gripped his with a frightening strength and a burning finality as Satan hauled himself up into the world again with a great leap.
He stood before an astonished Boyle now, luminous red parched skin crackling and hissing as it met with the protesting fresh air. Satan looked about him and smiled at his handiwork. Then he stretched his great sinewy limbs leisurely, enjoying the look of suppressed terror on the mortal’s face as the powerful muscles flexed and popped. Finally the man spoke.
“So, you’re the Devil, I presume?” He stammered redundantly.
“That I am”, Satan replied, the stench of his breath making Boyle flinch unwittingly.
The two eyed each other warily for a moment, until the Beast grew weary of the delay.
“Well, friend, I assume there is a reason why you summoned me, hmmm? A deal you wish to strike? Something to offer Satan in return for, … a favor, perhaps?”
“You know the routine”, Boyle opined, growing in confidence. “So I’ll get straight to the point.”
He had planned for this moment a long time now. This sacrilegious ritual represented the last hope of a desperate man to leave his mark on the world, and Boyle wasn’t about to let the moment pass.
“You are a trader in souls,” has said as the Devil nodded his great head. “And I propose to give you mine, if you give me the one thing I ask.”
“That’s the way it works”, Satan concurred, pulling at a thread on the sleeve of his pinstriped suit, a suit which Boyle suddenly noticed the Devil was now sporting.
“Weren’t you all red and naked a second ago?”
The Devil nodded sagely. “You perceive me as you imagine me to be. Thus I appear to you. Without you, I don’t exist.”
Boyle shook his head. “That’s a bit too elaborate for me I’m afraid.”
The Devil looked down his nose. “Do you by chance, like to watch old gangster films?”
A sly smile crossed the mortal’s face. “Yeah, love ‘em.”
“ There’s your answer.”
Boyle nodded in understanding. “Anyway, this is what I want, and you’re gonna love this one.” The Devil raised his eyebrows quizzically at this. “I don’t want a million dollars, I don’t want a mansion, I don’t want all the women in the world, nor a huge appendage. All I want, is the ability to pull fifty bucks outta my pocket, every time I put my hand in there.”
The Devil looked momentarily surprised. “Fifty bucks?”
Boyle grinned maniacally. “Yep. That’s it. Fifty bucks. But,” he gesticulated, “None of your fancy tricks, Satan. Fifty bucks every time. Any pair of pants I choose to wear, anywhere, any time, for the rest of my life, which I trust will be long and fruitful. I’m wise to your wiseass tricks. So no funny stuff.”
Satan smiled patiently, and raised his arms in supplication. “Hey, friend, I am a man of my word. If it’s fifty bucks a pop you want. Fifty bucks you shall have.”
“You mean it?”
“Trust me. Try your pocket now.”
Hesitantly, half expecting to have his fingers bitten off, Boyle eased his
hand into the pocket of his pants. It came out empty. “Hey, what gives?”
The Devil merely winked. “Try the other hand.”
Boyle did the same with his left hand. It came out firmly grasping a crisp
fifty. He whooped in elation. “Alright!”
The Beast waited for Boyle to settle before continuing. “Now, if I could
draw your attention to what we might call the formalities.” With that,
he produced from nowhere a large, multi-paged document. Boyle’s eyes
widened.
“Is that…?”
“The contract for our deal? Yes. Let me give you a word of advice, friend. I say this to everyone and they never listen. You would be wise to read this deed carefully before you sign anything. I might be a man of my word”, and at this the Devil’s eyes flickered dangerously, “but I never, and I mean never, lose out on a deal.”
Boyle took the document proffered by Satan and shuffled the weighty tome in his hands. He spat sarcastically. “Screw that. Where do I sign?”
The Devil gave a resigned look. “They all say that.”
“
Look pal. I don’t give a rat’s arse about my soul. You know, what
the hell is a soul exactly anyway? How do I know I even got one? You just uphold
your end of the deal, gimme everything I’m asking for in this life, and
you can keep your metaphysical concept of the soul, cos as far as I’m
concerned pal, you’re getting the rough end of this deal.”
The Devil smiled sardonically. “They all say that too.”
Satan pointed a long thick finger at a dotted line on the last page of the text. Eager to conclude the deal, Boyle searched his pockets for a pen. “Would you like me to sign this in blood?”
The Devil shuddered involuntarily. “That really won’t be necessary. Here.” He withdrew a solid gold pen from his suit pocket and passed it to Boyle.
Boyle paused above the line. He threw the Devil a glance. “Will my money bring me all the other things I want?”
Satan polished his fingernails distractedly and said, “Your woman troubles are over. The money will attract the women. Unfortunately, they won’t be the sort of women you really want to attract, but I have a feeling you won’t care. Sign it, but you’d be wise to heed my counsel. I’m a gentleman and a scholar, but mister, nobody ever wins when they deal with me.”
Boyle smiled to himself and signed. The Devil took the contract, folded it inward and secreted it somewhere on his person. The two stood there silently until Boyle spoke.
“Well?”
“Can I have my pen back, please?”
Boyle gave it up reluctantly. As he turned to leave the Beast muttered, “Your name suits you well, Mr. Boyle.”
The next two years were a blur for Boyle. The Devil was indeed a man of his word, and Boyle found his left hand clasping a fifty every time he reached for the pocket. Slowly he began to accumulate all the material things he craved. Only a lack of taste prevented him from truly enjoying the benefit of his riches, that and his incredible self-interest and mounting greed.
The Devil was also right about the women. They came in droves, one after another.
They came until he grew weary of their snarling, grasping and demanding. Never
once did he hear one of them say with honesty that she loved him.
If Johnny Boyle had taken the Devil’s advice he would have read all this
and more in the fine print of the contract, and he might not have found himself
becoming ever more the stranger in a crowded room, surrounded by many but cherished
by none.
It was for such reasons that he rapidly became immersed in a loftier version
of the corrupt world he hoped he’d left behind. High rolling casinos
replaced the betting shops, a higher class of bar girl, but Johnny Boyle grew
to understand that appearances could be deceiving.
Which is how he came to be caught in a back alley outside one of those beautiful but soulless casinos somewhere in the Third World late one night around midnight, being rolled by a desperate local street thug. If Boyle had bothered to read the date on his contract, he would have noticed that it had been exactly six hundred and sixty six days, to the hour, since that fateful, life-changing encounter with the Devil.
Drunk and depressed, Boyle took a wrong turn trying to find the men’s room and stumbled into the alley at the wrong time. Now he had a knife pointed at his guts, as he handed over his wallet and wristwatch. Johnny wasn’t too concerned though, there would always be plenty more where that came from. He even afforded himself a wry smile at the hapless down and out standing before him.
“That all you got, man?” The thug grunted.
Boyle nodded sagely, and as he turned to go he said. “You know, you kind of remind me of myself several years ago. Dare to dream pal.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.” The thug snorted, placing a greasy, blood stained hand on Boyle’s shoulder. “Hey, before you go, man.”
Boyle’s eyes showed a glimmer of fear. “ What?”
The thug gesticulated with the knife. “Empty your pockets.”