My Life With the Devil, Part I

The first time I met the Devil, I was just a newborn babe. My parents, like all wise parents, chose to introduce me right away (it is his world, after all). Contrary to the impression given in movies, we did not meet in the basement; further, he was in every way a perfect gentleman, other than that he handled me unsafely, shook me like cocktail shaker, touched me inappropriately and continued smoking. He was, however, very charming, and no one seemed to mind. “Delightful little cherub” he said, “What else ya got?”

Lest anyone think that this memory is too accurate for a newborn babe or, is in any way fictionalized, let me add that I was an extremely bright and receptive child: When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shown by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires. Also, I still have the cigarette butt that fell into my crib.

Then came those wonderful, truly magical years when God and the Devil are entirely real entities that speak to you, only having met the actual Devil, I knew somewhere that these other manifestations were explorations of my imagination, my developing ego formations, personality and nascent moral sense. So when I stole that shelf label from the grocery store because my brother made it seem so attractive, they were there, but not really. And when I burned the pot and lied about it, a dialogue followed, but it was just my child’s brain trying to understand the issue. And when we found that stash of weather worn crinkly pornography and played with ourselves with grimy fingers, I know the real Devil was probably indifferent. And when I was so mad I stabbed my brother with a knitting needle, he was somewhere else. And when I lied and said that it was the Scout Leader that had been providing the crinkly black and white S&M pornography to the rest of the troop and making them do humiliating, questionable things in return, things not conducive to character and a scout’s honor and the man was labeled a pedophile and sent to jail and his life destroyed, I spoke to God and the Devil a lot then, but I was just justifying myself. I know, because the Devil and I spoke, not long after, when I was fourteen: having survived this horrific episode of sexual abuse and having had the courage to speak the truth against corrupt adult power, I had shown some early character and a talent for public speaking; I was shaping up to be an ambitious young man and was perhaps thinking of politics. I joined the debate team. I had just finished addressing the United Nations defending Serbian actions in Sarajevo. I overplayed my case, to be sure and should not have mentioned Tito. I only did it because I wanted to be liked. My speech was entitled “What is Genocide, Really?”: I had written it for speech class. The Devil really gave me no more than a nod on the way out, but his meaning was clear: it was pathetic. I needed to grow up. He wasn’t there for my speech, of course. He’s at the UN a lot.

I actually didn’t see the Devil a lot at college, and I think that’s probably typical. I remember seeing him just once at a lecture given by Jurgen Habermas. He didn’t seem to listen to the lecture, but waited with solicitude, as for an old friend. After the lecture they stood together and chatted in German and laughed like childhood companions seeing each other after a long war; their eyes were most sad, they flickered in deep recesses, like a blackout candle or a hiding animal, which impressed me. I meant to follow them, but at the time, I was an alcoholic and alcoholics sometimes have difficulty following through.