when i met the devil

When I met the devil it was nothing like I expected. All my life I’ve looked at medieval paintings and thought, “Yeah, right.” The standard image is a scaly red guy with horns and a pitchfork. Evil grimace, tight goatee, pointy tail. What a cliché. It might surprise you to know that that cliché is dead on.
I was also expecting a refined and terrifying personality like De Niro or Pacino in those movies. They spoke in clipped accents, wore cool Armani clothes, and listened to classical music. That turned out to be dead wrong. The devil’s refinement is a façade; otherwise, it’s like talking to a hyena with Tourettes.
About five years ago I was hitch-hiking between Delta and Grand Junction, Colorado. It’s basically a desert out there, but it can still get pretty cold in March, which is when I was walking. I was on my way from Gunnison to Utah for a week of camping. I could feel a snow storm coming and was thinking about just bedding down out in the desert for the night when a red pick-up pulled over and the passenger door swung open. I looked in at a ruddy face framed by red hair.
“It’s about to snow like a motherfucker, friend. Hop in. I can take you as far as Moab if you want.”
I hesitated for sanity’s split second – then looked at the gathering storm and climbed in. The cab was warm and smelled like incense and something else, something feral and dangerous. It was the kind of smell that puts you on alert.
“Where you headed, bro?” I looked closer at my driver. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, his hair dreaded into thick ropes that hung halfway down his back, covering his flannel shirt. His face was elongated, kind of pushed out and narrow, but thick at the same time. He had a long soul patch on his chin, kind of wide. The overall impression was of a goat.
“Going to Moab, actually,” I told him. “I had to get out of Gunnison for a while, and I can’t afford to fly anywhere.”
“Well, it’s still going to get cold out there this time of year,” said the driver. “You got plenty of gear?”
“I’ll be alright.”
He looked at me with a strange expression, then turned back to the road. “Hope so.”
We drove in silence for a while. To the west, the sky was clear, and we watched the sky in front of us glow red and purple as the sun set.
“You got a name, dude?”
“Mike,” I said. “What about you?”
“Michael, huh? I’ve got an amigo named Michael. Don’t see much of him anymore, though.” He seemed lost for a while, long enough for me to think he’d forgotten we were talking. I was starting to think I needed to find some way to get him to drop me in Grand Junction when he said, “Rafi. Like Raphael, like the painter, I guess. Although,” and he turned and looked at me, “I wasn’t named after him.” He kept looking at me.
I glanced from Rafi to the road and back. He was still looking at me. His expression was intent, but not angry. I checked the speedometer – 70 mph. I nodded and said, “OK. OK, I believe you.”
Rafi turned his attention back to his driving. “Don’t matter if you believe me or not,” he said calmly to the windshield.
I wondered what that was all about.
He grinned into the sun and said, “Hey, you want some coffee? I could use a cup myself.”
“Sure,” I said, deciding that if this guy got any weirder during our stop I could just leave.
We pulled into the Krispy Kreme on 50. I paid for the coffee and donuts, but I don’t remember that he offered to pay or even objected at all. We sat down at a booth and he pulled a little bottle out of his back pocket. Here we go, I thought. Rafi looked at me and raised one eyebrow. That’s when I noticed the two little bumps over his eyes. They looked almost like the nubs of horns. But when he moved his head again, I saw that it was only a trick of the light: the bumps were there for sure, but much less significant than I’d first thought. More like the remnants of an old injury. Still, it kind of freaked me out.
“Bailey’s?” I tried.
Rafi pinched his chin and lips together and shook his head. “Just a little something from the Old Country. I’d give you some, but I don’t think you can handle it, bro.” He grinned. His grin drew me in, made me want to hear more about who he was and why. Crazy people have a way about them that I find irresistible. When they’re not psycho-dangerous, that is. I couldn’t tell if he was nuts like the old guys who used to come into the public assistance office I worked at in Pittsburg, or nuts like the guy who killed his entire family and a few neighbors in Lindsboro, Florida, where my Aunt Gladys lives.
“Whatever,” I said. “So, what’s your deal?”
My approach was to humor the wackos and see what happened next. They always showed their true colors after about five minutes of talking. I glanced over toward the counter where a tired looking teenage girl was sorting donuts. She didn’t look like she’d be much help if things got ugly with this guy.
Rafi looked at her and grinned even wider. “She takes karate three times a week, but you’re right, she wouldn’t be much help to you. It’s one thing to have a weapon and another thing to use it. Right, Mike?” He looked with a subtle turn of the head. “Besides,” he continued, “I’m no danger to you.”
“How do you know she takes karate?”
“Sometimes I can just tell things. About people, I mean.”
I nodded like I understood, figuring he lived around town.
We ate our donuts and drank our coffee. Rafi talked about Bob Marley and reggae and the pan-African movement. He said he wasn’t African when I asked where he was from; he just said, “Oh, here and there.” The guy seemed OK. Not normal, not without some kind of quirk I hadn’t quite understood yet, but, I thought at the time, safe enough. Boy, was I wrong.
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We were in the desert east of Moab around 5:00 that evening. Rafi asked me if I knew where I was going to camp.
“Not really, “I said, “I think I’ll check in town. Why? You got any suggestions?”
“Of course I do, bro,” Rafi was already turning off the highway onto a dirt track. “You can check this place out and if you don’t like it, I’ll run you to Moab. This place is phenomenal. You can see the town from here, but hardly anybody knows about it. In fact, you can hike into town from here. It’s only a mile or so.”
“OK, I’ll check it out.” I thought about the .38 in my pack and wondered how I could get at it if I needed to.
He wasn’t kidding. The place was a low cliff that hung just high enough to be able to see the town. The red rocks were almost surreal, and the setting sun to the west only added to the effect. I looked around and saw evidence of other campers. There were several flat spots where my tent would sit nicely, and an obvious fire ring. As though he was reading my mind, Rafi began gathering wood and stacking it in the circle of rocks.
“Thanks, man,” I said. I got my pack out of the truck and had my tent ready in about ten minutes. I also checked on that gun, just in case. By that time Rafi had the fire blazing. He went to the back of his pickup and pulled a cooler toward him. He dug around inside and came back with a six pack of beer and a package of hot dogs.
“Just picked these up this morning. They’re organic, too. You dig that, don’t you?”
I laughed and found some bread in my things.
The dogs and beer were just what I needed. Before long I was leaned against a boulder, wrapped in a blanket, fire popping and hissing just beyond my feet. Rafi sat on a log, staring into the coals.
“So, seriously, dude, what’s your deal?” I asked. “I mean, where are you from, where do you work?”
He just stared. I thought he’d forgotten by the time he answered. “Oh,” he finally said, “I’ve done a little of this and a little of that. Nothin’ you really want to hear. Tell me about yourself.”
It was easier than I thought it would be to start talking about my past, growing up in New York with a mother who adopted cats as a hobby and a father who was allergic to animal dander, my unfinished degree in classics from St. Andrews, and my current incarnation as a ski bum in Gunnison, wishing I could swing the rent in Crested Butte, but knowing that would mean working harder than I really wanted to.
It was after midnight when we stopped talking. Rafi stretched out by the fire and seemed to be asleep. I decided to follow his lead and just crash by the fire.
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I was sleeping pretty hard, so whatever woke me must have been intense. I think. I was sitting up before I was fully awake, blinking. The fire was just coals now, glowing but not casting much light. Rafi was gone, taking a leak, I assumed.
I was laying back down when I heard a strange humming sound, almost like voices chanting, in the distance. I sat up and noticed a glowing boulder. My watch said 3:12, so it wasn’t the sun. I thought maybe it was a truck coming toward our camp. That would explain the hum.
Curious, I pulled on my boots and walked toward the boulder.
On the other side of the rock was Rafi. He was sitting down. But his entire body was glowing. I tried to focus, but my mind bogged down, slipped, couldn’t find handles for what I was seeing.
Then, slowly – I think it was slowly, the entire experience was like looking at the world from the wrong angle – Rafi started to stand up, but it seemed like he never stopped rising. As he stood, he burned red. His hair turned into flaming ropes. When I say that, I’m not trying to be poetic, I mean his hair was literally fire, like iron in a forge. Behind him huge wings, like molten steel, blazed up. The bumps on his forehead sprouted into full horns.
He was both beautiful and horrifying at the same time. When I say beautiful, I don’t mean like a woman or even like a man. I don’t mean like a sunset or a symphony. I don’t really know what I mean. It was like I’d never understood beauty until that very moment, like there was something beyond all my conceptions of beauty in that glowing figure there before me.
A heat blasted through me. The entire world had turned scarlet. My heart was racing and I was touching the top of my head to make sure it hadn’t split open. My teeth were raw, like I’d eaten acid, and ached like I’d been punched in the face. The air was suddenly alive, whirring and twisting. Power washed over me and I was nothing and I knew I was nothing. I was on my knees, then on my belly, reaching out toward Raphael’s feet in what I can only call abject worship. I was a dog in the presence of an Alpha male. The little detached part of myself, the part that watches and evaluates everything I do had shrunk to almost nothing. That part, though, finally knew what fear means.
I heard Raphael’s voice telling me to get up. It was like coming up out of water, or maybe back down into it. I stood shakily, like a marionette. I felt my head again.
“God,” I whispered.
“Hardly,” he said, sitting back down and poking the coals with his bare hands. “Now get the hell up.”
I swallowed and slumped back against my boulder. There was half a bottle of beer left beside me and I drained it. Then I looked back at him. I felt nauseous.
“If I hadn’t seen that for myself,” I began.
“Right, you wouldn’t believe it. No shit. I probably wouldn’t either, except that I’ve been seeing it all my life.”

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I don’t know how, but I fell asleep. Maybe it was the stress, but I slept like a baby until noon the next day. I woke up with a snort. Rafi was nowhere around: no truck, no foot prints, nothing. It was as though I’d dreamt the entire thing, except that I was definitely in Moab, and there’s no way I could have walked that far. I spent most of the day trying to believe I’d imagined the previous day.
I walked into town and kept my eyes out for that red pickup, but it was nowhere I was. I spent the afternoon hiking the desert, thinking. It was two days before I saw Raphael.

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I was cooking some instant soup when he was there. I mean, he wasn’t there, then suddenly he was there. I heard a noise beside me and looked over at his boots.
They were covered in mud and hay. The rest of him was filthy, too. He looked like he’d been wrestling pigs for the past two days. He didn’t say anything, just stood there like he was waiting for me to do something.
I held the pot toward him. “Soup?”
He broke into a grin and sat down. “Thought you’d never ask,” he said, pulling a loaf of hot French bread out of his jacket.
As we dipped the bread right into the pot of soup, we talked.
“I guess you’d call me an angel, although you people can’t seem to get it straight what we really are,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“OK, for one thing, look at me. Do I look like one of those fucking paintings or Christmas cards?”
“Well, not really,” I said. “And, you swear a lot for an angel.”
“Just sounds. You know that, dude.”
Anyway, it seems the legions of heaven don’t go around revealing themselves to mere mortals all the time. From what I could gather, angels have a lot of free time. That’s why he was out cruising around, picking up a hitch-hiker.
They’re also not as structured as you’d think. There’s definitely a hierarchy, but that’s determined by who’s willing to stay focused and not cruise around picking up hitch-hikers.
So, Rafi was called into the presence of an archangel named Mira-Bel-Yah and asked to explain why I had seen him in his purer form.
“So, Mira-Bel-Yah was steamed. She’s had to talk to me before about shit I’ve done. This was nothing. I remember once . . .”
“Hang on, Rafi. What’s this ‘she’? Aren’t all angels male?”
He looked sideways at me. “Aren’t you listening? I just told you about an angel and I called her she. So what would you deduce from that, college boy? Try and keep up, will you?” He sighed. “So, Mira-Bel-Yah is chewing me out when we get word that the enemy’s making a fast break over . . .” He paused and flashed me a sly grin. “Can’t tell you that. Anyway, I’ve been busy fighting those douche bags.”
“OK, well, I’m glad to see you back. Are you alright?”
Rafi nodded. “It was a pretty minor skirmish. I just never get used to it. I’ve seen these things all my life, but it always takes me by surprise. Those assholes look almost normal, but there’s something just slightly off, so you can’t get your bearings.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “When I saw you, it felt like the whole world was sliding off the edge of the table.”
“Well, that’s close. Now add to that the feeling that you’re going to go shit- crazy, piss yourself, and kill someone all at once. That might start to get the feeling I get when I’m around them.”
“That’s pretty much what it was like for me.”
He shuddered, but my mind was going another direction.
“All your life?”
“What?” He frowned at me.
“You said all your life. What’s that mean?”
“The hell you think it means? You know how there was a time when you were not, and there’s a time coming when you won’t be? I’m no different than you are, in that respect. It’s a different life than the one you live, with parents and all, but it’s a close analogy.”
“You mean, you’re not immortal?”
“Sure, immortal by your standards. But there’s only one who’s eternal.” Rafi bowed his head and held his first two fingers together with his thumb. Starting at his hairline, he drew his hand over his nose, mouth, and torso. I didn’t know what it meant, but an invisible wire tugged my own head toward my chest as he did so. When he was finished I could lift my head again.
He went on. “But there are rumors, you know. Rumors that everything good that’s been made will stand up again. You’ve heard the rumors?”
I frowned.
“Never mind.”
We slurped soup in silence.
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A few days later we were hiking through the desert. “Hey, Rafi,” I said, “Why’d you reveal yourself to me? Do I have some great divine purpose or what?”
“Sure,” he grunted. For an angel, he’s pretty easily winded.
“So what is it?”
“What’s what? You got that water still?”
“Here.” I handed him the hose of my Camelback. “My purpose. What is it?”
“How the fuck should I know?” he wheezed between gulps.
“You’re the angel. I think you ought to know.”
“That’s a stupid assumption.” Rafi stood up and set off up the trail. “Besides, why should I know your purpose? I hardly know mine. Look at it this way. You’re part of the universe; you must have some purpose. Shit, man, even moss has a purpose.”
We hiked. I thought about moss and its purpose and what that had to do with me.
After about fifteen minutes, I asked, “So why’d you pick me up? Don’t you have something to tell me? A message from God, or something?”
Rafi turned and looked hard at me. He shifted his eyes away. “Look, bro, I picked you up because you looked lonely and it was going to snow, maybe. I’m hanging around with you because, because I’m lonely. I like people.”
“OK,” I shrugged.
“Besides, I told you I got ripped a new one for that slip up. It’s no big deal; plenty of people know about us, but you weren’t exactly authorized.”
“Authorized? There’s authorization?”
“Not like that. I mean . . . Well, it’s hard to put into words. You’re just not supposed to be totally privy, is all.”
“I guess I can handle that. You’re not going to have to eliminate me, are you?” I grinned, but it faded when I saw Rafi’s dark look. “I’m only kidding, Rafi. OK, bro?”
He glared at me for a minute, then looked away. “Not us, Michael.”
I thought he was joking, but his face wasn’t kidding. My heart sank. In the back of my mind the image of Raphael’s power and horrible appearance was dancing. A little voice was whispering, If that’s what he’s like, and he’s a good one, imagine what the bad ones look like. I shook my head.
“You mean the devil is going to get me?” My voice was shaking.
“I’m sorry, bro.” He brightened. “I’ll tell you what, though. I’ll get you ready. You’ll be like my apprentice angel.”
He bounded off up the trail. I jogged along behind. “Wait, what do you mean apprentice? Have you had apprentices before?”
“Sure. It’s been a while, though. Couple thousand years.”
“Why has it been so long?”
“You know how those higher up types are. You make one mistake and you never hear the end of it.”
I stopped, afraid to ask what had happened to Rafi’s last apprentice. I didn’t have to ask.”
“I mean,” he went on, “who’s to say Nefesh wouldn’t have gotten eaten on his own?”
“Eaten?” I gasped. “Do you mean like eaten – eaten?”
“Hey, bro, no worries. That was a long time ago.”
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Secretly, I was kind of excited about my apprenticeship. I imagined desert meditations, long distance running, fasting, picking up burning cauldrons with my bare arms, walking on rice paper and leaving no trace. Real apprentice shit.
That very night we were sitting by the fire again, lost in the flames.
“Ready?” Rafi said into the heat.
“Yes,” I said, stiffly.
“OK. Three things to know about the devil. First, it’s a patient bastard. Well, not really, but it does have a longer view of immediate time than you do. Could wait a long time to try and get at you.
Second, the devil hates laughter. I don’t mean forced laughter, or the kind of laughing that comes from someone’s pain. I mean laughing at absurdity, the kind of laughing little kids do, for pure joy, and contagious laughter.
Three, the devil can’t stand real hatred. Everything needs to be mixed with fear, especially hate. If you can hate the devil with everything in you, and not hate because you’re afraid, it will leave you. Love does the same thing. In fact, it’s the love of God that protects you right now.”
Rafi leaned against his log and smiled. “Think you can handle that, bro?”
I frowned. “I guess. I never thought about hate being a good thing.”
“That’s because you humans are always aiming it in the wrong direction. It’s a pretty useful tool if you can direct it. And if you can keep it pure. If you shoot hate the wrong direction, it bounces back at yourself.”
“What?”
“Here’s the thing, I’ll explain this as best as I can. Think about goodness. It’s real, right? Well, evil, it isn’t real, it’s the absence of good. So, these devils we’re talking about, they were angels one time, right? Then they let more and more good out until they’re non-beings. Kind of like dark matter, maybe.”
I really didn’t understand any of that, but I figured I might if I waited. That’s been my experience, anyway.
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When I met the devil, it was nothing like I’d expected, and everything I’d anticipated. As you can imagine, I spent a little time thinking about the devil and what it/he would be like.
I was back in Gunnison – Crested Butte, actually – doing property management. It’s a hassle, but it’s a living. When my phone rang, I was almost expecting it.
“Mr. Hamilton?” The voice was cool, with just a hint of some kind of continental accent. “My name is Mr. Abyss.”
“Abyss,” I interrupted. “What the hell kind of name is that? Kind of over the top, isn’t it?”
He ignored me and went on. “I’m calling on behalf of my employer. Please don’t ask me his name right now; he’s rather a recluse and would prefer meeting you in the, uh, flesh.” He forced out a stiff laugh.
“Uh, that’s pretty original,” I said. “I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what this is all about.”
“Of course you do. You’re ever so clever reputation naturally precedes you. I’ll expect you around two pm.” He rattled off directions to a place in a pretty exclusive gated community.
I drove into the winding wooded thirty five acre lot at two sharp. The house was a typical mountain mansion, with plenty of logs and stone, huge windows, and a dramatic roof line. I noticed, though, that the building was situated on the lot in such a way that the windows were of no use for either views or solar gain. I smiled at the absurdity of it.
A man dressed like a city guy on a long weekend came down the steps to meet me: turtle neck, flannel shirt tucked into chinos, loafers. He nodded carefully and said, “Mr. Hamilton? Good, good. Come right in. He’s waiting for you.” When he said, “he”, the man, whom I assumed to be the ominously named Mr. Abyss, paused ever so slightly, as if to let me know to be intimidated.
The interior of the house was like someone’s idea of Satan Chic. The walls were covered in what seemed to be classical paintings, only every one covered with crudely drawn phalluses, some in the strangest places. Obscenities were scrawled into speech balloons over the heads of the subjects. From somewhere, what might have passed for chamber music played, softly.
I listened, trying to make out the sound, but it was tuneless, almost jarring. Then, when I tried to stop listening, the music ricocheted around my skull like a squirrel trapped in a box. I shook my head.
A throat cleared behind me, and I turned to see a man in an expensive looking smoking jacket sweep into the room. Abyss bowed low and backed out through another door.
“Mr. Hamilton,” the devil nearly growled, “How pleasant.”
His hair, nearly black, was greased back. He had a little goatee and a sharp nose.
“You almost look the part,” I said. “What do you want?”
“My dear Mr. Hamilton,” he said, holding his finger tips together in front of his mouth, “I merely want to talk with you. Do you know why I’ve called you today? Why today?” There was a tiny tremor of amused excitement in his voice.
“Yes, I think I do. It’s because you’ve got no creative juices in your entire body, right?”
He ignored me. “It’s the date. June 6, 2006. 6-6-6, get it?”
“Yes. You are so clever. Did you think of that all on your own?”
I turned to go, but the door was no longer there. The devil laughed, a cold sound
that sucked even the light out of the room.
Fear ran through me like an icicle. My lungs gasped.
Then the pain started.
I was on my knees before I knew what was happening. It felt like I was a mile below sea level.
The devil rushed at me, kicking and screaming like some old school karate flick. I turned and he slid sideways. My right foot lashed out, catching him on the side of the head. He cursed in some tongue I have never heard and hope to never hear again.
Blood erupted from his head. That’s when I felt the burning in my heel. The pain was crippling. I went down heavy, loaded with such pain that my world was reduced to a red haze.
I tried to laugh, tried to stand, but nothing worked.
“Jesus,” I gasped, not a prayer, not a curse, more like a sound remembered from childhood, a final breath before dying.
The devil spread its massive wings, black and scaly. They looked like wet leather. He fixed me with his burning stare and moved toward me. The devil gave a little hop, as if to fly at me, and flapped those wings. He gave a little growl as he landed, clearly trying to frighten me.
Despite my fear, I laughed out loud. “You can’t fly, can you?”
I laughed and laughed, and the laughter was a prayer.
I might have blacked out for a minute, because the next thing I knew there was another presence in the room, a presence I remembered.
Rafi gleamed red.
“You fucking knock-off,” he growled. “No originality, no creativity, nothing. I am so sick of you trying to steal my fucking look! Also, you can’t fly.”
“Oh, Rafi,” the devil demurred, “still whining about that, are we?”
“Let’s go, asshole.” Rafi produced a sword from nowhere and flew at the devil. The devil produced his own, and the two met in a terrible clash.
At their engagement, sparks flew from their swords. Then the devil struck Rafi on the shoulder, and the angel’s sword fell from his hand.
That’s when I started to laugh again. I laughed until tears ran out of my pinched eyes and my side ached. Around me, the sound of battle raged: clashing metal and unearthly shrieks, but still I laughed.
Finally the sounds of combat subsided and my laughter did, too. I felt a breeze and looked around. There was no house, no truck, only a clearing in the trees and a disheveled Rafi standing under a huge aspen.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Who knows? Who gives a shit?” Rafi shrugged. “What I want to know is what was so funny down here. I’m getting my ass kicked and I hear you laughing like a little girl in a pinafore.”
“A what?”
“Whatever. You know what I mean. Anyway, thanks. Your laughter really turned things for me. What was so funny?”
“I was laughing at what a cliché it was. I mean,” I stopped to wipe a tear from my cheek,” I mean, the whole clash of the titans thing, swords and everything. Seems a little over the top.”
Yeah,” he smiled at me, “looks like you’re starting to catch on.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “I was thinking that the battle between good and evil is a lot more subtle than that.”
Rafi walked into the trees. “Almost always,” he said over his shoulder.
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I limped carefully down the old road.