I was 22 when I went looking for the devil. Lost my virginity first. I know. Late bloomer. Figured if my little errand went sideways I’d at least have that to think about for a fiery eternity. Sweet note she left me in the morning. Too bad my name’s not George.

I wasn’t raised god-fearing, so I first heard about Satan when “Devil Come Down to Georgia” played on the radio. I was four, standing next to my stepmother in a butcher shop on Hudson Street.

At a crossroads, learning to fiddle in Georgia, shout from the mountain’s top or get lost along a back road during a thunderstorm: those are the places you find the devil. Not in the middle of New York City. Here, if the devil shows up, he makes the nine o’clock news as two muggings and a politician sending pictures of his cock to a teenager.

There’s so many crossroads here that, if you stood in one and pleaded for infernal help, your begging would get lost in all the noise. Then you’d get run over by a taxi. By the time the devil found you, all he’d see was a cabbie swearing at your corpse in Pashtun.

From the dreads in Crown Heights to the Wiccan stores in the East Village, I got laughed at. In a botanica in Spanish Harlem I got threatened with a machete. A basement in Woodside had telltale stains on the floor but nobody to ask about anything.  The first real lead I picked up was on some forgotten message board talking about the basement of a high school in Chelsea, a janitor named Mick and directions to bring food and liquor. Also Mick would want a copy of Jugs Magazine. Popular Science was acceptable if the supplicant was shy.

Also, I learned that somebody “totally pwn3d u n00b.” Whatever the fuck that means.

At the school, I caught Mick when he stepped out for a smoke. We talked like spies sporting pink carnations under a streetlight. I asked him how I’d find my way and he smiled and said that I’d know and pointed to the stairs. At the bottom was an institutional gray hallway. On the wall somebody had scrawled: “The dude with the horns went thataway,” and an arrow.

I made my way to a door that had a flame on it and a bunch of warning signs.

It would be the fucking boiler room, wouldn’t it?

The long-dormant boiler still smelled of grease and fire. Leaning against a wall was a cheap mirror, coated with dust. I moved an old table and chair to the center of the room, just in front of the mirror. Out of my bag I took a bottle of whiskey and a roasted chicken from a supermarket. I smirked, wishing I’d brought goat instead.

I ate chicken and drank water, leaving the whiskey for the devil. I watched myself eat in the mirror and waited for what felt like ages. Soon every tiny sound made me flinch and eventually I put my head down on the table.

I woke up the next morning in a small puddle of drool on the table-top. Still, there was no devil and the bottle of whiskey was untouched. My reflection looked as befuddled as me. I’d been played for a fool. When I emerged, squinting into the daylight, I saw Mick. He looked at me all spooky-eyed.

“Did he…” His knuckles were white on the handle of the mop and I decided if he was going to keep having fun with this, so was I. Rubbing my chest and coughing I walked over to him.

“Doesn’t hurt all that much. I expect it’s worth it.”

“What didn’t hurt?”

“When they remove your soul. Doesn’t hurt that much. It was such a tiny thing, floating in that mason jar in his hand. Glows some. I guess that makes sense.” I winced and put on a melancholy look while the janitor goggled at me, this time I decided he wasn’t faking. “Do you think it was worth it?” I asked him.

Mick’s voice got quiet. “What did you ask for?”

I shook my head and patted his shoulder as I walked past him toward the avenue.

“Wait,” He called out. “Did he really show up?”

I didn’t even bother turning, I just waved over my shoulder and rounded the corner. A few blocks away, I stopped to write the following in my notebook:

How many lies to birth a legend?

How many to feed it?