The Devil on the top of Pele: it was a sacrifice, and now “J” on the bottom of my sternum doesn’t stand for James anymore

Boys get discovered as winter melts
Flowers competing for the sun
Years go by and I’m here still waiting
Withering where some snowman was

Tori Amos, 1992
Winter
Little Earthquakes

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So did I tell you about the time I saw the Devil?

“See” is the best word I can find, but please remember it’s only words (did I tell you my philosophy on words vs. art?).

One might purport that it was during one of my many acid or mushroom trips. Or during the road rage attack. Or during one of my dissociative episodes.

No. I was sober as fuck. In recovery, even. No. I was safe in a fancy downtown conference space rented out by a fancy private university. No. I was completely present in my body and mind.

I was grappling with polyamory that day. Specifically with knowing my lover was with his wife for a daylong staycation , somewhere fancy downtown. Much more significant though was that I was grappling with a sort of relapse, but with a person instead of drugs or alcohol. In the last 24 hours I had reconnected with James, knowing it was James that put me in the psych ward the year before. The terror of being back in the toxic electricity of that relationship had brought me to me knees, right in front of concentrated Evil.

James’ email had walked me to it on a leash.

When it happened, a fear – sheer shock and terror – fell over me. Inside, my eyes opened wide and a small sound escaped my mouth. I could only drop my jaw and shake so much i was actual still.

Like the way crack differed from coke. So sped up inside that everything stopped, and then all I could do was stare with starkness.

This is not really
this is not
really
happening

You bet your life it is.”

Tori Amos, 1992
Cornflake Girl
Under the Pink

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All I could do when I saw him was stare at my computer and the students and professor, and try to understand (read: believe) what was happening.

All I could do was get up and go to the fancy bathroom with the spacious stalls and squat down with my back to the wall, with that blank stare and hot tears on my face.

Exactly one week later, on my way to that same class, Alice called me and said Jeff died.

“You can be my Pamela.”

Jeff to me
walking across the grass in the Carol Stream sun with the other two Snakes not far behind, like a band of gypsies

The magic poet 1994 Glenbard North version of Jim Morrison. My Jim. An angel.

Two weeks later, at his funeral, I learned it was a heroin overdose.

Two weeks later, reading his journal with his unique and recognizable handwriting and his ashes only a foot in front of our faces, I learned he had been in IOP 2 months ago. When I walked away to cry – one of us had fallen, as so many in these rooms* do. But THIS time – dear god what has this life, this youth, even meant? – the “one of us” was one of US: the kids, the high school, the Snakes in the mall parking lot smoking cigarettes and completely sober but drunk with teenage angst! One of the original rat pack in MY movie.

Even more: the one I was in love with. The one infamously referenced in Snakes with the words “you hurt everything you touch!” because he gave me a Marlboro Light to smoke in the mall, after we saw The Doors (and the Marlboro Light to start the ball rolling, weeks before, behind the church across the street from the high school.)

Two weeks later, I walked away from the journal and the handwriting and the Urn to sob in private around the corner.

Two weeks later at his funeral, around the corner, Alice came over and said it was obviously an intentional overdose. He knew what he was doing.

…with that blank stare and hot tears fall down my face.

An addict knows how much is without a doubt going to be too much.

A professional knows when “too much” might be playing it close but you just want to make sure you get good and high. But it was too much, and you die. You weren’t intending to die, though.

He was. He was and I get it because I’ve had the same intention more than once in this life. It’s a dark you never come back from. Maybe that’s why the chances of someone successfully committing suicide goes up with each failed attempt.

Two weeks later, after his funeral, in a hotel room with Alice and Shala- where I relapsed on legal gummies (at lot has changed since 1994 – I learned that he had done it the day after I leaned against that wall in that fancy bathroom stall.

All I could do was put things together in my head, where my soul saw:

He was coming for us that night and I saw him, the Devil. He was coming for us – the Snakes, the Glenbard North kids with Marlboro Lights in hand behind the church across the street. Or maybe coming for all of us, us sinners in sweet home Chicago or on Earth. He was coming for us that Wednesday night. But he saw Jeff’s spirit hurting and he got the ball rolling, like Aristotle’s Dark Primary Mover. Instead of taking all or any other of us, he pushed out of nothingness and then waited patiently, watching the dominoes fall. Until the last one fell and Jeff injected enough heroin for the Devil to just scoop up his glowing body the next day. And take him away from us. From this.

My soul saw clear-as-day that he came and aimed at all of us and Jeff, after probably no more than a second, said “take me instead”.

I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

U2, 1987