The Devil Rides the Ferris Wheel

When I was a kid, I looked forward to one local event every year—the Hillsboro Fall Festival. The city cordoned off several blocks of downtown and booths and rides were set up. Nightly you could see acts with clowns and acrobats right there in the middle of town and I walked around for hours without spending money except for the rides. I still remember the smell of cotton candy and caramel popcorn, but those were the happy times—before I met the devil.

I had just had my twelfth birthday when I first saw the evil one. He got my attention while I was riding the Ferris wheel one night. All the electrical power in the downtown suddenly went off and the Ferris wheel stopped with my car right at the top. I sat alone--something I had gotten used to--and I felt so scared. There were no lights anywhere and only a touch of moon-light to see by. The car swayed back and forth in the strong wind that had come up and I clutched the steel bar in front of me in a panicked grasp and started crying.

"No need to be afraid, Sonny," a deep voice drifted up from the car below. "This Ferris wheel is as safe as they make 'em."

I looked down to see a man leaning over the edge of his car to look up at me. He was dark-skinned and had a wild mop of black hair and a short beard. His suit looked rumpled as though he had been traveling in it and he wore no tie.

Some kind of salesman, I thought. He's certainly not from around here. His words did not comfort me and I felt ever more afraid than before-- especially when he got out of his car and, like some gigantic spider, scrambled over the girders of the Ferris Wheel and plopped down in the seat next to me.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered in a voice that sounded like a cold wind blowing over tombstones. . “My name is Mr. Shapur and I already know yours. I'm not one of those perverts that prey on little boys. Actually, I help little boys. Especially after they're twelve-years old. I helped your father and I helped your grandfather when they were your age. I've always taken an interest in your family

I knew he lied. My grandpa was over seventy years old and this guy couldn't have known grandfather when he was twelve. Mr.Shapur, if that was really his name, didn't look much older than thirty although his coal black eyes had an ancient look to them that chilled me.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "You think I'm not old enough to know your grandpa, but I am. I'm a lot older than you think, and I do a lot of business with young boys like yourself. I educate them, for example, I bet you've never even kissed a girl or touched her breast or anything. You listen to me and I'll teach you a lot about life."

Well, I hadn't done any of those things, but I sure did want to. This man scared me, but I was interested in what he had to say. I had been reading a lot of books lately about the super-natural and stuff so I was guessing who he probably was--if he wasn't the Devil himself, Shapur was one of his good friends, and, course, he wanted my soul.

"I don't think I want to sell my soul," I said. "I'm too young to make decisions like that. Besides, if you dealt with my grandpa and my dad, what did they get? They never made no for-tune or had lots of success or loved a bunch of women or became famous. They must have got-ten something..."

He smiled that devilish smile and said, "Oh, they got something all right. They were happy all of their lives. Just think about it. They had good wives. No family tragedies. Nobody went to war and got maimed. No big illnesses will happen to them until the very end and then it will be quick.

"My grandpa is over seventy. That's pretty old. What about my dad? How long is he go-ing to live."

"Well, he cut a pretty rough deal. He will live until he's 76 give or take a few weeks."

This shook me up. I didn't want to think about my dad dying even if it was years from now when he would be 76. That was really old, however, and seemed a long time away to me.

"You don't have too much time to make up your mind," the man said. "You'll be thirteen soon and then it will be too late. You think about what you want and, of course you’ll want to set some conditions. Make it quick, however." With that he clambered back down into his car and, suddenly, the lights of the fall festival all came back on and the Ferris wheel started turning again. When my car descended, I scrambled out and waited to see if he were in his car when it rotated to the ground, but the car was empty. Strange stuff.

The next day, instead of going to the Fair, I went to the library and read everything I could find about devils and souls and contracts. It was scary. That Dante guy had a pretty grim view of Hell and of lost souls and stuff. Of course, he was Italian and those people are the ones that started parading around Jesus nailed to a cross. I also got some books of short stories that had compacts with the Devil--"The Devil and Daniel Webster", "The Devil and Tom Walker," and "Gimmicks Three," among others. I thought about Shapur’s offer and thought about it for weeks. From what I saw Shapur wasn't the brightest bulb in the bag. I decided all the soul-sellers I had read about had made one mistake--they had chosen fame or fortune—a big mistake. I wanted to become the smartest guy in the world. If you’re smart, you can make a lot of money, you can become famous, you can talk people into things (like sex), and lots more. You could also (maybe) outsmart a not-too-bright demon like Shapur.

Yes, smart would be a good choice.

Now, with regard to selling my soul; I didn't place too high a value on it; I don't go to church anymore, to the despair of my mother, and, therefore, don’t much believe in souls. So, you see, I didn't really have any religious qualms about dealing with a demon.

I had another reason for considering Shapur's offer. There were some English scholarship tests coming up and a girl I liked, Marilyn, and I had been competing for years. I very much wanted to beat her score on this test and, if I were the smartest person in the world, I could do this. I wouldn't beat her too badly, just enough points so she would respect me and, maybe, go on a date or something.

My grandpa would be 75 on his coming birthday and if Shapur was telling the truth, Grandpa’s time was about up. He and I talked a lot, so I decided to ask him about selling your soul. I sat down with him on the front porch one day and started asking him questions about sell-ing your soul. I explained it was for a class project about demons, but I don't think he believed me anymore than I believed him when he talked about a friend of his who had an experience with the devil.

"Well," he said as he settled back in his rocking chair, "I've heard tell of something like that. I knew some people when I was your age who said they had been approached by a demon or the devil--hard to tell them apart." He grinned and pulled on his long, gray mustache. "I had a friend..." he hesitated a moment, "I had a friend who told me the devil approached him right af-ter his twelfth birthday. Now this friend told a lot of tall tales, so I didn't really believe him. Anyway, the devil said he could have anything he wanted, but he would have to forfeit his soul sometime after his 75th birthday. Sounds silly, doesn't it?"

"Sounds interesting," I said. "Suppose, just suppose you were selling your soul. What would you ask for?"

"I think my friend told me he asked for the people he loved to be happy. Just that. It hap-pened a long time ago, you know. I was...I mean my friend was about your age. Twelve, I think. A long time ago."

I didn't quite understand, but I knew his “friend” was really him. So he had sold his soul to the devil and all he wanted was for his family to be happy. Pretty simple, I guess. Grandpa had had a happy family who all loved him. Maybe that's the way to go. Maybe when it's your time to die, at least you can feel good.

I wanted to ask my dad if he had made a deal with the devil, but I couldn't imagine he had. We were poor--he worked hard at the grocery store, but never earned enough money to support our family. My mother complained some, but they loved each other and didn't seem to care about money. There were four kids in our family—me and two younger sisters and a younger brother. None of us had real problems and we were happy. We thought we would be happier if we had some money, but who knows? Dad’s only problem was he didn’t sleep well at night and he always had dark bags under his eyes.

Anyway, the day soon came when I had to make my decision. It seemed to me that if I were the smartest man (or kid) in the world, I would be able to outsmart the demon Shapur when the time came sixty-two years from now. Shapur just didn’t seem smart to me and I figure he got where he was by harvesting a lot of souls after convincing some dumb kids to sell out cheaply.

Shortly after my conversation with Grandpa I read some more books about the soul. How in the early days a doctor put a dying man on a scale and weighed him and then weighed him again after he died and found a slight difference. Makes me wonder if there is a soul and, if there isn't, why would the devil trade things for them?

If I was going to haggle with Shapur, I had to be careful what I asked for. I figured that Shapur would not fall for the same trick twice, but I finally came up with something and I was prepared when he came to me one night as I walked home from a movie, He scared the hell out me by making a dramatic appearance with a big flash of light and a thunderous noise.

"Okay," I said, "Here's the deal. I want to be the smartest person in the world. I want that to start tomorrow and not end until after I'm dead. No tricks."

"But when do I get your soul?"

"When I'm 75, but it has to be a day that I name."

"Done," he said as he pulled out a red ballpoint pen. "Just sign here." He pointed to a parchment that had my exact words on it already. Interesting.

I hesitated a moment, read the contract again and then signed it and kept the pen. I like to have a lot of pens. Shapur disappeared saying; "I'll see you in sixty-two years."

Sixty-two years from now. I planned on having a great time in those sixty-two years. Of course, the light I would see at the end of the tunnel would be the fires of hell.

The first good thing for me was I beat Marilyn in the scholarship test by five points. I could have gotten a perfect score, but I realized I shouldn't show off too much. Being smart, however, did not help me romantically with Marilyn, because she got mad at me for beating her. I began to realize that "smart" had a lot of meanings.

I graduated high school with almost straight "A's" and my only problem happened to be gym class. I didn't like it and I didn't want to go. I convinced the coach he would have to pay for my glasses if they were broken--forged letters from my mom--and he let me sit out the whole year. He gave me all "C's" however. Who cares? Exercise never did anyone any good.

I did well in college and, having my choice of fields I could excel in, I chose electronic engineering. Even before I graduated, I had several patents for my inventions--a battery that re-charged from the magnetic sphere of the earth, a chip that could do billions of computations a second, and much more. I graduated magna cum laude and, in addition, I married the smartest girl in my class. Joyce was also the most beautiful--red hair, good figure, smooth skin--everything I had dreamed of. We also became the best of friends--friendship is important in a relationship.

My grandpa died at age 76, I hadn’t asked him again if he had made a deal with Shapur. It just didn't seem right and it was too late to change my deal with the devil anyway. That is, un-less my plan to outsmart Shapur worked, and I sure hoped it would.

Joyce and I moved to California's Silicon Valley and soon began a family. My kids, I mean our kids, were bright and happy. Our marriage only got better as each year passed, and I began to believe I had cut a pretty good deal. Forty years left. Life goes by quickly when you’re having fun.

Our kids graduated one after the other from college and we relished our empty house. Joyce and I went on vacations to Costa Rica, Aruba, Germany. It was great. My dad died, but I had the flu and couldn’t visit him in the hospital or go to his funeral. Twenty years to go. I quit inventing new devices, as it doesn’t seem so important now.

I retired from my business and I turned it over to my oldest son. Joyce had a heart by-pass, which was successful due to one of my inventions. Ten years to go. I’m now having trou-ble sleeping at night, just like my dad.

I had to return to work and help my son with the business. Turns out he isn't the smartest person in the world and yet he seems happy. While I’m working, Joyce comes and sits in my office and we talk when we can. Five years to go.

Joyce died. I drank a lot of beer for a couple of months and the business went belly-up. My son and daughters were crushed by Joyce’s death and urged me to take care of myself and stop drinking. One year to go.

The day is here. Shapur showed up in my den early in the morning, eager to do his "har-vesting." This time you could smell the demon stink of him, and I noticed his eyes seemed craft-ier than I remembered. "Well," he said. "You have reached the agreed upon age. I have some leeway here, but I think you said..." he pulled out the contract and the writing gleamed with a bloody glow. "It says here that you get to specify the day. That seems simple. What day will it be?"

"Well, today is Tuesday and I specify the second Tuesday of this week."' Shapur trembled and shook. He threw the contract onto the floor and stomped on it so that it gave off sparks and a pungent odor. He tore his hair out in huge chunks and he spat yel-low sulfuric streams onto the floor.

"Damn you humans! So, now I know why you wanted to be the smartest person on earth. You tricked me." He put his finger to his chin and assumed a thinking posture.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, the room disappeared, and Shapur and I were stand-ing on the deck of a cruise ship. I looked around and saw the normal activity of people on an ocean liner; they seemed not to have noticed our sudden arrival.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

Shapur looked at me with an insidious grin. “I thought you might like an ocean cruise to celebrate your...uh...victory.”

“Well, that’s awfully nice of you. You should have realized you were dealing with the smartest man on earth.”

Just then the ship’s loudspeaker hummed and someone began making the daily an-nouncements. “There will be a dance after sunset this evening. The dinner tonight will be a dress-up dinner. Oh, one final announcement, we have crossed the International Dateline and to-day is the second Tuesday of this week.”

Shapur grinned at me and said, “You may be the smartest man on earth, but I’m the smartest demon.”