Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Lucifer

This is the story of how I got arrested for being an associate of the Devil.

I was walking home from the gym through Providence on a perfect Saturday afternoon. I would have been hard pressed to think of anything to complain about. The birds were singing and so were the homeless. I somehow had the day off from work, I had had a good workout, and I was going home to enjoy the rest of my free Saturday. I was about 200 yards from my apartment building when I heard him speak. It was a voice that was somewhere between Buffalo Bill and Marlon Brando.

"Hey buddy," the voice said from about thirty feet behind me. I had no reason to believe that "Buddy" was me, but for some reason I assumed that I was indeed the buddy that this guy was looking for. I stopped and turned to face my new friend. I expected someone a little out of the ordinary, and prepared myself to tell him that I was just walking home from the gym so I didn't have any money on me. Even with my expectation of an odd man, what I saw approaching me still caught me off guard.

He was about 6'2" and large framed with a bit of a beer gut, about 50 years old, white, with a beard and a large tear drop tattoo on one cheek. This was all fine. What threw me off was the fact that all he was wearing were a pair of filthy white boxer shorts and running shoes with no socks. I held firm on my plan to tell him that I had no money until he spoke again, this time making solid eye contact with me as if he had finally found his lost soul brother.

"Did you see it?" He asked. I was about to ask him to clarify when he continued. "Did you see the angel?"

Oh fuck.

Any part of my brain telling me that maybe this guy wasn't batshit crazy fell silent, but by that point he was only feet away from me. I began walking and he took his place beside me.  He continued. "Yeaaaa you saw it. They didn't see nothin' though." At this point he must have realized that it was rude not to have introduced himself, so he did.


"Hello, my name is Lucifer," he said as he kept pace beside me. "You saw it right? That fucking bastard, I gave him the beating of his life."

At this point I had no fucking idea what he was talking about. I know I hadn't seen this guy beat anyone up, and I sure as fuck hadn't seen an angel. I assumed that he was living out some fantasy and that the best thing to do would be to keep him from getting excited or offended. I played along by nodding my agreement while watching for any sudden movements.

Now kids, as a quick aside: if a big, scary, dirty, nearly naked white man with facial tattoos finds you on the street, asks you if you saw a supernatural being of any kind, and then introduces himself as a deity, it is best not to continue the conversation. Nothing good will come of it.

He went on. "That bastard, he called me a fucking diddler," he huffed, clearly upset by the presumption.

Not to be a dick here, but to that other bastard's defense, the first thing I thought when I laid eyes on Lucifer was that he looked a lot like a fucking diddler. What do I know anyway? I did my best to make it clear that my belief is that people can't just walk around calling other people diddlers. Lucifer agreed.

"I'm no fucking diddler," he continued. "My father, Satan, HE was a diddler."

I have always been under the impression that Lucifer and Satan were different names for the same guy, but I was corrected by the man in the flesh so again, what do I know? He went on to tell me that he had sent his father, Satan, to hell before becoming the babysitter for Adam and Eve. It had only been a matter of time before he had deemed it necessary that they be sent to hell as well. I was learning a lot as we approached a 3-way intersection with a set of lights near Finnegan's bar. That was when the cruisers showed up.

There were five of them; four marked and one undercover. They came in from every possible direction, surrounding us completely; the Devil and his minion, both modestly dressed. We were immediately tossed against the nearest cruiser and patted down. They took my cell phone and house key. I kept my mouth shut, not because I was afraid to speak but because I was actually glad that I wasn't going to have to figure out a way to ditch Lucifer and I knew that I would be cleared as soon as somebody asked me a question.

I was then cuffed and thrown into the back of another cruiser. If you have never been cuffed and thrown into a cruiser, I will say this: it's a bit like being cuffed and thrown into a cruiser. Try it if you really want to know. For a second, part of me thought that it would be hilarious to shout at the other officers, "DON'T ARREST MY FRIEND!" but I thought better of it knowing that I would probably have been the only one laughing. Also, based on the scene, it wouldn't have been crazy to think that maybe this guy had just killed someone.

We were then driven in separate cars to the scene of the crime. This is where I found out that Lucifer actually had given some guy the beating of his life. There were three more cruisers and an ambulance at the scene, Kennedy Square. Through my window I saw Fucking Bastard surrounded by people. His face was not in good shape. Lucifer hadn't been lying about the beating. I was then released from custody and received and apology from the arresting officers. They offered me a ride home which I refused.

On the way back home I couldn't help but think; if he wasn't lying about the beating, maybe he wasn't lying about any of it... That's actually not true, it just sounds kind of cool.