text: The first time I met the Kid he was standing outside McDonald’s in Bradford. It was November and there were no leaves left on the trees. He wore a short-sleeved oversized T-shirt, giving the impression of a whippet in bulldogs clothing, and was holding court telling his diminutive audience he knew how to summon the devil herself. His skeletal frame was alive with his gestures, eyes bird-like and wild. The audience had an average age at least four times his, grateful for entertainment in the cold and wind. A spectacle as he explained ‘An accident! Can you believe it! The Devil appeared to me and the devil can appear for you too!’ An air of QVC. That previous summer I’d had dealings with the devil myself. Inevitable really with the war raging on as it had for a decade or more, and the business I keep myself in. Despite her bad reputation, and a complicated history between us, the devil had supported the trade and then vanished as soon as the leaves began to drop with a score as yet unsettled. I waited patiently from a distance as the crowd gradually dispersed, their busses arriving to take them home or hunger taking over and burgers awaiting. ‘I need you to bring me the devil,’ I said. ‘Follow me’, said he. The BBC tells us about murderers and shysters and confidence men hiding around every corner, so base are we all that we the last two elections were cancelled because who can trust us average Joes and Janes to choose a leader without cheating? ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Lead the way.’ The only way to navigate this world is to trust everyone and suffer the consequences. A short while later we were sitting in his flat, mugs of tea in hand that his mum had forced upon us. On the way here he hadn’t left a second of empty air, telling me in lengthy monologue about the false-hoods in papers and did I know Piers Morgan is a giraffe in a lizard suit in a human suit. And Dominic Cummings is doing God’s work and that’s the danger. And the sheer evil that is... Yoghurt pots. Like mother like son, on arrival he fell silent and she took over. She asked me not a thing but told me all the variety of teabags she rated and why, and that whatever happened to Cadbury was a tragedy and the government are definitely behind the shrinking creme eggs. Her phone rang and she left the room. The Kid closed the blind. ‘Are you ready?’ Eyes wide I nodded, and it began. A flailing of arms, left to right. Right to left. Hands touching his forehead. Hair flopping this way and that. Knee up, knee down, his T-shirt billowing without any wind. Superman pose. He stops with his head down and arm up, and raises his eyes to meet mine looking for my reaction. The room is still and quiet. He’s mad, of course. And suddenly, we plunge into darkness.