By Ed Staskus

   There was a line waiting for the museum to open. The line snaking its way to the front door was at the Žmuidzinavičius Museum, otherwise known as the Devil’s Museum. It was dedicated to collecting and exhibiting fiendish sculptures and carvings from around the world. It was the place to get up close and personal with Satan. 

   The collection was started as a sideline by the artist Antanas Žmuidzinavičius. One of his first collected sculptures was the Trampled Devil, given to him by a priest in 1908. The sculpture had been so big the priest couldn’t move it, so he sawed it in half. He kept the half that was Saint Michael Archangel, who had been doing the  trampling. The museum got the other half. 

   The hall of fame was established in the artist’s home after his death in 1966. There were 260 sculptures in the collection then. Before long, museum goers began to donate their own devils, leaving them in the vestibule. By 1982 a three-story extension had to be built to house the ever-growing accumulation. By the time Oliver and his father went to the museum it had grown to more than 3,000 items.

   Oliver was the Monster Hunter of Lake County. He lived in Perry, Ohio, near Cleveland. He was on his summer vacation. He was far away from home in Lithuania with his father, who was on a working trip with a three-man electrical engineering team tasked with improving the workings of the Heat and Power Plant of Kaunas.

   Most of the devils in the museum are sculptures in wood or ceramic. Some are stone, almost as immutable as evil. Others are masks or paintings. Some are made of silk, paper, or canvas. They are from all around the world, from many different times and places. The devil has always sat on mankind’s left shoulder.

   A cluster of older men was in front of Oliver and his father, who were in the middle of the line. One of them blew his runny nose. Another one snorted like a tired walrus. The men were Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin, and the Apprentice. They were the kind of men who let the devil use their brain pans as a garbage dump. 

   Putin and the Apprentice were standing shoulder to shoulder, except the Apprentice was half a step behind the Russian strongman. That was the way the strongman wanted it. The Apprentice was an orange-skinned old man who spoke in riddles and wanted to be a tyrant so bad he could spit. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He couldn’t wait for the museum to open. He had to go to the bathroom bad. He didn’t want to pee in his pants. That would be VERY BAD!

   “Why is this always happening to me?” he complained. “I made my deal with the devil. Why can’t he take care of the details? On top of that, why can’t he deliver a younger stormy girl to my hotel room, where they have bathrooms only a step away?”

   No matter what, though, he knew he wasn’t getting his soul back anytime soon. He knew how spin falsehoods like nobody’s business, so much so that he had climbed the ladder of them to the highest places in society. He was shrewd enough to not believe his own lies, however, unless they personally benefitted him. He was loyal to one man only, and that was himself. Everybody else found out sooner or later that the Apprentice’s loyalty street was a one-way street.

   Oliver wasn’t interested in the Devil’s Museum for art’s sake. He was interested in it because he needed to know as much about monsters as possible if he was going to go nose-to-nose with them. One of his cranky uncles had told him, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” His other cranky uncle said, “Don’t pay attention to that blowhard.” Oliver wasn’t sure what it all meant, but his enemies in the monster world could be beyond cranky, so he always kept their wrong side at the front side of his mind.

   The doors of the museum opened. The line began to inch forward. Oliver noticed something odd about the group of old men in front of him. They were walking in single file, each man holding onto the shoulder of the man in front of him. He had seen a cartoon like that once. He wondered if they were blind. When the group of old men paused to have their tickets validated, Oliver slipped in front of Adolf Hitler, who was the point man, and waved his hand in front of Der Fuhrer’s face. The despot’s toothbrush mustache twitched but his eyes stayed focused on nothing.

   “Dad, I think those men are all blind.”

   “That’s too bad but be good and don’t bother them.”

   The devil appears in more than five thousand Lithuanian yarns and fairy tales. There are more than a thousand names for him in the Lithuanian language, names like Kipšas, which means the dickens, Pinčiukas, which means the deuce, and Bekelnis, which means without pants. There are more than four hundred place names in Lithuania related to the devil, places like Velnio Duobė, which means the Devil’s Hole, Velniaraistis, which means the Devil’s Bog, and Velniabalė, which means the Devil’s Swamp. 

   The ground floor had folk art devil souvenirs galore, medals, masks, sculptures, ceramics, candlesticks, whistles, calendars, and coffee mugs. They made great gifts. After giving everything a once-over, Oliver went upstairs. All the objects upstairs had been created by folk craftsmen and professional artists. On the third floor were devils left by foreigners from American, Asian, and African countries. They were displayed according to their country of origin. One sculpture depicted Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin doing a dance of death over a pile of bones.

   When Oliver went back down to the ground floor, he saw the seven blind autocrats doing an awkward line dance like seven dwarfs on magic mushrooms. Adolf Hitler led the jig parade, the rest of the men following his lead as best they could and doing their own madcap high stepping. Mao Zedong whooped it up in tongues while Joseph Stalin cracked a smile, the first in more than half a century. They seemed to be having a good time.

   “The jig is up!” a voice called out. It was Satan, the one and only, in the flesh. He was wearing a top hat that concealed his horns. “This is the thanks I get for giving you a half-day off?” he thundered, waving his sword cane.

   “The devil made me do it,” the Apprentice said, parroting Flip Wilson and pointing in all directions. “Everybody is against me. It is so unfair!” He was panting and his face was flushed. His damp hair hung down his forehead.

   “This is a house of worship, not a honky-tonk,” Satan said. “Your time is over. I want all of you out of here right now!”

   A back door opened seemingly on its own. The line of men went out the door, each of them holding onto the shoulder of the man in front of him. No sooner were they in the back alley than a sewer grate picked itself up and rolled to the side. Adolf Hitler unwittingly stepped into the open sewer hole and toppled down into it. The rest of the line followed him like lemmings. They went down the sulphury brimstone hole one after the other.

   When the back door slammed itself shut Satan turned to see Oliver looking up at him.

   “Hell’s bells, if it isn’t the little monster hunter from Ohio,” he said.

   “I’m big enough to stand up for myself,” Oliver said,

   “Big talk from a small fry,” Satan said and reached down to poke him in the eye.

   Oliver kicked him in the shin. 

   “That hurt, you wicked boy,” Satan said. He shape-shifted into a goat and tried to head butt Oliver. 

   The devil wasn’t scared of anything except the cross and the rosary and some other things, like Saint Michael. He was rattled by prayers even though he needed prayers more than anybody in the universe. He was spooked by flax, wild ash, consecrated water, and the number one. Oliver raised his forefinger making the sign of the number one. The goat bleated and backed away.

   “My mom says don’t open the door to the devil,” Oliver said.

   “I say the devil’s voice is sweet to hear,” Satan said.

   “Tell the truth and shame the devil,” Oliver said. “You are sour. You don’t know how to sing, only howl.”

   “You are driving me to distraction,” Satan said.

   “Go distract yourself somewhere else, like Mars,” Oliver said.

   Satan snorted, breathing fire.

   “Go away,” Oliver said.

   “Who were you talking to?” Oliver’s father asked, walking up as the devil walked away. Satan knew there were second chances all around the world.

   “Nobody, dad. Can we go get a sweet treat?”

   “Yes, let’s go to Gelato Archie and cool off. It’s hot in here.”

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Atlantic Canada http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. 

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A stem-winder in the Maritimes.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Fiction

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVDP8B58

A small town on Prince Edward Island. Summer 1989. A missing rucksack full of one hundred dollar bills. Two hired guns from Montreal. One RCMP officer stands in their way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication