The Devil And Mr. Deanes Poem by David Lewis Paget

Mr. Deanes climbed into the lift,
Went up to the fortieth floor,
He'd worked in the building for twenty years
But never been up there before,
His job at the Allied Insurance had been
Part of the round of cuts,
Some kid had taken over his desk,
So Mr. Deanes said - ‘Nuts! '

It wasn't as if he'd prospered there,
He'd started as Clerk, Class 1,
Filling out scads of rejection forms
The others had left undone,
He'd sat on a basic salary
So overtime was unpaid,
And Mr. Quim kept an eye on him
From the height of his glass lined cage.

It took ten years to become Clerk 2
And the rise was a piddling one,
Barely enough to keep meat on the bones
Of a wife and a bone lazy son,
He wasn't surprised when his wife had left
For some fellow she'd met at the church,
When his son succumbed to the drugs he'd bummed,
Even God left him in the lurch.

So when he came out on the fortieth floor
Of the tallest building in town,
He strode on out to the balcony
And wasn't afraid, looking down.
‘How bad can it be? ' he thought to himself
As he climbed up over the rail,
‘Just thirty seconds of fear, and free! '
As he balanced, ready to sail.

He raised his arms, looked up at the sky
In a moment of utter despair,
‘It won't be long and I'm done with it,
With the wind blowing through my hair.'
But something caught at his collar then
Said, ‘This is the time to choose!
I'll give you all that a man could want,
What have you got to lose? '

He climbed on down, and the man in black
Held a contract up to his face,
‘Better to live like a millionaire
Than to die in an utter disgrace!
Just prick your finger and sign in blood
Your DNA makes it whole, '
‘And what will this cost, ' said Mr. Deanes,
‘At the end, you give me your soul! '

Now Mr. Deanes was a cautious man
And he read the form, each bit,
‘I'd like to be given a sporting chance,
Can we make it double or quit? '
The devil smiled in his cunning way
And he scribbled an extra line,
‘I'll tell you what, if you win the spin
I'll even let you take mine! '

He signed the form with a flourish then
And stood in a brand new suit,
Travelled on down in the lift again
And headed for Quim, to dispute.
‘There's been an error, ' said Mr. Quim,
You're up on the seventh floor,
I hear they've taken you onto the Board,
They didn't tell me before.'

It was ‘How are you going, Mr. Deanes,
May I carry your coat and hat? '
The phone would ring, and a king or queen
Would just pop by for a chat,
His chauffeur had a familiar air
As he stared from his seat in the back,
He couldn't quite put his finger on it
But the chauffeur was dressed in black.

He spent his summers in Saint Tropez
And motored down to his yacht,
He took the wheel in the Fastnet Race
With a skill that he'd forgot,
He lazed around with the party crowd
And spent like a man obsessed,
A cute young dolly on either arm
And each with mammoth breasts.

His twenty years passed like a dream
And the day of reckoning came,
A man turned up in dark black suit,
‘It's time! Now ain't it a shame? '
But Mr. Deanes had a single spin
With a coin he kept in his fob,
‘I get to call it, and I call heads, '
The devil grinned, ‘let's lob! '

The coin spun high in the air and fell,
Then bounced a couple of times,
The smile was wiped from the devil's face
He cursed with a word that rhymes.
So Mr. Deanes got the devil's soul
And he feels it, deep in his loins,
He'll never grow old, or so I'm told
While he holds the two-headed coin!

18 February 2013