the devil and me and my friend too

My friend Q and I had gotten all into folklore and ghost stories. I'm not really sure why as neither of us really subscribed to such thing; I think we just did so as excuse to take idiotic road trips to backwater towns that were eerily close to our own metropolis. We'd found a site called Weird NJ, which discussed some of New Jersey's spooky history, which is fascinatingly rich. Since all these places were in driving distance, we figured we'd give a coupld of them a shot, but first, I suggested that we try to find the Jersey Devil, the Northeast's favorite demon.

I really wanted to see the thing, even though none of the reports from witnesses were particularly flattering, but it would have been nice to believe in something. The way I see it, though it's pretty farfetched, someone saw something in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey--all stories have some shred of truth to them, or else why would they have been told in the first place? I did some searching around online to find out where the Devil was spotted and the most obvious place to start seemed to be Leeds Point, the critter's supposed birthplace.



We pulled off the Garden State Parkway too soon and ended up taking US Hwy 9 most of the way south. It's a long, meandering road like most US Hwys, going past towns and houses, and strangely enough, a bar called the Sleepy Hollow Inn (I think it was Inn, definitely Sleepy Hollow). Again, strangely enough, the actual Sleepy Hollow, NY, is about 140 miles north of Leeds Point along US Hwy 9. It's strange to see towns that were probably relatively jumping before the introduction of the Interstate system--all these little diners and roadside attractions instead of the Mobil gas stations and chain fast food restaurants that dot the big Interstates. It's kind of like looking at old photographs.

The Pine Barrens are as creepy as the name sounds--like a heavily forested swamp. We finally made it to the turn off for Leeds Point at Smithville, NJ. There was some old church and cemetary on the corner, and it was pushing 2am. Leeds Point was a couple miles down the dark, tree-lined road.

I might as well get to the point. We didn't find him--maybe the Devil didn't feel like coming out that night, or maybe he was out of town. Perhaps he'd moved to Philadelphia or something. Q and I had a lot of fun, laughing and trying to freak ourselves out. The rough, creepy road through Leeds Point led through some kind of animal sanctuary and a host of Barrens dwellers scurried across the street. To my knowledge, none of them were Mr. Devil. At it's terminus, the road came to an end at a harbor, so we turned the car around. That's when Q looked to his left and said. "Wow, look at all those lights."

I looked over and said, "Oh, shit. That must be Atlantic City," which is the East Coast's geriatric version of Las Vegas. It didn't look that far off--turned out to be 12 miles away.

"You want to go?" he asked.

"Sure," I said cracking up.

If there was a devil, he was residing in the slot machines, I guess. It was kind of disappointing not to see the Devil, but I sure as hell wasn't going to get out of the car to go search for him. That shit was creepy, yo. But it'd been nice if he would've come to the side of the road and waved a big hello--with out trying to tear us to shreds or anything.