We’ve all done it. Even if we don’t admit it. We make a bargain with the Devil, the evilness in life, to get something we really want. Thinking that it’s okay. Just this once. With our bosses. With politicians. With money people. With the friends we wish were our friends. Just this once. Except there is never just this once. When they have power over you, there is no bargain. This isn’t a co-equal relationship. This is the sale of your life, and you’ve just sold yourself. To the Devil. 

I’ve sold myself to the Devil on more than one occasion. Blinded by their wealth and taste. Thought I was going to be able to reach for the stars, handed to me on a silver platter. All I had to do was their bidding. It was a bargain, I thought. I mean, how much was it going to cost? A moment in my life? A small sacrifice for the reward at the end.

I have worked for men (funny, it was always men) who hired me with smooth words and promises that all I had to do was do the simplest of tasks, and they would help me along in my career. Nonprofit leaders, government, and television executives—those are the main jobs that have been the core of my adult life.

One can excuse my naivety when I was in my early twenties, at the very beginning. Radio. Television. I was hungry for success and didn’t know any better. I often said I was lucky. The offers, the opportunities just came to me, fell into my lap, and I said, “Hell, yeah.” I really did. Celebrity. Fame. Even if they sometimes forgot my name (No, my name is not Jose). 

I learned some lessons along the way. Well, I was taught some lessons along the way. How many of them I learned is an argument for another day, as I entered my early thirties and believed I didn’t need to be well-armed for the war of politics, contrary to the advice of the time. I didn’t feel I was in a war; I had my eyes closed as I signed on the bottom line and didn’t or wouldn’t notice the blood below the signature. There were no promises of money, just power. The power to get things done. That simple.

But power is a weapon, not just a tool. The secrets were never shared in the bargain, and the lies were just hushed whispers. Power corrupts, and I could not feign ignorance because I was too comatose from the vapors of drugs and alcohol to see the storm coming. The bargain that I thought was innocent enough demanded that I surrender my freedom, my life, and admit that I was wrong to think that I didn’t know better. I had been around for a very long time. I’d been through hell and back, and no excuses would do me any good anymore. 

Half a lifetime later, when I crawled out of the ashes of the life left behind, when the bargain with the devil seemed to have been buried with the wreckage of that life, I climbed onto the next rocket ship to the edge of my existence and promised myself that this time, I would enjoy the ride, and hell with the past. No regrets here. Rocket ship over the Hollywood sign, straight up the red carpet, and into the theaters of the absurd. Celebrityhood. Privilege. Stars blanketing the sky.

And the bargain was again simple: be an asshole in a world of assholes (so you don’t stand out). Let the Devil suck the life out of you so they can live in your soul into another lifetime, your lifetime, taking your heart, crushing it in their slimy claws, and shoving it down their throat, crushing it with their gnashing smiles. Be careful what you ask for. You might not get it. Instead, it’ll be the bargain with the Devil you swore you would never make again. Your soul, now wasted. Desperate for redemption when none is coming. No lesson learned. I am the lesson.

Desperation will blind you. Desperation will make you beg and do crazy things. Hell, if you’re hungry enough, anxious enough, and deep down in a hole enough, screw it, you’ll make another bargain with the Devil. Oops, I did it again. One more time in an older age. Desperate. No naivete. No illusions. I walked right in, thinking these seemed like nice people. How hard could this be? I’ve navigated the theaters of the powerful and the absurd. Drowned in my own ego. I’ve faced the Devil before and come out the other end, bloodied but alive. This time, it would be different. 

It wasn’t—kind, but still the Devil in disguise.

This time, at last, THE lesson was learned. The only one that mattered. When you reach my age, you can look back and recognize that a Devil will always be waiting to offer you the bargain of a lifetime. Dressed as sweetly as possible. As stunning as the dawn rising over the eastern mountains. As blindingly obvious as the sun setting off the California coast. 

That bargain you swore would sweep you away over waves of success into the air, carried aloft onto currents of praise and exaltation. Oh, you’ve made it now. Yeah, what did that cost you?

Here’s my lesson. If the bargain looks too good to be true…