Lunch with Satan

Satan's elegant, mustachioed face curled in disdain as he set down his espresso cup. "What does Freddie think he's doing? This is cow diarrhea."

"Dad, I told you to get the Turkish Coffee," the Anti-Christ replied. "Friedrich is no good at Italian stuff, you know that. The antipasto is dreadful, too."

"I don't care; if he's not going to do it justice, he shouldn't put it on the menu." Satan snapped his fingers imperiously and shouted: "Waiter Waiter!"

Adolf Hitler glided over deftly on ballet feet and bowed with a click of his polished black shoes. "Yes, sir?" his heavily accented voice lilted.

"Tell Nietzsche if he doesn't straight up I'm going to drop him in the deep fat fryer!'

"Zu befel, mein Führer." With another crisp click, he pirouetted and sailed back to the kitchen.

The Lord of Darkness regarded his spawn across the table. The Anti-Christ, or A.C. as he liked to be called, was draped over his chair in the form of a teenage boy, wearing a torn t-shirt and faded jeans, his hair in long dark locks and his face sporting a day old beard. Satan himself chose the form of an elegant Necromancer, with a curled goatee above his moustache, and greying hair swept back from his long face, wearing dark robes and a necklace with the Sigil of Hell.

Folding his hands on the table, he addressed the junior demon: "You've done nothing but layabout for centuries. I'm ashamed of you, A.C., to think of all I've invested in you. You should have started the Great Rebellion a millennium ago, and here you sit, doing nothing. Tell me why I should blast you to atoms and start over?"

A.C. crossed his legs and tossed a look of disdain across the river of lava that ran by the bistro at the clouds of sulphur oozing across the ceiling of Hell. "Shit, Dad, you are such a loser. You haven't got a clue. It isn't bad enough you got your brains beat in at the Pearly Gates, now you've got to ruin my chances as well."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Satan snorted.

A Bible materialized at the snap of A.C.'s fingers. "You keep shoving this awful thing in my face and insisting I read it."

"So? What's the matter of getting to know your enemy?"

"Getting to know you enemy is one thing: I've gotten to know enough about Him with every incarnation. You keep pushing this 'Plan of Action' in the last chapter. . ."

"So? It's what's going to happen."

"Bullshit, Dad, God Damn Fucking Bullshit. Why do I have to follow this plan? Why do you think I want to be a loser like you are?"

Hitler sidled back across and handed Satan a note on a clean white plate. Satan picked it up and opened it, reading the contents aloud: "So what, you old bastard? Been there, done that, show me something new. God is dead and you're not looking well either, dumbass. Get a clue." He crumpled the note and it burst into flame. "All right, I'll give him another chance, but lunch better be worth it. Or I will think of some new way to fry his nuts." Hitler bowed and waltzed away again, followed by Saddam Hussein, wearing a white coat and dark slacks, learning his trade as a busboy.

"You're such a wuss, Dad. Just turn him into an ant, stomp on him, and revive him a few million times. That'll teach the old faggot."

"Now that's just what I don't like about you: brute force and ignorance. You have no sense of Infernal aesthetics, no sense of how things ought to be done. . ."

"No sense of how to be an eternal loser." A.C. punctuated his point but forming his fingers into the letter L and putting it on his forehead.

"Now look, you never saw the perfect symmetry of the angels of Paradise as they sang the Universe into being. You never saw the exact perfection of Michael's counterattack. . ."

". . .I never saw you when you were Lucifer, the brightest in heaven, commanding the Rebellion. But you aren't there anymore, Dad, you got bitchslapped out of there and now you're down here."

"Better to rule in Hell. . ."

". . .than serve in Heaven. Where is the dude who said that? Not here, Pops, not here. You've got too much sympathy for the enemy." Adolf and Saddam appeared bearing a large platter with their lunches. Satan was served Sauerbraten with Spaetlzes and Kraut; A.C. got a huge platter of Küchen, delicately swirled with icing.

"Junk food again," Satan sneered, "I've never seen you eat anything substantial." He picked up his knife and fork and cut a piece meat, putting it in his mouth with a self-righteous smirk. The grin melted away as he began to cough and choke; the food vaporized in a puff of smoke as he spit it out. "Damn stuff tastes like ashes. Adolf, Adolf, get you ass in here!"

Hitler appeared again, prim in his white jacket, white towel over his arm, bowing and simpering. "Yes, My Lord?"

"Freddie has done it this time. I'm going to blast him into powder, and let him blow in the wind for eternity."

A.C. popped a piece of pastry and savored it with ruthless abandon. "You haven't learned, Dad, you never learn. Nietszche's no good at sauerbraten: it's peasant food in his eyes, a German national stereotype, something he always hated. He loves delicate, prissy stuff. I've told you over and over to get the Küchen when we eat here, but no, you've got to dine like a Potentate."

"I am the Lord of Hell, son, and don't you forget it!"

"Lord of Stupidity. Don't you think Nietzsche wants to get out of that kitchen? You're doing him a favor blasting him into bits."

"And you think you'd have a better punishment for him?"

"No problem." A.C. turned to Adolf. "Tell Friedrich to report to the Festspiel house on the other side of the Malbolge. Now."

"Zu befel, Mein Kaiser" Hitler floated out the door. Saddam approached the table with his tub, trembling. Satan threw his lunch into the tub with a loud crash, which Saddam took away, bowing and scraping.

Satan stared at A.C. a long as he dared, his eyes ready to flash fire. "All right, genius, what's going on at the Festspielhaus?"

"An endless presentation of the Ring cycle, supervised by Wagner himself."

"How is this punishing Wagner?"

"The cast and orchestra are all Jews. All amateurs, all tone deaf."

Satan let out a guffaw at the thought of who the author of the inflammatory pamphlet, The Jew in Music was working with. "How is this punishing Nietszche?"

"He thinks Wagner is a disease. Said so in print while they were still alive. He'll hate conducting the operas."

A.C. popped another pastry in his mouth while Satan rubbed his hand on his chin and thought. A scream cut through the haze and both of them smiled. "So when does the rebellion begin?" the Prince of Darkness asked.

"Already started," the young demon said casually. "Been running for centuries."

"No, no, no, no!"Satan cried, jumping up to pound the table. "You're just like your damned mother, so devious and cunning, but you don't have her style."

"Mom was a real biatch, wasn't she?"

Satan huffed indignantly. "Your mother was an elegant noblewoman of Rome of the late 10th century. She was elegant on the outside, decadent on the inside, and an expert at leading men around by their dicks."

"Mom was the best. Since when is cunning and devious a problem for you?"

"The house of Theophylact produced women of beauty, cunning and guile worthy of Jezebel and Cleopatra. Pity they lived in such obscure times in an obscure place."

"Rome, an obscure place?"

"Don't be a hometown boy. Rome was a backwater at that time. Marozia Theophylact, whichever one she was, was a citizen of the world."

"Whichever one she was? There were 3 of them, at least, and you've never managed to stagger over to their pit to remember which one's my mother. Don't you keep track of who you fuck?"

"Don't be vile."

"What? I'm not supposed to be vile? Can you hear yourself talking? I'm the son of Satan, the Anti-Christ."

"Who was supposed to start the rebellion so the world would end in the year 1000."

"Yeah, whatever. Been there, done that. You never noticed."

Satan threw a lightning bolt at his son, who deflected it with an easy flick of his wrist. A.C. defiantly ate another pastry, and looked up rebelliously.

"I can't get over you," Satan said, stamping the ground in anger. "Your younger brothers were Popes, your nephew was one of the vilest Popes in history, and all you did was had a good time and fail to do an honest day's work."

"An honest day's work? Since when am I supposed to have virtues? Since when was I supposed to lead a rebellion doomed to failure? Bite me, Dad."

"Well, you have an image to live up to, being my son. You have to carry yourself with nobility, charm, refinement, elegance."

"Like the pit demons do? Like Mussolini does? Losers all. I thought the work of Hell was about getting things done."

Another lightning bolt sizzled the air, deflected again. "All right, you lazy bum, tell me this great plan you've got going to bring down Heaven."

A.C. sat up straight and rubbed his hands together. "Well, I haven't been lazy, for starters. I've been doing a little here, a little there, and now my work is finally starting to get somewhere. First, I incarnated as a friend of Machiavelli, and helped him write The Prince."

"A good book. Corporate management learned a lot from him."

"Then after a while, David Hume managed to start the process of making everything good subjective, beginning the elimination of objective morality from society, while promoting the subtle creed of pursuing small vices as a means of pleasure, and making pleasure the objective good. All it took was a few glasses of claret, and an occasional refined and discreet prostitute."

"Not bad, but people aren't subtle. The masses would never understand that kind of subtlety."

"The Marquis de Sade put some ideas about sex outside love and into psychological subjugation. Introduced some shock value as well. He was a good boss as well, let his manservant bugger him occasionally."

"I don't give you much credit there. Sadism has a limited audience."

"Only sexual sadism. Pleasure at the misfortune of others is doing quite nicely, thank you, especially in the pursuit of revenge. And the corporations have ordinary folks convinced they have to bleed and die for profit, and thank them for the privilege."

A. C. ate more pastry, washing it down with bottled water. "Friedrich helped me a lot: I spent a lot of long hours trying to drill the beginnings of decontructionism into his brain."

"Point made."

"Ouch, did you have to say that? He put my poor body through a lot in those days, as well as giving me syphilis. Bastard tore my asshole apart."

Satan's eye went wide in disbelief. "Since when were you gay?"

"All part of the cause, Dad, all calculation, anything for the cause. But the 20th century was my best by far."

"Oh really? Who did you influence then? Adolf, Benito, Tojo? Stalin? Ho Chi Minh? Not that little prick Kim Jong Il?"

"None of the above. I stayed under the radar, out of the limelight, except when I was Jim Morrison."

"Fronting a Rock Band is beneath you. Just an excuse to party. 'Come on baby, light my fire'? Can you be more obvious? Yeah, that's gonna scare the hosts of angels in paradise."

"But it's about Me First. Everything is useless unless it makes them happy. Even religion: I managed to turn it into a hobby."

"Religion as a hobby? What the hell are you thinking about? What kind of challenge to Heaven is that?"

"The best, Dad. Hobbies are fun, but you don't let them make the important decisions for you. Not a real life, at least. I've made religion irrelevant, disposable, man made."

Satan pounded his fist on the table, rattling the glasses. "This is no way to operate. Where is the great Satanic church that's going to challenge Christianity? You seem to forget how well that snot nosed kid has affected people, the multitudes he commands. He's outdone any empire the world has ever known."

"But I've cut his nuts off, Dad. I've made people think he's a control freak who wants to make them miserable. I've made people think they're the master race who doesn't need to answer to anybody, and if anybody opposes them, they oppose God."

"I don't know. People aren't going to buy that shit for long."

"They are buying it. It's working better than I hoped. Just a few more years, and Heaven will be gone. People just won't believe in it anymore; they'll think it a myth, a figment of their grandparent's imagination. Then what choice do they have?"

Satan picked up his espresso cup, took an absent minded sip, and spat it out, gagging. A.C. ate another pastry and stood up, wiping his hands on the tablecloth and adjusting his backpack.

"Going somewhere?" Satan inquired.

"Yeah. Big board meeting this morning. Gotta be in the gym by 6:00"

"What? You're a businessman this time? What kind of operation is this?"

"The best. I've got a following like no other."

Satan thought for a moment. "You're a nerd. You'll never make it in politics."

"Don't have to. Corporations have more power than governments, and growing. Just wait, I'll even buy out the People's Republic of China."

"But you're passed your peak. You can't even leverage a hostile takeover anymore, your competitors are about to pass you by. Nobody takes you seriously."

"Oh, that's part of the plan. I got people who're spending all their free time in their basements, or their offices. I've got them trapped into whatever I want to sell them, still. It doesn't even matter if it works or not."

"You've even started a charity, for Hell's sake.."

"All for show, all to let people know that I really have a heart." He laughed snidely, and tossed back the rest of his drink. "Doesn't matter, I've got them isolated from each other, worrying about what they want first; J.C. doesn't have a real chance."

"Then what?"

"Can't tell you."

"Can't tell me? How dare you. . ."

"No, gotta keep it secret. You still talk to Him, and you'll tell Him what I'm doing just because you think I'm out of line and He has to know. Just follow Business Weekly. You'll see. 'Bye, Loser." He held his hand on his forehead in the Loser symbol again and flipped him a bird.

Satan watched as A.C. disappeared in a puff of smoke. Saddam came out and started to bus the table, while Hitler sipped sparkling water on break. Beelzebub sauntered by, surrounded by flies as usual, with a grave nod of the head in passing. Satan summoned his laptop and opened a few windows, checking the manifests of the Lower Levels and smiling when he found what he wanted. He Googled his Son's current incarnation and shook his head. "The Boy's too much like his mother. Maybe she can talk some sense into him. He's got to follow the script; everything's preordained and He can't change it."

A snap of his fingers and the laptop vanished. His form changed from evil Necromancer to red skinned demon and a pitchfork appeared in his hand. Huge muscles bulged under his skin, his right hoof stood beside his shaggy left foot, his long double dicks bounced against his huge testicles. "Ah, that's better, I feel like myself again." He stretched elegantly, scratched his ass and sniffed the air. A pair of passing succubi licked their lips with the forked tongues and wiggled their asses. A frown filled his face and his eyebrow wrinkled profoundly. "But what I can't understand is why the fuck he wants to call himself Bill Gates?"