Black Mass at Denny’s
by Becky Robison
One French Toast Slam. One Santa Fe Sizzlin’ Skillet. One Moons Over My Hammy. Gas station merlot in a travel mug. Period blood in a plastic baggy—we didn’t want to kill an animal, they didn’t do anything wrong. Box of communion wafers from eBay—unblessed, but it’s not as easy to break into St. Aloysius as we thought. Satanic Bible from my sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s bedroom.
Pour the wine into coffee cups. Stir in the blood, hopefully can’t taste it. Plop in a wafer, watch it dissolve. Take a bite of hashbrowns. You’re supposed to fast before we do it. Squeeze on the ketchup, take another bite. Like Satan cares. Unfold the notebook paper between our plates. Ready? Hold hands under the table. Whisper together: In nomine Dei nostri Satanas Luciferi Excelsi.
You girls doing okay? Waitress doesn’t even look, tops off our unholy cocktails with decaf. Fine, thanks.
Celine Dion belting through the grainy speakers. Toilets flushing. Fluorescent lights going strong. No sign of a fallen angel. I think we have to tell Him what we want.
What we want: to cause a scene, to ditch school, to fall in love, to have sex, to go anywhere else, to eat breakfast whenever, to be older, to be kids again, to be in control, to be terrified, to change, to start a coven, to start a band, to see Green Day in concert next month, to pass our Geometry test, to beat the next level on Resident Evil, to get our braces off, to get better at eyeliner, to get a tattoo, to go to Europe, to live in the city, to adopt a dog, to do the splits, to wear color contact lenses, to scream, to bleed, to go to R-rated movies, to have our own car, to stay up all night, to sleep as late as we want, to be famous, to prove ourselves wrong, to prove everyone else wrong, to be noticed, to be memorable, to be different, to like ourselves, to light an empty building on fire, to have money, to dye our hair green, to know everything that’s going to happen, to forget everything that hurts, to throw a rager, to see a UFO.
Close our eyes. Wish and wish and wish. Choke down the foul potion in our mugs. Waitress drops the check on top of the Latin. Whenever you’re ready. Haven’t started eating yet. Cut a forkful. Well that was a bust. Hail Satan, I guess. Hail, hail. We feast. We scrounge the bottoms of our purses for cash. We walk the bill to the register. No need. Guy over there took care of it.
Alone at the corner booth. Long dirty coat. Stringy black hair. Tooth-white skin. Eating a Grand Slam. Smiles so the tip of his tongue shows, raises his mug to us.
Skeevy. Should have known the devil would be a creep.
We flip him off. He drops his coffee onto his lap, squirms and curses. We laugh at him. The door chimes as we exit, put boots to blacktop in search of better hells.
Becky Robison is a karaoke enthusiast, trivia nerd, and fiction writer from Chicago. A graduate of UNLV's Creative Writing MFA program, her stories have appeared in [PANK], Paper Darts, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere. When she's not working her corporate job or walking her dog, she serves as Social Media and Marketing Coordinator for Split Lip Magazine.
