Breakfast with the Devil

I was reading the paper on my front porch enjoying a cup of coffee when the devil came to visit. It used to come as a surprise to see him, but it has turned into a daily routine. I never know where I will run into him but he always seems to find a way into my life like a Where's Waldo? picture book. The devil didn't hide, though. He wanted me to see him at the grocery store, at stoplights in the car next to me, even in the middle of the night sitting in a chair beside my bed, staring at me. Just yesterday I saw him weeding my next-door neighbor's flowerbeds. Free of charge, probably. He likes to earn people's trust by doing small favors, or in my case, large favors.

"Morning Jack," he said, ambling up my front walk in his usual manner. The sun had yet to clear the trees behind the house across the street yet he always cast a shadow, dark like midnight on the ground before him.

I looked up from the paper and gave him a half wave. He was wearing his usual charcoal gray suit and black tie this morning despite the fact that the temperature was already 75 degrees and rising. No sign of sweat on him, though. The only thing glistening on his person was the ruby gem in his tie tack and the sparkle of the post lantern off his well-polished shoes. He was a handsome man, sharp features with smooth white skin and pale blue eyes. I would have guessed him to be about thirty-five if I didn't know he was eternal. When we first met he had a beard, a goatee if you'd believe it, but has been clean-shaven since they came back into fashion in the nineties. Always a trendsetter with the youth, he described himself. He was whistling a tune; one I'd heard before but couldn't remember the name. It sounds cliché, but yes, the devil whistles.

"Care for some coffee?" I asked, knowing beforehand that he would decline as always. He hated coffee, too bitter for him. Nevertheless I always asked.

"Thanks but no," he said. He walked past my seat on the porch to the front door, grasping the knob in his slender fingers.

"Do you mind?" he asked.

"Would it matter if I did?" I replied. He laughed and entered the house.

I first shared a meal with the devil about twenty years ago when I was a struggling writer. By struggling writer, I mean an elementary school teacher whose name was more likely to be found in terse letters from creditors with words like ‘past due' and ‘final notice' than on the spine of a novel. It was a Wednesday evening. The exact date fails me, but I know it was a Wednesday because it was roast beef night at the Old Country Buffet. I was sitting in a booth by myself enjoying a second plate of mashed potatoes and gravy. My notebook was on the table, the patchwork components of my first novel lying somewhere inside the jumble of scratched out lines and incomplete thoughts in its pages.

That wasn't just wishful thinking either. I knew I had a great idea for a novel about a young woman who ran off with her boyfriend when she was sixteen only to be widowed at the age of nineteen when he is killed in WWI. Alone and poor, she is forced to live on the streets of New York as a prostitute. It happens one day that a regular client, a dressmaker, does not have any money to pay her but offers her one of his designs as payment. She uses the dress to climb her way up the social ladder into the arms of a wealthy businessman who is unaware of her red light past. The two marry after a short courtship. She gives birth to their first child, a little girl a year later. A son soon follows. As she finally settles in to her new life, her husband is persuaded to run for Congress. Distraught that being in the public eye might unearth her shady past, she leaves her family and travels to Boston. Penniless, she resorts to prostitution again and is arrested. When the news hits that the Congressional candidate's missing wife is arrested for prostitution, her husband withdraws from the race and travels to Boston to pick her up. I had just started the first paragraph on their meeting when I looked up and noticed I wasn't dining alone.

"You have to kill her," the man across the table said. He was dressed in the same suit as today, the only differences in his appearance was his goatee and a bolo tie instead of his black one.

"I‘m sorry?" I said, my voice shaking a bit.

"The girl in your novel," he said as he unfolded his napkin and placed it neatly in his lap. "If the story is going to work, she has to die."

"How long have you been sitting there?" I asked him.

"Not very long, but I've been watching you, Jack," he said.

I felt the hair on the back of my neck tingle when he said my name. The pen slid from between my fingers and rolled across the table towards him. Despite the busy restaurant around us, the only sound I heard was my Paper Mate ball point rolling across the yellowed tabletop.

"I've watched you for a long time," he said. He picked up the pen and tapped his index finger against the point. "I know what you want out of life, and I can help you get it. And to get it, you have to kill her. What do you say?"

He extended his hand to me. I misinterpreted the gesture as an offer for a handshake as if to seal the deal until I realized he was just returning my pen. I took it from him, noticing the indented black marks just below the Paper Mate logo where his fingers held it. My eyes widened.

"You know my name, just as I know yours," he said before I could speak the words. "I offer you what you desire most, and it's yours if you want it."

"In exchange for what?" I asked.

He smiled.

"I promise you a prosperous life, one of great success. What I want in return shouldn't matter to a man who doesn't even believe in God, should it?"

What he said was true. After all, as an atheist, the idea of forsaking God was not a logical drawback for me.

"There will come a time when I will want something from you, but for now, good conversation will suffice." He crossed his heart. "Scout's honor."

I can't say for certain that I understood the weight of the offer he was making, but the funny thing was I really didn't seem to care. What he said about my novel sank into my head: he was absolutely right. We started discussing plot points as if we had been working together for years.

"What do you think? Suicide?" I asked.

He shook his head. On his plate was an assortment of cookies, cakes and cobblers from the dessert table. He picked up a chocolate chip cookie and shoved it into his mouth.

"If she was going to kill herself, she would've already done it." Bits of cookie spewed from his lips as he talked. "She should reconcile with her husband and die shortly after. An illness; influenza, small pox, something like that. She should die alone in her room, wearing the dress that put her where she was. And change her name to Lorelei; I‘ve always been fond of that name."

I never finished my second plate of food. I flipped to a fresh page in my notebook and wrote thirty pages front and back without crossing out a single word while the devil offered pointers whenever my pen stopped. I stayed right up until closing time, four hours in all. None of the waitresses bothered us during our session, I guess they could sense something about him and stayed away. My first novel, Lorelei's Red Dress, went to press nine months later. A year later I optioned the story to be a miniseries on Lifetime as I was putting the finishing touches on my second novel, The Burning. The devil was right with me, offering story tips whenever I was stuck.

His visits weren't as frequent back then, maybe once or twice a week. It wasn't until last year that he started seeing me on a daily basis. I never asked the significance of the increased visits, even though deep in my mind I knew it wasn't a good sign. The visits were pleasant, chatting about current events or my schedule.

With a loud crash the devil kicked the front door open and rejoined me on the porch. He had with him a large Tupperware bowl filled to the rim with Cap'n Crunch cereal. Milk sloshed out the side of the bowl with each step, leaving a trail of white splatters behind him. He sat his bowl on the table and pulled up the chair beside me.

"Not hungry this morning?" he asked. He held a large serving spoon in his right hand.

"Just coffee for me this morning," I said, not looking up from my paper.

"Suit yourself."

He pressed his spoon on top of the cereal, submerging all of the pieces and spilling more milk out of the bowl. Satisfied that every piece had an even coat, he sunk his spoon into the bowl and scooped out a heap of cereal the size of the serving suggestion on the side of the box. A slather of drool ran down his chin as he lifted the spoon to his mouth. A forked tongue jutted between his lips, wetting them as they stretched open. His bottom jaw unhinged, or reformed, I wasn't quite sure. The only thing I was sure of was the gristly snapping and popping from his mouth as it expanded. He could probably fit my head in his mouth if he ever got the urge to bite it from my body. Thank God for the Cap'n.

The spoon disappeared into his gaping mouth and was sealed inside his lips. He pulled the spoon from his mouth and chewed, grinning slightly. A rivulet of milk spawned at the corner of his mouth and dripped onto his lap. His tongue mopped the milk from his chin and swallowed with one great gulp. He closed his eyes and shivered.

"This is so fucking good," he said, scooping out another spoonful and devouring it in the same manner as the first. "This cereal is the greatest thing to come out of this whole creation experiment. Well, this and free will, I suppose."

He winked at me. I smiled and shook my head, noticing the drop of milk that hit his pants had started sizzling.

"What's on the agenda for today, Jackie?" he asked.

I hated to be called Jackie. My older brother did it all the time we were children to piss me off. The devil did it occasionally, mostly because he knew how much it got under my skin. Really childish, if you asked me.

"That's kind of sad," I said.

The words fell out of my mouth before I realized I had said them. From the look on his face, the devil didn't expect it either.

"What did you say?" he asked from behind a mouthful of cereal.

"It's kind of sad that you have to resort to name calling," I said, looking up from the newspaper. The corners of his mouth sagged as he stopped chewing. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he looked hurt. I felt a smile creep across my face. Holy shit, I just hurt the devil's feelings.

"You're the devil," I continued, despite my better judgment. "Satan, the supreme demon of the universe. The source of all evil. Name calling's a bit beneath you, don't you think?"

He stared at me quietly, and began chewing his cereal again. The hurt look that I perceived on his face, had it been there at all, was gone. My feeling of bravado subsided in the glare of his cold, blue eyes. I stared back at him, unwavering even though I felt my heart thudding inside my rib cage. His fingers flexed around the handle of the spoon, intertwining the smell of burning plastic with the pleasant smell of lilacs from Mrs. Magill's garden, the same garden the devil had helped weed just yesterday. I never realized how much his fingers looked like claws until that moment. With one flick of his wrist, he could rip my heart out onto the table. We sat in tense silence, him slowly chewing his cereal, and me drawing shallow breaths trying to look calm, and doing a horrible job of it.

The devil swallowed his mouthful of cereal and leaned in. He motioned me to lean in as well, and I cautiously obliged. From this distance, I had no doubt that he could not only hear but see my pulse throbbing in my temples. I wondered if he drank blood, like a vampire. His eyeteeth were not elongated and sharp like a vampire, but I wasn't so naïve to believe that this figure in front of me was his true form. This was how he chose me to see him. And for insulting him, what greater punishment than to see his true form, up close and personal? To feel the heat of his breath on my neck before his jaws stretched open, exposing row after row of jagged sharp teeth with which he would sever my head from my body, toss it aside and drink from the fountain of blood pouring from my neck.

He leaned close to my face and burped, long and loud directly into my face. The sour smell of the belch watered my eyes and pushed me back to my seat, fanning my face.

"I thought you knew by now Jack, nothing is beneath me," he said, and laughed.

It wasn't the pleasant laughter between friends after a good joke either; it was an unsettling laugh, like the one you hear in mafia movies right before the stoolie strapped to the chair gets brutally murdered. Just like the stoolie, I chimed in with a nervous laugh of my own.

"That's why I keep coming to see you, Jack," he said, giving me a reassuring pat on the arm. I could feel the heat penetrate through my sweatshirt. "You're not afraid to talk to me. Most people I do business with try to bargain or renegotiate the terms. I find that somewhat sad, don't you? I mean, I give them what they want, but when it comes time to give me what is mine, they balk. They beg for more time, say that somehow I cheated or tricked them, but they all get what they want. You got what you wanted, didn't you Jack?"

I nodded. He shoveled another bite of cereal into his mouth as he spoke.

"You bet your ass you did! Six bestsellers with another on the way. Two miniseries and an interview with Oprah. And romance novels, nonetheless. Not exactly my forte, but good enough to keep the housewives fawning over your leading men, eh Jack?"

I nodded again.

"Some courtesy, Jack. That is all I ask. I have earned it, haven't I?"

"Yes, you have," I said. "I believe I have earned yours as well, so I ask the same in return."

The feeling of bravado returned, albeit briefly. I had difficulty masking the shakiness of my voice as I spoke.

"But of course," he said, bowing his head. "If I have disrespected you, I offer my apology."

He smiled. There was something eerie about the way he smiled, like he was forcing himself to show more teeth than normal. Whether it was a show of aggression or just a bad fake smile I wasn't sure, but neither choice was favorable.

"Now that the unpleasantries have been set aside, let's start again. So Jack, what's up today? Going to do some writing?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm taking a break from writing. I've been going at it pretty hard for the past couple of months to finish the last book in time for a September release date. Then I'm off on a book signing tour and a couple of daytime talk shows to promote the book."

He knew all of this. We had discussed it yesterday afternoon in the checkout aisle at WalMart. I wasn't sure if he did it to annoy me, or if he just enjoyed talking to someone. The more we spoke, the more I felt it was the latter. Hell is probably a lonely place, even for the devil.

"Great. What's the latest one called again? Truth of Love?"

"Yeah, that's it," I said.

"You know I hate that title. It really has nothing to do with the story. It's meaningless, like an album title."

"It's an eye grabber," I said. "That's what sells the book, the title."

"You're starting to sound less like a writer and more like a book salesman, Jack. If you really want to make money, you should add a sponsor. Call it Truth of Love, brought to by Nike. TV shows do it all the time. But I suppose you know best. Whatever it takes to keep the cereal flowing."

He shrugged and stirred his spoon in his bowl, where only a few crunch nuggets remained. He picked one up and held it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Ever notice how this cereal is shaped?" he asked.

"Not really," I said.

He spun the cereal between his fingers. "Look at the corners, they're sharp. It cuts into the roof of your mouth when you eat it. Ever have that happen?"

"Yeah, I have," I said.

"It's like that on purpose, you know," he said, popping the piece into his mouth. "Gets the sugar into your bloodstream quicker, makes you crave it more, eat it faster. Eskimos use a similar ploy for killing rogue wolves near their villages. They coat a knife in whale's blood, let it freeze, and then secure it to a post away from the village. The smell of the blood attracts the wolf, who takes a cautious lick from the knife. It's very cold but worth the coppery taste in its mouth. So the wolf starts licking faster, consumed by the taste, not really noticing that the blood is getting warmer. Its tongue numbed by the frozen blade, the wolf doesn't realize it is drinking its own blood. What's interesting is all the wolf has to do is walk away, just turn tail and run, and death is avoided. But it doesn't stop. It just keeps on licking greedily until it dies from blood loss. Isn't that fascinating?"

I didn't have to see his face to know he was grinning. I stared down at the paper, not wanting to look up.

"Do you think you could stop, Jack? After all, you've been licking a bloody knife ever since we first sat down together in that buffet with the shitty cookies. Or are you like the wolf? Do you love the taste of this so much that you can't walk away from it?"

"I didn't think I had a choice," I said.

"No choice?" the devil clapped his hands. "Son, I am the grandfather of free fucking will! I've been walking to my own tune since before time and will continue doing so once time ends. I haven't tied your hands, Jackie boy. No ink on paper, not even a handshake, just an agreement between friends."

I looked up from the paper.

"You're saying you'd let me go?"

The devil smiled. "No, I'm saying you could try to save yourself. I'm pretty sure He'll take you back; He's big on the whole redemption thing. I would kill you of course; the second you turned away from me, but your soul would be saved. Maybe. When we met you didn't even believe in God. Does my presence prove His existence to you? Are you willing to take that chance, Jack? Are you willing to die right now to save yourself?"

I had never really thought about it until he mentioned it. Perhaps that was the whole point in bringing it up, to plant the seed in my mind to watch it take root. Whether or not there was any truth to what he said I wasn't sure, but he had not lied to me yet. Nevertheless, I shook my head.

"That's what I thought," he said. "You're not quite to that point yet are you? Still enjoying life while you can, there's nothing wrong with that, Jack. Not everyone is ready to go at a moment's notice, and few are able to accept the terms, which brings us to the purpose of my visit today. Check page two, under the Across the Nation section. Third story down."

I obliged him and turned the page. I scanned down a few stories to the one he was referring to:

Toledo man sets fire to home killing family, self.

"Your doing?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "Ron Jarvis was his name. Met him about fourteen years ago. He told me what he wanted more than anything was to marry Maggie Kelley, a cheerleader from his high school. He got what he wanted. And yesterday, he gave me what I wanted."

I stared down at the article, reading the title over and over in my head.

"More details will come out later today," he said. "He had two daughters, Maureen and Michelle, seven and twelve years old."

"Stop it," I said, knowing damn well he wouldn't.

"He tied them to their beds while they slept. The younger one, Maureen, you'll see pictures of her on the news this afternoon, adorable child with little blond curls, she woke up while he was tying her down. And you know what she asked him?"

He paused, waiting for me to respond. I could feel the tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

"She said, ‘Daddy,'" he spoke with the soft, sleepy voice of the child. "‘Daddy, who's that man behind you?'"

Tears slid down my cheeks and landed on the paper below me. The newsprint swirled in the wetness, blurring the text.

"He wouldn't answer her," the devil continued. "He was crying, much like you are now. They all cry, when it's their time. I don't really understand why, though. Why do you cry, Jack?"

I wiped the tears from my eyes and cleared my throat, but I couldn't speak. No matter, he began talking again without waiting for my response.

"I comforted her," he said. "I took her little hand and told her not to worry. Her Daddy was just keeping her safe. I stroked her hair while her father poured gasoline on the floor of her bedroom. She fell asleep that way, her hand in mine, her head tilted to one side. I'm not sure if it was exhaustion or fumes that put her out, but she looked so peaceful."

He reached his hand out on the table. I felt my hand slide across the table towards his. Our palms pressed together and I interlocked fingers with his.

"Would you like to see?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Please, no."

He shrugged. "I insist."

A blinding white flash of light filled my mind as my body lurched back in the chair. The porch dissolved around me and was replaced with a small dark bedroom. The smell of gasoline tickled my nostrils. A poster of all the princesses from the Disney movies hung over the bed of a young girl. Maureen; that was what he said her name was. On the floor in front of me was a small man on his hands and knees strapping the girl to the bed. I wanted to lunge for him and beat him senseless, but I knew it was no use. This already happened; it was just a memory, a vision.

"Daddy," the little girl said. "Daddy, who's that man behind you?"

Her eyes were fixed on me, on my eyes. I tried to turn away, tried closing my eyes, but nothing would pull me away from her face. In front of me, the man knotted off the rope holding her into her bed, strapping her underneath her Sleeping Beauty bedspread. He stared at the ground, crying as he ran out of the room. She did not even notice him leave. Her focus on me never wavered. She repeated her question.

"Don't be afraid."

The words came from my mouth but were not my voice. I felt myself moving to her bedside, sitting in the desk chair beside her. My hand reached out and stroked her blond hair. I felt it slide between my fingers like fine cornsilk. I wanted to cry, I wanted to run screaming from the room, but I couldn't. I was in the devil's memory, reliving the scene from his point of view.

My left hand reached out to hers, sliding the ropes up enough so I could fit her hand in mine. My thumb stroked along the back of her hand. All the time she never blinked or looked away from me.

Please make it stop.

I couldn't speak the words aloud, but I repeated them in my head.

Please make it stop oh please oh please oh please . . .

Helplessly I sat holding the hand of a condemned child, her only crime being that her father was a worthless piece of shit.

I felt the cold spray of gasoline on the back of my legs. The worthless piece of shit had returned with more fuel for the fire. He hurried around her bed, turning up the can and dousing the carpet of her bedroom. The fumes were powerful in the room. Below me the girl

Maureen, her name is Maureen, she is seven years old and likes to play soccer . . .

blinked her eyes for the first time since taking my hand. In my mind I begged that she would fall asleep, for her sake and for mine. Twice more her eyelids slid closed, staying shut for good the second time.

The last trickle of fluid dropped from the nozzle of the gas can onto the floor. The girl's father removed a book of matches from the back pocket of his jeans. His hands were shaking as he flipped back the matchbook cover and tried to rip out a match. He pulled out two. He slid the matches across the strike pad on the cover, sparking them with yellow flame. With the saturation of gas in the air, I was surprised the room didn't go up right then. He lit the rest of the matches in the pack and held it in his hand, staring at his daughter as he did so. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Once again, I felt words coming from my mouth.

"Ron, we have an agreement."

Ron was crying. The matchbook burned in his hand, inching closer to his fingers.

"But why them, why not just me?"

I laughed, but it wasn't from me. "You don't get it do you? You have them because I gave them to you. Since you're coming with me, you don't need them anymore, do you?"

Ron shook his head. "But I , I, can't do it."

He was crying. The flame from the matchbook licked his fingers, but he wouldn't drop it.

"Killing them now will save them from a lifetime of torment. You're not the only one who owes me." The voice was much deeper, much darker than I've ever heard. My mind was invaded with visions of vicious men doing horrible things to his wife and daughters repeatedly, leaving them beaten, bloodied, and breathing until the next time the urge hit. I could see in Ron's face that these images were also in his mind.

"I'm sorry," he said and dropped the matchbook.

Fire spilled in all directions of the room, encircling the bed with flames. Ron pulled a pistol from his pants, placed it on his temple, and fired one shot. He fell to the floor.

Coward.

I was now alone in the room to watch the result of his labors. I could feel the warmth of the fire in the room but not the searing heat that caused the paint on the walls to bubble. In the adjacent bedroom, I could hear the muffled screams of Ron's wife, trying to yell for help against the sock that Ron had taped in her mouth. Across the hall, while I could hear nothing, I knew Ron's older daughter was reciting the Lord's Prayer fervently. With each refrain the mantra became more exasperated until finally the only words she spoke were the first lines.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, Our Father, who art in Heaven, Our Father, Our Father, Our Father . . .

I felt the corners of my mouth pull up into a smile. I longed to have Ron's gun in my hand if only to shoot the smile off my face.

The bedspread caught fire in the opposite corner of her bed. I wanted to lift her out of the bed and pull her to safety, but all my hands would do was stroke her hair and rub her hand. Soon her hair would mat into her skull as the blisters that rose on her scalp burst open, or perhaps it would catch fire itself. My eyes were fixed on her. The flames crept up the side of her bed onto her pillow, catching the tip of her hair on fire.

I felt another blinding flash of white and found myself back on the porch. My shirt clung to my body in a heavy sweat. I was still interlocked with the devil's hand on the table. He released his grasp and picked up his bowl, which was mostly just milk now. He lifted the bowl to his lips and finished off the milk, giving himself a milk moustache, probably not one you'll see in one of those Got Milk? ads. He wiped it away with his hand.

"I didn't think you could take the whole scene," he said. "Not yet. I do intend to show you more, right up to the point where I lean in and kiss her lips. But that's for another day."

I didn't speak. In my mind's eye, Maureen Jarvis was still staring at me, unblinking. Across from me, the devil was grinning like a spoiled child with his pockets full of candy. No matter how much I wanted to erase that grin from his face, I knew I was the reason his pockets were full.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got an appointment this afternoon with a woman in Seattle." He pushed his chair from the table and stood up. "Charming lady, I helped her get the look she needed to become a model, but sadly she really isn't one for conversation. Met her three years ago and I'm already bored with her. Today I thought I might have her slice the skin off of her face to liven things up, what do you think?"

I uttered no response. I clasped my hands tight in my lap, recalling the frantic prayer of Ron's older daughter. Although I heard the words in my mind, I could not give them meaning or speak them myself. The devil was watching my struggle with delight. Whether redemption was possible for me or not, the look of pleasure in his face explained why he dangled that tidbit of information in front of me. He would never give me the out he gave Ron. The more I thought about it I envied the payment Ron had to give; at least he didn't have to stick around to see it. I was destined to relive the devil's events until I died, or at least until I decided to die. If that were true then what he told me of redemption was definitely a lie. No way would he give me death when keeping me alive was giving him so much pleasure.

"I'm sure I'll think of something fun for her," he said.

"When?" I asked.

"Pardon?" he said. I looked up and met his eyes.

"When?"

The devil leaned over the table close to me. "That's not for you to know yet, Jack. That was part of the agreement, remember?"

I shook my head. The devil gave me another reassuring shoulder pat. "Cheer up Jack. Just keep yourself stocked with Cap'n Crunch and good conversation, and I'll keep you around for a long while."

He stood up from the table and bowed.

"Thanks for breakfast."

"You're welcome," I said.

He turned from the table and walked down the steps of the porch. He was whistling again. He strolled lightly down the front walk in rhythm with the tune on his lips. When he reached the sidewalk he turned and waved.

"See you tomorrow," he said.

I waved back and watched him walk down the sidewalk away from my house. Once he turned the corner and was out of sight, I went inside the house and dumped the rest of the Cap'n Crunch down the garbage disposal.