by Vin Berardi
“I think I’m going to worship Satan, Mom.”
“Go ahead, just don’t forget to take out the trash.”
“Didn’t you hear me? The devil, Mom.”
“I heard you.”
“You don’t care?”
“Like father, like son.”
“Dad didn’t worship the devil, Mom.”
“His actions spoke louder than his words,” she said. “And he isn’t here anymore, so we can hardly ask him about his religious beliefs.”
We were in the car after church on the way to McDonald’s. It was the bribe I got for going.
“Mom, when we sit there, I don’t think about God. I think about girls, and video games, and, well, leaving home.”
“Leave then.”
“I’m twelve.”
“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
But I did mean it at the time. I suppose some kids go through a rebellious phase, but I really believed what I was saying. Hate was the emotion that I most strongly identified with. I wasn’t ready to steal or kill, but I was ready to lie and cheat, and hey, that’s the first rung.
“I hate church,” I said.
“Of course you do. You’re not meant to like it. It isn’t a movie, it’s an instruction manual. You aren’t supposed to enjoy reading those. The goal is to understand them.”
I couldn’t help but complete the metaphor.
“But what if I don’t want to build something the way they tell me?”
“Then it will break.”
“I don’t want to go to church anymore.”
She made eye contact with me through the rearview mirror.
“If I have to go, then you have to go.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“Yes, I do. Your grandfather helped build that church. And I was forced to spend every Wednesday and Sunday there. So I’m going to get what’s owed to me.”
“What’s that?”
“Salvation,” she said.
This didn’t make any sense to me.
“So then you know how I feel?”
“In a way. But I didn’t want to worship the devil.”
“What did you want?”
“To marry him.”
We got to the drive-through and I wondered how many Big Macs it would take me to one day be saved.
Vin Berardi is a NYC-based writer specializing in dark, strange, and comic pieces—often at the same time. An acting teacher and director for 30 years, he has a podcast named The Trilogy Podcast, a wife named Amy, and a dog named Louise. His work has appeared in Flash Phantoms, Infocalypse Magazine, Exclamation Mark Lit, and is forthcoming in AntipodeanSF
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