Play Me Backwards

To Tanner, my partner in Slushee-related crime. The band we started in eighth grade may not have been the first or last to be called Scapegoat, but we shall, in time, both outpace and outlive them all.

Thanks to all the people who expressed support for this weird little project of mine over the years, including Alexandra L., Heathy Petty, Jennifer Laughran, A. S. King, Daniel Kraus, E. K. Anderson, and all those people on the Twitter chats who thought I was just kidding, but played along anyway.

A million thanks to my awesome agent, Adrienne Rosado, who convinced me that the project could be more than a little thing that I did for fun, and to Dani Young, a dream-come-true of an editor, and everyone else at Simon & Schuster, including Justin Chanda, and all the people I haven't even met yet.

To Ronni, for putting up with me rambling about this project all this time for the last few years. To Stephanie Elliot, who helped shape Leon and his pals in their earlier adventures. Not to mention S. J. Adams, Wild Bill Griffith, and the whole of the Smart Aleck Staff.

And don't let it be forgot: that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as the Maggie Moo's in Clocktower Square. Thanks to Tanner for taking me there one afternoon, to Brian Kirkman, who was “working” there that day, and to Chad Fitzgerald for confirming a few rumors.

There are times when Satan really gets on my nerves. Like, he's been saying for years that he wants to buy my soul, but every time he gets enough cash saved he decides to get his car windows tinted or something instead. He can be a real dick like that.

And on Valentine's Day, a day when I was going to really need him and his evil powers, he was late for his shift at the ice cream place where the two of us worked. I had to hold off the morning rush, such as it was, alone. He finally strolled in an hour after he was scheduled, hands in his pockets and whistling a riff from a Misfits song, like he didn't have a care in the world.

“You're late,” I said.

He stopped in his tracks and walked over to me.

“Let's do the list,” he said. “World Wars I and II. The Black Death. That earthquake in South America last month.
The Phantom Menace
. Algebra. The decision to make Alpha-Bits a
healthy
cereal, instead of a sugary one. All me. And you're mad at me for being late
to work at an ice cream place that has three customers a day?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Priorities, man,” he said. “Big picture.”

And he disappeared into the back room.

Dick.

I suppose most geniuses can be dicks when they feel like it. Thomas Edison once electrocuted an elephant just to prove a point.

I first met the dark lord when I was nine. My mother is a Realtor, and now and then she'd take me along on house calls when she met with people who were thinking of listing their house. My job was to play with any kids who happened to be present in order keep them out of her way. It was a living, but not an easy one. The boys often wanted me to play sports that I wasn't any good at. Girls occasionally wanted to give me makeovers. Really little kids would make me play horsey or watch
Dora the Explorer
. Real estate is a tough business.

When we showed up at this one house, there was a pointy-faced kid with glasses standing in the doorway behind his mother, eyeing me like you'd eye a piece of furniture you weren't quite sure fit in your basement.

“Hi,” said Mom. “You must be Stan.”

He nodded and Mom put her hand on my shoulder.

“This is Leon,” she said. “He's about your age. Go play.”

The kid led me into his room, and we started playing video games on a boxy old TV that got the colors wrong. His room smelled weird. Other people's rooms always do, but this one didn't smell like anything I'd ever smelled before. Years later Dustin Eddlebeck and I tried to figure out what Stan's place smelled like and ended up on “grilled cheese, old people, and freshly spray-painted ass.”

“You don't have to call me Stan,” he said. “My name is actually Satan. My parents just leave out the first
A
so I can go to St. Pius.”

Man
, I thought,
I sure meet the weirdos on this job
.

Stan/Satan didn't try to beat me up or anything, and he didn't hit the reset button on the video game every five seconds just to mess with me, like some asshole kids did, but while we played, he told me that he used to be God's favorite angel until he grew too proud and got kicked out of Heaven and became the devil. Obviously he was lying, but he wasn't chuckling or using an “evil” voice or anything. He talked about going to Hell to reign over demons as casually as other kids talked about going to Omaha to visit their aunts.

He was just telling me how he was planning to have a tornado wreck a small town that spring when some kid with a bowl cut stuck his face into the window.

“Hey, Stan.”

Stan gave him a tiny nod. “Hello, Josh.”

“You wanna come over?”

Stan shrugged, thought for a second, then said, “Do you have any meat at your house?”

“Got some ham in the fridge, I think,” said Josh.

“How much?” asked Stan.

“About three pounds.”

Stan pursed his lips, like he was considering the offer, then he shook his head and said, “Nah.”

Josh didn't argue; he just nodded and took off, like it was generally known and accepted in the neighborhood that if you wanted to hang out with Stan, you needed to have an ample supply of meat at your house.

Later on I tried to make sense of the whole exchange. How could three pounds of ham not be enough? Would Stan have gone if there had been a fourth pound? Or if it was honey-roasted turkey? And what about Josh? What kind of kid even knew how many pounds of ham were in his fridge to start with? I couldn't have possibly told you what was in my own refrigerator. I only kept track of what kinds of cereal we had in stock.

Now that I know that Stan is a genius, one possessed of dark powers that have saved my ass from certain doom on occasions too numerous to mention, I realize that he might not have been planning to
eat
the meat at all. He might have had some fantastic project in mind that required at least five pounds of fresh ham. I've asked him about it, but he says he doesn't remember that day at all, and that he never even knew a kid named Josh. I'm pretty sure he's lying, but you never can tell with Stan.

He was a year ahead of me in school, and he went to St. Pius Elementary and Dowling High, the local Catholic schools (yes, I know), so I didn't see him again until my sophomore year of high school, when he and I both ended up working at Penguin Foot Creamery, one of those awful ice cream shops where the employees have to sing songs and ring bells and shit every time someone orders a large sundae. This was where I learned that he may have been a weirdo, but he was the kind of weirdo who could be destined to lead nations.

He was still going around saying he was the devil, but he didn't seem particularly evil or mean or anything. In fact he had a pretty sunny disposition for a guy who claimed to be the prince of darkness. And his skills at messing with customers made the job a lot more tolerable.

In one of his most inspired moments he got the idea that instead of up-selling drinks or T-shirts to go with people's ice cream, like we were supposed to, we could make extra money by up-selling stuff that we stole out of the manager's office. When somebody ordered a dish of ice cream and mix-ins, we'd say, “Would you like a stapler with that?” Or, “You know what would go great with that sundae? Some envelopes!” If anyone said yes, we'd grab whatever we'd just sold them out of the office and charge them an extra buck or two. We almost sold the printer once.

Half the people just thought it was part of the store's shtick, but we still got in a ton of trouble when Jane, the manager, realized she wasn't just
losing
her staplers all the time. She was ready to fire us on the spot, but Stan talked her out of it with a brilliant defense that would have done any lawyer proud. In his genius brain, he was always three moves ahead of everyone else.

Then, one afternoon, a bearded guy in a pink shirt and red pants came in to give out brochures about how you'll end up in Hell with cartoon devils poking your butt with pitchforks if you don't start praying to cartoon God. Stan took one look at the picture of Jesus on the cover and said, “Oh, I remember that guy. He came into my place one time. Said he'd just been crucified.”

The man in the pink shirt looked confused.

“Your place?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Stan. “I was like, ‘Welcome to Hell, my name is Satan, hand me that pitchfork' and all that, but he was all, ‘Look, is there any way I can be out of here on the third day?' 'Cause I got a thing on Sunday.' ”

I played along, as usual.

“What did you tell him, Mr. Satan, sir?” I asked.

“Well,” said Stan, “I told him he'd be there
forever
, so there was no way he could be out that soon, but then he was like, ‘Do you know who my dad is?' And well . . . you've got the brochures, man. You know.”

The man stared at us some more, like he was too shocked at our insolence to say anything. Maybe he was new to this whole “evangelizing” thing, and thought everyone who saw the cover of the pamphlet would instantly become filled with love or something. His salt-and-pepper beard began to twitch.

“Oh, sorry,” said Stan. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm the angel formerly known as Lucifer. Lord of the Flies, Father of Lies, et cetera. You can just call me Satan, though.” He bowed, then pointed at me and said, “This is Leon, one of my minions.”