What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [104]
El Jefe led Satan toward the back of the restaurant, past a row of sneeze guards under which various dishes passed the time steaming or chilling and attempting to look enticing. A handful of old people shuffled along the railing, ordering various foodstuffs.
About halfway down, Satan spotted an array of Jell-O desserts sitting on a bed of finely-crushed ice. Each sat in a fancy, faux-crystal dessert cup, and was arranged relative to its companion treats in neat, orderly rows so as to create a rainbow.
“Ooh!” Satan paused in front of the multi-hued array. He dithered for a moment —watching as El Jefe continued his robot march through a pair of metal doors at the back of the eatery – and then scooted over to the silverware stand, plucking up one each of the forks, spoons, and knives. He started back toward the desserts, but then thought better of it, and went back for a straw.
Finally equipped with the right tool, Satan returned to the spectrum of gelatin desserts just as an old man in a nasty yellow sweater reached for a green Jell-O. Satan slapped the man’s hand away and reached for the green Jell-O for himself. But then he put it back, and grabbed a red one instead. Then he set the red one down, and grabbed a yellow Jell-O. He stopped, realized something, and looked around.
“I need a tray,” he said.
By this time, the line behind him had grown not quite to epic length, but long enough to disgruntle old folks who are used to getting their mashed potatoes and gravy in a timely manner. The elderly gentleman whose hand Satan had slapped gestured over his shoulder to a stack of trays at the end of railing. The old lady behind him let loose a stream of quiet, but very obnoxious old lady ranting. Satan extended a long, warning finger at her, and she shut up.
“Give me your tray,” he said to the man, “and you go get another.”
The old man tilted his head and squinted at the Devil.
“Your tray,” said Satan. “Give it to me. This instant.”
The old man’s eyes changed from confused slits to wide-open orbs of surprise before ceding the stage to his eyebrows. His eyebrows decided that the situation called for a little bit of dismay, and arched upward accordingly. The man proffered his tray.
Satan reached for the red-orange rectangle, but then yanked his hand back, as if he were afraid it might bite him. “What is this?”
“Okra?” asked the man. “Fried okra?”
“Get it off.” He waved it away.
The old man removed the okra.
The Devil grabbed the tray and help it up to examine it by the light of a nearby heat lamp. “Very good,” he said, picking at an invisible speck of something. He set the tray down and immediately returned his attention to the Jell-O desserts, piling two of each color onto his tray.
Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork. “Hmm,” he said, looking around. “I’m going to need more straws.” He waited for a brief moment, and seeing the lack of scurrying or other hurried forms of locomotion toward the straws, he turned and raised an eyebrow at the old man, who was still busy being dumbfounded. “Straws?” Satan pointed at the silverware stand.
“Oh!” The old man hurried – or, rather, shuffled in a somewhat brisk manner – to get some more straws.
“Wait!” Satan held one hand up, indicating that his straw retrieval specialist should cease all straw retrieval activities immediately. “What—? Is that what I think it is?” He tipped his tray up, dumping his collection of desserts back onto the ice, and headed off toward a large, metal machine near the cash register.
“I didn’t see this before,” he said. “Where are the cones?”
The cashier was large and possessed an indefinite and lumpy shape, like a snowperson constructed by an inexperienced snowperson builder. She didn’t answer the