“You are a fucking pain in the ass,” he said. “Let’s go. Let’s do this right now.”
“What’s ‘this?’”
“Your goddamn interview. You got your phone, right?”
It wasn’t ideal. But I’d have to make do. I couldn’t say if I’d get a second shot at this.
“Yeah.”
“Set it up, record, and let’s go.”
Mr. Roberts would fucking hate me for recording on an iPhone. But, hey, sometimes, even the station ran self-shot footage or grainy security camera footage. What was the medium when the content was so compelling?
I set up my camera, trying to get a good angle. Satan kept moaning about how he didn’t understand why he couldn’t just stand in front of the camera and answer my question; explaining the rule of thirds to him was like speaking a foreign language. In his defense, had he started speaking to me about bike repair mechanisms, I probably would have faded out within seconds.
Finally, though, I got the right angle by positioning it on a dresser. I told him to stand in a certain spot so we’d get the best “TV angle” that we could, and then I stood to the side.
“I’m Hailey Cook with WPTV, here with Satan, the president of the Devil’s Patriots. Satan, thank you for your time.”
“Fucking pleasure.”
This might set the record for the most number of bleeped-out words that we get.
“Satan, obviously, that is not your real name. What is your real name?”
“Why is it so obvious that that’s not my real name?” he said. I rolled my eyes at him. Where I stood, my reactions wouldn’t be caught on camera. “You’re damn well not getting my real name. Only my mother, my son, and my wife know that, and two of them are dead.”
Oh, shit…
I gulped, needing to collect myself for a moment at this new revelation. So Satan was once married?
I didn’t dare ask anything about that since it wasn’t necessary to the story. But I had a lot of personal interest in knowing at some point.
“Very well. Satan, there’s a lot of perceptions about you in the public eye. What is the reality of the Devil’s Patriots?”
“The reality is we don’t really give a fuck what the reality is. We give a fuck about being left alone, allowed to live our lives, and to enjoy ourselves in peace. If you get scared because one of us walks into the local Walmart, that’s your own damn fault.”
“I see, and—”
“Like were you fucking scared of me when you saw me?”
I bit my lip, trying to remain in character. This wasn’t unheard of in interviews, but most subjects were just happy to be interviewed or wanted it over as quickly as they could.
“No.”
“See, that’s a smart fucking girl; wish the rest of the bitches would understand that, guys and girls.”
I knew Satan was trying to play a part here, too, of the big, bad wolf that ran the club. But knowing that there was…well, maybe not a soft side, but at least something approaching human, I just found it funny. And me trying not to laugh was probably not helping the cause.
“Do you think the rest of these ‘b-words’—”
“Are you fucking serious?” Satan said, rolling his eyes. “This is what I mean. You’re too afraid to say bitch. At least your boss would say something if you said it, but that just makes him a bitch too. So many fucking bitches afraid to utter, gasp, a motherfucking goddamn shitty curse word!”
I was closer than ever to laughing.
“Fuck it, we’ll do this interview another time,” Satan said.
And then he walked over to me, grabbed me by the ass, and pulled me in for a kiss.
