Murderburger

You may have guessed by the title, but this is a little dark. Not R, but not G. 

Murderburger

Welcome to Murderburger, home of the Murderburger, can I take your order?

I’m Jane Prehurst from the Times-News, and I’m doing a piece on this restaurant. Can I take a statement from you . . .  Edgein? Ed-gein?

Oh, my name’s not Ed, we just have to wear a badge so we got a bunch of spares lying around.  Are you going to order something first?

I’d rather not, I think the theme of this restaurant is in poor taste.

Oh no, everything’s pretty good. Except for the Dahmer Dinner, I don’t really like that. But everything else is good. You could try it if you got the Dahmer/Unabomber combo.

Can you tell me why the owners chose such a morbid concept for their business?

Dunno really, it wasn’t in the training video. I think it’s a joke, like on PETA or something. They’re always saying meat is murder, and most of the food here is meat.

Maybe it’s a joke, but it’s still pretty upsetting. What about the families of these killers’ victims? 

Oh none of them live round here. I heard maybe Ted Bundy came through here but he didn’t kill no one. And there’s nothing here named after him anyway. We only have the Bundy Onion in the spring.

Just because they don’t live here doesn’t mean you can glorify these serial killers. What kind of a message does that send?

We don’t do any commercials really, everyone just knows the Murderburger’s here in town, they don’t have to advertise. I think you need to order something or get out of line.

Fine, I’ll have a small cheeseburger and some juice, whatever you have. And can you please get your manager?

Alright. Hey Manson, we need a Son of Samwich and OJ OJ! That’ll be $1.48.

It’s that cheap?

Best prices in town. I’ll go get Mr.  Gacy.

****

Welcome to Murderburger, home of the Murderburger, what can I do for you?

Yes, I’m Jane Prehurst from the Times-News, I’d just like to talk to you about this establishment and its controversial theme.

Well, it’s always nice to have people talking about your business. But we mostly rely on word of mouth, so I’m not sure if we’d be interested in having you write an article for the paper.

I’ll be writing the article either way Mr. Gacy, it’s just up to you if you’d like to explain yourself. Is that G-A-C-Y?

Oh, Gacy isn’t my real name, you can call me John Wayne.

John Wayne is your real name?

It isn’t.

So why should I call you that?

Is the article on the restaurant or my nametag? Would you like to know about our Zodiac Special?

No thank you.  The cashier thought the name Murderburger came from an insult to vegetarians, do you know if this is the case?

Not to my knowledge, we wouldn’t want our brand to be insulting to anyone. We do emphasize our sandwiches but we have some delicious vegetarian options, like our Green River Dinner.

Isn’t naming your food after serial killers insulting?

Insulting to whom?

To everyone! You’re honoring the most twisted, evil men in society!

Well that may be your opinion but I hardly think it’s a fact. Some people like chocolate, some like vanilla. To each their own.

To each their own? This isn’t just a matter of personal preference.

Isn’t everything? Who am I to tell you what you like? Who are you to tell me? Anyway, it’s primarily a gimmick. Murderburgers are more interesting than hamburgers, aren’t they? Our customers aren’t leaving the restaurant and murdering their way home. As far as we know.

But you admit that you’re presenting taking another person’s life as a matter of preference?

I can’t admit much. I’m just a manager. You’d need someone higher up to do any admitting.

*****

Welcome to Murderburger Headquarters, home of the Murderburger. How may I help you?

Hello, I’m Jane . .  .

Prehurst! From the Times-News. Sandra told me you were coming in. What’s this about a newspaper article? We still have newspapers?

Well they need something to wrap the fish in, Mr . . .

I suppose so. And don’t forget the birdcages. In any case, I’m not sure if we really want a story about us right at the moment.

Unfortunately that’s not really the way the press works Mr. . .

It’s not that we’re embarrassed, far from it. It’s just our business strategy to focus on grassroots efforts and organic growth. Organic, not unlike many of our fine ingredients . .

Sir, what should I put as your name for the article?

I suppose Redrum would work. But as I was saying, we don’t see much that’s newsworthy at this time. In a year or two maybe.

What will be different in a year?

Well these things take time of course. That’s the organic approach. We represent an ideology not a fad and that takes some time and development.

An ideology? What exactly is the ideology of Murderburger?

Well murder of course! Like I said, we’re not embarrassed by it, we try to be fully transparent. We didn’t try to slip it in there like Jack the Ripper in the Box or Burger King Vlad the Impaler. We’re MURDER burger!

Your ideology is murder? I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m understanding this.

Oh I’m sure you do, it’s simple, a tale as old as Cain and Abel. It doesn’t take any fancy degrees to figure out how killing works.

You’re seriously advocating murder? Not just as a theme for your restaurant, actually killing?

Well, advocating isn’t strictly accurate. We’re not saying you NEED to go out there and kill indiscriminately. We’re just saying you should be able to do what you feel you need to do, without Big Brother coming down on you.

You can’t be serious. What kind of a society lets people murder each other?

Isn’t it democratic? Each gets to say what they wish, and even better has the power to follow through on their wishes without waiting for some giant bureaucracy to take care of it. DIY! Isn’t it capitalism in action? Work hard at achieving your goal and reap the rewards.

But you’re killing people! You can’t kill people! What’s the first of our rights as Americans? It’s LIFE!

You’re free to live. Just don’t make people want to kill you. Do make sure you’re able to defend yourself and kill them if you need to. The right to life isn’t absolute, the government kills people all the time.

The government has due process. The government is protecting the greater good. It’s not a raving lunatic skinning and eating people.

Nor are we. Am I raving? I may have raised my voice a little but I hardly think I’m raving. I’m just supporting those things that go along with life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. What is life without these?

So Murderburger does advocate murder. It does want its customers to kill.

We want them to be able to kill. We want to show that others have decided for themselves to kill and you can too. We’re just trying to nudge the world forward and help it grow. Perhaps by thinning it a bit.

This is absurd, this won’t work.

Oh it can. It has. I’ve gotten lots of thank you letters. People are opening their eyes. Sometimes that requires closing other people’s eyes.

So you’ve convinced a few backwater sickos, the other 99.9% of us won’t stand for it

We’ll see. But you’re right, we don’t want to fight the 99.9%, which is why we have to politely decline your graciously offered publicity for the moment.

It’s my job to tell people what they need to hear. You don’t get to politely decline, that’s not how this works.

Well, it kind of is Ms Prehurst. Sandra, could you be a dear and lock the door? 

******

This one was a bit of a chore to read, so congratulations for making it to the end. My stories tend to be very dialogue based, so I decided to go whole hog and get rid of everything unspoken. Were I ever to publish it I'd likely go through and make it more traditionally structured. 

The main prompt here was I thought the combination of words Murder and Burger sounded funny. Around that I wanted a bunch of serial killer references, and some light social commentary. This isn't a hard hitting attack against anything in particular, but it was a bit of farce aimed at extremist views, difficulties in defending moral behavior without agreed upon morals, societal responsibility, libertarianism etc.