- “Ha! Yes! Who’s got two thumbs and is fuckin’ awesome? This guy! I finally managed to make egg-in-a-basket. And I only went through half an egg carton and half a loaf of bread. Take that you fucking toast”
“Wow. That was a crazy-ass dream. It was so vivid. Swear I was there. Oh well, whatever. I’ll tell John all about it later.”
“Sure. Me. In Heaven. That was pretty ludicrous, even for my standard of crazy dreaming. Well, all that’s over now. No point in getting disturbed about it. All that is over. I’ll just enjoy my breakfast and some fresh orange juice. Phew. I’m even talking to myself. Must be losing it.”
“This is pretty delicious. I remember the first time I had…”
- “Hey! Wake up!”
- “What the hell is that?”
- “We’re here. Get up.”
- “Get up? Who’s talking to me? Is that voice coming from my breakfast? Bleep.”
“Oh s-bleep. “
“S-bleep?”
“No. No. No no no no no no. Noooooo. This can’t be really happening. ”
- “Am I gonna have to smack you to get up?”
And as the voice spoke a hand came through his half-eaten toast - it wasn’t that good anyway – and slapped him right in the face. As our main character - whose name I’ve really got to get to at some point in the story – woke he realized he was well s-bleep out of luck.
You thought he was dreaming, right? Heaven and all? Some snow globe effect like the retarded ending of the otherwise pretty good St. Elsewhere? Well, no. For f-bleep-all really. He’s really here, and you – as well as him – better get used to it.
- “So I’m seriously here, aren’t I?”
- “Yup. Stop fighting it. We’re even more ‘here’ than ever, if that makes any sense. Look. We’re officially at the Gates of Heaven.”
As he composed himself he realized his surroundings, and his familiarity to the place. He accepted he was here, for good. But the Gates were not what he expected them to be.
- Yawn. “This really looks like a toll booth.”
It was actually Security Checkpoint #3.
- “Don’t be so rude.”
- “I’m not being rude. It just really looks like a freaking toll booth.”
- “OK. Yeah. Sorry. It does. OK. Happy now? I was just trying to flaunt around with the locations, me being the tour guide and all. It’s…yeah…well. You see…uhmm…well…St. Peter quit. About a few hundred years back, and he was the only one that knew how to operate the “Pearly Gates.” Look, you can see the gates from here.”
They crossed Security Checkpoint #3, where a pretty disgruntled angel OK’d them through. He was one of the original, way more awesome cherubs, with the animal faces to the sides and the back, and the human face to the front, but our man couldn't see him as such. He could only see a fat security guard. When belief of cherubs as chubby, little, cute bastards gained strength and they came to be, cherubs of the olden kind like my man Bob here were demoted to security. Little did they know as they passed him that he would be the first angel to commit suicide. If they had known they would’ve been a bit nicer.
They parked on the side of the road. There was still some time to go to get to the city, but Sal wanted to have a chance to show the original majesty of the Gates.
The Gates stood proudly over in the distance. White marble pillars held the golden gates in place. A light shone from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The same glorious wonder surrounded them, as you’d expect. Some young devils had tarnished the image as they apparently taken upon them the sacred task of writing “Jesus Loves Seamen.” It was a pretty good pun. I snickered.
- “Did I tell you your car is full of useless s-bleep?”
- “No.”
- “Yeah, well, it is. There’s like enough garbage in there to rebuild Lady Gaga from scratch.
- “That’s pretty mean. See, I believe everything’s there for a reason.”
- “Right. You’re insane. Did you know that? You’re like those people that read The Secret.”
- “Gasp. Isn’t Rhonda Byrne fabulous?”
- “Are you s-bleep-ing me? Eternity must do a number on your neurons. Just…I’ll let it pass. OK. The Gates. I see them. They’re incredibly shiny. Now why would St. Peter quit?”
- “Yeah, they might not be functional but we still clean them for ceremonies and the occasional beauty pageant. About Peter, long story short, he was bored.”
- “I think I got enough time for the long story. And you have beauty pageants here?”
- “Yeah, but they’re political here too.”
“I think we could take a few minutes to explain; there’s no rush. See, St. Peter was supposed to be God’s buddy.”
- “Yeah. I knew that much from Dan Brown.”
- “Dan, remind me to tell you a few things about him. As I was saying, he thinks that when he’s dead he’s got it all set up here. Big house, a beachfront, health club membership, the works. But when he kicks it, he turns into a glorified doorman and no paid vacations. He went along with it for a few decades, mind you. He tried to make it fun, but when he realized no one really supervised him he started going crazy with it. He made his own version of “Simon Says” with the arriving souls. He called it “Simon Cephas Says.” Imagine that, where “Simon Says” is already tricky enough. And if you lost you got a few months in Purgatory. Not too far down thankfully – St. Peter and Virgil had struck a deal – but still down enough for it to be scary.”
- “Jesu-“
As he was about to speak those words Sal covered his mouth in a hurry, and told him to be quiet. It was a normal gesture for telling someone to “hush” but if you coincidentally managed to get a glimpse of them at the moment it might’ve looked kind of gay.
- “Don’t say his name.”
Sal let him go, trusting him to be quiet.
- “Why the hell not? Why can’t I say J-“
Sal covered his mouth again. It looked a bit gayer this time.
- “Are you a moron? Just. Don’t.”
Sal removed his hand, ever so slightly. If he‘d winked at him it would’ve been brought to the attention of the Gay Angel Police (which is a pretty gay name for starters, especially for an angelic poli…nah, not really. It’s pretty appropriate.). Oh. Right. SPOILER ALERT.
- “Just don’t say his name. Please.”
- “If you tell me why I can’t then I promise.”
- “I will, but not here. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
- “Well. Whatever. You were saying about St. Peter…”
- “Yeah. Well. Ever read The Divine Comedy?
- “Nop. Heard about it. Skimmed through Inferno a bit so I’ve got some clu…wait. You’re not gonna say that’s real, are you?
- “No. Not all of it at least. Some is just blatant exaggeration. I mean, everybody knows Hell’s got 14 circles. Some is just out of date. We’ve had elevators since the Renaissance; it would’ve been easier for Dante to just catch a lift out of Purgatory instead of taking that disturbingly long flight of stairs.”
- “I’m starting to lose you. Get to the point.”
The giant moon shone brightly, with an unknowable beauty from the surface of the Earth. Tall towers and buildings could be seen in the distance, proclaiming the ground the city holds. They still stood at the edge of the road, discussing the life history of the saint-no-more. They haven’t moved, and this whole paragraph is indeed pretty pointless. A bit redeemed by the adequate description of the setting, but not much after that. I was dozing off as I was starting to feel left out so I decided to include myself in this here paragraph. Our story continues. Cue music.
- “Dante’s the one that told on St. Peter. He’s the one that denounced him. Instead of facing an investigation he decided to quit. Just upped and moved to Los Angeles. He opened a small but well-doing bar calledPetros. Boys up here were really out of it. Just goes to show that you can’t really trust those kind of people.”
- “Those kind of people? What the hell do you mean by that?
- “You know what I mean.”
- “No. I don’t. Seriously, don’t…Italians?”
- “What? No. Wow. Man, that’s pretty racist. I meant poets.”
- “No. That’s not what I meant. Argh. Just forget it. So you can just quit working for Heaven?”
-“Yeah, but you can pretty much kiss your pension plan goodbye when you do though. St. Peter pulled some favors with management. He’d let a few mistresses - some madonnas, so to speak - in for some very important members of the Host. In short, they owed him. That let him get set up in L.A.”
- “Great. St. Peter’s a blackmailing barkeep and the Pearly Gates are out of order.”
- “We still use them for events, as I said. Miss Elysium was our last one. Pretty, the whole lot, but dumb as a box of rocks.
- “That really surprised me. Beauty pageants in Heaven. Who’d ‘a thunk it?”
- “Well…yeah…eternity’s a pretty long time. We try to entertain ourselves as best as we can.”
- “I’m just surprised. Heaven’s pretty different from how I expected to be.”
- "That's odd. Heaven's supposed to be what you expect it to be. That's how it works."
- "Well, I'm an atheist. Funny how I hadn't told you. I think that might keep me out of the gears or system or whatever the hell runs this place."
- "Oh, you're one of those. Hmm. I haven't seen God in a few millennia so I might see where your point of view comes from. You're lucky I'm one of the more open-minded angels. Nate would've burnt your ass to the ground."
- "Nate? He sounds like a prick."
He pulls out a notepad he'd taken from Sal's truck and writes down “prick” in the list titled “Swears OK’d by God." He looks at the list with some mischievous satisfaction.
- "Nathaniel's his full name, but it sounds pretty snobbish. He's not that bad really, unless you don’t proclaim your undying love for Jahveh. Then you’re screwed.”
- “Fantastic. Just keep me out of his way.”
- “I’ve got to. Can’t let an atheist roam around on his own around here. Let’s go to my place. We’ll figure out what to do with you there.”
They got in Sal’s truck and headed further into the city, leaving the view of the gates behind. They reached a part of the city that was not unlike the s-bleep-y side of the Bronx; not the grandness you’d assume of Heaven. It was definitely prettier and polished but as they say, polish a turd…
