“You killed your baby marshmallow breath,” yelled a mopish protester in a swinging paisley skirt resting a sign on her shoulder that read ‘pray to end abortion’, standing on the sidewalk adjacent to Bordella Women’s Clinic on Old Main. There was a faint hint of Baby’s Breath in the air.
“I saved it for the doctor, who is the one who killed it and deserves the credit,” blonde Marcy replied in her famous white blouse, “then he hacked it to pieces, thanks for asking.”
This was more than the pro-life activists had ever heard in their stand-in-the-corner lives, created a shock wave that formed a gallop down the center of the aisle of brazen Jane Roe reactionaries added to little selfish squints of baron spinsters and filthy old men who had nothing better to do. The disorganized herd of faith-based jackals, as recorded elsewhere, began waxing self-righteous. One woman in the group had a scowl on her face that rivaled horn-rimmed Satan.
“You won’t be so proud when Lucifer is prodding you with a pitchfork warmed in Hellfire,” the pony-tail mom sneered.
“He already prodded me with something much better than that sister,” said Marcy, brandishing her phone like a dagger and her keys rang violently. One timid woman named Mary yelled in earnest, as if she was accomplishing something for the very first time in her life.
“Well, you’re not my sister!”
“Thank you for affirming that,” Marcy announced and stepped triumphantly into her car, shaking the dust from her wedges. Only a bad-ass drives herself to an appointment at this clinic.
The shy mouse Mary had misgivings and painful butterflies in her belly for her outburst that was not in line with how her husband raised her to be.
“She’s the one who called you sister first, Mary,” Mary’s co-dependent friend Megan consoled, “so her comment doesn’t make sense.”
“How’d it go?” asked Dana, Marcy’s female accomplice who was also of breeding age and therefore a constant target of prayer-book bullying, lifting her glass to use as a pointer, “I see you wore your favorite little number.”
“I love my white blouse,” Marcy said proudly, tugging on it is as if to verify it was still there, “Did I tell you? I was berated by unkempt villains – a typical day’s affair at the abortion factory.”
“I get my abortions on Sundays when they are at services,” said Dana, nursing a glass of beer and eating from a bag of cheese.
“I’m just glad that thing is out of me,” Marcy answered, clapping and singing a hymn.
“If they only knew that the zygote you had extricated, quote murdered, was stem-cells of the spawn of Satan.”
“I tried to tell them. This one lady looked exactly like The Devil when he came,” Marcy mimicked the face and Dana braced for a monologue, “She doesn’t even know it! At least I knew when the Devil was inside of me, as I fornicated with him. Marcy it was enormous. I don’t know whether to say breathtaking or mouthwatering. He was a perfect gentleman. I met him at a club in downtown San Antonio. We talked for hours, I found him to be an active listener and at the same time very thoughtful! He asked me for a coaster to put his drink on. Do you know what I mean? He threw me against the wall, but with care as if he considered my body precious and not to be broken. I was in ecstasy, Dana. I have never been loved like that before in all my life. I had never been touched like that ever. Marcos could barely rub his baloney between my thighs before he was through. The Devil ruined me for men but I can’t feel cheated, for his memory I will cherish for all the days that remain in my life...”
“Well I’m just glad you had a good time of it. Maybe now you won’t cry about being all alone for a few weeks before you crawl back to Marcos and I can catch up on some light reading. By the way, how did He react to the news that you snuffed out his only son before it even had gills?” Dana was barely out of her chair on the way out of the room when Dana suddenly broke the silence.
“I’m finished with Marcos. You know he only cares about himself, Marcy, I mean Dana. I haven’t told my forbidden love yet about how I rick-rolled his only child and dumped the remains in the ocean,” Marcy, befuddled by thoughts of Satanic ecstasy, muddled along holding her hand up as if in praise.
“That should go well,” Dana said, but the look on her face revealed that she didn’t believe it would go very well at all. An explosion went off in the distance.
“Did you hear that?”
“It sounded like an explosion,” Marcy mused.
“Thanks for that, detective,” Dana said without much thought and finished her cheese.
“You made your choices, now you get to go to Hell all by yourself,” said a man on a small stage while a girl cried in agony.
The independent crowd recoiled in horror. Seven preteens sold their soul to God for nothing. Ten others sang praises, having already made the deal when they were born (their parents made it for them, but it’s all the same). They prayed for the dead and buried the living in emotional rapture until their stench arose to the Heavens and a new omnipotent character began to emerge as if from primordial fog, one we have only hinted at so far.
God was a figment in this imagination. Do not discount the Almighty presence. He was there watching this fiasco, not happy about it. Just prior to all the hubbub, He had decided to pay a visit to his estranged disciple Saint Peter at the gates to deliver an important message. It was a task of a difficulty that was compounded by the fact that Jesus hadn’t spoken to Peter since returning to Heaven.
“Peter,” God said with all the rage of the one and only true God.
“Yes, Lord,” said Peter excitedly, “So nice of you to visit me after two thousand years...”
“Oh, yes, how neglectful of me. Hey, that reminds me, remember when you denied me?” God pointed out casually, shrugging his shoulders a little, “remember the cock?”
“Can I ever live that down? Is that asking too much?” Peter begged with a tone of indignation and honest feelings of having been abandoned.
“You’re right. Forget about it. I’m over it, mostly. It was an important moment for me, and you blew it on the international stage, but I can forgive you even though that is very hard because you betrayed me. Okay, forget that for now. On to the next thing. We’ll go back to that later when you’re ready to really apologize. New subject. For now, look, we (and by we I mean the upstairs) have had some meetings about it, and we’ve arrived at some new conclusions, etc. The main point is, and keep this between us for now, we have decided to suspend the Christian (they are that by name only at this point, bearing no reflection whatever of what I tried to teach them). Anyway, we’ve nixed their claims for entering Heaven. That means they are to be turned, i.e. burned, away at the gate. All of them. Every last one of them forever. We’ve had it up to here, which is Heaven so there is nothing higher. I’m sick… no, worse than sick. Tired.”
“If I’m being honest, that is frankly a load off my mind Jeez. You know, I admitted a jackass that shot the pope recently who had been absolved by the pope. Isn’t that something? What do these people think, that popes grow on trees?” said Peter, scratching under his robe.
“Point well made. When I created Christianity, Pete, you know, you were there, it was a marked change from what went before. The early Christians had substance, they lived and felt my presence. These post-modern phonies give me the creeps. They are not mine. They are impostors. All they do is despise what is pure, they have no love and no meek and trembling respect for Heaven. Have you noticed?”
“I sent you a memo a hundred years ago on that very subject,” said Peter with a bow, “you had to have seen it. You’re telling me you didn’t see it, Jesus? I know you got it. Still, you never called, wrote, nothing. You stick me down here to watch the gate while you are breaking bread with the saints. You told me this would be paradise, not a toll booth job.”
“Yes, I seem to recall your message now. Using real heralds was a bit much, by the way, and, I’ll say it, a little condescending. I was away for a few hundred years after the Enlightenment to recharge. I didn’t have an opportunity to reply because it is in another dimension that you cannot fathom, so the postage is cost-constraining. But, yeah, great insight. Thanks a lot Peter, for noticing what everyone else also noticed and then for trying to make me look like the bad guy again. They nailed me to a cross, remember Pete? The least you could have done was to say that you knew who I was. If a messiah ever needs support, it is when he is being hammered onto a wooden plank and hung there for birds to eat his entrails. Yes, and you were busy hiding your face while I suffered for you and everyone else. Think about how that made me feel. I had noticed the trend, however, four hundred years ago. Its America, Pete. Since they ‘discovered’ America they got weak and stupid, ugly little men who deserve nothing but fast death is all they are. It’s not the Promised Land, they should know that. Its not free and its not brave. From what I’ve seen, it’s a greedy Hell hole that oppresses anyone who is of true and noble character. Virtue has no place in that God forsaken nightmare.”
“False faces! Have you noticed the false looks they have?”
Justice was done in that land and it was written so that the prophets might remember it, as it is written, ‘he who hears will be glorious while he who is snide will be given not a second glance by the lord of the churches who walks on water in front of the drunks.”
“I understand Lucifer laid with a woman and nearly spawned a child,” said Peter, “that must have been upsetting news for you, am I right?”
“Yes, I was shocked,” said God, with a note of sarcasm, “he only tries to do that same maneuver every decade or so. I suppose one day he will succeed, not like it matters, but sure, I suppose it would be a minor inconvenience to have the Lord of the Flies making sandwiches for some little Joey before rushing him off to second grade to learn about so-called intelligent design.”
“You know I was also crucified,” said Peter, as if he could care less about it but anyone who overheard would have noticed that Peter was working another purpose than just random thoughts.
“I didn’t know that Peter,” said Jesus, “how was it?”
“Well, I couldn’t let them crucify me as you were crucified, of course,” Peter said, taking a look at his nails.
“What?” said Jesus, now vaguely paying attention, a bit surprised, “Why would that matter?”
“You know,” said Peter, “you were the savior, not me, I didn’t want there to be any confusion.”
“Peter, I am the one walking on water and raising up dead relatives in caves,” said Jesus, now completely in the conversation for the first time, “why would anyone make that mistake?”
“I don’t know,” Peter said meekly, “I just thought...”
“You thought they would mistake a filthy fisherman from Galilee as the son of God? You were tangled in slimy nets with your drunken brother when I met you.”
“Not everyone is God, Jesus,” said Peter sharply.
“So, how did they do it, upside down?” Jesus began, adding, “just kidding. Some sort of head chopping off perhaps? Did they do that in those days? Perhaps I was thinking of the medievalists.”
“It was upside down,” said Peter, now wishing he hadn’t brought it up.
“Oh my God,” Jesus said as his expression changed to mirth, “they just let you decide how they killed you? And you chose that way! Apostles have to be so dramatic. Can’t you just preach the gospel and shut the fuck up? Can’t you just do what I say and stop trying to fuck up all of my work? Who cares how the scum murdered you! I found right-side-up crucifixion to be fairly tolerable once you arrive in the right spot (so long as you realize you're going to come back alive afterward). But upside down! You little twat.”
“Knock Knock!” said the crowd of abortion protesters who had apparently been waiting quietly on the other side of the gate for some time now.
“My God! What are you doing here now? We were not expecting anyone who would have died of reasonable and sinless causes” said Peter, putting on his reading glasses.
“We were blown up by a terrorist who yelled Allah Akbar, so you figure it out,” said the leader, a piggish bald apple-shaped growler with little or no shame or grace, and swarthy arms for some reason that did not match the rest of his body. He smelt like a burnt marshmallow doused in gasoline.
“How did that happen?”
“We were protesting at a baby murder clinic in our town, the one we mention every week in our prayers,” said newly minted, blackened, but outspoken Mary, the spokeswoman for the crowd, “a demon or possibly the dark lord himself must have blown us up. I didn’t get a good look at who did it because I was busy being blown to bits. Also, I was insulted by someone, and after we are admitted and get settled, Lord Jesus, I would like to have a word with you in concerns to her behavior if I may.”
“Your face is familiar. You say Lucifer murdered you?” asked God, now going through the crowd and wondering aloud, “do go on, sir, this is very interesting.”
“All of us were obliterated!” shouted Phineas, “our bodies, that is. We have been serving you all our lives. I was saved when I was 8 days old by my ma. She dowsed me in the good water, and made me so good that I never did anything wrong and even though I was sinless I still apologized when I thought someone might be distracted over something minor just to leave the world a better place and pay it forward like the good Samaritan.”
“I don’t know what you just said,” Peter postured plaintively.
“I says we need to get in,” said Phineas,”now, you’ve made an agreement with us and we are going to have to hold you to it. We’re blown to bits, I mentioned that. We need to get in and repair ourselves and live in mansions with everything we ever could imagine or want, get reacquainted with our great-grandparents. Streets are paved in gold and don’t tell me you can’t afford to let in a few sinners. We made our peace with the pastor. He’s here. Hold on a second.”
“Yep,” said Fred, who had lost a foot in the explosion, “I vouch for them. We prayed liked it says in that book we carried, whats it called. I’m at a loss since the bomb exploded very close to my buttocks. I was practically sitting on it, in fact.”
“Who set off the bomb?” Jesus asked and when he spoke everyone fell down from the thunder in his speech, “you know, whoever did is in big trouble. I need to know preferably before I visit them.”
“It was niggers, ragheads, commies, or queers, or probably all four,” said Charlie, rising up and dusting off marshmallows from his button down, “or, no offense, but Jews.”
Charlie was the young man who just joined at last week’s revival and had only attended the protest because he thought he might get a good look at a woman of loose morals not on a computer screen.
“It’s always one or ta other, if you read the right news,” finished Charlie, “and I always have read the right news and would not even hear of reading anything wrong.”
“I think it was damn Mexicans,” said Sam who always carried a towel wrapped around his neck because he sweat more than a human being should ordinarily sweat even on a cold day, “we have a problem with them running cross the border, you see.”
“I see,” said God, “I’ll get to punishing the queers with a great big earthquake in their gay bars.”
“Yep,” said Charlie, “them queers done it. I knowed it was them. We was doing your work. And then, I noticed a faggot come by. I knew he was because he was so easy to dehumanize that way, he must be a gay, or homosexual or whatnot. I don’t know them words, I just hear them in newspapers my mom reads. My momma reads the fake news, but her sins are not mine, remember that God.”
“Well,” said God, with a finger to his chin, “this is a real mystery. Perhaps we should look at the tape since there are so many questions left unanswered.”
The whole crowd began to move anxiously and emit little burps and peeps that indicated that someone had just scared the bejesus out of them but they had to be quiet about it.
“Yep,” said God, “we will just play the tape. We’ll catch the culprits, and we’ll make examples of them. I’m talking real bad stuff here. If all queers or Mexicans were in on it, that is. It has to be all or none, those are biblical rules, not mine. Brimstone might be deployed, I am not sure yet. All I can say, look, it’s not absolutely off the table. I take this stuff very seriously. Whoever did this better admit it, at least. I’m just saying, what angers me is all the lying more than anything. Now, were these like leather queers or just regular art queers who earn their grades sleeping with professors? Sometimes referred to as dorm twinks. I need to know before we run the clip so I can look with a keen eye. Might they be wearing forage hats? I know many who wear those hats often with badges on their breast who are just atrocious garbage, I see them on the news often, with their batons and clear plastic shields usually getting off scot-free for murder. Did they say they were from New York?”
“Uh, God, Jesus, Almighty Jesus, he who must be praised non-stop, we implore you to listen to our story.”
“Oh, do go ahead, but first, let’s watch the clip so we can bring the culprits to real justice.”
“WE BROUGHT THE BOMB!” shouted the pastor, “OKAY! I admit it. It was us. I shoulda known I couldn’t lie to you, but I thought it was worth a try. Anyways, so we made the bomb and it ‘sploded by mistake before we got a chance ta set it. The detonator prolly, I ‘magine, although I ain’t had time to think about it. A friend ‘a Charlie’s made it for us. He ain’t here ‘cause he lived.”
“It is true, we were going to blow it up, that den of sin. We took a stand for the lord, and in the process were martyred.”
“Excuse me?” said God, “martyred? Is that what you said? Well, listen, I am afraid I have some bad news for you.”
“Nothing you could say could possibly overshadow your infinite forgiveness, oh Lord of hosts,” said come face.
“Except for this,” said God, “we recently canceled you people’s contract. You are no longer wanted here. This door is closed to you forever, and only Hellish torment awaits you. Begone from me now. By the way, we don’t have a tape of every event that ever happens. I made that up. I knew exactly what you were going to do before Sheckum.”
“See what I do to people I don’t like, Peter,” Jesus said after he roasted the terrorists for a second time, “you’re alright, kid. You’re fine. I have let time slip by, riding the clouds. You forget that I never experienced life as you did. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me for neglecting you all these centuries, Peter, my rock?”
“My Lord,” said Peter, prostrating himself, “me forgiving you? Is it even a question? I ask you, what do you think my answer will be to the one who saved me and brought me here from the very nest of Hell, casting filthy sea urchins in from that dank shore? I forgive you a thousand times, father, I could never withhold my love for the anger of having missed it. I have lived in shame all these centuries for not being your ally when you needed one most of all.”
“For I am blessed to know a true friend as you Peter. Truly blessed,” said Jesus before he bowed his head and connected his hands behind his back and walked off in contemplation, the way he has been for thousands of years.
Satan, betrayed, lied in the grass looking up at the stars, steaming and imagining it all in anger and misery. Then he ate the pro-lifers with no enjoyment except the occasional marshmallow.
“I saved it for the doctor, who is the one who killed it and deserves the credit,” blonde Marcy replied in her famous white blouse, “then he hacked it to pieces, thanks for asking.”
This was more than the pro-life activists had ever heard in their stand-in-the-corner lives, created a shock wave that formed a gallop down the center of the aisle of brazen Jane Roe reactionaries added to little selfish squints of baron spinsters and filthy old men who had nothing better to do. The disorganized herd of faith-based jackals, as recorded elsewhere, began waxing self-righteous. One woman in the group had a scowl on her face that rivaled horn-rimmed Satan.
“You won’t be so proud when Lucifer is prodding you with a pitchfork warmed in Hellfire,” the pony-tail mom sneered.
“He already prodded me with something much better than that sister,” said Marcy, brandishing her phone like a dagger and her keys rang violently. One timid woman named Mary yelled in earnest, as if she was accomplishing something for the very first time in her life.
“Well, you’re not my sister!”
“Thank you for affirming that,” Marcy announced and stepped triumphantly into her car, shaking the dust from her wedges. Only a bad-ass drives herself to an appointment at this clinic.
The shy mouse Mary had misgivings and painful butterflies in her belly for her outburst that was not in line with how her husband raised her to be.
“She’s the one who called you sister first, Mary,” Mary’s co-dependent friend Megan consoled, “so her comment doesn’t make sense.”
“How’d it go?” asked Dana, Marcy’s female accomplice who was also of breeding age and therefore a constant target of prayer-book bullying, lifting her glass to use as a pointer, “I see you wore your favorite little number.”
“I love my white blouse,” Marcy said proudly, tugging on it is as if to verify it was still there, “Did I tell you? I was berated by unkempt villains – a typical day’s affair at the abortion factory.”
“I get my abortions on Sundays when they are at services,” said Dana, nursing a glass of beer and eating from a bag of cheese.
“I’m just glad that thing is out of me,” Marcy answered, clapping and singing a hymn.
“If they only knew that the zygote you had extricated, quote murdered, was stem-cells of the spawn of Satan.”
“I tried to tell them. This one lady looked exactly like The Devil when he came,” Marcy mimicked the face and Dana braced for a monologue, “She doesn’t even know it! At least I knew when the Devil was inside of me, as I fornicated with him. Marcy it was enormous. I don’t know whether to say breathtaking or mouthwatering. He was a perfect gentleman. I met him at a club in downtown San Antonio. We talked for hours, I found him to be an active listener and at the same time very thoughtful! He asked me for a coaster to put his drink on. Do you know what I mean? He threw me against the wall, but with care as if he considered my body precious and not to be broken. I was in ecstasy, Dana. I have never been loved like that before in all my life. I had never been touched like that ever. Marcos could barely rub his baloney between my thighs before he was through. The Devil ruined me for men but I can’t feel cheated, for his memory I will cherish for all the days that remain in my life...”
“Well I’m just glad you had a good time of it. Maybe now you won’t cry about being all alone for a few weeks before you crawl back to Marcos and I can catch up on some light reading. By the way, how did He react to the news that you snuffed out his only son before it even had gills?” Dana was barely out of her chair on the way out of the room when Dana suddenly broke the silence.
“I’m finished with Marcos. You know he only cares about himself, Marcy, I mean Dana. I haven’t told my forbidden love yet about how I rick-rolled his only child and dumped the remains in the ocean,” Marcy, befuddled by thoughts of Satanic ecstasy, muddled along holding her hand up as if in praise.
“That should go well,” Dana said, but the look on her face revealed that she didn’t believe it would go very well at all. An explosion went off in the distance.
“Did you hear that?”
“It sounded like an explosion,” Marcy mused.
“Thanks for that, detective,” Dana said without much thought and finished her cheese.
“You made your choices, now you get to go to Hell all by yourself,” said a man on a small stage while a girl cried in agony.
The independent crowd recoiled in horror. Seven preteens sold their soul to God for nothing. Ten others sang praises, having already made the deal when they were born (their parents made it for them, but it’s all the same). They prayed for the dead and buried the living in emotional rapture until their stench arose to the Heavens and a new omnipotent character began to emerge as if from primordial fog, one we have only hinted at so far.
God was a figment in this imagination. Do not discount the Almighty presence. He was there watching this fiasco, not happy about it. Just prior to all the hubbub, He had decided to pay a visit to his estranged disciple Saint Peter at the gates to deliver an important message. It was a task of a difficulty that was compounded by the fact that Jesus hadn’t spoken to Peter since returning to Heaven.
“Peter,” God said with all the rage of the one and only true God.
“Yes, Lord,” said Peter excitedly, “So nice of you to visit me after two thousand years...”
“Oh, yes, how neglectful of me. Hey, that reminds me, remember when you denied me?” God pointed out casually, shrugging his shoulders a little, “remember the cock?”
“Can I ever live that down? Is that asking too much?” Peter begged with a tone of indignation and honest feelings of having been abandoned.
“You’re right. Forget about it. I’m over it, mostly. It was an important moment for me, and you blew it on the international stage, but I can forgive you even though that is very hard because you betrayed me. Okay, forget that for now. On to the next thing. We’ll go back to that later when you’re ready to really apologize. New subject. For now, look, we (and by we I mean the upstairs) have had some meetings about it, and we’ve arrived at some new conclusions, etc. The main point is, and keep this between us for now, we have decided to suspend the Christian (they are that by name only at this point, bearing no reflection whatever of what I tried to teach them). Anyway, we’ve nixed their claims for entering Heaven. That means they are to be turned, i.e. burned, away at the gate. All of them. Every last one of them forever. We’ve had it up to here, which is Heaven so there is nothing higher. I’m sick… no, worse than sick. Tired.”
“If I’m being honest, that is frankly a load off my mind Jeez. You know, I admitted a jackass that shot the pope recently who had been absolved by the pope. Isn’t that something? What do these people think, that popes grow on trees?” said Peter, scratching under his robe.
“Point well made. When I created Christianity, Pete, you know, you were there, it was a marked change from what went before. The early Christians had substance, they lived and felt my presence. These post-modern phonies give me the creeps. They are not mine. They are impostors. All they do is despise what is pure, they have no love and no meek and trembling respect for Heaven. Have you noticed?”
“I sent you a memo a hundred years ago on that very subject,” said Peter with a bow, “you had to have seen it. You’re telling me you didn’t see it, Jesus? I know you got it. Still, you never called, wrote, nothing. You stick me down here to watch the gate while you are breaking bread with the saints. You told me this would be paradise, not a toll booth job.”
“Yes, I seem to recall your message now. Using real heralds was a bit much, by the way, and, I’ll say it, a little condescending. I was away for a few hundred years after the Enlightenment to recharge. I didn’t have an opportunity to reply because it is in another dimension that you cannot fathom, so the postage is cost-constraining. But, yeah, great insight. Thanks a lot Peter, for noticing what everyone else also noticed and then for trying to make me look like the bad guy again. They nailed me to a cross, remember Pete? The least you could have done was to say that you knew who I was. If a messiah ever needs support, it is when he is being hammered onto a wooden plank and hung there for birds to eat his entrails. Yes, and you were busy hiding your face while I suffered for you and everyone else. Think about how that made me feel. I had noticed the trend, however, four hundred years ago. Its America, Pete. Since they ‘discovered’ America they got weak and stupid, ugly little men who deserve nothing but fast death is all they are. It’s not the Promised Land, they should know that. Its not free and its not brave. From what I’ve seen, it’s a greedy Hell hole that oppresses anyone who is of true and noble character. Virtue has no place in that God forsaken nightmare.”
“False faces! Have you noticed the false looks they have?”
Justice was done in that land and it was written so that the prophets might remember it, as it is written, ‘he who hears will be glorious while he who is snide will be given not a second glance by the lord of the churches who walks on water in front of the drunks.”
“I understand Lucifer laid with a woman and nearly spawned a child,” said Peter, “that must have been upsetting news for you, am I right?”
“Yes, I was shocked,” said God, with a note of sarcasm, “he only tries to do that same maneuver every decade or so. I suppose one day he will succeed, not like it matters, but sure, I suppose it would be a minor inconvenience to have the Lord of the Flies making sandwiches for some little Joey before rushing him off to second grade to learn about so-called intelligent design.”
“You know I was also crucified,” said Peter, as if he could care less about it but anyone who overheard would have noticed that Peter was working another purpose than just random thoughts.
“I didn’t know that Peter,” said Jesus, “how was it?”
“Well, I couldn’t let them crucify me as you were crucified, of course,” Peter said, taking a look at his nails.
“What?” said Jesus, now vaguely paying attention, a bit surprised, “Why would that matter?”
“You know,” said Peter, “you were the savior, not me, I didn’t want there to be any confusion.”
“Peter, I am the one walking on water and raising up dead relatives in caves,” said Jesus, now completely in the conversation for the first time, “why would anyone make that mistake?”
“I don’t know,” Peter said meekly, “I just thought...”
“You thought they would mistake a filthy fisherman from Galilee as the son of God? You were tangled in slimy nets with your drunken brother when I met you.”
“Not everyone is God, Jesus,” said Peter sharply.
“So, how did they do it, upside down?” Jesus began, adding, “just kidding. Some sort of head chopping off perhaps? Did they do that in those days? Perhaps I was thinking of the medievalists.”
“It was upside down,” said Peter, now wishing he hadn’t brought it up.
“Oh my God,” Jesus said as his expression changed to mirth, “they just let you decide how they killed you? And you chose that way! Apostles have to be so dramatic. Can’t you just preach the gospel and shut the fuck up? Can’t you just do what I say and stop trying to fuck up all of my work? Who cares how the scum murdered you! I found right-side-up crucifixion to be fairly tolerable once you arrive in the right spot (so long as you realize you're going to come back alive afterward). But upside down! You little twat.”
“Knock Knock!” said the crowd of abortion protesters who had apparently been waiting quietly on the other side of the gate for some time now.
“My God! What are you doing here now? We were not expecting anyone who would have died of reasonable and sinless causes” said Peter, putting on his reading glasses.
“We were blown up by a terrorist who yelled Allah Akbar, so you figure it out,” said the leader, a piggish bald apple-shaped growler with little or no shame or grace, and swarthy arms for some reason that did not match the rest of his body. He smelt like a burnt marshmallow doused in gasoline.
“How did that happen?”
“We were protesting at a baby murder clinic in our town, the one we mention every week in our prayers,” said newly minted, blackened, but outspoken Mary, the spokeswoman for the crowd, “a demon or possibly the dark lord himself must have blown us up. I didn’t get a good look at who did it because I was busy being blown to bits. Also, I was insulted by someone, and after we are admitted and get settled, Lord Jesus, I would like to have a word with you in concerns to her behavior if I may.”
“Your face is familiar. You say Lucifer murdered you?” asked God, now going through the crowd and wondering aloud, “do go on, sir, this is very interesting.”
“All of us were obliterated!” shouted Phineas, “our bodies, that is. We have been serving you all our lives. I was saved when I was 8 days old by my ma. She dowsed me in the good water, and made me so good that I never did anything wrong and even though I was sinless I still apologized when I thought someone might be distracted over something minor just to leave the world a better place and pay it forward like the good Samaritan.”
“I don’t know what you just said,” Peter postured plaintively.
“I says we need to get in,” said Phineas,”now, you’ve made an agreement with us and we are going to have to hold you to it. We’re blown to bits, I mentioned that. We need to get in and repair ourselves and live in mansions with everything we ever could imagine or want, get reacquainted with our great-grandparents. Streets are paved in gold and don’t tell me you can’t afford to let in a few sinners. We made our peace with the pastor. He’s here. Hold on a second.”
“Yep,” said Fred, who had lost a foot in the explosion, “I vouch for them. We prayed liked it says in that book we carried, whats it called. I’m at a loss since the bomb exploded very close to my buttocks. I was practically sitting on it, in fact.”
“Who set off the bomb?” Jesus asked and when he spoke everyone fell down from the thunder in his speech, “you know, whoever did is in big trouble. I need to know preferably before I visit them.”
“It was niggers, ragheads, commies, or queers, or probably all four,” said Charlie, rising up and dusting off marshmallows from his button down, “or, no offense, but Jews.”
Charlie was the young man who just joined at last week’s revival and had only attended the protest because he thought he might get a good look at a woman of loose morals not on a computer screen.
“It’s always one or ta other, if you read the right news,” finished Charlie, “and I always have read the right news and would not even hear of reading anything wrong.”
“I think it was damn Mexicans,” said Sam who always carried a towel wrapped around his neck because he sweat more than a human being should ordinarily sweat even on a cold day, “we have a problem with them running cross the border, you see.”
“I see,” said God, “I’ll get to punishing the queers with a great big earthquake in their gay bars.”
“Yep,” said Charlie, “them queers done it. I knowed it was them. We was doing your work. And then, I noticed a faggot come by. I knew he was because he was so easy to dehumanize that way, he must be a gay, or homosexual or whatnot. I don’t know them words, I just hear them in newspapers my mom reads. My momma reads the fake news, but her sins are not mine, remember that God.”
“Well,” said God, with a finger to his chin, “this is a real mystery. Perhaps we should look at the tape since there are so many questions left unanswered.”
The whole crowd began to move anxiously and emit little burps and peeps that indicated that someone had just scared the bejesus out of them but they had to be quiet about it.
“Yep,” said God, “we will just play the tape. We’ll catch the culprits, and we’ll make examples of them. I’m talking real bad stuff here. If all queers or Mexicans were in on it, that is. It has to be all or none, those are biblical rules, not mine. Brimstone might be deployed, I am not sure yet. All I can say, look, it’s not absolutely off the table. I take this stuff very seriously. Whoever did this better admit it, at least. I’m just saying, what angers me is all the lying more than anything. Now, were these like leather queers or just regular art queers who earn their grades sleeping with professors? Sometimes referred to as dorm twinks. I need to know before we run the clip so I can look with a keen eye. Might they be wearing forage hats? I know many who wear those hats often with badges on their breast who are just atrocious garbage, I see them on the news often, with their batons and clear plastic shields usually getting off scot-free for murder. Did they say they were from New York?”
“Uh, God, Jesus, Almighty Jesus, he who must be praised non-stop, we implore you to listen to our story.”
“Oh, do go ahead, but first, let’s watch the clip so we can bring the culprits to real justice.”
“WE BROUGHT THE BOMB!” shouted the pastor, “OKAY! I admit it. It was us. I shoulda known I couldn’t lie to you, but I thought it was worth a try. Anyways, so we made the bomb and it ‘sploded by mistake before we got a chance ta set it. The detonator prolly, I ‘magine, although I ain’t had time to think about it. A friend ‘a Charlie’s made it for us. He ain’t here ‘cause he lived.”
“It is true, we were going to blow it up, that den of sin. We took a stand for the lord, and in the process were martyred.”
“Excuse me?” said God, “martyred? Is that what you said? Well, listen, I am afraid I have some bad news for you.”
“Nothing you could say could possibly overshadow your infinite forgiveness, oh Lord of hosts,” said come face.
“Except for this,” said God, “we recently canceled you people’s contract. You are no longer wanted here. This door is closed to you forever, and only Hellish torment awaits you. Begone from me now. By the way, we don’t have a tape of every event that ever happens. I made that up. I knew exactly what you were going to do before Sheckum.”
“See what I do to people I don’t like, Peter,” Jesus said after he roasted the terrorists for a second time, “you’re alright, kid. You’re fine. I have let time slip by, riding the clouds. You forget that I never experienced life as you did. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me for neglecting you all these centuries, Peter, my rock?”
“My Lord,” said Peter, prostrating himself, “me forgiving you? Is it even a question? I ask you, what do you think my answer will be to the one who saved me and brought me here from the very nest of Hell, casting filthy sea urchins in from that dank shore? I forgive you a thousand times, father, I could never withhold my love for the anger of having missed it. I have lived in shame all these centuries for not being your ally when you needed one most of all.”
“For I am blessed to know a true friend as you Peter. Truly blessed,” said Jesus before he bowed his head and connected his hands behind his back and walked off in contemplation, the way he has been for thousands of years.
Satan, betrayed, lied in the grass looking up at the stars, steaming and imagining it all in anger and misery. Then he ate the pro-lifers with no enjoyment except the occasional marshmallow.
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