Bring In The Next One

“Bring in the next one.”

“Sure, Boss.”

Casper reaches for the gate handle.

“Jesus!” says the Boss. “You wanna get burned again? Do you?”

“No, no, I don’t.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t touch the goddamn handle with your goddamn bare hands.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Lemme try again. Please.”

They’d been through this drama for endless years. The Boss thought Casper, in time, would become his left-hand man, the assistant he’d always wanted, someone who could take over his mundane duties, freeing him to retire to his favorite corner of hell, where the flames burn hottest and the black nights are insufferably long. But, no, he still had the daily drudgery of greeting, assessing, and assigning scores of the evil deceased. Outside the gate, a line of the newly damned stretched for what seemed like light years.

Casper puts on his oven mitts and grabs the red-hot handle, pulling it open with all his might. A chubby, squatty, middle-aged man wearing a jet-black toupee, peeks around the gate, eyes wide. He takes one step inside then jumps back when he sees Casper’s goat hooves and pterodactyl wings, and smells his dragon breath.

“Come in,” says Casper, his voice a dark rumble. “Welcome!” Casper tosses back his head and guffaws a witchy guffaw.

The Boss strides forward. He is wearing a sharkskin suit, French cuffed black shirt, and a blood red bow tie. He twirls a gold capped obsidian cane in one lizard hand and claws at the ground with his alligator feet. His eyes are red with fire.

“How’d he get here?” he says.

Casper whispers in the Boss’s ear. “He was on vacation and was swept away by a tsunami.”

“Ouch,” says the Boss. “Those waves, I mean, oof. Did we do this, or was it the work of…” He points upward.

“Wasn’t us. It was the Big Guy.”

“Ever since the whole Noah debacle, he can’t stop killing people with some form of murderous…water.”

“An addiction.”

“That’s the word.”

The Boss clears his throat and turns to face his new arrival.

“So, tell me your name.”

“Marvin.” He is gulping sulfuric air.

“Can I call you Marv.”

“I prefer Marvin…if that’s okay.” A hacking cough follows.
“Not okay. So, Marv, I see you are having trouble breathing.”

Marvin holds his breath for a moment, then speaks. “Yes. Is it always so smoking. And the smell…Do you have air freshener of some sort. Pine scent?” He forces a crooked grin. The Boss howls hideously, flames shooting from his nose. Marvin tries to control his chattering teeth and his knocking knees. “I’m so sorry, but I’m confused. None of this looks familiar. Is there a chance I’m lost?”

“Am I lost?’ I love it.” says Casper, snickering.

Marvin gulps air. He tries to ignore Casper and turns to the Boss. “So…where am I, exactly?”

“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you, Marv?” says the Boss.

“Forgotten what?”“You were on the beach drinking a mai tai, I think. A little cherry on top. It was hot and you had just put up your umbrella. You’d settled into the beach chair you bought at Target, ready to put on some sunscreen. And then everything changed. Remember?”

Marvin looks puzzled. “I think…maybe…”

“Sure, you remember. Suddenly the water was sucked out to sea and then just as suddenly massive wave after wave sped toward the beach. Remember? Everyone ran, but you watched, thinking it was ‘so pretty.’ And then?”
“It hit. The palm trees and huts and…the motel…all gone.”

The Boss smiles encouragingly. “And?”

“I…was gone…too.” Marvin’s mouth falls open, his jowly cheeks collapsing. “I’m dead?’

“As a door nail. Now, let’s try a little guessing game.” says the Boss. “After someone dies, they go in one of two directions. Up or Down. Which direction have you gone? Don’t answer too quickly. Look around you.” He gestures broadly. “Take all of this in and then make your best guess.”

Marvin licks his lips and wipes the sweat from his brow. He squints at the fiery horizon and breathes in quick bursts, trying to avoid the smell. In the background he hears moaning and desperate screaming.

“Purgatory?”

“C’mon!” cries Casper, tossing his paper work into the air.

“You are Roman Catholic, are you, Marv?”

Marvin nods briskly.

“I have disturbing news for you, Marv,” says the Boss. Casper pretends to sound a drum roll. “There is no purgatory. Never was. Never will be. I’ve watched all the beseeching prayers rise up and then fall away, never reaching Heaven, never heard by the Big Guy. It is sad really. There is no waiting room where you can stay until you are voted into heaven. The dye is cast before you get here.” He shrugs. “Don’t blame me. I don’t make the rules.” He points upward. “So, let’s try this again. You are in one of two places. Heaven or Hell. Guess.”

Marv collapses in tears. “I knew it, I knew it. Everyone said, ‘You’ll be forgiven.’ My friends, my family, everyone. I must have said ten thousand Hail Mary’s in my lifetime, I went to Catholic school, attended church three times a week, was a Deacon, and a mostly faithful husband, went to some of my children’s school concerts. I was an honest lawyer.”

“What kind of law practice?” says the Boss.

“Corporate.”

“I call oxymoron!” yells Casper.

“I agree. ‘Honest’ and ‘corporate’ mix about as well as oil and water.”

“That’s it. That’s why I’m here?”

“No, no, no.”

Casper and the Boss look at each other, then shake their heads. “The answer is so simple, I’m surprised you don’t know it.” The Boss crosses his arms. “You pushed your grandmother down the basement steps. Remember? She didn’t bounce. She broke her neck. She died,” says the Boss. “Does that ring a bell?”

“Grandma. Yeah.” Marvin shuffles nervously.

“That’s why you have been sent to me,” says the Boss. “For all eternity.”

“But I was only thirteen. I didn’t mean to kill her. She just got on my nerves one too many times. I wanted to stay in the basement to work on my bicycle and she kept yelling for me to come up and get ready for bed. She wouldn’t stop, so I started up the stairs, and when I passed her, she said, ‘You are a big disappointment’ and I lost my mind.”

“And pushed her down the steps.”

“Well…”

“Casper, how many teens have been told they were a disappointment to somebody…or everybody?”

Casper checks scroll after scroll of records. “Countless.”

“And how many have killed the person that said it?”

Casper clears his throat. “Not very many.”

“And where are they now?”
Casper checks another set of scrolls. “Here. All of them are here.”

“That’s ridiculous! Yes, a lot of people never forgave me, but I did my penance. I went to juvey and left with a spotless record. I never hurt anyone after that. I did volunteer work, even though I hated it. I mean, I did all the things.”

Both Casper and the Boss roll their eyes. Marvin clenches his jaw and beats his fists against his thighs. He points angrily at the Boss.

“Why are you doing this to me? This isn’t fair!”
Casper and the Boss start laughing again and cannot stop. Soon they topple backwards into a pool of lava. Still laughing, the Boss points at Marvin and shakes his head. They get out of the lava and dry off. Marvin’s eyes are still fierce. He shakes a fist at the Boss.

“Surely, you can make an exception.”

“Hey, guess what?”
“What?”
The Boss steps forward and cups his hand over Marvin’s ear. He says, “I’m not the one that makes these decisions.”

“What do you mean? You’re the Devil, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. I know that means a lot where you come from, but up above, not so much.”

Marvin gasps, confounded by what he’s hearing.

“Let me clarify. It’s not like I’m a big nothing. I mean, look around you. All of this is mine. And every God-damned soul is mine, as well. But whether you are sent here or the other place, those decisions are above my pay grade. Those decisions are made upstairs by the Big Guy himself. With a little help from his boy.”

Marvin is convinced this is a nightmare, and all he has to do is wake up. And when he does, well, he won’t be stuck in this poor excuse for an afterlife. The Boss pinches him.

“Ouch!” says Marvin, as he rubs the burn on his forearm.

“No, Marv, this isn’t a nightmare. This is as real as it gets.”

Marvin is still convinced the Boss is behind this travesty of justice. He’s read a lot about Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, the Evil One, whatever you want to call him. And the consensus is he’s the one who condemns people to Hell. Furthermore, everyone knows the Devil is a liar! You can’t believe anything he says.

“Yes, you can,” says the Boss.

“Can what?”

“Believe me.”
Marvin glares.

“Look, I’m not always honest. Who is? But what I’m telling you now is the absolute, unblemished truth.” He looks at Marvin, his snake eyes unblinking. He sticks out his lizard hand.

“Pinky swear.”

Marvin withholds his pinkie.

“I believe in a forgiving God, one that is gracious and merciful. A God of love, not vengeance. Such a God wouldn’t let this happen.” Marvin straightens his back, bolstered by his statement of faith.

“That would be the son, right Boss?” says Casper.

“Yeah, the kid. Everyone likes him. I even like him. He has a kind of glow about him, you know what I mean?”

“That’s the word,” says Casper. “A glow. Like an angel…but bigger…and more important.”

The Boss turns to Marvin, a sympathetic look on his face.

“His father, well, what can I say, he’s old school. You know—'Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.’ That’s him. Always pissed about something. Killing anyone who gets in his way. All that stuff about the promised land? Fact of the matter is, that land belonged to other people. Men, women, children. And he commanded the Israelites to kill them all and steal their land…because it was the promised land? C’mon. That’s just not right. The guy’s certifiable. He let David have a torrid affair with the smoking-hot Bathsheba and then, to keep her, he has her husband killed. And the Big Guy sees all of this and what’s he do? Makes David king! I mean, what’s that? Or… what was the other thing? Oh, I know. Just out of the blue he tells Abraham to kill his little boy. So, Abe gets a knife and goes up the hill where he’s ordered to make a fire—yeah, for a sacrifice--and just when he’s about to slash his son’s head off, the Big Guy yells, ‘Psych!’ and calls the whole thing off. I mean, how long was Isaac in therapy after that?”

“Don’t talk like that about God! It’s blasphemy!”

“What’s he gonna do? Send me to Hell?”

Marvin’s eyes sag. He is crestfallen and doesn’t know what to say. He looks around, hoping against hope to find an exit. The Boss takes pity on him.

“Look Martin…”

“Marvin.”

“Look, Marv, I can tell you weren’t expecting this when you headed to the beach this morning, with your bag lunch and everything. How would you know you’d end the day in a place where sunscreen is forbidden.”

Marvin stares at nothing. His head wobbles.

“I’ll tell you what. Usually, I barely say a word to the newcomers. I just send them off to whatever Hellhole seems most suited to their terribleness. I just don’t have the time or energy to give their eternal fate more thought. But I like you. I do.”

Marvin looks at the Boss, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. Maybe Satan will reconsider. Maybe, since God is a whack-job, Satan will step up and do the right thing.

“Thank you for thinking that. It means a lot. So, we have some newer places opening soon. Potable water, no stinky air, shade trees. Bandages and salve for your burns.”

“A bed?”

“Sure.”

“TV?”

“Absolutely.”

“Internet?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. And the heat will a hover around two-hundred degrees instead of the usual twenty-four-fifty. We’re experimenting. You’ll be getting in on the ground floor.”

“That’s still…scorching hot…”

“Tell you what. I’m gonna give this some more thought. You deserve it. See that guy way over there? Not Casper, the other guy with a raven’s head? The one standing by the lake of boiling eyeballs?”

Marvin nods but doesn’t look.“You go to him. He knows you’re coming. He’ll take care of you until I can find the perfect place.”

“Really?”

“Really. See that glob of molten lava. There’s a Starbuck’s just beyond it. He’ll

show you the way. Get what you want. It’s on me. Then I’ll get back to you.”

“You won’t forget me.”

“No, no, how could I? I’ll come for you myself and escort you to your new and permanent digs.”

Marvin shuffles off, trying to avoid the electric eels and flaming dragons.

“And away he goes,” says the Boss. Marvin turns, a plaintive look on his face. The Boss

smiles broadly, waves enthusiastically, and gives him a thumbs up.

Casper chuckles. “New digs? Starbuck’s? You have gift.”

“Well, what can I say? I’ve been at this, like, forever. It’s mind-numbing work. But sometimes, it’s fun.”

“Where do you want me to put him?”

The Boss glares, his eyes on fire.

“He pushed his grandma down the basement steps. The Big Guy is not a fan of grandma murderers. You know where to put him.”

Casper is alarmed. “There, really? I mean, you don’t even go there and I thought…maybe…maybe he deserves---”

The Boss scowls and bares his blood dripping teeth.  

“Are you challenging me, Casper?”
Casper falls to his knees and bows his head to the ground. “No, not at all, Boss. I’d never--”

“Good. Do it.”