gone?”
Oscar flinched. “That’s a pretty morbid question, don’t you think?”
Kim shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess, maybe. All I know is that I can’t stop thinking about it. I miss my mom and dad, and my little brother. I wish I could talk to them one more time, you know? I don’t want to die. I’m too young. I want to get married and have kids and—”
“Nobody is going to die, sweetheart,” Sherm said, “as long as you all follow orders, and as long as those fucking cops out there don’t piss me off.”
Kim pointedly ignored him.
“My family and I used to go to church when I was a little girl, but it’s been a long time since I’ve talked to God. I still believe in Him, I guess. But I wonder if I’d go to heaven if we don’t make it out of here?”
“I don’t think God cares how often you go to church,” Roy commented. “He’s probably more concerned with how you lived your life. That’s what guarantees you a place in Heaven.”
“Ha!” Martha spat on the floor.
“What the hell is your problem, bitch?” Sherm was twitching again, slapping the barrel of the handgun against his leg.
“Hell is not my problem,” she answered. “It is your problem.”
“How many times did you see The Passion, Martha? I bet it was the only movie you’ve seen in the last twenty years.”
“None of you know anything about how to get into Heaven. As it says in the New Testament, ye must be born again! You must know Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. You must ask him to forgive your sins and let him into your heart. Then, and only then, can you enter into Heaven.”
“Well shit,” Sherm snorted, “that sounds simple enough. I had no idea it was that easy. I’ll get right on that. Nothing like a little insurance, right?”
Laying the gun on the floor, he got down on his knees, raised his head up to the ceiling, and clasped his hands together in prayer.
“Please God, please don’t let me go to hell; especially if they don’t have any cigarettes there. That would really suck. All that fire and nothing to smoke. Or worse yet, if the only thing they have is Ultra Lights. But if you do decide to send me there, could I get a room next to Tupac and Biggie? That would work. Or maybe between Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks? That would be great because at least I’d have something to laugh about. Oh, and before I forget it, God, I’d be honored if you could be my personal savior and assistant or whatever this crazy bitch just said I needed to ask you to be. Amen.”
He started to stand up, then paused.
“P.S., good food, good meat, good God let’s eat!”
He picked up the gun again and grinned at Martha.
“How was that? You think I can get in through the gates now?”
“Mock the Lord all you want,” Martha replied, “but when the hour comes your prayers will be real. You will beg. You will wail and gnash your teeth and pull out your hair in your sincerity. But He will not hear you because you have the Devil inside you already. And He will not hear your friend either because your friend has committed the ultimate sin. He has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. All of you have! Scripture tells us that there is no pardon or forgiveness for that. The Imp has been loosed upon the earth, and it makes a mockery of the healing gifts of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Only he can heal!”
“What the hell is she talking about now?” Sherm asked me.
Martha was about to spill Benjy’s secret. I threw up my hands in annoyance.
“I have no fucking idea. Does it really matter, Sherm? It’s all bullshit anyway. Bullshit for the masses. There is no God, plain and simple. God is nothing more than Dog spelled backward. You really want to know what happens when we die, Kim? Nothing. That’s what happens. Nothing at all. We get burned to a crisp or thrown in a box and put in the ground, while the dirt slowly presses in on us a little bit more each year.”
“That’s pretty fatalistic,” Sheila said.
“Is it? I don’t know about you, Sheila, but the way my life has turned out, it doesn’t sound like a bad choice at all. Sleep is okay. Death might be better. You don’t have to think anymore or feel anymore— or even be anymore. You’re just blank, empty. An afterlife where you had to experience all of those things again would just suck.”
Even though I said it, and even though I believed it, I still didn’t want to find out if it was true. I’d proven to myself that God didn’t exist (or maybe He’d proven it to me), but I was still afraid of dying, afraid of taking that final breath and not being able to take another. Afraid of closing my eyes and not opening them again. I thought of John, shot in the stomach and stumbling into the bank, pleading with me to save him because he was afraid of dying. I’m scared of hell, Tommy!
“Well, though I’m not quite as vocal or strident as Martha, I am a believer,” Roy said. “I believe in God and I also believe that Jesus died for our sins. I try to be a good Christian, but nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. I guess the point is just that you atone for your sins and try to live right, the way God would want you to.”
“I used to believe,” Sharon said, “but these days, I just don’t know. I really don’t. With all that’s going on in the world, it’s hard to believe in a supreme being that would just let it all happen.”
“Word,” I agreed. “The Arabs think that only they are right, and so they hate the Christians and the Jews. The Jews think the same way, and so they hate the Arabs and the Christians. The Christians? Same thing. Their way is the right way so they hate the Arabs and the Jews. And you know why they hate each other? Because God told them to. They kill each other because He said so. They worship the same guy— they just call Him by different names! Religion has fucked this planet up from day one.”
“I don’t know about that,” Roy countered. “Some of the so-called religious leaders, perhaps, but not religion itself.”
“Osama bin Laden ordered his followers to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, right?”
“Correct. And he was a religious leader—”
“Who was acting on what God told him to do,” I finished.
“Allah is just another name for Satan,” Martha shrilled. “Thou shall have no other gods before Me!”
“Actually,” Oscar tried correcting her, “Tommy and Mr. Kirby are both right. The Arabs, Jews, and Christians all believe in the same God. He just has different names. It’s his prophets that they disagree with.”
Martha glared at him with eyes like razors, and Oscar got quiet again. Sherm jumped to his feet, head cocked and listening.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Thought I heard something,” he mouthed. “Voices. Quiet, soft. Check the hall and the lobby.”
I opened my mouth to protest and Sherm cut me off.
“You wanted to be in charge, Tommy.”
Gripping the pistol in my sweaty hand, I crept out into the hall. It was silent and empty. I tilted my head and listened. Nothing. Outside, there was the distant squawk of police radios and the buzz of voices, but inside, there was nothing. I tiptoed toward the lobby and peeked around the corner. It was empty, except for Mac Davis and Kelvin. The dead cop’s eyes stared back at me. A fly crawled across his face.
I ducked back into the vault.
“Anything?” Sherm asked.
“Nothing”— I shook my head—“except for Kelvin and that cop. Their bodies are still lying on the floor.”
Sherm frowned.
“I could have sworn I fucking heard something.”
We grew quiet again, and I replaced Sherm at John’s side.
“So you don’t believe in an afterlife of any kind, I take it?” Roy asked me.
“No, I don’t. There’s no heaven or hell. When we die, we turn into worm food. That’s all. Even worms got to eat.”
“I heard that,” Sherm agreed.
“But what about the soul, Tommy?” Roy continued. “That has to go somewhere, doesn’t it?”
“There’s no such thing as a soul, Mr. Kirby.”
I was surprised to see Dugan nodding in agreement with me.
