B C Pires, Contributor
B. C. Pires
You just know that, if a Trini only get the work at the pearly gates, is trouble. The week before this column appeared, human rights lawyers had successfully stayed the execution of three convicted murderers, and I had a run-in with policemen liming in a restaurant. Although this deals with heaven and the afterlife, it's really about Trinidad. BC.
SUPPOSE YOU died and there really was a heaven like the one in your primary school storybook religious instruction text? As Steve Martin pointed out, if there really were pearly gates and everybody had wings on, you'd feel really stupid: 'Hey, in college they said this was all bullshit.'
If heaven is what the Bible-thumpers and God-botherers say it is, I probably wouldn't get in and that would please a few people around here, the people who read this stuff to get angry with me. (Why don't they just say no?) They can't wait for me to die so I can at last get my come-uppance. By the standards of your average sanctimonious wanker, I'm having way too much fun in this life to avoid sufferation in the next. They're probably counting on there being a special BC Pires-hell for me, one with extra brimstone, warm bottles of diet-vinegar, no parole or doubles and lots of uniformed policemen with their feet on the table.
Like the Irish priests who warped, sorry, taught me from a young age, modern televangelists promise eternal hellfire if you don't accept Christ as your personal saviour and his pastors as your personal bankers, but I'm not worried about them or their warnings. Their sermons are rather closer to extortion than exhortation and, in any case, I think Nietzsche was right: God will forgive me that's his business. God wouldn't cast me away for eternity. Why, that's longer than herpes. Ultimately, my sins, like my glories, are underwritten by God. Left to Him, I'm sure I'll be able to stroll into Heaven unshaven, in a vest and a short pants, and sit at a respectable distance from his right hand. So it's really not God that bothers me.
I keep thinking: Suppose God has a Trinidadian pearlygateman? I can just imagine it: a policeman who's had a bad day shoots me in the head on Frederick Street and I go up to Heaven's gates and encounter Heaven's gateman. 'Morning,' I say, 'I've just died and have come to gaze on God's face.'
The gateman, sitting on a chair near the gatepost, doesn't even look up. 'You have ah appointment?' he says. 'Well,' I say, 'sort of. I mean, God is expecting me at some time, but I didn't actually make an appointment for today. My channel has been ill for a little while.' 'You have a pass then?' asks the gateman, still looking at the find-a-word puzzle on his lap.a
'A pass?'
The gateman circles the word 'grapefruit' and says, 'Look, all Catholic departed souls who receive Extreme Unction gets a pass to enter Heaven. If you don't have the pass, you can't get in unless God Heself call you.' 'Well,' I say, 'I didn't actually get the last rites because I left life in a hurry, but I did get baptism, confirmation and marriage, so that's three whole sacraments there.'
The gateman still doesn't bother to look up. 'You have any of those
certificate?' I stand silent, nonplussed. A sno-cone vendor rides up. The gateman pushes one side of the pearly gates open with his foot and the sno-cone man rides in, ringing his bell. 'What about him?' I ask. 'He didn't show you any pass.' 'We does let in all vendors,' the gateman says, 'because they catch enough hell in Port-of-Spain at Christmas.'
'So,' I say, 'if I had a doubles stand I would get in, but I can't get in, even though I have a clear conscience?'
The gateman picks up a clipboard and takes a pencil from behind his ear. 'Hear nuh,' he says, 'everybody who reach heaven gates does claim to have a clear conscience. Let me see.' He licks his forefinger and turns a page. 'You believe in Christ?' he asks. 'Yes,' I say, 'and Buddha and Mohammed, and I lit deyas up to this Divali.' He makes a tick with his pencil. 'You did love your neighbour?' he asks. 'Often,' I reply. He makes several ticks. 'You did covet your neighbour's wife?' 'No,' I say, 'but I did have a thing for television presenters.' He makes a series of ticks.
'One last thing,' he says. 'You did opposed to hanging?' 'Oh, yes,' I say, 'quite definitely. Capital punishment is entirely barbaric and it's absolutely clear that hanging convicted killers is no deterrent to other murderers since most murders are done in the heat of the moment and the carefully-planned ones are done by people who are not deterred by any punishment.'
The gateman sifts through the fluttering pages. 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see your name here on the list of Trinidadians who tried to prevent the hanging of those three fellas.'
I cough. 'Well,' I say, 'I didn't try to save them. It was a hard time in Trinidad, you know, and people were fed up. The Muslimeen had killed people and got away with it, and people were really angry, so somebody had to pay. And, on top of that, people were catching their asses to make a living and it was expensive to keep convicted murderers alive. I couldn't see how I could make a case for those fellas. It was the law, you know, not God's law, but the law of the land, and they knew it.'
The gateman scratches his head. 'So you want God to ease you up,' he says, 'but you didn't help those fellas?' 'No,' I say, 'it was hard, and it hurt me, but life isn't easy and retribution is a very valid thing.' 'Well,' says the gateman, 'it have a rule that if you were very, very generous to the Church, you could come in with a clear conscience. You was very generous to the Church?'
Now I scratch my head. 'Well,' I say, eventually. 'I gave two dollars in collection one Christmas when I was a little boy.'
The gateman shakes his head. 'Eh-eh,' he says, 'I ent taking the bounce on this.' He walks off to the side and calls out, 'St Peter!'
A loud voice booms from a cloud. 'What is it?'
'It have a fella here,' shouts the gateman, 'who ent have a clear conscience and the only time he was generous to the Church was when he give two dollars in collection when he was a little boy. What to do with him?'
There is silence for several long moments as St Peter considers my fate.
'I tell you what,' booms St Peter, 'give him back his two dollars and tell him go to Hell.'
END
