Damned

Throughout the history of theology, Leonard tried to explain, religions have argued over the nature of salvation, whether people are proved holy by their good works or by their deep, inner faith. Do people go to Heaven because they acted good? Or do they go to Heaven because it's predestined... because they are good? That's ancient history, according to Leonard; now the entire system relies on forensic science. Polygraph tests. Psychophysiological detections of deception. Voice stress analysis. You even have to submit hair and urine samples due to the new zero-tolerance policy for drug and alcohol abuse in Heaven.

In secret, putting my hands into the side pockets of my skort, I cross my fingers.

The demon asks, "Does mankind hold ultimate dominion over all earthly plants and animals?"

Fingers crossed, I say, "Yes?"

"Do you approve," the demon says, "of marriage between individuals of differing racial backgrounds?"

The demon continues without hesitation, asking, "Should the Zionist state of Israel be allowed to exist?"

Question after question, I'm stumped. Even fingers crossed. The paradox: Is God a racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic ass? Or is God testing to see if I am?

The demon asks, "Should women be allowed to hold public office? To own real property? To operate motor vehicles?"

Now and then, he leans over the polygraph machine, using a felt-tipped pen to scribble notes next to the readouts on the rolling banner of paper.

We've journeyed here to the headquarters of Hell because I asked about filing an appeal. My reasoning is... if convicted murderers can linger on death row for decades, demanding access to law libraries and gratis public defenders, while scribbling briefs and arguments with blunt crayons and pencil stubs, it seems only fair that I ought to appeal my own eternal sentence.

In the same tone that a supermarket cashier would ask, "Paper or plastic?" or a fast-food server would ask, "Do you want fries with that?" the demon asks, 'Are you, yourself, a virgin?"

Since last Christmas, when I froze my hands to the door of my residence hall and was forced to rip off the outermost layers of skin, my hands have yet to totally heal. The lines crisscrossing my palms, the lifeline and love line, are almost erased. My fingerprints look faint, and the new skin feels tight and sensitive. In my pockets, now, it hurts to keep my fingers crossed, but all I can do is just sit here, betraying my parents, betraying my gender and politics, betraying myself to tell some bored demon what I hope is the perfect mix of blah, blah, blah. If anybody should spend eternity in Hell, it's me.

The demon asks, "Do you support the profoundly evil research which utilizes embryonic stem cells?"

I correct his grammar, telling him, "That... research that utilizes..."

The demon asks, "Does physician-assisted suicide fly in the face of God's beautiful will?"

The demon asks, "Do you espouse the obvious truth of intelligent design?"

With the needles scribbling my every heartbeat, my respiration rate, my blood pressure, the demon waits, watching for my body to turn traitor on me when he asks, "Are you familiar with the William Morris Agency?"

Despite myself, my hands relax a little and let my fingers slip and stop lying. I say, "Why... yes."

And the demon looks up from his machine, smiles, and says, "That's who represents me...."

XIII.

Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison. Don't get the idea that I'm way homesick; but lately, but I've been thinking about my family. This is no reflection on you or the fabulousness of Hell. I've just been feeling a tad nostalgic.

For my last birthday, my parents announced we were headed for Los Angeles in order for my mom to present some awards-show trophy. My mom had her personal assistant buy no fewer than a thousand-million gilded envelopes with blank pieces of card stock tucked inside. For the past week, all my mom's done is practice tearing open these envelopes, pulling out the cards, and saying, "The Academy Award for Best Motion Picture goes to . . To train herself not to laugh, my mom asked me to write movie titles on the cards like Smokey and the Bandit II and Saw IV and The English Patient III.

We're sitting in the back of a town car, being driven from some airport to some hotel in Beverly Hills. I'm sitting in the jump seat facing my mother so she can't see what I write. After that, I hand the card to her assistant, who tucks it into an envelope, affixes a gold-foil seal, and hands the finished product to my mom to rip open.