CHAPTER 5
By the time Gregory was finished learning about his blue card, it was already mid-afternoon. Outfitted in a bright yellow Senegalese boubou two-piece outfit, the loose-fitting knee-length tunic and matching pants made him feel like he was headed to a conference at the U.N. At lease now, wearing comfortable sandals, the cobblestones were a little more bearable, plus, he no longer stuck out like an Eskimo on Monterey Beach in July.
Out in the street, it was a balmy 67 degrees – not quite cold enough to need a jacket, nor quite warm enough to consider going topless. The sky, he noticed, only had a handful of clouds, if indeed, it really was a sky and those puffs of cotton floating high above really were clouds.
Across the street, next to the hardware store, he saw an ice cream parlor called Molly Moon’s. Ah, he mused. A familiar name. Hadn’t he spent many an afternoon standing patiently in line at the various Molly Moons back on Earth? This outlet, he noticed, resembled the shoppes he’d frequented. It would be incredible, he wondered wishfully, if this unit carried my favorite flavors – balsamic strawberry and Stumptown coffee. Just the thought sent his heart racing.
Crossing the street, he stood in the back of the queue which, to his delight, was rather short. It didn’t take long till he was at the counter.
“What’ll you have?” a French-braided clerk with a mile-wide smile asked him.
“Let me see what you have,” he answered, reading the giant whiteboard on the wall behind the clerks who, like most everyone else, were attired in loose fitting dashikis, tunics or Moroccan ankle-length thobes. One particular flavor caught his eye – vanilla ice cream with a swirl of peach-nectarine jam and pieces of homemade blondie bars called…
“Orchard Blondie,” he requested. “Two scoops, please.”
“Good choice,” the clerk said.
Gregory waited patiently while the young woman scooped out two large helpings in a cone for him from a – wait for it – ancient, wood-covered freezer.
“Here you go,” the clerk said, offering the newbie the ice-cold treat.
“Thanks,” he said, taking the cone. “Who designed that freezer? Barney Rubble?”
“Who’s that?” the clerk asked.
“Never mind,” the hungry PI said. “What do I owe you?”
“Two credits.”
Gregory retrieved the blue card from his pocket and handed it to the clerk.
“Oh,” the clerk informed him, refusing the card, “your credits will automatically be subtracted when you leave.”
“I see,” he nodded. “Suppose I didn’t have enough credits? The ice cream automatically goes back?”
“That’s only for non-food items,” she explained. “No one need starve up here in Heaven. All will be provided for, one way or another. If your card is empty, which is rare, by the way, that’s when it serves as a credit voucher. As you work or say, help someone out, your card will be automatically credited and this shoppe would receive what is due them.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Now,” the puzzled new arrival asked, “when you say help someone out…”
“In whatever capacity you wish – cleaning houses, washing rickshaws and bikes, digging in the ochre mines, putting up posters, handing out fliers, milling seeds, that sort of thing.”
“Fascinating. I’ll bet somebody already found a way to hack the system, huh?”
“It can’t be done,” she assured him. “I mean, you can try, but the risk of demerits is greater than the reward of a few credits. It’ll be a big step backwards, if you know what I mean.”
“Got it,” he nodded. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Anytime.”
Gregory took a taste of the ice cream; the smile on his face betrayed his pleasure.
“Pretty good,” he remarked. “Tastes real; a little different than I remember, but okay.”
“Thanks,” she smiled. “Customers seem to prefer flax milk over what we used to use, soy milk.”
“No cow’s milk?”
“No cows.”
“Really?” his eyes lit up. “I’m surprised.”
“No cows, no cats, no mice, no rats, nothing,” she claimed.
“Well, that answers a question – do animals go to Heaven when they die?”
“The afterworlds are conscious choices only mankind can make,” she explained. “You can’t progress through the worlds if it’s beyond the scope of your comprehension.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Well, thanks for the ice cream. Is this really a Molly Moon’s?”
“Shh,” she whispered. “Don’t tell them we appropriated the name.”
By the time Gregory arrived, or rather, staggered to The Inn on the Millstream, the sun was down but his BAC was up, perhaps around .19 or so. For the past few hours, he’d patronized a handful of bars around town, made some new friends, and downed the tastiest merlots and zins he’s ever had in his life, and brought his credits down to a whopping one. Back on Earth, he’d made it a habit to never blend whites and reds in his stomach at the same time. Tonight, though, he felt it called for a celebration. This was his first day in Heaven and, by Odin’s beard, he was going to enjoy himself; high BAC be damned.
Standing shakily in front of the orange-faced Inn, his vision started criss-crossing in front of his eyes. Luckily, the incandescent lamps were on out front; at least he could clearly discern the path towards the brown door. The building itself, a two-story brick and wood structure, looked like it had close to 30 rooms; perhaps more, perhaps less. The building did seem stately as each sculpted window frame was painted a dashing bright red that, by moonlight, was a charming sight to behold. Trying his best to keep his composure, he straightened himself up as best as he could, teetered to the front door, grabbed the handle and staggered in.
The lobby, he noticed, seemed like a typical motel – wooden floor, fireplace, ripped sofas that looked like they were picked up off a sidewalk, a holographic flat screen TV in a corner broadcasting a Rangers-Oilers game to an audience of two white-haired men, a coffee machine against a wall that looked like it was caught in a time warp, mail slots behind the desk, and a cigarette-smoking clerk that looked like he could be 100 places better than there tonight. At least the 50-ish male worker with the rolled-up sleeves and broken teeth had company – a svelte woman in her early 30’s standing on the front side of the counter. Gregory moseyed on up to the clerk as straight as he could. Epic fail; he was fooling no one.
“Hey, you,” he began. “I’m new here. You got a room for me?”
“What’s your handle, mate?” the clerk asked in his thick Cockney accent.
“Gregory Angelicus.”
The slick, black-haired clerk flipped through his ledger till he found Gregory’s name. “You’re in 214,” he told him. “It’s on the 1st floor.”
“That’s funny, ain’t it?” the inebriated visitor noticed. “You’d think it’d be upstairs.”
“It is.”
“So then why…?”
“This is the ground floor,” the clerk stated, pointing to the counter. “That’s the 1st floor,” he indicated, pointing to the ceiling.
“Bizarre,” the unsteady PI said. “Where’s the elevator?”
“There ain’t none, mate, just the apples and pears at the end of the corridor.”
“What?”
“The staircase,” the lady in front of the desk translated.
“Man,” Gregory scolded the clerk, “you got the thickest accent I’ve ever heard.”
“Blimey!” the clerk retorted. “You Yanks nicked our tongue and we got the accent?”
“Oh,” the lady interrupted, walking towards Gregory, “you’d better get to stepping. Don’t wanna get this gentleman all riled up. He’s Joe Strummer from The Clash and his temper is pretty well known around town.”
“Hmph,” Gregory snorted. “This way?” he asked, pointing down the hall to his left.
“Mama,” Joe asked his tran
slator, “can you help this legless bloke out? The smell ah him will make me nethers shrink.”
“Sure,” she replied. “You got any hospitality kits?”
The clerk went to the back room, quickly returned with two canvas bags of goods, and handed it to Mama. Taking the packages, she wrapped her arm in Gregory’s. “Ready?”
“What’s…what’s your name?” he asked her.
“Cass Elliot. Most people call me Mama Cass.”
“You’re a pretty fine woman, Mama Casssss.”
Cass recoiled from Gregory’s breath, especially in the long way he dragged out “Cass.” It smelled so bad it could kill all the bees in their honeycomb from 10 feet away.
“Hey, Joe,” she beckoned to the clerk, “they got mouthwash in here, I hope.”
“You bet.”
“I’ll see ya later, then” she told him. “Let me just get lover boy upstairs before he crashes right here.”
Mama Cass, a strong and confident woman, didn’t think carrying the inebriated stranger and his hospitality kit up the staircase would be a walk in the park, but she didn’t think it’d be like pushing a dump truck up a hill, either. By the time she was able to flop them both down on the wood-framed bed in his bedroom, the strength had been sucked out of her muscles.
“My God,” she lamented. “What do you got in your pockets? Bricks?”
Gregory, already half asleep, didn’t respond. Moaning, he adjusted himself into the most comfortable position he could muster, something akin to a foetal pose.
“Not so fast, sailor,” Mama Cass warned him. “You’re hitting the water.”
“No, I’m not,” he protested weakly. “When I get upstairs I’m going straight to bed.”
“Get up,” she ordered him gently, raising him up off the bed.
“Five more minutes,” he begged.
“I had a friend once who wanted just five more minutes,” she remarked, “but those minutes never came. Vomited in his own lungs and suffocated to death. Get up.”
Realizing she won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, Gregory complied, stood up with her help, and dragged his carcass to the bathroom. Sitting him on the toilet’s closed wooden lid, she stripped him naked and helped him get in the shower.
“Yow!” he screamed as the cold water from the overhead metal nozzle came pouring over him. “My balls just flew up in my chest.”
“Oh, hush,” she whispered. “You’re making a big deal out of something little.”
Minutes later, having been revived by the frigid liquid, Gregory sat at the pine kitchen table in a brown terry cloth robe drinking coffee while Mama Cass, standing in front of the electric stove, prepared them both something to eat – wheat bread with eggs, melted cheese, and slices of tomatoes. Using a bamboo remote, Mama Cass turned on a virtual jukebox sitting in a wall in the kitchen. It was playing instrumental shoe gaze music, or as some would call it, psychedelic dream pop – reverb-heavy, non-formulaic background noise.
“You know what I don’t get?” the recently showered guest asked her. “Where are we exactly? Where is…all this?”
“You know,” she answered, “I’m not really sure. You’d think that this being Heaven we’d be up in the sky somewhere. But my understanding is we’re in the same plane as the other worlds.”
“Earth and Hell.”
“Yes,” she replied, “but existing in separate dimensions. Figuratively, Heaven is above the Earth and Hell below, but that idea only came about as a way to differentiate the polar opposites of the afterworlds, makes the concepts easier to grasp when they’re attached to directions, a tangible idea all men can understand. Makes sense, too, when you think about it. How else can a soul travel from the Earth to Heaven that quickly unless they were side by side or intertwined to begin with? Supposedly, when the soul leaves the body, it’s so tiny it can penetrate any point in space and regenerate anywhere.”
“So, right now,” Gregory wondered, “I could be sitting on a runway in Paris with Anna Kournikova strutting right through me in modern tennis gear and not know it.”
“Technically,” she said, “I don’t know much about it, but when you have the time, take a trip to a Holographic Engineering or Quantum Mechanics sector, or whatever it’s called these days. They change them so much I can’t keep up. I do know it has something to do with ultra high energy gamma rays and interdimensional travel.”
“Yeah,” the PI said, his mouth watering for the freshly prepared food. “I heard about that from Karen Carpenter.”
“She’s a dear. How’s she doing these days?”
“Okay.”
“I haven’t seen her in ages,” she admitted, placing one ceramic plate of food on the table in front of Gregory. Placing the other in front of her, she sat down.
“You remind me of me when I first got here,” she revealed. “I had so many questions they got tired of hearing my voice. Just study the manual. There’s a lot of stuff in there.”
“What manual?”
“You’ll get one at orientation.”
“How long have you been here?”
Mama recalled the day quickly. “Since July 29, 1974. So, what’s that, 42 years?”
“You still look like you’re in your early 30’s, though,” he complimented her.
Mama Cass faux blushed. “Oh, you make a woman feel so good.”
“Seriously, though,” he wondered, “you stop aging when you get here?”
“Yep,” she stated. “Live fast, die young. Seems to be the law of the land.”
Gregory took a sip of his coffee. “And you’ll be here forever.”
“Well, not here,” she explained. “This is just the first level. You’re supposed to be working your way up to total liberation of the soul.”
He helped himself to his egg and cheese omelette. “Delicious. How long does that take? Liberation, I mean.”
“It’s up to you,” she attested, digging in her meal. “Takes a long time, I know that much. It’s said we’ll be in this first circle for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.”
The Will Smith-lookalike choked on his food. “Dayum! Thousands of years?”
“That’s why there’s no rush to learn everything at once,” she promised him. “You’ve got lots of time.”
“How’s this little town supposed to accommodate all those future customers?”
“The islands grow as needed.”
“Islands?”
“Oh,” she said, “I thought you would’ve learned about that already. You can imagine just how many people are in the afterworlds – billions and billions. We’re separated based on what we did in our earthly life; supposedly we attain a greater sense of peace when we’re among the familiar, like occupations, interests, stuff like that.”
“I’ve heard familiarity breeds contempt.”
“The 13th century Buddhist scholar Sakya Pandita once said, ‘The quarrels of men often arise from too great a familiarity.’ That may be true, but it’s those very challenges which keep men in check, lest one group subjugate the other by an imbalance of power.”
The PI nodded. “Makes sense, I guess.”
“So, there are Medical Heavens; for instance, Dentists’ Heaven or GP Heavens. There are art heavens, dance heavens, sports, bricklayers, robotics…it’s unlimited, really. More gets added from time to time because more occupations are created.”
“And what is this?”
“This is Rock & Roll Heaven,” she said, “an offshoot from Musical Heaven.”
“So, everyone here is a rock musician?”
“Mostly,” she believed. “Those who aren’t musicians are related to it somehow, like audio engineers, tour managers, equipment handlers, and so on.”
“So why am I here?” the curious PI asked. “I can’t carry a note in a bucket.”
“Really? I can’t answer that. When you run into one of the angels ask them about it. There’s gotta be a good reason why the Watcher of Souls placed you here.”
“The Wat
cher of Souls?”
“Think of him as a categorizer; assigns souls their destination.”
“Has he ever made a mistake? Seems like he did this time.”
“You’ll find out soon.”
“Thanks for the late-night breakfast,” he stated. “But I’m confused about something. I was at Molly Moon’s today and they said there are no animals in Heaven.”
“There aren’t.”
“So where did they get these eggs and cheese from?”
“The eggs are mostly tofu,” she explained. “The cheese from almonds, potatoes, rice, cashews, sunflower seeds…different things.”
“I would’ve never known,” he nodded. “Sure tastes real especially with this black pepper on the eggs.”
“That’s not black pepper; it’s Himalayan black salt. Gives it that real egg-y taste.”
“How’d they get this from the Himalayas?”
“They didn’t,” she answered, sipping her coffee. “It was recreated in one of the heavens, maybe Chemistry. I guess all they had to do was break down the elements in the salt and rebuild it using the same mineral ratios. It’s available in a lot of markets in town.”
“You know what?” Gregory yawned. “Are you getting tired? I sure am.”
“It’s kinda early,” she informed him. “The town’s really gonna be picking up now. Why don’t you come out? There’s some people I want to introduce you to.”
“Mama,” Gregory pleaded. “I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“Are you sure?” she asked him. “You don’t look it.”
The new arrival considered her request momentarily. True, he didn’t feel as tired as he’d let on, and that was very odd, considering the amount of liquor he’d imbibed all evening. By now he should’ve been flat on his back in a park somewhere with his mouth wide open catching moths. How many times in the past had he heard the loud knock of police officers tapping on the wooden planks of his bench, forcefully encouraging him to get up and move along? Technically, he should be studying the insides of his eye lids, yet, he seemed to have caught his second wind, or…
“You put something in my coffee?” he asked her, suspicion written on his face.
Mama got up, walked over to one of the wooden cabinets above the aluminum kitchen sink, and brought out a bag of the extra strong beans she’d used.
“Death Wish Coffee,” she boasted, displaying the black package with the white skull on it. “Just what the doctor ordered. It was in your hospitality kit with that robe.”
“If I get an aneurysm I’m suing you and lover boy downstairs,” he joked. “Some hospitality kit. Alright, let’s go meet your friends. I just hope I’m not late for orientation tomorrow.”
“You’ll be okay,” she insisted, replacing the coffee. “If you are, tell them I’m to blame.”
“Tell who? The angels?”
Mama Cass nodded. “The one and only.”
“Are they, like, the bosses up here?”
“The angels sprung up spontaneously from ethereal matter,” she said, “just like in the underworld. They’re, how should I say, maintainers of these worlds. They keep order, mainly.”
“Rock & Roll Police.”
“Sort of,” his guest admitted. “They don’t meddle in our affairs and we don’t get in their business. Some people resent them and say it’s an unhealthy alliance, but it is what it is.”
“What do you mean by sprung up spontaneously, though?” Gregory asked. “I’m not sure I’m catching that.”
“Have you ever been in a submarine?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
“You learn a lot from deep sea diving,” she explained.
“What is that?” the PI wondered. “Like, your favorite hobby?”
“Nope,” Cass revealed. “Just making a point. If you went down to the Marianas Trench in a submarine and your ship sprang a leak, you’d want to get to the surface as fast as you can.”
“From over a mile deep in the ocean,” Gregory submitted, “if your ship sprang a leak, you wouldn’t even have time to kiss your ass goodbye.”
“Probably not,” his guest admitted, “but if there’s a chance of survival, you’d get yourself through the escape hatch as quickly as possible.”
“The escape hatch,” the PI repeated, though not being sure of where she’s going with this line of dialog.
“Nature always has an escape hatch,” she elucidated, “a backup plan for survival. Are you familiar with parthenogenesis?”
“Yeah,” Gregory stated, ‘the British rock band.”
“Not them,” Cass giggled, “the concept. Scientists have seen it in komodo dragons, water fleas, scorpions, sharks – females impregnating themselves simply because no males were available. The species must thrive, right?”
“I guess.”
“Nature abhors a vacuum,” she added. “It doesn’t like nothingness. It’s always in motion, it’s always in need of something. There is a need for their cosmic plains to remain in order; that’s what the angels are for. They’re not around forever themselves and they have to be replaced. No one has to create them – they are created spontaneously as the need arises. I believe the Greeks call it autopoiesis – self production.”
“Probably how all the wonder women in the Amazon procreate,” the PI joked.
“You never know,” Cass mused.
“And God is the ultimate authority, huh?” Gregory asked.
“I suppose,” she shrugged. “I’ve never met him, though. No one has.”
“Really? Secretive guy, huh?”
“Well,” she informed her host, “none of these angels has been to the upper levels, so even they’ve never met him, don’t even know what he looks like. They say Vai might talk to him, but who gets to talk to her? I sure as hell wouldn’t want to.”
“Who’s Vai?”
“Vai’Kriya Sharir,” Mama replied. “She’s lives in the upper heavens; kind of like the supervisor of the angels.”
“So, they have a whip cracker, huh?” Gregory joked.
“Probably more than that,” she figured, “because she supposedly has the power to banish them to Hell. Be glad she’s not interested in civilians; not that much, anyway. Don’t worry, though. She comes by very infrequently, like, once every generation or something like that. You know,” Mama added, sipping the last of her brew, “it helps that what you see here, I mean everything, is just a familiar illusion, if that makes sense. These bodies appear corporeal to help you understand the movement of souls through the universe.”
“I’m not fully understanding what you mean,” he admitted, “but I’ll take your word for it, like I have a choice. It’s kinda late for my mind to absorb all of this right now. You know what, though? I’m still a little hungry, like the eggs got stuck in my ribs.”
“They have a tendency of doing that,” she admitted. “Why do you think there are so many gyms in town? All us lard asses would turn to Jell-O if we didn’t limber up once in a while.”
“So,” the PI wondered, “you and Strummer…?”
“He’s just good people,” she insisted. “Talks a lot about his punk days. I’m surprised he made it into his 50’s.”
“When did he get here?”
“Around Christmas, 2002,” she recalled. “I remember because he was so blitzed out his mind he caused a massive row on Tinker Street. A lot of people who were new up here forgot that, when you try to hurt someone, you just end up hurting yourself. A lot of people ended up in the hospital by their own doing,” she laughed. “Kinda like our own Christmas Day Massacre.”
“I’m ready to go out if you are,” Gregory conceded.
“Well, I’m glad you’re still hungry,” she smiled, “because that can be fixed.”