I was reading Anita Wadhwani’s story for the Tennessee Lookout about churches’ responses to state Republicans' anti-immigrant legislation when I got to this part:
“I would remind the churches that even heaven has an immigration policy,” [state Sen. Brent] Taylor said. “You can’t climb over the wall in heaven. You can’t slick talk St. Peter into the gates of heaven. There’s a very specific way you come into heaven to become a resident of heaven. They’ve got a very strict immigration policy, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for Americans to have an immigration policy that people follow.”
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I gasped and then laughed when I read this. If Taylor just ran around in a T-shirt that read “I’m evil,” it would be more subtle than this. This is some villain shit if ever there were villain shit. I mean, Baptists (such as Taylor) don’t even believe that St. Peter lets people into heaven. How often do people blaspheme against God while showing a fundamental misunderstanding of their own denomination’s theology while threatening churches?! It’s marvelous. Like, not in a good way, but just in a, “Holy shit, you can do that and God doesn’t immediately strike you with lightning?” way.
I called hell to try to talk to the devil about this. (Fun fact, you can reach the devil’s main desk by calling 666-616-6969, but if you call 616-666-6969, you get Nero. He’ll pretend to be the devil, but you can always tell because he’s not as good a fiddle player.)
“Greetings," a man's voice answered. "You have reached hell. How can I help you?”
“Andy!” (It was Satan’s secretary, Andy.)
“Betsy! Has someone dishonored you? Did you feel unwelcome at The Hermitage? May I shoot a poltroon on your behalf?”
“No, I’m fine. I just have a theological question for the devil.”
“He can’t come to the phone right now. He’s busy playing GTA with Neil Gaiman.”
“Neil Gaiman’s not dead …”
“He’s been coming to hell as a guest for nearly 40 years. Maybe someone should have noticed?”
“Andy!”
“I’m just saying, he gives us lanky men with big hair a bad name. He’s been walking in and out of hell like he owns the place. And yet people are surprised he’s evil?”
“OK, well, fair,” I paused. Then I switched tactics, “You’re a lawyer. Maybe you can answer my question. Say I’m going to hell —”
“You’re not going to hell. You’re going to haunt the Tennessee State Library and Archives.”
“OK, but say I was. Hell is supposed to be a place of eternal torment and punishment, right? Literally the worst place imaginable?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Is state Sen. Brent Taylor going to be there too?”
“You know I’m not allowed to tell you that.”
“All right, but here’s the thing. If I don’t have to spend eternity with Brent Taylor, it will not be the worst punishment imaginable. Every day I wake up to have my skin flayed off and my eyeballs melted out of my skull and all my bones broken, I will know that at least Brent Taylor isn’t there making things worse with his asshole bad takes. But if he is there, I will take great satisfaction in it.”
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“Meaning?”
“I think the existence of Brent Taylor disproves the existence of hell. No place he’s not would be completely void of goodness, because there’d be the sweet relief of him not being there. And if he was there, lots of people there would be happy about it. I feel like either situation makes hell fundamentally less bad than it should be if it is the worst of the worst. So either way, hell can’t actually be hell, because Brent Taylor exists.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then a small pop, and then the line went dead. I called back, but I got a message that the number I was trying to reach is no longer in service. The minute I realized there couldn’t be a hell, there wasn’t.
Oops. Brent Taylor broke hell. Good job, I guess?
