To be fair, everyone deserves as much attention as Chuck Bollocks received, so let’s not forget that while the world was going to Hell, President Walt “Angel” Disney was regularly meditated on a beautiful digital image of a beautiful golf ball in a bottomless abyss. Every day his shining face emanated waves of heavenly luv to this poor world. With a little more time, he could have led an exodus into Heaven, but one day, without appointment, the Angel of Death could wait no longer, ignored my commands, and stole into the Oval Theater disguised as a bush doctor. When confronted by curious security guards, he quickly ‘healed’ them. Then he entered the Offal Theater, checked the president’s pulse and congratulated him for being dead.
President Angel did not laugh. In fact, he busted a blood vessel screaming, “DREADFUL OMEN! BEGONE!”
Death chuckled gently, “Tsk, tsk, are you still not ready to go to Heaven? I hear it’s wonderful there. Excellent rates for angels.”
“God damn it, I’ll come when I’m damn ready!”
“Don’t you have any faith? You know, God told me that the longer you wait to kill yourself, the smaller your reward in Heaven. If your faith is so strong that you commit suicide in your twenties, you go straight to Heaven’s penthouse floor. If you wait until you’re so old that you need assistance killing yourself, you go to Heaven’s basement. Now you’re so old that God will soon have to create a sub-basement for you.”
“But why should I leave? I’m in fine health.”
“I see. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that on account of all your meditating, politicking, praying and texting, your body is already three-quarters into the grave.”
The President Angel swore through a mouthful of false teeth and a speaking device implanted in his neck.
“Moreover,” Death continued, “you’ve had two dozen surgeries, you live in a wheelchair and you have a pacemaker, a titanium hip, a catheter, cataracts and two dozen drug prescriptions for an assortment of ailments including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and imbecility. Shall I continue?”
“No. That will do, asshole.”
“Furthermore, you are overdue for a brain upgrade. Your microprocessor sucks.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“So, in light of all your ailments, do you think that maybe it’s time to stop burdening your doctors and die?”
“Okay, but could you just give me a little more time to turn Amerika into utopia?”
“Angel, I think we played this game before. You missed the boat. Creating utopia is now Chuck’s job. It’s time to say goodbye to the world and sacrifice your body to the worms and maggots, so that they may live and prosper.”
“You’re right. It’s time to die. My corpse will make a paradise for the worms and maggots.”
“That’s the spirit! So, are you ready to go?”
Angel jeered, “I tricked you again! Did I say I’d die today? Ha-ha-ha! Nope! And I won’t die until you let me celebrate one more birthday!!! Ha-ha-ha!” He stood up and danced a jig he would pay for later. As for Death, he didn’t mind being cheated. After all, he planned to blow out all the candles.
December 25th marked the start of the first and last Disneymas Day. It was a regal affair full of good cheer, heaps of presents and this abominable toast by Bitch Bollocks:
“Angel, congratulations on your spiritual leadership of our material nation. Thanks to you, everyone understands that the way to spiritual wealth is the way to material poverty. Thanks to you, people are boycotting the global-material economy and working for nothing but the spiritual essence that is luv! Thanks to you, corporations have stopped importing and exporting.”
“Why, thank you,” President Angel replied, smiling.
“You are God’s stuffed toy.”
The prez smiled without thinking, then realized what she’d said and corrected her, “You whore! I’m God’s immortal angel!”
“I understand. You believe your own lies. You think you’re immortal, but your most secret identity is mortal. When will you recognize it and start living in accordance with your mortal nature? How many times must Death whisper in your ears like this?” the hussy asked as she whispered something nasty in Angel’s ears.
The poor president nearly had an aneurism. He took his own pulse and his vigilant nurse whisked him away to his personal drama therapy room. A usual, he would watch a live performance of the spiritual-mythical play, The President Is the Sacred Equilateral Triangle Who Sees All and Saves His Faithful Taxpayers from Negative Numbers and Imaginary Enemies.
However, on this occasion, the curtains did not open. An hour passed. He feared the actors were on strike. He wept, and then, on cue, the curtains opened, revealing a scenery of live actors sitting on an unswept stage, eating plantains and pecans, drinking rainwater and farting. At last, the president rolled his wheelchair onto the stage and threw his old catheter at the insurgent and insubordinate actors.
One actor sang out in perfect soprano-alto, “Buddyyyyyy, this ain’t the Slapstick The-e-e-e-eater!”
“Swallow your beans and let’s get started!” the president retorted. “I didn’t pay to hear myself fart! Bring me the director! I want a word about the script!”
The director approached. “I’m very sorry, Mister President, but since you murdered reality and the economy, this script is pure propaganda. We quit!”
“I did not kill the economy! Chuck Bollocks did that! I only made the world green.”
“Green with gangrene.”
The president cried.
The director continued, “Plus, you’ve seen us perform this play every day, multiple times a day. Our bodies are exhausted and the stage is being devoured by termites and carpenter ants. But don’t worry, you don’t need this old stage. You could easily play a recording or hire some automatic actors or download the Hologram Theatre into your brain. We are tired of repeating our days.”
The president did not understand. He liked the status quo. He hyperventilated and might have died, right there; luckily he pacified his asthmatic soul by joining his nurse in singing this melancholic poem:
Fount of immortality,
They shouldn’t have killed you;
You know I still need you
More than a laceless shoe.
The actors hurriedly exited. President Angel noticed and took their departure personally. He even commanded General Blowemup Pentagon to blow his damn theater up.
General Blowemup apologized, “Sorry, Mister President, but we don’t have the budget for impromptu operations. Your explosive final act will have to wait until next year at the earliest.”
The fuming president angrily rolled himself and his wheelchair off the stage into a painful heap. The only spectator in the theater, Death, clapped from his balcony seat.
President Angel opened the White House doors to the public, kneeled on the doormat, and prayed that God would give him the best birthday ever. Charlie, his adopted great-grandson, overheard him and said, “Grandpa, you’re too old. Look at you! I think we should finally have that death-day party we’ve been planning.”
Angel rubbed the boy’s head and remarked, “You little collywobble, don’t you know that grandpa is immortal?”
“And gramps can fly!”
Angel nodded. He hadn’t flown anywhere in years, so I kind of felt sorry for him, especially since Angel had no friends to attend his birthday. It was truly pitiful. I mean, I sent invites to the world, got not confirmations, and finally had to hire a troupe of clowns. They arrived a day early, as a joke, and Angel greeted them via his computer monitors and apologized for that, saying he was deadly afraid of germs, so even his nurses and family had to wear burkas in his presence.
I guess the clowns were insulted, because they went on a rampage, led a domestic servant rebellion and bumfuzzled everyone with their (word?) balloons, wind pipes and crayons. Near midnight, security captured the rowdy party crashers and marched them into the Offal Office to face a very displeased President Angel.
“Where are my presents?” he yelled, obviously irate. “You freeloaders and moochers! This is my last party! I opened my doors to you and you abused my hospitality! What do you have to say for yourselves?”
A witch disguised as a farmer pulled into the banquet hall a magical creature deceptively named Krishna the Dairy Cow. “Happy Birthday, all mighty leader! Krishna is my gift to you on this, your 10,000th birthday!”
President Angel was flattered, but when he smelled and saw Betsy he immediately had an asthma attack, grew breasts and had a minor heart attack. Fortunately, his doctor fixed all his problems with a knife.
Next came a second witch disguised as a farmer. She pulled a magical creature named the Trojan Pig into the room and announced, “Happy Birthday, all mighty leader! Trojan the Pig is my gift to you on this grand day!
President Angel was happy, for he loved bacon, but when the pig oinked and looked into his eyes he nearly died of guilt and some evil viruses from Hell. Fortunately, his doctor fixed all his problems with a hammer.
Next came a third witch dressed as a merchant of alcohol. She pulled a magic bottle out of her basket and said, “Happy Birthday, buddy! Here’s a bottle of wine from the best Spanish vineyards. Cheers!”
President Angel popped the cork and smelled something so otherworldly that his kidneys stopped working, his liver rotted and yet he felt so confident that he was convinced he could live without any internal organs. Death thought he would soon have his man, but Angel’s doctor fixed all his problems with a quick organ transplant.
Next came a witch disguised as a Jewish grocer. She carried a basket full of magic candies, coffee, cake, cookies, ice cream and sugar. She gave them all to the president and said, “Happy Birthday, Mr Angel. I’ve brought you the best sweets on Earth!”
The president shook with excitement, but as he unwrapped the first candy his teeth fell out, his new liver died and a leg fell off because it was struck with diabetes. Fortunately his doctor was gave him a lovely prosthetic leg, but he had to live without a liver.
Next came a witch dressed like a priest and carrying a magical loaf of bread, and although the president was growing suspicious, he never questioned a priest, so he accepted the priest’s assurances that this bread would take him straight to Heaven. However, when touched that bread his hair fell out, a lump of cancer appeared in his colon and he suffered an awful bout of arthritis and dementia. Fortunately, his doctor sprayed him with some magical chemicals and all his worries disappeared.
Next came a witch dressed as a doctor with a medicine chest on her back. The president said, “I’m sorry, I don’t need you here. I already have a doctor!”
“Is that so?” asked the witch. “That proves you are brain dead, for just look at yourself and smell yourself!”
“Am I that close to death?”
“You are, and the only solution is for you to take these pills, for they are the pills of eternal life.”
Now the president was a little suspicious, but what choice did he have? He accepted those pills, swallowed two hundred, and lost his mind so badly that he could no longer do division or even addition. And yet, technically he was still alive.
“How do you like your birthday so far?” asked the guest of honor, Death.
“It’s amazing!”
“Ready to go to Heaven, yet?”
“What, no more presents?” The president pouted. “This is the worst birthday ever!”
That’s when a great roar filled the building and shook the walls and roof before something banged through the banquet hall’s walls.
“What the Hell is that?” screamed the president. As the dust settled, an armored tank emerged like a vision. Its rumbling internal-combustion engine blew poison into their lungs while a gigantic gun was aimed at you-know-who.
“Do you like it?” Death asked.
“It’s what every boy begs for Christmas!”
“True! And this one was specially outfitted with a therapeutic radiation emitting cannon. This tank has the special power to send anyone to a world without pain! Are you ready to say goodbye to Amerika?”
“No!”
“Oh, I think you are, Mister President! I think you are!”
“Please, I don’t want to go to Heaven!”
“Stop blubbering! You’re embarrassing yourself. People are watching,” Death advised.
“I don’t care! I want to live a little longer!”
“God won’t be happy if you continually postpone.”
President Angel thought that was a joke and laughed.
Millions of Amerikans wanted change and told Angel to dissolve the union, terminate the government, and bite the dust. Angel was offended, quit his job and posted this angry note on the White House website: “Fine! I’ll stop protecting you from evil! I hope a million crazy bitches govern your asses instead!”
After this epic rant, he asked Chuck Bollocks to take him to Los Angeles. Ordinarily, this would have meant a quick short flight across the continent, but with economy on its deathbed, they rode two flatulent ponies over the abandoned transnational freeway. Oh, it was a terribly windy journey into the sunset, like a poor knight and squire trotting towards the final battlefield.
By mid-afternoon, their ponies ran out of gas. They laughed their heads off and continued on foot for a few minutes before Angel ordered his usual dinner from Amerika’s favorite restaurant, McDonalds. Unfortunately, the menu was now strictly vegan, or eggan.
“People are too damn cruel!” Angel bitterly complained.
“Why do you say that?”
“They’re conspiring to starve me to death!”
Chuck grinned, pulled a maggot out of his friend’s ear and fed it to him. Angel called it a miracle and asked, “Am I in Heaven yet?”
Chuck laughed, “We’re still in Amerika. This Troytown.”
Angel scratched his head. “That can’t be right. This can’t be Troytown! Troytown was my masterpiece!”
“Sure. You and your friends treated water, trees, women, minerals and organs as if they were all rocks or musical notes. You made such a mess of Nature that it looks like my William S. Burroughs novel after I shredded it and glued it back together in my sleep.”
“You shredded a Burroughs novel? You illiterate, uneducated primitive! I would have read it forwards and backwards and even made some minor improvements to it before selling it as an original for profit.”
“I’m not surprised. As our president, all you did was read and write fiction and give the nation puppet shows. Not once did you do your job. But there’s one job you can’t shirk.”
“We’ll see about that. I’ll hire Joe Cando to die for me.”
Chuck feigned astonishment: “Hey, that’s a brilliant idea, Angel. If the price is right, even I would die for you. And so many people think they’re good and destined for Heaven, you might even find people willing to volunteer to die for you.”
“Precisely! I mean, Buddha died for a hungry tigress and didn’t George ‘Jesus Christ’ Washington live and die for all Amerikans? Hey, maybe I can make a profit selling tickets. I’ll hire the best producer, art director and –”
“Forget it! Amerikans are tired of seeing other people die and go to Heaven. They’re tired of being jealous.”
“Well, then fuck you, Amerika! I was gonna give you the best show on Earth, but you can forget it. Hey, Chuckie, where’s my dinner?”
“You already asked. Got Parkinson’s or something?”
“I got a really bad sugar craving, damn it! I want to eat Sundays in Heaven! Give me my Sunday or I’ll kill myself!” Angel screamed like the worst brat in town. It was quite an act. Then he rolled his wheelchair to the edge of the curb, fell flailing out of his chair and lay groaning on the road. No car came to put him out of his misery. Not even a pony. But he’d broken both his fairy wings and asked to be sent to Heaven.
“My pleasure,” said Chuck before he sat on Angel’s face to suffocate him. Angel got an erection for the first time in his life. It was terrifying, but Chuck held on tight until the thing flopped and deflated.
Well, if you think God should have saved his old puppet, please remember that angels are cheap. God can create a billion of them with a single ejaculation. Besides, Chuck was waiting for his turn at being president of Amerika.
Meanwhile, I didn’t want Angel eaten by the dogs after a life-time of service, so I sucked his body straight up into Heaven and with a kick to his head I revived him from the dead. The other angels weren’t pleased to see him and used his presence as an excuse to leave their responsibilities and join the lazy devils below. I kind of understood. Angel had committed more sins than were absolutely necessary, and he was the undisputed and supreme asshole on Earth, but he always did bad shit for the best of all reasons: he just wanted my attention.
Anyway, that should have been the end, but then came the biggest surprise. Just when I thought I had a friend with whom to share my life, Angel got bored, ignored my warnings and looked down at the Earth. There he imagined patterns called “botanglyphs,” and when he listened he imagined patterns in all the cacophony below, and soon he told Me I was boring! He even smashed his iGod and whined, “There’s nothing to do! I feel like a turd drifting in the ether of time!”
“Bud I luff youuuu so mach! My dear, wontja stay a day or two, or tree, or tree-hundred and dirty-tree?”
He laughed so hard he fell from Heaven’s golden hammock, hurtled through Earth’s atmosphere and crashed onto the Earth. I felt so abandoned that I snatched Chuck from the flames of Hell and made him my personal president in Heaven. You’d think he might have been thankful, but I’ve never heard so much cursing in my life. He hated Heaven, and before his first sunset in Heaven, he escaped and rejoined the devils’ party and prayed for Me to join them.
“Never! Navar! Nuvur and neber eber!” I screamed almost incoherently.
They laughed so hard that I actually felt flattered.
“Pops,” Chuck Bollocks shouted, “you’ve got talent! Come down here and learn to live in this carnal-mental Heaven you call Hell. I swear, you won’t regret it,” he said in his coaxing, evil, feminine voice. “Come out of the cold and join us in the tropics!”
“Heaben might be bade of bice, hut bit’s by home.”
“Don’t knock it till you try it. Give Hell a chance. We’d love to have you. We think you’re quite funny, and here you’ll learn to relax and laugh at yourself. Come, you won’t regret it,” Chuck goaded.
He spoke so convincingly, that when I saw all the fun they were having below, I couldn’t stay in Heaven all alone, shivering in space, eating antimatter and watching the stars and planets spinning forever. So, what else could I do? I had to try something new. So, I gave it a shot and went to Hell.
It was wonderful, that much I’ll admit. But I guess I waited too long. Soon after my arrival, Satan died and Planetary Cooling froze my balls off, so as far as I was concerned, that was the end of the world.