Why Hell is Overkill
or
The Parable of the Bazooka and the Twinkie
So there we were, at the mouth of Main st. USA in Walt Disney World. Before us lie an iconic view known to millions world wide. It was the breathtaking visage of the majestic Disney castle. It seemed to hang in the sky as if some portal to another fantasy dimension had opened in the shimmering distance. The bright Florida sunshine on this perfect October day made the many colorful shops on Main st. appear surreally crisp and somehow more 3-D than reality itself. Children ran haphazardly, everywhere and nowhere all at once, not sure which magical sight to take in first. At thirty years old, this was my first trip to Disney. Looking around me, I took a deep breath and appraised the scene as a whole. I found the sights, sounds and even the smells to be utterly amazing. "This," I thought to myself, "is Heaven!"
Surely it can be said that Disney is a small piece of Heaven here on Earth. That is, if such a place as Heaven existed. It can certainly be said to be an antithesis of what our idea of Hell is. Unless, of course, your wife is moments away from an atomic mental meltdown, as mine was on that beautiful sun washed day in the Magic Kingdom. People will sometimes toss the phrase She or he "has a heart of gold" around. My wife truly has a heart of gold. She is the most loving, caring and thoughtful person I know. Despite these virtues, she can wax emotionally over reactive in certain situations. Which is to say that she can go full-blown, bat shit crazy from time to time.
We had made this pilgrimage to America's answer to Mecca in a large group comprised of most of my wife's relatives and, (at the time) our own small family. We have four children now, but back then we only had two. My daughter was a mere six months old and therefore only technically at Disney for the first time. My oldest Son however, was five which is the exact perfect age to experience unfettered, the pure magic of a place like Disney World.
Now I know for a fact that my extended family only had the best intentions for my son when they decided to immediately take him on the Walt Disney World railroad to see all the sights of the park. Unfortunately, they did so without conferring with my wife, who's sole purpose on this trip was to see the wonderment reflected in our son's eyes as he took in each and every new fantastical thing. These were the days when not everyone had a cell phone. In fact, cell phone service was spotty at best anyway. Besides myself, only two other people in our group of 25 had them. Inexorably, the group who had our son did not.
We knew my son was safe. That was not the point. At least not as far as my wife was concerned. Maybe it was a combination of jet lag, the heat and some raging hormones left over from her recent pregnancy, I'm not exactly sure why, but she began a slow and steady burn. "How could they be so insensitive?" her rant began as a trickle of comments that soon became a torrent of invective that resonated in my head as if a 747 was taking off from between my ears. Although early in our marriage, I already knew by that time not to try and reason with her when she got this way. And besides, she did have a point after all. I was a little annoyed myself, but I always strive to see the big picture and not make such a big deal out of small things. I had no idea how big things were about to get.
We watched the handsome little Disney train pull into the station and soon my son came bouncing merrily down the steps into the courtyard at the top of Main st where my wife and I waited. Directly behind him were my hapless in-laws, who were seconds away from learning the true meaning of the phrase, "fuck blasted." Before they were anywhere near within conversational range my wife launched into a vociferous, obscenity laced tirade which seemed to bring the idyllic scene described in the first paragraph to a thunderous halt. It was as if Cruella Deville, Ursula sea witch, and the wicked Queen had combined into one super villianess and blotted out the sun with her boisterous evil. Children ran for their mothers, adults scowled and I am fairly certain I heard Mickey Mouse tsk, tsk.
Later, after the dust had settled and all was well again, I had a conversation with my wife where I tried to explain why I thought she may have been a tad reactionary. It was then that I invented a metaphor that has become part of my personal philosophy. The parable of the "Bazooka and the Twinkie." The lesson goes like this, if you were a convenience store clerk and someone came in and stole a Twinkie, (in case you don't know, a Twinkie is a snack cake that is loaded with enough preservatives to maintain a shelf life of ten years, unwrapped.)you would be perfectly within your right to call the police and have this individual arrested. However, should you instead, reach behind the counter and pull out a bazooka and shoot this person in the face, you become the criminal.
Clearly, she had shot her family in the face with a bazooka in the happiest place on Earth that fateful day. Since then, I often use this metaphor whenever dealing with the subject of overkill. Which brings me to the topic of this article, which is the concept of Hell. I don't often think of Hell in much the same way that I don't spend too much time thinking about the land of Oz, Hobbiton Shire or Narnia. I just don't believe it exists. Perhaps my recent musings on the Holy Bible in my "13 Pages Deep" blog series has me thinking about Hell. I am only four and a half pages in and already the amount of punishment and damnation doled out by God is staggering.
At any rate, I came to the conclusion the other day that if Hell actually existed, it would definitely be a bazooka shot in the face of any sinner. Yes, I said any sinner. Think about it, Hell is presumably the worst possible suffering for all of eternity. Now what type of crime warrants such punishment? Murder? Child molestation? Certainly Child molestation combined with murder is the worst possible crime any human can commit. If one of my children were molested and murdered, I would want the worst possible punishment available to be implemented. I would want that person dead. I would probably even want to be the one that is the instrument of their death. Depending on your disposition, even a slow, painful death by torture would hardly seem like overkill for a twisted individual who brutally rapes and murders a child.
Perhaps you don't agree with my last sentiment. Maybe you are of the mindset that such an individual is not evil, but unbalanced and therefore society should try to heal or reform this person. You may actually be right, but then, the idea of Hell really wouldn't sit well with you. Remember, it's FOREVER. Again, it is the worst possible suffering imaginable. It NEVER ends. EVER.
By most reports, hell is a roiling lake of fire in which the damned burn for all eternity. Seems a little extreme doesn't it? Can you wrap your head around the concept of forever?. Let's scale this scenario way back to say, one million years. Would you be satisfied to know for a fact that a child molesting murderer would burn in a lake of fire, feeling the ceaseless, unremitting, mind blowing pain of every square inch of their body burning, for one million years? One million years is not even a tear in the ocean of time when compared with all infinity. Yet it might just serve as sufficient punishment. Perhaps not. So let's bump it up to ten million years. Enough? Ten million years seems a little excessive, but fair enough, we are talking about an extremely heinous crime.
Can we possibly have any perspective on a duration of time spanning ten million years? I will go out on a limb and say that if someone simply poked you in the forehead for that amount of time the torture would be beyond maddening. Let's consider an easier length of time to grasp, like five minutes. Suppose you were strapped to a chair, facing a large atomic clock. A maniac wielding a blow torch tells you he is going to burn your face for exactly five minutes. You will not die, your skin will bubble and blister, yet it will not dissipate and you will feel the searing pain at it's height for the entire sitting. How long does five minutes seem like now?
You may think that I am trying to trivialize heinous crimes and just punishment. You may suppose that I am untouched so far in my life by an evil act of violence. You would be dead wrong. Let's go back through an actual span of time. Eight years ago to a particularly muggy June night. I was a student locomotive engineer, doing my best to stay afloat in a sea of technical manuals and rule books. I never went to college, but most in my class did. They all assured me that this course was harder than anything they encountered in their higher learning. I don't know if that is true, but one of these guys worked on Wall street, one was a teacher and another one was an airline pilot. There was also, a retired fireman, a civil engineer and a guy who flew helicopters. I was a roofer, and to be brutally honest, the dumbest guy in the class.
I stayed alive by virtue of the fact that we formed study groups and religiously maintained a steady schedule of them. I spent nearly all of my free time studying. I read so much technical jargon that i couldn't pick up a book for enjoyment or even read an article for at least a year afterwards. It felt as if I broke something in my head. I can't imagine that this course was as hard as trying to acquire a medical degree, or completing an internship, but it may have well been particle physics for a guy like me. Adding to the stress, was the fact that there were over one hundred and fifty tests and five exams to take in the first eleven months of a twenty-two month course. A score of less than 90 was a failing grade. Fail three tests in a row and you were discharged. Score less than 90 on an exam and you were discharged. And signal tests, which we had every day, were pass fail.
It felt a lot like being on the reality TV show, "Survivor." We started out with twenty guys and finished with only eleven. Most classes averaged between six and nine at their completion. We were dubbed "The Smart Class" because of our large number of "survivors." We had to bring our giant bags full of books and equipment to every exam and line them up by the examiner's desk so that if we failed we could be immediately discharged. I watched grown men who didn't make the grade walk out with tears in their eyes because like me, most had walked away from the security of a job they couldn't return to. Most had families to support and mortgages.
It was two days before my very first exam, so rather than go to an annual local fair with my wife and children, I opted to stay at home and study. After a couple hours with the books, I took a break and sat down at the computer in my dining room. A short while later, from the corner of my eye, I noticed an ominous looking black sedan slide up in front of my house. I went to the front window and looked out to see a large black man and an equally large white man in plain suits start to walk up my driveway. I remember thinking that they looked like mafia hit men. I am not a meek person by any means but I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared shit less. I looked around for some sort of melee weapon. I settled on a steak knife that I grabbed out of the butcher block in the kitchen and slipped it into my back pocket.
The doorbell rang. I contemplated not answering and running out the back door, but after a moments pause, during which I considered the fact that I really didn't have any involvement with the mob, I opened the door. The two men identified themselves as policeman. Somehow this did not make me feel any easier. I thought immediately about my wife and kids. Had something terrible happened? I still remember the sick feeling of panic I had in my stomach. But these men were not here to tell me about my wife and kids, instead they told me two very unexpected things about my brother. One was that he was gay, and the other was that he had been murdered.
My younger brother was a genius. As a boy he would drive my parents insane by taking clocks and other mechanical devices apart to see how they worked. Of course, he would never put these things back together. Like many people of high intellect his attention was everywhere and nowhere at once. Although two years younger than me, we looked very much alike and while we were never mistaken for twins, people would often mistake one of us for the other when we were apart. The similarities pretty much ended there between us. He was the life of the party and lit up a room when he walked in. He had real presence. He would constantly make people laugh with his wit or entertain with some magic trick that he had learned. Everyone who met him loved him and he was very empathetic to other people's problems which he would often take on as his own.
Unfortunately, for all his intelligence, he ran a little lean on common sense and good judgement. He fell in with a bad element and started to do drugs. He had an altercation with a "friend" who smashed a beer bottle across his face, leaving a wicked scar. He never seemed to be able to hold a steady job and got in trouble with the law a few times in attempts to augment his salary with theft. He was no angel, but neither was I. It would be extremely hypocritical of me not to point out that I was involved in everything he was and worse. In fact, as the older brother, I was more than likely the negative influence in his life. I just never got caught as much and always seemed to land on my feet for the most part until one day, I simply decided to grow up.
My brother had just started to reach a positive place in his life. He had a steady, decent job and had been out of trouble for a good while. He and friend rented their own place and it finally looked as if he himself was growing up. He was a magnificent uncle to my children. He never showed up empty handed, he always had at least some small gift to bestow upon them. However, it was the time he spent with them that they enjoyed most. He had a natural knack for engaging them on their level and holding their attention, making them laugh and giggle and beg for more of his time that he never grew tired of giving. God I miss his laugh, a laugh so genuine and infectious that it made even a curmudgeon like me follow suit.
I loved my brother dearly. Of course we fought many times the way that brothers will, but I must have shared a million laughs with him on just as many adventures. Despite my own personal loss, when I grieve my brother, it is for the loss that my children suffered. He was only around them briefly, but he has left a lasting impression on my kids till this day. The anger and rage I feel sometimes towards his murderer is unbearable.
He was murdered at home, sitting in a recliner, most likely asleep at the time. His roommate, a man who the police informed me was his lover, apparently became violently jealous when my brother slipped into another room to do drugs with another couple of guys. At least this is the story his murderer used in his confession. Some type of argument broke out that may had at one point been physical and certainly raged on at some length verbally. And then later, after my brother fell asleep in a chair, his roommate/lover brutally bludgeoned him to death from behind with a cement statue. The details are very sketchy, the two other guys stole some of my brother's things and disappeared never to be caught or seen again. The murderer, like everyone else involved, was intoxicated and more than likely lying about most of the story anyway.
My brother's murder would only be an abstract idea to me at this time if it weren't for the fact that I was the one who had retrieve his belongings from the murder scene. My parents and other siblings couldn't bear to do it. I don't blame them. I have always been strong in these types of situations but little could have prepared me for what I saw. The amount of blood and it's sickening smell in the small living room where he died was overwhelming to say the very least. The police, medical examiner, or whoever is assigned such duties had cleaned up most of the scene before I arrived. Unfortunately, the stains on the chair and carpet gave an all too visceral account of the brutal nature of the murder. Despite their efforts, I still had to clean my brother's blood and tissue of many of his belongings in the immediate vicinity. I cannot impart to you how much this sort of thing removes a piece of you that you will never recover.
None of us knew that my brother was gay. To be honest, none of us cared. We were more upset with the fact that he didn't feel comfortable enough to tell us. Maybe he was going to. We will never know. I do know that at the time I wanted the worst possible punishment available for his murderer. I fantasized about killing him myself countless times. In those early days the idea of him languishing forever in a lake of fire was pretty appealing. Appallingly, he only received a thirteen year sentence. In fact, he is up for parole very soon.
I've gained a little perspective in these last eight years, and while I don't want to see this individual walk out of jail just yet, I feel mostly sorry for him. He has ruined his life. Even if he did get out today, what kind of future does a convicted murderer have in today's economy? He has to live with what he did everyday. It was a crime of passion, that much I believe. If he was in fact my brother's lover than I know he had to care for him at least half as much as the rest of us did. He was too lovable of a person not to. Personally, I could have watched this person be put to death for his crime and still feel fine with it today. Especially when I think about my Mother's loss and all the positive experiences my children were robbed of, but nothing will bring my brother back.
So, what about eternal Hellfire? Do I want this guy who took so much from my family and myself to burn forever in a lake of fire? Not really. Again, if he were executed I wouldn't have batted an eye, but that's not the sentence he received. He will spend a good chunk of the prime of his life in jail if I can help it at the parole hearing. If he doesn't, well there is not much I can do about it, unless I want to ruin my own life. My internal moral compass, not some invisible Deity in the sky tells me it would be wrong. Honestly, I am too busy trying to spend my what precious little time I have here on this rock the best way that I possibly can. I think using this approach , rather than a bazooka, is the best way to honor my brother's memory.
May Zeus preserve you!
