Hell Is a World Without You

HELL IS A WORLD WITHOUT YOU

If I say, "Surely

the darkness will hide me,"

even the darkness

will not be dark to you

— Psalm 139

PART ONE

THE BOOK OF FRESHMEN

Your eye makes you sin?

Better to gouge it out

than to have two eyes in Hell

— The Sermon on the Mount

ONE

THE BEAUTIFUL LETDOWN

EARLY SUMMER, 2000 A.D.

I didn’t know whether my dad had spent the past 2,360 days in eternal conscious torment, but I knew I wanted to play pickup football.

So there I stood in swim trunks on a weedy field, staring up at rising seniors and recent graduates. Beneath the judgmental sun, I emphasized how close I was to age fourteen, and all these years later, I remember asking them a version of the only thought I’d ever had:

Please choose me?

They didn’t need me. They had full teams already. They could’ve told me to go find the other freshmen beside the lake. But those huge people gathered to rustle my hair anyway.

You’re with us, 13.9-year-old, said a behemoth in a shirt with a modified Mountain Dew logo that read, Jesus MEANT TO DIE for you.

One buzz-cutted enemy recommended we play shirts vs. skins, making his girl-woman teammates roll their eyes. I’ll never get away with jokes like that, I thought.

Hoping to become worthwhile, I fervently volunteered to perform the kickoff, promising I’d eaten Iron Kids bread that morning. When my elders laughed, I so nearly understood why, I felt my social skills leveling up.

The camp’s only popular sophomore, the pastor’s visor-wearing son, asked, Gonna be a JV kicker, Iron Kid?

Ignoring that JV assumption, I bragged about having been a middle-school football player (albeit a mere punter, the guy whose only job had been surrendering the ball).

My camp elders teasingly debated my qualifications until counselor Sara Beth, a seventeen-year-old volleyball player with Rosie Perez dimples, told me, Kick it deep, Isaac!

I blushed, swooned, flexed, and recoiled with revulsion, having fallen prey to her smile, eye contact, and everything else. All my life, I’d been trained by Christian men to resent anyone my eyes wanted. Wanting was sinning.

A second time, I let my eyes admire her, even while an internal voice I believed to be the Holy Spirit warned me, GUARD YOUR HEART! OR REGRET BOILING WITH YOUR DEAD FATHER FOR ALL ETERNITY! I believed that voice’s assessment of my soul, but had always hoped it was speaking hyperbolically about Dad’s. He’d died when I was eight. Car accident. Or not an accident.

Oblivious to how much I deserved damnation, my teammates fanned out. In the fallen world, I stood center stage, and my enemies lined up as if I couldn’t kick very far.

Now to convert my doubters, I vowed. Blast the ball all the way to Target!

Despite believing Jesus had been mutilated in order to forgive my glances at Sara Beth, I snuck a third. "REGRET!" Fourth glance. STOP KILLING JESUS, YOU PIECE OF SHIT! Sorry.

The pastor’s son knelt, holding the football for me. Nobody had ever taught me how to kick off, but I’d watched my middle-school team’s kickers practicing behind the bleachers. It was basically striding, stomping one foot, then swinging the other, right?

Facing the giants, I leapt, planted one foot so hard my ankle twisted, and thudded onto my butt. Prepare for judgment, I feared.

Dude, you okay? the pastor’s son asked, holding the side of his head. Kicked me in the darn ear.

I apologized, scrambling to hop one-footed while mumbling excuses about my socks.

We just had a real-life ‘why the ear, man?’ someone shouted. The pastor’s son laughed, but didn’t get it. I laughed loudly, emphasizing I recognized Fight Club quotes. Sorry for sneaking R-rated movies.

As the sun spotlit my frailty, I hurried to try again. I limped, hopped, planted my injured foot, and fell sideways into hard dirt. Worst of all, I yelped.

Everyone gathered, looking down at me. Sara Beth surely hated me, which meant I’d die alone. But when she squatted beside me, she only said, Let’s carry Iron Kid into the shade. I felt addicted to undeserved acceptance and suspicious that my social debt would soon come due. (Fifth glance. Even bigger debt.)

I knew acknowledging my pain wasn’t right, especially as the man of my mother’s house. Jubilation and indignation were the only acceptable feelings for 13.9-year-old men of God.

The seniors rested me on a picnic bench, then dispersed to keep playing. A husky man sat, tucked Kurt Cobain-length hair behind his ears, and side-hugged me.

Stud, your ankle’s way broken-ish, said youth pastor Timmy.

Nah, I just dunno my own strength, I scoffed. I can carry sixteen folding chairs at once.

A grin puffed his Santa cheeks. Mostly shaven and holding half of a hot dog, he was highly aged — like twenty-six.

I wished I looked less tough, so he’d hug me forever, then realized that would’ve sounded like a same-sex-attraction thought to anyone observing my brain. I’d never had one of those thoughts, but chastised myself anyway.

Cast that demon outta his ankle, Timbo, shouted a senior from the field.

Timmy laughed and winked at me. As my breath stopped, he waved his hand, murmuring, Your ankle feels rad. Jedi mind trick.

Everyone laughed because that wasn’t a crazy church that believed in healing people. It was a sane church that believed humanity is doomed, except for people who’ll survive by agreeing with sane churches.

Timmy looked closer at me. Yo, now I recognize you. You’re his mini-me!

I flinched, wondering what he knew about Dad.

But Timmy said, Mister Eli without the beard!

Phew. Me and my twenty-two-year-old brother, Eli, shared Mom’s black hair and Mediterranean nose, plus Dad’s hazel eyes. Eli actually played varsity, though, a fullback with a goatee even as a freshman. Later, he’d become so godly that a lady quit college to marry him. He’d started volunteering as Timmy’s second-in-command, so I was tagging along despite being a member of a different church.

Handing me a hot dog, Timmy encouraged me to join his church for real. Get plugged into our family, stud.

That’d require convincing Mom to let me stop attending her downtown non-denominational megachurch, where nobody knew I existed. (As a lifelong church kid, I’d visited many other congregations too, including the hardcore Calvinists beside the Pizza Hut, after which I’d hidden under my bed, hoping God would forget I existed.)

From the field, Sara Beth looked back and gave me a premarital thumbs up, and I felt led by either satanic lust, social acceptance, or divine encouragement to make that place my church home. Sixth glance. In Hell, demons will pop my eyeballs like Gushers — unless I earn Heaven by popping them myself first. Seventh glance.

Maybe the Spirit’s not the only thing calling you to join us, Timmy chuckled, as if I was just a normal kid crushing on a camp counselor, not a degenerate committing sins foul enough to get me flicked like a loathsome spider into endless agony.

And then we all shot Super Soakers.

That perfectly clear central Pennsylvania night, dozens of campers gathered at the cabin beside the moonlit lake. They parked me, my swollen ankle, and my stomach full of hot dogs beside Timmy on the porch as underclassmen rapped about spoiled food.

Seniors were mocking the way youth pastors always mangled Neo-is-like-Jesus movie references. Teens, know who can change your … final destination? said Sara Beth, making me view her as a gospel-ridiculing jezebel. But once Timmy laughed at her mimicry, I discerned that she remained wife material.

Mom had encouraged me to make friends at camp, though I already had plenty at school, including the kid I’d eaten lunch with throughout seventh grade. We’d spoken at least twice. (Punters weren’t popular.)

As junior campers horsed around with sophomores, Timmy strummed his guitar. I sat still, wary of jostling my half-digested hot dogs.

Eventually, everyone gathered, facing Timmy.

Like an earnest Jack Black, he sang a Rich Mullins song about learning to follow God. Kids joined in with eyes closed and palms raised toward stars. Bodies swayed infectiously as shoulders sought shoulders to brush against. The last lyric repeated, fading into the forest’s katydid choir.

For three reasons, I’d always attended churches: Mom required it multiple times per week, I didn’t know how else to seek friendships, and I was horrified, especially since Dad’s death, to have been born into a universe that involved everlasting damnation. (But attending was the bare minimum. The million other requirements included saving America from liberals, defending humanity from Satan, and tithing toward church-van transmissions.)

Bros and lady-bros, God’s working on our hearts tonight, said Timmy, strumming more gently. I sense something moving within us.

Looking at singing faces, light and dark shades of moon-blue, I felt fired up to ace the whole checklist.

Moment of silencio, said Timmy, eyes glimmering. Just breathe the Spirit in. Biiig breath …

Only bug noises and muffled chuckles decorated the darkness. A stern-faced girl whispered, Thank you, Jesus. Something raised my palms heavenward along with hers.

We filled our lungs with not just the breeze, but with each other’s breaths. Biiig breath …

And like a trumpet blast, I farted.

Seniors exploded in laughter, then howled the story of my failed kickoff. One of my day-old nicknames morphed into Charlie Brown Pants. I shoved laughter forth from my scalding face, certain the mob had been lulling me with kindness, eager to pounce.

But Timmy bumped my elbow and winked. He cut his voice through the giggles, freestyling about farts being preferable to pukes, sharts, and turtleheads. Soon, everyone sang along with his gassy Hey Jude parody. Even I, the unclean defiler, was allowed to sing. Accepting fist bumps from people who’d laughed, I felt chills.

If you got a hand, hold a neighbor’s hand, Timmy said, so I and my new friends hurried to obey. This week, we’ll get our hearts supercharged, but for a purpose: so your secular-school friends will see the Lord’s joy in you. They’ll want what you got! Don’t let your light fade after camp ends!

When goofy Timmy got serious, even the Slipknot-shirted senior listened. Pastors, prophets, and authors always made God sound complicated, but Timmy’s mission was simple: Be so relentlessly cheerful that nobody goes to Hell.

Wiping a tear, he told us, Beloved, I believe you’ll lead the world-changing generation that’ll free captives from all-consuming fire.

Beneath the wooden bridge, where the noon sun couldn’t see me, I let cool mud soothe my wounded ankle. I could hear people by the lake blaring the Christian rock band Switchfoot.

Inviting myself into your secret club, said Josiah, my visor buddy from pickup football. He stepped into my shady muck.

The lanky sophomore with KFC-tan limbs and Penn State shorts offered to introduce me around. I said, You look like a quarterback. Sorry, that sounded fruity. He was nonchalant about being a Christian private schooler, even though that made him holier than a public-school wretch like me.

Then he asked, So, what’s your testimony?

Church terminology for your personal story of Christian conversion. I’d always hated that question. Sorry.

Christians loved cheering for each other’s thrilling testimonies about Jesus lickety-split saving them from lives of theft, arson, and even agnosticism. Earlier that morning, Josiah’s father, Pastor Jack, had testified about being the grandson of a Buffalo bootlegger, which had led to dangerous adventures before accepting Christ outside a den of iniquity. Jack had then driven overnight to seminary, promising God to pack pews or die trying.

I’d heard testimonies all the time. Sometimes, they were about avoiding Hell, seeking good Jesus feelings, or wanting to go somewhere cool like Heaven or Beach Fest. When I was nine, Mom had taken me to father-son banquets where pro athletes had testified about finding Jesus during season-ending injuries. At middle-school assemblies, born-again bodybuilders called the Power Team had testified about out-dueling satanic wizards. At the megachurch, one sweaty speaker had testified, Don’t be like me, paying child support from before Christ changed me. Slippery slopes! Fellas, could you resist the Devil if that vixen beside you tore your jeans off right now? (I wasn’t sure. I was in third grade.)

Lacking a sufficiently inspiring salvation testimony, I told Josiah, Mine’s boring.

It’s all God, buddy, he said with a future pastor’s smile and fragile Ben Affleck eyes, bumping knuckles against my arm. Hit me.

Well, at age four, I’d said a salvation prayer at my cousins’ church, plus a different one at the megachurch when I was eleven and other salvation attempts at Christian pizza parties, illusionist shows, and dirt bike races. Too young for penny contracts with the Columbia Record Club, but old enough for eternal pacts with the Omnipotent. Which pact counted, though?

I’ve always been a Christian, I shrugged. I mean, nobody’s born one, even if your parents are, duh. You gotta ask Jesus into your heart and know you mean it, obviously.

(I didn’t have blessed assurance, but could certainly spout Christian lingo. Sadly, this was a sin called talking the talk but not walking the walk.)

Listen, if somebody put a gun to your chest, maybe you’d doubt where you’d spend eternity, Josiah said, and I was embarrassed to have made him worry. Having no peace of mind stinks.

He set the scene for his own testimony story. Hundreds of thousands of husband-fathers, the Promise Keepers, rallied at the Washington Monument, where a shameful little Josiah had asked God to remove the sinful thorn from his side, turning him from a twelve-year-old abomination into a patriot worthy of becoming a husband-father. Feeling instantly aligned, the pastor’s son had even heard God speak blue-sky thunder.

A new man, raring to take this nation for Christ, he said. From the other side of the creek, I coveted his peace.

Counting nails in the bottom of the bridge, I listened to my heart, thump-thump-thumping toward Judgment Day. Having only ever heard the heavens speak of "REGRET," I decided to follow Josiah until a sunrise sang to me.

Hey 13.9, wake up, whispered a senior, rustling me awake. We gotta go pee on the Target.

Code for something important, I assumed, scrambling to find my shorts in our dark cabin. On autopilot, exhausted from hours of wailing singalongs and sunburnt sports, I followed the giggling boy-adults into the night. Shushing each other, a dozen of us herded down a woodsy gravel path.

It wasn’t code, actually — anyone who didn’t scamper across the street and decorate Target’s poorly lit back-corner brick wall was a pussball, per my elders. My ankle was killing me, but I hobbled urgently.

The Bible says men are people who pisseth against walls, explained Josiah, the only other underclassman invited. The pastor’s son possessed obvious social rank, so the older kids must’ve viewed me as his sidekick and/or their wobbly mascot.

Minutes later, I was back in my bunk, half believing I’d dreamed about being included in grown-man business.

After another afternoon packed with activity, Josiah walked me toward the sunset campfire, where marshmallow-roasting juniors were quoting Office Space. Youth pastor Timmy was strumming again, smiling at the chatter floating past.

Well, 13.9, I gotta go do pastor’s-kid stuff, Josiah said, so you’re stuck with this weird ginger.

He meant his freshman cousin, Sophie. Sitting on a log, she play-thwacked his thigh. He straight-armed her forehead, mostly gently, then left.

A pastor’s niece? Outta my league, so whatever. Besides, I was basically married to Sara Beth. Sitting next to Sophie, I deployed my primary social skill: requesting her testimony.

When I was six, Uncle Jack asked if I was ready to be baptized, she said, so I prayed what he told me to say. Sadly, she’d then backslid at the library by reading Jurassic Park. Bad secular stuff we shouldn’t be curious about. Not just evolution, but girl dinosaurs that do boy things.

(Five feet away, a Sunday school teacher laughed at someone quoting an R-rated movie’s line about threesomes.)

Though I’d been taught conservative gender roles, I was confused by a scabby-kneed tomboy worrying about dinosaurs upholding them. So I asked the obvious question: How’d you read a movie?

Believing I was joking, she laughed — freckle explosion! Make it happen again! — before complaining about Hollywood’s inaccurate adaptation, not that she’d seen it. As my depraved eyes fell prey to her frizzy ponytail and slim muscles beneath sun-pinked arm skin, I tried my other social skill: asking about school.

Homeschool, she said apologetically, unsure whether the new kid would make fun of her. My sisters were, too. I’m the runt cousin, following the path.

Runts stick together, I said, offering a fist bump. She brightened, thanks to my social … sorry, God’s social skills shining through my disgusting flesh.

My folks are kinda sick of homeschooling, so I have time to learn whatever I want, she said. That part’s cool! Not that learning’s cool.

You haven’t missed much in public school. Just boys comparing new armpit hairs. Another freckle-explosion laugh!

Across the campfire, Timmy sang Big House, an old Christian rock-ish song about Heaven’s accommodations. Sophie joined in with sincere hand motions — while older guys did let’s-go-smoke-stuff head nods. Timmy grimaced, aware his audience was wavering.

As night fell, black clouds blocked the stars. When Timmy left to help elsewhere, remaining seniors described his mishmash accents: Like if Adam Sandler was from Miami or something. World’s biggest dweeb. I love him. Hmm. Noted.

Sophie’s eyes watched a sophomore, the youth group’s best rapper, some deacon’s square-jawed son in a Duke polo. I’m not jealous, I assured myself. My heart belongs to Sara Beth. Regardless, I leaned close and baby-squawked like my idea of Miami Sandler, Bro, when you got baptiii-eee-iiized, how’d the pool shmell?

She scrunched her nose, no longer looking at the Dukie. Success.

I have to clean it, she said. Otherwise there’s algae. Josiah gets to do boy stuff, power tools and preaching. But I get to do sign language!

I learned that her Sunday-morning job was translating her uncle’s sermons with her hands for the ASL section. Instead of asking an obvious followup, I Sandler-honked, How do you clean algae-a-heeeeea?

She jutted a pouty lip. They want me to kill it with spray, but I release it in the creek like Free Willy. Sorry, she said, before mimicking some groaning geezer’s voice, that movie’s environmentalist propaganda.

She then unloaded algae facts like she couldn’t stop. Veering perilously toward evolution, she argued algae was vital to Genesis 1’s creation story if you read between the lines. We did little algae voices, pretending to warn algae children against upsetting the all-powerful redhead who might destroy them despite loving them. I proposed we liberate baptismal algae to a haven named Algae-querque, and she snort-laughed. Talking to a girl isn’t a sin if I eventually marry her (and Sara Beth), right?

Yoohoo, dorkballs, shouted an unseen counselor, startling me, which confirmed I’d been sinning. We’re meeting Mister Eli by the cabins.

I limped through the woods on my bum ankle, following flashlights toward whatever my immense brother had cooked up — he’d warned me of his plans to jolt this stagnant youth group. The cabin lights, warm yellow the night before, had become strobes scratching witchy shadows everywhere. Anticipating an intense sermon, I filtered through the crowd toward the previous night’s safest spot: the porch.

And rumbling forth from the cabin door, boots tromping along creaking boards, was my prophet-bearded brother. At the sight of the upright lion, even eighteen-year-olds and crickets ceased chattering. In the crowd’s strobe-lit ocean of wide-open eyes, I couldn’t spot my new friends. Worship night’s serene smiles were long gone.

The volunteer assistant youth pastor growled, Boys and girls, we’re done wasting our fleeting time. We’re going to talk about certainty.

I’d never known anyone who preached Hellfire harder than Eli did.

He told us to line up, pointing toward my corner. Four tall guys emerged in Scream masks, placing metal buckets along the porch’s far side. (Some sermons, called object lessons, involved props and crowd participation.)

Your whole life, you’ve heard six is the Devil’s number, the Mark of the Beast, said the strobe-lit Eli. "You’ve heard associating yourself with 666 will lower you to Satan’s level. Nope. Your predicament’s even worse than that!"

Man, that huggy-huggy youth group wasn’t ready for Eli. He hadn’t always possessed Hell Mode, but after Dad’s death, my brother had become the man I was supposed to be, ignoring everything but saving souls.

Standing close to the stage backfired; I was second in line. Wait, I’m behind Josiah! I feel sa– … err, I hope his presence makes others feel safe. I feel safe regardless. I’m a God-trusting Christian soldier.

Six isn’t the number of Satan, said Eli, holding up sharp metal. Six is the number of humanity. Which day’d God create us on, huh?

Sunday school veterans murmured, Sixth. I limped onto the porch as a Scream guy handed me a baggie full of metal: long nails, six of them.

So if six is supposedly the Devil’s number, said Eli, jabbing nails toward the crowd, "but actually our number, what’s that signify about us? We’re already as low as Satan, deserving the same eternal fate."

The white-black-white forest offered no rebuttal, only echoes of Eli’s voice.

You were born into a system with only two options, he said. You can either reject this world entirely, or ride it into never-ending fire.

My brother pointed downstage at the labeled metal buckets. The Catholic cult says there are seven deadly sins. Nope. Plenty more than seven, all equally damnable.

Aw man, a confessions game, I realized. At most churches, that meant writing your sins onto paper and tossing them into campfires. I’d done weird versions, but never with strobe-lit Scream reapers.

Ohh, but Eli, I’ve never murdered, said my brother, waving limp hands, mocking feminine sinners. I don’t deserve Hell, right?

Behind me, reapers kept handing out nails.

Nice try, slick, said Eli, tromping toward buckets. Matthew 5 says whoever’s angry with his brother risks damnation. Ever thrown a tantrum? Guess which bucket that is? Do we hide behind vague words like wrath, or call anger what Jesus called it?

He held a bucket high like Goliath’s severed head.

Murder, my brother read from its scrawled Sharpie ink. Thoughts are actions! Still think there’s no blood on your little hands? Still think you’re unblemished virgins?

Someone fired up a loudspeaker, shattering the night with the sounds of screams. Kids recoiled. I winced because Eli had gotten that audio file of a Siberian tunnel to Hell — authentic, according to one Christian TV network — from my computer. No wait, that’s good! He’s warning souls against joining this damned choir, and I helped! Except I hear Dad wailing. Er, he’s in Heaven. Right?

Each nail in your hands is a confession, Eli barked, pointing at those of us on stage. We repent, and only then have we earned happy-clappy time. One by one, we’re gonna drop each nail where it belongs.

My brother tipped the bucket in his hand, revealing what’d been taped at the bottom, catching our nails: a printed-out picture of Jesus’ bleeding hands.

Even if I’d been the only sinner, he would’ve died, Eli said, lip quivering. Therefore, I killed him. To acknowledge that or not is the only choice we ever get.

He set Murder back between Harlotry and The Appearance Of Evil.

I’ll confess out loud, but you can skip that part, he said, dropping nails into buckets — clang, clang, clang — while reciting his sins.

Pastor’s-kid Josiah stepped forward, wordlessly clanging five nails. The nearest reaper watched the sixth nail fall into a bucket, then muttered, Dude, take this seriously. Got bad aim? Josiah, flustered, reached down to move his sixth nail from one bucket to another, then hurried around the corner into the woods.

Passing me as I limped to confess, Eli bellowed at everyone, Get scoured now or devoured later. When he patted my shoulder, I worried the crowd would think he was taking it easy on me.

You can guess where I dropped my first nail. I’d been taught God had designed men to always look once, but in my diseased desire, I’d constantly chosen to look again. My mind was such a lust sewer, I pictured the nail skewering my eye like an olive.

Clang. Adultery.

Two. After years of wallowing in atheist MTV and satanic Sonic games, I’d done nothing to lead my generation toward seizing America for Christ.

Clang. Worldliness.

Three. I’d never hugged a non-Christian girl, but daydreaming about unbelievers was as impure as impregnating one.

Clang. Unequally Yoked With A Heathen.

Four. Never sharing the gospel at school had risked damning my classmates. How many times had I failed to spread the good news of God letting his Son be slaughtered?

Clang. Ashamed Of Gospel.

Five. I didn’t have enough nails to confess all the times the Holy Spirit had screamed, YOU’LL FOREVER REGRET DOING THIS, and I’d done it anyway. Masturbation? Duh. Gambling? Yes. Peeing on the Target? Annihilate me. Drinking? Never, but I’d laughed at beer commercials, which counted.

Clang. Rebelliousness.

I’m the Jesus-murdering shitstain whose actions degrade the universe by the minute. Puncture me with cyclone claws. Almost every bucket begged for my last nail, but one was undeniable.

Six. Six years, five months, and twenty-two days prior, God had needed another angel, yet I remained sick with jealousy, resentful of predestination, and emasculated by emotion. As Siberian Hell screamers throbbed in my ears, I still wished God would scrap perfect plans, choose the unchosen, and give back my father.

Clang. Coveting.

Church can’t just be hugs, light, and snacks, I thought. The whole awful world is counting on us. I have a testimony at last, but only if I remain this red-lined until I die.

I felt pressure-washed, hoping I’d finally become an on-fire Christian (an emotionally overwhelming level beyond born-again). Behind me, I heard Eli confronting more weaklings with rock-hard reality.

As I limped along the path around the lake, something snuck past the Hell howls, un-tensing my chest. Under moonbeams, through breezy trees, among sobbing freshmen and whispering seniors, I heard guitar strums. Timmy’s voice led living creatures in a new song.

Once I entered a clearing beside an old shack, people gave me hard-earned hugs. We formed a semi-circle around Timmy, who sat criss-cross on dark blue grass, all of us somewhere between broken and buzzing (except for the hard-hearted deviants cuddling in passionate piles, creeping toward their next confessions).

I no longer heard Hell, just guitar, sniffling, flirting, scolding, and whispered arguments about Eli. A little old woman shuffled out of the shack, distributing plastic cups of lemonade. Some kids sang with Timmy, swaying and finger-snapping. Others stood to help the woman.

I felt too dirty to join the Lean on Me singalong. But as campers whooped and laughed, I felt a head-to-toe shimmer. Radiant light invading me? I don’t deserve it! Gimme more nails!

A lanky sophomore arm wrapped around me. With leaking eyes