The word HEAVEN flashes above the Gates in white gold neon, as if it’s not obvious enough. I smirk, absolutely buzzing. Guarding the misty entrance are two burly angels with white bomber jackets, earpieces, and a clipboard each. One of them – your typical meatheaded, neckless bouncer, except with fancy wings and sandals – frogmarches Fred West back down the marble staircase, brushing past me. Fred yells bloody murder as his dark glasses and false beard topple off down the steps. The bouncer grips Fred around the shoulders and stuffs him into a secret, fiery trapdoor at the bottom of the staircase. For a moment, me and the other bouncer watch his colleague, with our arms crossed. After a bit more struggling, Fred and the trapdoor finally disappear, in a puff of odd-sock-scented smoke.
‘Name?’ the first bouncer pants at me, jogging back up the staircase.
‘Er … err … Kimberly Clark, sir,’ I mumble, feeling like a child. The bouncers don’t seem all that angelic, what with their regulation haircuts and permafrowns. I rock from one foot to the other while they scan their clipboards, pushing my dimples out, trying my best to appear sweet and saintly. I keep my arms crossed, covering up the Red Devils badge. And I keep my fingers crossed.
‘You’ve already been ticked off, love,’ the second bouncer states, with a glare.
‘Sorry, love, you’ll have to turn back,’ the other one adds. ‘Trapdoor.’
As I stand there in the golden shadow of the Gates, Heaven feels more and more like an overpriced, overpolished, overprejudiced nightclub, or an overly oppressive immigration office. I flap my eyelashes and explain as best I can, ‘Eh … there’s been a mistake. The Grim Reaper sent me, just now.’
Deadpan, the first bouncer prods his earpiece with a finger, listening.
‘See, I think another Kimberley’s been sent up when she shouldn’t have been,’ I add, annoyed at my quivering kid-voice. While I talk, the other bouncer gazes off into the middle distance of the Milky Way, ignoring me, asserting his authority/being a twat.
I decide not to say anything else. After a minute or so of silence, the first bouncer pulls his finger out of his ear and says, suddenly all smiles, ‘Right-ho, Kimberly. That’s fine. Sorry for the wait. Mr Death gives his regards. ’Ere, Pete, we’ve got a loose one. You’ll have to sift out that other Kimberley, when you get the chance. Get her down the trapdoor. Reaper’s in a right old tizzy …’
Pete sighs as he stamps the inside of my wrist with an inky crucifix.
‘This is so you can get back to Earth, and then get back in,’ he explains. ‘Just if you fancy doing any miracles and that.’
Then Pete tells me a few house rules – no blasphemy, no Satanism, no complaining, no other gods, no shoes on the carpets – and hands me a luxury silk-lined goodie-bag, which contains:
Stainless-steel halo
100% genuine swan-feather elasticated wings
Map of Heaven
Sandals
Sunglasses
Party Poppers
Crystal Castle Keycard
£∞ Topshop Voucher
I almost bite my own tongue with excitement. Hopping from foot to foot, I kick off my red football socks and slip into the sandals. I ask the first bouncer, ‘There’s a Topshop in Heaven?’
‘Course there is.’ He consults his clipboard. ‘It’s one of your best-loved fashion retailers,’ he explains. ‘Just turn right once you’re past all the dry ice.’
At this point, there’s a loud, melodic rumble, and the huge Gates of Heaven slowly, laboriously hinge open, drenching us in more of the brightest, whitest, nicest, lightest light I might’ve ever seen.
I put the sunglasses on.
‘Do you want us to do your halo?’ Pete asks. ‘They’re a bit fiddly, see.’
I nod, face frozen in rapture. I watch Pete uncoil a barbed, semi-transparent wire from the back of the halo, then I hardly get the chance to flinch before he stabs it straight into my cranium. The halo springs to attention above my head, making all my visible and invisible lady-hairs stand on end. I yawn blissfully, feeling a white centipede-like rush of ecstasy tumbling through my veins. As it turns out, the steel halo doubles up as a miniature chemical plant, manufacturing and releasing 120mg of MDMA into your bloodstream every five minutes. Within thirty seconds of the first dose, I’m a gurgling, gurning mess.
‘Oh, thanks loads, youse are stars, cheerio then, lads,’ I coo, suddenly attracted to their muscles, not to mention their tight trousers and bloody sexy plastic earpieces.
The men wave me off as I stumble through the Gates. It’s sad to see them go. I purr again, ‘Bye, lads! Bye now!’
They just laugh.
It’s nerve-wracking stepping off the marble staircase and onto cloud while shivering uncontrollably at each attack of MDMA, but the first fat nimbostratus holds my weight perfectly well. Once I’ve snapped my wings onto my shoulders, getting about is a breeze. I flap effortlessly through the troposphere, with the mist all warm and gloopy between my toes.
I laugh hysterically when I see the extent of Heaven around me. It’s like Disneyland, except at least three times better. According to the map, there are nine major clouds in Heaven, each with its own theme: Cloud 1 is Retail Therapy, Cloud 2 is Food & Drink, Cloud 3 is Sound & Vision, Cloud 4 is Sport, Cloud 5 is Extreme Relaxation, Cloud 6 is the Animal Kingdom, Cloud 7 is Comedy, Cloud 8 is Sex, and Cloud 9 is Drugs. The clouds are set out in a perfect circle around the Crystal Castle: a huge twelve-star hotel complex containing all the angels’ lodgings, lavatories, and a large Get Acquainted Room. The hotel is like a vast, transparent anthill, with angels of all shapes and sizes floating through the corridors, slurping bottomless cups of tea, giggling, receiving free massages and watching one of 19,000 top-class TV channels.
Chewing my own face, I decide to carry on exploring before checking in. I dart this way and that through the condensed water vapour, grinning in everyone’s faces. As you’re probably aware, I’ve never taken drugs before – they make you die, etc., etc. However, I’ve got nothing whatsoever against taking drugs if you’re already dead – in fact, I highly recommend it.
The thing that always scared me about Ecstasy (aside from the various possible deaths, for example heart failure, seizures, or the one where you drink too much water and your brain explodes) was its weakening of the immune system, resulting in more colds, flu and sore throats. Not only that but, apparently, one night on Ecstasy results in two or three days of moaning and depression. Fortunately for us angels, the halo keeps firing MDMA into your brain indefinitely, so there’s no come-down, and it doesn’t even give you cottonmouth.
‘Ahhhhhh!’ is all I can think to say, as another 120mg spills down my spinal cord.
Glancing about the silky cirruses and strati, every single angel seems to be engaged in some kind of debauchery, but maddest of all are the ones with dog-collars and rosary beads and the like: the Christians. It seems they knew what they were doing all along: living clean, straitjacketed, Christ-like existences to ensure entry into Heaven, then finally making up for lost time, swapping the seven deadly virtues for the seven holy sins.
‘Good God!’ I hear one of them yelp, coming up on his umpteenth pill.
I smirk into my chest again, and point my wings towards Cloud 1 (Retail Therapy). Wobbling on its misty foundations, the main structure looks like a glorified shopping centre – a cross between The Mall at Wood Green Shopping City and the Acropolis. When the automatic doors open, I’m hit with the overpowering stench of Krispy Kreme, Stilton and Chanel: a queer, cheesy aroma, which makes me feel both cheery and queasy. I cough, wending my way round the aisles, tongue lolling at all the bright shops and boutiques. Despite there being almost two hundred miles of aisles, the £∞ voucher in my goodie-bag seems magnetised towards Topshop, kindly tugging me in the right direction.
I receive a blast of warm, synthetic Polynesian breeze as I step through the entrance. It’s weird – for some people (men, in particular), trawling round Topshop all afternoon is their idea of Hell o
r Purgatory. However, I’m in my element. The Heaven branch is almost twice the size of that five-floor beast on Oxford Circus, with only a fraction of the amount of obnoxious customers getting in your way. The rails are filled with exotic garments of every style imaginable, in a variety of colours: White, Very White, Titanium White, Diamond White, Off-White, Creamy, Creamier, Vanilla, White Lightning, Snow White, White Strike, Dirty White, White Christmas, Skimmed, Semi-Skimmed, Full Fat, etc. Rather than your usual High Street fare, the Heaven branch stocks a few rarities, like dodo-feather dressing gowns and unicornskin trousers. Getting another rush of excitement (or MDMA), I ravenously grab at the rails, giggling like a schoolgirl, until I realise – with momentary dismay and heartbreak – everything’s in size 8.
The discriminating bastards! I kick the nearest mannequin and let out a whimper, caught between the sludgy caresses of the MDMA and a sudden hatred for the fashion world. The demons of this world are girls who are skinnier than you. They should be chopped up and twisted into coat stands for healthy-looking size-12 folk like me and you.
With shaking hands, I throw the £∞ voucher to the ground, then spin on my sandals and storm out of the establishment, two inches off the ground. On my way out, I scowl at this stuck-up, stick-thin size-8 superwaif skipping towards me from the opposite end of the shop. She looks so irritating and idealised, with her lollipop physique and only slightly knobbly kneecaps. She scowls back at me. I scowl harder. She scowls harder. I sneer. She sneers. I mouth, ‘Fuck off, you gaunt bitch,’ not wanting to swear or blaspheme out loud. She mouths, ‘Fuck off, you gaunt bitch,’ back at me.
Just before I pluck her fucking eyeballs out, I realise I’m actually scowling at my reflection, in a mirror.
‘Heeeeeee!’ I screech, ecstatically. They’ve turned me into a beautiful, stick-thin, size-8 superwaif! Cackling, I twizzle my hips in the mirror, admiring myself, then I launch back into the clothes rails. Surreptitiously, I take back the £∞ voucher. And I take back anything I said about size-8 people.
I actually really like them.
Fifty-two outfit changes later, I waltz out of Topshop wearing the unicornskin trousers and dodo-feather dressing gown. Now I’m a size 8, I can pull off more than just raincoats and dotty cardigans. The only slight downside is my breasts have shrunk, like halved grapefruits. Big boobs, however, have and always will be the last refuge of the unattractive: a booby prize for the fat and ugly. I would not be seen dead with flabby bits.
Sailing through the mist with my hips jutting out at jaunty angles, I suddenly have the urge to stroke some kittens. It’s one of the finer pleasures in life, and becomes quite a habit of mine over the next few weeks, nipping over to Cloud 6 (the Animal Kingdom) to tickle the kittens’ fuzzy undersides. The days and nights blend into one seamless silver movie reel, tossing me from one overblown love scene to the next, sprinkled generously with methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Sometimes, I like nothing better than lying supine in a synthetic flowerbed on Cloud 5; other times, you can find me in the comedy club on Cloud 7, spraying Bollinger out of my nostrils. In Heaven, no one has much of an appetite thanks to the constant MDMA (though I still go to Krispy Kreme now and then to sniff the doughnuts), but there’s always free drinks on the go. Most pubs and restaurants serve complimentary pints of draught champagne, though most angels prefer it from the bottle, in the correct flute, with gold leaf floating in it.
Usually, this amount of pleasure would make me feel guilty, upset and run-down. However, in Heaven, it seems you have unlimited energy, serotonin and hardy white blood cells, and not even any hangovers! In a way, I wish I’d died sooner. Here’s a tip: if you think you’re definitely going to Heaven (e.g. good Samaritans, Bible bashers, binmen, etc.), I recommend getting on with it and topping yourself.
Unfortunately, though, the human brain is just as insatiable in Heaven as it is on planet Earth. And what can you possibly give to boys and girls who have everything? After a couple of months with the stainless-steel halo, I start looking for ever more elaborate ways to get off my face. The constant stream of MDMA soon seems monotonous – all it does is make you artificially cheerful, kind and compassionate to your fellow feathered friends. As far as I’m concerned, that’s how I acted when I was on Earth, only without the bit of metal stuck in my head.
I decide it’s high time for something a bit stronger. Cloud 9 lies somewhere near the bins by the Back Gates of Heaven and, while it’s not the prettiest of all the clouds (it’s a thick, grey thunderhead, lined with golden, green ganja smoke, like the effect in a mouldy marble cake), the angels sprawled on top of it seem in particularly high spirits. I nervously flitter about the outskirts at first, before plucking up the courage to step onto the heavy foam.
Surveying Cloud 9, it’s not obvious at first where they keep the drugs. There are no pharmacies, medicine cabinets, people with dreadlocks, or hash menus. I pick at my thumbnail, feeling foolish. After a long period of indecision, I’m prepared to cut my losses and slink back to the Crystal Castle when something strange catches my eye: all the daisies have pills growing from them, instead of petals; there’s a thorny rosebush sprouting syringes; there’s a white sandpit, overflowing with coke; and a man licking the acid off a huge, perforated poster of God.
Next to the sandpit sits a hulking, hirsute beast playing an acoustic guitar, sitar and toy drumkit simultaneously. The beast looks like a cross between the Hydra and the Hindu goddess Saraswati, with its many heads, and arms filled with musical instruments, sitting cross-legged in a lotus flower. The heads sprout on stalks from what looks like the body of a leather-clad lizard. As I edge closer, I recognise a few of the faces – Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Elliott Smith, Ian Curtis, Buddy Holly, Brian Jones and Kurt Cobain blink back at me, nestled between twenty less recognisable, but no less rock-and-roll, others. Their presence gives me palpitations. I settle myself down in one of the poppybeds, fifty metres or so from the Many-Headed Musical Misadventurer, and cough into my palms.
‘Can we help you?’ the beast asks, halting its lovely rendition of Elliott’s ‘Happiness’.
‘Oh, er, sorry, sorry,’ I splutter, all stuttery and starstruck. ‘I just came to see what the, er, what the craic’s like.’
‘The crack? Uhm, it’s okay … I guess,’ the heads mumble amongst themselves, misunderstanding.
I shuffle about in the poppies. I feel bad – not only have I disturbed the beast’s beautiful playing, I think I might be sat on the opium. Cooling my cheeks with the backs of my hands, I shimmy out of the flowerbed to join the Many-Headed Misadventurer by the sandpit.
‘Erm, I mean, well … well, can you show me how it’s done? The crack?’ I ask, looking at no head in particular.
Grudgingly, the Multi-Headed Musician shows me how its works work. The beast picks up this sort of test-tube (the ‘crack-pipe’), then stuffs a semi-precious stone in one end (the ‘crack’), on a nest of what looks like robot pubes or bits of Brillo (the ‘filter’). Then, the beast sets fire to it, and sticks the pipe into one of the musician’s mouths, who sucks on it appreciatively. I watch the smoke cascade through the crystal test-tube, and the beast’s chest expands. After a bit, all twenty-seven heads let out a self-conscious, yet tuneful, breath.
‘My go?’ I ask, knees knocking with anticipation. The Misadventurer blinks, bobs its heads to one side, then sets fire to the semi-precious stone again, and places the sickly sweet, hot thermometer between my lips.
I give the pipe a modest suck. Initially, there’s disappointment. Then, ten seconds later, there’s unbelievable bliss, like my whole body’s been cast in the finest warm Belgian chocolate. A friendly tingle wobbles through my veins, like a marching band, stirring the most elaborate forms of happiness and contentment in each and every blood cell. I’m in Heaven! Not just literally, but metaphorically and all!
It’s almost too much to bear. Slumped next to me, the Multi-Headed Musician looks comparatively nonchalant about the whole ordeal – then again, some of those heads hav
e been here more than forty years, and even before that they must’ve had their fair share of terrestrial drugs.
‘So, uhm, why are you here?’ Jim Morrison asks, as each head slowly comes back to its senses.
‘Oh, ssth … er …’ I slur, with a frozen tongue, like I’ve been swallowing sugar-coated snowballs. ‘Er … the drugs, the drugs. I’m a bit bored of this old thing.’
I touch the stainless-steel halo, spinning at 45rpm above my cranium, all out of control. Jim’s halo looks a bit skew-whiff but, when I go to adjust it for him, the whole beast leans back suddenly, like it doesn’t want to be touched.
‘No, uhm, we mean, how did you die? If that’s not a … weird question, or …’ Kurt Cobain interjects, peering at me through his blond curtains.
‘Oh, er,’ I stumble, gradually gradually gradually coming down from the crack, like the end of a fantastic, static rollercoaster ride. ‘I died from being too nice.’
‘Ha!’ John Lennon blurts, beaming.
‘Yeah,’ I add, smiling, wanting them to like me. ‘I tried to be dead nice all the time, but I ended up … I got taken advantage of and, er, yeah … died.’
Some of the heads nod, as they take it in turns to suck on the last embers of the crack-pipe. Patiently waiting his turn, Brian Jones asks me, ‘So, have you continued, up here?’
I shrug and shake my head once, not following. Buddy Holly carries on, squinting at me through his specs, ‘What he means is: you can create miracles now.’
One of the anonymous heads elaborates: ‘For instance, stopping people’s debts, or stopping planes from crashing, or, uhm … stopping those adorable little twins from fighting …’
The Many-Headed Musical Misadventurer points down at two platinum-blonde specks on the surface of Earth, which I presume are two adorable little twins. I chew my bottom lip, mulling it over.
‘Hmmmmmmm,’ I say, ‘maybe, yeah, but … let’s have another go on that crack-pipe first, eh?’
Kimberly's Capital Punishment Page 23