Heaven Is A Deal by Michael Gerber

“—Muhammad said, ‘Hi Heather, nice to—”

“What?” I screamed. “Did you say ‘Muhammad?’”

“Yeah,” Heather said. “He was really nice. He and Jesus were—”

I was on the girl in two strides. After that, everything went black.

EPILOGUE

The cops arrived two minutes after that, just after I heard Hayden yell, “Dad’s gone crazy! He’s killing my friend!”

Typical female exaggeration; her mother does it, too.

As I explained to the arresting officer, Heather was in no danger. I wasn’t trying to kill her for what she’d said, just choke her into unconsciousness so she’d go back to Jesus and get the real story. That’s not “homicidal rage”—it’s love. As she scratched my face, then clocked me in the crotch with the nitrous, my Christian love for Heather only grew.  Here was a child of God, with an immortal soul that she couldn’t be trusted to take care of herself. Choking her wasn’t just the kind thing to do, it was…well, it’s what being my type of Christian is all about.

So when the cops Tased me, I was surprised as a dog with its first porcupine. Looking back, I should have expected it. We Christians have always been persecuted, especially here in America. Is it right? No, it’s not. Is it fair? Well, as Mary told her Son, “Life isn’t fair.”

When I got to the jail, I was fingerprinted and thrown into a cell, treated like a common thug. My arraignment was a travesty from the beginning: “Attempted murder” is just not accurate. What Griselda and I did was “successful near-murder, with the best of intentions.” Then the militant lesbian activist judge (the slacks were a giveaway, Ms. Susan Lipscomb) denied me bail, but the Lord outwitted her. Everybody picked up the story, and now—who would’ve ever imagined that this simple country boy would share an agent with President George W. Bush? In the last two days I’ve talked to Bill O’Reilly, Donald Trump, and Rush. We’re holding out for a six-figure advance, seven if I actually serve time. I often wonder what it must be like for people who don’t have this kind of love and support in their lives—but then I realize that’s just the price they pay. The doors of God’s House are always open.

It still amazes me how a lot of people don’t see the spiritual aspects of what Griselda and I were trying to do. Heather’s parents, for example. At my arraignment they called me “dangerously insane.” They even got some pointy-head to come down from Ames and declare that I was “practically the textbook definition of a sociopath…Christianity is to Mr. Creepo what The Beatles were to Charles Manson.”