“F______g in Heaven” by Fatboy Slim from You’ve Come A Long Way Baby

Jordan and Tom sit on the back stoop of the restaurant. Tom sucks on his vape, ripping that cotton. Jordan waves him off with a rueful smile when offered. This is not the first time Tom has offered and Jordan has NEVER said yes. Tom shrugs.

TOM

I don’t think it is a thing.

JORDAN (confused)

What?

TOM

What we were talking about with Ashlee and Tanya earlier, before we opened. I don’t think it’s a thing.

JORDAN (still catching up)

Oh you mean the whole eternal life in Heaven full of fuc—

TOM (interrupting him)

Having sex. Yeah. I don’t think it exists after we die.

JORDAN

Because that’s it? Why just die and over?

TOM

Nah…no. I got beliefs about that. Not like clouds and wings and harps, but there’s something. Like it looks like the place you felt safest in life, maybe.

JORDAN

Doesn’t everyone have a safest place though?

TOM

Sure. But we are talking being incorporeal here. I’m in my heaven playing cards with my grandfather and it looks like he did when he was 65 to me. Then there’s another part of him in his heaven with my grandmother and they both look like they looked just after he got back from Korea.

JORDAN (pondering, smirks)

And they’re totally boning down!

TOM (if he realizes JORDAN is just trying to be funny, he shows no sign of it)

I really don’t think so, honestly.

JORDAN

But, like, sex is one of the best things on Earth. Why wouldn’t it be part of our afterlives?

TOM

It’s like…that’s a bodily thing, ok? Like I don’t think anyone is heaven is gonna be eating a pizza until they feel so full they’re almost ill. But here on Earth? That’s a pretty sweet night, you know?

JORDAN (Doubtful)

I have concerns about your relationship to food.

TOM

Ok. Whatever. Just sub in your own thing. Bodily sensations, bodily concerns…I just don’t think they exist in heaven. We ditch the bodies, remember. This bit of my soul recognizes that bit of your soul and we hang out and listen to music and we interpret each other as us now, maybe. But like, we’re just essences. You know?

JORDAN

I…do not.

TOM

Well if you believed in the afterlife, maybe you would.

JORDAN

Whoa whoa whoa. Just because I wasn’t all Bible Camp King or whatever you were doesn’t mean I don’t think there’s a Heaven and whatever. It’s BECAUSE I believe in heaven I think your no fucking on the premises things is bonkers.

TOM

So you think we can have sex in heaven.

JORDAN

I think you’ll be making that guy from McKinley who always comes in for lunch--

TOM

Eduardo.

JORDAN

Yeah, him. I think you’ll be making him sing the heavenly chorus on the regular. And me? I don’t know. Probably me and my eighth grade English teacher Ms. Miller. How she looked then, me like I am now. No crimes, to be clear. God’s Kingdom, you know?

TOM

So we’ll get horny in Heaven.

JORDAN

HELL YES! I mean…very much so!

TOM

And hungry? Tired? Gassy? Lonely? Angry?

JORDAN

What kind of sex are you having?!

TOM

Jeez…one track mind! I mean in general. If you believe we can experience desire, then it stands to reason we will experience other wants to, like food or need to be warmed up or cooled down or emotions.

JORDAN

Ok….?

TOM

That makes no sense! Heaven is supposed to free us from all bodily wants and needs.

JORDAN

Oh I see what you are on about. No thought. That’s just holier than thou, let us control you nonsense.

TOM

I am not trying to control you!

JORDAN

Not you. Them. The…I don’t know, monks and shit? The guys that took all the stories and God’s prophets and Jesus’s words and kind of reported them but then everyone once in awhile threw in their own stuff. Like they were writing, “Don’t kill,” and then they added, “Oh and being into guys if you are a man is like super icky. God totally told us that. Like…just now. Weird you didn’t hear it too.”

TOM (rolling his eyes)

What are you talking about?

JORDAN

I mean, a lot of good people helped make that book. And a lot of great ideas went into it too. But people are still people. And a lot of these people were men in a time when everything was wrong and scary and bad. So the Bible has a lot of that in it. Including the idea that Heaven is about not having desires or wants anymore. Because there were TORTURED by hunger, by their backwards ideas about sex, by brutality…all of it. So it makes sense that they imagined a perfect place would have none of thjat.

TOM

But a perfect place would?

JORDAN

OF! COURSE! Being human is about desire and emotion and passion. Heaven would absolutely not be Heaven if we just…didn’t feel anymore. The difference is, in Heaven, all the stuff that fucked you up in life, that made you feel guilty, that made you do less than great things to other people, that goes away. Everyone gets hungry, no one goes hungry. Everyone gets horny, no one feels lonely or feels like they have to force someone else to have sex. There is no more wandering in the desert in Heaven, but you bet we are still gonna love us some ambrosia when we taste it.

TOM (raising his eyebrow)

And ambrosia in this case is…

JORDAN

A metaphor, you sicko.

TOM snorts, rips another cloud, does some smoke rings.

TOM

I don’t know man…maybe. But even if you’re right, I really don’t think God’s cool with you saying my grandparents bone down.

JORDAN (raising his hands in surrender)

Sorry. They make the SWEETEST of love.

TOM

Shit! Why does that sound so much grosser?!

It’s JORDAN’s turn to snort laugh this time. A voice inside tells them their break is over. They stand and pull their aprons down off a hook by the door and start to put them back on as they go back into the kitchen.