I’m definitely not resting in or on anyone’s bosom, Abraham or otherwise.

Dear Trevor,

I wish I had a Bible here, so I could look up some of those passages you mentioned. You’d think if I was in Heaven or someplace near it that there’d be Bibles all over the place. Clearly, the Gideons haven’t passed through yet.

I’m definitely not resting in or on anyone’s bosom, Abraham or otherwise. That said, my neighbor, Martin, has got quite a bosom. If he were a woman, he’d probably wear about a D cup. On Martin, his bosom just looks like a high-riding roll of fat. I don’t know how he stays so fat when we all eat so little. The only woman I know up here is Sung-hee, the waitress, and she is so manly she has no bosom at all. Even if she did, I think it’s pretty unlikely she’d let me rest anywhere near it.

I don’t know of any gullies around here, but to be honest, I haven’t explored much past the immediate neighborhood. There certainly might be a gully in the woods.

Drew said that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I don’t know how that applies here. Like you said, I haven’t seen God. No old men with white beards. No floating bright lights. No one surrounded by angels or sitting on a throne. Then again, I don’t seem to be absent from my body. My body is not much to speak of, but it doesn’t hurt all the time like it did when I was there at home, all run through with cancer.

The one verse that you wrote of that jumped out at me was that one that said something like, “you die and after that, the judgment.” Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe I get a mediocre eternity because I lived a mediocre life. My hands shake as I write such a thing.

I asked Carl, my neighbor on the opposite side from Martin, why he thought he was here.

“We’re in hell,” he said, plainly. “We brought this on ourselves.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said to Carl, because we’re all sick of him going on and on about how this place is hell. “But what did you do to end up here?”

“It’s not what I did,” said Carl. “It’s what I didn’t do. I clearly didn’t do enough.” Then Carl told me that he was a Presbyterian elder back in the old place. Turns out he knows quite a bit about the Bible, as he attended church most of his life. I read your letter to him, and he kept interrupting me to give more color.

That sheep and goats bit? Carl explained that Jesus was saying that sheep are those who helped those less fortunate. They make it into heaven because they looked after the poor, it seems. The goats are those who turned their backs on those in need, so they went to hell.

That one makes my hands shake, too.

Dad

When a kid with a dead dad says something like that, it always shuts everybody up.

Dear Dad,

Drew just left and I’ve escaped to my room so I don’t have to listen to Mom drill me about what a wonderful guy he is.

He was nice as pie. In fact, he makes me think of a piece of pie. Not homemade like Mom’s, but more of a store-bought pie like other kids’ moms always bring to potlucks. Generally sweet and filling. Drew smiled a lot and told mom what a beautiful home we have, which is basically not true. I mean, it’s fine and everything, but our carpet is old and none of our furniture matches. He was definitely getting carried away.

When we first started talking, Drew seemed excited. He smiled in that store-bought pie kind of way and said he’d found the best verse that explained what happened when you die. It is in Second Corinthians, chapter five. Drew said that it says, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” I looked it up after he left. What it really says is, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

I asked Drew if that was the only verse. He said, “No. Of course not. But it’s the most clear.” It doesn’t seem clear to me, because Dad, you don’t seem to be present with the Lord. I mean, you haven’t seen God, have you?

I pushed Drew to tell me about some other verses and he reluctantly told me about how God says that one day he’ll separate the sheep from the goats, meaning that sheep are good and goats are bad. This made no sense to me, because goats and sheep both seem about the same to me. I mean, goats give milk and sheep give wool. My friend Paul is lactose intolerant and he can only drink goat’s milk. And I always get goat cheese on my gyro at It’s Greek to Me and it’s delicious.

Then he talked about a story called The Rich Man and Lazarus. Jesus tells the story, and in it, a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus both die. The rich man goes to hell, but he can look across this gully and see Lazarus all happy in some place called Abraham’s Bosom, which is weird. Abraham had a bosom? I guess it must mean his lap or something. But it would be weird to spend even a day in Abraham’s lap. I wouldn’t want to be in his lap for eternity. I suppose it’s just symbolic.

The rich man calls across the gully, asking Abraham to send Lazarus over to him with a glass of water. I suppose if I was in hell, I’d want a glass of water, too. But Abraham says that no one can cross the gully.

Here’s probably a stupid question: Are there any gullies up where you are?

When I asked Drew if Abraham’s Bosom was just another word for heaven, he rubbed his eyebrows with his finger and said, “I don’t know. Some people think it’s more of a purgatory.”

He showed me a couple of other weird verses, too, like where a guy was caught up into something called “the third heaven.” He said that in the book of Revelations, it says that heaven is described as a place where Jesus will wipe every tear from your eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. I liked that one quite a bit. Oh, and one other one said, “It is appointed to man once to die and after that the judgment.” That one doesn’t tell you much, but at least it’s pretty straightforward.

I kept trying to interrupt him and ask him about what actually happens when you die, like on a minute-by-minute basis. He said no one knows that. He said that since the Bible doesn’t have much to say about it, he doesn’t think it’s the point.

“It is to me,” I said. “And I bet it would be to you if your dad had died.” I knew that would shut him up and it did. When a kid with a dead dad says something like that, it always shuts everybody up.

After a minute of silence, he asked me if I was worried if you were in heaven or not. I said that yes, I was. He asked me if you’d asked Jesus into your heart. I said I’d already told him that Mom said you did. He said, “Then you don’t have anything to worry about.” Then he recited John 3:16 to me, about how if you believe in Jesus you have everlasting life.

“Yeah,” I said, “but is it a good life or a bad life? Because if you have everlasting life that’s bad, isn’t that basically hell?”

Drew said he had to go, but that he’d be happy to keep talking to me about this, which I thought was nice, considering how much he’d kept rubbing his forehead the whole time he’d been there.

Personally, I’m more confused than ever. I guess I think that maybe I know more about what happens when you die than Drew does. Not because I’m smarter than him, but just because of your letters.

Even with your letters, I still don’t really get what’s going on where you are. Isn’t there someone you can ask?

Your son,

Trevor

P.S. What do you mean when you say “my unbearable shame?” I thought we were being honest here. Can you please just explain it to me?

I love Mrs. Henry. Not like a girlfriend or anything.

Dear Dad,

You sounded so down in that last post. What could you have done? When it comes to your past, Mom talks about you like you were a saint. Or a superdad. But you talk like you’ve killed someone. I want to know what you have to feel so ashamed.

About the woods. Sure, I’d like to know more, but I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. Mom still takes us that place on Mount Rainier you’re talking about, with the huge trees. She gets all gooey about it, because the trees are so old. Grown-ups always get gooey about how old things are. The place you were trying to remember is called the Grove of the Patriarchs. It sounds like a name of a place you should go after you die, so I guess it fits for your woods, too. If you go in, let me know more.

Changing subjects now.

What is it with teachers? I swear, 99 percent of the time, it seems like their job is to make me feel stupid. I feel stupid in Mr. Schick’s stupid Bible class. I feel really stupid in the Math Troll’s math class, where I have no idea what she’s talking about.

Last year we did math in our heads. This year it’s all quadratic equations.

I feel stupid in P.E., because Mr. Anders thinks it fun to ask me to do impossible things like chin-ups and rope climbing. He knows I can’t climb that damn rope, but he asks me to do it in front of everybody, just so I’ll feel stupid. I don’t feel stupid in his social studies class, mostly because I think Mr. Anders is stupider than I am. He’s a dumb jock at heart. I think he knows it.

We had to do chin-ups on the bars outside, which are made for giants, so we climbed up a step stool just to reach the bars. We were each supposed to do 10 chin-ups. When I couldn’t do even one, I told Mr. Anders it was because we were too high off the ground and the gravity was stronger, but he wouldn’t buy it, even though a bunch of other guys agreed with me.

The only class I don’t feel stupid in is English. My teacher there is Mrs. Henry. Her class is like an island in a sea of stupid. It’s like the only part of the day where I can catch my breath. I love Mrs. Henry. Not like a girlfriend or anything. More like the way I love mom. Not like I think Mrs. Henry is more important than Mom. But she seems to get how hard it is to be me.

Was it hard for you to be you? In all your pictures, you look so sure of yourself.

Your son,

Trevor

Misty Lee dumped me today.

Dear Dad,

There is no way I’m talking to Mom about her razor stubble. But I did ask her where your funeral was held. I was pretty sure it was at Pastor Mel’s church—Grace Baptist. It was. She said she doesn’t really remember that much about it either, but that more than 300 people showed up. That’s pretty cool, I guess. I have a vague memory of sitting in the front row, I think. Or maybe that’s a memory of when I was baptized. They all blur together for me.

Pastor Mel’s dead, by the way. One day he was healthy and the next he was dead. I think something burst inside his brain, but if you ask Mom about it, she’ll say that God took him home like Elijah. Like Pastor Mel was so beloved by God that God couldn’t stand not having him in heaven. I think that’s a stretch. I mean, I liked the guy and everything, but let’s not get carried away.

We stopped going to church there after Pastor Mel died, because they brought in some guy from out-of-state to take his place. Reverend Howard B. Dapple from Wichita Falls, Kansas. He pronounced Washington with an R. Warshington. He sweated a lot when he talked and always held a hankie in one hand to swipe across his face. Now we go to this dumb church right up on Dash Point Road, about a half mile from the grocery store. I don’t like it. The pastor reminds me of Mrs. Fletcher at school, because I think he hates kids. He gives me dirty looks right from the pulpit if he catches me doodling during his sermons. What am I supposed to do? Just sit there? The guy thinks he is a good speaker. He’s not. He tries really hard to get himself all worked into a frenzy, but all it does is get these creepy pockets of white foam forming at the corner of his mouth. Gross.

Misty Lee dumped me today. She wouldn’t say that she dumped me, but she pretty much did. She gave me a note on heart-shaped paper. I have it right here in front of me now. It says, “Dear Trevor, I’m sorry I can’t be the kind of girlfriend you want me to be. I hope we can still be friends. You’re a great guy! Love, Misty.”

She had Sharon King give it to me. Sharon stood there while I read it. When I didn’t say anything, she said, “That means she’s breaking up with you.” I said, “Oh.” She said, “Do you want me to tell her anything for you?” I said no. “Nothing? You should say something.” So I said she could tell Misty to have a nice day. She thought I was being a jerk and she said so.

By the end of the day, Sharon King got dumped by Rick Jarvis. Serves her right. All three of them are complete dorks.

Mrs. Fletcher the math troll sent a note home with me to get signed by Mom, which says I’m getting a D in math. Mom asked why. I said I didn’t know. Mom asked what she was supposed to do. I said she had to sign the note so I could prove that she knew about it. She said that it was ridiculous that they didn’t trust me. She told me not to worry about the D, because she said she knew I’d figure it out because I was such a smart boy and a good student and all that, because we both know Mom only believes her kids are perfect, even when they’re not. She acts the same way about you. Even when she tells stories about things you did that she didn’t like, she has this way of surrounding the facts in a kind of glow that still makes you sound so wonderful.

Mrs. Robbins, one of our neighbors, dropped by a cassette tape on Monday when I was home from school. She asked me to give it to Mom, but I hadn’t yet. I tossed it in my room. Mom asked about it, saying that Mrs. Robbins had called and asked if Mom had heard the tape yet, because you were talking on it. They’d recorded it at a party. I went to get it, but decided to listen to it before I gave it to Mom.

So I popped it in the cassette player and you and Mom and Mr. and Mrs. Robbins were singing “I’m an Old Cowhand.” None of you sounded very good. One guy’s voice was really off key and warbly. Then when the song ended, that same voice yelled, “Let’s do that again!” and started singing all alone. Horrible and really drunk. Then the other male voice said, “Hey Hugh, don’t quit your day job!” There was laughter and then the tape ended. That was it.

So that was you. I’d never really thought about what you sounded like before. Now at least I know what you sound like drunk. Your voice is kind of high and froggy. Not what I’d imagined. I rewound the tape and brought it in to Mom, asking her what it was. She said she’d listen to it and let me know. She took it upstairs and I haven’t heard about it again.

I haven’t heard back from Drew yet, so I have no answers for you about what the Bible says about where you are. In the mean time, I totally understand why you don’t want to get on the boat. It sure sounds like it must be going to Hell. I can’t imagine something that creepy would be the way you get to heaven. I’d love to hear more about the captain. You said it’s a she and that she’s really creepy. Is she covered in blood, too?

Your son,

Trevor

P.S. What day is it there?