Franklin Roosevelt says get your COVID vaccine, right now. He’s doing well in the afterlife, he says. He’s looking over at us every so often when there’s a lull in the heaven party. He doesn’t want to make it sound too good because y’all will want to come in at once and the system works best when Saint Peter’s got a steady trickle. Peter’s been overwhelmed lately, so Saint Paul had to help him out. That got a little rough because Paul was making all these new rules and then Jesus had to come and be doorman, too. Jesus is more of a universalist, so we’ve got the first few Dalai Lamas and Karl Marx up here too, now, he says. Also RBG! She can dance! Whitney Houston, Lyda Conley, Malcolm X, Muhammad!
Anyways, he wished he had had the opportunity for a polio vaccine while he was on earth. He’s still in the chair for now, but Elizabeth Blackwell and Hippocrates say he’s getting out soon. It’s okay, he says. There’s a lot to do in a chair, here.
All the angels and the ancestors are rooting for us, he says. Eleanor says hi. He’s friends with MLK, now, and Fred Hampton and Harriet Tubman, too. They’ve got a special VIP room for political greats. People are always coming in and out, though, because of true equality. Breonna Taylor’s here, too. Treyvon Martin. Rodney King. Mary Turner. Jason Pero. Corey Kanosh. Loreal Tsingine. Harvey Milk. You wouldn’t believe the way it is here, he says. There’s fluidity between the rooms.
So, slow down the dying, okay? Flatten the curve, vaxx up. Remember when they lined up for polio vaccines? Them were the days! Everyone did it. He wishes he’d been down there when that happened. He hears some of us don’t want the vaccine, some of us think there’s a microchip or something in the needle, so the government can track our movements. That’s nuts! he says. Microchips aren’t that small. Besides, you think the government wants to know where you are going? (Where are you going? Lassie actually wants to know.) You think anything you do is private? You’ve got all of us up here, and you think what you do down there is private. Uh, huh, he says.
And all that nonsense about the vaccine being developed too quickly? You want to wait? Susan La Flesche is up here in knots, saying this is what she worked for, improving health care. You know how it was back then? What, you want to wait, wait, wait, until you’re all up here? Listen, he says, this is 2021. You can do a whole lot of things faster. Trains, planes. Cars. You’ve got the internet, 5G (Steve Jobs is shouting over his shoulder. Everyone has to calm down, including Steve, he says).
Obama says hi. Oh, yeah, some us are transcendent, he says. You don’t always have to die to be here. Usually, but not always. Look at Elijah, Jesus (well, he died once, but the second time—whoosh, straight up here), Muhammad. Obama’s got a free pass to go back and forth, on account of being who he is and also watching a lot of Star Trek (Mary Golda Ross is head of the transference committee. She made a way for Gandhi to come up here after he did penance way down below for how he treated his wife).
By the way, FDR says, things weren’t so great in the past. He’s got César Chávez and Moses up here ear-worming him, as proof. There is no great era in history where we had everything figured out. Don’t go falling into that nostalgia pool, he says. You’ll drown. You don’t think washers have improved since the time of washboards? You don’t think cars are safer and more energy efficient? Remember those gas guzzling Buicks? Progress, people.
Get your vaccine. Don’t wait and see how it plays out with other people. What is this, the stock market? Don’t hedge your bets. Any good poker player knows you’ve got to take risks to win. He wants to remind you to do what’s best for your neighbour. (Mr. Rogers is a bit of an influence, up here, he says. And in heaven, everyone is your neighbour. Should be down there too, he says.) The vaccine, it’s not just for you. It’s for the whole community. Think of it as the modern-day victory garden, he says, where you’re growing immunity for everyone on earth, one shot at a time.
He’s gotta go, he says, but he’ll chat again soon, probably about guns since those are the next largest cause of overpopulation in heaven. You’ve got way too many guns down there, he says. You’re sending all these people into heaven way too early. Remember the first amendment is first for a reason. So the second amendment ought to step back, cause it’s infringing on peoples’ first amendment rights! You’ve got to be alive to speak, gather, protest. Get the right to bear arms back in second place, where it belongs, he says. You Second Amendment enthusiasts are sending almost as many people up here as COVID. They had to pass the Ghost Act so the dead can wander the earth a little longer, give heaven some room to put up new condos.
One more thing, he says. There are way fewer fetuses flying up here than those conservatives say. So don’t waste your earthly time determining when life begins. It’s a gray area. You already know the obvious, he says. You can be pretty sure someone’s alive when he’s buying Skittles from the corner store. You want to tell women they’re murderers but hesitate telling a self-appointed neighbourhood watch dude he’s a killer. Interesting. (He’s being sarcastic, he says, in case you didn’t get that.) Which one had more blood? Treyvon Martin or the nameless 2 oz fetus? Yes, Margaret Sanger is up here, too, he says.
Oh, and what’s this about some of you not being afraid of COVID? Good, he says, then you aren’t afraid of a little jab either, are you? Agnes Sampson is up here saying you always kill what you’re afraid of (especially witches), so go ahead and kill COVID with that little vaccine. Easy, peasy, he says. It looks like a miniature gun, right? That ought to make you happy, he says.
Really gotta go, he says. Selena’s doing a duet with Prince. He can’t miss it. These sorts of things happen less frequently than you’d expect up here. But stay tuned, he says. He’s got some new hosts lined up for the next chat. Helen Keller, Thurgood Marshall, Sojourner Truth. Nina Simone and Miriam Makeba might sing. Betty Ford will dance, Lorraine Hansberry’s got a new play coming up. So many people to chat, he says. So go get your vaccine, ’cause waiting around in Saint Peter’s line all but guarantees you’ll miss what’s coming next either there or here.