Sammy has been pretty excited because Saint Rick the Baptist is back at Arby’s. A couple years ago Sammy was just an assistant manager at Arby’s, and the regular manager started sweating it because there was a man wearing a sandwich board at the street entrance of Arby’s, shouting about people going to hell. The manager didn’t want to do anything about it besides pace. Sammy volunteered to go tell the man to get off Arby’s property, so the manager told him to do it. Sammy walked out there like he’d just won a prize. The man asked Sammy if he knew about his soul, and he said, “Sir, please, I can't talk about what's in the secret sauce,” which kept the man quiet for a few seconds because he just didn’t know how to respond.
Sammy told him he’d have to stand in the middle of the street if he wanted to talk about people who were going to die. Then Saint Rick the Baptist said Sammy didn't own the ground he walked on. Sammy said no, but Arby's did. Saint Rick the Baptist then pointed his finger in the air and said, "And Arby shall be the Lord’s!" Sammy thought that was the greatest thing he’d ever heard, and sometimes when he’s gambling with me and he gets a good roll of the dice, he’ll shout that.
Well, that day Sammy got Saint Rick the Baptist off the property but he came back the next day. Sammy volunteered again, and walked out just as happy as the first day. Saint Rick the Baptist asked Sammy if he was going to hell. Sammy said, “Online I am,” which kept the man quiet for a few seconds because he just didn’t know how to respond.
Rachel always loved Saint Rick the Baptist, too. She’d make Sammy call her whenever he showed up to Arby’s. Sammy would have to promise to give Rachel time to get there before Sammy kicked him off the property. Boyce and I couldn’t understand how you could sit and listen to someone like that. Every time someone mentioned Saint Rick the Baptist Boyce would get this look in his eye and start imagining funny things he could throw at him from his van. Sammy really wanted to throw pickle juice on him, that way when he told people they were going to hell, people would think, "Why is there so much dill in heaven?" Rachel and Sammy liked talking to him. Rachel wondered sometimes if he had a homosexual son somewhere, or if he was scared about how the world was different than he needed it to be, or if he was a performance artist who lived in a studio apartment that had furniture converted from urinals and toilets and upside down park benches, and whenever his cats would get hungry he'd print out the word IRONY and then cut it up into their bowls.
Well, yesterday, for the first time in a long time, Saint Rick the Baptist came back to Arby's and Sammy of course couldn’t call Rachel. So he called me instead, and I went down there. When I got there I asked him if he remembered Rachel, and he said, “Oh my...,” and then, like he was eating a pork chop, he said, "Yes. She's going to hell." I had to concentrate really hard on how bald eagles build nests so strong a human adult could sit in them, otherwise I would have gotten really upset. He asked if I knew what hell was, and I repeated what Rachel told me was the only thing I ever needed to know about hell: “Yeah, it's both the name and dwelling place of the daughter of Loki, the Norse trickster god,” which kept the man quiet for a few seconds because he just didn't know how to respond. Then Sammy kicked Saint Rick the Baptist off Arby's property, which felt great. Later Boyce said he's not just talking anymore--he was going to stop throwing away pickle juice. But I told Sammy he didn't need to call me anymore when Saint Rick the Baptist showed up.
