Stephanie just turned sixteen. She stands in line with her family waiting to ride The Pirates of the Caribbean. All of a sudden she hears people yelling. She hears the revving of a car and more people shouting. All of a sudden a black hearse stops in front of her. A window rolls down and the most impossibly beautiful man she’s ever seen smiles and says, “Hey, baby. You need a lift?” She hops in, before her parents even start to say, “No.”
He revs up the hearse and starts driving. She looks over at him, taking in his image. Perfect brown shag hair, a purple tunic with black and purple love beads. He’s wearing leather pants and leather zip-up boots with a black leather choker to match. He tools around Main Street. People gather and yell, but he just drives through them. He drives over the gate and through Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. He turns to Stephanie and says, “This is my Scene, baby. Always has been. Always will be.”
He drives up the “It’s a Small World” and takes a sharp left. It looks like they’re going to plunge into a wall. But the wall gives way and they’re in a white tunnel with red arrows on the floor, pointing the way. Bobby smiles at her and says, “Hey, little girl. Do you want to meet God?”
Stunned, Stephanie asks, “Are you kidding?”
Bobby smiles and says, “No, really. You wanna meet God?”
Stephanie thinks for a second and says, “Jeez! That’d be neat!”
Bobby guns the hearse’s engine, and takes off down another tunnel. All of a sudden, all the tunnels are painted black. At first there’s Day-Glo arrows pointing the way. But then the Day-Glo arrows disappear. It’s at this point that Stephanie notices that Bobby Sherman’s skin glows fluorescent.
She closes her eyes and says to herself, “Everything’s cool. I’m at Disneyland with my parents. I just jumped into Bobby Sherman’s hearse. We’re now driving his hearse through the tunnels under Disneyland on our way to meet God. And Bobby Sherman’s skin and clothes are glowing like a black light poster. Everything’s okay.”
The car engine stops and Bobby says, “Hey, Stephanie!” He winks and continues, “You ready to meet God?”
Stephanie nods her head and crosses her fingers behind her back. Bobby hops out of the hearse, comes around to her side and opens the door for her like a perfect gentleman. They walk to the front of the hearse and Stephanie realizes there’s a door in front of them, black like the hall, but you can just make it out. There’s no doorknob, buzzer or door knocker. Bobby knocks on it. A strange knock. It almost sounds like a nursery rhyme she heard as a child. Bobby looks down at her, smiling and says, “Hey, little girl. God is gonna freak you out. Are you ready to God it Together?”
She smiles and crosses her other fingers behind her back, nodding her head. Then, the black door slides open like on Star Trek. They walk inside. There, in a gigantic, underground botanical garden. All of the flora and fauna are Day-Glo. As she looks around, she realizes that her clothes and body are now fluorescent. However, all of the trees are black and have a really strange smell like dense dreams that you can never remember.
A bunch of strange, glowing metal insects fly above them giving off a strange hum. Then, she hears a horse slowly walking towards them and out from the black trees, comes Walt Disney. At least the upper half is Walt Disney. The lower half is that of a horse. A beautiful, lustrous brown-coated horse. Walt Disney wears no shirt but has the same familiar hairstyle and signature mustache. Around his chest hangs a black, quiver full of arrows and in his hand is a massive bow made of bronze.
He walks up to us and smiles. Bobby bows and says, “Father of Details, I’ve brought a really groovy chic for you to meet. She’s a big fan.”
Stephanie starts to walk up to Walt Disney, but for some reason that spooks him. He rears up on his hind legs and snorts. He then quickly pulls an arrow out of his quiver. It’s feathers, brightly colored. The tip, a small, sharp star made of lead, silver at the edges. He pulls it back and lets the arrow fly. It flies so fast. It slams into her chest, piercing her heart and knocking her over instantly. She starts taking slow, shallow gasping breathes. Blood pours from her nostrils and mouth. She twists her head and looks up at Bobby, who is smiling.
Walt Disney turns and walks back into the black trees and disappears. Bobby picks her up and as he does, he says, “Wow! God really liked you!”
He then opens up the back of the hearse and places her on a purple, velvet bed with brass buttons. He shuts the door. The last thing she hears is the car starting up and the wheels screeching against the cement tunnels. She opens her eyes. She’s lying there in the back of the hearse, with the arrow deep in her heart. She’s amazed that she’s not dead. But maybe she is, she thinks.
It’s at this point that she realizes that the arrow is made out of silver with gold feathers. Bobby yells back at her, “Hey! Isn’t that a cool souvenir God gave you? You can’t get that at the regular gift shops at Disneyland. You might want to pull it out now. You don’t want your parents to flip and make a scene.”
She looks down at the arrow embedded in her chest, and realizes that she feels no pain, but a strange sort of excitement. Like her body is a sponge and it’s drinking the entire ocean. She grabs the arrow and and yanks it out of her chest. But the star tip breaks off in her heart. She then drifts off. She dreams of stamping hooves and pink chokers.
All of a sudden, she’s standing in line with her family, about to get on a boat for The Pirates of the Caribbean. In her hand she holds the arrow. It doesn’t have a star tip, but instead has a standard arrowhead. She places her hand to her chest and almost screams. Her heart beats now to “When You Wish Upon a Star”. She wonders what her next check-up at the doctor will be like when he pulls out the stethoscope.
She hears a loud revving, and looks, seeing a black hearse take off. She smiles and thinks, “Man, God’s really far-out!”
