To this day Sam doesn’t know for sure how he ended up (or down) in Hell, but he did. But he succeeded in getting out. Unheard of? Yep. But if anyone could do it, Sam could.
He arrived on the express elevator, where he was met by old Scratch himself.
“Sam,” boomed Mephistopheles, “We’ve been waiting for you. Yep, it’s a bit warm, but as we say, ‘it isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity.’ Well, OK, I lied. It IS the heat. I’m gonna turn you over to this imp right here to get some background, then I’ll decide your punishment.”
After the interview Sam found himself again in Belial’s presence. “So, you like classical music? OK. You get to run a music hall for eternity. Asmodeus here will drop you off.”
Poor Sam. Turns out the “music hall” was a 24-hour disco operation. True torture to someone whose ear was as sophisticated as Sam’s was. In fact, it was so much torture that Satan turned down his request for air conditioning, but did in a moment of weakness allow him to put in ceiling fans. Word of the disco spread, and the place even became known in heaven, where there lived an angel named Glorietta.
Glory, as she was known to her friends, absolutely loved disco music, and importuned St. Peter until he gave her a 12-hour pass to visit Sam. “Remember,” cautioned Pete, “you have until midnight, and if you miss that last elevator you’ll be stuck in hell for eternity.”
Glory hung her harp and her halo at the door and danced divinely for hours and hours. It was only when she heard the clock striking midnight that she ran from the disco, grabbing for her harp and halo. The halo was there, but the harp was nowhere to be seen, so she left without it, just getting her wingtips through the elevator door.
And a week later Satan threw Sam out of hell. That ejection, of course, had nothing to do with Sam’s mentioning to Old Clootie that somewhere up there was an angel wandering around Heaven singing, “I Left My Harp in Sam’s Fan Disco.”
