How could hell be invented by a God who’s in the next room with a beer and a cigarette?

The priest is mumbling away on the altar and when I whisper the 
Latin responses Di Angelo nudges me and wants to know if I’m all  
right, if I’m hung over from my beer night with Dunphy. I wish I 
could be like Di Angelo, making up my own mind about everything, 
not giving a fiddler’s fart like my Uncle Pa Keating back in Limerick. 
I know Di Angelo would laugh if I told him I’m so steeped in sin 
I’m afraid to go to confession for fear of being told I’m so far gone 
that only a bishop or a cardinal could give me absolution. He’d laugh 
if I told him that some nights I’m afraid to fall asleep in case I die and 
go to hell. How could hell be invented by a God who’s in the next 
room with a beer and a cigarette? 

This is when the dark clouds flutter like bats in my head and I 
wish I could open a window and release them. Frank McCourt