God
and the Schmaltzy Turd
Our conversation continued into the wee hours of the morning, although I am unclear on exactly which hours are considered wee. Is 2am wee? Then shouldn't 4am be even more wee, and would you want to live in a world where 4 has more in the wee department than 2?
Madness, I tell you.
"So, do you believe in God?"
"Oh, it's Christmas, do we have to talk about god?"
The heat was still rising from our bodies in the chilly room and I caressed the arch of her left foot with the top of my right foot as we lay on our backs, staring through the ceiling at our thoughts. I loved the way she smelled after sex, a kind of sweaty, hippy chick bouquet with a coconut chaser. Round Two was not far off.
"So, do you or don't you?"
She bounced over to the end of the bed, grabbed the jug, and fell into a rant about how Billy Joel and Elton John were both bullshit with their sentimental, mamby pamby, teenage-girl drivel, and who ever told them they had any talent and what ever made them thinkthat rearranging cliches is a legitimate form of song writing, and both of those old hacks should go back to their Simon and Garfunkel albums and listen to I am a rock again and try to remember that self-examination is the path to a powerful song, not cutesy euphemisms and worn-out, arena rock, piano licks, for the luv apete.
"But didn't you say you liked The Archies?"
"That's different. And you still haven't answered me."
"Does it have to be such a yes/no, up/down, red state/blue state answer?"
"You're avoiding the question, Mr. Third Party."
"Really? I thought I was ignoring it. What difference does it make? Look, whether or not I believe in god has no effect on his existence or lack thereof, so believe what you want and I'll do the same because that's what people do anyway."
"So, that's a no?"
"Where are the matches?"
She drank my Portuguese red wine directly from the gallon jug in true Azorean fisherman style, where you stick your index finger through the little handle, toss it over the top of your forearm, wrap your lips around the opening, and throw back the brute. Thismove, however, becomes increasingly troublesome with the onset of inebriation, as the weight of the jug can throw off your balance and send you reeling backward, and if the nozzle of the jug is still in your mouth as your head hits the floor, your face will be smashed into the shell of your skull, and people will be lessinclined to take you seriously until you have it popped back out proper again.
"But if there's no God, there's no hope."
"Hope for what? A reward? What are you, a dog doing tricks for a treat? You hoping for 72 virgins?"
"But then what's the point of anything?"
"Why does there have to be a point? You could die at any moment. Doesn't that make every second of your life beautiful and priceless? Don't things taste sweeter when you live in this moment, right now, as though you had very few left?"
"Dude, don't you ever blink?"
"Sorry. Was I wagging my finger too?"
She walked into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar so we could keep talking, then sat and peed while giving a short speech about how Steve Martin used to be funny before he became a "boat-act" in the Hollywood machine, grinding out one schmaltzy turd after another, always including a touching scene where he walks away with a meaningful look on his face as a piano slowly plinks in the background. Gimmee a fat fucking break with that horse shit, and who told the old gasbag he could act anyway? Ugh, yuck and barfo, as her little sister used to say, in that particular order and withone hand on the hip.
Then it was back to god.
"But, what if you're wrong?"
"Then we'll be judged on our actions. Why not follow the Ten Commandments because it's not a bad start to a list of rules for dealing with people, rather than because you are afraid of the wrath from an angry, jealous god?"
She pulled back a hearty swig, smacked her lips, and gave it a thought.
"What about the first commandment, 'I am the lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me, etc..?'"
"Replace the word god with truth or love and move on with the list."
"But then you're just making shit up."
"It's all made up. Do you really think a guy named Moses actually chiseled that list into stone while listening to the booming voice of an invisible guy in the sky, or could it be that a thoughtful and concerned man saw that his people were moving in a dangerous direction and decided to invent a set of laws that might keep them from hurting each other and destroying themselves? Which of those two scenarios seems more likely to have happened?"
I could taste cinnamon on her hands as she covered my mouth, announcing the opening bell of Round Two. She took a few more big glugs from the jug, arched her back, and let out a majestic burp that, we agreed, sounded strangely heroic in a way..
..although neither of us had any idea what the hell that meant.
Copyright 2005 John Bizarre
