1 - April Fools

This is a tough time. Jews and Christians have to pretend nothing is wrong, while the Christians are eyeing the Jews to see if they’re up to boiling any babies, and the Jews are watching out for a Christian who might suddenly get it into his head to avenge Christ. Not a nice time of year ecumenically. The Greek and the Romans stick their noses up at each other over the calendar (it’s better than a religious war) and all the little Protestant sects, some of whom despise each other, huddle in their specific houses of worship and do what they think is holy. How many people know that a Protestant is a protester?

Before I start shooting off my mouth, let me remind you: This is my first time through the Bible. I’ve ignored it all my life because I didn’t want anyone to get a foothold in my brain, and that included God. In my house, Jesus did not sit at the head of the table, and I didn’t kneel and say my prayers at night. On Sunday, my mother went to church and Dad and I went to the barn, where we tinkered with machinery. It was pretty much like that all over the hill, except when someone decided to take a turn at preaching – usually someone who’d been bad and had been thinking it over. It’s not the good boys who get a yen to stand in front of everyone and talk the good book, it’s the wicked ones.

For a long time God was remote. Now he’s a major player again. I don’t want to be caught out not knowing who the chap is, so I dug out his bio and started reading. I have to admit, I once thought the Bible had to be a bore. Women read it – and an occasional man who weakened. It’s what Sunday school is all about. How exciting could it be?

The answer is: Very. Very exciting. God is as inventive as a Hollywood producer with a good special effects crew. He’s got all the natural forces at his beck and call. The Earth swallows people up at his command. Fire comes from down from the sky and consumes others who irk him. God is an exacting and satisfying disciplinarian.

That is, the God I am reading about. The God of the Old Testament. The God who said, “Take no prisoners, leave no man, woman, child, cow, goat, or lamb alive. No, wait a second. I like lamb. You can bring the lambs to me. Everything else, destroy by fire.”

Why? Because he’s a jealous God, that’s why. He knows if you bring some cute little bimbo back with you instead of cutting off her pretty head, soon she’ll be crooning to you about Ba’al, or the beautiful grove she worships (God hates groves, and without fail orders them burned.) or some big potent statue in her old home town. How many people know that potentates are potent? Everyone who lives under them, I guess.

So. No mixing and mingling with the natives. You stick ‘em through, or burn ‘em up, whatever is the order of the day, and you come home empty-handed, leading my lambs behind you.

And when I tell you to fight, you fight. You don’t sit around crying,” What are we doing here? In Egypt we had melons,” which I’ve heard you do. Already, Moses is not going to the Promised Land because he took pity on you and bothered me with your complaints. Not once, but twice. Then three times. Third time’s a charm… goodbye Moses.

This is a no-nonsense, intolerant God, but like a strict parent, after the beating, he forgives. The Jews can start all over again. They are, after all, his children. They’re good for a while, then they take to whoring – not after women, but after other gods – and the Lord’s wrath comes down on them again. God’s got a lot in his toolkit. Leprosy, famine, plagues… you name it, the Lord can find it in his little black bag. It’s his medicine for mankind.

Before anybody takes offense, let me say a word to the Jews. This is your God, you knew it all along, or you should have. If they kept it a secret from you and only showed you pictures of David killing Goliath, and didn’t tell you about swooping down on innocent, peaceful towns, it’s time you learned the truth.

And to the Christians? Is this your God or isn’t it? I’d say “No way.” This is not an old man sitting up in heaven shedding tears for his son while watching sparrows drop off the radar screen. But you know him, and I don’t. I’m surprised you want to claim him. He’s not nice. He’s not Christian. Not at all. He’s “Eye for an Eye,” not “Turn the other cheek.” Jesus made that up.

I hope to become better acquainted with this famous father and son team, but I don’t want to get ahead of the story. I don’t necessarily know what happens next, and I don’t want anyone to tell me.

I’ll get there soon enough. Then I’ll be getting on to the Koran, to see who it is you Muslims think is ogling those acres of asses sticking up into the air.

Mormons will have to wait a while longer unless Romney’s poll numbers go up.

Hank Harwood here
April 14, 2007

2 - A Pair of Kings

Before we get to current events, how about a little ancient history?

David was a prince. In the modern sense. Even more so in the very modern sense. He was so taken with Saul’s son that he said Jonathan’s love was “wonderful, passing the love of women.” Including, that means, Bathsheba’s. I’m sure David is the darling of the divided sex – half man, half woman. But David was a ladies man. Did a bad thing for a woman, or rather for himself. Had a husband offed, by sending a note to his captain to put him in the front lines and keep him there. David felt this was the most honorable way to take a woman who was another man’s wife. People still do it today. Get the guy out of the way, into the hereafter. No word of what Bathsheba thought of this, but the Lord was pissed.

The Lord, when he got to coveting, did not find it necessary to get rid of Joseph. He left him on the scene to bring up Mary’s brat.

Still, David is his prize. It is always in David’s name that he gives another chance to his polluted, idolatrizing, thankless, recalcitrant “chosen” people. (Maybe “most recently chosen” – he seems to have run off others, before, for rule infractions.)

David’s son, Sol, starts off like a house on fire, goes into mining and turns the whole realm to gold. Silver flows in the streets. Nothing’s made of wood anymore. It’s all marble.

The Queen of Egypt comes to visit and is mortified to recognize that he has the very best of everything. Even his people are happy.

But Sol appears to have fallen, perhaps to whoredom. He had wives by the trove. He couldn’t have had time to check them all out. Just had them wrapped and sent. God did not like his ways, and Solomon died in disgrace. This might be a textbook case of “power corrupts”. Maybe he stopped sharing. Maybe he started ordering people around. Maybe there was hanky-panky in the awarding of construction contracts for the house of the Lord.

People had come from far and wide, not to see his palaces, but to seek Sol’s wisdom. Yet he seems to have taken a turn for the cruel (if that’s believable.)

Following Solomon is a sequence of good guys and bad guys, more bad than good, and wicked constituents always, so it hardly matters. The Jews become as the pagans around them, they’re struck down by an angry God who forces others to fight against them and lets his people lose, until finally, two pages from the end of Kings, Nebuchadnezzar is the King of Babylon. He comes and rounds up all the Jews that are left, which is only Judah, David’s house, in Jerusalem, and takes them away – to Iraq, where his fiery furnace qualifies as a WMD – leaving only the poorest remnant of people behind.

I believe I am now at the high point and the low point of the story. It can’t get more dramatic than this; my heart is beating fast at this cliff-hanger break in the action.

But now we cut to king-making in the good old US of A.

3 - The Clues of the Week in Review

Obamamamamia! Do they love him! He does not resemble anybody they ever knew. They would not have believed he could exist. That long, sepulchral face, the all but visible bones behind the matte, yet glistening, gray-brown skin, the eerie, almost off-putting yet utterly captivating and compelling, extra length of his elongated Valentine space-alien chin. Is Barack Obama from another world? Has he been planted here to save us? Suddenly we’re sitting up and primping, taking our eyes off each other and letting them melt all over Barack. He says some things we don’t like. Does it matter? Here is someone wrought by a superior sculptor. Maybe beauty is more than skin deep.

But wait. I have been privileged to see a grainy black-and-white clip (looked like a cell phone vid) of Anne Coulter, and damn, if she doesn’t have the very same face. Long, long, long, down to her chin and beyond – thin, thin, thin, with those impossibly high, all-but-external cheekbones, and a long, lithe body to match his.

Not that I’m in the match-making business, but if I were, I’d nominate these two human beings to begin a new race, to replace all these inferior jobbies we’ve got around now – short races, fat races – let’s make them all tall and thin. Real tall. And real thin. I don’t know if it’s just me, or a sign of the changing times, but previously I gave this role to Michael Jordan and Sophia Loren. Stately people who look good in a suit.

Anne Coulter is getting what-for for being herself. At the same time, Hillary is being bashed for not being herself. Anne had the audacity and filthy mouth to say that she would call John Edwards a faggot if she were allowed to use the word, which of course she did. Tucker Carlson enlightened us with the commentary that she once called Gore a faggot. And, ha, ha, believe it or not, said Tucker, she once called me a faggot! And I have four kids! Well, Tuck, the term faggot does not refer to where you stick it, it refers to a demeanor, and you’ve got it, and so does Gore. The girl’s got a gift.

Poor Hillary, on the other hand, everyone says has no gift of gab. She and Bill hurried on down to Alabama because Obama went down there to claim he was conceived in Selma – a bit too graphic for me. While you’re picturing it, I’ll go back to Hillary, who suddenly seemed to come alive when she started quoting bible and other little black books, and talkin’ down-home. She opened up! Just like Southerners do! The warmth is built into their language, and if you use it, you warm up too. She was funny, bright, looked beautiful, and sounded, for the first time, sincere! So what if it takes putting on a mask for you to be yourself. It’s worth it.

Barack, a little less forgivably, perhaps, also came out swinging with a “Y’all…”

Well, why not? Say it. Right now. Say it. Out loud. “Y’all…” Don’t that feel goooooooood? So why not? What they want to do is reach the people. Really reach them. It’s better than liquor, isn’t it? They could get you drunk. Or, they can verbally steal into the receptive part of your brain, the at-home part, where enemies are not expected, and you don’t have to be on guard. You can relax. And enjoy. Which I’m sure they did. It’s infectious – like gospel music – if you haven’t hardened your heart.

4 - Weather Report

Until recently, it was like spring. Then suddenly it said “To hell with global warming, I’m chilling...” I think I’ll sue Al Gore – the big man.

Speaking of whom... in the fullness of fairness, I want to see Al win, even though he isn’t running yet. I feel miserable when I put myself in his place, yearning for the Presidency, knowing his whole family knows he’s going to get it, thinking it’s his - it has to be. And all that before becoming Vice-President. Then, to be put in the position where it is inevitable, Vice President for a popular administration whose only black mark is being too sexy. Gore’s got no problem there; he’ll be a shoe-in. You know in your heart he went to bed every night consoling himself with the thought that someday it would all be his. And then the impossible, the absolutely impossible. Like dying. Can’t happen. But it did, and no matter how hard he kicked and screamed, there was nothing he could do about it.

It would make me happy to see Al win. But only on a personal level. For the public good, Hillary seems the safer bet. She voted for the war on the basis, she said, of info from the first Bush admin that was passed down to the (first) Clinton admin, and then to the second Bush admin. She knew what was going on and she voted for the war. So in spite of the fact that she has to “distance herself” in order to get the nomination, I’m betting she will take geo-politics more seriously than party politics.

And, she’ll have Bill to buck her up. That matters. And to keep her in line if need be. I think he’s probably the only one she would let influence her. And I think she’d fight tooth and nail, to the political death if need be, if it was for something she really thought necessary.

Barack, on the other hand, loves peace, doesn’t everybody? If we only ignore those bad people out there, they’ll obligingly fade away. Don’t you want to live in my land where there aren’t any problems that we can’t sit down like gentlemen and talk about?

Nice work if you can get it, but I don’t think you can get it if you try. So he’s a little scary, because he seems religious about it – nothing could induce him to fight back because fighting... well, it’s so déclassé. But for sheer appeal, he makes everybody else on both sides look sick. He’s the only healthy man running; everybody else is a caricature of disease and old age. He’s uplifting to look at.

Rudy is already called America’s mayor, why not the world’s mayor? He would be humble, he’s got enough baggage to mark him as supremely human, and he’s the only person on either side who can bring tears to my eyes, he’s so sincere. He’s a leader, he never backed down when he was unpopular, and everybody loves and appreciates what he did even before 911. Maybe he can keep doing it on a larger and larger scale. Can he talk to the rednecks? I bet yes, that he can talk to anyone.

Mr. Heinz is too elitist, in such a bad way. He doesn’t realize that when he says, “If you don’t go to school you’ll end up in Iraq.” everyone can hear, immediately following, “or being a garbage man or a truck driver.” Also, he tells too many lies and makes too many blunders. We can’t afford him. He’s oblivious. Too much of a thinker. He ought to set himself up writing mysteries.

McCain is too old. Not in years, but in prospects. He had a serious cancer, which has to worry him; it’s not good when the President has to worry about his body. It’s distracting. And the tales of his temper are easy to believe. This is someone who suffered great abuse. How do we know how it affected him? How do we know he isn’t “The Manchurian Candidate?”

Mitt Romney - nobody ever heard of him - movie-star looks, a Republican elected in a super-Democratic state, so he must have something. His views on everything are in flux right now, as in both parties, in order to win the Primary, most of the candidates have to say exactly the opposite of what will get them elected President.

Dennis Kucinich is such a cutie, so serenely sure that he’s right, because everything he wants is just the way we would want it to be, isn’t it? There was a New Yorker cartoon last time around that was a graph of the candidates’ ratings from 1 to 10. Kucinich got 2’s and 3’s, even some 1’s and 0’s in the various states, but he got a 10 on Mars. And my imaginary vote. Not my real one.

Ron Paul, the anti-war libertarian MD congressman runs as a Republican. And has miniature horses! And a miniature donkey. That should be worth a few votes.

Edwards believes in two Americas. Let him be president of the other one.

And Fat Albert? What was he doing all winter – bulking up like a cat for cold weather? No, he’s just charitably sequestering carbon in the planet’s interest.

5 - Prophets and Losses

I’ve come now, to Chronicles. We’re having a review, and they’re filling in a few blanks. The Lord was not quite as happy with David as I’d been led to believe.

It seems that after he was proclaimed King, and everyone danced in the street, David called up his general and asked him to “number” Israel. This is a euphemism for “how many divisions do I have?” The captain said, “Whaddayawanna know that for? Everything is OK.” But David was the Decider, and out the men went to defeat, because the Lord didn’t like it either. Bush must have skipped this part of the program. The Lord also told David he couldn’t build him a house because he didn’t like looking at all the blood he’d shed. (The President lost the House too – both houses! And Britain is losing the House of Lords.)

But the Lord’s house? Construction may have been delayed, but God was tired of being dragged around like a homeless nomad’s camel. David’s son, Sol, would build it.

And so he did. It couldn’t get any grander. Practically made of gold. All Trumped up. The Lord loved it. But not so much that he didn’t give Solomon hell when he employed his building skills on behalf of the gods of his many wives.

Sol was a scion of diversity. God detested diversity. Don’t mix cotton and linen and don’t mix the Jews and the Heathens. (He had no truck with lepers or other“special” folks our culture embraces, either.) Stay pure, and healthy, was his message.

It wasn’t the bodies he minded them mingling with, so much as it was their gods. He didn’t put up an argument when Sol began bringing home the babes. But when he started building little out-house oracles for them, God put his foot down. Right through Solomon’s reign.

These two famous kings had a note of disrepute about them. David sang and caroused too much. His wife despised him for it and tried to get him to stop. Sol was pussy-whipped.

But I have discovered a true prince in the guise of a prophet. The prophet Elijah. The one the Jews set a place for at the Seder table, should he be passing by and get a yen for matzoh ball soup.

Wipe that dumb look off your face if you’re thinking: Huh? Seder? What the hell’s a Seder? I’m no Jew.

If you’re no Jew, the Seder is more important to you than it is to them. To you, it’s the Last Supper. Chew on that. Have some unleavened bread with it. Jesus did.

Why does Elijah need to have a place set for him? Why isn’t he home, feasting with his family? Elijah has no home. Elijah is a wanderer. The Powers that Be are always after Elijah’s head. He keeps it in hiding.

Why’s that?

That’s because Elijah is such a goddam good prophet, nobody wants to hear what he has to say.

Yet if they want the truth, they have to call him. And he gives it up – just before fleeing into the countryside. Where on the first night of Passover, he might be strolling by your house, or skulking in your backyard, preparing to crash your party.

Welcome him in. And treat him like a king. He’s one of God’s real reps on Earth. He told it like it is and made his way without profiteering.

6 - Who is God?

Where did he come from? These are questions you ask if you’re honest. A lot of you aren’t satisfied with the choice of answers to the question, “Do you believe in God?” “Yes” will get you laughs in some circles. “No” will get you stoned in others. Well, listen to this – you’ll know it’s true the minute you hear it and feel relieved of a burden. There is a third alternative to the man in the long gray beard and the abstraction.

Those of us who read science fiction have met this dude before. There’s one on every spaceship – a guy who wants to mess with the natives – give them phasers, maybe atomics. It feels funny taking off and leaving barbarians alone with techie toys, so they try to instill a sense of decency in them. Some morality.

God decided the only thing that works is fear. Kinder tactics had failed with the current inhabitants of the Promised Land, and he told the Jews he would kick their idolatrous asses out of there, if his children would obey a few simple rules of universal courtesy. Don’t steal, don’t murder, leave your friend’s wife alone, if you borrow your neighbor’s lawnmower, give it back.

And no graven images, please. I don’t like the way you envision my face. Your sculpture is pathetic, and you fall in love with it. Stick to basics. I’m invisible. I make thunder and lightning and rainbows. You don’t need a picture of me. Or of any lambs or rams or bunny rabbits because you’re too prone to fall down on your knees in awe of your own art.

So what are all these pictures of Christ and statues of Mary and saints, and lambs and yes, even bunny rabbits! Christians think they’re worshipping Jehovah, but it’s some other member of some much later crew, the third or fourth, who wanted a piece of the action. This new guy doesn’t mind graven images. He doesn’t mind non-kosher food. He doesn’t keep any of Jehovah’s mandatory holidays.

Which is as it should be, because very few Jews became Christians, and you cannot become a Jew. You are either born one or you aren’t. You’re welcome to follow the Mosaic laws, but that doesn’t make you one of the chosen people. Most Jews didn’t accept Christ, so he had to look elsewhere for disciples. Jews didn’t accept him because Moses said God said, “Don’t add a word to what I tell you.” And Jesus was one of those editors who can’t keep his red pencil off the manuscript.

There was no mention of God having a child. God would have been appalled. He’d already had a time with his own sons, members of his crew, no less, who had become attracted to the daughters of men. He put an end to it. But not before they sloppily created a race of giants. Goliath was a blood relative of God. Not much mentioned. An embarrassing relation – a tell-tale reminder of peacekeepers’ proclivity to procreate with the clients.

But didn’t God go in unto Sarah? I think not. I think he sent a surrogate, some stud – do the lady a favor. God had little interest in sex itself. He found it more or less repulsive, but useful as a means of making more soldiers.

God is a pessimist. He knows from the start that these people are not going to listen to him and in the end he’s going to do in most of them and scatter the rest among the heathens. And it turns out just as he predicted! Well, whaddaya know about that?

7 - Officer’s Club

A conversation at a gathering place for the elite of the home world space corps:

“What’s with the robes, Jewboy?”

“I told you not to call me that.” Jehovah put down his staff. “Just trying to get in the mood. I’m going down again today.”

“You’re always down there. You can’t fool me. I see your log. You spend more time on your project than you do on your life. That’s not good, Jove.”

Jehovah turned to him, his face lit up. “You don’t understand, Satan. You don’t like to work. I do.

I like being with my people. I created them. They’re my entities. They’re what they are because of what I am. I made them. I think of them the same as I do my own kids.

“But you wouldn’t understand. You’re not a parent. You don’t have to check underwear drawers for seeds and glassine envelopes. You don’t look at the odometer to see if they’ve been anywhere on the way home from play rehearsal.

“It’s the same down on Earth.” He sat down. “I can’t help myself. I hover around them. I stay out of sight and spy on them. I want to know what they’re doing. If they’re all right. I want to know they’re not developing bad habits. You know, Sate, I couldn’t take it if my people went wrong.”

Satan smirked. “You always were a goody-goody. Except when someone raised your wrath. Then watch out! You vindictive bastard, you don’t care how harsh the punishment is. I pity your people. And maybe your kids.”

“My kids are fine. They love Dad. He’s got principles. They can count on him. They know the rules, and they know it’s up to them to follow the rules and prevent punishment. They’re good kids.

“They’re scared kids.”

“Same difference.”

8 - The Prince of Persia

When I first said his name, it twisted my tongue, as I’m sure it did yours. I could not get the syllables out in the proper order, and had pretty much given up trying to pronounce it, my mouth zzuzzuhling at the end like I’d had a stroke.

Then one night, at a swank event, the lady next to me, expansive in her drunkenness, made a sweeping gesture that included my glass of red wine. “Ach! My dinner jacket!” I exclaimed, and knew immediately that I would never again have difficulty with Achmadinnerjacket’s name.

We’ll call him Achy for short.

What follows could get me strung up, so I want you to pay the kind of careful attention you never pay to anything. That is, listen to the words that I say and do not embellish, interpret, or in any other way distort them. This is what gets God’s goat, and it will get mine, too.

Here it is: I like the cloth Achmadinnerjacket’s cut from. Similarly, I like what I see when I look at Bin Laden.

I hear the sirens. He’s on the side of the two top terrorists. No, I didn’t say that. I didn’t even say I liked them. What I like is what they could have been. With a simple twist of fate. These are excellent specimens of mankind. You can see Achy’s eyes burning with spirit, his compact body bursting with the energy and the desire to do. He’s ready to take on the world. Isn’t that what we try to teach our children?

And Osama, with his bedroom eyes. A lot of women I know tell me they dream about him. Tall, regal Osama, with his mild, mild manner, his lilting voice. Does he or does he not look and sound like a saint? Be fair. Be honest. Don’t hold 911 against him, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the raw data.

Bin Laden is a man behind the scenes. But Achy is up there on stage with the biggest names in television. He struts his little puffed-up rooster body with the best. He’s the front man. Behind him is the mysterious swirling of Imams and Ayatollahs, who whisper his orders and push him onto the floorboards to deliver.

But will he? To them?

It’s easy to see that if Islam is to rule the world, Achy will be King. King of the World. As such, he might look at things a little more broadly.

And here’s something either nobody knows, or nobody talks about. It was Cyrus, King of Persia (now Iran) who rescued the last remnant of Jews that had been taken from Jerusalem and either enslaved or imprisoned (in Iraq), and sent them home, with orders to all surrounding tribes to leave the Jews alone and let them build their goddam temple. In fact, you bastards who wrote that letter (Don’t think I couldn’t read between the lines.) hoping I’d tell you to demolish them, you can run the catering service, bring them lunch every day while they work, and provide them with anything they need.

Why Cyrus did this is a mystery to me, but a lot of people were afraid of the Jews’ God and didn’t want to mess with him. Au contraire, it might not be a bad idea to appease him. And you will note that Cyrus sent them away. It was cheaper than ovens.

Achmadinnerjacket, once he is no longer the Prince of Persia, but has become the King of the World, might find that he desires the admiration of his new buddies, the other kings, as much, or more, than that of the old folks at home. He might say “Why should I let the Jews ruin my life – my reputation, my legacy, my library?”

He might take the example of Cyrus, and let His people go. You can tell by the cut of his clothes, and the aplomb with which he carries them, Achy is a vane man. He’s going to love the applause he gets for joining the mature contingent of the Turtle Bay country club.

As would the ill Kim, whose passion is Hollywood. What sort of diplomatists do we have, who don’t get this guy a contract with a major studio in return for… probably anything we want. A sad thought for movie-goers, but we all must make some sacrifices. Write your congressman.

And keep an eye on the Prince of Persia. He’s going places. Not, let’s hope, in a hand-basket.

9 - God’s Last Will and Testament

As I mentioned before, this is my first time through the Bible. The big book, not a kid’s book of bible stories. I decided to tackle the damn thing in search of answers to the questions boggling the minds of modern men.

For instance: To whom does the Holy Land belong?

Well, why don’t any of these God-fearing people look in the Bible? I just got to the part where God tells Moses to stop haranguing him about going over into the Promised Land with his relatives. He doesn’t want to hear about it. It’s not happening. But he sends him up to the top of a mountain to see it, and he points out for him exactly which lands are to be his people’s.

The Lord not only giveth, he taketh away. Already off-limits is the land the Lord had granted to Esau. The Lord speaks excellent English. The sound bite was: “Meddle not with them; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth; because I have given mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.”

They were to pass peacefully through the parcel – pay as you go – money for meat, money for water.

And that, my friends, is God’s recipe for Jewish-Arab relations.

God has given Moses an exact point-to-point survey of the borders of the Promised Land. The landmarks are not big rocks and iron pegs but big things – cities, mountains, the Nile and the Mediterranean.

There’s no excuse not to have a great big map at the UN showing where the God of Moses, Christ and Mohammed placed the boundaries of Israel.

What more can you want? The title insurance policy? Good. That’s Numbers 34. Read it. Then it should be over. These guys all claim to be authorized by the same God. Let’s see some obedience.

10 - Codicil

Whoa! Not so fast, Israel! Found in an old desk drawer… God is no longer tickled with you. Not that he ever was, but now it’s so bad that he says he’s going to scatter you to the ends of the Earth, where you’ll have to dwell among the heathen. Furthermore, he is arranging for your neighbors to turn on you and do the dirty deed for him. The Arabs have the contract on the Jews. They’re only doing God’s work!

But it’s no different than it ever was. If the Jews cry to the Lord, they’re forgiven. The rest of you are nothing to God. He chose his children a long time ago, and he hasn’t adopted any new ones. He elevated you not for yourselves but because he needed boogeymen to scare his children.

11 - Facts of Life

I riled up the multitudes by “insinuating” that God’s sons were putting it to the daughters of men. Insinuating? It’s a fact. As much of a fact as anything in the Bible. Here it is: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all they chose.” Surprised, huh? Why do you think they give kids those books with the big pictures and selected bible stories instead of the Bible itself? The Bible is X-rated.

As I move along in the story, it’s sounding less and less like the same God who did the terraforming, and created man to prune his flora and fauna, was the one who led the Jews out of Egypt.

The Creator must have been proud of his creation. He gave us a 120-year life span, which we’ve somehow squandered, and he left the garden with no one in charge. Several times either he or a deputy came back to find everything had run amuck. Punishments were instituted – Noah was salvaged from one of these.

Then someone hit upon the idea of boosting the creatures’ self esteem. Find a bunch without the oomph to have already fallen to whoredom, tell them they’re the chosen people and convince them they can do great deeds. Let them have at those other buggers who can’t keep it zipped.

Does this God love his people?

When they’re about to enter the Promised Land, he makes a speech called “How and why I despise the Jews,” in which he calls them, among other things, stiff-necked. Stiff-necked is not what you get from sleeping in a bad position. According to my Random House Dictionary, it means “haughty, obstinate, hard or impossible to manage, stubbornly disobedient.” God knew his people.

Eventually, he got so angry, he made them walk in circles for forty years, because they backed away from a fight.

The truth was, God had sent out a skeleton force; Joshua didn’t have enough boots on the ground. But the Lord didn’t want to admit he had bad intelligence. (There were giants up there.)

He said, “You pathetic worms, you’re so damn timid, you can’t believe you’ve got special powers even though I brought a shitload of tricks with us. Go wander in the desert with nothing to do but procreate. Build up an army so you’ll believe you can do it yourself, since you don’t trust my shock and awe.

I’m leaving the Levites in charge of the computer. Keep it oiled, Levites. I’ll be back in forty years. If I can’t make it, I’ll send someone. Go forth and multiply.”

The Creator’s greatest trick is multiplication.

And he left. He didn’t even go over to Olympus to look for those AWOLs, as he’d been ordered to do. He wanted to get off this (sorry, it’s an expression), god-forsaken world, before he smote someone.

12 - Changing of the God

If there was anything he hated, it was having to clean up someone else’s mess. He was fastidious. Nothing of his doing ever went wrong. The others wondered why, but he knew the reason. He was careful. He thought things out. He didn’t go on impulse, didn’t throw himself into a fantasy and have to work out the details while falling through space. He took small steps. He thought about each one. He did nothing until he had examined it from every direction, looked deeply into its repercussions and thought soulfully about them. Only then was he willing to commit to matter, to actually create what was living in his mind.

The rest of them strew their creations all over the Universe. They were constantly having to go back and fix something that had gone wrong, something unforeseen that they were prohibited by law to let fester. At least there was some control over them. If there weren’t, the place would be full of failed projects, like wounded beasts, waiting for help to come. Or death.

He thought of his own worlds. Praxis, to name one. A bluish world, largely ice, a single life form, the Helimorph, perfectly in tune with its environment, immortal, self-sustaining, no trouble to anyone. That’s the kind of world he liked. Simple. Serene. Soothing.

If there had to be action, as for his senior project, he liked it to be ubiquitous. A dance in which all the partners meshed, and the dynamics produced life-like movement of the whole, like gears. He got an A for Xanatra. His worlds always had a X. It was his trademark. Someday he would be famous, and everybody would know when they came upon a world with an X that it was his.

But that was far in the future. He was still a student, once more the lowest of the low, as he began this second phase – his internship. Still under the watchful eye, but sent out to do damage control. They used novices for this job, even though it was obviously the most difficult, calling for the most experience. Even the experts couldn’t cope with a world once it had gone bad, so might as well spare them, use them where they could do the most good, and send in the clowns for the terminal cases. Maybe they’ll be just the thing.

That’s what they said to him. “Maybe you’ll be just the thing,” when he said he felt incapable of curing the kind of world he never would have created in the first place. A messy world, with all manner of creatures, and free will. Free will is what he hated most. The players were supposed to play their parts, not deviate, not refuse to co-operate, not act as though they didn’t know their lines or the plot, or what was to happen.

That’s where he was going – to one of these worlds where the creations had gone mad, taken up a life of their own, forgotten who or what they were, and were impossible to control. Who was the student? Jehovah. Only two years behind him, and he knew him well. Everybody did. A bombastic personality given to demonstrations of power – the same powers everybody else had, but he put a dramatic turn on them and majestically took them to himself. He had never liked him. And he didn’t expect to like his world. Earth. A harsh sound.

And the people? He’d boned up on them this morning. They were very much like their creator. Stubborn, haughty, refusing to play by the rules. Yes, very much like Jehovah. He’d had the misfortune of being Jehovah’s mentor for a term and so became the target of his refusal to play the game. No matter what he suggested, Jehovah declined. If he objected to something, Jehovah did it as soon as possible. To get anywhere with him, he’d had to reverse everything, so in the end, Jehovah had completely changed him, and he had gotten nowhere with Jehovah.

And that’s where he expected to get with Earth and these chosen people. Nowhere. They were not his choice. They were hardly even Jehovah’s. He’d tried several tribes of them before, and none of them amounted to anything. They fell upon each other like insects, made themselves sick and died. Jehovah tried to frighten them into behaving by claiming he had sickened them as a punishment, but it never did any good. Until he got to a bunch that was so stiff-necked they couldn’t even have fun. These people, he managed intermittently to get to behave.

But now Jehovah was off to face some other music at home. His father had found out about a little hanky-panky happening down on Earth, and he felt it reflected badly on the family name. Some of Jehovah’s cadets, young apprentices who were supposed to stay out of sight and render assistance, became enamored of some of the creations and procreated with them, creating legal and sociological problems. Jehovah was on the point of being sued, and the family fortune was at stake.

He was being sent down to save the day.

He had an idea, and that was to give these beings some sense of history. Let them know they’re special. Let them know there’s something bigger than they are – a higher power, so to speak. Let them know they aren’t alone, that someone is watching, that it isn’t a free-for-all – that someone had had something in mind when he put them on Earth.

To that end, he had painstakingly recapitulated their past. There were recorders all over, though the denizens weren’t aware of them. Nobody ever left a world without leaving the recorders; that’s what their name and fame would be based on. What would be the point in forming a world then leaving it alone and never mentioning it again? Even those who weren’t so good at it kept track of what they’d done.

He’d decided to follow protocol and appear to his new charges as if he had been there all along, as if he were the very same Lord – God, in fact – who had promised them dominion in the first place. The very same who had anointed these particular rascals the Chosen People (what a name).

In truth, after the creation, God, as Jehovah had styled himself, had not been allowed near it again. God was, at this moment, and had been, since a good, long look had been taken at his world, out beyond beyond, where whatever harm he did wouldn’t affect the civilized. God had been banished. He sent back poignant messages asking for reconsideration, but so far no one had been inclined to answer his prayers.

About to take the name himself, he felt pushed into a corner. Forced to assume a personality. He hoped he could steer clear of that. He did not want to be God. He had no respect or even liking for Jehovah. He had found him to be small-minded, violent, incapable of forming a real friendship, and interested only in putting on a show.

Of course, not all of it had been his fault. He’d been saddled with Zeus and the rest of his band of insubordinates. The Olympians, they called themselves. They’d been a pain here, and they were a pain there. The thought had been that participation in a project the size of Jehovah’s would make them cognizant of the importance of their powers, the responsibility they had to use them for the good of the Universe.

Which is what they claimed they were doing. Childish fun and brutal adherence to appetites is just what the Universe needs. And to make sure they could continue in that vein, they jumped ship and sought a suitable place to play their games in peace and all the luxury their powers could provide.

The ship’s log reads that they settled their shuttle on top of a mountain. Later parties confirmed they were still there, the mountain was named Mt. Olympus after them, and they were being worshipped as gods with a small g. Not the same concept Jehovah was trying to instill, of himself, Jehovah, the only God, with a capital G.

The Olympians were democratic. Each used only the powers assigned to him. They all had their followings, but none of them took it very seriously, in spite of the many temples and oracles devoted to them.

The Olympians were gods the Earthlings liked. Whereas the Jehovans, as the egoist preferred them to be called, were afraid of their God with a capital G. He was vengeful. He was cruel. He was impetuous. He had a terrible temper, and when he got angry, stormed off leaving fire and quake in his wake.

There was nothing to do but go. He’d drawn a bad assignment, but it wouldn’t last forever.

13 - The Jewel

Interviewing for the job of America’s CEO: Giuliani, the man who ran New York. Plenty of executive experience. Isn’t that what the listing is for? Running the big machine? Go down to Times Square and take a look around. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, The Lion King… there are no more perverts in Times Square. No X-rated movies, no creepy little book stores, just animal crackers and Loony Tunes. For this, we have the Jewel to thank. Not everyone is grateful, but everyone’s impressed.

But they’re coming after him with old tabloids full of his personal exploits. Pix in drag, a few ex-wives, a few ex-husbands of the current wife who will be Mrs. America should her Mister make it big. Rudy’s a New Yorker. He’s got a past. Would you want him not to? What kind of fun would that be?

And what does it matter? If I were the Jewel, that’s what I’d say to every last impertinent question. What does it matter? I’ve done what I did, and here I am. Judge the product, not the means of production. The product’s what you’re buying. And this product is an administrator.

Do I believe in abortion? Do I believe in guns? Do I believe in school choice? Do I believe in gay marriage? Do I believe in Santa Claus? What difference does it make? I believe in the Constitution. I don’t have an agenda. I’m not here to do things for myself. The idea of an administrative agenda is offensive.

Wait. There is one thing – and one thing only – on my agenda. As the Commander in Chief I’m here to protect the American people, and that I will do. As you all know. I had a bad experience a few years ago. I don’t want to repeat it.

If I were the Jewel, I’d point out that I’m not a greedy bastard like the rest of them. I have some principles. I turned down ten million Saudi dollars for my city. (Slick Willie took it for his library.)

And I say “No” to money stolen from the American people for the so-called public good. I’m not into getting things done and levying large taxes to do it. If that’s what you want, hire a Pharaoh.

We have to face a few things here in America and honesty is what is needed. I’ve had so many embarrassing things happen to me that, in self-defense, I’ve become a completely honest man. I understand that there’s nowhere to hide, and if you think you’re hiding you’ve probably got your bare ass up against a knot hole.

Eventually, the people see all. There is no point in lying, even omitting. Come clean and get on with it. We have to face our differences in values and own up to our mistakes as often as need be, so we can keep changing, to meet what’s coming down the pike at ninety miles an hour – now.

That’s the sort of thing I’d say if I were the Jewel, and they came after me about my, to some, inglorious past. There’s a job to be done. Give it to a pro.

14 - Caracas Axis

A discussion of world figures would not be complete without contemplating that rotund jolly Santa, Chavez. Bringing gifts to all good children. Oil wells that spout over national boundaries. Oil wells so bursting with power they splurt all the way to the Midwest. From Venezuela. Cheap!

Do you know where Venezuela is? Are you sure it’s that one, or could it be the one under it, or maybe one of the ones way down there on the bottom, wedged under Brazil where there’s hardly room for anything besides Argentina. Well, you’re in for a surprise. Venezuela’s not far away at all.

Big Ven covers half the top of South America. It’s what you face if you stand in Miami and look past Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay. It’s the south side of a big swimming pool known as the Caribbean, whose rim is made of all those cruise-ship, tropical-island destinations.

Hugo’s been donning his swimming trunks – boxers – and taking the tide over to visit a like-minded neighbor who’s not doing too well. Love thine enemy’s enemy. They’re getting on so well together, they’re looking to expand from their little leftist circle, and Hugo was sent all the way to Asia to recruit Achy.

Achy’s a cool cat. We don’t know what he said. It’s possible Hugo doesn’t know what he said. And Fidel is not such a fool as to believe what anyone said.

But there it looms. An unholy alliance. Perhaps a new nation, netting in some of those isles of delight.

How intolerant I am. Not only intolerant, but a snob. I plain don’t like a fat man who starves his people, standing in front of the United Eunuchs, calling the chief honcho of the tribe who’s putting him up, the Devil. It’s rude. It’s childish. It instantly lowered the caliber of every single person who heard it and did not walk out – or at least unplug him. And that means you, because I didn’t see you switch off your TV.

Does it mean me? No. I don’t have a television set. I kicked it in long ago.

But don’t you worry; there are good things in store. The Three Amigos will be opening the biggest casino on God’s Earth, right there in Havana. It will have everything including Persian carpets. And fruits from the Garden of Eden, as soon as Achy gets that piece of real estate from Iraq.

This reverse Trojan horse will drain Fort Knox. But what fun we’ll have sucking up piña coladas as they suck the bucks out of us.

15 - Last Time

Eve lay under the apple tree, plastered, looking at the snake through the drink in her hand. He wavered in the irregularities. She looked over the top of the glass. He stopped weaving about.

“You’re going soon, aren’t you?” she asked, pouting.

The snake assumed an upright position. He was on his toes, so to speak. “Soon,” he said. But he was just gaining time. He knew there would be more. Eve surprised him by remaining silent, forcing him to take the initiative. “I do have to, you know.”

She shrugged and sat up, turning her back to him. “I don’t see why,” she said, with as little expression as she could manage.

“What else?” he asked.

She leaned her back up against the tree, so that if he wanted to he could see her body, with its firm breasts and taut thighs. She knew she looked good. She could feel it. “You could stay here,” she said.

“Here?” He looked around at the trees and flowers, the grass, the sky, the myriad small animals playing on the green. What would he do here? She was innocent. Hopelessly so.

“I don’t see why not,” she answered, making her voice casual and conversational. “It was your idea, this place, so you must have thought it was pretty nice.” She wanted to ask him what the hell he meant by his tone of voice. If he thought it was so great, as he’d been telling her for days now, where was he going in such a hurry?

He chuckled lightly. “Well, it’s all right for you.” He put a hand on her shoulder. The other five dangled at his sides, tingling and wanting to get into the action. He ignored them. Something told him he’d better not get involved right now.

He was right. She turned on him, flicking off the hand as she did so. “And what do you mean by that?” she asked, icicles hanging from each syllable.

She scared him. What was all the fuss about? “Just that I have other things to do,” he mumbled. Somehow, it wasn’t coming out right.

“Like what?” she demanded. “Like roaming around the cosmos, making it with a female from every species that has one?”

He was genuinely affronted. “It’s not like that,” he objected. Then he moved closer and put two hands on her shoulders. “Look. I happen to like you.” That should do it, he thought, nuzzling his head under her hair. She ripped the hands from her shoulders again.

“Yeah. That’s why you’re in such a hurry to get out of here. You like me so much you can’t bear one more day of it.” She was close to tears now, and her voice had an ugly tone.

“Look,” he said. “It’s not my fault. I’ve got a job to do.”

“Ha!” She was on her feet now, hands on hips, towering over him as he sat, half erect, half supine, on the ground. “Some job! What do you do? Lay down a few scrubby bushes, make up a few animals, and then pick out one you’d like to screw and get down to business.”

He was shocked at her vulgarity. It made him angry. It made him act the way she expected him to. “Look, lady,” he sneered, his lip curled up on one side, “Nobody forced you, you know.”

They remained in their respective positions, glaring at each other. Then Eve sank to the ground next to him, folding her legs demurely under her and gave him a hug.

“This is crazy,” she said, “I guess I just don’t want to see you go.”

“Then don’t look,” he wanted to say. He said nothing. He returned her embrace, but did not enlarge upon it. They leaned back against the tree. He was worried. This had gone all wrong. He should have listened to orders and not thought he was such a big shot.

She was quiet now. Maybe that meant it would be all right.

“Will I ever see you again?” she asked, in a melancholy voice.

“Not if I can help it,” he answered to himself. To her, he said, “I suppose it’s possible.” This was the wrong thing to say. She wrenched away from him.

“You mean you did all those things with me, and you knew we would probably never see each other again?”

He covered his eyes with his hands. This was becoming intolerable. “I didn’t think about that,” he said. “I told you. I like you.”

“Like? Like?” She was screaming now. “Is that all you can say? What about love? I haven’t heard anything about love!”

“Love?” he shouted back. Now they were both standing, scowling into each other’s faces. He had a stroke of genius. “You don’t look too full of love yourself,” he said.

That brought her around. She sidled up to him and wrapped her arms around him. “Just stay a little while longer,” she said, cooing, and rubbing her hands up and down him as he had taught her to do.

A thrill ran through him, and he tried to resist it, but he felt himself harden, and knew it was too late.

“Just one more time,” she was saying. Pleasure was coursing through him. He tried to remember the ship, and what time it was, but the thoughts wouldn’t stay in his mind. All he could think, or feel, or be, was the throbbing caused by her hands. What did anything matter in the face of that? He entered her, and became complete. He was wholly, totally alive, and at the same time, he was not there at all. There was no room for him. There was only room for sensation, for existence itself, and then, in a shattering burst of release, for ecstasy.

He lay there, coming to his senses, thinking about slowly untangling himself.

He opened his eyes, to feast them once more on the pale blue skies of this new planet. He was staring up at his captain. A wave of fright swept over him, then one of shame, and then, the worst, belief.

It really was the captain standing over him, swaying slightly, probably with fury, and he actually was lying on the ground, under a tree, his limbs entangled with the woman’s. It was all too obvious what he had been doing.

“Don’t bother getting up,” said the captain, a malicious smile on his face. “You seem to like it here, Lieutenant. I’m sure the planet can accommodate you.”

The snake jumped to his feet, letting Eve roll away on the ground. She had been lying in his arms, a wicked smile on her face.

“But Captain,” he begged, “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go back to the ship. I’m a Former.”

“You’re now a former Former. There are apparently other things you like doing better,” the captain said, eyeing Eve.

The lieutenant grabbed his captain’s first arm, an act of unacceptable familiarity. “But Captain, there’s nothing I like better than being a Former. There’s nothing anyone likes better. You know that.”

The captain looked haughty. “Yes, I know that,” he said. “Especially on my ship where there’s room for creativity.” His eyes became soft for a moment as he considered the desirability of his command.

“You’ve been warned before, Lieutenant. It’s not as though this were the first time.” From her position on the ground, Eve shot the lieutenant a black look. Things were not going to be too pleasant for him if he stayed.

The lieutenant made another attempt. “You can’t do that!” he said. “It will change everything if I stay here.”

The captain smiled. “That is the beauty of an open-ended approach to creation,” he replied. “It really doesn’t matter. Things will adjust.”

He brushed his primary hands down the lieutenant’s sides. As he touched each pair of appendages, they un-formed. “You won’t be needing these any more,” he said. The lieutenant sank slowly to the ground. Without his lowers, he could not stand upright.

A sad expression appeared on Eve’s face. She’d enjoyed all those skillful little limbs.

With that, the captain strode off, forbidding the lieutenant to follow, with a symbolic flick of his tail. The lieutenant writhed on the ground, sobbing.

“Slut,” he hissed. “You’ve ruined my life!”

“I don’t see what I did,” she answered angrily.

He looked up at her and her miserable, tempting hands. He was repulsed by them now. They had cost him everything he considered “living.”

Abruptly, Eve jumped to her feet. “You’d better high tail it out of here,” she said, “Adam’s coming.” The snake looked up, and saw a man approaching through the orchard. From his new perspective, the lieutenant was alarmed at the sturdy construction of the male. He looked formidable. With a distasteful glance at Eve, he bent his head and, remaining out of sight, slithered away through the underbrush.

His head was down so he missed the pillar of fire – his ship boosting up… leaving Project Earth.