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The phone rings. Jean answers it. “Baby girl,” you say.
“‘Shanti,” she says. “Where are you? I’ve been so worried!”
“You said get out, and I did.”
“Good thing, too. The place has been crawling with cops and reporters.”
“What do the reporters want?”
“Apparently, violence in a Sheridan Road highrise is a big deal.”
“These folks need a life,” you say. “What about the cops? Are they still around?”
“No,” she answers, “they’re gone. But the building office has some of that yellow barrier tape at the door.”
“Ok,” you say, “I need a favor. I didn’t have time to pack, so I need for you to use your key to my apartment, and get some of my clothes and things, and bring them to your apartment. I’d feel a lot more comfortable sneaking to your place than to mine.”
“When will you be here?”
“Probably not before tomorrow evening, but get the stuff tonight just in case.”
“Where are you staying?” she asks.
“With a friend,” you answer. “But I don’t want you to have any numbers where to reach me just yet.”
“Are you staying with another woman?”
“No, it’s a man.”
“Oh,” she says sounding relieved. “That’s ok.” Then she says, “I love you.”
“I love you, too, honey,” you say, “and I’ll try to see you soon.”
Poor Jean. She so fears that you will leave her. What happened to the soldier who saved you those many years ago? For that matter, where is the soldier who saved you yesterday? She can be so confident, so strong. What changes a person that way? What changes a person at all? Look at you. Yesterday, everything was fine. Today, with almost no warning, you’re on the run from the law. This is like life imitating art. You’ve heard it a million times. One minute it was this way, the next minute it was that. But you’re never ready for it. And the irony is that it never seems likely that the next minute from now— whenever now isˆ will produce a change. Why is that? Why does it always seem that life is a smooth, homogenized continuum, and that sudden change is an anomaly?
“Life is both,” Phyllis answers, “a smooth, homogenized continuum of sudden change. What you see is what you decide to see.”
“That’s ridiculous,” you counter. “life is supposed to be straight like an arrow.”
“It is straight, that is until it changes.”
“And it’s not supposed to change.”
“But it does change,” Phyllis says.
“But it’s not supposed to.”
“But it is what it is.”
“Yes,” you say, “but that’s not the way it is supposed to be.”
“But that’s the point I’m trying to make. It is supposed to be that way. All death is sudden change! Look around. People die all the time. Young people die all the time. Big wigs get assassinated. King, the Kennedys, John Lennon, Malcolm X, Gandhi, Marilyn Monroe. The list goes on forever. All cut down too soon, changing the continuum.”
“But they’re not supposed to.”
“What? Are people not supposed to die?”
“Yes,” you answer, “just not like that.”
“I have fallen in love with an idiot!”
“What do you mean ‘fallen in love?’”
“See,” he says, “it just happened.”
“What happened?”
“It changed.”
“What changed?”
“The continuum just changed.”
“Huh?”
“The continuum ... just ... changed.”
“I heard what you said, but I didn’t see the change.”
“Sometimes, we miss life’s changes. But when I said I had fallen in love with you, everything changed. Your ignorance vis-a-vis us got killed.”
“Nothing changed, because I don’t love you.”
“You’ll see,” he says, “our fucks won’t be quite as chilly as the one we just had.”
He yawns and stretches and announces that he is going to bed. “You coming, too?” he asks.
“Shortly,” you say.
“Don’t keep me waiting,” he says. “A deal is a deal.”
You check the fridge for something to drink. He has cans of mineral water, so you drink one. You find the bathroom, and you take a piss and a shower. You’re trying to let some time pass because you don’t want him to think you are anxious. But you are. Why? Fucking some dude in the ass don’t make you a faggot. It makes him one. But suppose you love him while you’re doing it? Just suppose. But you don’t. So what’s the problem? You crawl into bed.
Phyllis is lying on his back staring at the ceiling. “The nature of life is like the nature of God,” he says. “It has many facets and many layers.”
“God is love,” you answer.
“God is hate,” he answers back.
“And you think I’m the one who is the idiot here?”
Phyllis pauses a moment. “Does Jesus sit at the right hand of God?”
“Absolutely!”
“Who sits at the left hand of God?”
You hesitate trying to recollect your Sunday school teachings. Where is Applecrusher when you need? Finally you answer, “Nobody.”
“Wrong.”
“The Holy Spirit?”
“Wrong.”
“Then who?” you ask.
“Satan.”
“Satan?!”
“Satan.”
“Now I know you’re an idiot. Satan is a fallen angel. He tried to challenge God. How can he sit by God?”
“He’s not fallen,” Phyllis says, “he just has a bad reputation because he’s the one who gets to do the dirty work.”
“We are going to be struck by lightning before sunrise.” You turn your back to him and cradle your pillow. It’s amazing how smart people can be so misguided.
“Don’t go to sleep yet,” he says, “I’m not through.”
“Well I am,” you answer.
“Don’t be so thin skinned.”’
“Don’t be such an ass.”
“I thought you liked my ass.”
“You know what I mean.”
He pauses a moment, then says, “Don’t be so afraid of the truth.”
“I’m not afraid of the truth.”
“Then why can’t we talk about God?”
“Because you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re afraid to hear the truth.”
“The truth,” you say, “is that God is real, God is alive, and God is good.”
“The truth,” Phyllis says, “is that neither the existence nor non- existence of God can be proven or disproven. And the same holds true for any kind of value judgment about Him.”
“What?!”
“Language and rational thought are not adequate to deal with metaphysical concepts.”
“Just tell me this, do you believe in God?”
“I know there is a God.”
“Are you a Satan worshiper?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why are you talking like one?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“The nature of the reality, seen and unseen.”
“Ok,” you say. “What is the nature of reality, seen and unseen?” You really want to drop this stupid discussion, but he seems bent on expressing his views. What is it about people that they always want to convert you to their point of view?
He sits up in the bed, and rests his back against the bookcase he uses as a headboard. He’d better be careful lest his mother’s eyes burn little pin holes in his skin. “All the major religions have it wrong,” he says. “Or if they have it right, the true nature of God is obscured from the flock. Even the highest leaders probably don’t know what the prophet really meant in his writings. Couple that with the political agenda these leaders have, and it is a wonder that anything worthwhile gets to the flock at all.”
“You’re losing me.” You don’t have the heart to tell him you are only half listening.
“I guess I’m losing myself.”
“Then keep it simple.”
“Ok,” he says, “consider this. Could Pinocchio challenge Geppetto?”
“No,” you answer, “Pinocchio is a puppet. He does nothing until Geppetto pulls his strings.”
“Correct,” he says. “Now consider that Satan exists only because God continues to allow him to exist. Satan did not and could not create himself, and he cannot continue to exist of his own volition.” He pauses, then asks, “Can Satan challenge God?”
“Satan has free will,” you answer, “and he can use that free will to challenge God.”
“Wrong! He can use that free will to sass God, to hurl insults, to talk shit. But God’s power cannot be challenged. God is power! There is no power aside from God. Therefore, any power Satan has, he got from God.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that Satan works for God.”
“You’re insane!”
“The universe,” he continues, “is like arithmetic. There are positive numbers and there are negative numbers. Zero is in the middle, neither positive nor negative. The positive numbers are love, joy, bliss. The negative numbers are hate, fear, guilt. Jesus presides over the positive numbers. Satan presides over the negative ones. God is the zero and all the positive and negative numbers combined. He is centered between the two extremes in a void of indifference.” He pauses a moment, then says, “Then there’s us. Just as God runs from positive infinity through zero to negative infinity, we each run from positive one through zero to negative one. We are created in God’s image, and God doesn’t care what we do.”
“Unless we sin ...”
“There is no sin.”
“... and get sent to hell.”
“There is no hell.”
“So everybody goes to heaven?”
“There is no heaven.”
“Was there a Christ?”
“Have you been listening? Of course there wasˆ is a Christ.”
“Then what did he do?” you ask.
“He made a bid to rid the world of the debilitating and crippling hatred, fear and guilt that keeps men stunted. The earth was overrun with negative numbers. So he threw in some positive numbers to balance things out.”
“What about original sin?”
“Forget about sin!”
“But sin is real,” you say.
“Sin is a philosophical construct designed to keep people in line.”
“Me being in this bed with you is a sin.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I have no place else to go.”
“Why were you here three nights ago?”
“It seemed like an ok thing to do at the time.”
“Are you going to burn in hell for it?”
“No.”
“And why not?”
“Because I’m saved.”
“Meaning?”
“My sins are forgiven.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I have no sin.”
“Fine!” he said, “but now I ask you what is the difference between having no sin and sin not existing?”
“For me,” you say, “none. But to the unsaved, a lot.”
“The unsaved being those who have not taken Jesus Christ as their personal savior?”
“Exactly.”
“What about those people who have never heard of Jesus Christ?”
“That’s a problem.”
“And the solution?”
“They burn in hell, I suppose.”
“You mean they will burn in hell because God chose not to allow them to bump into the notion of Jesus Christ?” He snorts, “That hardly seems fair.”
“How come you know so much about this shit?” you ask.
“I was going to become a priest.”
“So what happened?”
“One of them fucked me, and I decided that I liked it.”
“You could have still become a priest.”
“You’re right,” he says. “The world is full of faggot priests. But I couldn’t be one of them. It’s like I said before, it is not easy being honest.”
You ponder for a moment the lateness of the hour. “So what is the solution?” you ask.
“Simple,” he says. “When Jesus said that you cannot get to the Father except through Him, He didn’t mean Him qua Jesus, the man. He meant Him qua Spirit. And every act of faith invokes Him qua Spirit whether or not the actor knows or has even heard of Him qua Jesus, the man.”
“But the man Himself was special,” you say.
“Yes, but only because of the spirit that dwelt within.” He pauses for a moment, then says, “Picture it like this. God is the water in a pond. The surface of the pond is concealed in a thick cloud which means the water cannot be seen. Around the pond, there is a sandy beach. Along the beach, there are diving boards at different heights extending out over the water. There are piers and wharfs built out into the water. All of these structures represent different religions or belief systems. And all of them have one flaw.”
“Namely?”
“If you walk to the end of the board or pier or wharf and look down, you can’t see the water. The only way to get to the water is to jump into the cloud. Even if you walk towards the water from the beach itself, you cannot get to the water without becoming engulfed in the cloud first.”
“So Christ is the cloud.”
“Exactly!” Phyllis says. “Christ is the cloud! The problem is that priests and preachers and imams and gurus would have you believe that the only way to God is whichever board or pier or wharf they happen to be standing on at the moment. And except for the ‘only’ part, they’re right! All these structures will get you to the water. But none of them can bypass the cloud. The only way to the water is to make the existential leap of faith into the cloud.”
You catch yourself jerking involuntarily, and you realize that you have been hearing Phyllis’ words through the fog of sleep.
“Don’t go to sleep yet,” he says. “I want to suck your dick.”
Only half awake, you turn onto your back and open your legs. He crawls between them. He cups your dick in both hands and begins to stroke it slowly up and down. He must have put oil on his hands because there is surprisingly little friction. Your dick rises to its full length, and, still stroking, he puts the head into his mouth. He matches the bobbing of his head to the strokes of his hands. Within two minutes, you can feel yourself beginning to come. Damn, he gives good head! You plant you feet and raise your hips up off the bed. Your dick is as deep in his mouth as it will go. You come, and he sucks the semen straight down. You sink back down to the bed and your whole body relaxes into a euphoric state. You can feel Phyllis groping around your testicles as you nod off to sleep.
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