by James Frey
I was faced with a choice, a very simple choice: I could continue to worship a God who promised me some kind of life after I died, or I could go live the life that I have been given. I could kneel before a statue, or I could find real people who might actually hear me. I could preach judgment and hate or experience love. It was an easy decision, and one morning, three weeks after my meeting with Ben, I took off my collar, and wrote a short note resigning my position, and thanked the men I worked with for their service, and walked out of the church. I walked into the street, a street where I knew he had walked, in a city where I knew he lived, and I started looking for him.
JUDITH
I’m a light sleeper. A very light sleeper. I always have been. As a little girl, my parents used to have to turn off the television and the phones after I went to sleep because if I heard them I’d wake up. And if I woke up, I always believed it was because something bad had happened, or was going to happen. I was very skittish. Everything scared me. At school and later, when I started working, even in my car, I was always scared. I didn’t like being that way, but I couldn’t help it. It’s just how I am, I guess. Or it’s how I was. How I was until Ben. After Ben, everything changed for me.
I’ve led a quiet life. Lots of people would say it was boring, and they’re probably right. I was born in a small town in upstate New York. My dad was a farmer who grew potatoes and raised goats. My mom helped him and took care of me. I was an only child. My parents both wanted a large family, but there were complications when I was born and my mother couldn’t have any more. My mother blamed my father for not getting her to the hospital early enough, and my father blamed my mother’s body. I know neither of them really ever got over it because they used to tell me about it. The fact that I was such a disappointment didn’t help.
I met Ben in New York. I love musicals and used to go into the city once a year to see a show. I would save all year and get a special outfit and a hotel room in Times Square and go by myself for a fancy dinner and a show. The next day I’d walk up and down Fifth Avenue and look at the windows of the fancy clothing stores. I knew I’d never be able to afford any of the clothes, and I knew they didn’t make them for women my size, but I loved doing it anyway. I always dreamed of going into one of the stores and buying something, a bag or a dress or some shoes, but knew I’d never do it. Dreams are for people who can afford to make them come true. For someone like me, and for most normal people, dreams are just things that keep us going.
I was sleeping when I heard him. I usually stay in rooms on the first floor because they’re cheaper. And because elevators scare me, and I don’t like to use stairs. I had eaten a sandwich for dinner. It was roast beef and cheddar cheese, which I love. I had brought it with me from home, along with a bag of chips and some diet soda, and I had had some doughnuts for dessert, which are my true favorites. I had watched a couple of TV shows. One of my favorite shows is a dance competition show. The men are really handsome and always smiling, and the women are graceful and wear the most beautiful dresses. It’s really like a fairy tale. And even though I loved the show, and never missed it, it hurt me every time I saw it. In some way, I know my parents loved me, even though they had trouble telling me, but no one else ever had. I’d never been on a date. I’d never danced with a man. I’d never really even had a man talk to me, at least not in a flirty way or anything. And it was what I wanted more than anything. Really, more than anything. To dance like one of the girls on the show.
After the show, I had gone to sleep. I had even put in earplugs because New York City is always so noisy. But I woke up right away. First I heard a rustling. Like an animal or something. It was a sound I knew from living on a farm. My dad had all his goats, and we had a couple of pigs, and there were lots of animals living in the woods near us. Animals aren’t so scary, especially if they’re not in your house. I thought I’d wait and it would go away, but it got louder. I thought whatever kind of animal it was, it was really loud. So I got out of bed and I walked to the window and peeked around the curtain.
At first I couldn’t tell what I was seeing. There was a dumpster right outside. The lid was open, and there was tons of garbage in it. Something was moving around. Really moving around like crazy. I didn’t want to open the window because I was scared whatever it was would come after me. And I didn’t want to call the front desk because I could tell when I checked in that they didn’t like me. I just stood and watched and hoped it would stop. I thought maybe even it would die. It was banging against the side of the dumpster, making really loud noises. I knew it must really hurt. And even though people try to pretend that pain doesn’t do anything to them, none of us can really handle it. Everything bad we do in our life is because of pain of some kind. I couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like. Twice I walked away from the window. I got into bed and put in my earplugs and put my pillow over my head. I closed my eyes real tight. I even balled up my fists. I just kept hearing it, though. A banging sound against the side of the dumpster.
Finally it stopped. It sure seemed like it took a long time. I went back to the window and peeked outside again. I saw a man lying in the dumpster. He was pale, and his clothes were really dirty and gross. He wasn’t moving at all. He looked like he was dead for sure. But he didn’t look scary dead, or mean or angry dead. He looked very peaceful. And normally I would have been very scared. I would have yelled or screamed. I might have hidden somewhere. I wasn’t scared at all, though. I actually felt sort of wonderful. I just stared at the man lying in the dumpster. I forgot about everything. I even forgot I was me, which was something that had never happened. After a few minutes, the man started moving his hands and legs a little bit. I opened the window and talked to him.
Hello?
He looked up at me.
Hello.
You okay in there?
Yes, thank you.
You were banging around a lot.
He sat up and turned towards me.
Yes.
What were you doing?
I was looking for food.
In a dumpster?
Yes.
That’s gross.
He laughed.
There’s lots of good food in dumpsters.
No lie?
He laughed again.
No lie.
What do you find?
What other people don’t want.
And you eat it?
Of course.
Is it good?
People throw away wonderful things.
Did you find anything wonderful tonight?
He smiled.
Maybe.
I smiled.
In there?
No, I got interrupted.
By me?
By God.
Excuse me?
I was speaking to God.
Like God, God?
Yes.
God from Heaven?
No, the real God.
Who’s the real God?
If a bird dropped a pebble in the same spot once every thousand years, the time it would take for that pile of pebbles to grow to be the size of the largest mountain on earth would be equal to one second of infinity.
Yeah, so?
He laughed again.
God is infinite. And like infinity, too vast and too complicated for us to understand.
Then why do people worship him?
They’ve been tricked into believing something that is wrong but that they can understand. Humans cling to what they can understand, even if it’s wrong.
If that’s true, then how does God talk to you?
The sound you heard was me having a seizure, and my arms and legs and head hitting the sides of this dumpster. In the second before I have the seizures, I see things, and I hear things, I know things, and I am told things.
How do you know it’s God?
Because of what I’m told, what I’m given.
Which is what?
I speak languages I’ve never studied, some of which
are no longer spoken. I know the contents of the world’s holy books, word for word, even though I have never read them. I understand general relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, astrophysics, quantum gravity, physical cosmology, and black hole thermodynamics, even though I dropped out of school when I was fourteen.
What’s all that got to do with God?
The first things allow me to understand God as God has been written, and portrayed, and worshipped. As people believe in God. The others allow me to understand how close we are to understanding the real God, the God that doesn’t need to be worshipped, that does not exist as we do, that does not judge us, that does not offer us anything more than what we have.
You sound crazy.
He smiled.
I haven’t told you the crazy things.
Things crazier than going into dumpsters for food and ending up having a conversation with God?
Yes.
I’m not sure I want to hear them.
He stood up, and in the dumpster he was almost at the level of my window.
Give me your hand.
Why?
I’ll show you.
Show me what?
He held out his hand. I stared at him. He was very thin, skinny like he was starving. And for the first time, I saw his eyes. They were jet black, and they should have been scary, but they weren’t. They were beautiful. And when I saw them, for some reason none of the crazy things he was saying sounded crazy. They sounded right, and I saw everything he was talking about in them.
Give me your hand.
Why?
To let you feel some of the things God tells me.
I reached out the window, through the bars that were covering it. As I watched myself do it, I couldn’t even believe it. I didn’t like touching people. I knew they didn’t like touching me. Not only that, I knew people didn’t even like the idea of having to touch me. I always believed I was a good person, and I always felt I was kind and honest, but I knew what I looked like. I had to face myself in the mirror every day. I was, and I am, fat and ugly. It hurts to say it, but I know it’s true. People have told me all my life what I am. They did it when I was a child, and all the way through school. They do it at work, even though I always smile and say hello. They do it as I walk down the street, like they think I can’t hear them or something. And it always hurts. No matter how many times I hear it. It always hurts. So I couldn’t believe this man was asking to take my hand. No man had ever done it. Part of me should have been scared. Once he had my hand, he could have done anything to me. But I guess I didn’t care. His eyes told me he was something beautiful and eternal. And even if he had hurt me, I would not have regretted it. Just to have had it happen once. To have a man ask for my hand, and to have a man want my hand.
It was a little cold. There was a slight breeze coming into the alley. The dumpster smelled like bad meat. I could hear traffic out on the streets of New York. I could hear someone yelling the word tickets over and over. The alley was lit by two streetlights. They were yellow, and one of them kept flickering. The shadows were moving with the flickers. People walking the street were moving into the shadows. I remember the moment very clearly. More clearly than anything, ever, because it’s the moment my life changed. My hand went out between the bars of the window. The bars were round and painted black and some of the paint was flaking off and my skin became cold, even though I was wearing a long-sleeved nightie. He took my hand and held it between both of his, and he smiled, and he spoke.
My name is Ben.
I had hoped to feel some kind of awesome romantic electric charge, like from a TV drama or a romance novel or even a Hollywood movie. What I actually felt was even better. It was the best feeling I had ever had in my life. My insecurity disappeared. My self-doubt disappeared. My self-hatred disappeared. My sense of disappointment in myself disappeared. The feeling that I was bad and wrong and ugly and nothing, that I was a fat, ugly failure, it just disappeared. That feeling of being alone, always alone, truly and deeply and horribly alone, disappeared. He held my hand and smiled and looked at me. I smiled back and spoke.
God.
Yes.
I let go and smiled.
Thank you.
He smiled and stepped back.
I don’t want you to go.
I need to find food.
I have food in here.
It’s not just for me.
Who else?
My friends.
Who are they?
People who want to be loved.
What’s that mean?
You know what it means. You felt what it means.
Can I get it for you?
No
I have a little bit of money.
No, thank you.
I would like to give it to you.
I don’t need money.
Why not?
Because I find what other people throw away.
And that’s enough.
More.
He started to step out of the dumpster. I didn’t want him to go. Ever. I knew that when he did, I would feel the way I always felt. The way I felt before him.
Don’t go.
He stopped.
I don’t want you to go.
He turned around.
Will you come inside, and sit with me?
Yes.
I’ll meet you in the lobby?
Yes.
He turned and climbed out of the dumpster. I closed my window. I met him in the lobby a couple of minutes later. I was really nervous before he arrived. People were staring at me and laughing. I couldn’t blame them, really. If I wasn’t me, I would have been laughing too. When Ben walked in, everyone stopped. I was worried that they would stop him, or call the police, but everyone just stopped talking and laughing and everything. They just stared at him.
He smiled at me and took me by the hand and we walked to my room. I opened the door and we stepped inside. He closed the door and told me to lie down on the bed. I was really excited. Really, really excited. Super excited. I had no idea what was going to happen. Whatever it was would be great. And as excited as I was, I was also calm in a weird way. Much calmer than I would have thought. I wasn’t shaking or feeling like I was going to cry or scream at all.
He turned off the TV and lay down next to me. I couldn’t believe it was happening. He started asking me questions. My name, where I was from, what my parents were like, and what they did. As we talked, and I answered his questions, he moved closer to me, and put one of his arms around me, and took one of my hands. He was so close to me that he started whispering. He asked me about my childhood. I told him it was unhappy. He asked me about school, and I told him it was always easy for me, but that I failed on purpose, because I didn’t want to give kids another reason to hate me. He moved closer, and his hands started moving around my body. It was beautiful. Totally the best time I had ever had. And it wasn’t dirty or perverted. His hands felt like they were part of my body. Everywhere he touched felt like it was absolutely the right spot, and the spot where I would have had him touch me if I could have asked him. We kept talking, and I started asking him questions. The same type of things he asked me. And he told me about his childhood, and growing up in Brooklyn. He told me his father hated him and beat him, and his brother hated him and beat him. He told me that his mother coddled him and that his sister worshipped him. He told me that he was Jewish. I had never met a Jewish person before, or at least not one that I knew was Jewish. He said his Jewish rabbis where his family went to pray had great expectations for him, and believed he would do great things, and maybe even change the world. I told him that must have been hard, that it was the opposite of my life, where nobody expected anything. He said it wasn’t hard, because they were right about what they believed, but wrong in thinking about what he would do, and how he would do it. What was hard was waiting for it to happen. Spending all of his life alone, knowing it was going to happen, and just sitting around and waiting.
We f
ell into some kind of talking trance. He kept touching me and feeling me. He took off my nightie. And he took off my panties. And he whispered in my ear, and I felt him move inside of me. And it wasn’t like some thunderbolt hit me, or like some passionate kiss in a rainstorm. It just felt full, and complete, and quiet. I felt like I could die at that moment and I would be okay with dying. I felt like however I had wasted my life, and whatever terrible things I’d seen and heard and felt, it didn’t matter anymore. This man was inside of me and he was holding me and I was feeling love. True love. The kind of love that really could change the world.
We stayed that way for hours. For the whole night even. He stayed behind me and inside me. He was moving the entire time. Very slowly and gently. Sometimes so slowly I could hardly feel him moving. Sometimes a little faster. We talked the whole time. I told him everything about myself and my life. I told him how I lived alone on my parents’ farm, which was overgrown and crazy. How I worked as a cashier at a superstore and tried to be nice but had people be mean to me all day. How I lived in a dead town filled with churches and bars and husbands beating their wives and children. How I spent all my nights alone in front of the TV, eating canned food and potato chips and ice cream. How I cried every night because I didn’t believe anyone would ever care for me. I told him about all my best hopes and biggest dreams and my scariest fears. I told him all I wanted in my life was a friend who I could call sometimes and say hi. How I always dreamed about having someone tell me I was beautiful, or even pretty. How I was scared I’d die someday all by myself and no one would find me until a long time after I was gone. I told him that there hadn’t been a time in my life that I hadn’t been lonely and that I didn’t want to feel it anymore.
