Live From Golgotha

by Gore Vidal

  "After forty there is no salvation," He used to say, or so Saint said He said. But then Saint lies about everything. Maybe Our Lord said, "After thirty-three," the accepted age for His first return to His Father in Heaven as well as to the

  16 Gore Vidal

  famous, if theologically disputed, three-in-one of Father, Son, Holy Ghost, which is Satan's 666 divided by 222. But who is counting? I suppose I am, if I have to write the Sacred Story from scratch.

  Question: Is Saint lying now.> Have the Gospels really been lost except for this one that I can't seem to get started because of all the interruptions? Thus far, facts are few. I list them. In order.

  First, Saint enters my recurrent nightmare. Tells me the bad news about the "computer virus." Although I don't know what the phrase means, I get the general drift. The Gospels are being physically erased from books and "tapes." But will they also be erased from the memory of those who still remember them? I address this question to the God Sony. He is silent.

  Second, the Sony arrives from the fiiture. No one saw how the men who brought it arrived. More to the point, who sent it and why?

  Third, Saint always said that we were being monitored by people from the ftiture. On principle, I never believed anything he said. Of course there was the one encounter at Philippi, which I'll get to. But except for that mildly weird business, I thought that Saint was just sounding off. Now I know that we have all been watched by a million eyes from the very beginning of the Greatest Story. I also know that, up ahead, in ftiture time, there are going to be all sorts of ways to visit the past, which is us.

  One way is "channeling," which is how Saint got into my last nightmare. I don't know how it's done but it is obviously easy to do, at least for someone as pushy as Saint is—^you can't say was anymore since all of time is just a flat round plate. No, I don't know what that means either, but that's what a spokesperson for the Foundation for Inner Peace said on a talk-show program.

  I cling to what sanity I have as I do my best to cope with the invasion—no other word—from the future, which entered a new phase this morning just after the CNN Hollywood Minute, a favorite of mine, despite lon0eurs, when a rosy-faced young man in what is known as a three-piece suit of polyester stepped out of the television set.

  How does a fully grown man step out of a black shining Sony a tenth his size? The same way that Jesus raised the dead, I suppose. In any case, where the program was, there was Chester W. Claypoole, on the screen. Then, as he stepped out of the television set, he grew larger and larger until he was normal size. Behind him, the picture on the set went black.

  "Good morning," he said, warmly. "I'm Chester W. Claypoole. I'm vice president in charge of Creative Programming at NBC."

  "Welcome," I said, remembering my ecumenical manners, "to my humble bishop's bungalow." I held out my hand with the bishop's ring in such a way that he had the option of kissing the ring like a true believer or shaking my hand like a sport. He did neither.

  "Call me Chet," he said. "I hope you're enjoying the TV set I sent you?" He sat on a stool opposite my chair, and smiled at me the way everyone always smiles on television. I suppose they all smile so much because, for some reason, they have perfect teeth. Back here in 96 a.d. those of us who still have a few teeth don't usually like to show them, which is why there isn't a lot of smiling going on—not that there is much to smile about, what with high taxes and the crazy Zionists threatening an intifada against the Romans who are, like it or not, the masters of the world, as the Jews learned twenty years ago when the Romans tore down the Temple in Jerusalem and wiped out the entire Zionist movement except for

  18 Gore Vidal

  the Irgun terrorist gang, now going strong, setting fire to hotel lobbies.

  "It was very kind of you, of course." I could be as cool as he. "Though I'm still not quite sure why you are so eager to clue me into late twentieth century a.d. television programming without first providing me with a satellite dish for Sky Channel viewing, the sine qua non of ultimate viewing pleasure, not that I am complaining."

  "The dish won't work back here. But we've wired you into our classic broadcasting menu. You get NBC, natch, CBS, ABC and CNN "

  Suddenly, Chet frowned. He pointed to the set. "You were to get a special GE set, and this is a Sony. . . . Funny. Well, where was I.> Visitors. Yes. You see, I'm on the lookout for a certain . . . hacker.>" He looked to see if I was at sea or not.

  Since I was at sea, I asked him what a hacker was or is. Chet then reminded me of what Saint had told me in the dream, which proves that Saint and Chet are working together to restore the Christian message through me. Naturally, I cannot rule out that they are not who they seem to be but agents of Satan.

  "We still don't know who the Hacker is but our resident genius. Dr. Cuder, at General Electric—^NBC is a subsidiary of GE—came up with a Super Sam Intercept which protects this tape from even the most brilliant hacker or cyberpunk."

  "But not visitors, I see."

  "If anybody from my time frame should drop in on you, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a buzz on the Z Channel. I'll show you how. If I'm out, speak after you hear the electronic blip and I'll get the message."

  Chet lit a cigarette. There was smoke but I could not smell it. Then he showed me what to push to get the Z

  Channel, as well as the intercom phone to NBC and Chet's direct line. Although I only understood half of what he was saying, I let him go on. Eventually, things tend to make sense. After all, I've been in religion a long time now.

  "Your gospel is all-important to Christianity. On the other hand, creative programming is all-important to General Electric and its subsidiary, NBC. Now we are getting ready for a big technical breakthrough in software. Any day now we'll be able to get a camera crew back here, and when we do we'll be able to tape all sorts of historical events live—as of then anyway. Which is where you come in."

  I chuckled, a noise that I do rather well. "Shouldn't I first get a lawyer?"

  Chet gave me a sick smile. I had struck pay dirt. "It's a bit soon to be talking deal. But here's the big plan. We're going to be the first network to go back to Golgotha, where we will shoot the actual Crucifixion, Resurrection, the whole ball of wax, livel Now, because viewer identification is the name of the game, that will mean lots of in-depth interviews not only with the various notables present but with your average man in the street. Naturally, I don't want to get your hopes up, but for anchorperson, you^re the front-runner. So that's one reason we've got an eye on you—Prime Time on the Big Time, Tim-san."

  "Then I assume, Chester . . ."

  "CaU me Chet."

  "I assume, Mr. Claypoole, that I'll be having other visits from the other networks and CNN, too—making me the same offer. Since this is what we in the church call a competitive situation."

  Chester whisded. "And they think you saints are all rubes!"

  "What's a rube.>"

  20 Gore Vidal

  "A holy man." Chester was smooth. But, of course, I don't trust him. "Yes, you may have other offers but I doubt it. For technological know-how, GE is ahead of everyone else in the field. Dr. Cutler is the greatest genius since Mr. Moto invented television."

  So the cat was out of the bag, and the deal was on the table. Should I accept the assignment as anchor for Live from Gol£iotha>. So much would depend, I now know, on the ancillary rights, specifically videocassette. I must get an unscrupulous lawyer on the case. I jollied Chet along. "Let me mull it over. Meanwhile, tell me this. Saint Paul was always aware of your presence—or at least that of other Chesters. So why didn't you—or they—bring him a TV set.>"

  "The state of the art was still very new when he was alive "

  "Sorry, Chet. That won't do. To you, we are both equally deftinct. But you are now able to pay me a call, which means you can drop in on him, too—a while back of course. So why not just press the old rewind.^ Why not—^what's the verb? Sony back to him, too.>"

  "Why do you torment me like this?" Che
t stubbed out his cigarette in the last of Eunice's red and white Corinthian salad plates. But there was no ash—like Chet, the cigarette is an illusion. "We're not supposed to tell you anything and here you are working out the most advanced technology there is ..."

  "T(9« came to mCy my son." I was warmly ecclesiastical. "Come. Make a complete confession. In my hands lies salvation."

  Chet groaned. "OK. There are these other tapes of your life. Lots and lots of them. I spliced into this one because it is hacker-proof I never got through to Saint Paul because by the time Dr. Cuder had worked out the technology, the Hacker had eliminated the Saint Paul tapes."

  "You must have had tapes of Our Lord as well."

  "They v^ere the first to go. But not before a foreign network got through to him—by remote, of course—and the interviewer nenrly talked Him into giving up all that Zionist crap of His and emigrating to Palm Springs where there's this reformed temple vAxh His name on it, along with a brand-new condo thrown in as a highly desirable extra."

  ^Jesus was temptcdV^

  "I'll say He was tempted! But, thank Moroni, there's still no way of transporting you folks fast forward to TV-land, while here, in your frame of time, there's no Palm Springs, hard to believe. But even so, if we had rieally convinced Him to retire in mid-messiahhood. He could have moved on to Cyprus, say, and the quiet life and then there would've been no Golgotha, no Saint Paul, no Christianity. Oh, it was a near miss, let me tell you."

  Suddenly a great light dawned in my head. I had always been puzzled by that story of Jesus in the Gethsemane Botanical Gardens where He had been tempted to give up the whole thing, or so He said later. Well, now we know just who and what tempted Him. It was not Satan but a TV anchor-person from an unscrupulous foreign network, which rules out Murdoch, I suppose. Suddenly a lot of things are beginning to fall into place. I need Chester, Chet . . .

  I picked up this scroll from my desk. "Thanks to the dream, I've been making some notes about my life with Saint Paul, and so on."

  "That's why I'm here."

  "I thought you were here to make me a firm offer to be the anchorperson during your exclusive Live from Golgotha program."

  "That, too. That's the sweetener. But it's the Gospel According to Saint Timothy that we're really after. Look at this."

  22 Gore Vidal

  Chet showed me a photograph of a hole in the ground with a lot of broken bits of marble and a ton of dirt off to one side.

  "What's that?"

  "That's your cathedral here in Thessalonika, as of now. My now, that is. Archaeologists have been digging it up for several years and they've just detected—^with sonar— z room beneath the high altar."

  I nodded. "We keep our cleaning equipment there. Mops, brooms, buckets—and a couple of tombs, of course."

  "At the moment, there's no particular hurry because they've run out of money for the digging. So there's plenty of time for you to write your book and plant it. Your time, that is, is our time." He hummed.

  "I am to plant the . . ."

  "... manuscript of the life of Saint Paul and of Jesus, too, of course, as told to Timothy. It would be the discovery of the millennium! I see an initial print-run of King-size millions while the first-serial rights alone ..."

  "What good will this do me back here.> Or the church.^" I remembered to add.

  "You will save Christianity. What greater good is there? I say that as a Mormon who, Moroni forgive me, smokes. Yours will be the only version the future will ever know—of how Jesus is the one child of the Sun . . . uh. One God."

  Chet crossed to the TV. He switched to the Z Channel. "This is where I catch the last train to Westport." He gave me a wink. But there was no train to be seen on the TV, only a paper-walled room where a girl in a kimono was ceremonially pouring cups of tea.

  "Why," I asked, "don't you just take the manuscript back with you on your next visit?"

  "We can't take anything from here because we're not

  really real back here. Let's say we're A.C. and you're D.C. We can get stuff to you on rewind but not on fast forward. Feel." Chet held out his arm. I grabbed him by the wrist—^just air, like Saint in the dream.

  "You see.> I'm what they call a hologram. A sort of three-dimensional picture of myself. Dr. Cutler hasn't figured out how to get a person back here without fatally scrambling the molecules. TV sets are less complicated. Bye now." Chet faded into the set. Then as the girl offered him a cup of tea, a commercial took their place.

  I have a hunch that Jesus may have got it right the first time around, back in the Gethsemane Botanical Gardens, when He said that all these electronic visions—^whether cable or network—are equally the work of the Devil.

  Now I must return to the Gospel According to Saint Timothy as told to . . . why did I just write "as told to" when I am telling or, rather, writing the story as I recall iti* I must remain in full control of myself on this tape. Kibitzers are everywhere.

  Moses" they would be hitting him over the head with sticks. They never did buy the bad news that the late Jesus ben Nazareth, known to us Greeks as the King or Christ, was really tlie messiah that the Jews have been hanging around all these years waiting for.

  "The point is," Saint would say when I'd be bandaging him up after one of his sessions with his former co-religionists, "you never know when or where you'll make a convert." Yet when Saint started out, he and James agreed that they would more or less diwy up the mission. Saint would look after the foreskin set while James, with some help from Peter the Rock-thick, would sell the good news about Judgment Day to the Jews. Then Peter moved on to Rome where he was a great success socially; he was even something of a favorite of the emperor Nero, who thought Peter, and I quote the emperor direcdy, "the ftmniest act ever booked into the Palatine."

  Unfortunately, Saint could never mind his own business, which was converting the Gentiles to Christianity. He couldn't pass a synagogue without wanting to go in and spread the good news that the messiah had actually entered Jerusalem a few years earlier, on ass-back, where he was prompdy denounced by the Jews as a self-hating Jew and by the Romans as a Zionist terrorist. He was then tacked up on a cross, with some help from the old-guard rabbis, as Saint liked to remind his onetime co-religionists. Then, on the third day, postmortem, Jesus came back to life and waddled out of the tomb where a number of His personal media staff—secretaries, gofers and so on—saw Him, thus convincing them that He really was the messiah and that the Day of Judgment and the kingdom of God and so on would take place just as soon as He returned from a few days with His Father, God, in Heaven. Later, we decided He must have

  26 Gore Vidal

  meant He'd be back during the present generation. We are still twisting in the breeze, on tenterhooks.

  Naturally I preach all of this every Sunday in my cathedral, which needs a new roof, but as our proconsul here in Macedonia says, "Why spend the money when the messiah's coming any minute now and this whole wonderful world of ours gets folded up like a rug?" He's a card, the proconsul.

  In a tugboat we crossed from northern Asia Minor to Macedonia because Saint had seen in a dream this gorgeous blond lout—his type, like me—^waving at him from across the water, saying, "You come on over to Macedonia now and us'n'll show you a real good time."

  Litde did I dream then that I'd end up as the bishop of these boondocks. "Hicks" does not begin to describe our locals. Of course they're sexy, but then so are the Romans, and if I had my druthers I'd settle for your average humble waterfront chapel at New Ostia-by-the-Sea. But I was doomed, as Saint would say, to greatness.

  Along with a lot of sheep, shepherds and call girls, we landed at Philippi, a dismal port frill of blonds who never bathe.

  When Saint asked a passerby where the local synagogue was, Silas, bless him, said, "If you go anywhere near a synagogue, I'll personally help them break your fticking neck."

  Saint whined a bit about "O ye of little faith," but as we hadn't got over our last beating, he agreed that we—^
the O ye, anyway—should probably take a breather, what with Silas's hernia and all.

  We rented a room in a tavern just back of the same small-town forum that you see everywhere in the world these days, since every place now looks like every other place, which, in turn, looks just like Rome, run-up on the cheap. But then that's the whole point to the Roman empire: stan-

  dardization, and even though local groups, like the Croats or Kurds, complain about losing their identity, it's certainly convenient for the rest of us knowing that no matter where you are you'll find a forum and an amphitheater and a law court and pizza with fish sauce. Also, everything is made of sumptuous marble except, of course, with today's inflation, no one can afford marble so even our governor's palace is made of mud mixed with marble dust. Appearances are everything for the empire just as they are for the church.

  We were always on the road because the one thing that Saint could not live without was a live audience. He didn't care what he ate or drank or wore. In fact, when he started to smell too high, Silas and I would get him a new tunic and bum the old one. He never noticed. The crowds, that's all he cared about.

  As a Greek boy, I was spodessly clean. In fact, the second I hit town, any town, I was off to the baths not only for fun and frolic but for oil and pumice stone, too. Naturally, next to godliness, Saint hated cleanliness—in laypersons, that is. For Saint there was only the One God who had sent His only Son to be crucified and resurrected and then while the rest of us hang around waiting for the end of the world, now slightiy overdue according to Saint's original timetable, those who had been associates of Our Lord would teach the others how to live in a state of purity—no sex mosdy—until He comes back and everyone has to appear in court where the good are routed up to Heaven and the rest down to Hell, and so on. It's really and truly a wonderful religion, cash-flow-wise, and I say this now from the heart.