by James Morrow
In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
Her gills throbbed, wringing oxygen from the bay. Endless gallons, but they couldn’t dilute her acid tears or wash away her guilt. Two decades jacketed in flesh, during which time she hadn’t done the vast damaged planet one atom of good.
She touched bottom and quickly buried the urn. The Adventures of Huckleberry Katz.
In the beginning was the Word, but now God’s vocabulary was growing. The first Word was an English noun, savior, but the second would be a French verb, savoir, to know: at long last, Julie, Howard used to tell her, we can know things. Three more years of college, and then she’d buy a word processor (no, Word processor) and publish her covenant of uncertainty, declare her kingdom of impermanence, topple the empire of nostalgia—teach the truth of the heart. The heart was a pump? Yes, true enough, provided one meant: at the present moment in history, pump is the best metaphor we have for what a heart is.
She tamped down the grave with her foot, raising dust devils of sand.
And the kidney was a filter. Earth orbited the sun. Microbes caused disease. Yes! The time of her ministry was at hand. She would take neither the high road nor the low, but a byway of her own devising; she would beam her message onto every television screen in creation, etch it onto every phonograph record, smear it across every printed page. In the beginning was the Word, and in the end there would be a million words, ten million words, a hundred million words, all authored by the only begotten daughter of God herself.
PART TWO
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Atlantic City Messiah
CHAPTER 6
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Bix Constantine—morose, fat, and frank—had always seen the world as it was and not as people wished it would be.
While still a preschooler, he pondered the ways children’s books depicted the relationship between humans and farm animals, soon sensing the disparity between these cheery visions and the proteinaceous facts appearing nightly on his plate. Shortly after he started first grade, Bix’s mother told him dew-drops were elf tears, and he told her she was full of dog-doo. That evening his father spanked him, and Bix always suspected his real crime was not his surliness but his refusal to love a lie.
With adolescence his vision enlarged. God? Santa Claus for grownups. Love? A euphemism for resignation. Marriage? The first symptom of death.
On the morning of July 13, 1996, Bix Constantine discovered something even worse than walking to work through the dense sleaze of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk: doing so knowing you’re about to be fired. Nobody knew why the Midnight Moon was losing the great supermarket-tabloid race. Not Bix, not his staff, not Tony Biacco, the former Mafia chieftain who owned the paper. “Folks, we’re going to have to pull the plug,” Tony had been saying at least once a week for the past two years. Plug-pulling was a familiar motif around the Midnight Moon, COMA WIFE WAKES AFTER HUBBY PULLS PLUG. ALSO, MANIAC STALKS COMA WARD PULLING PLUGS. AND “DON’T PULL MY PLUG!” COMA GIRL TELLS MOM THROUGH PSYCHIC.
Bix ambled past the Tropicana and bought a cup of coffee from a vendor outside the Golden Nugget, its threshold pillared and glittery like a fundamentalist’s heaven. Tonight: Neil Sedaka, screamed the billboards. Next Week: Vic Damone and Diahann Carroll. Who could possibly care?
When he was ten, his father had dragged him to a celebration here. The Casino Gaming Referendum had just passed, and the Boardwalk was overrun by chorus girls and brass bands. Clowns bustled up and down the piers, giving out balloons. “It’s not going to succeed,” little Bix had told his father. “The mob will move in and ruin it,” he’d elaborated. His father had scowled. “The mob moves in and ruins everything. Don’t you ever read, Dad?”
Slurping Styrofoam-flavored coffee, Bix listed onto Sovereign Avenue. A derelict was piled up at the Arctic intersection, shrouded in wine vapors. Graffiti coated the city. The stray dogs had it on their flanks.
Why was the Moon dying? Weren’t its extraterrestrials every bit as perverted as the World Bugle’s, its abominable snowmen as randy as the National Comet’s? Had not Bix’s surrealistic surgical procedures, pregnant great-grandmothers, Siamese quadruplets, and celebrities’ ghosts set new standards for the entire industry? Yes, yes, yes, and yes—and yet the stark fact remained that Tony had arranged an emergency lunch for the entire staff, a perfect occasion to solicit their resignations.
Arriving at 1475 Arctic Avenue, he approached the open elevator shaft—the car lay inert and broken at the bottom like a sunken ship—and tossed his coffee cup into the square chasm. Hauling his bulk up the moldering staircase, he disembarked on the third floor, where Madge Bronston, the paper’s chronically smiling receptionist, told him “a pigheaded young woman” had just invaded his office.
“I think she’s here about a job,” Madge explained.
“Good. I could use one.”
“I tried kicking her out, believe me. A stubborn gal.”
As Bix opened his monogrammed door, his visitor—chunky, caramel skin, early twenties—spun away from his mounted collection of UFO photos, flashing him a grin of considerable sensuality. “I’ve always wanted to visit Pluto,” she said in a South Jersey accent. “Mars sounds dull, Saturn’s a lot of gas, but Pluto…” Her hand came toward him like a fluttering bird, and without meaning to he reached out and captured it. “I’m Julie Katz. You must be Mr. Constantine.”
“Uh-huh.”
Her white sundress dazzled him, and her lips were of the succulent sort that inspired Muslims to veil their women. Glancing higher, Bix encountered a cute upturned nose, turquoise eyes, and a crop of unruly black hair.
So this was how it began: the pangs of libido, and then would come the first date, the courtship, the disingenuous nuptial vows, the snot-clogged children, the reciprocal illusion of permanence, the extramarital affairs (most of them his, but she would doubtless get in a few retaliatory screws), and, inevitably, the divorce. “I’m afraid this operation’s headed for the sewer, Miss Katz.” Bix strode to his King Coffee machine, which by some miracle Madge had remembered to turn on, and filled his inscribed mug: I have come to the conclusion that one can be of no use to another person—Paul Cezanne. “There’s no job here for you.”
The intruder tapped a flying saucer with her long, miter-shaped fingernail. “You a believer?”
“The door’s over this way, young lady.”
“Tell me if you’re a believer. Do UFOs exist?”
He swallowed coffee, quite possibly the only decent thing in the world. “Ten thousand encounters to date, and still nobody’s walked away with a single alien cootie or paper clip. You don’t want to work for us. We’re the most heavily censored paper this side of Pravda.” True enough, Bix thought. Even more than Soviet journalism, irrationality and mawkishness had to follow a party line. The man who died on the operating table and was subsequently revived could speak only of light and angels, and if it were gray or frightening you wouldn’t be reading about it in the checkout line. “Time to go.”
She marched forward and presented him with a manila envelope. Coarse white tissue covered her right palm like a wad of chewing gum. “Read this.”
“I’m a busy man.”
“My column—the preamble, actually. I can’t give advice till I’ve stated my principles.”
“We have an advice column.”
“Mine’ll be different—a kind of covenant. I want to rescue the masses from nostalgia, and yours is one of the few papers they read.”
“Not enough masses.”
“I could always take my message to Scientific American or The Skeptical Inquirer, but why preach to the converted?” That lascivious smile again. “My brother Jesus made a big mistake. He didn’t leave any writings behind.”
“Your brother who?”
“Jesus Christ. Half brother, technically.”
“Jesus’ sister, eh?” Bix drained h
is coffee. Jesus’ sister: that, at least, was a new one. “On Mary’s side?”
“God’s.” She gave his shoulder a patronizing squeeze. “It’s hard to accept. I barely do myself.”
Bix had spent most of his adult life dealing with self-appointed saints and saviors. With faith healers, fortune tellers, crystal gazers, spirit channelers. With people who took their vacations on Venus and their sabbaticals on the astral plane. Now came a woman with the grandest claim of all, yet she bore about as much resemblance to the average visionary as an interim report did to an orgasm.
He said, “Maybe if you changed my coffee into gin…”
“You’re an agnostic, Mr. Constantine?”
“Used to be.” Bix refilled his mug. “Then one day—you want to hear about it?”
“My favorite subject.”
“One day I picked up my cousin’s new baby and realized how at any moment this pathetic, innocent creature might die in a car crash or get leukemia, and in that moment of revelation, my Road to Damascus, I went the whole way to atheism.”
Of all things: she laughed. A spontaneous display of amused assent. “Hey, if I weren’t divine,” she said, “I’d probably be an atheist too.” In a gesture he found both erotic and endearing, Julie Katz wrapped her hands around his coffee mug and, leaving it in his grasp, lifted the rim to her abundant lips and sipped. “It’s certainly the more logical choice.”
I’m in love, Bix thought. He opened the manila envelope and lifted out a one-page letter stapled to a black-and-white photo of its author.
Dear Moon Readers:
God exists! Oh, yes! I have proof! Imagine!
“What proof?” you ask. Picture a female reproductive cell, rocketing through time and space from the regions beyond reality, passing through the walls of a crystalline womb, and coming to rest in a Jewish celibate’s sperm donation. Thus did I enter the world. Yes: I am she. God’s daughter. Water-breather, kin to Jesus, confessor to Satan, confidant of fish and fireflies. Proof!
Now: the bad news. Like all deities, I am a product of my era. I live in my own time, in this case the bewildering and uncertain twentieth century. Sorry. I wish I could comfort you with pretty promises of healing and immortality. I cannot. But God exists! Think of it!
Are you in pain? I understand. Does death frighten you? Tell me about it. Has your marriage or career brought disappointments you never anticipated? You are not alone. I look forward to receiving your cards and letters, along with whatever mementos you feel might help me to comprehend your suffering. Together we shall topple the empire of nostalgia!
Love,
Sheila, Daughter of God
“Well? What do you think?”
What did Bix think? He thought Julie Katz had dug up the basement of the Moon building and found a chest of Spanish doubloons. This wasn’t ESP or the Loch Ness monster or the boy who filled the bathtub with piranha thinking them goldfish until they ate Gramps—this was genuine lunacy, this was playing to win. The ailing tabloid would either rise on Julie Katz’s dementia or she would bury it forever.
“We don’t need this bit about nostalgia,” he said.
“Yes we do. Humanity must stop living in the past.”
“Why’d you sign it ‘Sheila’?”
“I require anonymity. I’m expected to have a life.”
“This put-down of healing and immortality should go. Our readers are into those things.”
“The Age of Miracles is over.”
“The Age of Reason is also over. This is the Age of Nonsense. We have a policy.”
“I don’t care about your stupid policy.”
“Hey, honey, do you want an editor or not?”
“Do you want a column or not?” She pushed back her hair, uncovering a thin, S-shaped scar. “I imagine the World Bugle would be interested.”
“Look, it doesn’t really matter what I think. Mr. Biacco has final say on any new feature.”
Predictably, she declined his request for her phone number, promising instead to call on Tuesday. His eyes remained rooted on her as she brushed past Madge Bronston and started down the hall, and seconds later he was bent over the Moon’s persnickety Xerox machine, rapidly reproducing her letter. That lush mouth, that luxurious hair. Why were the mad so singularly sensual?
Tony kicked off the lunch meeting exactly as Bix knew he would, noting that “a corpse’s corpuscles have better circulation than we do.” But today he went further. The time, Tony asserted, had truly, finally, irrevocably come to pull the plug.
“Let’s try this first.” Bix opened his briefcase. Within a minute each rat aboard the sinking ship called Midnight Moon was reading a copy of Julie Katz’s letter.
“A schizophrenic, right?” concluded Patty Roth, the circulation director.
“Hard to say,” said Bix.
“A paranoid schizophrenic, sounds like.”
“Crazy or not, I say give her a chance.” He had to see her again, Bix realized. Had to. “Look at it this way. The Bugle’s got that happy fascist Orton March and his outrageous editorials, the Comet seems to know exactly which movie stars’ penises people want to read about, but the Moon and only the Moon will have the living, breathing words of God’s other child.”
“Okay, okay, but she’s not up to speed yet,” said Tony. “I assume you’ll cut this crap about our bewildering century?”
“That was my first instinct. I’m beginning to think it gives her a certain authenticity.”
“It’s not us. It’s not the Moon.” Tony combed his graying hair with his withered fingers. “I want her to reveal what heaven’s like, okay, Bix? Then have her try a few low-key predictions.”
“Maybe she should help people explore their past lives,” said Patty.
“And give tips for winning the lottery,” said Tony.
“I doubt she’ll go for it,” said Bix.
“Hey, now that the concept’s nailed down, why do we need this girl at all?” asked Mike Alonzo, the paper’s science editor (DEAD ASTRONAUTS BUILD CITY ON VENUS). “Why not just have Kendra McCandless write it?”
Kendra’s very name made Bix grimace. Kendra McCandless, the paper’s freelance astrologer, astral tripper, ecstasy monger, and goofball. “Nah, with Kendra all you get’s a lot of secrets-of-the-universe stuff. Transcendence as usual. With Julie Katz you get…I don’t know. Something else.”
“The divine spark?” sneered Mike.
“She’s ambiguous. Delphic. It might just work.”
“We can offer three hundred per column,” said Tony. “You think she’ll sign for that?”
“Don’t know.”
“Title. We need a title.”
“Hadn’t thought about it. ‘Dear Sheila’?”
“Doesn’t goose me. Paul?”
“‘Letters to Sheila’?” suggested Paul Quattrone, the paper’s financial reporter (TOP PSYCHICS PREDICT MARKET UPTURN).
“‘Sheila’s Corner’?” offered Sally Ormsby, the film critic (NEW ELVIS FLICK RECOVERED FROM UFO CRASH).
“‘Notes from the Netherworld’?” ventured Lou Pincus, the sports editor (DEVIL CULT USES HUMAN HEAD FOR HOCKEY PUCK).
“‘Advice from the Afterlife’?” hazarded Vicki Maldonado, whose beat was burned children and the Bermuda Triangle.
“Hold on,” said Tony. “This is hardball, people. This is Jesus Christ’s sister. We’ll be printing the stuff everybody wants to know.”
“Brainstorm, Tony?” asked Patty.
“Forty days and forty nights.”
“Give it to us.”
“The girl’s column will be called—now get this—‘Heaven Help You.’”
Heaven Help You
DEAR SHEILA: My brother-in-law is writing this letter for me, because three weeks ago I was in a terrible car accident and broke my neck. Now I’m one of those quadriplegics, which makes me of positively no use to my wife or anybody else. You said to send a memento, so I’m enclosing a snapshot of me windsurfing on Cape Cod last summer.
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Here’s my question, Sheila. What’s the very best way for me to kill myself?—BROKEN IN MASSACHUSETTS
DEAR BROKEN: In pressing your photograph to my heart, I have come to believe your future is much brighter than you imagine. You are definitely among the seventy percent of quads who can have normal genital intercourse. Beyond this inspiring fact, science and technology offer many resources for individuals in your situation: reading machines, robot appliances, computerized typewriters, electric wheelchairs.
If you ultimately decide suicide is your only option, I urge you to do it right, as a bungled attempt can be both painful and a real mess for your survivors to clean up. Try contacting the National Hemlock Society, which helps the terminally ill out of the world. But please don’t kill yourself, Broken. Staying alive is the best revenge.
DEAR SHEILA: Accompanying this letter is a peanut-butter jar filled with our daughter’s tears. Meggie is fourteen, sleeps poorly, and won’t get out of bed, not to mention her bad grades, almost no appetite, and usually she can’t stop crying. Is this growing pains or what?—WORRIED, MISSISSIPPI
DEAR WORRIED: I have drunk your daughter’s tears, and a single diagnosis keeps ringing through my head. I believe Meggie suffers from clinical depression, which actually strikes children as often as it does adults.
What to do? Psychotherapy is one route. Get Meggie to confront her unconscious demons, and there’s a chance her symptoms will vanish.
If Meggie were my child, I would take her to a hospital specializing in affective disorders. The doctor will probably prescribe amitriptyline or some other antidepressant. With the help of love and pharmaceutical intervention, your daughter has a good shot at recovery.
DEAR SHEILA: If anybody thinks they’ve got problems, I’d like to mention my six no-good children, also my husband Jack (not his actual name), who hits me though not all the time, normally by punching, and with his feet, and to prove it my back and worse places have got these bruises, and if you think he’s any sort of father to these kids you’re dead wrong, and I never get a minute’s peace, besides which he’s always drunk and lately he’s been using his belt. I do love him, though.
