Book of Jim: Agnostic Parables and Dick Jokes From Lucifer's Paradise

by Adam Spielman

  “I thought so too. But you can’t force anybody to anything. There is always a choice.”

  This was all too much for Jim. For not only was Hitler off the hook, but he got to be the guy that killed Hitler. When the hipsters set them down at the edge of the green, Jim took out his putter and pointed it at the Fuhrer.

  “I don’t buy it,” he said. “And I don’t care what the angels say. Adolf Hitler was an asshole.” Then he three-putted for bogey.

  “Just go to the Mortality Plaza,” Hitler said. “It’s on Corporeal Avenue, right downtown. That’s where they keep the kill counts and the death records. They will tell you the same thing.”

  Hitler rattled home his putt. Jim took out the scorecard and wrote the scores. Around his six he drew a box. He circled Hitler’s three.

  “Well,” Jim said, “at least an eagle can still put you six under.”

  Hitler slapped his shoulder. “Ha! A capital joke!”

  2

  The Mortality Plaza was huge. A building map in the lobby showed floors assigned to Haunting Holidays, Funeral Reenactments, Postmortem Vertigo and Trauma. Kill Counts and Death Stats was on the twenty-seventh floor.

  And the twenty-seventh floor was packed tight with stacks of servers and processers. In the middle of the hum there was a woman at a desk. She made the clacking at a keyboard and her smile was Midwestern plaster.

  “Kill Counts and Death Statistics,” she said. “What can I do ya for?”

  “Yeah,” Jim said. “So, I was just golfing with Hitler, and he said I should come check this place out. He said he never killed anybody.”

  “Well now that just won’t do, will it. Why don’t you just take a seat right there and we’ll sort this all out for ya. Does this Hitler have a full name?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For example, maybe Hitler Stevens, or Hitler Robinson?”

  “Adolf. Adolf Hitler. You don’t know who Hitler is?”

  And the woman made the clacking in the hum of the servers and processers.

  “There he is. Well look at that. Adolf Hitler has one kill, and it’s Adolf Hitler. What a coincidence.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Our records are absolute and infallible. Look there, it even says so on my screen. Absolute and infallible.”

  “But he killed millions of people.”

  “Oh, I think I’d remember a seven figure kill count. Imagine that, seven figures. You’d have to wake up pretty early in the morning.”

  “Auschwitz. Look up Auschwitz.”

  And the woman made the clacking in the hum of the servers and processers.

  “Oh, Nazi Deathcamp. That sounds exotic. You’re certainly at the right place. I don’t see any mention of an Adolf Hitler though. Let’s see, I have a Rudolph Hoess down for sixteen thousand and forty-two. Pretty impressive. And here’s a Willhelm Boger, he’s got a few thousand. There’s an Oswald Kaduk with eight hundred and five. I don’t see any millionaires.”

  “D-Day? The Russian front?”

  And the woman made the clacking in the hum of the servers and processers.

  “The highest kill count I have for D-Day is twelve hundred even. A man named Sam Anderson.”

  “Sam Anderson.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Some guy named Sam Anderson killed more people than Hitler.”

  “A bunch more.”

  “That’s retarded.”

  “Watch your language, mister. I don’t know what you have against this Hitler person, but it’s no reason to come down on the margins of society.”

  “Me?! But that’s what he did! Like, big time.”

  “If you say so.”

  And Jim made the guffaw in the hum of the servers and processers. For his knowledge of high school history was depleted, and Hitler was still off the hook. He said to the woman with the plaster smile,

  “Alright, so if Hitler’s in the clear, and his henchmen aren’t millionaires, all those kills had to go somewhere. So who’s got them? Who killed the most people?”

  She made the clacking. “Thomas Ferebee,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Says here he dropped a bomb on Japan. Two hundred eighty-seven thousand, five hundred and ninety-eight kills. That’s a doozy.”

  “The pilot? They put that on the pilot?”

  “Says here he was a bombardier.”

  “What about the guys that made the bomb? The inventor, the manufacturer? What about Congress and the President, the goddamn Kamikazes that started it?”

  “Oh, we don’t keep track of assists anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it turns out, what with all the going-on that goes about – ya know, the talking and the pushing – every kill had about a bazillion assists. Fried our computers to a crisp. We have a strict Kill/No-kill policy now. No moochers.”

  Jim made the guffaw. He thought, I’m gonna kill Humphrey Bogart. He said,

  “I don’t suppose that computer can tell me where Plato is.”

  “The philosopher?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ll have to go down to the Directory. It’s about three blocks from here. There’s a big rolodex on the roof, you can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Have a good one.”

  3

  Plato stood high on a cloud above the valley. In the valley there were pines and white rocks and a river, and there was a patch of wild flowers by the river and a big-horned antelope licked salt from the bank. Plato contemplated the valley from the cloud. He wrote some words in his notebook, and then a hawk came out of the sky.

  Jim cleared his throat. He did not approach the philosopher.

  Plato said, “What do you think? Is it Valley?”

  Jim said, “Yeah, it looks good. I like the hawk.”

  “Good, bad – who are we to judge? Is it Valley, or is it not Valley?”

  “It definitely looks like a valley.”

  “Mmmmm. But what makes a valley look like a valley?”

  So Jim looked at the valley. He said, “The mountains. The trees. The river.”

  “So a valley is the sum of these parts?”

  “Sure.”

  “And without mountains there can be no valley?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What, then, makes a mountain look like a mountain?”

  He could pop this balloon by himself, Jim thought. He said, “Listen, the last time me and philosophy got together it didn’t end so well. I’m done with it. My essence can go to hell. The reason I’m here, it’s just been kind of a weird day, and I need this one thing from you. I know it’s not your problem, but it’s just one question. Please.”

  Plato nodded. “Mmmm. You are here because Hitler is off the hook.”

  “Uh, yeah. Wow. How did you know?”

  “It happens a lot.” Plato wrote some more words in his notebook, and salmon began to jump against the current of the river and a brown bear came out of the trees. “For some reason, the newly dead are perfectly happy until they find out that Hitler is happy too.”

  “Well?”

  “Do you see that city, far off and floating in the clouds? That is my city, and it is the perfect form of the city. Its walls are graceful, its roads are wide and paved, its justice is noble. It is my masterpiece. Go there, and you will find your answer.”

  “How do I get there?”

  Then Plato disrobed and Jim beheld the form of the philosopher. He was lean and wizened from nub to skull, but he had no genitalia. Instead, a French horn dangled between his legs. Before Jim could look away, the French horn flexed and blew out a solitary note.

  Jim blinked. Plato neither moved nor spoke. The hawk screeched. Plato sucked in a breath and with a great effort he produced the cadences of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and a rainbow climbed out of the French horn and traversed the sky. It settled at the gates of the perfect city that floated far off in the clouds.

  “Just follow the ra
inbow,” Plato said.

  Jim no longer trusted philosophy, and he had his doubts about the French horn and the rainbow, but he needed an answer to the Hitler question. Therefore he stepped off the cloud and onto rainbow.

  And he fell right through it. The ground of the valley in the shadow of Plato rushed up and kicked him in the head.

  4

  “Do you see your error now?” said Plato. For he stood beside Jim in the shadows of the valley.

  “Error?” Jim rubbed the temples of his head with the palms of his hands. “The only error I made was coming here. I shoulda just said fuck it.”

  “Why did you fall?”

  “I fell because you’re a dick. You’re all a bunch of fucking dicks.”

  “Why did you fall?”

  “I just want to know why Hitler’s off the hook, man. It’s a fair question.”

  “Why did you fall?”

  “Because Cleopatra’s a fat whore, Bogart’s a goddamn cheat, and Hitler plays golf and tells jokes and is generally a pretty nice guy.”

  “Mmmmm.” Plato shook his French horn and a few tired notes dribbled out. “I have an alternate theory.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “You tried to enter an imaginary city by walking on the rainbow that I blew out of my cock. That’s why you fell.”

  Jim waited for more, but there was no more.

  “Get it?” Plato said.

  “No, Plato, I don’t get it.”

  “Mmmmm.” Plato chewed the air. “Well, Hitler gets it. I suppose that’s the important thing,”

  And Plato walked out from the shadows in the valley of his shadow. The sun made the glinting upon his horn.

  VIII

  1

  Jim became depressed. For though he was Jim in his heart, and Jim in his head, and Jim in his balls, he had no direction. He slept for seven years.

  He wondered if a man could nap through eternity. He wondered if sadness was the jinx of free will, or the weight of an implacable environment. He wondered if his wondering was killing paradise.

  One day, in the seventh year of sadness and napping, Jim received a text from Cherry. These are the texts that were exchanged between Jim and Cherry in the seventh year of sadness and napping:

  Happy hundo Jim! ;)

  hundo?

  A hundred years! Lets party!

  that was a hundred years?

  The centennial man. So what’s it gonna be? I say we get a bucket full of coke and duck till we’re insane.

  *fuck

  i don’t think i’m up for it

  I’ll bring some more girls.

  na u go ahead I’m tired

  What’s up with you lately?

  just taking a break

  I know what you need.

  don’t

  Too late! :P

  dammit

  I know how you can thank me.

  i don’t even know what u did

  I want you to nuke my pussy.

  2

  The door to Jim’s bedroom banged open. He sat up and blinked away the fuzz of years. A wild man with shining eyes grabbed him by the ankles and pulled him off the bed. His head bounced on the floor.

  “Art thou Jim?” the wild man said.

  Jim blinked away the fuzz of the bounce. “I art,” he said.

  The wild man picked up the bed and threw it out the window. Glass shattered. The frame of the bed clattered on the walk below. The mattress hung in the window, for it was impaled by a shard of glass.

  “Then I am Marco Polo.” He kicked over the night stand. “And you are fortunate in the company you keep. I am neither cheap nor easily persuaded.”

  With a fist he made three neat holes in the wall. Then he unzipped his trousers and began to piss in the corner. He spoke over his shoulder while he pissed.

  “You have three minutes to dress yourself. In that time you will also pack a single bag. The bag may not weigh more than a stone, and it ought to contain clothing for all seasons and terrain.”

  “I’m not packing a bag,” Jim said. “Did Cherry send you? Tell her she owes me a bed. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care about the years. I just need to sleep for a while.”

  “Two minutes and forty-two seconds.” Marco shook and zipped and then he kicked another hole in the wall. He tore the light fixture from the ceiling and smashed it on the floor.

  “Please stop doing that,” Jim said.

  “Two minutes and fifteen seconds.” Marco pulled the flatscreen from the wall and cracked it over his knee. He threw the remains out the window, along with a lamp and a chair.

  “Alright,” Jim said. “I’m getting up. I’m up, alright? Just give me a second here. I’ll take a shower and get my shit together. Like, half an hour. I’ll go. I’m going. You hear me? Just let me get sorted, you psycho.”

  “Too late.” Marco grabbed Jim by the shoulders. “Look at this place. It’s untenable. I’ve scheduled it for demolition. One minute.”

  “You what?!”

  And Marco walked out the door. Jim struggled into a pair of jeans and stumbled after him.

  “What does that mean, demolition? You’re not serious. I like this house. What’s wrong with a house? People live in houses. Goddammit.”

  When he breached the front door the white wall of daylight staggered him. Marco pulled him out to the edge of the property. Then a tank rolled through the fence and onto the yard and Marco gave it a thumbs up. The tank fired a shell and the house exploded. The tank fired another shell and the house fell over. Jim thought the third shell was probably gratuitous.

  “This isn’t funny,” he said. “I was just taking some time off, man. Is it a crime to get sad once in a while? I had stuff in there.”

  The eyes of Marco shined. “Was it the stuff of dreams, Jim? The stuff of adventure? Did it smell like the dead salt of acrid seas or the sour sweat of the jungle? Was it a fist raised against winter and the hot blood of glory?”

  Jim swallowed. “Uh, no. It was, like, albums and stuff.”

  “Art thou yet a man?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sign this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Sign it.”

  Jim signed it.

  “It’s settled, then. We hoist sail at midday.”

  3

  So Jim sailed with Marco into the bleakness. The waters were calm and shrouded. Then they became choppy and the shroud began to lift and Jim beheld the dark wall of storm.

  “Is that where we’re going?” he said.

  Marco heaved the wheel of the ship. “To the mountain behind it.”

  “Can’t we go around?”

  “There is only one way through the storm. There is only one way up the mountain.”

  “What’s the point? We’re already dead.”

  “That’s why they call it the Stupid Fucking Mountain.” Marco steered the ship head on and into crush of the rising waves. The ship climbed and crashed and climbed again. “No man has a reason to climb it, yet all men must. And after the climbing, in spite of all sanguinity, you find that the top is just another rock.”

  “So what’s the point, man? What’s the difference between taking a nap and climbing a stupid fucking mountain?”

  “The Stupid Fucking Mountain.”

  They came upon the storm and the storm came upon them. Jim clung to a crossbeam. Marco commanded the helm. Waves and rains and winds of storm tossed the ship that moved through the bleakness.

  Then the waters were calm again. The crags of the base of the mountain rose out of the waters and climbed into the shroud of distance. Jim looked long at the shroud.

  “How tall is it?” he said.

  “It’s never been measured.” Marco dropped anchor and lowered the mainsail. He cut loose a lifeboat that splashed down in the waters. “And you wouldn’t be the first to try. Just remember to keep going up.”

  “I really don’t feel like climbing it.”

  “You must climb it.”

&
nbsp; “Yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna.”

  Marco gave Jim the thing that Jim had signed. “Read the last paragraph,” he said.

  So Jim read,

  The undersigned hereby agrees that, upon failure to reach the peak of the Stupid Fucking Mountain in full compliance with the rules stated above, all freedoms shall be forfeit for one year and one day, during which period the undersigned shall be placed into the custody of lechers and psychotics and sadists. The undersigned shall have experiences including, but not limited to: rape, torture, and mutilation.

  “You’re bluffing,” Jim said.

  The eyes of Marco shined. “Then call it,” he said.

  Jim stepped into the lifeboat.

  4

  So Jim climbed up the Stupid Fucking Mountain. It was also a big fucking mountain, and he climbed for many months. His shoes wore out and his feet became hard. His jeans and his T-shirt withered and his skin become rough. His hands became strong.

  He thought, Man this sucks.

  Then a sound from the bleakness came to him. He searched for it. He found a young man who sat in a shallow cave and played a haggard guitar. Blonde hair hid the edges of his face as he strummed with brutal sincerity.

  The young man looked up and moved the hair from his eyes. Jim knew his eyes, just as he knew his sound.

  “Hi,” Cobain said.

  “Hey,” Jim said. He stepped with caution, for he felt like a gazelle coming upon a lion. “I, uh, heard you playing.”

  Cobain ran his fingers over the haggard body of the guitar. “I never thought I’d play again,” he said. “Everything got so fucked up the first time around. But there’s something about this place. The bleakness. Like, this guitar, I hacked the wood for the body out of a tree with a sharp rock. The tuning pegs are hawk bones. The strings are guts. It’s the best guitar I ever played.”

  Jim sat down on a bare rock in the shallow cave. Cobain strummed his guitar. The cave reverberated the imperfections of the sound and the bleakness hid in the cracks of the mountain.

  “It’s raw,” Jim said.

  Cobain moved the hair from his eyes. “It’s strange. When you get everything you’ve got nothing. I had everything once, and then paradise was just everything all over again. It took somebody to come along and take it all away, and now I’ve got something again.” He played a single chord. “I got raw again.”