“Can I ask you something? I guess it’s kind of personal.”
“That’s alright.”
“Why did you kill yourself?”
A smile played between Cobain’s teeth. “It seemed important at the time,” he said. “And there was a lot of pain. The useless kind of pain, the kind that just sits in your head and makes you heavy and takes the color out of everything. It makes you ugly. I guess the worst part is being able to see how ugly you’ve gotten, and not being able to do anything about it. So I did something about it.” He turned a hawk-bone peg and the tone of the deepest gut-string fell. “I didn’t kill myself for any special reason. I killed myself because I wanted to die.”
Jim tried to think of something to say. He couldn’t. Then Cobain said,
“It was crazy to see it. I just expected darkness. Then I was standing there over my body, looking at the chunks of my brain mashed into the ceiling. Like, the mess never occurred to me. The pain was all cerebral. Metaphysical. Seeing your metaphysics splattered around the room, gushing out of the back of your head, it’s a pretty harsh trip.
“But what really fucked with me was when the angel popped up next to me. He said, I bet you’d have written a kick-ass song about that.”
“Did you?”
Cobain plucked a few notes. “It’s a little rough around the edges,” he said.
And he played a song.
5
The peak of the Stupid Fucking Mountain was just another rock. Jim kicked it down the side of the mountain and watched it roll. With the song of Cobain in his head he showed his balls to the bleakness, and his heart drummed four beats at a measure.
He pulled out his smart phone and texted to Cherry,
the nuke is hot
IX
1
Paradise lay flat and gray. Ashes fell from the mushroom cloud and made a quiet blanket on the ground.
Jim looked at his dick. “How many megatons was that?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t move,” Cherry said. Her breasts were soft and pink beneath the fallout. Her blasted pussy murmured queefs that stirred the ashes.
Jim thought, When she does move, she’ll leave an angel in those ashes. He kissed her on the forehead. Then he stood and stretched. He wanted a sandwich, but he doubted any sandwiches survived.
“Did we overdo it?” he said.
“Water,” Cherry said.
“I don’t see any water.”
“I’m so thirsty.”
Jim looked out over the flatness and the grayness. There was nothing, and he beheld it. Then a jagged light broke the sky and it ripped through the air like lightning. The atomic flakes shuddered in the waves of the ripping. A tremor swam through the ground.
“No more,” Cherry said.
“That wasn’t me.”
Then there was a warbling whoomf. A hole came into the world and the devil walked out of it. Jim thought for a moment that she had painted her face, but the black lines were mascara. She was crying.
2
“They are so cruel to me,” she said. “Why are they so cruel? What have I ever done but give them freedom and happiness? By what rights do they accuse me? I work so hard.”
Her voice quivered. Her hands shook. There was rage as well as sadness. Jim took two backward steps, for he was terrified of emotional women, and this one was the devil. He looked to Cherry, but Cherry was blasted and far away.
The devil walked at him. Jim thought that he’d finally gone and done it and that paradise was over. He thought he was about to feel some hell. Instead, she buried her face in his neck and wept.
“What am I going to do?” she said. “What can I do, Jim? The firmament is broken. There will be war. I hate the wars of men. It’s the blood, I can’t stand it.”
Jim held her close and said, “It’s okay.” Because sometimes it worked with other girls.
“I give and I give and I give and it’s never enough or maybe it’s too much I don’t know I just work so hard and now everybody’s going to hate me. They’re going to hate me all over again and all I ever did was give them everything they ever wanted and they won’t stop they’ll hate and kill until it’s all gone everything I’ve worked for.”
Jim stroked her hair and said, “Shhhhh.”
Another tremor swam through the ground and the jagged light flared.
Jim said, “Was it something I did?”
Lucy pulled her face from his neck. She set her eyes into his. She was beautiful and timeless and bleary. Her hand upon his cheek put warmth in his bones.
“Jim,” she said. “So reckless and innocent. It was the nuke. It ripped open the firmament.”
“I’m sorry.”
She kissed him. He kissed her back. It was a reflex. When it was over Lucy laughed at his shock. She wiped the mascara from her eyes.
“I’m quite the devil, aren’t I?”
“You’re a beautiful devil.”
“And you’re very sweet.”
“Did I really break paradise?”
“Paradise is yours to break.”
“Uhgghh,” Cherry said. “No more.”
The rebuke stabbed Lucy in the chest. She staggered. She took a breath. Then she closed her eyes and opened different ones.
“The slut is right,” she said. “I built these firmaments. I can fix this.”
Her transformation was swift. There was a whoomf and Jim stood before a professional woman in white heels, skirt, and blazer. And he saw that he was also professional, for his superfluities were draped in a suit and tie. He made a question mark with his face.
“You’re going to help me,” Lucy said.
“I still don’t understand what’s broken.”
“Your nuke made a crack in one of the firmaments. And now all the zealots of all the denominations of Christianity can see each other.”
This didn’t make enough sense to Jim. He furrowed the question mark.
“They needed to gloat, so I let them gloat,” Lucy said. “They were all very special until about ten minutes ago. They will not like this new equality.”
Jim looked at his tie. He flopped it around. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this. Can’t you just get Jesus to talk to them?”
“He retired.”
“What?! Why?”
“You’re about to find out.”
Lucy checked her complexion in a pocket mirror. Behind her the air shimmered and warbled and a hole came into the world. “And Jim, they know me as Gabriella. Say nothing about the devil.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “Wait. Which are you?”
Her smile was coy. They went through the hole.
3
The cloud was furnished with a round table and some chairs. In the chairs sat Martin Luther, Pope John XX, King Henry VIII, Saint Paul, and Joseph Smith. Gabriella claimed the final chair and Jim stood a safe distance behind.
“Thank you for coming,” Gabriella said. Her white blazer glimmered. “You are all aware of this by now, but I will say it plainly so there is no mistake. Everybody goes to heaven, and heaven is uniformly pleasant throughout.”
There was some silence. King Henry coughed but his heart was not in it. Martin Luther stood. He said,
“Let me be the first to welcome this news, and to praise God in His mercy and His wisdom. It brings joy to my heart that the entirety of the human spirit is given this plane to thrive upon. I have ever contended for a democratic eternity, tempered by the dominion of a merciful Master, and all Protestants glory in this new brotherhood.”
Luther retrieved a stack of papers from under his chair. He thudded them upon the table. The stack was three feet high.
“And I formally submit this petition, signed by one hundred millions, demanding that the Catholics be evicted immediately.”
“Hurrrr hurrrr hurrrr.” Pope John XX laughed. “One hundred millions. Hurrrr hurrrr hurrrr.”
“They are honest millions! I would take any one among them against
all your corrupted legions!”
Gabriella accepted the petition and she coaxed Luther back into his chair. She informed everyone that there would be no evictions.
“Everybody goes to heaven,” she said. “It was decided a long time ago that Earth is a hard place with an obstructed view, and it’s unfair to expect its inhabitants to get anything right. If entry were contingent upon rightness, the place would be empty. Every one of you is here because none of you are right.”
“Proverbs thirteen verse three,” said Saint Paul. “He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life; but he that openeth his lips shall have destruction.”
“Very good, Paul,” Gabriella said. She threw him a treat and he ate it. “It may have been a mistake to veil this relativism. It may be that the orders of angels have purchased your happiness with an awful hubris. But the firmaments were built and you were given your time to gloat. That time is finished. Now that you see one another you have two options: Join together and celebrate your mutual failings, or fight for nothing.”
“Hubris,” said the Pope. “Hurrrr hurrrr hurrrr.”
“This man cannot be retained in heaven!” Luther said. “King Henry, surely you have no love for these vicars.”
“Ay, these wonky twats been on the piss for yonks,” King Henry said. “All smart for God but they go arse over tit for an Irish penny. Never been a Pope that didn’t beggar the poor cunts that fagged around for him. Give England a sword if it’s a buggered Pope that stiffs you.”
“What?”
“It means ay. Fuck Rome.”
“Hurrrr hurrrr hurrrr.”
“Imposter!” The word came hot from the mouth of Joseph Smith. “There is no Pope John Twenty,” he said. He stood and brandished his tablet high. “It says right here on Wikipedia. There is a Pope John Nineteen, a Pope John Twenty-one, but due to a counting error there is no Pope John Twenty!”
“Ha!” King Henry pounded the table with his fist. “Counting Popes is a mug’s game, any road. Can’t build a cathedral with holy bell-ends. Fuck the Popes, count the shillings! Yaa haa harr!”
“ENOUGH!”
Gabriella unleashed her beauty and her fury. She diminished all.
“Are these trivialities not yet beneath you?” she said. “Even here, in the seats of paradise, will you squabble over small ideas and circumstantial prejudice? Existence itself stretches out before you in all of its eternal possibility, and this is where you sit, and these are your discussions. The world that sorrowed you is a drop in the ocean. In recompense I give you the ocean, and you fight over the drop.”
Jim thought, I can’t believe this is the same woman that welcomed me to paradise with a blowjob.
She said, “There is only one question that should concern you: Why must angels lie to keep the peace in heaven?”
The air shimmered and warbled. Devil or angel, she stepped through hole. And Jim stood forgotten on the cloud of war that he had nutted.
4
Then Joseph Smith pounced on the vicar and snatched off his hat. There was nothing underneath it.
“Har! Pope Fishbowl the First!” King Henry said.
Smith peered into the cavity of the papal cap. “There’s something in here,” he said. The papal cap echoed, something in here, in here, hurrrr.
Luther said, “If you pull another Testament out of that hat, I’ll see that you eat every doorbell in paradise.”
Smith reached into the papal cap. It required the full length of his arm. And when he withdrew his hand it held a single sheet of wide-ruled notebook paper. He read,
“By the time you read this, we will have won the war. Hurrrr hurrrr hurrrr.”
“It’s a rouse!” Luther jumped from his chair.
“Sabbing bastards!” King Henry drew his sword. He struck down the falsely numbered Pope.
Luther whistled and a silver osprey flew forth. “Black smoke!” he said. He leapt upon the bird. “Black smoke!” He flew.
Smith unchained his bicycle and pedaled away.
King Henry mounted his steed. He approached Jim with sword drawn and gave Jim a nod. “That’s a right stonker in those yankee breeches,” he said. “Wield it for England and I’ll grant you all the fadges north of Leeds.”
“What? I mean, no thanks,” Jim said.
So the king insulted him severally and galloped off. Only Saint Paul remained at the round table. He sat with his head bowed and his hands clasped before him. He said,
“Corinthians six, verse three: Know ye not that we shall judge the angels?”
“I don’t have any treats,” Jim said.
The saint let fall a single tear. And somewhere below, on the lower planes of paradise, Jim heard the first shots of the war.
5
This is Christopher Hitchens, reporting dead from the godless soup of eternity. Approximately ten hours ago – ten hours relative to what remains unclear – the atomic ejaculate of a Tennessee man cracked the Christian firmament and the myriad zealots of Christ are swarming. The nest has been stirred, comrades and friends, and they’ve taken to the clouds with Bible, fist, and tongue. The Bible, one supposes, is for bludgeoning; the fist is a reminder – a rather pedestrian one – of the glory of the ever-vacationing Jehovah; and the purpose of the Christian tongue remains scientifically mysterious. If it’s on your bucket list, as impossible as such a list may seem in this Cartesian infinity – but if you have one, and it includes proselytization or purification, catechism or communion, inculcation or inquisition, this is the place to be.
And I have the dubious honor of interviewing the man that frenzied these ridiculous sheep – these sadomasochistic and sexually inverted apes. Jim, thanks for dropping in.
Yeah. No problem.
You look pretty good for the epicenter of a holy war.
Thanks.
Do you have a god in the race, Jim?
Uh, no. I was never religious. My aunt was a Baptist. I wouldn’t bet on the Baptists.
To bet on any particular sect of this deranged cult, of this outdated menagerie of demagogues and faith-mongers – it’s a bet on a lame horse. A dead horse. A dead lame and plaintive horse. Only the religious would make it.
I guess they might. Or they do.
I have it here that you were even present for the diplomacies.
I was.
Well? Perhaps you could give us the upshot.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, man.
Give us the old college try.
Alright, well uh, the devil, or I mean not the devil. Gabriella. I don’t know, I think she’s transgender. She came to me in tears and said me and Cherry put a crack in the firmament. Evidently the angels put up this firmament so the different kinds of Christians couldn’t see each other. That’s part of their paradise, I guess, is knowing they’re the ones that got it right. Cherry’s the girl I’m seeing, by the way. As far as you can see a girl around here. Anyway, we had this epic fifteen-rounder and we blasted a hole in the firmament. Gabriella tells me I have to help her fix it. So we whoomf on over to the cloud where they’re doing the diplomacies and Gabriella gives these guys the bad news. You know, that paradise is for everybody and there’s a lot of relativism going around. They weren’t too happy about that. So Gabriella tells them there’s a whole ocean to swim around in and they’re just fighting over a drop. Which, like, totally floored me, but it went right past these guys. They didn’t give two shits, man. It turned out that the Catholics were playing dirty, anyway, so none of it really even mattered. Everything just went to hell.
What an utterly useless response. If it was of any importance I’d call it tragic. To those of you still with us, I salute your resilience and I’m humbled by your endurance. I’ll try to reward it with a retelling – with an editorial – more worthy of your auditory canals. Though I doubt the irony can be missed by anybody, there are some important subtleties that might escape the first glance. It’s fairly well established – the one-two punch of sexual repression and deviancy that
infests the institutions of religion – Hey! You can’t come in here! I am a journalist. We are protected under international –
6
The Anglican sheathed his sword, apologized to Jim for the intrusion, and departed. Christopher’s head lay on the desk next to a decanter of red wine and a half-empty glass. His body lay on the floor.
“I’m under the impression he hasn’t read the articles of the Geneva Convention,” Christopher’s head said.
Outside the makeshift studio there were the clangs and bangs of war. Jim heard the thunder of the hooves of cavalry charge into the booms of modern artillery. He heard trumpets battle drums and megaphone Revelations.
Christopher’s head bit at the stem of the half-empty wine glass. But without hands he could not get at the wine. Jim thought, Nobody up here is going to die.
“Are they going to fight forever?” he said.
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll come to an accord before eternity’s end,” Christopher’s head said. “Even the religious can’t escape the strangeness of infinity. If it can happen, it will.” He curled his tongue around the stem, yawed back and forth, then gave up. “Do me a favor?”
Jim picked up the glass and poured the wine into the head’s mouth. He said, “Why can’t they all just be special together?”
“The war of the ages is being fought all around me, and I’m trapped in a windowless room with a pacifist,” Christopher’s head said. “Let me try it this way. We’re pattern-seekers, Jim. Nothing thrills us more than the seventh note of the scale followed by the eighth. It’s coded into our genetics through a hundred thousand years of survival and evolution. To understand the world is to manufacture order out of chaos. But – how did you put it? – with all this relativism going around, order isn’t so easy to manufacture. And in the absence of order, the reptilian brain will smash a million square pegs through the proverbial round hole. You’re simple so I’ll put it even more plainly: These men invented God that they might shovel their doubts up his ass, and your coital nuke stabbed him in the guts and now it’s raining shit.”
Book of Jim: Agnostic Parables and Dick Jokes From Lucifer's Paradise Page 7
