Good to Be God (12 page)

My fist sits him down and, now that violence is being dispensed, the dog slinks off to a safe distance.

I get into my car and drive to the church, although I’m so angry I drive through a red light and almost do it again. I’m angry I’m on the same planet with idiots like that. I’m angry because I can’t win. If I hadn’t punched him, I’d be furious with myself for not hitting him, but I’m also angry because I hit him.

Hitting him makes me marginally less angry than not hitting him, but what makes me churn and churn is that the smoker will now be amassing sympathy by telling anyone who’ll listen how he was peacefully walking his dog when he was assaulted by a lunatic and what is the world coming to when a man can’t 88

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walk his dog in safety. Thinking about it makes me so angry I want to go back and thump him again.

Bulging with rage, I attempt to listen to the pen. This time the pen has captured something worthwhile. I hear the Hierophant talking about going up to Rhode Island and then an odd conversation about investing in cobia, apparently some deep-sea fish that loves to be farmed, that gets off on captivity, regular feeding and a warm tank. I was considering how to infiltrate this information into our dialogue in a godlike all-knowing manner when the Hierophant strolled in.

“Good morning, Tyndale, I may be going up to Rhode Island for a few days.” So much for two hours of listening to sighs.

I remember the newspaper profile said the Hierophant came from Rhode Island, so I decide to bowl that info.

“Back to your roots, Gene? You do have a Rhode Island air about you.”

“Hardly. I come from Cleveland.” Never believe anything you read in the paper. I take a breather, make some coffee and then take another route.

“Gene, I had this dream about you and fish. You were like Christ multiplying the fish and feeding everyone, but making lots of money. The fish had this weird name, kopia or something.”

The Hierophant sighs. He takes off his glasses and polishes them. “I knew this would happen. It always does. Tyndale, son, Miami’s full of it, you’ve got to stay away from that stuff. Okay?

Just stop. You can’t help out here if you’re on space patrol.”

“No—”

“Don’t say a word, Tyndale. I understand, I really do. We’re all weak. We all sin. Let’s pray.”

I have to sit through a lengthy, custom-built homily on narcotics, then we settle down to preparing sandwiches for the 89

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homeless. As we load up, across the road an argument starts up.

Two black guys, one black woman. It’s heated. Then one of the guys wallops the woman, open-handed, but we feel the boom.

It’s a real connecter.

The group is, however, far away enough from us for us to be able to pretend it’s not happening. In fact, there’s a couple of Sikhs unloading some boxes halfway between us and them, Sikhs who are giving the unloading of those boxes their deepest concentration. And we don’t know what’s going on. Maybe she deserved it (you never know). I have no interest in getting involved, because there’s nothing in it for me, but the Hierophant straightens up: “Let’s sort this out.”

He strides over purposefully. This is the last thing I want to do.

The two guys are door-sized and either one could turn me into pulp. Having grown up in a big city, I know heavy when I see it. But if I chicken out now, bang goes my credit with the Hierophant.

My jaw is tingling as if it’s already been jigsawed as I tag along behind the Hierophant, close enough for him to accept that I’m backing him up, but not so close that the yellers would automatically assume so. I tell myself the guys won’t beat us up.

They’ll probably just shoot us. I’m willing the Hierophant not to say anything foolish or provocative such as hitting women is wrong.

He smiles. “Do you need to pray by any chance? We have a church just across the way if you need one. We’re always open for hard prayer.” It’s the last line they’re expecting. The woman tells us to go to hell. The guys laugh: the engine’s been switched off.

As we walk back it occurs to me the Hierophant had the advantage of age. If he’d been twenty or so, the same age as the guys, no matter what he would have said would have been seen 90

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as a challenge, they would have had to mash him; but he’s a ghost from another world. Did the Hierophant know this?

Back home, I listen to the pen again. The exchange about the cobia is quite clear. They can’t wait to be farmed. The Hierophant has balls, but he’s losing his marbles.

G

I’m very tempted to give up on the omniscience front, but I have the inestimable gift of not being able to afford giving up; it’s God or bust. The following day, I return to the pen, and prod myself lightly with a knife to offset the tedium of listening to the sighs and scratching.

I hear an exchange about sigmoidoscopy. It sounds very serious and medical. The Hierophant’s voice is unprecedentedly dejected.

Googling, I discover that sigmoidoscopy is arse invasion. The Hierophant has gut problems. If he drops dead is that a help or hindrance? The callousness of my reflection pleases me.

I ruminate on some clever way to divulge this info, but can’t.

You either have spooky knowledge or you don’t.

“You know, Gene, I do get these premonitions. I wouldn’t say anything about it, but I had this dream and I’m worried about you. You had some stomach problems. I know you’ll think this crazy, but why don’t you have a check-up?” I say when he comes in.

“Had one a month ago,” he declares. “Scared the doctors with my health. You can forget about your premonitions. Thirty push-ups every morning and my turds are award-winners.

However, I’ve had some not so good news. My mother’s in a bad way.” Sigmoidoscopy, I’d wager. “Truth be told, she’s just about done.”

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His mother is bedridden, terminal. The Hierophant’s returning to Cleveland to care for her. It’s a situation where so many would find so many reasons for not rushing to the bedside. For sending money instead. The Hierophant has bad taste in clothes and jokes (Marine jokes pioneer new levels of tastelessness), but he has no fear. I really do admire him. He is a decency-heavy individual and that’s why he has a small, congregation-light church which he’s about to lose to me. It’s strange how when you’re getting what you want, you still try to ruin it.

“Can’t you bring her down here?” I suggest, realizing that would counter my progress.

“She’s never left Cleveland in her life. I doubt she has much idea where she is, but it would be wrong to move her. She’d want to end there.” Again, he shuns the easy road.

“This is very difficult for me,” he continues. “Her friends have been helping her, but she needs round-the-clock care now. I hate to leave my flock here, but I have to go. But in a way I’m lucky.

I’m very lucky because I have you. You know, Tyndale, I get lots of offers to help out, a lot, but they rarely translate into actions, but you’re the only who’s been a pillar. You’re here day after day, never asking for anything, always willing, you’re quite something. The only reason I can go to be with my mother is because you’ll be here ministering for me.”

So, it’s official. I have my Church. I feel enormous guilt. The Hierophant’s faith moves me. Tears breed in my eyes. Why is it you always get what you want in a way you don’t want it?

He makes me sub-Hierophant, the first in the history of the Church.

“Any advice you want to give me?” I ask.

“Yes. Don’t do it.”

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“Sorry?”

“Don’t be a pastor. Don’t run a church. That’s the best advice I can give. Don’t do it. One other very important thing. If Mrs Barrodale invites you to lunch, don’t go. Her food’s terrible.”

The next day I retrieve the pen and hit on a conversation.

The Hierophant is explaining he’s off to Cleveland to nurse his mother. “No, I’m not closing the church. There’s a follower who can run things for me. He’s a bit strange, and he may not be right, but I have to give him a chance.”

This is my punishment for bugging the office. We’re never quite as loved as we hope we are, but, mulling it over, it’s even more touching, if he has doubts about me, that he’s willing to praise me up and give me a chance.

Enough dabbling in omniscience.

G

I wake up in the dark, drenched in an unpleasant sweat. A giant hand is squeezing my guts and I curl up into a ball. I feel far from home, and utterly beaten. With a total lack of dignity, I moan. Perhaps we are all far from home and utterly beaten, and the trick is not to feel it. Lying on a door in an empty room, soon-to-be mentor to a handful of Miami’s foozlers, with a few hundred dollars to my name, I feel it keenly.

I pray hard. I pray hard for everybody, because there’s nothing else to do.

G

You should never study your congregation too closely. It’s often a dispiriting prospect. The Hierophant has entrusted me with 93

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his greatest hits to read out in his absence, which suits me fine, since I have no desire to sit around composing sermons.

Now that the Hierophant Graves is away, I not only conduct the services but I am responsible for the “surgery” afterwards.

As I go into the office I am a little disconcerted to see that half the congregation has stayed behind. Should this be interpreted as a vote of confidence in me or a lack of confidence in the Hierophant?

First in are Mrs Shepherd and her son, Peter. Mrs Shepherd is one of those dumpy, uninteresting women who do the sweeping and acquisition of flowers for churches, and let’s face it, it’s important work, even if you don’t want to do it. I’ve done the sweeping several times, when everyone was around, to demonstrate how humble I am, but that was enough.

Warmly, I offer her a seat as I want (and I’m sure the absent Hierophant wants) the sweeping and flower acquisition to carry on uninterrupted. She reintroduces me to her son, a powerfully built lad who hands out beach towels at a hotel. They are both extremely cheerful, so I can’t foresee major quagmire here.

“We were hoping you could help us.”

“Of course,” I reply. “That’s my job.” So far, so good. Assurance is easy and should always be swift.

“We asked the Hierophant before, but he said no.”

Terror lurches in me. This isn’t going to be a sunny walk in the park, this will be something nasty and is certain to be something that will get me in trouble with the Hierophant. This is a trap. I smile.

“And what exactly did he say no to?”

“Me and Peter would like to get married.” The family resemblance is so strong I find it hard to believe…

“Peter is adopted is he?”

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“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs Shepherd replies indignantly. I am stumped. The Shepherds’ indifference to millennia of global, ecclesiastical, cultural and legislative convention is word-removing. Is this a hoax? A test devised by the Hierophant?

Dodge.

“Why do you want to get married?”

“My husband died last year, and I’d like to get married again.”

I suddenly realize how ignorant I am. If you looked at the Shepherds you’d see nothing remarkable about them at all.

But there’s something going on here. Rock-solid stupidity?

Something I have no appetite to learn any more about. The world frightens me.

Smile. Always smile. “Rona, I’ll have to think about this,” I say.

In reality, I’ve already thought about it. If the Hierophant comes back in a week or two, it’s off my plate. If he’s away for longer, I may have to strike a deal with the Shepherds. I’d like the sweeping and flowers to carry on. Whatever is taking place in the Shepherd household is taking place, and a benediction from me isn’t going to make any difference.

As they leave I reflect that they probably have an important job. After some terrible planetocidal disaster you or I would be too distraught to carry on, too squeamish about survival, but the Shepherds would be out there repopulating, until nature reintroduced sophisticated features like intelligence again. Mrs Shepherd and her son are our backup.

Next, the elderly Mrs Garcia hunches in. My job is about listening, but even I get tired of listening as she takes twenty minutes to get to her whinge. Her neighbour’s cat is making her miserable: shitting in her garden, trashing her plants, 95

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eating her hummingbirds. After the Shepherds I’m delighted to be presented with a simple feline matter. I advise Mrs Garcia to trust in the power of prayer and tell myself that if I can’t dispatch one rotten cat I might as well give up now. The cat’s description carefully noted, I hustle her out.

The Reinholds come in last. Mike and Sue. Regular, money-earning, middle-aged couple. Comfortingly uninsane. Mike is only a few inches away from a lucrative career as a dwarf, but he’s me. He works at the waterworks, and I know he will always be passed over for promotion. He’s certainly too assiduous.

Turns up early, gives it his all for a modest salary. Will never be promoted. I imagine he spends his evenings reading up on new theories of water management to be ahead of the game, but he will never be promoted.

Why do they attend this church? I have an urge to tell them to get some proper religion. What’s their problem? His promotion?

“Our daughter, Alexa…” Mike begins. He falls silent. “We don’t know what to do,” picks up Sue.

It’s that old perennial. The bad-boy problem. They have a sixteen-year old daughter Alexa who fallen for a bad element, three years older than her, the neighbourhood biker. The biker is always older because women tend to be more mature, and those extra years can seem very impressive in terms of greater experience in knowing where the seedy bars are and joint-rolling.

I am moved by the Reinholds. You spend sixteen years cherishing, bodyguarding your daughter, you read bedtime stories and help with homework when you’re exhausted, you forgo good golf clubs so you can pay for guitar lessons, you queue interminably to collect medicines, you make sacrifice 96

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after sacrifice, because you know your daughter will be the only value in a creation which refuses to promote you. Then your daughter drops school, and spends all her savings (Granny’s legacy) buying clothes for the neighbourhood biker and, worse, disappears for days to let him plant his principality wherever he wants.