The Last Testament: A Memoir (26 page)

⁶
Jimmy Hoffa is buried in Grant’s Tomb.

⁷
D. B. Cooper parachuted safely into the forests of southwestern Washington, where he was eaten by Bigfoot.

⁸
Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

⁹
Actually, he did it twice: once in 1960, for his one-man Mark Twain show,
The Sage from Hannibal
; and again in October 1963, in an experimental production of Samuel Beckett’s
Krapp’s Last Tape.

¹⁰
It was during the run of this latter show that he met gangster Sam Giancana, who paid him $50,000 in Cuban money to kill JFK.

¹¹
Turning now to cryptozoology: the yeti does not exist; he is but a bogeyman Sherpas scare their children with whenever they whine about the lack of oxygen.

¹²
The Loch Ness Monster
does
exist; but he is not a monster of flesh and blood, rather the monster of bigotry and intolerance dwelling inside the human heart, which for some reason is then externalized as an imaginary Scottish plesiosaur.

¹³
On the other hand, El Chupacabra
is
real; he is a monstrous goatlike creature who poses an actual threat to Mexicans, and an even bigger one to Americans;

¹⁴
For soon he plans to cross the border, where he will take away jobs from hardworking
American
mythical creatures like the Jersey Devil and Mothman.

¹⁵
On to a few legendary places: Atlantis was a real city on the Aegean island of Santorini that was destroyed by a massive volcano 3,600 years ago.

¹⁶
It is lost forever; but I must tell thee that even were it not, it would not be worth finding.

¹⁷
For Atlantis was a Bronze Age backwater whose imbecilic citizenry passed its time burping, farting, and raping sheep.

¹⁸
Their demise was a boon for civilization, but it is with cities as it is with people: dying young and mysteriously can turn any idiot into a legend.

¹⁹
(Yea, it was the only half-intelligent thing Jim Morrison ever did in his life.)

²⁰
On the other hand, the Lost City of Gold, El Dorado, never existed, and it is just as well; for even I shudder to think of the “missionary work” men like Cortez or Pizarro would have practiced on its people once they caught sight of it.

²¹
My guess is it would have started with flaying, then gone downhill from there.

²²
Area 51 is a regular US military base; and though classified operations do occur there, they have nothing to do with aliens, UFOs, time travel, or anything out of the ordinary.

²³
Those ops all happen in Area 63.

²⁴
And finally, Stonehenge.

²⁵
I have no idea what the hell Stonehenge is.

CHAPTER 4

¹
B
ut I
can
shed light on a few questions I am guessing none of you thought ever would—or could—be answered.

²
For example: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

³
Neither. The rooster came first.

⁴
Where does the time go?

⁵
Nowhere; it is thou who art moving through it.

⁶
What is the sound of one hand clapping?

⁷
Very disappointing, for a performer.

⁸
What is to be done?

⁹
It depends.

¹⁰
When will they ever learn?

¹¹
Eventually.

¹²
Are we there yet?

¹³
No.

¹⁴
Is the glass half empty or half full?

¹⁵
Neither. It is
filthy.

¹⁶
Why do fools falls in love?

¹⁷
Because
everyone
falls in love, and “fools” are a subgroup of “everyone.”

¹⁸
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

¹⁹
Thy premise is false; there
is
Someone there to hear it.

²⁰
Why are all the good men either married or gay?

²¹
Thy premise is also false; there are many good men, but thou scarest them off with thy stink of desperation.

²²
Finally, will wonders never cease?

²³
No; they’ll cease.

CHAPTER 5

¹
M
any other mysteries am I keen to divulge; but my shrewd publisher has asked that I withhold some, in the event of a sequel.

²
I will mention in passing that the likelihood of such a sequel is contingent upon two factors: first, whether the current volume meets with reasonable success in the marketplace; and second, whether the world still exists in two years.

³
And frankly I must tell thee, humanity, that these two factors are not unrelated.

⁴
For while my eschatological plans—which I will be discussing at the end of this book—are preordained, unalterable, and irrevocable through the pith and marrow of time;

⁵
Having said that, if this book were to sell a sufficient number of copies to warrant a follow-up, there is nothing in my apocalyptic schedule that could not be pushed back a year or two.

⁶
It is thy call, humanity.

⁷
What is the meaning of life?

⁸
Find out, in
The Last Testament 2: The Final Conclusion.

⁹
On sale everywhere 2014...if there
is
a 2014.

GAMES

(“On Sports”)

CHAPTER 1

¹
E
very so often I like to call in to sports radio shows.

2 I tell the screener I am “Mike from Massapequa” or “Sam from Santa Clara,” and he talks to me a minute to make sure I am worthy enough, not only to discuss the foibles of the area’s athletic teams, but to freight that conversation with enough entertainment value to warrant its being broadcast to 35,000 other people in the greater, say, St. Louis area.

³
Then I am put on hold; then I hear, “You’re on the air!”; and then I launch into a passionate monologue—in the pitch-perfect accent of the local ethnic lower-middle-class—about the value of switch-hitting outfielders, and dogfighting; the eternal beauty of the pick-and-roll, and steroids; the day the Red Sox won the World Series, and the day O. J. Simpson murdered two people;

⁴
All things sports.

⁵
For a few pleasant minutes the hosts and I talk and complain and commiserate and argue with each other; then I am thanked for calling, and the hosts move on, never realizing that the unseen voice with which they just talked pucks was not in fact Mike from Massapequa, but God from the Great Beyond.

⁶
But I do not mind, for I do not call in to be recognized; I call because I love talking sports.

⁷
Sport is mythic; sport is epic; sport is a condensation of all human activity; it is often said sport is a metaphor for life; it would be more accurate to say life is a metaphor for sport.

⁸
U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren once wrote, “I always turn to the sports section first. The sports section records people’s accomplishments; the front page nothing but man’s failures.”

⁹
A few moments’ reflection reveals how utterly wrong these words are; yet they are in keeping with the kind of mindless distraction that sports provide.

¹⁰
They are also the greatest substitute for armed conflict ever devised; they are like unto Diet War, a zero-casualty alternative to Regular War, with all the great fighting and suffering and action thou demandest in a conflict, but almost none of the adverse health effects.

¹¹
Especially do I love the Olympics: the pageantry of all the nations of the world joining together in peaceful competition as a million armed security personnel hover just off-camera; mythmaking at its finest.

¹²
The opening ceremony in Beijing in 2008 was one of the most extraordinary events I have ever seen, transcendent and thrilling; it made me again recall the greatness thy species is capable of, at least when one-fifth of it bites on the same repressive yoke.

¹³
(The gauntlet has been thrown, London; thou wilt need to do something spectacular in 2012 to top the Chinese.

¹⁴
May I suggest Duchess Kate giving birth in the middle of Olympic Stadium just as the torch is lit?

¹⁵
If thou likest the idea, I can help with the timing.)

¹⁶
But it is not just the Olympics; I love all sports; athletic competition of every type and size and description enthralls and delights me; except tennis, which is dullsville.

¹⁷
In sports I see the finest specimens of my finest creation operating at the highest level of their physical abilities.

¹⁸
And as a sports fan, I understand how much the games mean to both other fans and the athletes: the passions they stir, the tempests they roil, the loyalties they build, and above all the rivalry, violence, and rioting they so justifiably evoke.

¹⁹
And so that is why I have never, ever,
ever
influenced the outcome of a sporting event to determine the winner.