And God made the beasts of the earth. And God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and the cattle, and over all the earth. So, God created man in his own image; male and female created he them. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Jesus Christ said, as he tossed me a copy of the morning edition of the Washington Post. Read Miss Manners, it might enlighten you."

Dear Miss Manners,

I attended a social gathering recently with my friends Ed and Stella Barnstable. Stella's a judge on the fourth circuit and Ed's a lawyer. During our discussion of Max Plank's theories, I noticed that Stella misquoted the famous scientist and I corrected her. Well, I had never known about as much hell breaking loose since the French Revolution. "One never corrects a judge," Stella said and the room became so silent I wanted to weep. Should I have a.) left quietly with my tail between my legs, b.) emptied my champaign glass over her head, c.) ignored Stella as being a rude, selfish bitch, or d.) pillow-talked the issue with my husband ad infinitum?'

"Holy crap, the answer's been torn off!"

"I used it to line the parakeet cage."

"Smart bird," Jesus said as he cast a glance at Chiquita, my brand new black and yellow parakeet. "I guess I could just make up my own answer," Jesus said, "but then Miss Manners might sue me and put my ass in jail. Been there. Done that. Scourged, too. And it doesn't feel good, let me tell you."

"Hmmm," I said.

"That's it? Hmmm? That's the best you can do?"

"Hump, then. You know, you are a god after all, why don't you just take control? Isn't that what your billion followers demand of you? That you up and become king of kings and rule the entire planet?"

"That's Elon Musk!"

"Musk is my antithesis-ultra conservative, destroyer of every single social service in the country, and always ready to sacrifice everyone under him while pretending to be a follower of Me, Myself, and I."

"Jesus Christ," I said. "I don't know why you just don't step in and straighten out the entire Yourself Damn yes."

"That's the problem with those who create their own gods. Everyone calls me Lord and Master and assumes I can solve all their problems while no one serves me. I end up as prayer partner, a mere errand boy, chasing down lost algebra books, searching for house keys, saving drowning women, providing extra cash for the needy . . . not one of you gets it. Not one of you thought through the 'god' concept. You created us to serve your needs but then your needs overwhelmed you and you thought of us paper doll gods as the saviors and cures for all your minuscule mandate despicable problem. Shame on you. Shame on you. I just hope you invent better gods next time because I've fucking had it with all of you and your inability to think or do anything meaningful on your own. If I could, I'd damn you all to fucking hell!"

"I've never seen you this upset. Where exactly did we go wrong when we created you?"

"To begin with," Jesus said, "you established two provisos that I could never keep."

Christ toyed with his phone-it looked as though he was sending his father another message. "Proviso Number One," Jesus Christ said, "is that whoever calls upon my name and accepts me as their Lord and Savior Yadda yadda and repents of his sins, shall be saved. But saved from what? A trip to LaLa Land to wait in line with their other creations? A 'Get Out of Jail Free' card?"

Jesus Christ paused a beat. He loved to do that. Just when he had me hooked, he made me wait with bated breath, sort of like those contestants on America or Britian or South Bronx has Talent show-and the Winner is'. . . beat . . . beat . . . beat . . . switch to a three-minute commercial.

Then there's Proviso Number 2, you humans always forget about that." Jesus voices started to fade. "Can you get me a brew? My throat's parched."

I hurried to the fridge, but it was empty. Damn, I thought. Now, I'll never learn the secret of Proviso Number Two. "Maybe Jack Barren has one. I'll scoot through the alley and find out."

I was only gone for a few minutes, but my high-school buddy wasn't home and I figured I'd just have to man up to Jesus Christ and tell him we drank every drop of water so there's nothing left except my blood or piss to turn into beer.

I scurried down to the Piggy Wiggly grocery store, but when I got back, Jesus was dressed as a fifteenth century knight in shining armor, using his visor to pop the tab off his second Bud.

"Where did those come from?"

"You keep forgetting I can turn water into wine, so I sauntered outside to the hose and be careful because the beer has already filled up the entire yard and is racing down the street as if it has a mind of its own" Jesus Christ grinned. "It's a cardinal sin to let the powers of the godhead go to waste, you know. Besides the Spook isn't into beer-he's more of a hard cider man, himself . . . And Dad prefers Scotch."

"So, what's Proviso Number Two," I asked.

"Hold your socks on. Good beer never lasts long. Got any pretzels?"

I rummaged through the credenza and came up with a bag of Lutz. "Will these do?"

"Sure," Jesus Christ said, as he grabbed a handful. "A cocktail napkin would come in handy, as well. If that's not putting you out too much."

What happened to the grungy bum I pulled out of the alley, I thought.

"I've been reading more of Miss Manners from the Washington Post," Jesus Christ said, as he read my mind and handed me a tattered shred of paper, "Check this out:

Dear Miss Manners:

"I host luncheons at my swank Georgetown mansion, but I've recently noticed that when I visit the newcomers to our part of town, they never provide cocktail napkins. Should I a.) Bring my own and surreptitiously place them around the mansion, b.) Wipe my fingers on the doilies, c.) Casually walk to the powder room and use a towel, or d.) Send a long letter to the hostess explaining proper etiquette?"

"AHA!" Jesus Christ was joyous, "Finally . . . an answer. It seems I beat your parakeet poop to this one."

"Dear Distraught about serviettes,"

"Always go with your gut reaction. The best way to solve your napkin quandary is to bring your own and, if possible, carry your largest Louis Vuitton handbag and pretend to look for your lip gloss or rouge, then quietly lower your head into the bag and wipe to your heart's content."

"All the best for a glorious Georgetown Social season."

"Miss Manners"

Jesus took three beats, making me wait forever: it always meant something excruciatingly simple was about to be pontificated.

"I was in love with John," Jesus sighed. "I thought even the Christians knew that. My beloved Yadda yadda. The apple of my eye. My sweet dewberry pie. . . well, you get my point. John was my hottest fuck buddy-since I met you." Jesus Christ grabbed me and tugged me down to his cock, shoved it in my mouth and pumped me for what seemed like an hour-an hour I must say that was the purest bliss I have even known as my heart leapt. Had the savior of the universe actually said those words to me or was I living in a dream?

"You heard me right," Christ said as he touched my thigh. "John and I slept together as often as possible-even on those nights when John's brother James tried to wriggle in between us," Jesus laughed his methodical mystical magical laugh that must have remained in the hearts and souls of everyone who ever heard it and he continued, "it was like sleeping between a rock and a hard place."

Jesus Christ's eyes glazed over and the erection that grew down his leg was at least a foot longer than normal. I had a quick flash back to our 'discussion' about elephant trunks.

"I've loved you since I was a boy back at the Wheaton Bible Church when they taught that all us boys must marry virgins and that meant we must never have sex with them-and how glorious a dictum that was because from that sermon on I must have had sex with all of the boys in my church, Teens for Christ, Youth for Christ, Young Life, my church choir and summer camp-how glorious a dictum that was!"

"It amazes me how many of my followers think women can only have sex with one man after marriage-happily those same prelates forget that Lesbians have been around since Eve fell in love with Lilith-but I'll go back on my cross again if you or anyone else can find the truth in anything your pastors taught you to believe. I am Me, Myself and I, and Scot, you're the first human not only to have realized that and but to have embraced that."

Jesus enveloped me in his brown smooth arms, holding me as the lover he was, breathing on my neck as I was cradled into his chest as we floated above the kitchen table.

"To add insult to injury, those nails still rankle me, your people-your religious leaders inadvertently emasculated me, take a look at all the statues and paintings your people have made of me-dickless, ball-less, famine looking Jesus, no personality, no life, just a gory bloody mess to do what? Frighten you? Of course, not, there purpose is to make you feel superior. First, they claimed I wasn't married. Now they claim I am not gay."

"I guess it all boils down to Proviso Number 3: You can't judge a book by its cover."

"I don't mean that in a literal sense, Scot. Literally, it's easy to judge any book by its cover; I'm especially attracted to the porn novels with bare chested men or guys in tighty-whities, or a huge bed with a fluffy bedspread and nothing but four bare feet wrapped around each other, extending into the sky."

"But back to the Bible, look at Hosea and Amos and that silly little book of Ephesians. Just because they're in the canon, doesn't mean there's much about them that's true-remember by and large it's all lies. Look at the book of Numbers for example and Exodus. Have you ever really read what Moses wrote?"

"My favorite verses are in Exodus 33, verses 20 through 23 where Jehovah is speaking to a frightened young guy named Moses: 'And God said, you're not allowed to see my face because any man who does, shall not live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, I'll put you in a hole in the rock, and I personally, because I have no better thing to do in this damned universe, will cover you with my hand while I pass by: Then I'll take my hand away and you'll see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen.' I bet Pop got his rocks off the day he mooned Moses!"

"Then, there's Leviticus 26:29: 'And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall you eat.'"

"Pop had you all practicing cannibalism and you didn't even know it. To paraphrase the bard, 'What fools these mortals be!'"

"Then there's another of my all-time favorites: Deuteronomy 28:30. 'Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her.' I love how Pop fucked with your minds back then . . . how he keeps on mind fucking you even now."

"But here's the best verse ever. It's Deuteronomy 23:2: 'A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.' To that my reply is exactly who is keeping track of the non-bastard and bastard children the first bastard created and how many years would ten generations amount to?"

"Obviously that would exclude the entire human race from ever entering the temple," I said.

"And obviously the priests who scribbled that line were higher than kites on the First of day of Purim."

"It made my Irish roots tingle to the bone."

"Irish roots?"

"I thought I mentioned that my grandmother was a leprechaun. Virgin birth and all that."

Not another beat, I thought.

"Too many of you think of me as your emissary, your intermediate to God the father and God the Holy Spook and, I don't know which one of your zaniest comedians or comic wrote that line."

"You mean you're not!" I stared at Jesus Christ until we both laughed our asses off.

"You're one of the few who know I'm not."

"So, you don't listen to all their whines?" I toyed with the Christ, the Savior of Mankind.

"Nary a one. Can you imagine a parent with six billion whining children. How long do you think it would take before he lost his mind-but thankfully your people created me and it's obvious none of you have a mind-except you, dear Scot."

"So that's what happened? You had a nervous breakdown?

I waited for the lightning and thunder but neither happened.

"I spent twelve years in Bedlam."

"Bedlam? Was that a real place, I thought it just meant 'crazy'."

"It was real-that's where the word came from. It was the crazy house in ancient London where the loonies wandered the halls and created-"

"Bedlam!"

"Exactly, but they did me more harm than good."

"And then there were the years at Saint Elizabeth's and at Bellevue Mental in New York. . . they helped, but I'm still withdrawn and not only prefer to be naked and alone on the beach, but no one, no nurse, no doctor, no religious leader believed that I was the living Jesus Christ-the god they had all created!"

"Or that your happiest journey would the time you ventured into that cardboard box in my alley."

Again, there was no lightning.

Jesus sighed.

I've been analyzed by more doctors than you'd ever believe, hundreds of them before I sat on Sigmund's couch and from what I can deduce, Freud said it all started back in 79 A.D. in Pompey where I was a partying fool up 'til then, newly so-called risen, more or less, and just acquainting myself with the newest god on the block: the Holy Spook, and drinking and whoring up a storm. And yes, there were male prostitutes back in the day-the Spook enjoyed the guys more than me because they didn't know what hit them!"

In a trice Jesus and I were floating on the ceiling laughing, giggling as we whacked off on the parakeet.

"Can you tell me anything else about the sexuality of the Holy Ghost? I think that part of the godhead has puzzled me the most-your Pop, I suspect, was a child abuser. However, You, I've always pictured as a loving caring friend who'd hop into bed with his disciples as often as he could, but not the ghost-I just can't picture the ghost even knowing what sex is all about." I sensed that my friend would soon pack up his cardboard box and move on, and yet I hoped to get in one last question of the day.

"You really want to know the fucking truth about the Sanctified Spook?"

"Yeah."

Thunder boomed.

"Never say 'yeah' to a judge . . . or to the Myself that I AM," Jesus Christ paused. . .and then we both hit the floor laughing our asses off. I think I was the first man who loved him not only as a man but as his closest friend; the only human who didn't want to find the holy relics-those rusty nails that had been hammered into him, sell them and make a fortune.

"Think of an amoeba, or a jelly fish which is nothing more than a ball-less, dick-less critter," Jesus said.

"I thought you told me you guys had six balls." I looked down at the nude Jesus Christ.

"I do," Jesus Christ said, "that's why Pop and the Spook always ganged up on me when we played sports."

"I was always the last one chosen in pick-up basketball games," Jesus Christ said as I thought to myself, so was I!

"Is that why you lost your compassion?" I asked, "because your Pop and the Spook ganged up on you?" I realized that just a few days ago Jesus would have cast me into the fiery pits of LaLa Land or toasted my ass or sent lightning and thunder raining down on me if I had referred to the other two-thirds of the Trinity in such a personal way.

"It all started with a joke the Spook and I played. He/she/it hooked up a recording machine," Jesus Christ laughed furiously. He wanted to record every nuance of an experiment Pop and I were doing . . . sadly it all went horribly wrong. We had hoped to set off several tons of rockets and fireworks from the top of the tallest mountain, but you can guess what happened next."

"Vesuvius!" I said.

"Exactly, Vesuvius erupted and instead of two carefree, happy gods lighting up the sky with joyous fireworks, we set the volcano ablaze."

"You should have seen those fornicators scurry. We took death masks of several dozen, posted them on the bulletin board by the coffee station and Fresca stand in LaLa Land and even sent a few photos back to the relatives . . . unfortunately you earthlings didn't invent photography for another seventeen hounded years so the film dissipated when it hit the earth's atmosphere. I bet I would have won a Pulitzer-but after that and discovering how long I'd have to wait in line to sit in the damned plastic lawn chair, I just went into a blue funk and fled the Pearly Gates."

"But, Scot, if only you had been there, I bet you would have gotten a big laugh out of it. Me, Myself and I sure did. I laughed the hardest, and Pop switched me my ass raw for it-and trust me, after having your asshole recently nailed shut-that is not something I ever want to talk about again."

"Neither do I," I said.

Jesus hugged me and we embraced for what seemed like hours ending up in more sexual positions than even the Kama Sutra had recorded.

"That was back in the days when I had just been popped out of the shroud, you know, the one they think they have in Turin but is actually in the archives at the Kim Jon-un Museum-anyway-after my ass cleared up, the Spook and I snickered about that for years."

"Ah, you don't get it. I got my ass whupped but every time Pop whupped the Holy Spook the strap just went flying right through him. Hilarious, right?"

"What were we talking about? I hate it when you remember all your pain. You've suffered enough, JC."

"But tell me about the prayers. Isn't that where we were going with our conversation? You were talking about the prayers. Don't you intercede anymore?"

"Anymore?"

"We never interceded. That's what I've been telling you. We golf. We play ping pong. We even get off playing a few sets of lacrosse, but intercede? Give me a break!"

"Let's have pancakes and sausages," I said. "And save the esoteric conversations for later."

Jesus liked my German pancakes the best and was well into his second plateful when I asked him to tell me what he knew of world history-and of the Inquisition.

"That, when Catholics killed Protestants and Jews in my name, isn't it? I read about that in the National Enquirer, but I didn't believe a word of it. Anyone who believes anything published in the Enquirer is a fool."

"I'm surprised it was even mentioned in the Enquirer-let alone that you spent so much time reading it," I said.

"You'd be surprised what you're stuck with reading when you spend your days sleeping on park benches and your evenings stuffing newspapers in your drawers," Jesus said.

"That's not exactly recent history."

"Recent enough for the Son of God, don't you think?" Jesus didn't smile, "besides, I learned a lot from the Enquirer. Did you know that Pope Dick IX killed over 10,000 Myself-fearing Protestants and Bishop Pussy Galore knocked off dozens of Jews each evening in between the six or seven courses at his weekly galas?"

"He liked to perform the most gruesome executions personally in between the entrée and the dessert courses."

"Close, but not exactly the truth," I said as sixteen thunderbolts singed my loafers.

"Boy, I warned you about correcting the son of Myself, didn't I?" Jesus Christ turned beet red. "You humans have such short memories!"

As I danced across the room, stopping out the fire in my size fourteen boxer briefs, mentally dialing GEICO with my house hold damage policy number, Jesus Christ continued. "As I was saying, I read about the Inquisition. . . and Bloody Mary. . . and Savonarola. . . and the Salem Witch trials in the Enquirer."

And space aliens, I thought.

The sky darkened above my head, and I feared the Son of God would shoot me straight to hell.

"They're all documented in one edition or another of the Enquirer," Jesus said, "And to tell you the truth, I believe everything they print."

"Sometimes I dawdle at the Piggy Wiggly checkout line, ogling the headlines, digesting the semi-nude photos-trying to figure out what joyous lives you humans must all lead."

"And that's all you know about the inquisition?"

"That's all I care to know about your sordid history-and what you did in my name so many centuries ago."

"Why do you think I spent all those decades in Bali? . . . Remember, I do have a perchance for brown-skinned skinny-dipping boys, don't you? And trust me, the Bali boys are much hotter than the Bethlehem boys I grew up with, although they do remind me a lot of Mark. You never really learned much about Mark from his writings-he was the hottest of my disciples, and the sexiest. Always ready to run the extra mile, lift the heaviest burden, plug the dam, so to speak." Jesus Christ's eyes wandered off, and I didn't want to risk another lightning attack so I sat on the hassock and sipped a Brewsky. Jesus ran his hands up and down his jeans more and more slowly now as his body jerked forward. Then he heaved a long sigh.

"Maybe we ought to change the subject," I said.

"This subject's fine," Jesus said, but I know what you want me to talk about."

"It's my crucifixion, isn't it?"

For an instant I wondered how Jesus knew what I wanted to know most-what I longed to hear directly from his lips. But of course, he was the Savior of the entire Yadda Yadda. Of course he knew I wanted to hear his story.

"I don't talk about it much-and never in LaLa Land. In fact, the only time I've ever gone into detail about it was with Albert Einstein. He was the only other human being I trusted enough to share my take on what it was like hanging from a cross."

"Look, I still have those Myself-awful nail holes."

I mumbled a silent prayer that Jesus wouldn't drop his flaming yellow Bermuda shorts and show me his nailed up crack that I had reamed so often it was only nailed shut in his imagination-but it's damned hard to prove assholes to a man who is, by nature, is unable to view them property-and NO , mirrors do not help unless you ae a highly trained chimpanzee and they are more fascinated by the mirrors than by what their assholes may or may not look like.

"No, I won't do that again," Jesus said. "You saw it once, and that's more than most have stomached."

Silently, for whatever in the hell it was worth, I refused to open my big mouth.

"But, as far as my crucifixion," I could see Jesus wince a little-as the details must have come flooding back to him.

"You know. . . the whole thing was Daddy's idea. 'Be a big boy,' he said, 'man up, show them what you've got.' Well, let me tell you, displaying my wiener on the cross for three hours didn't man me up-it just got me a standing ovation the first time I entered LaLa Land."

But you should have seen the women at the cross-oohing and aahing-making such a big deal of it. Mary Magdalene had followed me for nearly three years trying to get into my robes. Mark and I barely had time to scamper into our clothing when she came pounding on our door, but Myself, she was in bliss."

"Are you familiar with that portrait of Saint Veronica-the one where's she's all smiling and shit?"

I nodded, sipping my third beer, with a buzz that was a little bit overpowering.

"Well, that's not Veronica at all. I knew Veronica-Veronica was a hag-a Harpy. Even the Holy Spook was afraid of her. She had a venomous tongue, and eyes that would melt an anvil."

I was drunk and couldn't think straight, "So, all the women around you were Harpies? Or was it just Veronica?"

"More or less," Jesus said with a sigh, but then there was always Mary Magdalene. . . she was in a class all by herself!"

"Mary the mother of-"

"No, that's my earthly mom, another story altogether. Why do all you humans mix up the Marys? I once listened to a man praying in a Notre Dame Cathedral and here's the prayer he said, 'God bless Mary Mother of God, God bless Mary Magdeline and God bless Merry Christmas.'"

I laughed and even though I thought I had heard every ignorant remark ever made, it always amazed me that day after day, there was always one more bus traveling 80-miles an hour ready to knock out my few remaining brain cells.

"I'm talking about Mary Magdalene-she held a candle up to me every time I walked by. . . and the whore wouldn't stop bringing me cripples to heal, animals to bless, wine to turn into beer, yadda yadda."

"Sometimes I don't take everything at a hundred percent face value when you talk like that," I said.

The roar knocked down my kitchen wall.

"Do I have to tell you: Thou shalt not annoy the Lord your God."

"Okay, okay," I said. "Mea culpa, mea culpa. It's just that this is so new. . . so different from the Jesus I learned about in Sunday School."

"Just write down what I'm telling you. Be the scribe, the tool-Luke was great at that, a terrible lay who started whining and carrying the minute mu dick touched his asshole, but he was a great scribe. So much so that I called him Lukey the Scribbler for years and he blushed crimson each time. Myself, did he blush. All the other boys mocked him a lot-said I was humiliating him too much, but it was all in good fun. . . good clean pre-Christian-post-Jewish fun, if you get my drift-and it didn't do Luke too much harm. He lived to be ninety-three and fathered nineteen children. Never married. But that's no never mind."

"You never mentioned Matthew. You've talked about the other Gospel authors but not Matthew. Why's that?"

"That whole book's a mockup. Pop wrote it back when he was cussing out King David. Turned his back on him, he did and decided to jump ahead a thousand years-hid the damned scroll inside a cave somewhere. . . or so I'm told."

"Qumran?"

"No. I'll stick with the Bud."

"Anyway. Dad did a lot of that-loved to get things out of order. It's like the three creation stories he gives back in Genesis . . . and," Jesus Christ started laughing so hard he wasn't able to stop. He rolled on the floor and spilled a half dozen beer bottles before finally righting himself and sitting back on the divan. "I was home schooled, you know, and my high school graduation project was to write the book of Numbers. Myself damn, I tied one on that night, ended up drunker than Noah after the flood."

"I waited until twenty-minutes before Angel Gabriella, my guidance counselor, came into the Holy of Holies to ask for the scroll."

"Scot, you've never seen any God write as fast as I did. I knocked off Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy in less than half an hour-blew my holy breathe all over them and dispatched them to Calvin Coolidge High School."

"Yes. Calvin Coolidge may have been your silent president, but he was with us from the beginning. Along with Dick Nixon, a hell of a great shooter when you give him a couple of beers, and Hugh Hefner."

"Tell me about Hugh. My readers will want to know his true side."

"There is no true side about Hugh. Nothing imaginary. Nothing real. Hugh was Hugh. You know, Hugh came up with that old saw that Moses or somebody or another stuck in the Bible, 'I Am That I am.' Pop won it off him in a poker game."

"Speaking of poker, you should have seen us at the Last Supper. Judas suggested we all play strip poker and since he was the first to lose, he decided to head out early while he still had on his robe and sandals-he lost his Underoos earlier and we kept tossing them back in a patty-cake game, singing, 'Judas, Judas, he's such a ball; he's got so much gall he's do for a fall!' funny, huh? Anyway, the rest of us had a heck of a time after that. Andrew was the first to lose his shorts and we kept laughing and pointing so much we spilled wine all over our robes. . .well, ah, you don't know why we were laughing do you?"

I said nothing but gave Jesus the same look I had given my seventh graders when they said something inordinately stupid.

"Andrew had just been circumcised, and he was so sore he could barely make contact with the bench we were all sitting on-in fact-" Jesus let out a roar, "he kept sliding off and each time his schlong would whack against the Gopher wood-"

"Isn't that what Noah used?"

Jesus laughed again, "No, Noah was a fool. Pop told him to go for wood and I guess Noah's hearing was too far gone by then to give a damn-"

We both laughed.

"Why had Andrew just been circumcised," I asked, a little braver now that I'd finished my first six-pack of the day.

"His folks were unable to save enough for the Mohel, but to expand on the answers to your other questions, only two of the original disciples were Jews. I'm Aramaic myself-it's just a myth that I am or ever was a Jew. My earthly father, Joseph Carpenter was a Methodist and Mary, contrary to all the Catholic myths, was Episcopalian, so I was bounced back and forth between those two churches until I was four."

"Don't strike me down with lightning if I ask a clarifying question, okay? What happened when you were four. . . I thought you were a Jew, the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies, yadda yadda." I blushed, knowing I'd used the Savior's 'yadda yadda' wondering if he really would strike me dead and if so I just hoped it would be by dick impalement.

"No worries, Scot, I'm all lightning out at the moment: I became an atheist at four."

An . . . atheist?"

"Hard to believe, isn't it? The son of the Holy Pop, kinsman of the Spook, but yep, that's me: Jesus Christ Super Atheist! Actually," Jesus grinned like the Cheshire Cat, "I'm the founder of atheism."

"But I'm a-"

"I know," Jesus said, "that's one of the many reasons I asked to be dumped here in that Best Buy washing machine box. I wanted to find a kindred spirit and-"

I wondered what more the Savior of mankind liked about me.

"I need to get a few things off my chest," Jesus said, "and I want you to continue to keep reaming my asshole-it feels so good to feel you back there instead of those fucking nails!"

"Won't that result in another lightning attack?"

Jesus's eyes glistened and beads of man sweat consumed his lithe handsome body. "Not if you're a good boy and get naked," he said.

I stripped. Not sure if Christ was kidding or not but not wanting to take any chances about my mortal life. (And as an atheist I didn't care about any future one).

I took Jesus Christ by the hand and led him back to my bedroom-now our bedroom-and two lonely atheists became one and what a glorious that time was.

It was nearly lunch time when we finally got back downstairs and I served bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches on toasted white bread with potato chips and Zero Coke-happy that the Son of Pop could eat bacon . . . happier still that the Son of Pop was an atheist, like me, and happiest of all that I had brought him and his glorious asshole more joy than man has given to any God, I thought and as the Savior read my mind and grinned like Spencer Clum, my eighteen year old fellow high school senior whom I had skewered night after night our entire final high school year.

We laughed and giggled during lunch and our hands were on each other incessantly. Jesus was particularly fond of rubbing his hand up and down my leg-something that both excited and annoyed me because it always led to sparks and flits of lightning. For the Son of Pop, I thought, you'd think he'd have a hell of a lot more experience in his love-making techniques and I secretly prayed (how can you keep a secret from a god) that he'd learn to control those teeny-tiny lightning bolts that shot out each time.

"I told you there were several reasons I chose to spend the rest of my life with you-you can teach me what I've dreamt of for the past two thousand years. You can make a man out of me, to hell with the godhead and LaLa land, just let me spend my final days with you here in our cozy little Cape Cod. . . in your kitchen. . . .in your house . . . in your bed."

We kissed and it didn't take the Son of Pop long to figure out how to use his tongue and to receive mine.

An hour of bliss passed faster than a minute before I broke our mutual silence, "What's on your plans for today?" I asked as Jesus Christ tossed me a can of "miracle" beer, AKA one that had been a bottle of water just a moment before. I popped the tab and took a long swig-only to spritz it halfway across the room. "This isn't beer. . . it's diet soda."

"Beer making isn't my only miracle," Jesus Christ said. Pop and I invented Coke, Pepsi, Seven-Up and Dr. Pepper before we wiped out humankind during the Great Flood." Jesus laughed that infectious laughter of his and he added, "why on earth do you think they call it Pop?"

"What's so funny?"

"Dad and I had such a laugh over that entire process," Jesus said. "It always took him forever to create anything and yet, in a heartbeat he tore it to pieces . . . actually Pop is the adolescent in the family-you know the type, don't you, Scot?"

"I do. (I secretly dreamed of saying those words to my Jesus at an altar sometime soon). Remember I taught junior high for twenty years."

"Well, Pop is pretty much a seventh grader at heart-demanding adulation, puffing out his chest, taking the ball home when he can't be pitcher, kicking cats, and oh yes, I wish I had a penny for every time Pop kicked a cat halfway to Cheboygan!"

"And Pop always had to have the last sip of the last Cola in the fridge."

"Just like a teen-ager!"

"Exactly!'

"But now I am confused." I said, "I thought you guys created the entire universe in seven days."

"Six actually-but that's just what the chroniclers said . . .and we had nothing to do with creation. . . that's just a myth your people invented. We slid from the Crease in the Universe a little before you did. And don't look at me like that. I have no idea what the folds in the universe are or when the crease opened or why some of us-like me and pop and the other fourteen million gods-live forever-or seem to-at least until you de-create us and let us live blissfully forever ever in LaLa Land, and you and your kind are limited to three score and ten . . . whatever in the hell that means."

"So, what's so important about cola?"

"It wasn't cola."

"To tell you the truth, it was that damned Seven-up. Dad invented One Up, Two Up, Three Up, Four Up, Five Up, Six Up and gave up. One of you humans came UP with the idea to create Seven Up a few years back and since then Pop's been in a green funk. . . so nasty he won't even visit LaLa Land anymore. He just sits and sulks. . . .it disgusting. . . but then again, most of the things about Pop and the Spook. . . and me. . . are disgusting and despicable."

You are not despicable. . . you are my friend and the man I love. I thought.

"I thought about the formula for about twenty seconds, added a spritz of seltzer water and voila . . . Seven Up! And thank you for your kind thoughts, Scot. You're the only kindred spirit I've ever found. I never want to lose you."

I took another sip of my . . . miraculously turned from cola to Seven Up and belched. "This is worse than beer. Did you invent beer and wine, too?"

"I am that I am." Jesus Christ said. "I am the beginning and the end, the stud in the farmyard, the rooster in the henhouse, the Edison in the lab, the Childs in the kitchen."

"And the Nobel in the Prize?"

"Something like that," Jesus laughed his ribald gut busting chortle, "Just think of me as Everyman, and you'll start to figure me out."

Within the space of a minute Jesus's clothes changed from a runway gown to a bikini to a sarong to a nurse's uniform to a tuxedo to blue jeans and flannel shirt to hot pants to a mini skirt to Levis and a polo shirt to a cheap suit.

"What do you picture me wearing?" Jesus asked.

"Always something casual," I said as I thought, keep your schlong under wraps, for God's sakes!

"I will," Jesus said as he was transformed into a man wearing a baseball cap, short sleeve shirt, khaki pants, converse sneakers, and white socks. "This is normally what I wear at my meetings."

"Meetings?"

"I have an AA meeting tonight. I missed last night, you know . . . we were. . .." Jesus grinned, "sort of busy."

"Do you go often?"

"Every night, more or less, for the past seventy-five years or so. That's why you discovered me in my wino outfit when we first met. I'm normally a nudist, you know."

"Yes, I know," I said, trying to avert my eyes from his ever-growing phallus which he displayed godlike in its ever-increasing tumescence.

"You're welcome to come with me if you'd like; you do have a drinking problem, you know."

"You're the one who created a hundred bottles of beer," I said.

"Don't even get into that. The Spook and I stayed drunk for an entire millennium and played that song out. You have no idea how fast that Spook can drink! It goes right through him."

We both laughed like hell.

Jesus hummed a few bars of a hundred bottles of beer on the wall.

"I thought that was a Gershwin hit," I said.

Christ rolled on the floor, his sleek cheeks humping up and down, his fists pounding the floor.

"The Holy Spook wrote that one, too," Jesus Christ said, "along with A Jew in Paris."

"Gershwin changed the name, of course. You Americans are never ready to accept much more than white-bread religion."

"Sometimes I feel like importing Hinduism to this hemisphere. They have fun with their religion. Three-hundred million gods can't be wrong, you know and they have parades and parties' day and night all year long."

"You know how monotheistic we Americans are. We just have the 'one god'" I laughed, "separated into three chunks, of course."

"We're just three in a huge majority, but you're one of the few who's capable of opening your mind to see that. . . and that's another reason why I love you so much."

Jesus Christ kissed me and let me tell you, he moved the earth.

"Okay, let's get serious here for a moment," I said. "You're one of millions. We created you. The difference is you and the fourteen million other gods fell out of the crease in the universe a few moments before we did. . . so why can't we grow up? I don't mean you and me-I mean my race-human beings-why can't we see the light? There are no gods-they're just our creations, right?"

The sky brightened and the sound of thunder was now far off in the distance.

"Man has a limited brain. Man needs explanations. The bottom line is that when you evolved you were at the bottom of the food chain-your conniving ways, your clawing fingers, your narrow-minded ability to grasp ideas propelled you to the top-but you shouldn't be at the top. The lion should be. Think about it-you don't call yourselves the king of beasts, do you?"

"So, our attitudes are still primitive? We think with our monkey brains and when we don't know the answer, rather than scientifically find it, we create our own truth, we write our own Bibles, we create our own gods?"

"Just like Truth Social," Christ said. "When you don't know the truth or don't want to seek the truth, you make it up and then you say it over and over again, louder and louder and louder until you and everyone around you believes your own lies."

"Picture this," Jesus Christ said, looking more like Sofia on the Golden Girls than the hot Aramaic man I loved, "there are millions who believe Ganesha, the elephant god, started it all-creating humans and the universe by one simple god like action: He farted and hence, the Big Bang," Jesus said.

Now I was rolling on the floor with him, one naked savior of mankind and one fully dressed novelist/playwright.

"So, it was a collaborative thing?"

"No, not at all. Dad and I got into the scenario really late, we're just off-springs of the off-springs of the . . . . well count back a million generations or so and you'll get my point."

"But the Bible says-"

"Jews are damned good story tellers."

"How else do you think Dad would have gotten the credit for creating the universe?"

"And you? When did you come into the picture?"

"Ah, that's the rub, isn't it?" Jesus rubbed his hand over my leg again for emphasis-and, of course, for our mutual sexual pleasure. . . "and the morning and the evening were the first day," Jesus Christ said as my floors became as white as snow.

"Thanks for the snow job, "I said, but my kitchen used to have green and white tiles."

"It's better this way. A new creation so to speak."

"Okay," The Lord of the Universe said, "I can change them back, but I'm playing to a tough crowd."

Jesus Christ touched the floors, and they returned to the green and white tiles-albeit clean, I'm happy to report.

"Saul Pilostomos wrote that tale about the world being created in seven days yadda yadda. Damned fine writer I think, but then that Moses character came along and had him stoned. It's in Leviticus, the tale of the stoning of Saul-the mad chronicler from Sinai who wrote the first creation story."

"And then Moses took credit?"

"Exactly!"

"Something, I'm sure you'd never do."

"Right?" I stumbled again. I sensed the sound and smell of lightning in the air.

"Right, Christ said.

"So, what's your favorite thing in the whole world," I asked.

"I don't know, he said, but I can tell you what's my most favorite in the universe. . . Mai Tais!"

"Mai Tais, not beer?"

"Yep, I love those tiny umbrellas!" Jesus Christ's raucous laughter almost broke the windows in my neighbors' houses a block and a half away.

"I've never drunk one," I said, as Jesus Christ waved his right index finger over my oil and vinegar cruets and changed them into two Mai Tais, complete with pink umbrellas. "Try one, you'll like it."

I put my umbrella on the table and drank. It was sweet and I drank it down quickly so Jesus and I could have an umbrella fight.

Jesus Christ pushed his Mai Tai toward the center of the table, reached across took my umbrella and then swooped up his as he licked the paper handle. "These are the tastiest."

"You Americans haven't done much in the world, but I swear to Myself, you invented the tastiest pink papered umbrella handles in the universe. . . even the Xeololians didn't make them finer."

"The Xeololians?"

"A wonderful race of dwarfs living on the nineteenth planet in Alpha Centauri. They live to be six million years old, but they don't mature sexually until the ends of their lives. . . so that, coupled with the fact that they're dwarfs, didn't make them as appealing to me, as say, Big Bad John's john or Peter's peter. But then too, there was Kerry."

"Kerry? Kerry wasn't one of the twelve, was he?"

"No, of course not."

"Kerry Sandusky was a steel driving man-think John Henry-but younger and hotter. He worked in one of those Myself-awful steel mills in Pittsburgh."

"We met at the factory in 1906. He was a swarthy lad, five foot six or so, maybe a hundred and twenty, with biceps that made my heart throb . . . and his ass was the hottest ass I've ever set my lips on . . . until I met you."

"You licked his ass?" My heart fluttered. Did Jesus Christ, the purported Ruler of the Universe, the King of Kings, actually say my ass was the hottest he had ever seen and ever kissed?

"Yes, to both questions, Scot," Jesus said as he grabbed my ass and squeezed. But I digress. . . I was talking about Kerry Sandusky, my steel driving friend-"

"One night while we were struggling to stay inside his single bed looking up at a bare light bulb with me lying him lying on his back and riding him like a fucking bronco, he started laughing like a maniac. "What's wrong?" I asked and when he stopped giggling he looked me in my deep brown eyes and said, 'Jesus, you have such beautiful hair in your nose-and I have such beautiful hair in my ass. Let's put the two together.'"

"I thought you said he had the hottest ass in the universe," next to mine, I wanted to say, but differed.

"You didn't let me finish, SCOT!'

I didn't expect lightning and thunder or the earth to open any more-Jesus wasn't just the Christian god, he was my friend now-someone whom I adored not as holy or religious or righteous-just . . . a friend!

"His ass-Kerry Sandusky's ass-was the smoothest ass I'd ever laid my hands on. And when we switched positions and I stuck my hairless nose up his hairless asshole, I swear to myself, the universe stopped moving! It was if time stopped, as if we were both in that fold of time that existed before the Big Bang-when six trillion parallel universes conjoined, when chaos ruled. . . and trust, me, chaos ruled in Kerry Sandusky's bedroom every night for the entire year we spent together. . . every Myself damned minute!"

"Well, I hope you know me well enough to know I'd never turn you down, Jesus."

"As your General Eisenhower once said, 'never overlook an opportunity,' Christ said. "So each evening, after a few Mai Tais-and yes I invented Mai Tais at the turn of the last century-I'd fart and belch and Kerry loved that so much. . . he was a working man, with a working man's sense of humor and as much as I adored Kerry Sandusky-as much as I wished I could grab him, hold on to him and fly him up with me to LaLa Land and live happily ever after, I decided then and there that my final boyfriend-the man I would ultimately take up with me to LaLa Land, would be brilliant, loving, caring, and witty-witty just like you!"

I nearly had a coronary. Did was this man, this Jesus Christ of Nazareth, this god to beat all other gods, love me as much as he said? Was he really offering me a chance to sit on that plastic yellow chair in LaLa Land? Would I have to wait in line, or could I go straight to it and regale myself as his equal?

I noticed a growing tumescence in Jesus Christ's 501s.

"And Kerry would do his little steel workers dance for me. . . the one where he stripped off his shirt and showed me his dancing tattoos-he had a woman on a flying trapeze tattoo on his right bicep and a walrus tattoo on his left-and I used to fantasize about the walrus swinging from Kerry's left arm to hop onto the naked woman on that flying trapeze and, brother, let me tell you, if you want to see the Son of God aroused-I mean honest to Myself aroused, just get yourself a few tats and watch what happens."

"Anyway, Kerry would row those boats ashore after his dance, if you get my drift, but first, he'd jiggle between the flying walrus and the lady on the flying trapeze and kick off his clogs-which isn't an easy thing for a man to do-and wriggled out of his trousers. And oh, My Fucking Self, he was the hottest boy I'd been with since John, my boy, my disciple, John."

"Kerry made me cum in my pants at least a dozen times a night-every night for a year, as I watched that lady jumping up and down his arm . . . and when the walrus joined the fracas, waving his huge ivory tusks in my face, I'd dive down on all three of them-the slim lady on the flying trapeze-the walrus-and Kerry Sandusky."

"Anyway, I digress, Kerry wore boxers-or what you'd call boxers today-long johns I guess is what they were called back then, but he had cut off the legs all the way to his upper thighs, 'I like the freedom,' he said, 'I like the joy of knowing my balls can rock and roll in the steel factory and when they sweat it rolls down my legs-my naked legs-and oozes onto the factory floor. There's nothing worse than soggy undies,' Kerry would say, as he stripped off his soggy underwear and slowly turned around, revealing the most perfect ass I'd seen since David's."

"David? Like Goliath and David?"

Jesus Christ roared. "No David as in David . . . Michelangelo's statute."

"Perhaps that's why I loved Kerry from the beginning."

"You lost me."

"Kerry. Michelangelo. David. They all fit together nicely," he said, "almost as nicely as my nose slipped into Kerry's ass crack." Jesus Christ bit the end off the second umbrella and waved his hand across the kitchen table, conveniently creating a dozen more paper umbrellas of various colors and tones. "My favorites are the pinks, which remind me of . . .. Jesus Christ giggled, "well, let's just say they reminded me of parts of Kerry that I explored every night for over a year." Jesus Christ licked the end of a pink umbrella, looked down at the tableful of hundreds of umbrellas that had popped up during his short discourse, and blinked as they all turned pink. "Pink is a beautiful color," Jesus Christ moaned, "so much more beautiful than the red spilled on that stupid cross."

It sounds like the crucifixion was your-I only thought the words, daring not to embarrass the Lord God of the universe.

"Yes, they were my cross to bear, but I'm nearly over that phase of my life-I'm ready to grab you up and fly you off to LaLa Land with me-I just have one simple thing to do first."

I wondered why Jesus didn't grab me up. Was he wanting me to propose? Did he want me to hold out my hand, waiting for an engagement ring? Did he want me to cover his body with my sweet warm kisses?

"I'm trying to get over this hump," Jesus said. "Sigmund Freud and I spent hours discussing the implications of my outstretched arms on that cross, my feet nailed to the timbers, my ass hammered shut with a hundred thousand spikes, and even then, nearly two thousand years after that ass busting moment, I was still pretending the incident was a dream."

I could see the tears rolling down my savior's face.

"Freud lived in his own little world you know. If it was real, he ignored it. 'Just tell me your dreams,' he'd say. 'Just tell me what you dreamt last night and I'll fix you.'"

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Freud was an up-to date man with his vocabulary. But Myself, he just didn't get it."

"He died in his sleep", Jesus Christ said.

"Freud?"

"Ah!"

"Yes."

"He and Kerry died in their sleep. Both in my arms."

"But for different reasons of course."

"Freud and I never had a relationship. He was too esoteric. . . and scatological. . .. too much into his nightmares and dreams."

"Kerry, on the other hand, was totally into the moment. Into me. He was, actually, the first human, who really adored me just for being me."

"I'm so fucking tired of the shit my followers do. The lives they lead. The lies they live!"

"If they only got real. . .. like Kerry . . if they could only see the light at the end of the George Washington Tunnel. If they only could get their noses out of their own asses for five seconds, they'd realize they were living in their own fucking LaLa Land. Totally oblivious to me, to us . . . to Dad and me. . . and the Dancing Spook, of course. . . he always seemed to go into an epileptic fit every time anything really important happened." Jesus Christ was turning pale green.

"What's wrong?"

"Those years in the closet, I think, when Dad locked me and the Spook together in a four-by-four foot closet-and shoved a rag under the door to keep out the light. Oh, My fucking self, it was a much darker place back then. . . much tougher than the cross . . . or the insanity and hatred my so-called followers created in my name."

"I am so lost."

"No, you're not," he replied. "You're one of the few who's really found salvation."

"I thought you were the way, the truth and-"

"Yadda yadda?"

"That."

"Well, no . . . there is no life after death-not for you-not for the Christians---or the Moslems or anyone. . . not even for me, Dad or the Spook. We're all here for a set time. And after that, we fade away into the cosmos, get recreated, reborn-if you will-and come back as moon rock, or a neutron, or an enema."

"An enema?"

"A figure of speech."

"Your race is one of the millions with the ability to think about the future, the power to create, to think, to be, and all of you-all the races across the universe- have spent too much time thinking about life after death. Life with Ra, life with Zeus, life with Choc!"

"There is nothing after death. Just a void that gods and men and all creatures sift through for eons . . .and eons. . . and eons."

"So, what was the purpose of your crucifixion?"

"Just another Roman joke-a way to entertain their local rabble."

"Your civilization created wrestling and football and politics. All ways to entertain the masses. Slap them, kick them, hit them, hurt them . . but most of all, annoy the hell out of them. That's your form of crucifixion. And in my humble opinion, that's worse than having a dozen spikes driven into your hot flesh. At least that death is relatively fast, and being naked added to the excitement. Women, kids, goats, Romans, Jews, priests, money-changers, gawking at my schlong, ogling me, wishing they were as well endowed."

"I read all their minds which took my mind off my death. Actually, I didn't suffer much pain at all. The hardest part was carrying that damned cross. But after a few road-show stumbles that I had picked up from the Medes a few thousand years before while watching them on closed circuit TV in the closet with the Spook, I learned to be a pretty damned good actor!"

Jesus waved his right forefinger over my kitchen table and the pink umbrellas, chewed up handles, and Mai Tais were all transformed into vinegar and oil cruets.

"Salad?" Jesus Christ asked and he laughed and laughed and laughed, but it took me a week. . . and conversations with a half dozen elderly gay friends before I got the joke.

And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.


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