The Whore and the Rock

The sky was ablaze with every heavenly being in its catalogue, and though it was night, the streets of Judaea shimmered like so many stars on earth. The soft glow of the myriad torches betrayed a sense of urgency in the tranquil city. Shimon was desperate for a dram of wine to settle his nerves. What he had seen, what he had done…or moreover, what he had failed to do. Struck with this new and ugly realization, he took off through the alleys he knew well, careful to avoid the Centuries on patrol tonight.

            Panting, he arrived at the door of Miriam of Magdala. He rapped on the door frantically, nearly falling into it as a disturbed Miriam investigated the rude obtrusion.

            “Shimon Cephas, what are you doing?” He pushed past her into the house and collapsed on the floor. Miriam quickly shut the door and gathered some water and a rag. She dabbed his forehead and cheeks, flushed red and damp with sweat. Shimon spoke.

            “Miriam, I have done wrong against him.” Shimon felt hot tears sluice down his face.

            “Shimon, what are you saying? He loves you, as you love him. He knew this day would come.” Her warm brown eyes settled upon his. Miriam could communicate such love and care with those eyes. Perhaps that is why she was his favorite. Shimon recovered some strength, due in part to Miriam’s gift of giving. He stumbled toward the table and, with his left hand, filled a small clay cup with wine. Miriam beheld this spectacle with worry. “To Yeshua,” he croaked, and swallowed the whole cup in one violent gulp. “It’s fitting, I think, that I should be drinking his blood tonight. Had I been a better man, I’d have spilt Roman blood amongst the olive trees and wildflowers, and he’d still be with us!” This outburst was followed by an unbridled wail, and Shimon Cephas, the Rock of the Church, fell upon the table in drunken sobs.

            Miriam could do little to quell the immense passions that now poured forth from Shimon like so much wine. She suggested his cries might bring the attentions of the patrols, which managed to dull his fits to a hushed weeping. The dimly lit house became brighter with each shake of Shimon’s broken frame, and for a moment Miriam supposed something miraculous to be happening. The heavy march of sandaled feet alerted her to the true cause. She tried to rouse Shimon, but to no avail. The door shook with two hard knocks.

            “Hallo! I would speak to the household. There has been an incident requiring investigation.” Miriam unceremoniously slapped Shimon into sobriety and smoothed her tunic. She opened the door, armed with a naïve and confused expression. “An incident? I hope nothing serious?” She was met with a lumbering block of a man, nearly thirty hands high. He wore a pauldron of polished bronze and his crest was dark maroon, the color of curdled blood. His eyes were slate gray, and at the moment they scrutinized Miriam’s countenance for any hint of deception.

            “Woman,” the centurion commanded, “if you or that man,” and here he gestured disgustedly at the red-faced and bedraggled Shimon Cephas, “have any knowledge of what has transpired this night, three miles north, in Gethsemane,” and at this Shimon Cephas’ head shot up as if he’d been stabbed, “you are obligated to divulge said knowledge to me, Marcus Acidinus, or suffer at the hands of the Roman law.” Miriam smiled coquettishly, an attempt to hide the tic that had formed at the corner of her mouth.

            “I can tell you,” came a throaty growl from the table that made Miriam start, “I can tell you something.” The centurion Marcus Acidinus took an eager step forward, his frame now blocking any form of exit. Miriam glared at Shimon. What was he at?

            Shimon smiled gravely. “I can tell you that I have been enjoying a loverly night with my woman, and you have intruded upon it. Would you say the same?” He turned his dopey face upon Miriam. For a second, she noted a fierce glint to his eyes. She decided to trust whatever he’d set in place. “Oh yes,” she replied, emphatically. “A truly wonderful night.”

            Marcus Acidinus bristled. He did not like this unexpected brashness toward himself and his betters. Toward Rome, even. He moved past the smallish woman and leaned hard over the red, bearded man. “You know nothing of the events in the garden of Gethsemane, and the treasonous party disbanded there?” Shimon shook his head. “No, I don’t. And I would like to ask, if I take offense to this sudden imposition on our festivities, do I take the issue up with you or the local procurator?” Marcus Acidinus was seething now. He dropped all semblance of policy and tore the impertinent, bearded little man from the table. Shimon swallowed hard.

            “DO YOU OR DO YOU NOT KNOW OF THE REBEL YESHUA OF NATZERET—“

            “I know nothing!” Shimon Cephas screamed. “I know nothing, nothing of this man. I tell you, I do not know him!” The centurion Marcus Acidinus dropped the sniveling heap of man atop the table and swiftly exited, scowling at Miriam as he left. She shut the door tight and cradled the limp frame of Shimon in her arms. He cried deeply, clutching at her tunic. Dawn crept over the horizon, and a pale orange light filled the chamber. Delirious with guilt and shame, Shimon Cephas, the Rock upon which the Church was built, held tightly to the prostitute Miriam of Magdala as the sun rose above Judaea.

An Experimental Piece...

I’ll make you a deal.

I will tell you a story

I will write you a story

I will give you a story

and you will tell me, is there a difference?

*****

St. Jeanne d’Arc, 1996. First Grade.

A young boy sits at a desk. The desk is beige. There are scratch marks on the surface, and

if the boy ran his fingers over them, he would trace out an

F, a

U, a

C, and a

\  broken line that must’ve been interrupted by the teacher’s stony glare.

The boy does not do this, though. Instead, he shifts his legs uncomfortably. When he moves his legs about, he is careful to avoid contact with the underside of the desk. He assumes it is peppered with globular mounds of every color in the spectrum, tiny monuments to varying tastes and bad manners.

The boy is wrong. There is no gum under the desk.

There is a heart, traced in red sharpie, that says

Jamie and Lexi

Below the heart is an arrow pointing at the former Jamie, in black sharpie. The writing next to this arrow, in same black, states,

Fuck Jamie Hubbard

The boy knows none of this. The boy is clutching his penis. His knees are cracking against each other. A single tear makes a pilgrimage down his left cheek, trailing a deep crimson wake through the chapped skin. The boy’s right hand (the hand that is not clamped upon his genitals) reaches so high the boy can feel his veins popping. The tendon in his wrist threatens to rupture. This incredible hand, red and bulging, is invisible to the shriveled woman at the head of the class. 

Perhaps the boy could get her attention if he knew what took place when the final bell rang, and the children trampled across the parking lot over the dandelions that permeated the presumably impermeable concrete toward the corner store, to buy a Snickers or a Kit Kat for ninety five cents. If he weren’t one of this candied confederacy, if he watched the powder blue Crown Victoria pull out of the parking lot, if he trailed this same vehicle to a faded green Cape Cod with three broken shutters, he would witness

the endless nights she stumbled into her bedroom, her hand slapping the wall,

                    searching 

                                    searching for

                                                          searching for the

light switch,

her eyes soaked with bourbon,

her breath reeking of

                                                                                                                                     loneliness.

The boy, again, knows none of this, and so he waves his beautiful damask appendage wildly, a Bolshevik in Moscow snow, desperate for the attention of the pedagogical drunk. He might think, Oh no no God no. He may pray, Oh please make it stop please I can’t wait much longer. And then, it happens. His left hand begins to fill with warm liquid. The room acquires a septic stink. He lets the urine flow through his fingers. His right hand slowly relaxes and falls. His raw, chapped cheeks brighten and shine as a silent deluge pours from his eyes. His lids are heavy. He feels tired. The piss trails down his leg and onto his shoe, turning the white canvas of his sneaker ochre. The girl next to him screams, though she’s seen worse. She’s watched her father vomit blood after his fourth round of chemo, seen him dampen the seat of his La-Z-Boy during Jeopardy.

{Her father looked at his grey sweatpants, as if they were at fault, and he met her eyes.

Watching him sit in his own urine, his eyes melting into his sallow cheeks, the room smelling

of pity, she’d wished he were dead. As she watches the boy she thinks of these things. Still she screams, but her eyes fill with a deep and terrible understanding of decay and life’s utter futility.}

Still, she screams. The scream is enough to attract the alcoholic’s attention. She pries herself from her own desk and shuffles toward the mess, wary, like a bird on a wire. The boy

might see her eyes widen in shock as the yellow stream courses toward her

might see her mouth open slowly, her lower lip quiver with a tick, only on the left side

might see her glare soften in spite of herself,

but he sees none of this. The boy is soaked in piss, and the piss is growing cold. He stares at the grains of wood in the chair in front of him. His lids are drooping, drooping. Immutable humiliation, it seems, is often followed by a dopey calm. The boy marinates in his mess, a middle school martyr. His whole body slowly slumps forward. The grains in the wood on the chair in front of him are filled with grime and fading due to neglect. The boy closes his eyes.

If he had kept them open he might have noticed sharpie on the bottom right of the chair back. In deep black sharpie, faded as the grains of wood, is written

Im as lost as u r

*****

Northampton Apartment. Present. Vestigial Exaggerations.

There is a young man. There is a young woman. They are drinking tea. The young man has put some honey/whiskey into his tea because he is nervous/because it’s the weekend/because he’s an alcoholic. The woman is shifting uncomfortably because she doesn’t know what he wants/because her thong is riding up/because she feels like she’ll burst into flames. The man makes a joke. It’s about Jews/politics/sexuality. She smiles a bit. Her mouth curves up about an inch/a centimeter/not at all. She tries to look amused. He can see she’s not. He is preoccupied. He is staring into her eyes. They are so very empty, except for a little gold fleck around the iris. Her eyes look as if someone drained a pool and right near the drain at the bottom was a gold necklace that had forever parted from the neck of a beautiful, slender, bronze-skinned swimmer. He wants to tell her this, but he chokes on some tea/whiskey and excuses himself. Automatically, she asks him if he’s all right, but she hardly notices. She came over because he asked her to/because she wasn’t tired/because she thought he looked nice/because she is so lonely. If she went home she would read a book until the words began to blur, and lay back staring at the stucco ceiling of her apartment, contemplating the vast whiteness of those tiny mountains and valleys. She wants to tell him this, but he is in the bathroom, spitting up spiked tea/brushing his teeth. She scrutinizes the frayed arm of the sofa, each tiny red tendril straining to break free of the upholstery, yellow cushioning foam oozing out like pus from an infected wound. She wants to tell him about her infection, how she can’t stand the sight of her bookcase because its full of sad, dead women, and she cant watch the news because she imagines what it would be like to step on a landmine and 

every

                                              in

                                 fly                    

                                                                                                      direction

The gaping wound in the earth would mark her final fatal step, and all the pieces of her would be collected and put in a little Mason jar. She would live in a jar, like a genie. The thought causes her to become claustrophobic, and she shoves the young man as he reenters. He is startled by this impromptu hostility. He stares at her for a moment/an hour/however long it takes to peel apart the pounds of armor and preconception that sits on every person thick and heavy like a hangover. She stares back, waiting for him to caress her/kiss her/slam her against a wall and tear off her clothes/grab between her legs/bash her face in until she can’t feel. They move toward each other. He can smell her sweat/perfume/fear and he reaches his hand toward hers. She is glass/she is newborn. They fall onto the couch and make love. He is overly concerned about his performance. She is lost in the ecstasy of his/her doing. As she stares up at his ceiling, flat and ochre-colored, nearing climax, her hips bucking against his awkward thrusts, her panties hanging from her ankle, her forehead slick with perspiration, she dreams again of dying, the beautiful diaspora of her flesh among the sands and stars.

*****

I DESECRATE myself; And what I abuse you shall abuse…

And so the carnival slithers off again, bound for broken towns.

I can speak the squirrel’s tongue. But when I do I just seem nuts. Get it get it get it get it

where am I? I don’t mean geographically, I know THAT, there are signs and satellites that keep me very, VERY aware of THAT

where

    as in state of mind

     emotional stability

      financial prosperity

       vocational success

        chosen path

         destiny

          drop of water on a massive boulder baking in the desert sun

      am I?

I want to smash precious things into indecipherable pieces, and anyone who tries to piece them back together I will kick in the shins until they can’t stand and everything between their knees and feet is a purple spongy mess.

I want to leap

                        off a building and watch myself fall and SMASH and SQUISH into the definitive impermeable dependable wonderful concrete and I want to examine the body and how the blood pools and study the patterns it makes and try to attribute some profound arcane Kabbalistic meaning to it and I want to ask myself why the body is smiling and the eyes are full of secrets but I can’t because I’m

dead.

I want to do these things so somebody BECAUSE NOBODY can tell me

where I am.

I want to know where I am.

Please

  God

  Jesus

  Krishna

  Torah

  Times

  Playboy

  Dad

  bones

  booze

  big titted therapist

  SHAKY SHAKY BUS LADY

I know why you look so crazy.

You don’t know where you are either.

RAMSES HOWLS FOR THE TWENTY THOUSAND FORLORN SOULS TORN FROM THE SOIL BY A TYRANT THEY CALL JEHOVAH

JEHOVAH LAUGHS AND GNOSHES THE SLICK BROWN PROGENY OF MENES

MOSES DISEMBOWELS LAMBCHOP AND SMEARS HER HOLY BLOOD ACROSS THE DOORWAYS AND STREETSIGNS AND BILLBOARDS OF JEHOVAH

SOMEWHERE A SNAKE WALKS ON TWO FEET

SOMEWHERE HE WALKS IN FOREIGN HEAT

SOMEDAY I HOPE WE TWO SHALL MEET

I believe God gave me a brain, body, soul, love

but then he got lazy and drove off into the sunset with Satan

chainsmoking all the way, with a case of Jim Beam in the backseat.

I gather up my brain, body, soul, love, fear, anxiety, addiction

and I step on the bus bound homeward

my arms numb with the immense weight.

Bus driver looks at my baggage. She has tired, dead eyes.

An artificial voice commands me to PLEASE SHOW ID. Bus driver’s mouth never moves.

I feel exhilarated by the magic or irony or desperation of this moment, and I hustle past the other orphaned passengers and plant my things down on a damp and soiled seat.

If God could see me now

(because remember, he is in the sunset, drinking and smoking, and it is only 6:04)

what would he have to say about me. Me and my baggage.

God doesn’t feel guilt, but if he did, I suspect he would trouble himself over how to right the wrongs. Or maybe he’d just light a butt and toss the lit match. Or maybe he’d watch us light the match ourselves, and shake his head. I can feel the bus driver heaving inside. I want to tell her, I would love her if I could, but I can’t. I think that’s what God would say.

Her breast is thick with the wisdom of ages

But no one is biting

Because they’ve receded into her ribs

And who knows what lives there

This is shit. It’s impossible to write when a large yellow beast is gnawing on your ear. His fangs are orange and broken. He is a Vietnam vet. He is deaf to my cries, or deaf to the world. Or I’m not crying. I’m laughing at the tragedy of it all. Because if I don’t get rid of him I’ll never be pretty like the other girls

I’ll never be asked to the dance

I’ll never be prom queen

and in two years when my parents find me face down in a pool of vomit and urine and blood outside a seedy bar they’ll just nod sadly like they knew it all along.

Because I think I’m peter pan.

I think I’m the oracle.

I am special/chosen/deified, but it’s all a sham, snakeoil ruse, a joke that was cooked up when I first read the Phantom Tollbooth and cried. So maybe I am crying. Is there much of a difference? Laugh. Now cry, now laugh, cry. Smile.Sneeze. Spit. Decay. Laugh. Laff. LAPH.

I would love to be proven wrong

Or cleansed

Is it a disease

 CLEAN ME, O WISE AND BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!

 MAKE ME LIKE YOU!

I want to be a gear. I want to make things turn. But I’m a defective gear, because I want EVERYONE to tell me what a good little gear I am. And this feeling does NOTNOT not go away like in-laws or herpes or stray cats with rabies. My watch is broken, incidentally. Ignorance of time is so soothing. I think I was counting down to my death.

I know what you’re thinking. But I don’t care, is what I’d like to say. My hand hesitates. It can smell bullshit.

I want a cigarette to kill me so I don’t never want uhn nuther one again. What a piece of pork is ham HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I’m losing my mind. And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that meddling conscience clinging to the last raft in a great and horrible bubonic sea. But I can feel a storm, imminent and awful, heading my way.

Please leave your answer on the line below, as well as your

_______

name:____________________

serial number:___________

blood type:____

mother’s maiden name:______________

and a justification for your existence in fifteen words or less:

Thank you, and have a nice day