Book of Jim: Agnostic Parables and Dick Jokes From Lucifer's Paradise (2 page)

II

1

Cherry said to Jim, “So you ready for a good time?  I know just the place.”

And Jim said, “Uh, sure.”

So the two of them went to the place where the Orgy
was.
  The beach lay nameless beneath the clear sky and the sand lay untouched and smooth.  Above the beach and in the sky the Orgy flew.  For it was a ship, and the ship was red and gold and it flapped two giant wings.

“There’s only one way up,” Cherry said.  She pointed to a wooden catapult.  It was the only
thing
on the beach.

“Aren’t you coming?” Jim said.

Cherry shook her head.  “I need some R’n’R.  You know, watch some Ghostbusters, ride some dolphins, maybe some Thai food.  That sort of thing.”

“I like Thai food.”

Cherry laughed.  “You’re sweet, Jim.”  She kissed him on the cheek.  “Maybe
too
sweet.”

Jim climbed into the wooden spoon of the catapult.  “But wait,” he said.  “How do I get ahold of you?  I mean, you know, if we wanted to get together.”

“Oh!  I almost forgot!”  Cherry drew a smart phone from her purse and handed it to him.  “I’m supposed to give this to you.  All the essentials are preloaded.  Google Paradise and Grandma Finder and everything.  My number’s in there too.”

Jim said, “Cool.”  He put the smart phone in his pocket.  “Well, uh, any advice?  For the Orgy?”

“Don’t freak out,” she said.  “Everything grows back.”

She pulled the lever of the wooden catapult and the catapult went
thwump.
  Jim took to the air, and he soared
through
the air and said, “Sheeeeyyaaaaaat!”  Then he went through a portside window of the red-gold ship with wings that was called Orgy.

2

Jim wasn’t alone in the cabin of the ship that was called Orgy.  There was also a bald bespectacled man who carried kind eyes and a clipboard.  And he
was
kind.

“Welcome,” the bald bespectacled man said.  “Is it Jim?”

“Yeah,” said Jim.  “How do you know my name?”

“Because you’re right on time.”  The bald bespectacled man made a mark on his clipboard with a ball point pen.  “If you’ll just walk with me, we can get you sorted on the way.”

“Are you another angel?”

“Nope.”

They walked through a door and into a hallway and the hallway had many doors. 

“So Jim, it says here that you’re straight.  Is that correct?”

“Uh, yes.  Definitely straight.”

“Would you say you’re straight like an arrow, or straight by default?”

“I, um, I guess I never thought about it like that.  Let’s go with default.”

“And do you prefer intimacy or anonymity?”

“Intimacy.”

“You see three women.  One is wearing black, one white, the other red.  Choose one.”

“White.”

“Ass, mouth, or pussy?”

“What?”

“Gun to your head.  Ass, mouth, or pussy?”

“Pussy.”

“Great.  You’re doing great, Jim.”  The bald bespectacled man licked his fingers and flipped to the next page on the clipboard.  “It says here you used to fantasize about the sixteen-year-old daughter of your uncle’s neighbor.  Are you still interested in young girls?”

“I, uh, I mean – sixteen?”  Jim coughed, and it was a nervous cough.  “Come on.  She’s at least, like, more than that.  I wouldn’t – you know.  Come on.  I wouldn’t.”

“It says here you would.”

“Well, I mean, I
would
.”

“Great.  This all paints a pretty clear picture.  Default hetero, preferences for intimacy and innocence and pussy, mildly suppressed desire for young girls.  Not
too
young, I hope?”

“What?  No.  Man.  Just give something between eighteen and forty.  Keep it simple.”

The bald bespectacled man
murmured
.  It was a knowing
murmur
.  He flipped through four pages on the clipboard, and then he clucked with his tongue.

“Well you’re just in luck, Jim.  Seventeen and fresh from the circus.  She died about the same time you did.  Blonde hair b-cup virgin, and she wants a big hairy man to savage her.  Right this way.”

3

The room was cozy and private.  In it there was a white bed and upon the bed lay a young woman whose skin was crisp and pale.  She wore white lingerie and her blonde hair was long behind her.  She didn’t wear make-up.  The bedposts
were
mahogany.

“Hi,” Jim said.  “I’m Jim.  I died a few days ago.  Same as you, I guess.”

The young woman said nothing.  She wasn’t beautiful, but she
was
pretty.  She sucked on her bottom lip and touched herself.

Jim thought of the daughter of his uncle’s neighbor and the wonderful acts he had imagined upon her.  And he also thought of the daughter of his boss and the wonderful acts he had imagined upon
her
.  He thought of all the wonderful acts he had imagined upon daughters, and sisters, and mothers, and he discovered that
imagining
was other than
performing.

For she was virgin, and he was big and hairy.

He said to the virgin, “I don’t want you to get me wrong, cause you’re gorgeous, but I’m feeling kind of weird about this.  I mean, are you sure you want to get savaged?  By me?”

“Are you a lumberjack?” the virgin said.

“A lumberjack?  Well, not really.  I did some tree trimming for a while.”

The virgin quivered, and she touched herself with
force
.  “Savage me,” she said.

So Jim climbed into the bed with the virgin.  With his big hands he pushed her small shoulders into the mattress.

She was a terrible kisser, for her tongue was eager and unpracticed.  It was therefore that he ceased to kiss her mouth and took his lips to her pussy.

And it was a terrible pussy, for it was unwashed and hairy and the odor was acrid.  It was therefore that he ceased to kiss her pussy and formed with his lips a question.

“How did you die?”

The virgin said, “It doesn’t matter.  Please just put that lumberjack dick inside of me.”

“I think I have to know.”

“Fine.  It was leukemia.  I had leukemia for a long time and it sucked and I never got to have any fun and then I died.  Now put your dick in me.”

“Oh man,” Jim said.  “You’re a kid with cancer?  I don’t think I should be doing this.”

“Just give me your dick!  I just want your big hairy lumberjack dick!”

But Jim didn’t give the virgin his dick.  He stood from the bed and walked to the door.  “I’ll have them send a real lumberjack,” he said.  And he went
through
the door and back into hallway of the ship that was called Orgy.

4

Jim wandered through the halls of the ship that was called Orgy for twelve days.  He searched for the bald bespectacled man who carried kind eyes and a clipboard, and who
was
kind, because he wanted to make sure that the virgin received her lumberjack.  But he couldn’t find the bald bespectacled man, nor anybody else, and he wandered alone.

He passed by many doors, but he dared not open one.  Inside there might be virgins, and he was
not
a lumberjack.

On the twelfth day he came to an elevator.  In the elevator were many buttons.  These are the buttons in the elevator in the hallway of the ship that was called Orgy:

Hetero-generic; Homo-generic; Bi-generic; Trans-generic; Pan-sexual; Teens and Virgins; MILFS; Anal; Submission and Domination; Legs, stockings, and feet; Traps; Gangbangs and reverse gangbangs; I just want a rim-job, bro; I’m feeling lucky.

And there was another button,
away
from the others, and the word upon it was written in flame.  The word was MANIAC.  Jim said, “Fuck it,” and he pushed the MANIAC button. 

5

So Jim came to the Pleasure Dome.  The dome was high and the space was wide, and he beheld within it the orgy of the flesh of wild souls.

There
was
a bulletin board, and upon it were posted several upcoming challenges and events.  There was a kick-fucking endurance challenge, an under-vodka deepthroat relay, a long distance ejaculation competition, and an aerial Kama Sutra exposition.

Jim went to the bar.  He ordered a neat whiskey.  A woman approached him.  Her curves were thick and her swagger
was
supernal.  She drank a martini.

“You must be new,” she said.

“How did you guess?”

“You look confused.  But mostly it’s the way you’re not fucking anybody right now.”

“Anything I should know about this place?”

“Well, there aren’t any hard rules, but raping is bad etiquette.  I wouldn’t kiss anybody, either.”

This was a strange juxtaposition.  “Why no kissing?”

The woman set down her martini and whispered into his ear, “Lips lie.  Fucks fly.”

So they fucked upon the bar.  It was not intimate, nevertheless it was
awesome.  When they finished, Jim fired his ejaculate high into the dome and it was a firework that flashed and made an emerald glow.

And beneath the emerald glow Jim beheld the aerial Kama Sutra exposition.  Couples launched themselves from a trampoline through the uprights of a goal post.  They posed at the zenith, and their form and style were judged by card-wielding men.

He beheld a carnival ride that shot sex parties straight up into the dome, where it shook until the party climaxed, then plummeted at freefall back to the ground.

He beheld another angel, greater than the first, who stood on a platform at the center of the orgy.  The angel was cut like a diamond and he had a shock of white hair.  His teeth were yellow.

“Beelzebub.”  The woman with supernal curves took Jim’s hand.  “Come.  Fly with me.”

They came to the platform and saw that it was covered with white dust.  And it was angel dust, for Beelzebub produced it by the scratching of his scalp.  The
flakes
of his scalp became dust.

The angel said, “Fly like the angels fly.  Feel what the angels feel.  Fuck as the angels fuck.”

“Okay,” said Jim. 

He and the woman with supernal curves snorted up the angel dust. 

6

With the borrowed wings of the angel’s dust Jim and the woman flew.  They felt too, and fucked.  And being high Jim beheld the orgy with new clarity.

He saw a thousand souls on their knees with their faces down and asses prone.  Behind them stood a thousand more with oiled feet.  A whistle blew, and the thousand feet kick-fucked the thousand asses, and the moans were the mingling of pain and satisfaction.

He saw a great mattress and upon the mattress a greater number lounged.  They fucked at leisure and drank wine from goblets and they conversed about the ephemeral.

He saw the pools of vodka and the breathless race to make men cum.  He saw the longest cummer crowned.  The crown was made of pearls, and it was claimed by a woman who wore it
rightly
as a queen.

And Jim turned to the woman with supernal curves, who flew
beside
him, and he said, “Let’s blow a hole through the dome.”

So they fucked some more.  It was intense fucking, and there was much grunting and ululating.  As they approached the climax, Jim put his mouth upon the woman’s mouth.  It
was
a kiss.

The woman pulled her face away and Jim saw his mistake in her eyes.

“Lips lie,” she said.

The borrowed wings molted and Jim fell.

III

1

Jim woke up on a comfortable couch.  The couch was in a room and in the room there was a window.  An angel sat before the window and looked out through the lens of a telescope and munched on a bowl of popcorn.

Jim knew the angel.  “You’re the angel that brought me here,” he said.

“I am.”  The angel laughed at something Jim couldn’t see.  He popped a kernel of the popcorn into his mouth.  “I heard you didn’t waste any time.”

“I can’t hardly remember anything.”  Jim sat up and his head imploded.  “What the hell?  I have a headache.”

Ca-
drum
.

“That surprises you?”

Na-
drum
.

“I thought this was
paradise
.”  Jim rubbed the temples of his head with the palms of his hands.  He remembered the angel with the white shock and the yellow teeth and the woman with supernal curves.  He remembered the kiss.  “How can there be headaches in
paradise
?”

Ca-
drum
na-
drum
.

“Well,” said the angel, “One way to do it is by mixing booze with angel dust.”

Jim stood and stretched his limbs.  He blinked four times and then he yawned and scratched himself.  The angel laughed again and munched the popcorn.

“What the hell are you laughing at?”

“The Ukraine is in revolt,” the angel said.  “They are wearing kitchen armor and lighting garbage on fire.  Come, take a look.”

Drum
ca-
nun
ca-
drum
.

So Jim put his eye to the lens of the telescope.  He beheld a city street at dusk.  On the street a line of riot police advanced against a ragged hoard.  The vestments of the hoard
were
from kitchens and closets, and the weapons of the hoard
were
from garden sheds. 

The street was black with fire and the blackfire glittered over broken glass.  Molotov cocktails flashed yellow when they bit into the riot shields.  Many lay dead and dying.  Jim saw at last a man with a noodle strainer for a helm, who was beaten into death by the batons of the police.  He turned away.

Drum
ca-
nun
ca-
drum
ca-
nun
ca-
drum
.

“Is that really happening?  Like, on Earth?”

“Yep.”

“Why is that funny?”  Jim declined the angel’s popcorn.

“Well in truth it isn’t
that
funny,” the angel said.  “You should have seen Carthage.  Now that was a good show.  Or Nanking, or Rwanda.  This revolt isn’t bad for a slow decade, though.”

“You watch us suffer for
entertainment
?”

Drumma
ca-
drumma
na-
drumma
ca-
nun
ca-
drum
.

“Suffering is the only thing you’re good at,” the angel said.

“Oh come on.”  Jim rubbed the temples of his head with the palms of his hands.  “What about baseball?  We’re pretty good at baseball.”

“You’re terrible at baseball.  Angels play it with a moon and the energies of light.”

“I mean, there’s good stuff, too.  Like, weddings and celebrations.  Art and architecture.   You know, the
good
stuff.”

“Did
you
enjoy weddings?”

“Well, no.”

Jim’s head imploded some more.  The pain was too much and he went to his knees.

“Fuck,” he said.  “Why are we so good at suffering?  Why do we suffer at all?”

Drumma
ca-
nun
-drum.

2

BANG!

The door burst open and through it came the bald bespectacled man, who
was
kind.  Instead of a clipboard he carried with him a manila envelope. 

“Jim!  Well you certainly don’t waste any time, do you?”  And the bald bespectacled man handed the manila envelope to Jim.

Jim accepted the envelope.  “Did the virgin get her lumberjack?”

“Thirty-nine of them and counting.  She’s got quite the appetite.”

“That’s good.”  Jim looked upon the envelope.  “What is this?  Why are you here?”

“It’s a summons.  I’m afraid you’ve been served.  But don’t worry, Jim.  Just keep your chin up and everything will come out alright.  Angel.”  The bald bespectacled man nodded at the angel and then departed.

“He tried to hook me up with a virgin.  At the orgy,” Jim said.  “And now he’s summonsing me?”

“Happens a lot around here,” said the angel.  “I moonlight as a jazz pianist.”

So Jim opened the envelope and inside there was a single sheet of paper.  He read it aloud:

Jim v Logic

You are hereby commanded to appear in the Court of Existence to defend yourself in the above-titled case and to answer to the following charge(s)

Charge(s): Asking a loaded question.

Court of Existence

Jean Paul Sartre Courthouse

Downtown, Paradise

“What the hell is a loaded question?” Jim said.

“I think it means you’re full of shit,” the angel said.  And he put his eye to the telescope, munched on the popcorn, and laughed.

3

Jim had defended himself in court before, but that was in Tennessee and for a traffic violation.  He doubted his abilities extended to loaded questions in the Court of Existence in
paradise
.  So he took out his smart phone and he searched for:

“human suffering” AND “loaded question” AND “lawyer”.

There was
one
result.  The result was William and William: Defense Attorneys for the Anguish’d Heart.  And their offices
were
in Downtown, Paradise.

So he came to a small office building nestled into one of the many corners of the city.  Inside he found a single space, cluttered with parchments and books, and perched on a pile of books was the countenance of William Shakespeare. 

“What’s the charge?”  Shakespeare didn’t look up, for he was buried in a tome.

“I, uh, I asked a loaded question,” Jim said.

“The question?”

“Why is there suffering.  In the world.  Why do people suffer.”

“Well, it would seem you’ve come through the right door.”  Shakespeare closed the tome.  “Please, have a seat.”

There were no chairs in the office, so Jim gathered six large books and stacked them one upon the other and he sat.

“You’re William Shakespeare,” he said.

“I am.”

“I thought you hanged all the lawyers.”

“I did.”  Shakespeare found a scrap of parchment and drew a pen from his shirt pocket.  “A man cannot always choose how he employs his talents.  But he is only lost if he doesn’t employ them at all.”

“Did
you
say that?”

“Yes.  Just now I said that.”

“Cool.”

Shakespeare snapped his fingers.  “The summons,” he said.  Jim handed him the summons and he looked upon it and sighed.  “These relativisms are wearisome.  What were the circumstances?”

“Well,” Jim said, “I was looking through this angel’s telescope, I think it was the Ukraine we were looking in on, and some really nasty stuff was going on.  The angel thought it was pretty funny, which didn’t really click in my head, you know?  So I asked him about the suffering.”

“What did you say exactly?”

“Well, let’s see.  I said,
Fuck.  Why are we so good at suffering?  Why do we even suffer?
”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Shakespeare scribbled many lines across the parchment.  He blotted twice, and at each blotting he frowned, pursed his lips, looked at the wall, snapped his fingers, and then he wrote something new.  He finished with the flourishing of his pen.

He said, “Well, Jim, take comfort in this.  It is not merely your heart, but the human heart, that is on trial.  These existentialists reach too far.  The question might have fallen from worthier lips, but worth is not the question.”

“Great,” Jim said.  It sounded like good news.  He stuck out his hand and Shakespeare shook it.  “So you’ll take the case?  And you think we’ll win?  I mean, you’re William Shakespeare, right?”

“I’ve yet to win a case,” Shakespeare said.  “But all morrows begin without sorrow, and tomorrow these hearts will beat against the narrows.  Of logic.  Beat against the narrow straights that constrict the mind.  Hmmm.”  He frowned, pursed his lips, looked at the wall, then he snapped his fingers and said, “Embattled hearts are guilty when they quiver, but beating shape the world that minds arrest.”

Jim was
not
a poet, and he understood only the first sentence.  “Am I fucked?” he said.

“Pretty much,” said Shakespeare.

4

The courtroom was a courtroom.  There was a judge, a bailiff, a reporter, and there
were also
some lawyers.  Jim sat with Shakespeare in the back of the courtroom.  They waited for their case to be called.

The case that went before them was case twenty-two, and the lawyer who prosecuted on behalf of Logic was Immanuel Kant.  He walked on stiff legs and wore a beard.  It was a luscious beard, and many luscious words came out of
it
.

It was a young girl whose case was twenty-two.  Jim came to understand that she had used a
slippery slope
regarding the
origins question
, and that slipping down the slope was an
assault against reason.
  She was guilty before the twelfth minute passed.  As punishment she received a signed copy of Kant’s book about metaphysics.

“Well that doesn’t seem so bad,” Jim said.

“You’ve never read Kant,” said Shakespeare.

Then the bailiff stood.  “Now appearing before Judge Russell, case twenty-three, Jim v Logic.”

Jim followed Shakespeare to the defendant’s table.  They waited for the bailiff to say more words. 

“The defendant is accused of discharging a loaded question into the face of human suffering.”

“Plead,” Judge Russell said.

“Guiltless,” Shakespeare said.

“Prosecution, go ahead.”

So Immanuel Kant took the courtroom floor.  He was small and arrogant and he stroked his luscious beard with his
left
hand.  He said,

“The defendant, hereafter referred to as Jim, asked of an angel, Why is there suffering?  This is not an innocent question.  It has been sufficiently established that this line of inquiry leads nowhere, and that it debases Logic and fugues the Mind.  As it is the purpose of this Court to disabuse Paradise of bad thinking, it is the Court’s Imperative to hold Jim accountable for these words.  The question was loaded, and he fired it like grapeshot over Prussia.”

“Prussia?” Jim said.

“Objection!”  Shakespeare wielded his pen.  “There is no Prussia!”

“Overruled.”

“Damn!”

So Kant continued.  “Why is there suffering?  The underlying assumption is clear.  Embedded in the question is the bold assertion that the tragic nature of mortality is somehow transcendent, that it is tragic
because
.  The question asserts that pain and misery have defensible, perhaps even noble, functions.  It is a claim whose magnitude embroils even the most practiced Minds, and Jim offered no evidence to support it.  He blithely assumed it, and he buried the assumption in six retarded syllables.

“The prosecution will happily drop the charges if Jim can defend the assumed position.  If Jim can make the case for meaningful suffering, and raise the foundation necessary to support his assumption, he is free to go.  If not, the prosecution is bound by the Court’s Imperative to seek the maximum reprisals.

And if I may append an editorial, the presence of an angel compounds the depravity of the offense.  It is disheartening that not even the wards of Paradise are safe from these stupidities.”

Kant glared at Jim with his
left
eye, and he stroked his beard with his
left
hand, and then he sat down.

5

And Judge Russell said, “Can the defendant provide evidence that humankind suffers meaningfully?”

“That’s
my
question,” Jim said.  “You’re asking me the question that you’re prosecuting me for asking.  It’s the same question.”

“No,” said Judge Russell.  “Your question was unlettered, and it arbitrarily presupposed an ontological argument.  Do you have such an argument prepared, or don’t you?”