Book of Jim: Agnostic Parables and Dick Jokes From Lucifer's Paradise (6 page)

“Don’t take me the wrong way,” she said.  “I try not to be a bitch, but the mythology
does
get tiresome.  And here we are.  Fate awaits you, my brave warrior of fortune.”

They entered the sun room.  There was the flushing of a toilet, the grunting of a throat, and then a man came out of the bathroom.  He was jagged handsome.  He wore a tailored suit without a tie and his jet black hair was ice cold.  He said to Cleopatra,

“Who’s the interloper?”

“This is Jim,” she said.

“Jim.  Well, Jim, what do you say we dispense with the overture and get down to the movement?  This is a lovely villa, and I’m sure you’re fascinating company, but I’m double parked.  And if the Pharaoh mouth-farts again I might lose my chub.”

Jim recognized him.  “Humphrey Bogart?”

“This isn’t the beginning of a beautiful friendship, kid.  Save the woo for the lady.”

6

Cleopatra set three tattered board games upon the table.  She said, “It’s customary for the champion of fate to choose the final game.  I’ve got The Game of Life, Connect Four, and Hungry Hungry Hippos.”

Humphrey said, “Fate is the devil’s word, it isn’t mine.  I don’t want any part of it.  It was my feet that got me through the door, and it’s my disposition that’ll get you in my car.  Let the kid decide, he’s good for it.”

So Jim considered the games.  He was adept at Connect Four, but it lacked the element of chance.  Hungry Hungry Hippos was a silly game, and he doubted he could beat Humphrey Bogart at the Game of Life.

Then he remembered the glossy red dice from the other side of the wall at the edge of
paradise.
  He took them out of his pocket and set them on the table.  “I’ve got a better game,” he said.  “One roll, high roll wins.”

“Short and sweet.  I like the kid.”  Humphrey took up a die and he winked at Cleopatra.  “But I have to warn you, Jim, the last time I rolled dice it was for eight thousand dinars, and the other guy died in the war.”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“It means I’ve been here before.”

Humphrey rolled the glossy red die.  It clattered across the table and came up two.  Jim rolled
his
glossy red die.  It clattered across the table and came up three.

“Ha!”  Jim stood.  “Eat shit, Bogart!  The queen is mine!”

But Humphrey
was
cool.  “Reel it in, cod-slayer.  I’d say you should play it closer to the vest, but you wouldn’t know how to wear one.  And don’t be a racist, the lady’s a Pharaoh.”

The Pharaoh belched.  Humphrey stood and shook Jim’s hand.  Then he pulled Jim aside and spoke out of the Pharaoh’s hearing.

“Between you and me, I’m just putting in an appearance here.  It’s for the papers.  The gams on Cloud Nine suit me just fine.  I’m happy for you.  Really, I am.  You’re a good kid.  Not too clever, but not too sweet either.  It’s a noble combination.  That’s why I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of the lady.”

“Embarrass me?”

“Joe Louis is taking a dive.”

“What?”

“The Unknown Soldier, he’s going for a walk.”

“That isn’t better.”

“Your fly is down, kid.  You’re flopping around like a pygmy.”

Jim flushed and he checked his fly.  But his fly was
not
down.  And in the time it took him to recover from his confusion, Humphrey hoisted the Pharaoh over his shoulder and kicked open a window.

“What the hell, man.  You lost!”

Humphrey gave him a dramatic profile.  “You had a good run, kid.  It just wasn’t meant to be.”  And he fired off a grappling gun and carried the Pharaoh away.

Jim ran to the window.  Cleopatra waved.  “Better luck next time, Jim!” she said.  She jumped into Humphrey’s Packard Super-Eight.  Humphrey took her away, down the road that curved around the sea.

“But I won,” Jim said. 

He took out the jeweled egg and opened it.  Inside there was voucher addressed to the runner-up in the Annual Cleopatra Lottery.  Jim thought, How did she know?  Then he thought, Oh, that
bitch.

The voucher was for eighteen holes of golf with Adolf Hitler.

VII

1

“Fore!” Jim yelled.  Even in
paradise
he hooked the damn ball.  The ball sailed left over the fairway and past the bunker.  It
thwunked
a tree.

“Ha!”  Hitler pulled out his driver.  “At least you’re not trapped in the bunker.  Get it?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

Hitler teed up and took one practice swing.  The swing was
creamy smooth.
  When he struck the ball it went straight down the middle of the fairway.  He said, “It was a suicide joke.”

And Jim thought, Bogart is balls deep in the flesh of Isis, and I get hooks and Hitler jokes.

“You seem a little tense,” Hitler said.  “Perhaps you’re unhappy with the lottery result.”  He replaced his driver and put an arm around Jim’s shoulder.  “Cleopatra and the Fuhrer have much in common.  We will have a good time.  And eighteen holes is more than she would have given you.  Ha!”

“I get it.”

“A sex joke!”

Jim climbed into the chariot with the Fuhrer.  The chariot was drawn up the fairway by two
hipsters
, for their names were Larry Goldstein and Gary Steinberg.

“I’ll bite,” said Jim.  “What could you possibly have in common with Cleopatra?”

Hitler said, “We ruled.  We expanded our empires until we were defeated by superpowers.  We killed ourselves to avoid capture.  Much in common.”

“Yeah, but, I mean, with or without the arm fat she’s smoking hot.  She consorted with Caesars.  And you were, like, the Lord of the Nazis.”

“Fuhrer.”

“It ain’t the same.”

They came to the place where Jim’s ball
thwunked
.  The
hipsters
set down the chariot, and they found the ball in some tall grass behind an oak tree.  It was a fair lie.  Jim took out a seven iron and he punched the ball into the fairway.

“The Pharaohs were not kind to their people,” said Hitler.

“Dude.  Nazis.”

Jim exchanged the seven iron for a fairway wood and approached his ball.  His swing was wild.  The ball hooked and sailed out of play.

“You need to be more open,” Hitler said.

“What?!”

“Your club face.  You have to open up your club face.”

“Oh, a golf joke.”

“I never joke about golf.”

Jim threw down the club.

“You killed a billion people.  Like, a fucking billion.  And you’re giving me shit about my golf swing?”

“You have a terrible swing.”

“Give me another ball.”

So Hitler threw him another ball and he lined up for a second shot.  “Relax your shoulders,” Hitler said.  “And bend your knees a little.  Remember to keep your head down.  You must strike the ball well before you can watch it fly.”

Jim thought, The Fuhrer wants me to relax and be more open.  He took a breath, opened up, and swung.  The ball sailed straight down the fairway and thumped down on the fringe of the green.  He handed his club to one of the
hipsters
as he climbed back into the chariot.

“It was Plato that showed me golf,” Hitler said.  “He is a very good teacher.  Being more open, that was the first trick he showed me.”

“You golf with Plato?”

“We have much in common.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Hitler’s drive was in the dead center of the fairway.  He approached the ball with an eight iron.  His swing was
creamy smooth
and he stuck the ball pin high.

“And it’s not true about the billion people,” he said.

“Well, I exaggerated a little,” Jim said.

“In this place I’ve only killed one person.  They only count it if you pull the trigger.”

“Oh come on.”

“It’s true.  I’m only credited with a single kill, one Adolf Hitler.”  He thumbed his chest.  “You might call me a hero.”

Hitler put his eight iron back into the bag and climbed back into the chariot.  The
hipsters
carried on.  Jim rummaged through his brain for some high school history.

“But how is that possible?” Jim said.  “D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, the concentration camps.  That was all
you
. 
You
made all that shit happen.”

“Free will.”

“Free will?”

“You’re only responsible for what you
do
.  According to the records, I just talked a lot.  The kills all went to the people who listened to me.”

“But you
forced
them to
do
it!”

“I thought so too.  But you can’t force anybody to anything.  There is always a choice.”

This was all too much for Jim.  For not only was Hitler off the hook, but he got to be the guy that killed Hitler.  When the
hipsters
set them down at the edge of the green, Jim took out his putter and pointed it at the Fuhrer.

“I don’t buy it,” he said.  “And I don’t care what the angels say.  Adolf Hitler was an asshole.”  Then he three-putted for bogey.

“Just go to the Mortality Plaza,” Hitler said.  “It’s on Corporeal Avenue, right downtown.  That’s where they keep the kill counts and the death records.  They will tell you the same thing.”

Hitler rattled home his putt.  Jim took out the scorecard and wrote the scores.  Around his six he drew a box.  He circled Hitler’s three.

“Well,” Jim said, “at least an eagle can still put you six under.”

Hitler slapped his shoulder.  “Ha!  A capital joke!”

2

The Mortality Plaza was huge.  A building map in the lobby showed floors assigned to Haunting Holidays, Funeral Reenactments, Postmortem Vertigo and Trauma.  Kill Counts and Death Stats was on the twenty-seventh floor.

And the twenty-seventh floor was packed tight with stacks of servers and processers.  In the middle of the hum there was a woman at a desk.  She made the
clacking
at a keyboard and her smile was Midwestern plaster.

“Kill Counts and Death Statistics,” she said.  “What can I do ya for?”

“Yeah,” Jim said.  “So, I was just golfing with Hitler, and he said I should come check this place out.  He said he never killed anybody.”

“Well now that just won’t do, will it.  Why don’t you just take a seat right there and we’ll sort this all out for ya.  Does this Hitler have a full name?”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, maybe Hitler Stevens, or Hitler Robinson?”

“Adolf.  Adolf Hitler.  You don’t know who Hitler is?”

And the woman made the
clacking
in the hum of the servers and processers
.

“There he is.  Well look at that.  Adolf Hitler has one kill, and it’s Adolf Hitler.  What a coincidence.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Our records are absolute and infallible.  Look there, it even says so on my screen.  Absolute and infallible.”

“But he killed millions of people.”

“Oh, I think I’d remember a seven figure kill count.  Imagine that, seven figures.  You’d have to wake up pretty early in the morning.”

“Auschwitz.  Look up Auschwitz.”

And the woman made the
clacking
in the hum of the servers and processers.

“Oh, Nazi Deathcamp.  That sounds exotic.  You’re certainly at the right place.  I don’t see any mention of an Adolf Hitler though.  Let’s see, I have a Rudolph Hoess down for sixteen thousand and forty-two.  Pretty impressive.  And here’s a Willhelm Boger, he’s got a few thousand.  There’s an Oswald Kaduk with eight hundred and five.  I don’t see any millionaires.”

“D-Day?  The Russian front?”

And the woman made the
clacking
in the hum of the servers and processers.

“The highest kill count I have for D-Day is twelve hundred even.  A man named Sam Anderson.”

“Sam Anderson.”

“That’s right.”

“Some guy named Sam Anderson killed more people than Hitler.”

“A bunch more.”

“That’s retarded.”

“Watch your language, mister.  I don’t know what you have against this Hitler person, but it’s no reason to come down on the margins of society.”

“Me?!  But that’s what he did!  Like, big time.”

“If you say so.”

And Jim made the
guffaw
in the hum of the servers and processers.  For his knowledge of high school history was depleted, and Hitler was still off the hook.  He said to the woman with the plaster smile,

“Alright, so if Hitler’s in the clear, and his henchmen aren’t millionaires, all those kills had to go somewhere.  So who’s got them?  Who killed the most people?”

She made the
clacking
.  “Thomas Ferebee,” she said.

“Who?”

“Says here he dropped a bomb on Japan.  Two hundred eighty-seven thousand, five hundred and ninety-eight kills.  That’s a doozy.”

“The pilot?  They put that on the pilot?”

“Says here he was a bombardier.”

“What about the guys that made the bomb?  The inventor, the manufacturer?  What about Congress and the President, the goddamn Kamikazes that started it?”

“Oh, we don’t keep track of assists anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it turns out, what with all the going-on that goes about – ya know, the talking and the pushing – every kill had about a bazillion assists.  Fried our computers to a crisp.  We have a strict Kill/No-kill policy now.  No moochers.”

Jim made the
guffaw
.  He thought, I’m gonna kill Humphrey Bogart.  He said,

“I don’t suppose that computer can tell me where Plato is.”

“The philosopher?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll have to go down to the Directory.  It’s about three blocks from here.  There’s a big rolodex on the roof, you can’t miss it.”

“Thanks.”

“Have a good one.”

3

Plato stood high on a cloud above the valley.  In the valley there were pines and white rocks and a river, and there was a patch of wild flowers by the river and a big-horned antelope licked salt from the bank.  Plato contemplated the valley from the cloud.  He wrote some words in his notebook, and then a hawk came out of the sky.

Jim cleared his throat.  He did not approach the philosopher.

Plato said, “What do you think?  Is it Valley?”

Jim said, “Yeah, it looks good.  I like the hawk.”

“Good, bad – who are we to judge?  Is it Valley, or is it not Valley?”

“It definitely looks like a valley.”

“Mmmmm.  But what makes a valley
look
like a valley?”

So Jim
looked
at the valley.  He said, “The mountains.  The trees.  The river.”

“So a valley is the sum of these parts?”

“Sure.”

“And without mountains there can be no valley?”

“Yeah.”

“What, then, makes a mountain
look
like a mountain?”

He could pop this balloon by himself, Jim thought.  He said, “Listen, the last time me and philosophy got together it didn’t end so well.  I’m done with it.  My essence can go to hell.  The reason I’m here, it’s just been kind of a weird day, and I need this one thing from you.  I know it’s not your problem, but it’s just one question.  Please.”

Plato nodded.  “Mmmm.  You are here because Hitler is off the hook.”

“Uh, yeah.  Wow.  How did you know?”

“It happens a lot.”  Plato wrote some more words in his notebook, and salmon began to jump against the current of the river and a brown bear came out of the trees.  “For some reason, the newly dead
are perfectly happy until they find out that Hitler is happy too.”

“Well?”

“Do you see that city, far off and floating in the clouds?  That is my city, and it is the perfect form of the city.  Its walls are graceful, its roads are wide and paved, its justice is noble.  It is my masterpiece.  Go there, and you will find your answer.”

“How do I get there?”

Then Plato disrobed and Jim beheld the form of the philosopher.  He was lean and wizened from nub to skull, but he
had
no genitalia.  Instead, a French horn dangled between his legs.  Before Jim could look away, the French horn flexed and blew out a solitary note.

Jim blinked.  Plato neither moved nor spoke.  The hawk screeched.  Plato sucked in a breath and with a great effort he produced the cadences of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and a rainbow climbed out of the French horn and
traversed
the sky.  It settled at the gates of the perfect city that floated far off in the clouds.