He

“He”
by Cameron L. Maris
(an imitation of “The Man on the Stairs” by Miranda July, from her book No One Belongs Here More Than You).

He was just a dim, shadowy figure across the street, but it caught my eye because of the way He was staring at me. I rubbed my eyes, but it -- He -- just stood there. I narrowed my eyes, I whispered aloud, Jesus Christ, because that was his name. I timed my breathing in perfect whole notes, slowly and deliberately, in-two-three-four, out-two-three-four. I was trying to invent a new way of breathing that was more like composition, so that if someone happened to notice me, they would only think that I was conducting a pleasant artistic science experiment, rather than cowering from the religious icon across the street. But after a while I realized I was counting aloud, which I felt took away my scientific integrity. And he kept staring at me, Jesus of Nazareth. He was standing with his arms spread wide, sort of a “let the children come to me” pose. He was thrilled to be there, in my neighbor’s front yard, finally finding one of his lost sheep after all these years. He was glowing. I don’t think I’d ever been as pleased with myself as Jesus looked at that moment. That is my problem with life, I’m never content with what I’ve found, even after chasing a dream for however-long, like the girl who worked at Target. She was barely eighteen, long brown hair and braces, which were a quality unique enough to give her beauty sort of an off-kilter look. She was perfect as an object of desire, but desire leads to consumption and consumption to over-consumption and to contentment, then to boredom. Or if I’m broke, I get a job and work diligently and never complain. I’m the first to volunteer for cleaning duty. I only do this because I know I have to show initiative so I will be paid. The sooner you volunteer for extra cleaning work, the quicker you can call in sick.

Jesus Christ the Nazarene, of course, is the total opposite of me, his whole thing is being Love Thy Neighbor and Do Unto Others and such. He was smiling so genuinely that for a moment I forgot everything that had gone on between us and simply recognize an old friend, only to be shaken by a quick flash of a memory of neglect and ridicule. He was here to take me, or to kill me, or to damn me, or something, and He looked so fucking happy about it. I stopped trying to adjust my focus, because I didn’t want to make my eyes so squinty. It gave me a headache, and it also made me look stoned, which I was, but if Jesus saw that it would alert Him to what a disappointment I had become. He might even wonder what else I had done wrong, and He might start asking questions like if I have a girlfriend, and was I having premarital sex, and if I was in love with her. I did, and we were, and no, I wasn’t. Alisha was looking for someone to marry, and I was looking for someone to fuck. She loved me desperately, desperate like love so often is, and she wanted to have babies and buy a house and get married. She might have thought I had wanted some of these things, too, but I did not, and I didn’t need to tell her that. Alisha would later fake a pregnancy with me, and go on to cause a real one with one of my close friends, Jason. I apologized to Jason afterward for not warning him. I still feel bad to this day.

I didn’t want Jesus to know about all of these sins. But He would already know. The moment I crossed the street, He would try to embrace me or kiss my cheek or shake my hand and the moment he touched my skin, he would feel all of my crimes. He would feel it in my clammy palm, feel it on the hair standing straight off my arm: O Lord, I Am Not Ready to Receive You, But Only Say The Word and I Shall Be Healed. But when He looked into my eyes, he would see Eli, Eli, Why Have You Forsaken Me? Would He like that I used His own words? Would He be flattered if I cleverly quoted Him? Most people like that kind of thing. Sometimes, when I’ve had a big fight with a close friend, I find it useful to slip in a little situationally-appropriate phrase that I had learned from them, maybe even something that I had teased them about saying in the past. This way, they feel like not only am I sorry for having been angry with you, but I forgive you, and have maybe even learned something from you. People really like the vindication of being listened to, really listened to, that comes from someone else quoting them. Even more than that, I like to quote pop songs and films to people that I may have once listened to or seen with them. Obsessively quoting pop songs is the third-most endearing-but-irritating of all my traits, which are:

1. I get bored easily.
2. I procrastinate to a dangerous level.
3. I reference film and music in casual conversation.
4. I feel no shame for any of these three
things and it makes me seem self-important and elitist.

Being bored easily isn’t so bad, but it’s the procrastination that makes the boredom so awful. There are interesting and important things that require my attention, but they are the very things that make me bored in the first place. Perhaps they are only problems because of the way they interact, and if I could convince them to play nicely with each other, they would be charming, likable qualities. Maybe I am an unsuitable host for my own characteristics.

I first met Him in in the third grade, when my parents thought I should attend Catholic elementary school. He took an immediate liking to me because I was freckled and fat, and my parents were both teachers. I was an easy mark, most likely to feel a need for some greater answer, if only as a way to make friends, and for some time, He was right. Then I got older and discovered theatre and writing and good music and how to talk to girls, and Jesus kind of became and arbitrary figure, someone I only talked to when I thought I needed some sound advice, or maybe a penance or two. On the day of my Confirmation in the eleventh grade, I wore my best shirt and tie, and even though the shirt kept coming untucked, and the tie wouldn’t stay straight, I knew that this was possibly the last time I would ever make my parents genuinely proud, and I could do it by doing nothing more than walking down an aisle at church. As I knelt in the pew, I looked up at the heavy wooden crucifix painted with streaks of too-bright red blood, and I remember thinking If you’re really there, give me some kind of sign, anything, if not, we’re done, man.

And now here He was, standing across the street as I slouch in a chair on my porch. Jesus stands so still that I almost wonder if he is so tired from his long journey that maybe I should offer him a seat on the step. Or maybe He wants me to come to Him, all prostrated and humble, or maybe He doesn’t see me at all, and if I hold as still as Him, I can melt into the shadows; he won’t see me, and I can start looking for a new place tomorrow. I can see His long white robes glowing in the purple summer night, the nail-holes in his upturned palms look like oddly-placed moles from a distance. I have a cigarette in my plam, but I don’t want to light it, for fear of attracting his attention. My roommate is gone for the night, as she is almost every night, so I’m not afraid of her coming home and getting freaked out that I was staring at The Lamb of God across the street. The only sound is of the leaves whispering softly in the trees, and a streetlight whirring and sputtering to life on the corner. He is so still that I begin to wonder if He is a statue erected during the day by that old woman who lives at the house, and I just hadn’t noticed It until now. What if I sit here until morning, hiding from something that’s not there. But lo. In the dim ambient light I can see His fingers start to move in a “come over here” gesture and what I feel is terrified vindication. Jesus is alive, He is across the street, He sees me, and He wants to talk to me, but He wants to do it on His terms. If, by the end of this night, I was spared eternal damnation, I would never forget this lesson in stoicism and tenacity. He was calm, relaxed, and perfectly content in staring me down from a hundred meters, while I was too timid to answer my phone when my parents called. And it was working, because it was scaring the fuck out of me. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to intimidate anyone that well, even when I was a starting lineman on my high school football team, or when I was elected to student council. Perhaps if I were more assertive and persistent like Jesus, I could have gone back to college and gotten that theatre degree, and I could be a famous actor, and I could even play Saint John in a movie about the crucifixion. Maybe the actor playing Jesus would look down from his CGI cross and say to me “Son, this is your Mother,” and I would quietly let a tear fall down my cheek. Maybe. Maybe He would come to the premiere and sign autographs and slap me on the shoulder, and I would lean into His ear and whisper: We couldn’t have done it without ya, Big Guy.

I slipped my hands in my pockets and stood up. I was still dressed in my untucked half-tux that I wore for work, bartending banquets at a local hotel, because what the hell. Maybe He would think I considered the chance to speak to Him for the first time in years a semi-formal occasion. I stepped off the porch, walked across the yard, and onto the sidewalk. I felt naked in the yellow light of the streetlamp, but I could see Him more clearly. For the first time, I noticed the red heart on His chest. I stood waiting for Him to motion for me to come closer, or for Him to smite me with a thunderclap, whichever came first. Finally, I stepped across the street to Him, and I could see his soft, brown eyes. They looked watery. I was right in front of him now; I cocked my head and furrowed my brow to see him better in the darkness. Our faces were parallel. I could smell musky incense burning. It was familiar, He was familiar, I felt safe in His presence. I stood there, and He stood there, and He spoke, and He made a sound that was not a human sound, but an ambient one, like a church organ squealing a wrong note. And I spoke human words, in a human tone, as only a human can speak. And suddenly I could see Him clearly, and I remembered all the reasons we had met in the first place. We were staring into each other’s eyes and suddenly I felt angry. Go away, I whispered. God damn you. Leave me alone.

The moment that Alisha finally told me that she had gotten her period and that she was not pregnant, I bought us a drink. I drank with her, tapped my empty glass on the bar, and told her to go to hell. I walked away smiling, and I took her best friend home that night. She had wanted to name the child ‘Taylor,’ anyhow, which is a silly and utterly pointless name. I began to fall in love with her best friend, and soon the whole matter became something that we just didn’t talk about. It became an amusing little anecdote, a story-often-told. But I didn’t laugh when I told it. I steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didn't laugh, I did not laugh. But I died; I did die.

Brontosaurus: Epilogue (Goodnight, Chignik)

The first thing I see are the pictures, on my computer monitor. The burned, flaky flesh. The ashy smoke and glowing embers. The atomic breath of wind that swept across the snowy, wet tundra. The caribou. Fields and fields of dead caribou. Thousands of them, hairless and rotting, charred tongues hanging disconnected from jaw-sockets that used to be called mouths.
The first time, well, one of the first times... it was the words I heard first, on the AM radio. The words, “plane,” “terrorist,” and “tower.” Now it was the pictures. Pictures of dead fucking caribou.

I remember when I got almost no reaction from the first person I saw, my upstairs neighbor Chris. “Alaska?” He said with a half-smile, expecting a punchline. Something about Sarah Palin and Russia, probably, right? Some kind of funny political anecdote. I don’t know, why did the chicken cross the road? To kill a quarter-million American civilians. Snare drum. Laugh track. “But seriously, folks...”
Anchorage, Alaska. The city in which I was born. 250,000 people. Killed. In an instant. November 22, 2009.

I remember a lot of things from the first hour. At first, I remember feeling delusional and unable to function. Numb from the weight of a crushing thought, slowly becoming reality. Do I know anyone there? I was fucking born there, but I didn’t know if our family still kept in touch. How do I not fucking know that? I feel ill.

Then I remember Chignik. I’m told by my parents that I once lived there. A fishing village and hatchery, basically, with one school, where the sidewalks are made of rotting lumber. My father taught swimming lessons to grade schoolers in the fish hatchery, or at least that’s what I remember from a photograph. That’s what I tell people. Chignik is an anecdote. I look at John King’s CNN interactive map of radiation fallout patterns and blast zones. Chignik isn’t even large enough to be marked on the map, so I have to rely on my own faulty memories to guesstimate where Chignik is geographically in that big backwards-R of a state. Yep, Chignik’s in the danger zone. I had always kind of wanted to go back there and see it for myself. Now it’s Hiroshima. Do people visit Hiroshima? People must visit Hiroshima. But that was 64 years ago.
I am 27 years old. I can feel the cancer in my chest. We are all dying. That’s why we were born. I feel like I need to fuck someone.

When the immediate visceral shock of the loss of one thousand people, two-hundred and fifty times, begins to wear off, you start thinking about the rest of the world. What does this mean? Is this the first of many? Did that newspaper article say North Korea could reach Seattle? Or was it just Canada? I start scanning the internet for answers, and only then do I remember to call my parents.
Come to think of it, isn’t there a nuclear launch site in Cheyenne? That’s 45 minutes from here. Fuck. I fucking know people there. I need to talk to them. Do they fucking know already? What if we start firing back? Has it started already? I scan the sky for signs. I feel stupid.

My father tells me he wants me to come home. I can’t. That’s not my home anymore. But this isn’t my home either. Home is where the heart is, and my heart wandered off into the desert years ago to kill himself. He took a bottle of rum and a portable stereo playing Tom Waits tunes and a noose. He said he was going to hang himself from a tree in the desert like Judas Iscariot. I didn’t try to stop him.

I wonder about Cheyenne and George. They’re in the military. I remember joking with Cheyenne about trading her desert-camo designed to blend with Iraq’s deserts for something more fitting for North Korea’s landscape. I don’t really talk to Cheyenne anymore.

I decide to visit Marla. She’ll have something to say, some kind of song to play. The world is ending, let’s all get high and listen to records. Marla’s arms are warm and tight when I knock on their door. “You look beautiful,” I say. I always say it. It’s always true. Today, people have died, wars have begun, people’s families are gone, but the deep green of Marla’s eyes still shimmer. I can see my reflection. She’s been crying. Her hair is down, the way I like it best. She looks like a religious icon in a stained-glass window, all unnatural colors and perfect smooth white skin. I close my eyes for a moment and imagine making love to her on her kitchen floor, running my fingers along her thigh, pressing my lips against her neck, sliding my tongue around her teeth.
Eyes open. Pulse normal.

There are packed bags in both bedroom doorways. Thanksgiving is in four days, anyway. Everyone was preparing to go home, whether nuclear holocaust was occuring or not. Today is the 46th anniversay of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Anchorage is the new John F. Kennedy. Today is the new yesterday. Ashes on the collar are the new blood on the sleeve.

11-22. 11/22. 11.22. Eleven-twenty-two. 11:22. eleventwentytwo. 1122. Eleven.Twenty.Two. 11/22. 11/22. elvntntytw. ehntwo. eeehttwttw.

I look around. These are my friends. This is my life. I love them. I love them, I love my country, I love my family, and we are sad. We are angry. We are sick.
Marla’s roommate gets up and takes her cell phone to her room. I wonder who she is talking to. I haven’t been listening. I didn’t even realize she had called someone. Marla is asking me what I’m going to do. Am I still coming home with her for Thanksgiving? Yes. This is the proper way to panic about the end of the world. Be with loved ones, or rather, your loved one’s loved ones. Liked ones. Tolerated ones. Go somewhere safe and calming. Eat turkey. I kiss her mouth and tell her it’s okay. I’m talking to myself.
Who am I talking to? Who is reading these words? Is there anyone listening to us? Are we listening to us? Is this our great war? Will we look regal in black and white in someone’s text book someday? Will we have retirement parties and make toasts and age gracefully? Where are our suburbs? Where are our gated communities? Our social security?

Goodbye, yellow brick road.
Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, peace.
Goodnight, pale green stars on the ceiling.
Goodnight, Anchorage. Goodnight, Chignik.
Goodnight, caribou.

I remember Peter Jennings, and how he started smoking again after 9/11 after many years clean and sober, and soon after died of lung cancer. I step outside the apartment door, into the frigid air. I can see my breath. Someone is standing in the courtyard with his back to me, balancing on an icy concrete bench. I can see his breath as well. It’s begun to snow again.
I step onto the grass and look up at the sky. The wind blows, and the sun peeks from beneath a cloud. I look for God. Death and that pale horse. So far, no sign.
I spin on my heels and open my mouth, drawing in a sharp jab of cold air, and glow in the horrible, burning daylight of my own desperation.
Today would be a fine day. If it wasn’t for the fucking wind.