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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I get back to the Bedminister Hurrah Club, a little before eleven, and on the third pass able to turn into the parking lot without being seen. Regina is on me before I can finish locking the door.
Delayed gratification not yet in her toolbox. I’ve learned the hard way that resistance warrants an untamed five year old’s temper tantrum, while obedience–well obedience yields orgasm, just orgasm missing the accustomed oscillating tension that accompanies social dating. And right now, well right now, soft naked skin against me, silky warm voracious tongue inside my mouth, implying the silky warmth inside her and feeling the oscillating tension of buttons coming undone…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Regina curls up on the sofa to nap. Boy that girl can sleep. The antipsychotics help. I’m not sleepy, feel a little worn out though, but I have to finish the final essay for Comparative Religion class.
I fire up the laptop and the draft pops up right away. Once I personally hand in the finished product to Dr. Colonica and obtain his signed receipt, I no longer have to be physically around
Philadelphia to receive my B.S. Checked all No’s on the graduation questionnaire. No ceremony, no gown, no mortarboard, no photographs with family. Thank you very much. But no.
Regina and I have to get out of here. No telling when the last thaw starts and the owners return to chase after the yellow ball. She’s well enough to travel, need to take out those last stitches in her face first.
Mom will get over it. Both Mom and Dad won’t even remember unless they catch some snippet on TV. And that might not even be this year.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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“So we don’t have souls?” Regina asks, reading over my shoulder, as I work on the final essay.
“Not in this made-up religion,” I say. “The positing of a soul creates all kinds of unnecessary complications for belief. Buddha didn’t think we had one either.”
“What complications?”
“Well, without a soul, religions would not have had to create the idea of heaven, then purgatory, then limbo. Without them, having a soul wouldn’t make any difference.
“See, first the religion states god is perfect, so god could not be unfair, and it would be unfair if it let some good people suffer while letting some bad people prosper. Hence, the conceit of a soul.”
“I don’t get it.”
“By propounding that people have a soul, the religion then concludes that our soul will receive our just deserts after we die. The good go to heaven, the bad to hell. And this would last an eternity versus the short span of one lifetime. Join us and you will live forever in heaven as long as you are good for goodness sake.”
“Why couldn’t people just come back alive as they were.”
“Because there is often not much left of the physical body when the person dies.”
“Well, if they all believed the good souls were rewarded in heaven, the bad punished in hell, how are religions different? Why don’t they all join together?”
“Because they are tribal and political, for instance, the Catholics believe Catholics are the only good people, and everybody else is bad. The other religions believe the same about the Catholics and other religions.”
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Suddenly Regina became very quiet like she had just heard received news her favorite pet died.
She mumbled something about ‘remembering now’ and went back to the sofa. It almost sounded like she was whimpering. She hadn’t cried when I took the wires out of her mouth even. Was Pygmalion waking up?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
After buying the prescribed linen weave folder at the Temple book store, had to be purple no less, purple, we head over to Temple’s copy center. Regina inspecting everything and everyone like a newborn does, as I steer her along. She spent the entire train ride rereading the essay from my laptop.
Nothing bores her.
I log in to a printer and begin the task. Professors have no concern for the extra work they make for us because of their arbitrary formatting requirements. To them, it is just words on a page. To us–a nightmare. Of course the university might require the same thing from them, so turnabout is fair play, but on the other hand–they have teaching assistants.
The cover page has to line up perfectly so the title and my name fit in the folder’s front window.
Every time I think I have it, mysteriously after I hit the print button, the font shrinks, the printer jams, the toner smudges, the title is off center or all four. I can tell from the expletives jumping out at random by the others in the copy center, that I am not alone in my frustration. It takes me over thirty minutes.
Let’s see, half an hour times three hundred students, a whole week’s worth of work, and one tree. They call this progress. Now multiply this times how many courses Temple offers.
Finally get it all lined up. Like a forger never touching the print, then carefully hole punch every page. No smudges. Done.
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I look at the clock, can make it to class with five minutes to spare. All this time, Regina has silently stood looking over my shoulder, a cat watching someone knit.
I grab her hand and we skip through the halls to class. My other two classes are in the bag.
There’s plenty of time to study when you’re not working for a living. New experience. Made me feel lazy. From here on out, I can complete all my degree’s requirements over the internet. I can be in
Timbuktu as far as my teachers know or care.
Not enough time to grab a bite before class starts though, however, I could hand the final in, walk right out of class to the cafeteria, and attend via the internet. Kinda rude, but, two birds, and I gotta eat something.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As usual, there’s a coven of students surrounding the professor. I tell Regina to wait by the entrance door and try to pry myself through to the front of the pack.
No luck, forward progress is completely blocked.
So I wave the purple folder in the air and start yelling, “Doctor Colonica, here is the final essay,
I need your signature, your signature please!” After repeating this four times, I make out the professor’s hand bending toward my folder. Students’ heads duck the arc of his grasping and by my standing on my toes, stretching out as far as I can, he gets a hold of it. When he tugs back he’s got it, I hold on, and he reels me in. When we’re face to face, I let go and look back to signal for Regina to join me. She’s not standing by the door any longer. Fuck. I retreat a step, stop, then walk back up to the dais.
There’s nothing I can do right now about it. Get the receipt and then find Regina. She’ll be fine.
I hope.
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He looks up at me askance. I’m guessing my handing in the final this early is pretty presumptuous, and then there was my deke, indicating I might have run away…
After staring me over, he says spinning around for all to see, “See this purple folder. You will find one at the bookstore. Place your essay neatly inside, hand it to me, or else you fail. Simple simple.” He opens it up and flips through.
A minute of silence goes by except for the noise of students taking their seats. He’s taller than I thought, and pudgier. Handsomer though. Not a mark on his face, unless he’s wearing makeup.
Another minute goes by, his face locked on the report. He kicks at the pages with this fingers, reading what seems to be entire paragraphs before moving on, oblivious to his sycs, who start their kiss ass bantering about how far along they are on their final report. One student scores a point with, “What essay?”
Exaggerated laughter erupts and the professor gives the student the eye then shakes his head in mock disgust.
“So, Brethren Velasco,” the professor says, reading my name off the title page, looking over my head and directing his voice to all. “What is the discerning characteristic of this ‘Almost Perfect
Religion?’”
“Just one commandment, ‘No cheating.’”
“That was in the original ten. ‘Thou shalt not steal’.” He offers the folder back to me. The other students giggle.
I keep my arms at my sides and say, “Yes, but it got lost in the telling of the Old Testament.”
“What heresy do you speak?” he wisecracks.
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“Story after story extolling the cheating of others of their due. In other words, cheating is okay as long as you get away with it.”
“‘A sound of Wailing is heard from Zion.’ *
1
Pray tell me, examples do you have, Brother
Velasco?”
“The Old Testament is rife with them. Abraham poses his wife as his sister, marrying her off to the pharaoh, Lot’s daughters get him drunk so when he makes love with them he doesn’t notice they are his own daughters, and Jacob steals Esau’s inheritance by pretending to be Esau in front of his blind father, Isaac.”
“‘Vindicate me, Oh God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from deceitful and unjust men, deliver me!’ * 2
There are hundreds of episodes in the Bible. You are cherry picking events at the expense of the grand story.”
“Isn’t that what scholars do?”
“‘He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck will suddenly be broken beyond all healing.’ *
3
We must consider all of the evidence, Brethren Velasco.”
He’s making me look foolish. I have to get out of here, got to find Regina. Where is she? My stomach… My words spew out, “Well, what about…” then looking straight into his eyes, like we were equals, even though his head is tilted up, his eyes surveying the ceiling, I say, “Consider though,

1


2
3
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 despite the book’s recording of these deceptions, none of the perpetrators receive neither a word of condemnation nor punishment from god. In other places, time and time again, the book reviews Jewish misdeeds and immediately follows up with how god punished them. Abraham, Lot’s daughters, and
Jacob get a free pass. Therefore, these actions are testimonials of acceptable behavior. Lesson given— the ends justifies the means. All is well that ends well, as least for the quicker witted. The less intelligent and the truth be damned.”
“Watch your language, brethren.” Dr. Colonica backs his head up, his chin now level with my forehead. He is standing on a small platform that I had not noticed before, so he really is not that tall.
“These minor transgressions were not censured as the protagonists, themselves, believed they were fulfilling God’s plans, weren’t they?”
“Exactly, so as long as you know god’s plans, you are free to cheat as you please. But, and this is a big but, the Bible clearly states somewhere, doesn’t it, that no one knows god’s plans?” I spin on my heels in front of the dais, my voice getting louder and louder, speaking to everyone around the lectern. “If anyone here thinks he knows god’s plans please identify yourself right now because I have a load of questions for you.” I see an arm jump out, four rows up in the auditorium.
It’s Regina.
I do a double take. So there she is. Sitting where the druggies usually hang out. All the vitriol in me evaporates. I shake my head, smile and wave at her.
The professor then adds, “In Abraham’s case, he lied to prevent his being murdered.”
“He may have thought so, but there is nothing in the story to support his paranoia. Once the pharaoh perceived Sarai was Abraham’s wife, he returned her to him,” my voice returning to its regular
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 volume.
“But only because God afflicted Egypt with plagues,” says the professor.
“Yeah, a precursor to the sequel of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, coincidently to crush the same enemy, Egypt. Feel the whiplash.
“Anyway, I thought you were supposed to obey the Ten Commandments and if there is a conflict, trust in God, not obey the commandments except when they are inconvenient. A recent president of ours used his knowing god’s plan, to justify going to war with Iraq and we killed over a hundred thousand people. A hundred thousand people. God’s plan? And it turned out we had nothing to fear from Iraq. For some reason the commandment ‘Thou Shalt not Kill,’ was conveniently ignored.” I say it and now that I’ve said it out loud the magnitude of it hits me. I feel crushed down, lost. My own country. When did my own country become the bad guy?
This is not like me. But the professor hasn’t paused at all. He’s asking me another question, but I didn’t hear it. When I don’t respond, he repeats it, “I said, Esau had already traded his inheritance over to Jacob.”
Coming out of my reverie, I spit out, “In exchange for a bowl of soup, just another example of the book’s sanctioning quick witted deceit. Implicit in these stories is the smart will inherit the earth because they deserve it.”
Everyone around the lectern looks at the professor for a response. He doesn’t falter and starts asking me a series of questions covering the required characteristics of a religion. These I had ready answers for. They are out of the textbook. A religion is a business.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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I guess I passed as he wraps the folder against his other hand, then asks me in a jovial voice,
“So how does one join your religion?”
“Doubleya Doubleya Doubleya Dot, Tee A Pee Are Dot, Oh Are Gee.” I say.
“Tee A Pee Are?”
“For ‘The Almost Perfect Religion.’”
He flips back to the cover page, signs it, neatly tears it out of the folder and hands it to me.
“Your receipt. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for supplicants though,” and he immediately turns to the other students and asks them how they are coming along with their final.
I want to say he is right, cheating is too inbred in us, but he has moved on and I need to. I pull the page from his hand and examine it. There it is, his name and today’s date. All I need. Now I have to get to Regina and get her out of here. How much time do I have?
I fold the receipt and stick it in my back pack, zip the pocket tight, shoulder my way away.
There she is. The whole row is full. I wave and she waves back. I signal for her to come with me. I am starved.
She just looks away. That is a No. I want to be mad, but I am more perplexed, but then, I notice the seat behind her is empty, so I bolt through everyone between me and it and get there before anyone else does. Out of breath, I sit and press a finger on her shoulder, she doesn’t look back, so she knows it’s me. Okay then, I will have to endure one last class with this guy. Got my receipt. Got my receipt.
Relax. Except that I am starving. No eating in the auditorium. That is the rule. Hardly anyone abides by it. I sneak out some saltines out of my backpack. I am a cheat, guess I am going to hell.
I catch the strong smell of marijuana and jasmine. Everyone around us is talking. Everyone is
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 stoned. No one is listening, everybody in their own world, spouting out what they think, trampling over what everyone else is saying they think. Maybe marijuana is what it takes to make this religious mumbo jumbo digestible.
It’s all mumbo jumbo.
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CHAPTER 14
I AM NOT AFRAID
March 16, 2015
Temple University – Katzbaum Auditorium
Dr. Stephen L. Colonica, PhD Divinity Studies
He’s naked underneath that silk shirt, isn’t he? It’s below freezing outside. Overt, but a little titillation before class helps the lecture go dowun, the lecture go down, while I am feeling it moving on up. Nice. Nice pecs, tanned, taught nipples. Yes. Can’t see below his belt line though, he’s standing too close to the podium, but I can fantasize. Size, yes. Hmm.
I smile, rub myself full against the podium, inspiring warmth while spreading my arms out looking over my devotees. They will assume I love them, which I do, I do.
I… there’s a purple flag wagging frantically overhead. Someone in the back must be wanting to ask me if this is the proper folder for the final essay. Looks like it. I hear someone shouting,
“Signature,” again and again. Really can’t pass up this perfect opportunity to show them the proper
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 folder to use and remind them of their having to turn it into me personally.
Foregoing ogling Tony’s chest for a moment, I try to grab the folder as it swings closer and closer in overhead. Reach, reach, got it.
The person on the other end doesn’t let go. Very smart.
And standing here on my tiptoes arched over four or five student’s heads, very awkward–for me.
“Let him through, let him through please,” I shout, reeling in the person on the other end.
Jesus, this is the final essay. How quaint. We’re barely halfway through the semester…
Better get dowun to business. Definitely no Tony. Tony will stew, but making young men anxious earns big dividends later. This one could give Tony some competition too. Interesting looking, especially his eyes, an athlete’s which move like he’s surveying a large expanse for game.
Name is, I read off the cover page, Velasco. So he’s Hispanic. Brown hair as long and as dark as mine, but thicker. I tie mine back to highlight my face, his drapes straight down. Up close I now can see his cheeks are cratered from acne, the reason for his long hair. What’s the reason for his turning this in six weeks early? A first. He at least read the syllabus and bought the right folder. Very definitely no
Tony.
I thumb through the report. Neat. Proper font and spacing. Hmm. Proper footnote formatting too. All right. Some New Age references, good. Might be able to use and jazz up my own writing with some of them. I read the title, ‘The Almost Perfect Religion: What the Next Religion Will Look Like.’
I find the outline, read that. It all has the feel of a master thesis, not the work of an underclassman. Probably stolen, ghost written or both.
Catching a piece of the conversation around the dais, I eye slap a student for bragging that he didn’t know about the final essay, pause just long enough to show my appreciation of the laughter by
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 the others, and with, “So, Brother Velasco?” I begin the inquisition.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Well, he knows what’s inside the report and he has at least read Genesis, seems this is his work product after all. Let’s see if his proposed new religion has all of the characteristics of one. If not, it’s try-again my friend.
I ask him, “So its moral code is, ‘Do not Cheat,' what rites does it use to sustain membership’s compliance?”
“Meditation. All members are encouraged to meditate daily for at least twenty minutes. The website includes fail safe instructions on how to do that,” he says.
“How does meditation arrest one’s penchant from cheating?”
“It grounds you so that you get it-that cheating someone else, actually cheats everyone else, your friends, your family, yourself included.”
“Hmm, Karma. So what is sacred to the ‘Almost Perfect Religion’?”
“The present moment.”
“Borrowed from Buddhism, like Karma, no doubt. What then is profane?”
“Anything devaluing the present.”
“Such as?”
“Mindless activity like fretting over the past, vegetating before a TV, overeating, over drinking, over parenting, over jailing, for instance incarcerating people just for smoking pot…” The druggies section must have heard this because they send out a cheer. “…anything giving the default mode
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 network full reign…”
“The what?”
“The part of the brain that gives us our sense of self, instead of being part of a community.”
“Hold on, I am starting to sense a pattern here, Mr. Velasco. Singleness. One commandment, one rite, one sacrament. Is the pattern a result of your laziness or your lack of imagination?”
“What separated the Jewish religion from others was its having just one god—Jahweh; what separated Catholicism from the Jewish Faith was having one law—love; what distinguished Islam from the faiths and political forces subjugating the Arabs was its insisting there is only one god and no trinity. New inventions and thoughts seldom complicate, instead they simplify.”
“There is some truth to that. How do members communicate with God?”
“By mindfully serving others.”
“How does serving others come to God’s notice?”
“How better to show god you believe in him than by working to help the others he created.”
“Religions traditionally devise prayers and devotions for communicating with god. Where do they fit in?”
“Prayer is arrogance, devotion superficial. God has no interest in our petty gripes, less in our superstitions. He created us and delivered the crosses we bear.”
I am going on too long here, he’s upstaging me, “Okay, why would I want to join?”
“It’s cheap, just one dollar a month.”
“How can that support a religion?”
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“It’s an internet religion, it owns nothing, no buildings, no cars, no chalices, no communion wafers, no employees.”
“Then who runs it?”
“A volunteer ombudsman committee which publishes answers to members’s questions and a rotating accountant team, which oversees its finances, so that every dollar donated and spent gets recorded for all to see.”
Boring.
I sign his receipt. He spends a few seconds to scan it, thanks me and rushes away without any attempt to make further eye-contact. Not interested, I guess. I look over to see if Tony still is. Yes, here he stands, sporting the pouter’s frown. My poor boy.
Before we can start to get our juices up again, the static from the PA system ordains the start of class. My fans begin their exodus to their seats and Tony with a weak pucker slithers to his. I glance up and see the green light that the cameras, light and speakers are ready. The lights dim. The introduction starts…
“Welcome to Comparative Religion one oh seven and this is the nineteenth session, entitled
Procreate or Perish…
“Now students, please welcome, Dr. Stephen Colonica.” He forgot to give my initial.
I count to ten, close my eyes, listen to the applause die. In the background, the volume of the liturgical music ramps up to infect the class with solemnness. Today I chose St. Mathew’s Passion, sung in German, and though I don’t understand the words–the tone of the voices, the timing and depth of the symphony instruments sobers me, reminds me of Christ’s sacrifice. Then the volume diminishes
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 to just a faint background round. My cue.
“In order for, a religion, to survive, even prosper; in order for, any living thing, any organism, any species, a club a team, any organization, a school a shop, a cult a sect; to exist and to subsist, it needs a way, system process, to regenerate itself, or it will die. End of story. Exterminatus corpus. The main reason for this is, mortality, everything has a shelf life. Even rocks do.
“In addition, it’s a harsh world we live in. Wars kill. Not to omit hurricanes and tsunamis; epidemics, strokes and heart attacks, some members leave and branch out, some even change sides, like cancer cells, killing us by feeding off us.
“So what’s the plan? A religion knows that members are going to die off. The shelf life thing.
Who replaces them? Where does a church get replacements? Churches need a plan. And a Plan B.
There are numerous options. But number one, obviously, is sexual intercourse.” I make a sweep to see how this wakes the students up. It doesn’t. It used to, but this generation has different first priorities.
“Plan B of course, is conversion, but breeding beats its pants off. No travel costs, no visa cards, no being stuck in airports. And it is more fun, a lot more fun.” I smile and look out to see if I can find
Tony in the crowd. Nope, but there’s that woman in the naqib. Before I would see her in the nose bleed section, now she is only four rows from me. This close I can now see that her hazel eyes stare right at me, never even seem to blink. She might have a crush on me. Too bad dear, wrong pew.
But that is not it, it’s something else. Strange. But instead of being alarmed, I sense the grace time space before I nod off at night.
Stop this. The students will think the pause means I think of sex more than teaching. But I do, I do.
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I review my notes. Then glance at her one last time. Her eyes are telling me to call on her. But what was the question?
Repeat my last line, “Sex is more fun. Building missions, going on pilgrimages takes work, time and costs money. Breeding doesn’t, only takes carnal activity, at least up front.” I don’t smile. “Baby brothers, baby sisters, glory be. Baby fresh recruits, willing able, replacing what mischief left us, from war and fire, old age disease, and nature’s blind accidents. Sex then babies, after all these years, remains recruitment number one.
“Conquest too works, brings in new frosh, but it requires an army. In Syria, and in Iraq, there resides such an army. ISIS, pronounced, eye sis, abbreviation for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It comes calling, you better get out of Dodge. Once in power, it’s shari'ah law, for everyone, and to those who won’t submit, their reward will be, their last hair cut.” The news has covered the beheadings, leave it at that.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Reading from the New Testament, Luke eighteen, verses fifteen to seventeen
‘And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.’
“Note in this quote, that Jesus saw children as vital, core components, for the Church and for salvation. The apostles who, who represent the old order, unlearned, unenlightened, here resist this. Are they, grown men, to be taught by children? The apostles, put Christ to task, say tusk, tusk, tusk.
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‘Children are too immature. How can you say that?’
“Christ is talking revolution, the apostles, ‘No children in church.’ Which was the way it was back then. How things have changed. My oh my how things have changed, haven’t they?”
I look away from my notes and notice a few raised hands. I point to one student waving his arm like a flashing railroad gate, at least I might be able to stop him from hurting anyone sitting next to him.
The object of my previous curiosity just stands up, and the student I pointed at looks over at her.
Happens all the time in this large amphitheater. She gives a shallow curtsy to the left then to the right.
The flashing railroad gate steeples his fingers to the ceiling and to the other students for affirmation of his lost propriety but sits down. The few who are not glued to their laptops chortle.
She bows toward me and clears her throat. A screechy sounds comes out, as if she had not spoken for decades.
“Professor, professor,” she says, she does not seem to even remember my name. “Let me make sure I understand what you are saying here. Churches are organizations and their chief goal is to survive. They appoint managers with an eye on expanding the number of believers, or ay kay ay, return on investment.”
The students hush. They like the distraction because they know that people who choose to address the class in such a formal manner are, at the minimum, entertaining. I like the distraction too, as it will take their minds off of my sex gaffe. And she will either be off message or very erudite but condescending. Whatever she says will probably be talked about after class more than the content of my lecture, which, this section at least, is actually pretty pedestrian, despite my effort at making it sexy.
“Well, Miss, those are strained generalizations, but I cannot deny that we live in a capitalistic
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 economy, and in one, without growth, organizations wizen up and die.”
“And because churches rely on salesmen instead of holy men we have the scandals—pedophilia, prostitute use, homosexual liaisons, palaces and ocean beach estates.”
“Yes, I also cannot deny the spread of faith has its speed bumps,” trying to steer her on to say what her question is.
“Religions expand in size through procreation. Catholics hold that sex is reserved for bringing forth offspring, hence the pill is verboten, abortion is murder. Muslims believe, women have no say in the matter at all. Either way, mucho babies get born. And please don’t blame your parents’ if their efforts to meet their religion’s recruiting goal brings you forth poor, hungry and with few tools to change that.”
“Quantity versus quality,” I point out, “people, souls, which would never have been born.”
“The parade to lemming-hood starts at birth with Baptism, a dunking even its creator, John the
Baptist, thought was only for adults. Then it proceeds through Holy Communion, ingestion of a little piece of god, Confession, a shaming exercise if there ever was one, to sealing the deal with
Confirmation, all before the child is old enough to get married, enlist in the armed forces, vote or even legally drink alcohol.
“This is brainwashing, clear and simple. How do religions rationalize this abhorrent practice, this abuse of children? How do parents? Why does our government not criminalize the practice and incarcerate the practitioners, instead of awarding them special tax benefits?”
“Miss?” I ask, everyone is quiet now, all eyes on me.
“Climbs,” she says.
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“Miss Climbs, is this your question? If it is, religious education does not qualify as brainwashing. No pain is inflicted, no torture is involved, no deprivation of food, water, sleep or society.”
“Yes, it is my question. And I myself was tortured. Tortured by being scared to death. I used to cry in bed at night just knowing my Mother would not go to heaven. The nuns said there was no room in heaven for Baptists. They said that the only gateway to heaven and everlasting peace was through
Catholicism, everyone else went to hell. And they threatened me with the same if I didn’t behave in class.”
“Well, some of the religions do flaunt the fear more than the love, but…”
She interrupts me, “How can you say that? There aren’t two consecutive pages of the Koran that does not threaten the reader with eternal damnation. If you can say that, then this comparative religion business is just that, another business, isn’t it? You, Dr. Colonica, are aiding and abetting a crime. How are you any different from the pedophile priests? Obey me or be eternally damned.”
The students are laughing, clapping and slapping on their desk tops. I need to restore order,
“Miss Climbs, I beg your pardon, but this course is part of the college curriculum and you are off subject. I am sorry but we have to get back to the lecture.”
Undiscouraged she says, “There is nothing academic about this course. It is equivalent to listening to old men hyping significance to the rust buildup on their sword blades after swishing them through fog. Even the fog was not impressed.”
Another loud hoot from the class, and I frankly don’t get it, but I can hear frenzied activity of the cameramen overhead. They must find it exciting and some of the students are standing up and
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 filming our exchange on their i-phones. Excitement sells. Let it play out. It will eventually bend to my favor. I don’t have to worry, she is excited, on a roll, which means she will either dry up soon or start preaching and everyone will tell her to shut up.
She then says, “The word religious is an absolute adjective. Right? By definition, by language contract, absolutes cannot be intensified, downgraded or compared, and yet here you are making a mockery of language as well as religion, codifying our ignorance of both, language and religion, comparing the incomparable.” Then she gets personal, “If you really believed in god, instead of being busy peddling this drivel, you would spend your time feeding, clothing and providing shelter for the poor. They are not hard to find, professor. They’re just a few blocks away from here, if you cared to take the time to deviate from your commute home to your safe suburb in your luxury car.”
Pandemonium! I can’t even hear myself speak. The auditorium is at riot stage. I have no choice but to wait for it to settle down, and it does after the people shouting for everyone else to quiet down realize that they are the ones making it so no one else can hear.
I clench the mike and put my lips right up to it. I yell into it.
It doesn’t work.
Hers does.
“A religion that insists people believe that it is the only gateway to God is bankrupt. There is no one gateway to God. It has always been right here,” she points to her heart. “And when a religion puts its own survival ahead of bringing people closer to god, call the mortician.
“There is a God. It made us. Creating an organization around that belief should lesson suffering not institutionalize it. Suffering comes with the job. Why increase it by requiring us to fast from food,
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 drink, sex and comfort, the few pleasures we have? We suffer, then we die. Punishment enough, I say.”
A rousing applause breaks out and dies just as quick. They want to hear more.
She slowly rotates in a complete circle, “I invite all of you to join a religion, that does not compare itself to nor disparage other religions. That is how you will know it’s not putting its own survival ahead of yours.
“Doctor Colonica, Doctor Colonica, Montaigne said, ‘The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine.’ This schtick, Comparative Religion, is just a sophisticated way of stealing and beneath you.
“Quit this worthless vocation. You are being visited by God. Right this very second. Don’t waste your life lining your pockets through this worthless pedagogy. Your neighbors are unfed, unclothed, ill and homeless. Care for them, Dr. Colonica. Care for us, not yourself at everyone else’s expense.” She makes a very low bow and sits down.
A standing ovation. Rendering me speechless.
Rendering me, useless, until I hear a student howling, “Who are you anyway?” And he jumps up over and snatches off her niqab.
Holy Christ!
Shrill screams replace the applause.
I turn my head away immediately only to see a twenty foot version of the same gruesomeness towering down on me. The camera does not have to worry about its stomach.
I just stare at the big screen. Everyone else must be too because for the first time since I started teaching this class I don’t hear a single voice. Not even mine.
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Time stops. Stops.
Everything stops.
My heart. I’m getting dizzy.
She stands before us, a fierce open wound for a face with what look like large embroidered black ants framing it from her chin out to each temple. It’s the kind of hideousness that when confronted by it you either look away and run, or chance one more peek to be sure it was real or not. It certainly appears to be real. We stare on in growing acceptance of the marvel before us, and in complete incomprehension.
Her eye brows are too high above off center eyes, green egg yolks floating on a plate of raw flaky red meat. A line drawn by a halloween pumpkin carver for lips and two large black holes for her nostrils, but no nose construction to speak of.
How could anyone have survived these injuries? And yet as inhuman as she appears, she just spoke to us in clear English, with a Philadelphia whine at that.
We all just continue to stare at her face, twenty feet across on the monitor, ugly as the remnants of a miscarriage, ruined, yet she poses before us a noble warrior.
The screaming lets up, followed by the pungent odor of honey mustard.
Well, this will end her quick rise to ascendency. Someone has thrown up. In a second, sounds follow indicating there are disciples.
Good, I’ll call a short recess so maintenance can clean up the puke. A few of the students already head for the doors. But before I can move, a woman’s voice freezes the class with a plaint of fright.
“It’s the Climbs woman. Oh em Gee, it’s her! It’s Regina Climbs!” The woman faints and falls backwards.
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More honey mustard, now with vinegar, more sounds of convoy vomiting. While a pack of students in the seats below move to break her fall, another swarm makes for the doors, hopping over seats and other students. I shift over to the double doors to block the stampede. I am going to lose my job if anyone gets hurt. Like a leaf, I get thrust aside, landing hard on my shoulder.
So I am the anyone. Ouch. Who is Regina Climbs anyway? Some celebrity? With a face like that? I roll over so I can get up. As quick as it started though, the breakaway stops. The vomit stench dissipates before a strong smell of antiseptic and mint. The remaining students are lathering up their hands and sucking on lozenges. All eyes are fixed on the big screen. More than half are now filming her. The woman, unhurried, methodically drapes her naqib back on.
She looks a lot better now. The muscles in my stomach relent their frantic knotting up and relax.
My shoulder, on the other hand, dammit, hurts.
“Regina Climbs is dead,” a male voice shouts out. “It was all over the news.”
“Her face certainly fits her billing.”
Another laughs, “Maybe she is dead.”
Then another shouts out, “But, why is she here?”
A football cheer starts, evolving into, “What do you want, Regina? What do you want?”
Complete with a drumming on the desktops at the end of each chorus. It grows louder and more hostile.
The cameramen above switch what they show on the big screen between the Climbs woman and me in sequence with the chants. I see myself–a schmuck lying down on the floor, so I try to get up. But when I put weight on my right shoulder, pain makes me shriek out, and I flounder back down.
Really losing it here. Losing it.
I shake my head clear. She’s just another maniac. She will turn out to be like all the rest, holding insane positions on social issues, like Duck Dynasty, Malcom X, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi insisted
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 everyone make their own clothes on hand looms. Like Jesus Christ himself, if he had lived. Being crucified is what saved him.
I have to get up. This is way past silly.
With a break in the chant, the big screen slides from me to the Climbs woman and she says, “I want what you all want. I want peace,” in a calm distracted voice, but I sense an 'or else' to it.
The student chant morphs into a taunt and its pace quickens, “We all want peace Regina, how do we get it?” With some of the men slipping in an ‘a’ for effect. Everyone is having a good time.
Finally she stands up to indicate that she is going to speak again and the chant stops, the big screen on her. She stands looking out at all of us like she has been preparing for this her entire life. She says, “Stop your cheating and lying. You cheat when you speed while driving and cut others off, you cheat when you say you are doing your homework but instead you are playing video games, you cheat when you date others without telling your girl or boy friend, you cheat when you lallygag at work or when you underpay the people who work for you. You cheat and lie all day and think nothing of it.
That is all it would take. Just stop cheating and we will have peace, when no one is cheated no one will be resentful so no one will have reason to strike out against others. We will all have peace.
“Just stop it.”
Well, I just read something like that from Velasco. Tag team?
I lean over for another swing at righting myself and see the woman on the big screen for the last time. My eyesight is going screwy, must be the pain from my shoulder. She’s swelling.
But no, she isn’t, she’s rising. Slowly, steadily, straight up.
Oh my god! Her feet softly kick in the air. She’s levitating. In my class. The woman. Jesus
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Christ! Still rises. Rises. In the air. Some screams, more gasps. I can see the top of the seat behind her.
Buoyed up like she is floating on water. All around me a hundred i-phones record this.
Mesmerizing.
I hear the catwalk creak and catch a glimpse of a cameraman swinging his camera and now all I see on the screen is me. Me. Me. How do I respond? You Tube subscribers are already watching this linked in. In the blogosphere, people are already chiming in on this.
My response is…
I can’t…
I look at myself on the screen, my expression one of stunned incomprehensibility.
Can’t blow this.
Get a grip.
Get a grip.
I have to get myself off the floor.
This was planned, not an accident at all. She’s the one recruiting. This could be my big break though. Hit this one out of the ballpark and I am set for life. God is visiting us and this time there are a hundred witnesses, with cameras. Timing is. Everything. Where has he been all these years?
Wait.
Wait for when the camera swings back to the woman. Then get up. Wait, wait…
All eyes will again be on me then. I have to go with this. Don’t break her spell.
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It moves off of me. Now.
My jerking effort to stand is countered by a convulsing pain so strong I feel like I’ve passed out.
But I haven’t. I fall back to the floor, turning in time so that only the side of my face bumps off the cold terrazzo. Nausea wrestles with my stomach. Realizing that I can’t stand up right now, I instead supplicate myself full length on the floor, kiss it and stretch out full to stare up at what should be her reflection on the big screen, though I cannot raise my head very high, and through the pain proclaim,
“Oh em gee. God has chosen me!” What the fuck was I thinking?
But the Climbs woman’s not on the screen, just a screen shot of her empty seat. She’s gone.
Gone. The big screen shows a furtive panning of the auditorium by the cameramen to find her.
No Regina.
Then I hear it. It’s playful, everyone singing over and over, “Oh Em Gee, God has chosen me.”
The students must think this was a caprice. The bell rings and they all start marching out, singing the refrain. They are all making fun of me. I’m ruined, ruined.
The doors keep clacking open and shut, students streaming out singing. I’m finding the air so thick from the smell of vomit and antiseptic, I am losing my breath. I am either going to throw up myself or pass out.
I look back up at the flat screen and it’s me, my head is shaking like I have palsy, twenty feet small staring up at the camera. Tears scrambling down my cheeks, dribbling off my mustache, to the chorus of, “Oh Em Gee, God has chosen me,” and the jarring of doors banging walls and bouncing back with a swinging clack, again and again and again.
Not my best pose.
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The maintenance man squeezes in, holds his nose, surveying the vomit spews. He looks at me and angrily asks, “Doctor, you better not be showing pictures of fetuses again.”
Shamed, I nod at him, sheepishly say, “No.”
“What are you doing lying on the floor?”
I pull myself up by climbing up the lectern and get to my feet. I try to assemble my papers, but my hands are acting spasmodically. They and my papers are a mess. I am a mess. Thank goodness Tony is here to help me. We stuff what we can into my valise and I slink out without Tony. Earlier, I had designs on Tony joining me and right now I could use some comfort but he said he had to study for a mid-term. I thought they were over.
I was supposed to work on an essay tonight about the significance of the English language having no verb for the concept ‘faith,’ while the Greeks did—Pisteuo. Should have said that, but then what I really need now is an exit plan.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Stephen, Nancy Bollinger here, yes, yes, I saw it, I saw it, well, everyone has seen it. Isn’t it fantastic?”
“Yes, I’ve been chosen. God has visited me,” I say testing the waters.
“Exactly, now we have to make the most of it. I have lined up three publishers, so far, who agree to reprint all of your books, if they get the rights to your new one.”
“The one on biometrics and the Greeks?”
“No, no, no, scratch that. No, we are talking about a non-fic on yesterday. I already have two
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 writers collaborating on what the videos show. We just need your personal account of how it felt being the focal point of the exchange plus an elongated bio to fill the book out. The denouement or epilog is a work in progress. Not sure which works best, but weighing toward doing both, with the epilog coming after the first printing, so people have to buy both. One for the price of two. I love that.
“We have assembled all the You Tube videos, the Face Book comments and the tweets on
Twitter. We are interviewing every student who was there and posted. This is great, you know. Your name could become a household word. How does it feel to be the object of a visit from God? Oh, and I almost have a film producer locked in. We have some time with that. I’m sending a limo over. What time should I tell him to get there?”
“This is happening so fast…”
“True, but that’s my job remember, to catch it for you. Do you have any idea how she just lifted up like that and disappeared? No wires, right?”
“She just rose up, in real time, right in front of me. Surreal. Surreal.” Then I add, “Did you see her face?”
“Oh yes. Imagine living the rest of your life looking like that. By the way, how do we get in touch with her?”
“I checked the class list, she’s not on it. I checked with the registrar, no Regina Climbs, no
Climbs period.”
“No wonder. She died six weeks ago.”
“What?”
“You hadn’t heard?”
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“What?”
“You must have read about the woman who crashed a car into a truck to keep it from hitting a church bus full of children?”
“Oh, yes, the senator who morphed into a homeless woman. That’s Regina Climbs?”
“That’s what everyone believes. Climbs supposedly died in the hospital and now she shows up in your class and picks you to start a new religion.”
“Start a new religion?”
“That’s the way we are reading this Stephen.”
“I didn’t, I don’t… I was chosen, I’m not exactly sure to do what yet.”
“Well, one of the students scanned an outline for a new religion on Face Book, something called the Almost Perfect Religion.”
“You are kidding me.”
“No. It’s gone viral, Stephen.” I hear her rustling through papers. “Your face covers half of the front page of the Inquirer with the title, ‘Dead Woman Subdues Divinity Professor,’ and there’s a full length feature inside entitled, ‘Regina Climbs Rises from the Dead.” Newsweek’s cover is a closeup of her face, hold the smelling salts, below the headline, ‘She’s Alive.’ The Times has called me, wanting access to you. Has Temple called?” Interesting that she did not tell me that right off the bat. I glance over at the phone. Seven new messages have been left. The sleeping pills really knocked me out. I did take an extra one.
Nancy forges on, “Everyone is talking about this woman rising from the dead, establishing a
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kirk-submission-03-17-15 new religion. One commandment–no cheating, one rite–meditation, one tithe–one dollar a month, etcetera. Holy Plotinus, and what’s another one, ah,hum, oh yes. No one is more important than you and you are no more important than anyone else.”
“The last one sounds like something from Norway.”
“You may be onto something there, sounds right. Maybe that is where this is all coming from. I will have the writers research that. So far the Pope is mum, but an Archbishop in Dallas was interviewed saying this is pantheism and nothing to give any attention to. So obviously, the catholics see this as a threat. Anyway, when can you get here, opportunities are floating by?”
I have been chosen. I am to be the next St. Paul. And I am in the perfect position to lead this new religion. The how is all written out in the letters of the New Testament. Thessalonians, chapter 1 verse 4, ‘For you know what instructions we gave you through,' I’ll just insert Lady Regina. And verse
5, ‘And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.’ Right up Regina’s alley and soon to be in my wheelhouse.
I realize I am not speaking to Nancy, this is all in my head. A new skill from God? Let me slow down here. Her interests are not aligned with mine. “Nancy, listen, yes, this is all great and everything, but I will really need some time. Not really sure how this should be, as you might say, capitalized on.”
“Stephen, what is this, a shakedown?”
Boy she is quick and as quick to wave the loyalty guilt trip.
She follows up with, “So, if you can’t deliver the girl, who can?” She is also smart, give her that. I get the point. Climbs is more important than I am. Of course she is. The race is on. And I have no way of contacting her.
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“Nancy, I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. I think I have a broken bone, maybe two.
In the meantime, try and find out who leaked the instructions for a new church. It was one of my assignments, so nothing new there. Miss Climbs did not turn anything in to me.” I don’t mention
Velasco. Her need to know. I know how to get hold of him. And need to. Right away. What is his involvement in all of this? He must have put his paper on the web, but why would he use Regina’s name?
“Oh, I’m sorry. The video showed you lying on the floor. You fell?”
“Yes, I did. Nice of you to ask. I was trampled over, thrown down. I was trying, oh never mind.
Anyway I’m in a lot of pain. I will be in touch. Have to go now, bye.” I hang up. Guilt is not something professors of faith are unskilled at wielding either.
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