Beware of God (6 page)

1. Make a big sign.
   
2. Stand at the entrance to a highway.
   
3. Smile.
   
4. Stand where there's space for a car to pull over.
   
5. If you can, bring a girl along, like Deena.
   

Florida is 6,600 miles from Israel. We'll probably go to Jerusalem and stay in the King David Hotel. Deena goes there every Passover with her family. They have a tennis court and a pool.

I
N
the beginning, he was always on time. But it had been a long time since the beginning, longer than either Doughnut or Danish could remember.

“I don't get it,” complained Danish. “Isn't it time?”

“It's time,” answered Doughnut.

“It feels like it's time.”

“It's time.”

Danish paced anxiously back and forth. Of course it was time! He knew it was time! He didn't need Doughnut to tell him that it was time!

“So where is he then?” asked Danish. “If it's time, then where is he? I don't understand. Either he knows that it's time or he doesn't. Does he know thatit's time?”

Doughnut sat curled up inside their cold, empty feeding bowl, focused intently on the doorknob of the apartment front door, believing with all of his heart that at any moment the doorknob would turn, the door would open and Joe would appear.

“We cannot pretend to think that we know what Joe knows and what Joe doesn't know,” pronounced Doughnut with a sharp twitch of his nose, “we must only believe with all of our heart that Joe knows.”

“I bet he doesn't know!” said Danish. He rose upon his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass walls until he became exhausted. Breathing heavily, he lumbered over to the water bottle that hung in the far corner and drew a few drops into his mouth.

“You nonbelievers are all the same,” scoffed Doughnut. He pushed some dry cedar chips into a small, comfortable mound and settled down upon it. “As if you were the first hamster to ever doubt him!” he said. “The first rodent to ever
think
, really. Who else but you—with your keen intellect, your contrarian insight, your moral bravery and conviction—who else could possibly come up with, ‘What if Joe doesn't?' ‘What if Joe can't?' Clotheyour fear as integrity, Danish, but Joe knows whobelieves and Joe knows who doesn't. Joe is here, Joe is there, Joe is simply everywhere.‘What if he nevercomes back! What if he's forgotten us! What if he's died!'You look around at all your plastic tube highways, and your fabulous Habitrail and think you arespecial. But do ants not build anthills? Do bees notbuild hives? It is not what we build that makes us unique, it is what we believe; it is that we believe at all! Doubt, my dear Danish, is no great achievement; it is faith that sets us apart. Besides,” added Doughnut, “he left his wallet on the front table. He's got to come back.”

“He did?” asked Danish.

He stood up on his back legs and squinted through the glass. “Where?”

Doughnut walked over and stood beside Danish.

“There, on the table.”

“Where?”

“There!”

“That?”

“Yes!”

“That's not a wallet, you idiot.”

“Of course it's a wallet.”

“It's a book,” said Danish.

“It's not a book.”

“Sure it is,” said Danish. “I can read the spine.
Along Came a Spider
, by James Patterson.” Hedropped down and shook his head. “Oh, no, he does not.”

Doughnut squinted a moment longer.

Damn.

It was a paperback.

Why would Joe abandon them? Why would he leave a sign for them right there on the foyer table, and then make it not a sign? And why James Patterson? What did it all mean?

“He does not read James Fucking Patterson!” cried Danish. “Our Salvation! Our Provider! We must be out of our minds.”

“It's a test,” Doughnut said, as he curled back up inbed. “He's testing our faith.”

Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass wall until he became exhausted. He took a drink of water, climbed up into the plastic tree house and curled into a tight, angry ball.

“I happen to find Patterson thought-provoking and suspenseful,” Doughnut said after a moment.

“You what?” asked Danish. “Did you just say you find James Patterson thought-provoking and suspensful? Jesus Christ. Open your eyes, Doughnut. Don't you see what he's doing to us? Holding our food over our heads like this? Dangling our fate before us like a banana-raisin-nut bar tied to the end of a stick? Look at you, Doughnut. Are you so desperate to believe in Joe that you're actually defending James Patterson?!!”

“Cat and Mouse
was a taut psychological thriller,” said Doughnut.

“Oh, bullshit,” said Danish.

Doughnut closed his eyes. Hunger stabbed sharply at his stomach, but he would never admit it to Danish.

Where the hell was Joe?

Danish rummaged frantically through the seed shells and shavings that covered the floor of their transparent little world. “He isn't coming!” he said, looking for even a sliver of a husk of a shell of a seed. “He isn't coming.”

Doughnut nestled deeper into his bed, eyes shut tight in fervent concentration.

“May he who has fed us yesterday,” he prayed, “feed us again today and tomorrow and forever. Amen.”

“Yes!” Danish suddenly shouted. “Ya ha!” He pulled a brown chunk of apple from beneath a small mound at the back of the cage and raised it victoriously overhead. Without even stopping to knock off the stray bits of cedar and pine needle that stuck to its sides, Danish opened his mouth wide and dropped it in. He made quite a show of chewing it, mmming and ohhing and ahhhing, finally swallowing it with a loud, dramatic gulp. He smiled, patted his stomach and burped, a deep, long belch of satisfaction. “Aah.” He washed it down with a few drops of water and slid down to the floor with a contented sigh.

Doughnut watched Danish, a sour mix of jealousy and disdain on his face. His stomach groaned.

Where the hell was Joe?

Doughnut stood up and stomped over to Danish, who looked up at him lazily.

“Well?” demanded Doughnut.

“Well what?”

“Well, maybe you could give a little thanks,” said Doughnut.

“Thanks?” asked Danish. “To who?”

“To Joe, Danish. To Joe.”

“For what?”

“For the apple he gave you.”

“The apple
he
gave
me
?” asked Danish. “I found that apple myself.”

“Do you think the apple just grew there?” Doughnut shouted. “How did the apple get there, Danish? We searched this cage a thousand times and never found a thing. That apple was a miracle! A gift! Joe heard my prayers, and he brought forth upon this cage a holy apple.”

His stomach grumbled.

Danish belched again, and rubbed his belly with pride. “Except, Doughnut, that you didn't get any food. You asked, I received. Seems like a strange system to me.” He sucked a piece of apple rind out from between his teeth. “Mmm, not that I'm complaining. Next time ask him for a carrot. I simply
must
start getting more fiber.”

“Joe grants food to those who need it most,” replied Doughnut bitterly.

Danish tired quickly of Doughnut's lectures, particularlywhen he was hungry, which he suddenlywas.

Again.

He got back up and began searching again through the rough cedar chips that covered the floor.

Doughnut dragged himself wearily back to his bed. The miracle of the apple had made him ravenous.

Doughnut would never admit it—he was ashamed to even think it—but lately he'd begun to doubt.

Lately, Joe and his mysterious ways were beginning to piss him off. It was the same thing with him every damn day: begging, thanks, begging. Verse, chorus, verse.

“Why me?” wondered Doughnut.

It must have been his own fault.

He must have sinned.

He must have angered Joe.

Just last week he had questioned why their litter wasn't changed more frequently.

“Perhaps there's a cedar shortage?” he'd askedDanish sarcastically. “It is a hardwood, you know.”

He had even complained aloud that their cage was too small.

The chutzpah!

Some hamsters don't even have a cage, let alone a Habitrail and an exercise wheel! How could he have been so ungrateful? He barely even used the blessed exercise wheel. A beautiful exercise wheel that any hamster would love, and Doughnut had only ever used it once.

He was ashamed of himself.

No wonder there wasn't any food!

Why should Joe give him anything more, if he couldn't even appreciate what he had already been given?

Doughnut closed his eyes and silently thanked Joe for starving him in order to show him the error of his ways.

“Forgive me,” he prayed.

And with that Doughnut hurried out of his bed and climbed onto the exercise wheel. He ran as fast as he could, huffing andpuffing, regret and retributionnipping at his heels.

Danish, meanwhile, was going mad. He'd been tricked. Tricked by Joe! He was even hungrier now than he'd been before he had eaten Joe's cursed apple.

“Oh, yes, very good, Joe, yes, quite witty!” shouted Danish. “Well done, old boy! Touché!”

Back on the exercise wheel, Doughnut could run no more. He stumbled back to bed.

Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass walls until he became exhausted.

Doughnut prayed.

And behold, suddenly, the doorknob did turn.

The apartment door did open.

And Joe did appear.

Danish peed in excitement.

Doughnut shat in fear.

Joe was thin and pale, and he wore a rumpled brown suit and a horizontal-striped clip-on tie. The badge hanging from his chest pocket read MAIL-ROOM. There was a woman with him, too, a woman Danish and Doughnut had never seen before. She was unattractive, with thin hair and thick glasses, and she and Joe wrestled their way through the doorway as one, groping and feeling and rubbing each other as if each had somehow lost the keys in the other's pants pockets. Joe groaned and tore open her blouse.

Danish and Doughnut pressed their noses to the glass.

“There better be apples in there,” said Danish.

“Forgive me, Joe, for doubting you,” prayed Doughnut.

Joe lifted the woman into his arms. “To hell with dinner!” he whispered lustfully. She threw her head back and laughed, and as they headed down the hallway toward his bedroom, Joe switched the living room lights off with his elbow.

Darkness.

Doughnut looked at Danish.

Danish looked at Doughnut.

“We have brought this upon ourselves,” said Doughnut.

Danish stood on his hind legs and flailed uselessly at the glass walls until he became exhausted.

Doughnut prayed.

S
TANLEY
F
ISHER
—down on his luck, out of a job, and with a baby on the way—took the last of his dwindling savings, kissed his wife Sharon goodbye and journeyed to Israel for a soul-searching expedition through the Negev Desert.

He sought meaning.

He sought guidance.

He sought purpose.

What he found was much more important.

Deep inside a dark cave on the dark side of a dark and desolate mountain range, Stanley discovered thirteen ancient stone tablets whose message, once deciphered, could change the entire course of human existence. They didn't, of course, but they did change the course of Stanley's.

 

T
HE
world was a dark and depressing place in those days. There were people everywhere. Most of those people considered most of the other people something less than people. All the people wanted all the other people the hell out of their country.

Everybody believed in Someone or Something and whatever anybody believed, they believed it completely. Their belief in their belief was unbelievable. They had complete faith in their faith. The only thing they doubted was doubt itself.

There were two things, however, that everyone believed, no matter what they believed: Whatever they believed was unbelievably right, and what everybody else believed was unbelievably wrong.

Piety and passion were in great supply. Homelands were not.

Arms dealers had never been busier.

It was a dark and depressing place.

 

···

S
TANLEY
carried the tablets back to his hotel room, stacked them carefully in the corner, and double-locked his door.

They looked ancient.

They looked important.

They looked holy.

“Fuckin' A,” said Stanley. He phoned Sharon.

“A million,” he guessed. “Maybe a million and a half.”

“Mmm hmm,” said Sharon.

Stanley had been fired from his job well over a year ago now. Along with their only source of income, they'd also lost their medical insurance.

If only they'd known Sharon was pregnant, they would have continued their old insurance. Now that they knew she was pregnant, they couldn't get new insurance.

She wished they'd known.

He was glad they hadn't.

What would knowing do? Knowing what he knew was already burden enough. He didn't need to know any more.

What Sharon knew was that vaginal births cost around $6,000, and cesareans cost around twelve; complications, said the doctors, would only complicate things. She also knew that the total cost of disposable diapers to potty-train a baby was around $2,000, and that a good baby monitor would easily run you a couple hundred bucks.

“I'll call you when I find a buyer,” said Stanley.

“Mmm hmm,” said Sharon.

 

S
TANLEY
brought the tablets to the head of the department of ancient languages at the Hebrew University.

“Momentous,” said the head of the department of ancient languages at the Hebrew University.

The tablets, he declared, were without a doubt one of the most important religious and archeological finds if not in the history of all mankind, then certainly in what we now know as the Modern Era.

“Can I quote you?” asked Stanley.

The head of the department of ancient languages at the Hebrew University kicked Stanley in the shin, and caught him with a hard uppercut to the nose. “I have a career to think about, asshole,” he said, and chased Stanley around his desk with a copy of
The Unabridged History of Ancient Civilizations
raised menacingly over his head.

Stanley didn't know what the head of the department of ancient languages at the Hebrew University's problem was, but he knew that without expert verification, the tablets were worthless.

“An absolute treasure,” said the curator of the archeology department at the Israel Museum. “While their monetary value is undoubtedly in the millions, their social and historical value is unimaginable.”

“Millions!” said Stanley. “Can I quote you?”

The curator of the archeology department at the Israel Museum grabbed Stanley in a headlock, beat him about the head and told him to forget they ever met. “I'm a respected professional,” said the curator of the archeology department at the Israel Museum, giving Stanley a wedgie and shoving him out of his office.

Everyone seemed to agree.

The tablets were ancient.

The tablets were important.

But they weren't holy. In fact, they were unholy, and their existence potentially unholified quite a few other tablets around the world.

Stanley's tablets were an ancient copy of the Old Testament. There were plenty of ancient Old Testaments around, to be sure, some older than others, but this wasn't just any ancient Old Testament. This was a Very Old Testament. This was an Extremely Old Testament.

As it turned out, this was the Oldest Testament of Them All.

But what troubled both the head of the department of ancient languages at the Hebrew University and the curator of the archeology department at the Israel Museum wasn't the tablets' very old age, or even their very, very old age. What had the experts so utterly and completely freaked out was that the text of this Oldest Testament of Them All was identical to every Not Quite as Old Testament written after it, down to the very last letter, except for one short paragraph at the very top of the very first tablet, a paragraph that seemed to have been dropped from the later editions, a paragraph that simply read:

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Which caused a number of problems.

“I'm having a little trouble finding a buyer,” Stanley said to his wife.

“Mmm hmm,” she said.

The Graco Lite-Rider Stroller/Car Seat Combo cost $129.99. The Precious Moments Bassinet cost $79.99. The Venetian-style crib in White Oak finish was $399.99.

 

S
TANLEY
maxed out the last of his credit cards and bought a one-way ticket to Rome. If anyone had the cash for these tablets, the Church did.

“It's a fraud,” said the Pope. “A cynical, monstrous fraud of the very worst kind.”

“A fraud?” asked Stanley, taking a closer look at the stone tablet lying on the Pontiff's desk. “Are you sure?”

“It has to be,” said the Pope.

“It has to be, or it is?”

“It is,” said the Pope menacingly, “because it has to be.”

And with that, the Pope grabbed his Papal Staff and poked Stanley painfully in his stomach.

“You get me?” the Pope said.

The world was a dark and depressing place in those days.

The response was overwhelming.

“Fuck you, asshole,” wrote JesusLvr1. “May God strike you dead as he did the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah,” wrote DaPreacher316. “People like you sicken me,” wrote HornyDevil22, “and BTW, how much do you want for your wife's panties?”

Religious leaders around the world were irate. Mankind was already teetering on the brink of self-destruction; this was no time for the truth.

The Church called for an immediate investigation, and by investigation, they meant arrest and prosecution. Primarily pushers of the Testament New, church leaders had a definite interest in the Original remaining divine. If the Old Testament turned out to be nothing more than ancient Babylonian beach reading, what were they to make of Jesus, who claimed the Old Testament was the word of God Himself (Matthew 15:6, “And by this you invalidated the Word of God.”)? Was the Book of Stan implying that Jesus was some kind of a liar, or was it implying he was some kind of a schmuck?

“By allowing the absolute authority of the Bible to be challenged,” wrote Jerry Falwell on his ministry's website that week, “we as a society have turned our back on God. And click here,” he added, “for big savings on all audio cassettes and DVDs.” Everything, the Reverend promised, must go.

The Muslims weren't any happier. Allah of Koran fame and Elohim of Old Testament fame are one and the same, and the followers of the Prophet Mohammed did not take kindly to His being deemed either fictional or coincidental. (It must be said, though, that the Shiites were okay with “coincidental” and the Sunnis were okay with “fictional”; unfortunately, each declared the other heretical and seventy people died in clashes throughout the Middle East.) The Ayatollah Khamenei sat down at his tangerine iMac, printed out one copy of “Fatwa. doc,” and hastily filled it in.

“Because Stan denies the existence of the Peaceful Loving God of Everlasting Mercy and Compassion,” wrote the Ayatollah, “it is incumbent upon us to kill him.”

Abraham Foxman called an emergency meeting of the ADL, who called an emergency meeting of the JDL. They didn't really care what the Book of Stan claimed about the divinity of the Old Testament, much as they didn't really care what Jesus or Mohammed claimed about it. However, if the Book of Stan were true, then the Old Testament was not true, and if the Old Testament was not true, the whole idea of Jews as a chosen tribe was not true. Brass tacks: If there were no real tribe, then there were no real Jews, and if there were no real Jews there could be no real anti-Semitism, and if there was no anti-Semitism, then Abe and his staff were shit out of a job.

The Book of Stan, declared Foxman, was a vile, pernicious anti-Semitic tract that needed to be banned, its perpetrators arrested, its publisher abducted and its distributor really, really yelled at.

The government, as it happened, was already on the case.

Stanley's ad was immediately deleted. eBay pulled the ad off its server, and the company posted an important policy update in its place:

And then Stanley was deleted. His birth certificate was destroyed, his medical records burned, his Social Security number reassigned, his parents killed, his sisters raped and his coworkers fired.

“Are you Mrs. Stanley Fisher?” the man at the door asked.

“I am,” said Sharon.

“No, you're not.”

“I'm not?”

“You can't be,” said the man.

“I can't be or I'm not?”

“You're not” said the man menacingly, “because you can't be.”

“Mmm hmm,” said Sharon.

 

B
ACK
in Rome, with no foreseeable buyers for his ancient tablets, Stanley got on a plane and headed back to the United States, where he was immediately arrested by immigration officials for using a fake passport.

“It wasn't fake three weeks ago,” said Stanley.

“It's fake now.”

“How could it be fake?”

“How could it be real?” said the officer.

“Because I'm real,” said Stanley.

“That's what you say.”

Two men in black suits and sunglasses appeared at his side. One man grabbed the suitcases containing the tablets, while the other led Stanley down the hallway into a small, secluded office. The door was closed, the lock was turned, and that was the end of Stanley Fisher and his troublesome nonfakes.

That evening, the head of the department of ancient languages at the Hebrew University appeared on
The O'Reilly Factor
. It was not just a fake, he said, it was the worst fake, if not in all the history of mankind, then certainly in what we now know as the Modern Era.

“Utterly worthless,” added the curator of the archeology department at the Israel Museum, “and not just financially, but to mankind as a whole.”

The Pope, on a live video feed from the Vatican, agreed. “It's a fraud,” the Pontiff said. “A cynical, monstrous fraud of the very worst kind.”

O'Reilly thanked them all, and reminded his viewers that the one book they could buy that definitely wasn't a fake was his book, which was currently number one on the
New York Times
bestseller list. It made, he noted, a wonderful gift.