The God of Six Points

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The God of Six Points

Father Larose stood at the entrance of Our Lady of Peace Church and preached to the crowd gathered on the steps and spilling out onto Bloor Street. Traffic was blocked in both directions. Car horns honked, motorists screamed in frustration but still the priest continued to preach. He preached about the illusion of permanence, about the certainty of death, about the bureaucratic neatness of time. God did not operate on a punch clock. The soul of man was always a child. Salvation was as messy as a teenager’s room. We must imitate Christ, climb up onto the Cross, and be crucified with Him, the priest declared.

And then the police arrived and dragged Father Larose off the steps and into a police cruiser. I looked in on the priest as he sat in the back, sad and friendless. I had never been so proud of him. The police dispersed the crowd. Moments later the cruiser sped off into the afternoon.

The next Sunday the pastor informed his congregation that Father Larose had a nervous breakdown. He had been placed in an institution for rest. I looked up at the cross behind the pastor, at the nails in the feet and hands of Christ, put there I thought so he wouldn’t step down off the Cross and start preaching in front of the Church. And I recalled the sad smile on Father Larose’s face sitting like a criminal in the back seat of the cruiser, abandoned.

 

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Chapter 1.

I Am A Corpse

I am a corpse.

In a lounge chair.

On the outskirts of the American Empire.

On the ledge of a small blue planet.

In the suburbs of the Milky Way.

During the first days of the third Millennium.

There is a cat above me, walking along the telephone wire like a trapeze artist. Its tail like a balance bar. I wish I had a camera. Never seen a cat do that. Maybe she thinks she is a squirrel.

There is a lawnmower two houses down. Blasting out music. I swear. It sounds like a new Bob Dylan song. One I’ve never heard. There is no mistaking the great bards vocal tones. Now, that is a sweet treat. I love that boy. Can’t think of him as a grown man. When you think of it, he’s like me. An invention.

Sweat is rolling off my forehead. Into my eyes. I can’t move. It burns.

I shouldn’t have bothered to mow the lawn. Perhaps that brought on my stroke. But the grass was so long. I hope they don’t manicure my face before they place me on public display. I was never a handsome and was proud of it. I don’t want to be painted up. To look like one of Picasso’s blue women.

My fingers tingle. The muscles on my arms and legs are flaccid. I have a craving for bacon. And scrambled eggs and sausage. On toast. The American kitchen invented the stroke.

The machinery of my existence is breaking down. Like the sound of that. Machinery of existence. You think maybe that God was Henry Ford. Weren’t we all born on the assembly line. History.

My bowels are relaxing. A pool is spreading out from my crotch. There is no feeling in my legs. The muscles on my arms are twitching. By themselves. Like something is trying to get out. Throat has dried up. My tongue races around in my mouth like some creature caught in the jaws of a steel trap. My arteries are expanding like inner tubes ready to burst. My veins turning brittle. Popping like lights on a Christmas tree. The panic of stillness.

My Absolute Moment is coming to fruition. Think about that. I’m going to see my maker. A group of writers at Warner Brothers. Most of them are dead. Or the next closest thing. Unknown.

I’m not ready. This is not a good time. I still have payments to make on the house. I was losing weight. I stopped drinking. Not all at once. And I was trying not to think about sex every five minutes. My voting habits were becoming more conservative. I voted for Mayor Anderson and his recent crusade against pornography. I supported the movement to have cats put on leashes and bicycle helmets made mandatory equipment for cyclists. And a women’s rights to choose. I can’t seem to stop talking. Inside my head. Jesus, its like a town counsel meeting.

I’m laying here looking at God straight in the eyes. God has a receding chin. No wonder he’s always wearing a beard. And he has very little personality. God is a chartered accountant. He keeps two sets of books. (He works for the mob as an enforcer. God is the original Murder Incorporated.)

God is a publisher with a musty smelling manuscript getting wet in his lap. Sitting in an Adirondack chair at his cottage. In the rain. The ink is starting to run. And he has to read quickly. I am looking my creator straight in the eyes and I have a story.

 

 

The God of Six Points

An old man thinks he is a god. And than he has murdered one of his subjects. In the western suburbs of Toronto, a small junction called the Six Points, an old man has prowled through the streets forever. No one can remember when he hasn’t been there. No one can remember him ever being young. He knows everyone and everything about them. He believes he is their god.

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