4/24/1998 geoffrey gordon ashbrook
Officer Robbins was driving it was eleven o’clock or close to it passed the Italian restaurant where he’d had his first kiss. Even though he passed the place a thousand times a year he smiled at each and every, and with a tip of his hat. Right passed the fine dine was a long ally, and by habit too he knew to check there. He slowed down and flashed his light in down the dark. His face puckered up and he turned the light off. He drove a little further and parked by two old ladies who were sitting on a bench outside a pawn shop. He got out and waved to them. They each waved. "Edna, Hillery, how are you?" E"not bad," H"And you? You look tired, Oscar." "Must be the weather." and he tossed her a button. He pulled out his flashlight and started drumming his fingers on it. Hillery and Edna. Ednalilery the Siamese twins, joined at hip and shoulder. He could hear god in the back of the ally, and didn’t turn his light on yet.
"I’m sorry to bother you." Oscar officer stated.
"If you were, you wouldn’ta come hear’n disturbed what makes no sound unpleasant to you, that other part of your job. Hear hear!" and god did a twirl and a Broadway curtsy bow, though naked (so a pretend skirt hold).
Oscar’s nose twitched. "Why do I keep finding you here?"
"You going to bring me in?"
sigh. pause.
God goes back over to the wall and bends over about to defecate again, grinning and showing Mr. Peterson proudly two sets of genitals.
"Please stop. You going to make me sick."
God stands up straight again. His strong arms and her old sagging breasts look rusty in the light off the bricks. "Tell me. This is a big city is it not? Is there not enough room for me to do as I do? There is no one here but me."
Oscar walks up close and points to god’s shoulder. God looks at it too and the Ferris wheels and sky scrapers become visible. Parks with children playing, a police car and a pawn shop, and the car drives past and pulls into a theater of the south, a slave production, Peterson Play’s the shining marquee. Between hairs children drown in swimming pools and beam at bat mitzvahs. Space shuttles are launched, pyramids are erected, all in the simultaneous time of a shoulder skin town.
"Don’t you care about them?" Oscar inquired. "What would they say if they could see you?"
God lifted a filthy finger and pointed to the Officer’s ear. Then he snatched a mirror from the Oscar’s pocket and held it so that he could see. "Hmm?"
Oscar looked in close. There were bridges and construction crews. Churches and marriage counseling centers. The Brian O’Manlin Ball Park. Fathers falling into sausage vats, or cheering at a T’ball game, or walking a distracted dog or cleaning the wipers on an old car. It was telescope town, time down a kaleidoscope into nurseries. Oscar looked at god for a minute. He saw how deep the eyes were. How many folds and twists, many of which didn’t seem to make any sense. "I still think your wrong."
"I hope so." He nodded at the mirror and Oscar looked in again. He saw columns of lights with sparkling and darkening cities suspended between them. The cities were a blur, but there was a music which brought back memories. "I just wanted to see you again."
There was a loud clap and the mirror broke and god tossed it over her should with a smile. "I have a house you know. I gave it away. I have a car and a wife sort of husband thing, but it’s good to share." He blew his nose onto Oscars shirt. Oscar sighed again, and closed his eyes. Then she started laughing. Louder and louder. Oscar began to feel uncomfortable, this had never happened before. He’d usually just bickered and gotten god to put on some clothes and take a shower and for a walk in the park, but. The laughter began to shake fur from the brick wall, the air shimmered with bursts of profoundly obscene glitter that flared and then faded. God could hardly stand with the laughing so. With hands on her knees, and pieces of late night dinner conversations mixed with an electrified Mediterranean salad that would bump into Oscar almost knocking him over, her skin began to crack. A great rip torn across her back and for just that moment the laughter turned to crying. A great beam shot from the gap and when it hit Oscar he was only aware of one thing. It was a kiss. It was his mother kissing him, his mother, his father, his wife, and him kissing his daughter on the forehead. One kiss.
He could now see there were lights in the sky above all the buildings, the air grew warm and weird and he had the feeling something was about to land, and it all went dark again. He could barely see god now, mostly memory, it was so dark. Then god’s skin slid off and dashed in every direct, hounds on a furious fox hunt and toasting with frosted glasses of Guinness in mid air while jumping over miniature fallen trees and doing emergency on-the-fly dental examinations. Echoes. Though dark he could hear her chuckling, though the sound didn’t seem to be coming from one place, it didn’t even really seem to be sound, but what else could it be? The space around him seemed so huge. He walked around a little, it was very quiet. He looked at the brick wall, and looked into the air, and looked over at god. But god was hunched and silent, and the sky smoggy and dull, and the wall as stained and time worn as ever. God sat down and looked up, and took a breath of relief, "Did I ever tell you," he said, "about that time, when I got a hole in one. She was fine."