Good to Be God (7 page)

On the way home, I get lost and hungry. Near the Government Center, I stop at an unfancy Cuban restaurant where the waitress is dejected and the menu is laminated. The whole place is run on an easy-to-wipe-down basis. Even my chair is plastic. I order a pork chop.

The pork chop is simply done, but it’s so good, so unimprovable, it’s terrifying and unnatural. It’s as if I’ve been waiting twenty years to eat it. The mashed potato it comes with is unfancy as well, but it’s the best mashed potato I’ve ever had. I realize it’s one of those useless miracles.

These miracles occur when you get exactly what you want –

usually without you knowing what you want. Seeking to repeat the experience, you might enjoy it, but it will never be as good, because perfection is only once, and perfection is even more perfect when it is a surprise.

Across the room at another table, I catch the talk of an old guy, talking to two ugly sisters. Not plain, ugly: they’re never going to sneak into beauty for a night out. No nose job, gym membership or implant will make a difference.

They’re not at Napalm’s level of disassociation, it’s not the end of the world. They probably have doting husbands, satisfying jobs, pride-making kids, but no man is heading home to beat off in remembrance of them. Women go on about love, tenderness 47

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and how disgusting those pictures are, but most, at heart, like the idea of men oinking for them. And the sisters aren’t going to get that. It’s unfair, because there’s nothing you can do about that; it’s not like being poor, or not very smart, or being born in an agricultural region: you can compensate for that.

It’s unfair in the born-without-an-arm way, and there’s nothing you can do about that. The one-armed, no-legged often say they don’t mind, but I don’t believe them. I’d be furious. I’m enraged enough about my life as it is. The reincarnation crew say you get a handicap like that because of your actions in a previous life. I have no idea whether that’s true, but it’s a great explanation. They deserve it. There’s reason. That’s what scares us more than punishment however harsh, a reasonless blow from the dark. The dicemare.

The old guy with the Ugly Sisters, he’s in the God business. I spot the dog collar. Dressed in black, short sleeves. Shrivelled, balding, he is painfully trad, but for the huge dayglo orange crucifix on his chest.

“Do you pray hard here in Coral Gables?” he asks. He’s working his audience, working them hard, which means he’s not very successful. The Lama had that insouciance of a man with a mile-eating, house-costing sports car revving at the traffic lights, knowing he couldn’t be beaten – occasionally challenged, but never beaten. The best salesman doesn’t have to pretend he doesn’t care: he doesn’t.

The Ugly Sisters are getting some pep talk from him. By the time they leave, I’ve finished my cafecito and I wonder if I should follow him. He has left some pamphlets at the table. You’re in trouble when you’re leaving pamphlets on easy-to-wipe tables.

“Free Health Check on Your Soul” I read. “See Hierophant Gene Graves”.

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I leave a generous tip, but the waitress is too depressed to care. I always have this strange desire to be friendly to waitresses, receptionists or taxi drivers. I want to say I know you have to deal with oafs all day, but I’m not one. I want to be liked. Why?

Back at Sixto’s, Napalm is waiting for me.

“I’ve got some brochures for the Shark Valley Trail out in the Everglades,” he announces, and suggests we go cycling there at the weekend. I’m considering taking up his offer, because I’ve got nothing planned and because I might as well explore.

Part of me, though I’m ashamed to admit it, would be embarrassed to be seen with Napalm. At school, you’d walk through a burning building to avoid being seen with Napalm.

As you get older, you get more relaxed about being around failed individuals who are of a lower value than you, because it’s understood that they can’t be your friends, they’ve just drifted into your presence. You never lose that sentiment of caste. We’re all at it. The best players at my golf club would barely say hello to me. Why? Because they had no need to. Because there was nothing they could get from me. They talked to good golfers or the powerful. Politeness is what happens when you’re figuring out people’s value.

I’m in big trouble, but I can’t see a way out for Napalm from his life. Maybe I’m wrong. He’s maybe five years younger than me, and perhaps by the time he’s my age he’ll be deliriously happy and successful. Maybe his worldly goods won’t be a few clothes and a persistent and embarrassing medical condition.

What can I do for Napalm? As Tyndale: haven’t a clue. As God: haven’t a clue. Shouldn’t I be able to help him? Yes, this should be a simple task, but I haven’t a clue. Shouldn’t I be thinking about my policies as God? I should have some positions on matters such as Napalm.

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The doorbell rings and I find Dishonest Dave outside.

“Thought I’d show you around a bit… show you the sights.

Yeah. Hit some clubs.” I think about asking Napalm, but because I know he’d say yes, I quietly close the door behind me and tiptoe to Dishonest Dave’s car.

We go to the pawnshop, where we’re obliged to queue up outside for a few minutes, even though Dishonest Dave is on the guest list and since it’s early the club is empty. Two Cuban bouncers are on duty.

“Bishop to Knight Two,” says one.

“Bishop to Knight Two? Are you shitting me? You sure?”

“You heard. Asswipe.”

“Okay. Pawn Bishop Four then.”

“It’ll end in tears, maricón. You’ll chicken out first. I’m castling and you can eat my fianchetto.” They’re playing a game of mind chess, which is one way of passing the time, while we all go through the process of letting some minutes elapse so the club’s dignity isn’t besmirched by simply letting customers in.

I’m touched that Dishonest Dave has taken the trouble to companion me. He’s also very generous with the drinks, purchasing three rounds to my one. He talks a lot. He talks animatedly, although what he talks about I can’t really say, since the music is very loud and Dave talks very fast and waves his hands a lot. It’s hard to act engrossed in something you can’t understand, but I smile and nod a lot, hoping he’ll dry up so I can just ogle the women and enjoy my drink.

I catch something about black women. “Black women. Black women. They’ll do anything for you. That’s what you need.”

Then a little later on, “Electromagnetism – they just don’t understand it. They ain’t got a clue.” Several times I indicate to Dishonest Dave that I’m tired and want to go back home. He 50

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hears what I’m saying, but he’s not listening; my information is not germane.

Eventually I realize I’m so drunk it’s no use in refusing his offers of more drink or fighting to get home. I’m so drunk I could be robbed, stripped naked, cudgelled and left in a ditch, and I wouldn’t mind one bit. Dishonest Dave is still holding forth.

At six in the morning when we’re the last drinkers thrown out of the club, Dishonest Dave answers his phone and placates his wife. I’m experiencing quite a strong hatred towards him now as it’s clear he’s been pulling the old “he’s a stranger in town, I have to show him round” ploy to flee the coop. It’s not about showing me the town, it’s about getting off the leash.

I’ve known quite a few husbands like that: who’ve arranged a business meeting in a bar which will only last fifteen minutes, after which they’ll go boozing with friends or romp with their secretary for three hours, so they don’t have to lie to their wives about having a meeting.

Dishonest Dave is jigging around as if he’s about to go out for the evening. I can’t see a taxi anywhere, and I don’t have any money left.

“Please. I’m begging you, take me home.”

“Not till you’ve had breakfast. I know a place that serves the best breakfast in Miami.”

“Honestly I need to sleep.”

“After breakfast. A great breakfast will set you up for a great sleep.” We walk a few blocks as Dishonest Dave talks breathlessly about elections in Haiti and by this stage if I had a gun I would have shot myself. Perhaps this is my punishment for not inviting Napalm along, which in a way would be comforting since it would suggest justice is paying close attention to 51

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everyday events. But it’s funny how it’s always punishment and not reward…

A ginger-haired guy sidles up to us and says, “Listen…” I never found out what he intended to say since Dishonest Dave hits him. Or I assume he hit him, since there’s a loud cracking sound and our interlocutor is lying on the ground rug-style.

Dave’s that fast.

Dave bends down and picks up a knife I hadn’t noticed, which is lying by the barely conscious mugger. Then Dave reaches inside his jacket and extricates some papers.

“I want you to know,” Dave says to the guy, “that I’m not some knucklehead. That’s my bank statement. See? You see that? That’s my money. All that money is mine. And this,”

he says unfolding another bit of paper, “is my doctorate in Caribbean studies. You do know what a doctorate is? So, not only can I kick the crap out of you, I’m way way richer and smarter.”

“Well, time to go home,” I say.

“No,” says Dave. “I’m not letting this spoil my breakfast.” He makes the guy strip naked and throws his clothes over a wall.

We reach the restaurant as Dishonest Dave complains about being mugged all the time. “I know people who’ve lived here twenty years, they’ve never had so much as a harsh word. I get this every other week.” I can see why in a way; like most of the very dangerous people I’ve known, he doesn’t look dangerous.

Average height, light build, accompanied by a drunk, tubby guy; you can see that it would be tempting.

Dave orders an Ecuadorian omelette for me despite my protests, and then holds forth about
noirisme
and how Papa Doc tried to make himself into a God, something I suppose I should pay attention to, but I can’t.

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“Power is the drug that destroys the strong,” he concludes.

“You aren’t eating your eggs.”

“I’m sorry, I’m really not hungry.”

“We’re not leaving until you eat your eggs.” He’s not joking.

I push my food around on the plate while Dave lectures on the role of the army in Haiti. “Haiti is the smallest democracy in the world; there’s only one voter: the army.” I attempt to get the waitress to call for a taxi, but Dave countermands my request by saying something in Spanish which makes the waitress smile.

Fortunately Dave goes to the restroom and I swiftly bin the eggs.

“Okay. Home time,” I say with relief outside. My vision is fading.

“You look terrible,” says Dave. “What you need is a good shave. I bet you’ve never been shaved, proper old-fashioned, at a barber’s.”

I look up and down the street, desperate for a taxi. One glides past unavailably with a passenger.

“You promised,” I say, fully aware I sound six years old.

“After a good shave. You’ll be amazed how good it’ll make you feel. I know the best barber in Miami.”

Dave’s car draws up outside a huge sign that says “WANT A FIGHT?” Am I hallucinating? The last thing I want is a fight.

“How can you call a barber’s ‘Want a Fight?’”

“This is Miami. You can do anything you want. That’s why I wanted to check up on you. Visitors here, they just loco-fy.

Hard-working, churchgoing family men, they come here and it’s like one of those stop-motion films, you can see them growing horns in front of you. A day or two here and they’re holed up in a motel, surrounded by empty bottles, on the phone to Bogotá and moaning some chiquita. We’re craziness central. When they 53

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flew those planes into the World Trade Center in New York, you know what we were saying down here? We’re in on this. Don’t know how, but we’re in on it. And we were. All craziness checks in to Miami.”

We’re seated, and as our bristles are removed we watch on the huge screens above us the last round of Tyson vs Holmes.

Then at Dave’s request they put on the Rumble in the Jungle, Ali vs Foreman. He stares at the screen open-mouthed with such childlike joy that I forget how angry I am with him. There’s something enjoyable about watching someone enjoy themselves, but nevertheless because the chair is so comfortable, I fall asleep.

Dave wakes me up. “So how about one for the road?”

G

The next day I draw up outside the Church of the Heavily Armed Christ, in a run-down sprawl of Miami Beach that isn’t yet billionaire-heavy. Three blocks away cranes and new steel are on the skyline, but here there’s a burnt-out restaurant opposite, and a string of boarded-up premises that were thriving concerns forty years ago. Finding a parking space is no problem.

Above the doors of the church there’s a skilfully painted image of Christ, looking, well, Christ-like, but nursing a rifle with a freakishly large magazine. The church itself is an unimpressive building, a prefab hall, unimaginatively rectangular and dull. A little sooty on the outside, with blotchy paintwork. This is the sort of church that could be hijacked. Own premises, but not too successful. No hardened freeloaders ready to protect the trough.

The door opens. So far, so good. That’s as it should be, though as I enter it also strikes me there’s nothing worth stealing. Some 54

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vased flowers. Two small piles of hymn books. There are five rows of pews, so a maximum congregation of sixty or so.

I make my way to the back, where a door is marked “Hierophant’s Office”. When you’re selling there are basically two tactics: you sell (or appear to sell) cheaply. Generally this is the most winning argument, but the other trick is to insist you have something better, something unique. There’s little point in calling yourself Father or Reverend; that’s been done. Christ’s been depicted with children, puppies, sunbeams, rosebuds, but I haven’t spotted him lately toting major firepower.

All morning I’d debated whether I should do more research and plotting, but… laziness always wins. Time for some events.