There I was, revving up the church choir with some stirring renditions of “HIGH UP ON HIGH” and “HALLOWED THOU ART,” hymnals that always got my feet-a-tappin’ and my heart-a-poundin’ as the white-hot power of the mighty Lord Jesus once again surged through my uncomfortably swollen brain.
“Do you feel it?!” I kept shouting into the microphone. “Now tell me, do you feel it?!” The congregation felt it. They told me so.
They had no choice. I was wearing a bomb.
It wasn’t really a bomb. I just wanted to make today special, something people would remember. It was, after all, April Fool’s Day, and I had recently been divorced. I believe it was this latter detail that made the congregation so nervous.
But honestly the divorce wasn’t bothering me at all. I’d been divorced before; I’d be divorced again. The way I saw it, divorce was just another of nature’s great cycles, like the seasons, or menstruation. It in no way contributed to my behavior that day, or to what I still consider to be a pretty kickass sermon.
The sermon was about the Whore of Babylon. “She was a whore,” I said from the podium. “We don’t know much else about her, but of that we can be certain. Because it says so. It says so right in here.” Having forgotten my actual Bible that day I was in fact holding up a copy of The Hobbit, but no one seemed to mind. This particular edition had been autographed by Peter Jackson himself. I found it on a bus.
BEVERLY HILLS STOP
Then from the front pew, Eddie Murphy (not the actor) stood up. He was an elderly fellow with heavy glasses and a thick mustache. He announced to the crowd with his papery voice, “I worked on the local bomb squad for forty years. I’ll handle this.” And the old man began to rush the stage, very, very slowly.
“Stand back, Eddie Murphy,” I said. “I’ll blow this whole joint.” But Eddie’s cane kept tapping and his shoes kept shuffling and before you knew it the man had moved a whole half a meter. He stood there a moment, shaking, winded, but I knew in about five or six minutes the jig would be up.
I’d have to tell everyone it was all an elaborate prank, and go back to being a regular old boring preacher again. And I just wasn’t ready for that. It was still too early. Too soon.
For Christ’s sake, we weren’t even at the crackers yet. No one had eaten any crackers.
Finally I said, “I’ll give a thousand dollars to whoever tackles Eddie Murphy.”
The old man laughed hoarsely, and rasped in his ancient voice, “You think anyone’s going to listen to you here? This is a house of God, boy. We are good Christian folk, and will not be led astray by your promises of fortune.”
“Two thousand,” I said.
Right then the Parker Brothers (not the game makers) rushed the old man and slammed him into the ground. The Parker Brothers were twins, mid twenties, mildly touched in the head, and known throughout the county to take great pleasure in doing stupid and violent things. They once threw their own mother off a roof. In their defense, she had forgotten to purchase Cheetos. I decided to make them my muscle. “Now we’re going to own this town,” I said into the microphone, for reasons which elude me. I took out a few fat folds of hundred dollar bills from the church collection box and tossed them to my new attack dogs, who fought over their prizes like horny ferrets.
“Bolt the doors,” I commanded them, and those two red swollen blobs in bowties scampered off toward the lobby. “And get the crackers!” I said. “These people need crackers!” A moment or two later the hall filled with the sound of hammers pounding nails as the Parker Brothers boarded up the doors and windows. The entire congregation was frozen in place, all eyes on me, wondering what madness would come next.
I didn’t know. I just knew that the joke wasn’t over. I wasn’t finished. We had not yet reached maximum tension; only then could the dam burst and the laughter begin to flow. Only then would the prank fulfill its true potential.
HEAVEN SENT
Then, rising above the stinking flesh of the pews, there came a heavenly voice. The voice asked me, “Why are you doing this?” I searched for the source of it, and the woman stood up for all to see.
“My God,” I whispered. She was beautiful, a red-haired angel sent down on a ray of light by God Himself. Never in all my years had I dared to even dream of such a vision, something so perfect, so divine.
Her presence here could mean only one thing: God was looking down on me, and He thought my prank was totally rad.
“Madam,” I said, clearing my throat. “Would you come up here, please?” And as the radiant maiden floated her way toward the stage I turned to the choir and screamed, “Sing! Sing, Goddamn you! Sing before His holy angel!” And the choir did sing. They tried, hopelessly, pitifully, to equal the glory of his shining herald with their disgusting human voices, until it made me sick. “No! No, it’s wrong! Shut up! You’re just human beings! Stop trying!” And at once the horrid music was pulled from our ears. “And Barry,” I said to Barry. “What was that, a French horn? It’s a church choir, man. What are you doing? I’m really worried about you.” Then, Barry having been duly chastened, I returned my attention to my goddess.
“Come up here, my darling,” I said. “Yes…” I held out my hand and the woman took it. (She actually touched me!) Instantly I began to urinate, but quickly managed to squeeze off the pump, and then thanked the good Lord that I had worn black.
“What is your name?” I asked the fair maiden.
“Gertrude,” she said.
“I’m going to call you Juliana.”
“Please don’t explode us.”
“Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?”
“Will that stop you from exploding us?” she asked.
“Don’t pressure me, Juliana. I don’t like it.”
“I’ll go,” she said. “If it will end the madness.”
I urinated again, this time fuller, longer. “My God,” I said aloud. “I am the champion.” I turned to the congregation, holding up Juliana’s soft and delicate hand in a victory pose. “I am the champion!”
The bulbous Parker Brothers returned, their arms full of hammers and planks and boxes of crackers. The older one, Biff, said, “Duh, we did like you said, boss.”
“Yeah,” Crank said. “Nobody’s gettin’ in, nobody’s gettin’ out!” And he laughed like he was glugging a beer.
“Excellent work, you two. I’m so proud of you. Like a father might be proud of his dog.” This made the boys blush.
“Ah, shucks,” Biff said. “Weren’t nothin’…”
“Cool,” I said. “Now stuff these people’s mouths full of crackers. I’m tired of listening to their bullshit.” I turned back to some red-haired woman who I guess had joined me onstage at some point. “Yes? Who are you?”
The woman appeared confused. “Uh… it’s me. Gertrude. You just called me up here. We’re supposed to go to dinner?”
“Absurd,” I said. “That would require me to take this bomb off my chest. Now please, go sit down.” Slowly she walked back to her pew. What a thoroughly unattractive woman, I thought.
Suddenly my legs were taken out from under me. I hit the ground hard and started squealing like a pig. Then Eddie Murphy was standing over me, raining down blows with his cane, saying he was going to get the devil out of me. I tried to crawl away, screaming for my dear Parker Brothers to save me, but they were busy eating crackers. All of them were, in fact; every gawking idiot in those hard wooden pews was eating crackers right in front of me, just staring at me, munching and crunching and smacking their stupid lips, even that crazy woman Gertrude. It was all I could hear, that and the sound of Eddie Murphy’s cane cracking against my skull. I think he damaged my brain.
When Eddie was finished making his point he bent down to disarm the fake bomb strapped to my torso. “It’s a fake,” he announced to the great relief of the cracker-munching garbage people. “It’s a Christmas miracle.” I should mention that Eddie was senile.
I think at some point I finished the sermon, but I don’t really remember.
THE HARDER THEY PRANK
Later that week the Chairman of the Council of Church Pastors (The C.C.C.P. himself!) paid me a visit.
“Hey, Darren,” I said. “Long time no see.”
“Not long enough,” Darren said, walking up the stone path to my front door.
“Oh, you kidder.”
“I’m not kidding,” he said. “And I’m going to need you to hand over your church card.”
My stomach rolled over. Shit had just hit the fan. “Darren, come on, man,” I said. “Not my church card…”
“No more excuses, Harvey. Let’s go.” He held out his hand, waiting impatiently for my laminated church ID to fall neatly into his palm.
“I… I don’t have it,” I said.
“Harvey,” Darren said. “Don’t do this.”
“But it was a prank, Darren! A prank! There was no bomb! It was April Fools! Don’t you know what April Fools Day is? Or is the true April fool the fool who has never heard of April Fools at all? Because I wonder, Darren! Now I really wonder!”
I felt a sudden pressure at the small of my back, hard and metal. I turned, slightly, before an unseen hand gripped the back of my neck, keeping my head held forward. I said to Darren, “Couldn’t do it alone, eh? Had to send in your goons?”
“I didn’t want to make this difficult,” Darren said. “But if you do not comply…” The metal, sharp, dug in deeper. I felt it press into my spine. I heard a click as the hammer thumbed back.
“Yeah,” I said, defeated. “Fine.” Darren gave a nod to the man behind me. The pressure of the barrel eased up. I went and got the fucking church card.
I admired my old photo one last time as I handed it over, that fresh-faced boy of twenty-four with his braces and pigtails, and his whole life ahead of him. Darren took the card. “Listen,” he said, “and, not for nothing, but I think it might be a good idea to talk to your ex-wife. Clearly there are some things you need to work out.”
“Who?”
“Goodbye, Harvey.”
“It was April Fools,” I said.
As Darren walked away with his various assassins, he said, “It was September third.”
And what had I learned from the whole ordeal? What did it mean? What was the point of it? What questions did it raise, and what answers were given? What are answers, anyway? Are they just the opposite of questions? Is a question like… a younger version of an answer? Does a question turn into an answer, like a caterpillar turns into a lizard? Is the answer the death of the question or just a new kind of lizard? Why aren’t more exotic meats, e.g. lizard meat, available at your local grocery? Do they think we can’t handle new meats? Do they think we’re a bunch of meat babies or something? I tell you, someone ought to do something about it. Someone should build a bomb…