photo credit: Wm Jas

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar. It is Line Dancing Night, and they are wearing Stetson hats. Seated near the holy men are three women, one in tight blue jeans, one in motorcycle leather, and one in shiny, metallic chaps.  The minister immediately flirts with them – pulls a King James Bible out of their ears, turns their loaves of bread and grilled salmon into brightly colored silk scarves – and the women giggle and applaud, stomp the floor approvingly with their stiletto cowboy boots, especially when the minister turns their water into double malted scotch. Not to be outdone, the rabbi amazes them with coin tricks, turns their dimes into quarters, then Sacagawea dollars, then the much stronger Euro, and the women’s jaws hang open in astonishment as they dig through their purses and rifle through their pockets for more change. All eyes are now on the priest, handsome in his cassock-style shirt and clerical collar.  The women expect him to produce a deck of cards or interlinking silver rings or a cage of white doves, but the priest just shrugs his shoulders and returns to his mug of Pabst Blue Ribbon, solemnly sipping, staring into the foam oblivion of his beer. He has taken a sacred vow of celibacy, has rejected the pleasures of the flesh, and, besides, his devotion to the Church, the endless hours of administering to the needs of his congregation and contemplating the awesome depth and breadth of Christ’s love for all mankind, have left him with no time for learning magic tricks, not even the Color Changing Rope, not even the Vanishing Handkerchief.

After the women finish their drinks, compliments of the bar since it’s also Ladies of Unusual Attractiveness Drink Free Night, they tie the minister’s silk scarves fashionably around their necks, pocket the rabbi’s Belgian and Italian Euros, their tight pants brimming with tiny portraits of King Albert II, Dante Alighieri, and the Vitruvian Man, and cajole the two clergymen onto the dance floor for “Achy Breaky Heart.” They do grapevines, pivots, and hip bumps as the priest nurses his beer alone at the bar. The priest wonders why he let himself get dragged here, amidst all this lust and wantonness and honky tonk, but then he remembers: Christ too was tempted in the wilderness, albeit by Satan, not cowgirls, PBR on tap, and Billy Ray Cyrus, and his presence here at Ladies of Unusual Attractiveness Drink Free Line Dancing Night is merely an opportunity to reaffirm his faith, to solidify his sacramental vows, to validate his belief in one Catholic and Apostolic Church, a Church that does not want him consorting with women in skintight blue jeans and fetishistic Harley-Davidson leather. He fingers his rosary, makes the Sign of the Cross, says the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father, three Hail Marys, the Glory Be, and then reflects upon the first Joyful Mystery: the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel, like a winged positive pregnancy test, told the Virgin Mary she was to bear the Son of God. He feels restored, filled with the grace and the glory of the Holy Spirit.  When he gazes at the foam in his Pabst Blue Ribbon he no longer sees the cruel, unending torment of eternal damnation but peaceful, empyrean clouds, heavenly cumulus, floating on the choicest of hops and malted grains … until “Achy Breaky Heart” draws to a thrilling close and the swirling disco light hits the woman in metallic chaps just so, causing her silver Lycra to gleam with a halo of diffuse, inglorious temptation, and the priest, overcome with impure, secular thoughts, is propelled into a hasty retreat to the sanctuary of the mechanical bull.

photo credit: Daquella manera

On the bull the priest is a Stetson-hatted wizard. He can do no wrong. The bull bucks, rocks, swivels with demoniacal enmity and torque, but the priest remains firmly on the saddle, resolute, determined not to fall. The priest murmurs the Nicene Creed, the twenty third Psalm, and the Eight Beatitudes.  A small crowd gathers as he smashes the previous bar record of thirty five seconds, drawing cheers, whistles, and hog hollers as he digs his shoes into the bull’s side.  He defiantly grips the reins, refusing to be thrown from the mad hydraulic beast. At one minute the priest is visited by a flash of white light, at two minutes, an exultant choir of angels, and when the three-minute mark draws near the Virgin Mother herself appears, with leather boots, spurs, and a lariat, urging the priest to remain steadfast in his faith as she performs rope tricks and interjects the occasional “Yippie-ki-yi-yay!” The priest is confident now, assured of his commitment to the Church, and no matter how violently the bull careens and cants, no matter how forcefully it shakes and shudders, he is undaunted, unmoved, fixed to his cowhide leather saddle.  Except, every so often, as the spastic bull whips his head side to side, he sees, in the corner of his eye, the woman in sexy, metallic chaps, and he can’t help but think what it would be like to touch her, not as a priest, his hands offering her the Body of Christ, making the Sign of the Cross on her forehead, smearing her lovely skin with ash, but as a lover, delicately caressing her fingers, tracing the contours of her vertebrae, exploring the soft, downy fuzz on the small of her back. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to her, her flesh against his, the air redolent with the scent of her body as he watches her chest rhythmically rise and fall with each breath. He wonders what it would be like to be comforted in his times of doubt not by highlighted passages in the Book of Job or the fingering of rosary beads or a hundred and one “Our Fathers” in a dimly lit corner of the rectory, but by this woman.  She would embrace him, soothe him as she slowly removed his chasuble, his stole, his cincture, his alb, strip him of his vestments, whisper into his ear, and then guide him, gracefully and gently, inside her, to experience, at long last, the fruits of forbidden Eden. And it is at this moment, as the priest envisions making love to the woman on a motel bed beneath the Tree of Knowledge, that he is catapulted, head over heels, into the air.

When he comes to his senses, struggles to his feet on the inflatable landing pad, the brilliant light, the choir of angels, and the Virgin Mother are all gone, replaced by country line dancers, the music of Travis Tritt, and a wall inundated with neon beer signs, decorative horseshoes, and the mounted skulls of cattle. The minister, the rabbi, and the three women continue dancing, oblivious to the priest’s Agony on the Bull, and the priest can only watch with jealousy and scorn as the caller announces a partner dance, facilitating all manner of sacrilegious contact between the two holy men and the Ladies of Unusual Attractiveness. In one week the priest’s record will be shattered, overtaken by a Buddhist monk in a rhinestone-studded monastic robe, but the priest will not defend his title. Instead, he will remain at the bar, staring into the foam oblivion of his PBR on tap, contemplating the Five Sorrowful Mysteries: The Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowing With Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion.

He will not ride the mechanical bull again.

2.

A Spaniard, a Chinaman, a Polack, and Prometheus walk into a bar. It is Tragedy Karaoke Night, and whoever recounts the most emotionally debilitating personal anecdote, in conjunction with a ‘70s pop favorite, wins a hundred dollar cash prize, the winner determined by audience applause.

The Spaniard goes first, selecting “Bennie and the Jets” by Elton John as his backing track.  After a tearful firsthand account of the Madrid Train Bombings, the bar’s patrons erupt in cheers and raucous chants, clapping vociferously for his vivid verbal depictions of fiery, ravaged steel and body parts flying through the windows of nearby apartment buildings.

Next is the Chinaman, remembering the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 to the tune of “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” by Rick Derringer.  Again the crowd goes wild, their stomping feet seismically shaking the bar’s foundations as the Chinaman relates how government forces shot at protestors indiscriminately, how they pulled students from buses and beat them with heavy sticks.

The Polack takes the microphone and chooses “You Should Be Dancing” by the Bee Gees.  By the time he has finished telling how, as a young boy, he witnessed the Warsaw Uprising — the Nazis killing 200,000 Poles, methodically walking building to building with flamethrowers, wiping his hometown off the map — everyone in the bar is on their feet, thumping tables, whistling with their fingers, smashing bottles of liquor over their own heads, and the Polack pumps his fist in triumph and passes the microphone to Prometheus.

“As a young man,” says Prometheus, over the instrumental introduction to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” “I stole fire from the gods, for the benefit of all mankind, and as punishment I was chained by Zeus to Mt. Caucasus, where I was instantly set upon by a fierce, sharply taloned eagle who tore through the flesh of my abdomen and devoured my still-pulsing liver. The next day, my liver having magically regenerated overnight, the eagle returned to once more feast on my insides, and though I struggled with all my might to break free from my bondage I could do nothing but scream for undelivered mercy as the ravenous creature bathed its beak in my blood. For many years this continued, night after excruciating night — the eagle, his razor beak, my eviscerated liver — and only when I had given up all hope, when my spirit had been utterly broken, did my savior, Heracles, arrive, felling the eagle with a flurry of arrows and releasing me from my chains, and only then, thanks to the intercession of history’s greatest hero, was I spared, at last, from the boundless agony of my never-ending torment.”

Prometheus then looks toward the audience, expecting their uproarious approbation, but is instead met with scattered, polite applause, and the Tragedy Karaoke Night host motions for him to hand his mic to the next contestant.

“What’s wrong with you people?” says Prometheus, refusing to relinquish the microphone. “Didn’t you hear me? An eagle devoured my liver … every night … for years!”

“Let’s hear it one more time for Prometheus,” says the host, diplomatically. “Next up, Hal Phillips from Manhattan, the tragedy of 9/11, ‘YMCA’ by the Village People.”

“No!” says Prometheus, standing his ground on the stage. “This is an outrage! A farce! Do you have any idea what it feels like to remain conscious as an eagle tears open your abdomen? To watch him ingest the largest solid organ in your body bit by bloody bit? The pain is indescribable. It swallows you. It consumes you. These men who performed earlier – yes, they’ve seen pain, yes, they’ve seen suffering, but look at them now – they have families, high-paying jobs, full-size luxury sedans, elegant homes in the suburbs.  But me, I can’t read the newspaper, can’t enjoy a chocolate sundae, can’t make love to a beautiful woman, can’t even laugh at a hilarious mix-up involving mistaken identities or convoluted love triangles or an escalating series of unlikely coincidences on an American sitcom without thinking back to that eagle, and its razor beak, voraciously ravaging my liver.”

The audience starts to boo and make catcalls, throws bottles of Heineken, hurling napkin dispensers and bar stools.  A muscular doorman grabs Prometheus and forces him off the stage, to universal cheers and applause. Hal from Manhattan performs next, the persistent disco beat of “YMCA” playing as he recounts the unspeakable tragedy of 9/11.  As Prometheus is shoved out of the bar, past patron after patron held rapt by Hal’s all-encompassing terror as one, then another airplane kamikazed into the World Trade Center, he gets that old familiar feeling, below his diaphragm, beneath his ribcage, and he’s back again on Mt. Caucasus, wrapped in chains, awaiting the eagle’s nightly buffet.

3.

photo credit: TheLizardQueen

What’s the difference between an elephant and a post box? What’s the difference between a blonde and the Suez Canal? What’s the difference, Eileen, between a night of laughter and sparkling conversation, of sharing hot cocoa by a fire, of feeding you succulent grapes with my fingers, first Concords, then Pearlettes, then Thompson Seedless, and a night spent alone, in front of a computer, trying to sell my half of our Lovers Forever Heart Bracelet on eBay?

What’s the difference between a porcupine and a police car? What’s the difference between a dead baby and a rock?

What’s the difference, Eileen, between a warm summer’s day, on the beach, basking in the glow of your radiant beauty amid coolers of golden Coronas and glistening, Coppertoned Brazilians and beached dolphins excreting bouquets of roses and expensive Swiss chocolates from their blowholes, and a long, cruel winter in Alaska, a poorly conceived second trimester internship, my companions only bearded Swedes and the occasional walrus? The difference between cooking a gourmet dinner for two and microwaving another burrito, between falling into your arms and falling down the stairs, between Sundays waking up in your lavender-scented king size bed, stray sunbeams dancing on our naked, supple, intertwined bodies, and Sundays waking up alone on the living room floor, surrounded by empty forties of malt liquor, the TV tuned to some prickly Baptist preacher who assures me I’m condemned to hellfire?

What’s the difference between a G-spot and a golf ball? Between George Michael and a microwave oven?

What’s the difference, Eileen, between waiting expectantly for the mailman, camping out on the front porch with a day’s supply of food, water, and toiletries in eager anticipation of your postcard from the Czech Republic, of your letter from Colonial Williamsburg, and finding my mailbox stuffed to the brim with nothing but your junk mail, long after you’d moved out, even though I’d written “No longer lives at this address” a thousand masochistic times, occasionally in my own blood. The difference between accompanying you to the theater, to the ballet, to the laundromat, to the Department of Motor Vehicles, your hand in mine, our strides synchronous, our hearts a-flutter, and going to Guys and Dolls alone, to The Nutcracker alone, watching my clothes tumble dry, an hour for the whites, an hour for the colors, alone, filling out the forms at the DMV, tiny boxes asking “Married or Single?”, with jagged, cruel, paper-perforating S’s?

What’s the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? The difference between a drummer and a government bond?

What’s the difference, Eileen, between a table for two and a double bed for one? The difference between Valentine’s Day dinner and a brutally X-Acto knifed February in my seldom used day planner? The difference between seeing you for the first time, resplendent in your gauzy summer dress, my heart turning cartwheels, doing somersaults, performing the pole vault, the heptathlon, the steeplechase as I summoned the courage to approach you, to speak to you, to usher you gratefully into my life, and taking your order at the Viva Las Vegas Burger, in an Elvis wig and white polyester jumpsuit, pretending, as per your request for a “clean break,” to not know you, not recognize you, asking if you’d like the Ain’t Nothin’ But a Grilled Tuna Sandwich, the Big Hunk o’ Love and Bacon Meal Deal, the Love Me Chicken Tenders, knowing full well the answer would be no, no, no?

What’s the difference, Eileen, between tenderness and detachment? Between affection and cruelty? Between love and hate? What’s the difference between thinking of you on the bus, in the shower, in the produce section, on an airplane, in a dune buggy, in a rickshaw, underground, under anesthesia, in the sewers, during Communion, during a bris, a smile on my face, a warmth radiating through my extremities, a peacefulness and contentment in my every movement, and trying to forget you, in the checkout aisle, in the crosswalk, on Valium, on Percocet, on cough syrup, in the bunker on Hole Thirteen, the water hazard on Hole Seven, every sand trap, trying to erase you, to delete you, to rid myself of the endless Would have/could have/should haves that taunt me, relentlessly, like a swarm of Biblical locusts? What’s the difference between making a “clean break,” going our separate ways, pretending our best interests have been served, our futures have been secured, our hearts have been only negligibly damaged, and admitting that, despite the time I hurled the good china at you, the time you expectorated into my meat loaf, the time we drew complex, intricate markings on the hardwood floor with colored chalk to indicate which sectors of the living room belonged to whom, which sectors were restricted, which were under international jurisdiction, which were neutral, like Switzerland in the Second World War, we’re still better off together than apart, better off at loggerheads than alone, better off waging the occasional pillow fight or fencing match or pistol duel or medieval joust and then making up, smothering each other with kisses and apologies as we swear to never leave each other, than wandering through the same city, the same streets, the same localities of recreation, commerce, and industry as we pretend the other does not exist, could not exist, even when we are standing close to one another, so close, the only way we can ignore each other is to close our eyes, blinding ourselves, voluntarily, in the hopes that, when our vision returns, the other will be magically gone, vanished, along with every memory, every emotion, every remnant bond of affection that causes us to secretly wish that, when our eyes open, the other is still there?

What’s the difference between a sorority and a circus? What’s the difference between Cheerios and the New Orleans Saints?

What’s the difference?

4.

photo credit: alpha du centaure

God, Satan, Denise, and Gladys walk into a bar. It is Happy Hour, and they are on a double date. God and Denise sit on one side of a booth, Satan and Gladys cozily occupying the other.  After one minute of admiring the bar’s handsome collection of wall-mounted Pancho Villa related ephemera they are brought a basket of chips and salsa by a Caucasian man in a sombrero, Steve, who informs them he will be their server for the evening, and can he start them off with some drinks?

God, having, in His infinite wisdom, given up alcohol after the Black Plague, which admittedly got a little out of hand, orders a Virgin Mary, and Denise says she will have the same. Satan opts for a Sex on the Beach, which makes Gladys giggle and blush, and when he puts his arm around her waist and says, with a twinkle in his eye, “Make that two Sex on the Beaches,” Gladys blushes even more, her face now nearly as red as his own.

“Actually,” says God, “grammatically speaking, it would be two Sexes on the Beach, not Sex on the Beaches. Like Attorneys General, passersby, or Whoppers Junior.”

Satan rolls his eyes. God is always using grammar as a means to flaunt His omniscience.

“Okay, two Virgins, two Sexes on the Beach,” says Steve. “Now, can I interest you in some pork rinds or Beer-Battered Onions Gringo?”

This is the two couples’ second double date together. The first took place at Red Lobster, and proceeded relatively smoothly until God tried to prove His existence to a defiantly atheist busboy by fomenting a raging thunderstorm inside the restaurant, drenching Denise and Gladys’s flimsy cotton dresses and causing the lobster tank to overflow, rubber band-subdued crustaceans floating across the floor as the paying customers screamed and sloshed through knee-deep water for the exits. The next day God apologized to Denise over the phone, said He’d been feeling moody that evening, what with all the people blowing themselves up and killing each other in His name, and, to make it up to her, He was going to treat her, Gladys, and Satan to another, non-deluged dinner, take them someplace nice, someplace classy.

And so they made reservations at Don Pancho’s Mexican-ish Bar y Restaurante.

Steve arrives with the Virgin Marys and the Sexes on the Beach, and everyone orders steaks. God prefers well done; Satan requests rare. The couples make small talk, discuss the weather, the price of gasoline, the Pancho Villa- autographed baseballs displayed on the adjacent wall.  While God and Denise chastely sip their non-alcoholic cocktails, Satan and Gladys play footsie underneath the table, nibble each other’s ears, gaze smolderingly into one another’s eyes.

As the couples wait for Steve to bring their steaks, Satan, always the entertainer, tells a series of increasingly vulgar jokes, and though Denise grins and Gladys practically falls to the floor in hysterics, God glowers disapprovingly.   Denise, suddenly feeling guilty about laughing at that last one, about the priest, the minister, the rabbi, and the farmer’s daughter, becomes uncomfortable and excuses herself from the table.

“Actually, I need to powder my nose as well,” says Gladys, and the two women slide out of the booth and head toward the ladies’ room, which, at Don Pancho’s Mexican-ish Bar y Restaurante, is labeled “Mamacitas.”

“So, how are things going with God?” says Gladys inside the ladies’ room, reaching into her purse for her lipstick.

“Oh … okay, I guess,” says Denise. “It’s just that … He’s very nice, very attentive, very smart … but He’s also very judgmental. Like, we’ll go miniature golfing, and my ball will hit a rotating windmill blade and plop into the water hazard, and after I sink my putt two turns later and record my score as a three, He’ll say, ‘Denise – you get a one stroke penalty for going into the water. Your score should be a four.’ And I’ll say, ‘Oh, okay, my mistake,’ and He’ll say, ‘No. No mistake. You deliberately marked a three when you knew it was a four. I can tell everything that you’re thinking. I’m omniscient.’ So – that’s bad enough, but what really gets me is that He gets all bent out of shape when I try to cheat at mini golf, but if I ever bring up the Holocaust or Hurricane Katrina or the bubonic plague He’s all like, ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ and completely shuts down, and our night is ruined. I just don’t get Him sometimes.”

“Tell me about it,” says Gladys. “Satan always wants to play Scrabble, but every time I challenge one of his words he throws a big hissy fit and smashes the board with his pitchfork.”

photo credit: WmJR

“And another thing,” says Denise, “is that, even though He’s all-seeing and all-knowing and omnipresent, He can be so boring sometimes. He’ll go on these weeklong jags where He doesn’t talk about anything but Jesus: ‘Oh, you should’ve seen when Jesus turned water into wine,’ ‘Oh, you should’ve seen when Jesus rose from the dead,’ and I’m like, ‘Great, I know He’s Your Son and everything, but I’ve heard these stories like five billion times in Sunday school.  What has Jesus done in the last two thousand years? What did Jesus do Friday?’ And He’ll say, ‘Oh, you know, I haven’t heard from Jesus in a while, He’s off doing His own thing …” It’s like They had some big falling out after the Crucifixion, and now God just sits in His living room reliving Jesus’s Greatest Hits as I fall asleep in His recliner.”

“Satan’s the same way with torture,” says Gladys. “He’ll talk your ear off about it: the rack, the Iron Maiden, waterboarding, fire-tongued demons, boiling pits of pus and blood … don’t get him started.”

“Yeah,” says Denise. “And the other big issue I have trouble with is the whole Trinity thing. Like, God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all supposed to be the same entity, so – does that mean that if I make out with God, I’m making out with His Son at the same time? And where does the Holy Spirit fit in? It just feels so wrong, so incestuous … like a big Biblical ménage a trois.”

“That is pretty kinky,” says Gladys. “So have you and God … sealed the deal?”

“No!” says Denise. “That’s another thing. He’s the biggest prude. You saw him during Satan’s joke about the farmer’s daughter. He hasn’t even kissed me on the cheek.”

“Jesus,” says Gladys. “You need to dump him. You need to dump God tonight.”

“No,” says Denise. “It’s not that bad. It’s … look. I’m not like you. It’s not all about sex for me. And after Brad, and Omar, and Giancarlo, and Sven, I’m just done with being used by these manipulative jerks who only want me for my body. And God’s not like them. He can be so warm … so comforting … sometimes, when we’re watching television together, or playing Parcheesi, or walking His Labrador retrievers, I’m just filled with His love … immersed in it. He’s like no other man I’ve been with. And even though we fight, and he gets sullen and distant, I don’t want to lose that feeling. That feeling of unadulterated, unconditional love, love not requiring anything in return.”

“But you’re not happy,” says Gladys. “I can see it on your face. Could see it when you ordered the Virgin Mary. The steak, well done. Maybe you can be friends, but let’s face it … you don’t belong together. It’s not going to work out.”

And Denise looks at herself in the ladies’ room mirror, the room labeled “Mamacitas” in poorly executed italic script, and she knows that Gladys is right. And furthermore, as God is omniscient, she knows that He knows that she knows that Gladys is right. She begins to cough, hyperventilate, has to take several puffs from her asthma inhaler, and when Gladys places a consoling hand on her shoulder Denise shoves it away and sprints out of the restroom, barreling past the sombreroed waiters and the paying customers and the five piece in-house mariachi band and throwing herself on the floor in front of her booth, to plead God’s forgiveness, for rejecting Him, for not being content with His love, for thinking her foolish, awful, unclean thoughts.

But God is already gone. He’s left, leaving only Satan, digging into his juicy, bloody steak, with a side of fries and coleslaw, and as Denise’s eyes well with tears it begins to rain, rain inside the restaurant, dark clouds forming around the ceiling fans, above the framed wedding portraits of Pancho Villa, producing first a light drizzle, then a steady shower, then an angry downpour, forcing customers to crawl beneath their tables, waiters to dash for the kitchen, mariachi players to cover their instruments with sombreros, and Denise knows that this time there will be no phoned apology the next morning, no third date at Applebee’s, or Mountain Jack’s, or T.G.I. Friday’s. The devil continues carving his steak, undisturbed by the deluge soaking his handsome sharkskin suit, and when he motions for Denise to join him she obliges, slides in next to him, Gladys’s rare porterhouse tantalizingly resting in front of her. She bites into Gladys’s steak, savoring its tender, sanguine sweetness, and then, as the rain pummels her, makes her white blouse transparent, she and Satan divide up God’s abandoned fries, proportioning them equitably, both agreeing there’s no sense in letting them go to waste.