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“Thanks. But I have a meeting.”
I need to get plotting. A full stomach is the best start to plotting. I get in my car to locate an expensive breakfast. As I hit the ignition, a black youth, stripped to the waist, cycles past, handlebars unused, because he’s using his hands to snort something. I admire him because he’s having fun. The bike is so shoddy it couldn’t get stolen, and his trousers are rags, but he’s relaxed. It’s all about attitude. It really is. If you don’t care, you don’t care.
On my way over to Ocean Drive, I again briefly consider suicide, but as I tuck into my eggs benedict in the sun, my spine reforms. I need to draw up a business plan for becoming God.
How? How fast? How best? Should I concentrate exclusively on getting divine, or should I make some money? Even with a liberal application of frugality my funds won’t last more than a few months.
I have to get on with it.
At the table on my right a very ogleworthy woman gets up.
She’s mid-thirties, a soupçon of time-inflicted sourness, but still confidently publicizing her breasts. She has the same travails as Napalm: doubt, betrayal, loneliness, dry skin. But she’s travelling first class. This is what is so unfair. She may die alone and miserable, but it’s unlikely. I’ve known some beautiful women who were unhappy, some inexplicably unhappy, but I haven’t known any who were alone or poor.
Fumbling with her purse, she spills some coins which spiral all over the ground. I retrieve two quarters for her that have rolled to my feet. It’s a great opportunity for conversation. We could meet up somewhere for a drink or a meal, get to know each other, hit it off, tumble into bed; but then where would we be?
Without paying, I smile and walk off.
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G
Finding work isn’t so easy.
Without a work permit, the choice isn’t so great. And even if I can get some fake ID, it always takes time to find a job. But I want to be doing something. I know how easy it is to drown in yourself.
In a T-shirt shop selling rubbish to tourists, I almost get work, but the missing staff member turns up just as the cash register is being explained to me. After two days of tramping around. I find myself in a small shack on an unfashionable section of the beach, selling refreshments.
I open up, feeling good. The weather is overcast and, for Miami, cool. I’m in charge of three tubs of ice cream, some water, coke and some burgers and buns. I have five dollars in change and was left by the owner, a Mr Ansari, to whom I gave a deposit of fifty dollars, with the injunction that if I cheated him he’d find me and kill me.
There aren’t many people around. After forty minutes, a stubby woman with a five-year-old child turns up. That I only have three flavours galls her. She’s ugly, and I’ve noticed this with the ugly, because they’ve had so much shit, they tend to go to one extreme or the other; either they become very jolly, or they don’t.
On top of that, there is nothing more ruthless than a mother with a small child. This is a working mother, on her day off, swindled by the weather. Exasperated about the lack of flavours.
After consulting her kid, she asks for some pistachio.
I reach for the new tub; opening a new tub is strangely pleasurable. I reach for the scoop, and then encounter a problem.
The ice cream is hard, completely immune to the scoop. Even with straight-from-the-freezer tubs I can usually tease off some 43
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shavings. But not this pistachio. I don’t know what they did with this tub, but it must have been involved in some extreme refrigeration activities for years.
I smile. Always smile. “It’s really hard,” I say to the mother in the hope that she’ll acknowledge my predicament and say “we’ll come back in ten minutes”. She doesn’t. I decide to put the tub on the hotplate for burgers, but either the hotplate doesn’t work or I don’t have the ability to switch it on. I push the scoop as hard as I can. The scoop gets a slight veneer of grease. I push again until I sweat. Is this stuff really ice cream?
The mother watches me with contempt. This is worse than being shouted at. This isn’t my fault, but it might as well be.
“Where’s the ice cream?” the kid asks predictably.
“The man’s just making it for you,” the mother replies. This is what’s interesting about kids. They believe. They believe the man’s making it. They believe we can fly.
I push the scoop so hard my vision goes, and the scoop buckles.
Out of curiosity, I examine the other two tubs. Like rock. I smile at the mother. There we are, attendees at an unfortunateness.
G
My mishap with the ice cream persuades me not to mess around any more. I need to get on with my mission, and to trust that money will come from somewhere. Unidirectional.
Pondering how to give off hints of divinity, it occurs to me that a house of worship would be rich in believers and where God-grade actions would be appreciated (I’m not wasting my time trying to persuade people who don’t even believe in God).
I hang out in a few local churches to get a picture of piety in Miami and I can see that the mission won’t be at all easy.
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If you want something, you can work hard to create or to earn it, to assemble it day by day, week by week, year after year, or you can go out and steal one someone else made.
The big churches are well organized, they have skilled pul-piteers. Like any successful business they are well placed to repel boarders. St Mary’s Cathedral puts on a great show, but it would take me years to work my way through the ranks. It’s the pyramid scheme all over, you have to pay before you get. And I suspect that the Catholic Church would be rather upset about God turning up and wilting their authority.
The smaller congregations, on the other hand, seem too nutty, too poor to bother hijacking, but are also quite jealously controlled by cult masters.
I spend an afternoon strolling down the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. No one I talk to knows why it’s called the Miracle Mile, but then it’s very likely the staff in the shops I browsed in have only been in Miami a month longer than me.
The Miracle Mile is a row of glitzy shops, but has nothing out of the ordinary about it. Would it be too corny to simulate a miracle on the Miracle Mile? On the other hand the copy would be prewritten for the journalists. I’ve got to make my act press-friendly.
Turning off the Miracle Mile, I saunter into Books & Books, which I assume is a bar with an odd name, as a bar is what greets you in the courtyard, until I see they also do books. Are there any short books about becoming God?
As I’m hot and tired, I sit down and order a drink instead.
The walking’s drained me, and I also spent the morning thrashing the punchbag Dishonest Dave supplied. With Sixto’s permission, I fixed a screw into a tree branch in the garden, and hung the punchbag.
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I’ve never had a go at a punchbag, but immediately discovered I had a vocation for violence. I beat that punchbag senseless.
Punches, jabs, elbows, roundhouse kicks (in a lame, forty-something way, but it was fantastic). I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed hitting it. I was enjoying it so much I was certain someone would come and stop me.
My vocation for violence is, however, a vocation for violence against the inanimate. I’ve had two fights in my life. The first was at school when I was six. One kid had swapped my new chair for his crappy chair. I was tugging back my chair, when the teacher spotted us. Instead of stopping us, she said, “Go on then, slug it out.” I won and got my chair back, but I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy because I’d discovered I was in a brawn-ruled world.
My beer is served by a tall blonde. Generally, I have no interest in attractive barmaids, because the standard attractive barmaid has no interest in me, and attractive barmaids are constantly accosted by glibber, more appeali
ng or more obsessed customers than me.
The poise of hot barmaids makes them as approachable as a mountain peak. But this barmaid fumbles over every order, which makes her more charming. Her unrevealing attire also suggests she must be some grad student who started on the job fifteen minutes ago. She’s friendly and conscientious not because she’s being paid to be, but because she is.
Dedication is sexy. I hate laziness and sloppiness. We chat and I get a wobble. Suddenly, I get a burst of loneliness, and my uni goes off in another direction. I want a life with the barmaid, to take some poorly paid job in a warehouse that wouldn’t matter because I’d be with her.
“Any chance you’re free for dinner?” I ask not with any expectation of success, but because if I don’t ask the regret will be a stone in my shoe.
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“Hey, if I were single…” she says. I suspect this isn’t true, but it’s a decent way of saying no. That future has gone to where all the other unused futures go. I’m surprisingly undeflated.
The wobble’s over. But if you’re not too bothered about the no, you’re not too bothered about the yes.
I briefly scan the section on religion, but there’s no book clearly marked “How to Fool Everyone You Are God” and so I give up.
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 an
d 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.
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