God: The Interview
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decent-enough role could put together an Oscar quality performance. Perhaps he already has. He’ll be tracked down and “discovered.” There are already thousands of sightings of him recorded daily on the Internet. I don’t hold anything against him personally. Someone probably paid him to do a job for them. He did it well. I look forward to seeing more of his work.
-00.06.42
But how unreal is this: I’ve read that a massive number of churches worldwide have opened their doors just to play the DVD daily to crowds who seem to never tire of seeing it. Many churches replay it day and night non-stop. They record masses of people joining their churches. Apparently churches have come into being with the DVD as their sole “sermon”. Such info makes me ashamed to be a human. Gullibility seems to be a basic human trait. Now as an atheist or agnostic or something, I’m no advocate for religion, but this time I’m totally on the side of the more staid mainstream clergy. If religion is that DVD and God is that dust-covered phony, then I’m quitting journalism to become the next Pope.
-00.05.53
Everyone asks, “How did it happen? How did it all begin?” Maybe it was a dream. Maybe I’m still in la-la land and will wake up sometime soon. I mean, think of it: the Dream Interview, the Dream Subject, the Dream Interviewee, and mine, all mine...Yeah.
-00.05.32
Well this is blow for blow how it began. All I know is that one stinking hot miserable night I was twisting and turning in bed, searching for some comfort and failing, with the clock leering 10 to 3 at me. So I clobbered the light switch and interviewed the ceiling, “God, why don’t you let me sleep?” I switched off the light and the phone rang. I’ve got an unlisted number—in my job you have to—but the occasional crank call gets through. Just what I needed.
“Yeah?”
“This is God. I heard you. I’ll be on your show tonight. I’ll answer your questions. I’ll give you two hours. And you don’t have to shout. Silent shouts are the loudest—”
“Tonight? I’ve got the Mayor on tonight—”
“He’ll step aside for God. Ask him.”
And the line went click. That did the trick. It was so stupid my mind could only grin, and I slept like a baby.
-00.04.37
When I got to the station and outlined all the above to the boss, he replied:
“What will you do if he turns up?”
“If who turns up?”
“God.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Interview Him of course.”
“But you know it’s not God. You know it’s some publicity-hungry crank who somehow overheard me—”
“Of course, some crank. Of course, there’s no other possibility. But just think: if it WAS God—man, what a coup! What a scoop! What a show! The greatest show on Earth! This station’s greatest moment! The highlight of my career, of your career, of my whole life, of your whole life! Walter Cronkite couldn’t hold a candle to you, even Oprah would envy you—”
“Oh come on! A religious nutter? An addle-brained crank? Seriously, what if he does turn up?”
“Put him on! Interview him.”
“A fraud? A loony? Maybe criminally insane? I ask him something he doesn’t like and he leaps up and zaps me with a thunderbolt—”
“Only God can do that—”
“Well his equivalent. Something painful. You interview him then—”
“Gladly. But it’s your show. People will expect your incisive cut-throat questions. And God will too. Or else he wouldn’t have chosen you.” And off he went laughing. He spent the whole day laughing. Every time he looked at me he laughed. I didn’t appreciate it. I hired a security guard for that night and charged it to the station. Only then did I laugh.
-00.03.06
Did I dare ring the Mayor? I mean what would I say? But the station manager stuck his head around the corner and grinned, “You needn’t bother phoning Mayor Robbie. I already have, and your caller was right: he’ll gladly step aside for God. In fact he’s even agreed to be your stand-by in case God doesn’t show. As he said between chuckles he always wanted to replace God.” And off he went heehawing again.
-00.02.38
The boss enjoys seeing me on the spot. I think he blames me personally for our often so-so ratings. So what if my “In Town Tonight” programme is rarely the station’s top rater? That’s because he saves money by not advertising it. Not this time though! He splashes out on radio and TV spots as though the station’s life depends on this one programme. Maybe it does. Maybe there’s something he’s not telling me. Maybe this station is at last about to fold. Wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe God is our only hope.
-00.02.05
As for me, I prepare for twelve minutes of God tops. By then he’ll be so abyssmally exposed he’ll flee from the studio and I’ll have 36 minutes to grill the Mayor about the proposed multibillion dollar transport scheme the whole city is enraged about. I phone for authoritative quotes like estimates of rates hikes and cost overruns and hone everything down to barbed one-liners. Only when the Mayor is mentally fricassied and fried do I take God off the back-burner. I jot down ten unanswerable questions in maybe a minute. And should he survive that onslaught I know I have enough ‘suivis’ from a lifetime of living to make him look stupid. A ‘suivi’ (James Bond) is what I call a follow-up question. I know I have enough in my brain to last an hour if I have to. I know I’m good at my job. I know there’s none better. In choosing me God made a good choice. Too good for God.
-00.01.04
God was late. While we waited, the Mayor and I glanced several times at each other: he wouldn’t be used to playing second-fiddle to anyone, not even God. Then what appeared was what I feared: an undistinguished guy in maybe his early thirties ludicrously draped in a not too clean brown toga-like Middle Eastern throw-over thing coupled with dusty well-worn sandals on filthy dirty feet. One glance and I knew what had happened. He had overheard or been told of my ceiling shout, had seen his chance to go on television, dressed what he thought was accordingly, and sight-unseen got the part. The boss should be shot. There was nothing for it but to play along. Our cameras were recording from the moment he showed, and I had to go with the joke until I could move seamlessly from the prankster to the politician.
-00.00.07
I was angry as I seated Him, still angry as I was cued, and it showed.
-00.00.00
THE INTERVIEW