A Larry Comes, a novella

A Larry Comes (Opening)

(The complete story is available in the collection Two Dark Truths, which you can buy, either in trade paperback or as an Acrobat download, from my bookstore.)

Tell me, what good is it to have God visit you if you can’t tell anybody about it? Or, if not God, then somebody looking very much like him, or how I had pictured him. Perhaps, to be safe, I should call him god, you know, lower case “g.”

No, that won't do. There’s no escaping it: it was the Almighty all right, our capital “G” Father-of-the-Son God. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. There is no doubt about it.

Yes, yes, I know it sounds crazy, but now and then things happen to you, incredible things, that you cannot deny—not to yourself anyway. For they did happen, and you know they did, whether the whole thing sounds crazy or looks crazy or feels crazy or is crazy or not. Took place. Occurred. Yes sir. So when in truth I did lay eyes on him, did talk to him, did meet him, how can I deny it? I can’t.

My mistake was sharing it, and perhaps that's the lesson to draw from all of this: Keep your mouth shut. Especially around close relatives and people in white coats.

It was a Tuesday, rainy. My room had that dampness about it, that musty smell that only ventures out after three days of rain. Seeps out. Dryness fully pervaded now. Our house is big and grand and all but not well sealed, not round my room anyway, so if the rain doesn’t turn back after a day or two, it tends to pick up courage and come in—to my room. In musty spirit, anyway.

I had finished the chapter and placed my bookmark where I had left off. I closed the book in my lap, leaned back and closed my eyes. Picturing. Picturing. A moment later He knocked on my door and I went to open it.

I fumbled with the locks and the bolts and the safety chain and didn't even stop to wonder that I was so carefully sealed. He knocked again, louder this time, or was it that I was closer to the door (of course, I didn’t know that he was He yet), and told Him to hold His horses. Finally, after a few more hold Your horses and wait ups, I got all the locks undone and I opened up and then looked very long and still at Him and He looked very long and still at me and nothing was said.

Strange thing when strange things happen: not for a moment did I think it strange. It was simply taking place.

My first notion was exactly this: Here’s God. My second notion was exactly this: No way. Then I wavered back toward the first. He looked so very familiar. Like a Doré Moses, and for just a fraction I thought perhaps this is Moses, no? Standing there, but no stone tablets about him, no frown or fury at dancings around golden calves, no exasperation or suffering (which rules out the Son, too, doesn't it?—though He, the Son, was never a real prospect; my visitor had nothing of “the meek” in him at all). No, this was more, He was more, you know, of the and the Earth was without form and void variety. Let there be lightish. But not very talkative. Just stood there looking back at me. So finally, “Wanna come in?” I said. “Sure,” he said.

I held the door open for him, and he, gathering his robe with long, white, exquisitely manicured fingers—almost effeminate but with strength (if that makes sense)—and, carefully stepping over the threshold, looked where He was placing His feet as if He was expecting to step on something alive, carefully didn't (step on anything alive) and then He was inside. My head.

Before closing the door (which I honestly had not known I had until just now, until that knock on it) I took a quick peek outside to see if He had brought anybody else (didn't want to shut the door in some holy face, you know). But no. No one else. Just the usual outside: my TV-less room, a plate of rice and vegetables, sixty percent consumed, forty percent un-, a glass of un-drunk water, shelves for my books, and upon them: my books, my books, my many, many, many books, each one a little life (or not so little, take Gravity's Rainbow for example), each a little universe in fact (or not so little, take the Mahabharata—now there's a universe, or a thousand thousand universes for you), and each one mine, so very mine. Yes, you can believe me or not as you please, but I had read most of them, front cover to back, and some of them, many of them, more than once.

There was my stereo. And my compact discs, my many, many, many compact discs, and each one of them a universe too, and each one mine. Yes, indeed, although there were literally thousands of them, I had listened to each one, all the way through, many, many of them more than once.

And there was my desk, my lamps, my chairs, my pictures on the wall. All in all: my room, my whole room, and nothing but my very God-companion-less room. Hence: He had indeed come alone. But no harm in making sure.

I closed the door. Heard the latch bolt slide into place with a soft click, and let it go at that (I was toying with the idea of replacing the security chain as well, but if you can’t feel secure in the presence of my Guest, where can you feel secure, is what I asked myself, chain or no?) I turned to face Him.

I looked again. Could it really be? But, oh yes, still very at the top of Jacob's ladderish. But I didn't dare ask. Bad form. He carried the air of someone who was expecting to be known, by me. So, all things considered, lingering remnants of could-it-reallys notwithstanding, we'll put him down to God, once and for all then: Gee-oh-dee, God.

“Sit down?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, looking around for somewhere to sit. Something alive-less. Found a stool I didn't know I had in here and scrutinized it for a second or two, judged it safe, sat down.

“And,” I began. Meaning to say something pleasant like: And I hope you've had a nice trip here, good weather on the way, sorry about the rain here, and so on. But he was ignoring me so stellarly that there was no way I was going to go anywhere beyond those three letters. Definitely the at the top of Jacob's ladder guy, in my house. Should be strange, but wasn’t.

He looked around. Put his hands in his lap. Left over right. Then right over left. Beautiful fingers, no getting away from that either. Long, slender, strong (surely), well, perfect.

“You are a lucky man,” He said, apropos of I had no idea what.

“Yes?” I said, tentatively, prepared for anything.

“You like it in here?” he said. Well, asked, really, but it was more of a statement than a question. Still, I ventured an answer. “Uh, yes.” Not one of my more eloquent rejoinders.

Then he stood up and walked to the edge of the field before he turned around and beckoned me to follow with a perfect “come hither” with his perfect right hand. I came thither but by the time I had thitherized, he had moved on, obviously wanting me to follow. So into my field we went.

Let me explain that.

When I say inside (my head) it's not really an inside at all (which was why I was surprised to find that it had a door for God to knock on and subsequently enter through). The inside of my head is really an outside. The inside outside.

It's a very large outside. It has sky and fields and streams and mountains and color, oh yes, and sounds, and smells, but the senses are a little jumbled. No, not really jumbled, more like merged. No, not really merged, more like seeping into each other. Bleeding. Blending. What I mean is: I can sometimes see the music. I can sometimes hear the color blue, the color red, the color green, all colors. Touch odors. Taste smells. It is a wonderful feeling, actually, if unsettling at times. Gotten used to it though. Fields so green I taste them. Grass so alive I hear it breathe. And, of course, my grass knows me very well. In places it grows really high, waist high, and very densely. But knowing I'm coming, it parts softly to let me through. Makes a path. Just like now. It must know God too, for He was still walking ahead of me and the grass parted for Him so eagerly it made a small road, almost.

We were heading for the Bach Falls.

Let me explain that.

The complete story is available in the collection Two Dark Truths, which you can buy, either in trade paperback or as an Acrobat download, from my bookstore

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