By Keith Keller

“So, what is your movie about?” asked Collin, a science fiction writer who Dimitri has just met in a Russian café on Brighton Beach Avenue in Brooklyn. Dimitri had made no American friends since immigrating to the states. Everyone involved in his movie had been Russian, as were most of the people who lived in Brighton Beach. He was flattered at Collin’s interest in his film and pleased at the chance to get an American’s reaction to it.

“It is about God’s jealousy of his son’s experience in space and time while on Earth and God’s suspicion that this experience was responsible for his son’s liberal attitudes. He thinks they are wimpy. He decides to take human form, satisfying his curiosity and at the same time getting at least a temporary break from his son’s harping insistence that all humans are “innocent.” Contrary to what theologians believe, Jesus was outside the parameters of God’s plan. He was a loose canon.

“So God becomes a human,” continues Dimitri, “and moves into an apartment in Brooklyn. He wants to smell, taste, and touch everything. He eats like a pig and has sex with fat Jewish woman he meets at the deli, the fatter the better. They scream ‘Oh God, Oh God’, never knowing how right they are.”

“This is great stuff,” Collin interrupted. Dimitri’s eyes get sad. He was disappointed, indeed a little shaken, by Collin’s comment.
“What’s the matter?” asked Collin.

Dimitri let out a deep Russian sigh of exasperation. Then he explained to his new friend that he wanted people to hate his movie. His cousin Natalie, a publicity agent, had convinced a theater owner named Mr. Samuelson to premier Dimitri’s film in Lynn, Massachusetts, where Mr. Samuelson owned three decrepit movie theaters. Dimitri did not want people to like his film. He wanted outrage, protest and demonstrations. That way, with a little advance publicity, which his cousin Natalie said would be a snap, everyone would hate his movie before they had seen it and then go to see it to hate it some more and he would get a big distributor and make lots of money. Then he could move out of his crummy apartment in Brighton Beach and get a loft in Soho.  Collin sat staring at Dimitri thinking this was the weirdest thing he had heard all week.

“So you actually made a movie for the sole purpose of offending people. Sort of like ‘The Producers’.”
“Yes,” admitted Dimitri, made candid by the truth serum of four of the café’s double vodkas. Of course, Dimitri’s plan was not a bad one, thought Collin.  The Christian right alone could be counted on to assure him millions of dollars in free publicity. Collin could find only one problem with the plan. So far, from what Dimitri had described, he was into the film. He liked it. Of course Collin was no barometer of taste, his own obscure science fiction novels were not exactly on the best seller list.

“Can I see it?” asked Collin.
“Sure,” answered Dimitri.

Within minutes into the movie Collin is totally hooked. God is having a conversation with Cain explaining free will; to do and think as people choose, without interference from God…

“Great things will come of this,” boasts God. “Of course there will be a down side.”
“What’s that?” asks Cain.
“It’s the small print,” explains God. “You see, a certain number of humans will do anything if they have full reign, even things not good for them. Remember the problem your mother had with the apple, and she had been given a big no-no. That was pre-freewill days, not like now, when everyone can do whatever they want. Of course later on I am going to throw in a tablet with a few commandments against bad behavior, but it will not have much effect. Despite the threat of Hell, hardly anyone will pay attention to these rules, even people who claim to worship me and admire my work…It’s sort of an escape clause, absolves me of any responsibility for that downside I mentioned.”

“What is Hell?” asks Cain.
“It’s sort of like the penalty box at a hockey game, but permanent. You’ll see.”
“Could you give me a couple examples of this down side,” asks Cain.

God starts with lying and stealing and works his way up to Burmese child warriors who serve as sex slaves for the rebel troops during off hours. The more freaked out Cain becomes the more God elaborates. Only when Cain starts dry heaving does God relent, giving him a Godly pat on the back and saying “Now, now.” When Cain manages to stop hyper ventilating he asks God if he couldn’t scratch a few of those last items off the menu of human options.

“No one would miss them,” Cain murmurs.
“That would be cheating,” responds God.

*       *       *       *

After a few days of brooding Cain finds a handy ass’s jaw bone and brains his brother Abel, killing him. Then he turns his eyes toward God and says, “See what your plan has done.”
“Not me,” says God, “it was your call.”

*      *      *      *

The date 2007 appears in large numbers on the screen. God has been invited to a picnic at Far Rockaway, last stop on the A train. Mrs. Cohen was to bring the lemonade, Mrs. Levine the ice water and Mrs. Mueller the wine. However Mrs. Mueller, a little forgetful, has also brought lemonade. God turns the lemonade into a nice Manishevitz and for good measure the ice water into a dry Cabernet. The three ladies get really drunk and the next day cannot be quite sure just what happened with that wine.

“Well,” thinks God, “I see I have acquired one of my son’s parlor tricks.”

*       *       *       *

It was not just one trick. On the stairs to the F train a mere glance at a man’s blind and pus-leaking eye restores its sight. Other miracles follow: healings, tricks with loaves of bread, surfing at Bay 1 without a surf board, and a big one: the resurrection of a dead woman hit by a cab. People begin to notice.

They stop him in the street and ask if he can fix there bursitis. They find out where he lives and hold vigil in front of his apartment.  After a while it is difficult to leave the house.  He can’t stop the miracles, they just happen. At last he can stand it no longer. Also, Brooklyn is expensive, and he is worried about money.

One black morning, the thought of crucifixion comes to mind. He has heard that Mexico is cheap. He buys a Greyhound ticket to the border where he takes a train to Real de Catorce. With a portion of his dwindling funds he buys a crumbling ruin outside of the small ghost town. It rests at the top of a steep rise. Jesus sends him an angel in human form named Angel to help with the renovation.  Angel makes daily trips down the steep hill and back to buy food, carrying four-gallon jugs of water for drinking, cooking, and washing, while struggling up the steep climb.

When the house is finished God continues to sleep under the stars on the old brass bed he had dragged out of the adobe ruin his first night on the hill. One morning Angel wakes God just after dawn.

“Someone is coming,” Angel tells him. They both peer at a tiny figure walking slowly up the steep path toward them.
“They have found me,” God says in a raspy morning voice.
“Looks like a campesino.”
“Peasants,” says God, “I hate them. They kick their kids, beat their wives, and fuck their animals. Now, I don’t have anything against that last part, but personally, I don’t think the animals like it. Give me a rock.”

Angel finds a baseball sized rock and hands it to God. With surprising strength he hurls it in the direction of the approaching figure. The rock strikes the small man squarely on the forehead and he goes down.

The two stand silently staring at the distant still figure lying on the rocky ground. The sun disappears behind dark clouds, the wind picks up. God walks down the hill to the fallen man. When he reaches him he sits down heavily beside him.

“I am sorry about the peasant crack,” he says. He wishes him alive, but to no avail. Angel approaches. God tells him he is finished with his humanity and will return to the heavens. Angel lowers his head. He knows there is a problem. God has forgotten the keys to the house of God. There is only one route to heaven for a mortal, and, well, there is some doubt whether the door will be open to him. Angel turns his gaze toward the dead campesino. God is thunderstruck as only a God, even a one time God, can be.

“I am in deep shit,” he says.

He starts pacing, sweating, and talking to himself. He imagines life on earth without social security, mumbling words like cancer. He knows he is a candidate for diabetes, not to mention what will happen after death. He stops pacing and looks down at the body at his feet. “Jesus Christ,” he exclaims.

Then it hits him.

“What am I thinking? The boy will get me out of this. He forgives everyone. I am his father.”

He raises his head to the heavens, just a symbolic gesture, and asks Jesus to bring him home. No response, He tries again, louder.

“I know you’re there,” he yells. “I know you hear me.”

There is an overhead shot of God now in a complete rant, raging at the heavens. The camera slowly zooms up, God’s figure growing smaller and smaller, the sound of his voice weaker. The screen goes black. Credits role.

As predicted by Collin, Dimitri’s movie is a big success and Dimitri gets his loft in Soho. No one is quite sure why it is a success. The only group that has a consensus of opinion about the movie is the Christian Right who say it is inspired by the devil. On the Lenox show Dimitri announces that his next movie will be about Judas, from Judas’s point of view.

The End