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July 12, 2003  The Jetty [unfinished story from Nov. 12, 1996]
I stand on the edge of the jetty looking south and wonder, like a character from a dream forgotten, just how it came to this. We humans have a tendency to look at everything as though the existence of things somehow hinges on our own. We act as though life gives a shit, as if we'd be missed. Well, I'm here to tell you that life doesn't give a shit. Life, defined by the species that comprise it, cares only for the broader picture. You and I count for little. I came to Black Rock for a change of pace. I came to rest. Twelve years selling God to a God-less people has taken its toll. I had always excelled at the belief part. I believed in Him, that is. It was the sales pitch that wore at me mercilessly. I had prayed for relief, for guidance, for courage. It hadn't come. I was on the road selling Jesus from a Chrysler, based out of a mission office in Memphis. But I had no guts, and as Rev. Jobias of Orleans Parish once said to me, "A minister ashamed of his own message is a crying shame! You're useless to the world, brother." Quite useless to God, I imagined. "A minister!" That's what people exclaim when they find out through gossip channels. Indeed, how could a minister speak of life in such grim, biological context? Well, is it so wrong that a man of God should believe that life follows the dictates of Darwin, only for a higher end? What matter the means that achieve the penultimate ends of God? Ironic that I say that about God and the whole expanse of life, yet cannot for a moment believe it about myself. For yes, in the end I did wind up saving a few souls in ways entirely unexpected. Some took my cowardice for humility, you know, of the saintly kind. They would hear me talk at a mental health outpatient clinic in Waco or at an AA meeting at the Elks Club in Elko and shazam! They'd get God. And He'd send them crawling after my Chrysler looking for love. I'd give them what I could -- a bible I'd snagged from the Gideons, some copies of my own hand-typed take on the whole salvation thing, a hug and the directive to go forth and spread the word. What d'ya expect from a guy with no self-esteem? The poison runs deep, if you know what I mean. It's not just a fear of public speaking we're talking about here. IT'S DEEP, DAMMIT! Way deeper than that. You carry this much shame and guilt around you get to where you can't even give a bum a dollar without shivering for hours with shame for not giving more. You can't even give without fucking it up because you hate yourself so much that you feel damn sure your intent was wrong. Shit! This is what got me here. This madness. I can't recall how it all began nor much of the process, but this self-loathing and confusion, and a whole morass of conflicting ideology and thought -- THIS is what is driving me insane! I sit down upon a rock and let my mind drift with the tide. The water aches of blue midnight loneliness. It aches of desperation and cruel beauty. I raise my eyes to the landscape sea and think I know why even Godless men love her. She's not a woman. She is God Itself. All the elements are there. I feel calm for a bit. I sidle to the left, then back a bit to a more rounded edge of the rock. The barnacles bite at the palms of my hands. I think of Jesus and laugh aloud. "You wimp!" I say mockingly to myself. In any case, I should have worn gloves. I should have brought my gun, I tell myself, to protect my right to choose my own destiny. I should have studied business in college. Or failing that (which I did.. I failed at everything) I should have gone a more traditional route as regards the business of God. It had always seemed to me a misnomer to call someone "exceptional" who had merely topped the charts within a given institution. To be exceptional meant to be outside the forum and fantastic to boot. I had gone this latter route. And now I was going mad. "LUCIFER!" I shout aloud at a gull with a demon grin. "Luci-fairy!" Yes, the devil is most certainly a woos, a pussy, a wimp. I've known this for awhile. He's the other reason I came to Black Rock. To rest, yes, and to confront if I could God's baddest stepchild on the subject of Natural Selection. My selection, in particular. For instance, why had a mutant like me been allowed to live? What kind of fallen angel calls himself the Lord of Darkness and yet can't follow through on a perfect plan for extermination like Natural Selection? You see, I figure, like I said God is the Ocean, smooth, cool, at once deadly beautiful and mesmerizing, reclining with His big arms wrapped around Mother Earth like a sleeping bear with a phallus in her every trench. And the devil, he's airborne. He's out there knocking down every little critter that can't hack it. But he dropped the ball on Homo sapiens. We deserve the swoop of the scythe more than any species, but we've taken our selves out of Natural Selection and the devil let us do it. I came here to face the bastard, but he hasn't shown his face. If that sounds like a bold endeavor for a coward, well, that's what somebody else said. That's something I found out about myself that I'll never understand. After all my selfless work at spreading the word of God and never having the nerve for it, I quit religion and got balls the size of albatross eggs with which the howl and gesticulate my message of madness to the rich, sick fuckers who shoulda got religion in the first place. Life, my friend, doesn't give a shit about the individual. I'm here to tell you, I'm here to tell you. [story unfinished 1996]
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