Innertubing the Animas with Jesus, Allah and Yahweh
By Charles P. Campbell |
Allah and Yahweh don’t drink. Actually, Yahweh “slips” quite a bit, but officially, he’s a teetotaler. And when he slips, he doesn’t screw around — gulps whiskey like beer. Sometimes, he gets pissed off, but mostly he just detaches. He comes from old money and smells of authority.
Allah’s kind of erratic — he ought to drink. On second thought, maybe not. He always shows up with the dankest kif on the river, though, and plenty of it. I can’t smoke the stuff; I’m not against it — I don’t like white wine either, but I don’t think it should be outlawed. It works for him, though; he gets more animated and talkative — quixotic ideas, laughs a lot; it actually brings him up.
We make for an odd flotilla, but it works in its own way, like going out for a beer with roommates you found in the classifieds.
“Allah, man, give me a hand with these tubes,” I say. He’s busy scoping the River Betties in swimwear; can’t take his eyes off of them. I wish he’d just go over and talk, instead of staring; he ends up creeping them out, and then he’s worse off. Jesus is over there, passing around his wineskin. He can strike up a conversation with anybody, especially hippie chicks. He doesn’t try and make anything happen — he just lets it happen, but he gets distracted easily, especially by girls, flowers, dogs and such — I think his body produces its own psilocybin.
Yahweh, on the other hand, is like the principal who’s always trying to bust him or break him. He’ll drift over like a wing man, trying to flank off J.C., but his energy is so different, those chicks would have to be bombed not to notice, which is his prime strategy.
“Allah, man, why don’t you go check out Jesus and Yahweh and those girls — maybe we can all put in together,” I tell him, “offer ’em a beer — we got a ton.” If anybody needs to get laid, it’s this guy. Unfortunately, he’d end up verbally abusing her for the same qualities that “lured” him in. “Bust out that hookah pipe, Allah — I bet they never seen one like that.”
I feel like I should push him into breaking the ice before he spooks them. Yahweh isn’t much help either, but at least he’s got the recklessness of a boozing frat boy — he doesn’t care where he’s going, as long as it’s out of his mind. On the weekend anyway, then it’s back to being a dutiful citizen — he’ll brush off his weekend antics like it was off the record, or something. Unless he gets really out of hand, then he’s especially civil for the entire week. It’s a good thing I don’t much give a shit, because it’d be easy to get pissed off at those two — they make good company and great conversation, but they can sure get uptight. I get a little frustrated with Jesus, too — always the ethereal philosophical stuff. I love it, but I’m not always in the mood. Generous guy, though — he’ll empty his pockets for you and forget he did it. Not your typical Jew — maybe that’s why they disowned him. Yahweh belongs to an exclusive Jewish country club that snubs WASPs whenever they get a chance, and can pinch a penny in half. After drinking a bunch of expensive whiskey that he “doesn’t drink,” he’ll start pulling out the big bills trying to get a piece of ass. Gets as bent as a thirty-foot snake, then wants to go to titty bars and chase hookers. Forgets all about being a tight-ass then.
All this shit freaks Allah out. He likes eyeballing the dancers, but hates what they are — I sometimes wonder if being free enough to be a stripper is what really turns him on. But then, it’ll be their fault for making him horny; he really ought to talk to a counselor. I can connect with the guy when we’re at the coffeehouse, having some black Turkish stuff the owner makes for him, and go into abstract theory for hours. It’s a blast, but when we walk out the front door, he’s left his peace, love and harmony on the table with the cups and saucers. He could just as soon kill you, as look at you, half an hour later. “Jesus! Yo, Jesus!” I yell over at all of them. “You guys ready to put in?”
“Yeah, man, that’s why we came!” he replies. I love it when he’s in a good mood. Sometimes he gets a little broodish, but nothing as dark as those other two. Then again, he never gets quite as manic, either.
Yahweh’s got a bulletproof whiskey buzz, and Allah’s starting to relax when we walk the tubes in deep enough to plop into them. “Man, that’s cold,” J.C. jokes. “I think my golden staff just became a pack of dimes!” Allah laughs — he loves male bonding humor, but is uncomfortable cracking such jokes. Yahweh laughs too, after a processing delay from the whiskey. “I’m hung like an Asian newborn!” he joins; not exactly the most PC guy you’ll ever meet. But, he’s PC enough not to have cracked the joke in front of Buddha … I miss that guy. He left town right when Jesus got here — if fact, Jesus sub-let his place; worked out great for the both of them, though Jesus still gets his mail.
As we start floating slowly downstream, the River Chicks are our floating neighbors, but spaced far enough to remain their own group.
Allah hit the hookah before putting it away, so now he’s finally chilling out. “Yes, my friends, it’s good to be alive and well on such a beautiful day. It’s good to be floating on a river of such fresh, pure water. These things are increasingly hard to come by.”
“Awww, man,” Jesus says, “don’t get me started. I just get pissed off and bummed out. There’s so much that people just don’t get ... it’s like their technological ability has outstripped their cognitive capacity ... they’ve become clever without becoming wise. Most of ’em anyway.” With that, he takes a pull off the wineskin.
“You know, I blame Yahweh for telling people it was all put here for them. That started it. That gave them license to do as they pleased, without fear of reprisal. If it’s all here for you, then you really can’t go wrong; like stealing from yourself.”
“Easy, bro,” retorts Yahweh. “I was just getting them started — they were designed to think for themselves, believe it or not.” He makes a few half-assed strokes in the direction of the floating cooler.
“Which some do. I couldn’t tell you why most don’t. Come to think of it, I thought that’s what you two did for a living.”
“Awww, man,” says Allah, “I tried to tell these cats all kinds of shit — next thing I know, they’re putting words in my mouth, telling one another I said this and that. It’s frustrating.” Allah grabs a soda and offers beer to Yahweh and Jesus.Yahweh accepts; Jesus declines, but hoists his wineskin. “For instance, how about those Camel Jockeys flying into the World Trade Center? (Like black guys using the “N” word, he can say it.) Convinced they were all getting immortality and 77 virgins ... as if disembodied spirits in the afterlife are going be looking for a piece of ass or a cheeseburger. Where do they get this shit? And THEN, they stick it on me. I swear ... ”
Jesus, laughing: “How about the semi-literate shit-kicker installed as president — the one whacking the hornet’s nest? Acts like his Empire du jour found the patent on permanence. Says — in so many words — that he gets direction from me all the time … HA! — I bet if I walked onto the fairway, or the putting green, when decisions are being made, to really talk to him, he’d have me arrested!”
Allah laughs — “Shit, bro, they’d shoot me before I even got close.”
Yahweh is beside himself laughing. “Reminds me of those guys who decided I had Chosen Them as the class favorite, or some happy horseshit — they worked it for centuries, until some guy came along with a religion founded on a half-man, half-god, like out of the comics ... I’ll bet you the guy who came up with that whopper strolled in to work whenever he felt like it after that.”
They all laugh. “What gets me,” Jesus says, “is the irony, man; the irony of it all. The only guys I can talk to anymore are some Taoists, Buddhists, a few indigenous old folks, who are almost like the same thing, and a couple of pagan hippie-types. They don’t want anything to do with Christianity, and the Christians have all those people in their gun sights. I don’t get it. I know how the Smiley Face feels now that it’s been hijacked by Wal-Mart.”
Allah loses his laugh — he hates Wal-Mart. Bad. Real bad. “Man, the current system is based on exploitation — of resources and each other. I don’t see a way out, except rebuilding after collapse. It’s like an alcoholic or a gambler — sure they could quit, but do they ever? They’ve got to lose a house or a marriage before coming clean. The way it’s set up now, I don’t see how this culture could stop itself if it wanted to. Not to mention, they’d all have to want to, and the majority of them can’t see past the ends of their noses.”
The River Betties, at this point, have drifted quite a ways off. They couldn’t help but overhear most of it, and it really wasn’t their scene, especially after being ignored for the sake of conversation.
“And then, there’s the consumption,” Allah rants, “which is unavoidable up to a point, but, in this case, is actually promoted!
They keep looking outside for contentment after we’ve made it clear that they already have everything they need. I get fed up. One in ten — on a good day — get a clue. It’s frustrating, man. I swear, some days, I just want to throw in the towel and come back when it’s time to say ‘I told you so,’ but what good is that? It’s too late, then. So I was right and they wouldn’t listen — what does that get us? They’ll all be sorry, or dead, and I get to be smug about it ... revenge is not sweet, my friend. Being right in the end is still the end — that’s why I can’t quit.”
“Hey, I can dig it,” Jesus replies. “When I started out, people actually understood what I was talking about. Then, some time around the Age of Reason, everything started being taken literally. Metaphor was interpreted as historical fact. Well, after science and technology really got under way, they started blowing those ‘facts’ out of the water. Having lost the mythological significance along the way, the message now seems hollow.”
“Well, it never hurts to have a well-diversified investment portfolio.” Yahweh tries to help, completely out-of-step. “Build some equity — at least have a nest egg.”
Jesus and Allah look at each other in disbelief. “I guess if your life lacks significance or meaning, you may as well be comfortable,” Allah adds, but the sarcasm is lost on Yahweh. Jesus is laughing, but tries to hide it so Yahweh doesn’t think they’re making fun of him. “Have you ever seen a luggage rack on a hearse, Yahweh?” Jesus asks.
Yahweh doesn’t get the question, but adds “You know, for over 99.99-percent of man’s existence, he lived very communally, very collectively, sharing everything; his cooperation was key to his success. All of a sudden, they’ve got a culture that promotes selfishness; honors Rugged Individualism, to the point where needing help is seen as a weakness.
No wonder they feel isolated — the irony is that they’re afraid to turn to each other ... and of course, this is a 180 off their basic design. Despair was designed to alter a course, not to punish ... ”
The conversation stalls as we approach Smelter Rapids, which, like all rapids is least threatening in a tube. With my ass already in the water, it’s hard to fall off the floor, and when I do flip, I don’t have a shell holding me upsidedown. The major threat here is loosing the cooler contents. Knowing the clean line, left of center, I pass through like a duck. Jesus flips, but doesn’t care; it looked like he wanted to. Allah flips also, but he didn’t want to. Bracing for the chute in a rigid posture is not The Way, so it dumped him. Yahweh just ignores it as a peril — holds his beer up, out of the way, treating the rapid little differently than the rest of the river. He stays upright, but gets drawn back in and surfed. Then with no effort on his part, is discharged downstream, as if he didn’t really feel like dealing with the drama, and didn’t.
After the rapid, thoughts turn to the take-out, not far away, and what to do with a good buzz and a full cooler on a pretty day. A barbeque, of course — it’s what always happens after a tubing trip, but never planned in advance.
At the take-out, we load into Yahweh’s Hummer that Allah has hand-painted like a Fallujah taxicab, complete with Arabic lettering, juxtaposed with a Virgin Mary on the dashboard and a row of fringe, inside, across the top of the windshield, that Jesus added. Yahweh bought the Hummer just for their trip down and will trade it in, in some other part of the world where it’s value is appreciated because of its personal tailoring, not unlike Lennon’s Rolls. It’s great for holding inflated tubes, coolers and prophets, and for some reason, never gets pulled over, despite its appearance, even in this town.
Charlie Campbell is a Recovering Catholic and a devout Heathen. His last piece for the Gazette was “Stool Talk,” which appeared in #117.
