ten minutes in a library

by Kenneth Pobo...

I read fantasy and science fiction. My parents hope I'll gravitate toward Billy Graham's complete oeuvre, but no dice. Last week, my minister saw me sitting in a yellow chair in the local library reading Orwell. He sniffed, asked is this the kind of book that glorifies the savior? 
    Having no words, I smiled. He's not the kind of guy you can argue with. He has a wife named Millie. She's not the kind of wife you can argue with because she never speaks. She lives in a box and he takes her out each Sunday morning. After the benediction, he puts her back and stuffs her in the vestibule closet. 
    Vestibule. Who uses words like that? 
    He didn't smile back. He looked like a car that's been sitting in the sun all day in a mall parking lot. 
    "Well, is it?" he asked. 
    "I, I" still grinning. 
    In a black leather jacket and sandals, the savior dashed through the library doors, said hi to Mrs. Havens who nodded politely and went back to processing Mrs. Gill's library card, and stood before my minister. 
    "Leave this boy alone, you dreary old ratbag." 
    "I, I" still grinning. 
    My minister didn't "fall" to his knees. His knees dropped below the floor, through the basement, and ended up close to the center of the Earth. The rest of his body followed. 
    "But Lord, Lord, I was only...." 
    "I didn't come to Earth so you can nitpick about books. I came to... wait, why did I come? Well, whatever. What's done is done." 
    Turning to me, he asked, "Would you like to watch All About Eve with me?"
    I hadn't heard of it. He got positively giddy talking about how great Bette Davis was, how she this very minute was on the right hand of his father and they were having a gay old time trashing Jack Warner who was already trashed in hell. He did make the film sound good, but, black and white? How ancient. I remembered that the savior was ancient, that he reportedly had done a soft shoe with Adam in Eden while Eve went shopping. 
    "How does it feel to be ancient?" 
    "Many gorgeous things are ancient. Think of the Rocky Mountains. I made them and did a damn fine job of it. Satan is ancient too. We've tried to patch things up, but he's difficult. He says I'm difficult. He's a good poet, though." 
    "How does it feel to be perfect?" 
    "Less good. I'm always happy and at peace, a regular bliss cowboy, but there's little surprise. Every now and then I'd love to have an argument, but I'm always right, so why bother?" 
    Mrs. Havens started flicking the lights, the five-minute-to-closing warning. I carried my Orwell to the desk for her to check out and said "See ya" to the savior who was sticking out his tongue at my minister who had little chance of climbing back up from such a deep pit. What would Millie do now? Would anyone find her box on Sunday and take her out? Had the minister at least poked air holes in it? 
    The savior breezed out the door and, presumably, back to heaven. I kind of thought he might check out a DVD, but I guess he can play every film ever made on a screen in his head. 
    My family lived five blocks away. I walked out into the night punctured by a few street lamps. I thought about stopping in at Joy's house, it wasn't all that late, but I admitted to myself that Joy wasn't my girlfriend. And that there was no Joy. But there was Orwell and the things he told me from the book's spine as I picked up my pace scared me. He said he believed in no God. 
    Yet I had just seen Jesus and rather liked him. At least he stood up to my minister bully. Orwell said no, no, it wasn't Jesus at all. Even if it was, there's another book to write, one that takes eternity to finish, and Satan ran all the publishing houses so he had no choice but to offer him first rights.