I lost the unthinking
faith of my childhood when I got old enough to start thinking
critically; not in the sudden, momentous way one loses a wallet or
one's virginity, but in the gradual, trickling fashion one loses the
memories of a long-dead grandparent, which fade each day they're left
unthought of until nothing remains but a vague sense of past warmth,
so distant and dim it might have happened to a character in a book
you once read. That's how it was with me and Jesus.
If there is a God,
he/she/they/it must surely curse puberty as its greatest enemy. How
many of us, after a decade or so of trusting now-I-lay-mes, abandon
the cold comfort of prayer for the more tangible nighttime
consolations (and much more immediate gratification) of masturbation?
How many of us, in the earth-shattering self-absorption of our
changing bodies and developing minds, put away thoughts of the divine
along with all our other childish things? How many of us, with the
new-found cynicism of the morbid young teenager, declare religion a
false hope for children and the feeble-minded, and commit to a far
more sophisticated preoccupation with existentialism, Bauhaus, and
still more masturbation?
I'm extrapolating, of
course. If puberty was for everyone the Christ-killer it was for me,
this world would have no priests, no street-corner God-botherers, no
thoughtful theologians; and I no longer subscribe to the adolescent
arrogance that once convinced me all priests and God-botherers and
theologians were stunted creatures arrested in a childhood state of
denial. Truth be told, these days I envy the God-botherers their
faith. I admire the strength of will it takes to believe in anything
other than the abyss. When I hear them speak of experiencing God's
love, of “just knowing” something is out there, of having a
personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I no longer snort in
derision; instead, I find myself wishing I knew how to convince
myself that any of this was true. I wonder if a large segment of
humanity really does have access to a plane of existence that is
closed to me. And then I wonder if I had my shot at finding it, and I
blew it.
It happened at about
3:07am on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007, a few hundred feet
shy of the rim of Mt Kilimanjaro. I was climbing with a group of
friends from university. This was the final day of our ascent, and we
had risen shortly after midnight to tackle the steep scree slope that
was to take us to Gillman's Point by sunrise, and from there along
the crater rim to the highest point in Africa. I never made it as far
as the rim.
At 16,000 feet, the air
was thin and bitterly cold. Every breath seemed to empty me of more
oxygen than it took in, and each step up the treacherous slope was
punishing to my lungs and body. “Do Your Ears Hang Low” was
looping incessantly and infuriatingly in my head. On top of all that,
altitude sickness had been targeting me with a vengeance since
Horombo.
For the third time
within half an hour, I stumbled to my knees behind a rock to vomit up
what little was left in my stomach. Even through the thermal layers,
I could feel the sharp icy scree digging into my legs as a fresh
paroxysm convulsed me forward onto my gloved hands. For a moment I
rested there on my hands and knees, sucking the last little chunks of
vomit from between my teeth and spitting them into the shameful
little patch of dark brown bile. Gasping in lungfuls of thin,
piercing air, I wiped the involuntary tears from my eyes onto my
shoulder, and that was when Jesus appeared to me.
He was barefoot in
jeans and a Penn State T-shirt, and even in my miserable state I knew
that was impossible, but I barely had a second to register that
thought before he kicked me in the face.
More in surprise than
pain, I reeled backward. Jesus stepped calmly forward and kicked me
again, this time in the stomach. Through all my layers, it barely
hurt, but I was so weakened by altitude and exhaustion that the force
of the kick sent me sprawling.
His face inscrutable,
Jesus leaned over and grabbed me by the throat. My gloved hands
scrabbled uselessly at his bare one, as with steely grip he hauled me
up and slammed me against the big rock. Everything swam as I fought
for even the too-thin air surrounding me, and then Jesus' fist
smashed into my nose.
My whole head rang with
shrapnel from the explosion of pain. The stupid song was still
repeating, amped up to a screaming volume in my ears, as Jesus
punched me in the face, again and again; weirdly, exactly in time
with “Do Your Ears Hang Low”.
When I felt pummeled to
the limit of my endurance, sure that one more punch would tear
through my skull like tissue paper, Jesus suddenly let go. Dazed,
plummeting toward unconsciousness, I slid back to the ground. From my
pulverized face, I looked up at the figure – who did not seem to
have exerted himself at all – with one thought filling my mind:
What the fuck?
Jesus
smiled mildly, delivered one final kick to my crotch, and sauntered
away down the mountainside.
A
moment later, the guide found me, curled up and bleeding, too tired
and hurt even to weep. He and my friend Terry between them got me
back down to Kibo Hut, and nobody ever mentioned the bruises that
discolored my face for weeks afterward. At times I wondered if anyone
else could even see them.
Very strange. I do like the little details - little details make a story, for instance, the "losing memories slow and fading like one loses memories of a grandparent." I also like the addition of a silly childhood song - just the kind of thing that would bother your brain when you're light-headed.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually the second story I've ever read involving Christ kicking the crap out of someone. The first one - I have no idea where to find it now nor do I remember who it was by - was a satisfying little revenge-fiction starring Fred Phelps.
This one's a bit more surreal. Will there be a sequel? I can definitely see the narrator questioning the whole experience because they were in an oxygen-deprived environment - and wondering why they'd dream like that.