Dr. Mann at lunch on Friday, or maybe phone.
I drove Jones to Manhattan and then uptown to his mother's home at 142nd Street. Neither of us said a single word during the entire drive and when I let him out he said only: `Thanks for the ride.'
'That's okay,' I answered.
After a barely perceptible pause he slammed the door and strode away.
Strike up another scoreless innings for Jesus.
I was exhausted by the time I had gotten Arturo released from the hospital and my silence with him in the car was
partly fatigue. Trying minute after minute to be someone not totally natural to the personality, as Jesus was for me, was hard work. Impossible work, as a matter of fact. During that whole day I noticed that after about forty minutes of being a loving Jesus my system-would simply break down into apathy and in difference. If I continued the role past the forty-minute point it was purely mechanical rather than felt.
As I drove toward my rendezvous with Arlene my bleary mind tried to scrutinize my relations with her. Christianity frowns on adultery: this much I was able to come up with. Our relationship was a sin. Should Jesus simply avoid a rendezvous with his mistress? No. He would want to express his love for her. His agape. He would want to remind her of various relevant commandments.
Such was the intention of Jesus when he met Mrs. Jacob Ecstein that afternoon at the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem and drove to an obscure section of the parking lot at La Guardia Airport overlooking the bay. The woman was cheerful and relaxed and spoke during most of the drive about Portnoy's Complaint, a book which Jesus had not read. It was clear from her speaking, however, that the author of the novel had not discovered love, and that the effect upon Mrs. Ecstein was to increase her cynical, guiltless, shameless devil-may-care immersion in her gin. It seemed to Jesus precisely the wrong mood for his beginning to discuss Judao-Christian love.
'Arlene,' spoke Jesus, after he had parked, `do you ever feel great warmth and love toward people?'
`Only for you, lover,' she replied.
`Have you never felt a great rush of warmth and love toward some person or toward all humanity?'
The woman cocked her head and thought.
`Occasionally.'
`To what do you attribute it?'
`Alcohol.'
The woman unzipped the fly of Jesus and reached a hand in and enclosed the Sacred Tool. It was, all accounts agree,
filled only with agape.
`My daughter,' he said, `are you not concerned with causing unhappiness to your husband or to Lillian?'
She stared at him.
`Of course not. I love this.'
`Are your husband's feelings of no concern to you?'
`Jake's feelings!' she shouted. `Jake, is completely well-adjusted. He doesn't have any feelings.'
'Not even love?'
`Perhaps once a week he has that.'
`But Lillian has feelings. God has feelings.'
`I know, and I think what you're doing to her is cruel.'
`That is true, and you and Dr. Rhinehart must stop doing that which is so clearly sinful and which must hurt her.'
`We're not doing anything, it's you that makes her suffer.'
`Dr. Rhinehart will be a better man.'
`Good. I hate to see her so upset with you: She gave the Sacred Tool a little friendly squeeze and then lowered her
head to his lap and sucked in the Spiritual Spaghetti.
`But Arlene!' He said. `Dr. Rhinehart's making love to you is fornication, is what might hurt her.'
The woman tempted Jesus further with her serpent's tongue, but producing no measurable effect, raised herself. Denied
her sinful pleasure she looked peevish.
`What are you talking about? What's fornication, another of your perversions?'
`Physical intercourse with Dr. Rhinehart is a sin.'
`Who's this Dr. Rhinehart you keep talking about? What's the matter with you today?'
`What you have been doing is cruel and selfish and against the word of God. Your affair might have disastrous effects
upon Lillian and the children.'
`How?'
'If they found out'
'She'd only divorce you.' Jesus stared at the woman.
`We are speaking of human beings and of the Sacred Institution of Marriage,' He said.
`I don't know what you're talking about' Jesus became wrathful and thrust the woman's hand away and zipped up the
Holy Fly.
`You are so buried in your sin you cannot see what you do.'
The woman was angry too.
`You've been enjoying yourself for three months and now all of a sudden you discover sin and that I'm a sinner.'
`Dr. Rhinehart is a sinner too.'
The woman poked back at the Crotch.
'Not much of a one today,' she said.
Jesus stared out through the windshield of the car at a small cruiser plodding across the bay. Two gulls which had
been following it swerved away and spiraled up about fifty feet and then spiraled down and over toward Him,
wheeling out of sight past the car. A signal? A Sign? Jesus realized humbly that of course he was being insane, By fucking Mrs. Ecstein with great gusto for months in the body of Dr. Rhinehart He had confused her. It was difficult for her to recognize him in the -body of someone she had knows playing the role of a sinner. Looking over at her, he saw her staring crossly out over the water, her hands clasping a half-finished almond bar in her lap. Her bare knees suddenly appeared to Him as those of a little child, her emotions those of a little girl. He remembered His injunction about children.
`I'm very very sorry Arlene. I'm insane. I recognize this. I'm not always myself. I frequently lose myself. To cast you off by suddenly talking about sin and Lil and Jake must seem cruel hypocrisy.'
When she turned to face Him. He saw tears brimming at her eyes.
`I love your cock and you love my breasts and that's not sin.'
Jesus considered these words. They did seem reasonable.
`It is good,' He said. `But there are greater goods.'
`I know that, but I like yours.'
They stared at each other: two alien spiritual worlds.
`I have to go now,' He said. `I may return. My insanity is sending me away. My insanity says I will not be able to make love to you for a while.'
Jesus started the car.
`Boy,' she said and took a healthy bite from the almond bar, `you ought to be seeing a psychiatrist yourself five times a week if you ask me.'
Jesus drove them back to the city.
