The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

JUDITH

I’m a light sleeper. A very light sleeper. I always have been. As a little girl, my parents used to have to turn off the television and the phones after I went to sleep because if I heard them I’d wake up. And if I woke up, I always believed it was because something bad had happened, or was going to happen. I was very skittish. Everything scared me. At school and later, when I started working, even in my car, I was always scared. I didn’t like being that way, but I couldn’t help it. It’s just how I am, I guess. Or it’s how I was. How I was until Ben. After Ben, everything changed for me.

I’ve led a quiet life. Lots of people would say it was boring, and they’re probably right. I was born in a small town in upstate New York. My dad was a farmer who grew potatoes and raised goats. My mom helped him and took care of me. I was an only child. My parents both wanted a large family, but there were complications when I was born and my mother couldn’t have any more. My mother blamed my father for not getting her to the hospital early enough, and my father blamed my mother’s body. I know neither of them really ever got over it because they used to tell me about it. The fact that I was such a disappointment didn’t help.

I met Ben in New York. I love musicals and used to go into the city once a year to see a show. I would save all year and get a special outfit and a hotel room in Times Square and go by myself for a fancy dinner and a show. The next day I’d walk up and down Fifth Avenue and look at the windows of the fancy clothing stores. I knew I’d never be able to afford any of the clothes, and I knew they didn’t make them for women my size, but I loved doing it anyway. I always dreamed of going into one of the stores and buying something, a bag or a dress or some shoes, but knew I’d never do it. Dreams are for people who can afford to make them come true. For someone like me, and for most normal people, dreams are just things that keep us going.

I was sleeping when I heard him. I usually stay in rooms on the first floor because they’re cheaper. And because elevators scare me, and I don’t like to use stairs. I had eaten a sandwich for dinner. It was roast beef and cheddar cheese, which I love. I had brought it with me from home, along with a bag of chips and some diet soda, and I had had some doughnuts for dessert, which are my true favorites. I had watched a couple of TV shows. One of my favorite shows is a dance competition show. The men are really handsome and always smiling, and the women are graceful and wear the most beautiful dresses. It’s really like a fairy tale. And even though I loved the show, and never missed it, it hurt me every time I saw it. In some way, I know my parents loved me, even though they had trouble telling me, but no one else ever had. I’d never been on a date. I’d never danced with a man. I’d never really even had a man talk to me, at least not in a flirty way or anything. And it was what I wanted more than anything. Really, more than anything. To dance like one of the girls on the show.

After the show, I had gone to sleep. I had even put in earplugs because New York City is always so noisy. But I woke up right away. First I heard a rustling. Like an animal or something. It was a sound I knew from living on a farm. My dad had all his goats, and we had a couple of pigs, and there were lots of animals living in the woods near us. Animals aren’t so scary, especially if they’re not in your house. I thought I’d wait and it would go away, but it got louder. I thought whatever kind of animal it was, it was really loud. So I got out of bed and I walked to the window and peeked around the curtain.

At first I couldn’t tell what I was seeing. There was a dumpster right outside. The lid was open, and there was tons of garbage in it. Something was moving around. Really moving around like crazy. I didn’t want to open the window because I was scared whatever it was would come after me. And I didn’t want to call the front desk because I could tell when I checked in that they didn’t like me. I just stood and watched and hoped it would stop. I thought maybe even it would die. It was banging against the side of the dumpster, making really loud noises. I knew it must really hurt. And even though people try to pretend that pain doesn’t do anything to them, none of us can really handle it. Everything bad we do in our life is because of pain of some kind. I couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like. Twice I walked away from the window. I got into bed and put in my earplugs and put my pillow over my head. I closed my eyes real tight. I even balled up my fists. I just kept hearing it, though. A banging sound against the side of the dumpster.

Finally it stopped. It sure seemed like it took a long time. I went back to the window and peeked outside again. I saw a man lying in the dumpster. He was pale, and his clothes were really dirty and gross. He wasn’t moving at all. He looked like he was dead for sure. But he didn’t look scary dead, or mean or angry dead. He looked very peaceful. And normally I would have been very scared. I would have yelled or screamed. I might have hidden somewhere. I wasn’t scared at all, though. I actually felt sort of wonderful. I just stared at the man lying in the dumpster. I forgot about everything. I even forgot I was me, which was something that had never happened. After a few minutes, the man started moving his hands and legs a little bit. I opened the window and talked to him.

Hello?

He looked up at me.

Hello.

You okay in there?

Yes, thank you.

You were banging around a lot.

He sat up and turned towards me.

Yes.

What were you doing?

I was looking for food.

In a dumpster?

Yes.

That’s gross.

He laughed.

There’s lots of good food in dumpsters.

No lie?

He laughed again.

No lie.

What do you find?

What other people don’t want.

And you eat it?

Of course.

Is it good?

People throw away wonderful things.

Did you find anything wonderful tonight?

He smiled.

Maybe.

I smiled.

In there?

No, I got interrupted.

By me?

By God.

Excuse me?

I was speaking to God.

Like God, God?

Yes.

God from Heaven?

No, the real God.

Who’s the real God?

If a bird dropped a pebble in the same spot once every thousand years, the time it would take for that pile of pebbles to grow to be the size of the largest mountain on earth would be equal to one second of infinity.

Yeah, so?

He laughed again.

God is infinite. And like infinity, too vast and too complicated for us to understand.

Then why do people worship him?

They’ve been tricked into believing something that is wrong but that they can understand. Humans cling to what they can understand, even if it’s wrong.

If that’s true, then how does God talk to you?

The sound you heard was me having a seizure, and my arms and legs and head hitting the sides of this dumpster. In the second before I have the seizures, I see things, and I hear things, I know things, and I am told things.

How do you know it’s God?

Because of what I’m told, what I’m given.

Which is what?

I speak languages I’ve never studied, some of which are no longer spoken. I know the contents of the world’s holy books, word for word, even though I have never read them. I understand general relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, astrophysics, quantum gravity, physical cosmology, and black hole thermodynamics, even though I dropped out of school when I was fourteen.

What’s all that got to do with God?

The first things allow me to understand God as God has been written, and portrayed, and worshipped. As people believe in God. The others allow me to understand how close we are to understanding the real God, the God that doesn’t need to be worshipped, that does not exist as we do, that does not judge us, that does not offer us anything more than what we have.

You sound crazy.

He smiled.

I haven’t told you the crazy things.

Things crazier than going into dumpsters for food and ending up having a conversation with God?

Yes.

I’m not sure I want to hear them.

He stood up, and in the dumpster he was almost at the level of my window.

Give me your hand.

Why?

I’ll show you.

Show me what?

He held out his hand. I stared at him. He was very thin, skinny like he was starving. And for the first time, I saw his eyes. They were jet black, and they should have been scary, but they weren’t. They were beautiful. And when I saw them, for some reason none of the crazy things he was saying sounded crazy. They sounded right, and I saw everything he was talking about in them.

Give me your hand.

Why?

To let you feel some of the things God tells me.

I reached out the window, through the bars that were covering it. As I watched myself do it, I couldn’t even believe it. I didn’t like touching people. I knew they didn’t like touching me. Not only that, I knew people didn’t even like the idea of having to touch me. I always believed I was a good person, and I always felt I was kind and honest, but I knew what I looked like. I had to face myself in the mirror every day. I was, and I am, fat and ugly. It hurts to say it, but I know it’s true. People have told me all my life what I am. They did it when I was a child, and all the way through school. They do it at work, even though I always smile and say hello. They do it as I walk down the street, like they think I can’t hear them or something. And it always hurts. No matter how many times I hear it. It always hurts. So I couldn’t believe this man was asking to take my hand. No man had ever done it. Part of me should have been scared. Once he had my hand, he could have done anything to me. But I guess I didn’t care. His eyes told me he was something beautiful and eternal. And even if he had hurt me, I would not have regretted it. Just to have had it happen once. To have a man ask for my hand, and to have a man want my hand.

It was a little cold. There was a slight breeze coming into the alley. The dumpster smelled like bad meat. I could hear traffic out on the streets of New York. I could hear someone yelling the word tickets over and over. The alley was lit by two streetlights. They were yellow, and one of them kept flickering. The shadows were moving with the flickers. People walking the street were moving into the shadows. I remember the moment very clearly. More clearly than anything, ever, because it’s the moment my life changed. My hand went out between the bars of the window. The bars were round and painted black and some of the paint was flaking off and my skin became cold, even though I was wearing a long-sleeved nightie. He took my hand and held it between both of his, and he smiled, and he spoke.

My name is Ben.

I had hoped to feel some kind of awesome romantic electric charge, like from a TV drama or a romance novel or even a Hollywood movie. What I actually felt was even better. It was the best feeling I had ever had in my life. My insecurity disappeared. My self-doubt disappeared. My self-hatred disappeared. My sense of disappointment in myself disappeared. The feeling that I was bad and wrong and ugly and nothing, that I was a fat, ugly failure, it just disappeared. That feeling of being alone, always alone, truly and deeply and horribly alone, disappeared. He held my hand and smiled and looked at me. I smiled back and spoke.

God.

Yes.

I let go and smiled.

Thank you.

He smiled and stepped back.

I don’t want you to go.

I need to find food.

I have food in here.

It’s not just for me.

Who else?

My friends.

Who are they?

People who want to be loved.

What’s that mean?

You know what it means. You felt what it means.

Can I get it for you?

No

I have a little bit of money.

No, thank you.

I would like to give it to you.

I don’t need money.

Why not?

Because I find what other people throw away.

And that’s enough.

More.

He started to step out of the dumpster. I didn’t want him to go. Ever. I knew that when he did, I would feel the way I always felt. The way I felt before him.

Don’t go.

He stopped.

I don’t want you to go.

He turned around.

Will you come inside, and sit with me?

Yes.

I’ll meet you in the lobby?

Yes.

He turned and climbed out of the dumpster. I closed my window. I met him in the lobby a couple of minutes later. I was really nervous before he arrived. People were staring at me and laughing. I couldn’t blame them, really. If I wasn’t me, I would have been laughing too. When Ben walked in, everyone stopped. I was worried that they would stop him, or call the police, but everyone just stopped talking and laughing and everything. They just stared at him.

He smiled at me and took me by the hand and we walked to my room. I opened the door and we stepped inside. He closed the door and told me to lie down on the bed. I was really excited. Really, really excited. Super excited. I had no idea what was going to happen. Whatever it was would be great. And as excited as I was, I was also calm in a weird way. Much calmer than I would have thought. I wasn’t shaking or feeling like I was going to cry or scream at all.

He turned off the TV and lay down next to me. I couldn’t believe it was happening. He started asking me questions. My name, where I was from, what my parents were like, and what they did. As we talked, and I answered his questions, he moved closer to me, and put one of his arms around me, and took one of my hands. He was so close to me that he started whispering. He asked me about my childhood. I told him it was unhappy. He asked me about school, and I told him it was always easy for me, but that I failed on purpose, because I didn’t want to give kids another reason to hate me. He moved closer, and his hands started moving around my body. It was beautiful. Totally the best time I had ever had. And it wasn’t dirty or perverted. His hands felt like they were part of my body. Everywhere he touched felt like it was absolutely the right spot, and the spot where I would have had him touch me if I could have asked him. We kept talking, and I started asking him questions. The same type of things he asked me. And he told me about his childhood, and growing up in Brooklyn. He told me his father hated him and beat him, and his brother hated him and beat him. He told me that his mother coddled him and that his sister worshipped him. He told me that he was Jewish. I had never met a Jewish person before, or at least not one that I knew was Jewish. He said his Jewish rabbis where his family went to pray had great expectations for him, and believed he would do great things, and maybe even change the world. I told him that must have been hard, that it was the opposite of my life, where nobody expected anything. He said it wasn’t hard, because they were right about what they believed, but wrong in thinking about what he would do, and how he would do it. What was hard was waiting for it to happen. Spending all of his life alone, knowing it was going to happen, and just sitting around and waiting.

We fell into some kind of talking trance. He kept touching me and feeling me. He took off my nightie. And he took off my panties. And he whispered in my ear, and I felt him move inside of me. And it wasn’t like some thunderbolt hit me, or like some passionate kiss in a rainstorm. It just felt full, and complete, and quiet. I felt like I could die at that moment and I would be okay with dying. I felt like however I had wasted my life, and whatever terrible things I’d seen and heard and felt, it didn’t matter anymore. This man was inside of me and he was holding me and I was feeling love. True love. The kind of love that really could change the world.

We stayed that way for hours. For the whole night even. He stayed behind me and inside me. He was moving the entire time. Very slowly and gently. Sometimes so slowly I could hardly feel him moving. Sometimes a little faster. We talked the whole time. I told him everything about myself and my life. I told him how I lived alone on my parents’ farm, which was overgrown and crazy. How I worked as a cashier at a superstore and tried to be nice but had people be mean to me all day. How I lived in a dead town filled with churches and bars and husbands beating their wives and children. How I spent all my nights alone in front of the TV, eating canned food and potato chips and ice cream. How I cried every night because I didn’t believe anyone would ever care for me. I told him about all my best hopes and biggest dreams and my scariest fears. I told him all I wanted in my life was a friend who I could call sometimes and say hi. How I always dreamed about having someone tell me I was beautiful, or even pretty. How I was scared I’d die someday all by myself and no one would find me until a long time after I was gone. I told him that there hadn’t been a time in my life that I hadn’t been lonely and that I didn’t want to feel it anymore.

He told me how he lived with a woman and her child in a small apartment. How he had been in jail and knew people were looking for him because he had jumped bail. How he spent his days touching people and helping people and teaching people about how to live in a world that is falling apart and dying. He talked about love. How love is the only thing in the world that is worth living for, the only good thing that we have left, and the only thing we haven’t destroyed. That true love, God’s love, isn’t about beauty or perfection or man or woman. That love isn’t about declarations made before false idols. That love isn’t what a bunch of hateful old white men decide it is. That love isn’t something that can be written into laws by corrupt governments. He said love is something shared by two people, any two people, man and woman, or man and man, or woman and woman, in whatever way makes them feel perfect and beautiful and peaceful in their hearts. He said love is what I was feeling as he held me and touched me and moved inside of me. He said that if I wanted to see God, see God as he did, and in God’s true form, he could show me. He told me to close my eyes, so I did. He moved his hand onto me and moved his body a little more and he stopped talking to me and I could feel his breath on my neck and my cheek. It built inside of me. God built up inside of me. And the more he moved, the more it built. And his breath felt hot and smelled sweet. And he kept moving, real slow, and moving real deep inside, and it built until I saw it and felt it. It was love, and joy, and pleasure, and every part of my body sang some song I had never heard but was the prettiest, most beautiful song ever, and it was blinding and pure and my brain went the whitest white ever, and I saw infinity, forever and ever, I saw infinity, and even understood it, and understood everything else in the world, all the hate and rage and death and passion and jealousy and murder, and none of them even mattered. I felt one hundred percent secure. I felt nothing bad. I saw the past and the future. It was the greatest second of my life. Really the greatest, and I knew in that one second I was experiencing God. The real God. The true God. The eternal God. The God that can’t be in a book or in a church or on a Sunday TV show or on a cross or a star. The God that can’t be explained or described or written about or taught or preached. The God that can’t be forced upon people or used to damn them. And I loved that God, that perfect amazing unbelievable true God. And I knew that none of the other Gods meant anything.

When that moment ended, Ben kept moving and breathing very slowly. I didn’t know what to say and I guess I didn’t want to say anything. Nothing I would have said would have meant anything or even mattered. So I just kept my eyes closed and listened to him breathe and felt him. And it just kept going, for the whole night, him inside of me. His hands moving all over me. The two of us loving each other. He kept speaking but I don’t know what he was saying. All I know is what I felt. God, God, and more God. God all night. When the sun came up, he stopped moving but stayed inside of me and just held me. Finally I said something to him.

Ben.

Yes.

I don’t ever want you to leave.

I’m going to leave in a little while.

Please.

Come with me if you want.

Where?

I have to find some food and go back to the Bronx.

What will I do?

Whatever you want.

What will your woman say?

She’s her own woman.

What will she say?

She’ll say hello, and welcome you.

He kissed me softly on the cheek and pulled away from me. I felt him come right out of me. And not just physically. I felt it right in my heart too. And I felt like I had lost something. But not something silly, like my keys or my gum. More like my arm or my foot or something, something that really mattered. Like something that I could live without, but would make life much harder if it were missing. And life is hard enough. Life is hard enough with everything we’re given. With what I used to think God gave us, before I knew the truth. Before I realized that all that Bible nonsense is just silly. That Bibles are just books, like any book is just a book. Except maybe Bibles are more boring and more ridiculous and harder to read. And even though they say all sorts of things, and make all sorts of promises, they’re full of lies, or lies if you’re foolish enough to believe they contain something real. I know that God doesn’t give us anything in life. So God can’t take anything away. But a real person can give, and can take away. And when Ben was no longer inside of me, I felt something was gone. Something that was more than anything I’d ever known. Something greater than a made-up God in an old dusty book.

He stood and I watched him get dressed. I felt sorry for him in his raggedy clothes. I wanted to get him some new clothes. Not that I could get him anything fancy, but I could get a discount on some clothes at the store where I worked. Simple clothes for a regular person. And I noticed his scars for the first time. Long thick scars over his whole body. They were really scary. Like someone had taken a white marker and drawn lines everywhere. Except I knew they weren’t from a marker or anything. He had been really hurt. And I tried to imagine what it must have felt like to be hurt like that. And I could imagine it. That really truly awful terrible pain. The kind that can only be felt alone, and that no one can help you with. I really could imagine it.

As he was putting his shirt on, he smiled at me. I knew if he left I would never see him again. I didn’t want that. I couldn’t even think of it. Of not having the feeling of being with him, or even near him again. So I spoke up. For the first time in my life. A life spent not talking and hiding and being scared and alone.

He changed me away from it, and I spoke up.

I want to come with you.

He smiled.

Okay.

Really?

Yes.

No lie?

He smiled again.

No lie.

I stood up, and even though I look the way I do, I wasn’t even embarrassed. I started getting dressed right away.

What should I bring?

You don’t need anything.

Clothes?

He laughed.

What you’re wearing.

Money?

Doesn’t matter.

It will take me just a minute to get packed.

You don’t need those things.

Will I be back?

If you choose.

You sure I don’t need anything?

We don’t need most of what we have.

I smiled, and pulled on my pants and put on my jacket. He smiled at me while I got dressed, and his eyes stayed on my body, and he made me feel beautiful, which is something I had never felt, not once, in my entire life. Once I was ready, I grabbed my wallet and we left.

It was a crappy day. Cold and really rainy. It was the kind of rain that hurts your skin when it hits it. It felt like little needles. Ben didn’t have a good coat. His was an old brown sport coat like a librarian would wear. It was really funny. And I don’t think it kept him warm or dry. He didn’t seem to mind, though. The rain hit him and he smiled. We walked along the street and he smiled. Everywhere we walked, he just smiled. He didn’t talk at all. Sometimes he would take my hand. Like when there was a big crowd, or the cars were blocking the crosswalk. And sometimes I would get out of breath or have to slow down. He never seemed to even care. He would slow down and make sure I was okay. He was so nice and kind and gentle. It seemed like that was all that mattered to him. And it made all of the terrible things that had tortured me my whole entire life just go away. Kindness and love can make any pain go away. It’s true. I know it.

After we walked a long time, Ben cut off the street and we went into the subway. I had never been in it before. I had always been scared to go under the ground. I thought I’d get mugged or bit by a rat or fall in front of a train. Or maybe I would just get lost and never find my way out. Or maybe people would point at me and make fun of me. I was just scared. Really scared. But Ben took my hand and we walked right down, and we waited for one of the exit doors to open and then we walked right through it. And we walked right to the platform and waited. I could feel people staring at us, but I realized they weren’t staring at me. They were staring at Ben. Nobody was talking. And they weren’t looking at their phones or little email machines or newspapers or the floor or even each other. They were looking at him. All of them, just silent and staring at him.

The subway train pulled up and we stepped on. There were empty seats and we sat down. I had no idea where we were going, and Ben and me hadn’t said a word to each other since we’d left the hotel. There were a few other people in the car, and a few more got on with us. Everybody was sitting down. Ben closed his eyes and smiled and started breathing very deeply and slowly. It wasn’t dramatic or anything, like some actress trying to calm down after being hysterical. It was just simple and pure. Just a man breathing. And people were staring at him again. Like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Like their lives were all so busy that they had forgotten what a still silent man looked like. And as he breathed they all seemed to calm down. As if he were giving them what he had, or what he was feeling. Some of them closed their eyes and started breathing just like him. Some just smiled and stared at him. A few stood up and walked towards us to be closer to him. And at every stop more people got on the car. And whatever he was doing, he would do to every one of them. And even though it was roaring down the tracks at some crazy speed, that car was the most quiet and simple and beautiful and peaceful place in the world.

We stayed on the car for thirty or forty minutes. Nobody got off at a single stop. It got really crowded, but didn’t feel that way. People were just breathing and smiling and being happy. I had never seen so many different kinds of people, black people and white people and brown people and all different kinds, smashed together in one place without looking suspiciously at each other or avoiding each other. Without hating each other, or at least not liking each other at all. And it was just because of him, because of the way he sat and he breathed and smiled. Because he just looked like love, like peace, like he was content with things, even though he was dressed like a bum. As the car started to slow down before one of the stops, I felt Ben’s hand on my leg. I looked at him and he smiled and motioned towards the door. When the car stopped, we stood and walked off. Everybody watched him go, and no one moved. They just stared at him and kept breathing. And as we were walking away, I looked back at the car. People were standing at the doors and the windows, staring. Watching Ben and me walk away. They were all smiling.

We came out of the subway into another part of the city. It was not very nice. I could hear sirens and cars honking and loud rap music and people yelling, mostly in Spanish. It smelled like meat was cooking. There were people everywhere on the streets, and none of them were white. The buildings were all big and rundown and looked the same. There was trash in the streets. Ben seemed the same as he was everywhere. Comfortable and calm. Like he wasn’t scared at all. I was scared, though. Really scared. There were no black people in the town where I lived. Once or twice a week I might see a black person in the store where I worked. When people talked about them, it was mostly because they were on TV or on a sports team or something, or because they had seen them in the city being loud and were scared of them. I was scared of them, for sure. Me and Ben were the only white people I saw. It was like I was one of them where I’m from. It didn’t feel nice.

We walked towards a group of big brown buildings. I guessed it was some kind of housing project. It looked dangerous to me. Nobody stared at us or even paid attention to us. Ben just walked along. And he didn’t look so poor anymore. Lots of the people we saw were wearing old clothes that weren’t so nice. Lots of the people looked poor. He just looked like one of them. Or like a white version of one of them. A beautiful scarred white version. But he was obviously still poor. And poor people are poor people, regardless of the color of their skin.

As we crossed the street and stepped onto the curb in front of the buildings, a large black man came walking up to Ben. I thought we were dead, for sure, and I wished I had a whistle or some mace or something. I thought about running, but knew I wouldn’t get very far. Ben just kept walking and said hello to the man and the man said hello back. They hugged, and the man started whispering in Ben’s ear. I was relieved, for sure, but something seemed wrong. Ben nodded as the man talked. The man looked real worried, and I could see his eyes looking around as he whispered. When he finished, Ben hugged him again and turned to me.

We need to go.

Why?

It’s not safe here.

I know that.

Not for the reasons you think.

I could tell this was a dangerous place.

It’s a poor place.

Yes.

Poor people are desperate, not dangerous.

Let’s leave.

My friend is going to take us somewhere safe.

I’m scared of him.

You’re scared of the color of his skin, not him.

That’s not true.

Yes, it is.

He took my hand and nodded to the man and we started to walk away from the buildings. We were following the man and we were walking fast and I was still scared, but not as much. What Ben said hurt me, but mostly because it was true. I was extra scared because the man was black, and black people scared me. I knew it was wrong, but it was also just what I felt. I’m sure if he was walking around where I lived, he might be scared too.

We went around the corner, and the man opened the doors of a big SUV. We got inside and he started driving us away, but not too fast. As we came around another corner, I saw a group of policemen standing near their cars. All of their lights were flashing. Standing with them was another group of men in blue suits, and some had bulletproof vests. They all looked very serious, and they looked really mean. They were holding photocopies of a picture. I couldn’t really see it very good, but I knew who it was. I knew that they were looking for Ben. He watched them as we drove past. He didn’t look nervous or scared or anything. He just looked at them like he looked at everyone else, like he was best friends with them or something. I couldn’t imagine looking like that at people with guns who were hunting me. But he did. He looked at them like he loved them with his whole heart, even though they wanted to get him.

We drove for a few blocks until we reached another set of big buildings. They looked exactly like the other ones. If I had been shown pictures of them, I would have thought they were all the same. The man parked the car, and we got out and started walking. We went into one of the buildings. It was dirty. There was trash in the entrance. A man was sleeping on the ground right outside the door. He was snoring and his pants were dirty. We waited for the elevator. I could hear it creaking on the wires. The big man who drove us was still standing with us. He and Ben weren’t even talking. The elevator arrived and the door opened. We got inside and went up. It stopped at the seventh floor. The man got out first and Ben smiled at me and motioned for me to follow him and I did it. I stepped right out and followed him. And I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. I was with a black man who looked like a killer and a homeless man who ate garbage. And I wasn’t scared. I was just walking along with them like we were going to the mall to get some new pants or a computer game or something. What Ben had said before was right. I was scared of that man’s color. What matters is what’s in a man’s heart.

We walked to the end of the hall and the man took out some keys and opened a door. He held the door for me and Ben and we went inside. It was a small apartment. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it wasn’t bad. There were five or six people sitting at a table, listening to a police scanner. They were all black. They were drinking water and eating fruit. They looked right at us. I didn’t know what to say. A young girl, a really really pretty girl, with long curly hair and beautiful caramel skin, stood up and laughed and walked over to Ben. She started talking.

You know the trouble you cause?

He smiled and kissed her.

I’m happy to see you.

They kept kissing and talking.

They got an army out there trying to find you.

Michael got us first.

You lucky.

I know.

They catch you they taking you away.

I know.

I don’t want that.

Neither do I.

We can’t go back.

We’ll find somewhere else.

We gotta leave everything behind.

That doesn’t matter to me.

He put his arms around her and hugged her and kissed her neck and her cheek and her lips again. And even though he seemed to love everyone, and make everyone feel loved, I could tell he loved her differently. Like he knew that no matter what he did or where he went he would always come back to her, and she knew the same thing. It was real sweet the way they held each other and kissed each other, really the sweetest thing I’d ever seen, including all the sappy stuff on TV and in the movies. There were no barriers between them. Like they accepted each other completely, and loved each other truly. I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be between everyone. Love without conditions, love for the sake of love, love even though we’re different. But it’s never actually like that. Most of the time love is closer to something like hate. But with them it was beautiful.

They separated and the girl looked over at me. Ben introduced us and the girl, Mariaangeles, smiled and said hello. The people over at the table, an older woman who was fat like me, and a younger woman, and three men, including the one who had brought us here, were all still listening to the police scanner. One of the men looked over and smiled and said they’re leaving, motherfuckers are leaving, and everyone started laughing. Ben smiled and walked over to the woman and kissed her on the cheek and said thank you. I asked Mariaangeles what had happened, and she said the woman monitored the scanner for some people in the projects and let them know when the police were coming. She had heard they were coming for a white man in his early thirties, with dark hair, who was heavily scarred. The only person who fit the description was Ben. She said Ben was known in the area because he was the only white person living there, and because he helped people, and gave them food and money. She said some people believed he could make sick children well and make drug addicts and alcoholics stop taking drugs and drinking. That people called him the Prophet, and believed he was a holy man, and they loved him and watched out for him. So the lookouts, who were normally there for other reasons, which I didn’t ask about, had come to their apartment and brought her away, and watched for Ben to make sure he didn’t get caught. I asked why the police and FBI were looking for Ben, and she said because he skipped bail after he got arrested for living in the subway tunnels. I asked if that was really something they would need all those guns for, and she said it was because Ben was living there with a black man who had a bunch of guns. I asked her where they would go now, and she said they’d figure something out, that there were people who would help take care of them, people who loved Ben, and they would give them somewhere to live.

I looked over at Ben, who was sitting with the people at the table. They were all speaking Spanish, which he seemed to speak just like them. The word policia kept being used and they were laughing a lot. Watching them, they looked like a family, a really really happy family. I was a little bit jealous, because they looked like the family I had always wished my family was, smiling and joking and being nice to each other. It didn’t even matter that they all looked different from me. I wanted to be one of them. I had been living alone for a long time, and I had my parents’ whole house and whole farm all to myself. It was not a happy place and never had been. It hadn’t been awful or violent or scary, it was just empty. An empty house and empty fields. And I was empty. And I was tired of it. Tired of being sad and alone. I wanted to know what it was like to smile there and be happy there and to know love there. I wanted to hear someone laughing in my house. I couldn’t remember ever having heard it, unless it was me laughing at a TV show that I was watching alone while I ate dinner or something. I wanted to come home from my job, which really stunk, just standing checking people out at a superstore all day, and feel like there was something or someone at home waiting for me. Who might even be happy or excited to see me.

Mariaangeles came out of a bedroom with a little girl. A beautiful little girl who looked just like her, though she sure seemed young to have a child. The girl ran over to Ben and gave him a hug and sat on his lap. Everyone was still talking in Spanish. I didn’t know what they were saying at all, but I imagined they were talking about where they were going to go and what they were going to do. I sat down at the end of the table, in the only empty chair. I felt happy to sit down and be part of the table. And I had an idea. It was a great idea, I thought. A wonderful, really fun idea. I raised my hand, but nobody noticed, so I raised it a little higher, and waved it a little. Ben looked over at me.

You don’t have to raise your hand.

I don’t speak Spanish, so I wasn’t sure about the rules.

There are no rules.

I didn’t want to be rude.

You’re not.

I have an idea.

About what?

About where to go.

We’re okay here.

But those men, they’re going to come back.

Yes.

And they’ll keep coming back until they get you.

Probably.

I have a farm. It’s upstate. There’s a big house and land, and it’s just me. I live there all by myself.

It’s not just me.

Whoever you want could come. I’d like it a lot.

They might come for me there as well.

Oh man, if you think you have a good system here, we could really have one there. Our nearest neighbor is a mile away. We’d know for sure if someone was coming.

He smiled.

You’re sure you want us.

I smiled.

Yes. I’d love it. It would be so fun.

And the yard would be awesome for the little girl. We could get her a wagon or a bike or something.

Her name is Mercedes.

I smiled at her.

Hi, Mercedes.

She smiled at me. He tickled her.

You want to move somewhere with a yard?

She laughed.

Yes.

He looked at Mariaangeles, smiled.

She smiled at him.

She seems okay to me.

He breathed through his nose and nodded.

She is.

I ain’t ever lived anywhere but here. Be nice to get out.

Yes.

She looked at me.

You sure?

I nodded.

Yes.

She smiled.

Let’s go.

I smiled.

No way.

You asked for it, white girl, you got it. I hope you know what you in for.

I laughed and she laughed and I stood up and hugged her and she hugged me. The man who drove us asked when we wanted to leave and Ben smiled and said let’s go now. The man stood and said cool with me and the old woman gave all of us hugs. One of the other women asked Mariaangeles when she’d be back and Mariaangeles said if she was lucky, never. We took the elevator back down from the seventh floor and we left.

I didn’t even go back to the hotel and get my stuff. The man put my address into the computer in his car, and off we went. The drive was real easy. And it was fun too. We listened to the radio and sang along with some of the songs whenever we knew the words. Ben could sing beautifully if he wanted to, like an opera singer or something, but mostly he just sang for laughs. He’d make faces and do little disco dances and pretend to be crying during the love songs. He’d take Mercedes’ hands and make her laugh and laugh over and over again. During a duet, he and Mariaangeles took the separate parts and sang to each other. We stopped a couple of times for food and bathroom breaks and stuff, but Ben didn’t really eat anything. He would drink water and stand outside, staring up at the sky. I asked one time if he was looking at God or talking to God or something, and he just laughed and said no, he just liked looking at the stars and that he couldn’t see them in the city. I looked up, and the stars were just coming out, and I have to say, they were pretty cool.

The drive took five hours. When we arrived, the house was dark and there were no lights. Mariaangeles said she’d never been out of the city before and Mercedes started crying. Ben held her and whispered in her ear and she stopped right away. The house was big and white and old. It had six bedrooms and four bathrooms and was sort of falling apart a little bit. There was a barn and the fields were overrun with weeds and little baby trees. When we pulled up right in front of the house, Ben got out and smiled and looked up at the sky again. I went right inside and turned on the lights. Mariaangeles brought Mercedes in and I told them to take whatever rooms they wanted, and the man who drove came in and I made him some food I had in the fridge. Ben stayed outside. I got a little worried and looked out the window and saw him walking into one of the fields. The moon was only out a little bit, and before I could go out to him he disappeared.

I waited up for him and watched TV. There are so many good shows on late at night. He never came back, though, and I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up the next morning, I could hear Ben standing near the front door with the man, and I heard him say:

It could be tomorrow, or it could be in five years, but there’s no stopping it. Protect the good around you. Love the good you know. Keep them safe.

How do I know who’s good?

You know.

I can’t tell the way you can.

We all know good and bad in our hearts. We can see and feel it. Trust yourself.

You sure you gonna be okay up here?

Yes.

What if they come for you?

Then they come.

They gonna lock your ass away if they get you.

They won’t get me unless I let them.

You gonna?

Live your life. Love your children. Don’t believe what you’re told. Forget the lies of religion and government. And don’t worry about me.

You need money?

No.

Anything?

No, thank you.

Get in touch if you do.

Go, my friend.

Ben hugged the man, and the man turned and got in his truck and pulled out. Ben came inside and smiled at me and kissed me. He asked how I was and I said great and he said thank you again for having us here, it’s a beautiful place, a perfect place. I said sure and he hugged me and it felt great. When he let go of me, I missed him right away, even though he was right there. He asked what I was going to do for the day and I told him I had to go to work. He asked if I minded if he did some work around the house and I laughed and told him to do whatever he wanted. He smiled and said thank you, and walked away. I got dressed and went to work. The store I worked in was the biggest store ever, the size of a whole bunch of football fields. It sold everything you could ever imagine, though the most popular things were steaks, beer, and guns. I just rang things up all day. I sat on a little stool when I could, but mostly I was standing up, which isn’t easy for someone like me. On my breaks, I went to the break room and ate. I had a couple of people I talked to at work, but mostly I didn’t talk to anyone. I sat by myself and watched TV. On the first day with Ben and Mariaangeles and Mercedes, I could hardly sit at all. And I didn’t mind being alone. I kept wondering what they were doing, or thinking about them walking around the house and the yard. I always tried to be cheerful with customers, but I was extra cheerful. And it didn’t even bother me when they ignored me.

When I came home, I couldn’t even believe it. The whole house was clean. Really really clean. Everything had been wiped down and the floors were all mopped. Even the kitchen was clean and the fridge was scrubbed. The yard, which I only had done three times a year, was totally cut. We had a push mower, so I knew it must have been hard work. I started looking around the house for everyone. I found Mercedes in her room, playing with a doll. I don’t know where they’d found it, but it was one of mine from when I was a little girl. It was cheap but pretty cute, with a little pink dress and plastic hair, and I hadn’t seen it in years and years. I went in and started playing with her. And she wanted to play with me. And it was awesome. Just playing with this little girl. Who didn’t look at me and think bad things about me and wasn’t scared of me. She was just happy. We played dance and nurse and singer. We played going to the grocery store and ice cream summer day. And the rest of the world disappeared. The rest of the world didn’t even matter. I felt like I felt with Ben. Like what was important was right now, not sometime in the past or sometime in the future. It felt like life was what it is supposed to be.

We played for a long time, and near the end I heard some noise down the hall. I hadn’t seen or heard Ben or Mariaangeles, but figured they must be around somewhere in the house. I stood up and told Mercedes I would be right back and went down the hall. The noises were closer. They were clearly hanky panky noises. They made me nervous and scared, but also pretty excited. The door was sort of open and I peeked around the edge. Mariaangeles was on top of him and she was really moving her hips. It looked like she was dancing or something. Ben was watching her, and smiling, and his hands were moving up and down on her body. I started to move away but Ben saw me. He smiled wider and motioned for me to come into the room, but I was too embarrassed and ran back down the hall and went back in with Mercedes. I kept hearing the noises for another half an hour or so. I had always thought of sex as dirty or bad. Something you weren’t supposed to be open about with other people. Something that was against the rules of the church and God and that laws were made against. But they sounded happy. And when Ben was inside me, it was the best feeling I had ever had in my whole life. I had been in churches with my parents many times. And I had never felt anything in them. It was just boring. And it seemed old and silly. But when I felt that feeling with Ben, when I saw the light, and saw forever, and felt them, that was God.

When the noises stopped, Ben and Mariaangeles came into the room. Mercedes was really happy to see them, and we all went and had dinner together. I wasn’t sure how to act after what I had seen, but they just acted the way they always seemed to act, which was really happy. Dinner was great, my favorite, macaroni and cheese. After dinner, Mariaangeles took Mercedes upstairs to give her a bath and put her to bed. Ben smiled and walked over and kissed me. It was a long kiss. A real French kiss. I wasn’t sure what to do so I just did it back. And it kept going. We kept going. Kissing like teenagers or something. And he pulled me out of my chair and started taking off my clothes. Thinking back, I can’t even believe it, but at the time I couldn’t think at all. I was just feeling so awesome. He took off my clothes right there in the dining room. And we went down on the floor. And he started going over my whole body. He was using his hands and his mouth and his tongue. Everywhere on me and in me. And I just closed my eyes and let him do whatever he wanted. It was wonderful. Like the best thing ever. He was whispering while he did it. And I tried to listen but it took me away from what he was doing to me. But what I could hear was about God. That this was God. That what I was feeling was God. That God in books could never make me feel like this. That I would never feel this way if it wasn’t right, if it wasn’t natural, if it wasn’t part of God, the true God.

As he was doing all those things to me, I heard Mariaangeles come into the room and laugh. I opened my eyes and I was really embarrassed. Ben was the only person except for my parents who had ever seen me naked. I started to get up but she shook her head and smiled and kneeled next to me and put her hands on my shoulders and held me down and started kissing me. Something in me said it was wrong, but it wasn’t. It felt as good as it did with Ben. And I did it back to her. Even though I had always been taught that being gay or doing gay sex things was against God’s way, it didn’t feel that way. God doesn’t care if a man kisses a man, or a woman kisses a woman, or a woman and man kiss. God doesn’t care at all. It’s just love. Kissing or touching of any kind is just an expression of love, and it doesn’t matter who is doing it. Anybody who says God believes something else doesn’t know what they’re talking about at all.

We were together for the rest of the night. On the floor in the dining room and then upstairs in my bedroom and then in the bathtub. What a night it was. My oh my, I saw God over and over, and I saw eternity, and I felt complete peace and understanding, and I felt loved, boy, did I feel loved, more loved than just about anybody on the whole earth that day, I think. When it was over, we all fell asleep together, right in the same bed. Ben was in the middle, and me and Mariaangeles were on either side of him. I slept really great and didn’t even have any bad dreams. When I woke up in the morning, Ben was gone. Mariaangeles was still sleeping, but Ben was gone.

I got up and went to work, same as I did every day. When I came home, more projects had been done, like there was some wood stacked up and the barn was being cleaned out. Ben and Mariaangeles and me and Mercedes all had dinner together, and Mariaangeles put Mercedes to sleep. When she was done, we all went to my bedroom and did the same thing we had done the night before. We touched each other and we kissed each other and we licked each other. And we made each other feel wonderful. And we loved each other. That was what it was all about. What life is about. Loving each other. A man who was Jewish who could talk to God and a black Dominican girl from the Bronx and a fat white cashier from the middle of nowhere. We didn’t care about color or religion or money or what kind of school we’d gone to or what kinds of jobs we had had or what our families were like or even what our bodies looked like. We didn’t care that we weren’t married. Or that we were sinners. Or that some people would even say we were damned to Hell. We just loved each other. For what we were. Which is how it’s supposed to be. True love isn’t about anything other than how it makes you feel. And if it makes you feel good, keep doing it, regardless of how other people may think of it or feel.

We fell into a routine. I would go to my job. Ben and Mariaangeles would work around the farm. We would have dinner together and go to bed. He was never there when I woke up. I asked one day where he went at night all alone. He said sometimes he went into the woods or the barn and had seizures, and sometimes he laid in the grass and stared at the stars, and he said sometimes he walked to town, which was three miles away, and went looking for things other people had thrown away, like food and clothes and stuff. I told him he was being silly and that he didn’t need to do that anymore because I could buy everything we needed at the store with my employee discount. He said he didn’t want bought things. That buying things just fed the system that was destroying the world. I asked him if he really thought the world was being destroyed and he smiled and said yes, it is, and it will be final soon. I asked him if he was mad that I worked at the store and he laughed and said of course not. He kissed me on the cheek and said that it wasn’t his place or anyone else’s to tell me how to live. I told him I wouldn’t mind quitting my job and he said I should do what I wanted to do, that my life was my own, and when it was over, it was over, and that I should do and see and try and feel and experience everything I could and everything I wanted to. I told him I didn’t know what I wanted, and he smiled again and said yes, you do, we all do, we just need to be honest with ourselves about it, and stop being scared of it. Fear, he said, ran all of our lives. Fear, he said, after religion, was the most destructive force in the world.

Other people also started coming to the house. At first it was just one or two a week. I don’t know how they knew Ben or how they knew where he was. They would be there when I came home, or they would knock on the door. They all seemed crazy or sad or sick or on drugs. Ben would walk with them. He would go walking into the fields where my daddy used to farm. The fields were overgrown and scary. Even though I knew better, and I was grown up, I was always sure there was something evil in them, like a monster or something. Ben would walk in there with people, and sometimes they would come back in five minutes and sometimes they would come back in five hours, but the people were always better. I didn’t really know what to think about it. Something was going on out there, but it was hard to really think about it for real. Miracles were something people talked about, and I would read about in the newspaper, and people would pray really super hard for, but they never really seemed to happen, or if they did it was like one in a billion times. But people kept praying for them, millions of people did it, every single day they did it. Some of them were going to get lucky. And that was really all it was for them, and for their praying for miracles, just dumb luck. Something good is bound to happen like one in a billion times. Really most of the people who prayed for miracles were just wasting their time. It was silly. They begged and pleaded for some kind of help that never came. They should have spent the time having fun or something. Especially if it was for health reasons. They could at least have some kind of fun before they died instead of praying. And when these not really real miracles did happen, there wasn’t really any reason for them. Like the people involved couldn’t say what had happened or why it had happened. Not for real, at least. But with Ben it was different. Sick people would walk into the fields with him, and they would walk out healthy. Drug addicts would walk in with him and come out without wanting drugs anymore. People on crutches would come out running. I saw a couple of people with sunglasses and white canes come out smiling and blinking. A man in a wheelchair skipped across the lawn. It was crazy. And beautiful. It was miracles for real. Not praying to some thing that wasn’t even there and couldn’t even listen. Not praying for some promise in a book that never made any of its promises come true. But having someone actually do something that changed someone. Knowing that because you met this one person, and he did something, that your life was totally different and totally better. That was a miracle. And Ben could make miracles happen. He could make prayers, which really are pretty useless considering how many there are and how little they actually do, he could make prayers actually come true. I don’t know how he did it, except to say that he was the Messiah, and he had the same powers that that Jesus Christ man had, if that man was even real. He could make miracles. I’ve never heard of anyone else who could do it. But he could, for real. And it wasn’t like it was easy or just some little thing. After he did it, he would always come out looking worse than when he went in. Like whatever he did took something from him. Like he was giving something of himself to the people so they could be better. Sometimes he didn’t come back at all. The people would say he’d told them he was going to have a seizure and they should leave him. Or he’d walk out of the field and just have the seizure right in the yard. They were really terrible scary ones. He’d shake and grunt and spit and stuff would come out of his mouth. I’d get really worried and want to go help him, but I knew he wouldn’t want that, so I’d usually just bite my nails on the porch. Once I asked why he did it, gave people the miracles. He said he did it because he loved them, and that miracles aren’t done, miracles are given. And that anyone could do it. If people were willing to love enough, and to give enough, that anyone could change someone’s life. And that that was the easy way to describe God on earth. People changing other people’s lives. Not some heavenly being, or some made-up superhero, but people changing other people’s lives.

After they were done with Ben in the fields, most of the people would leave. Some of them, though, would stay with us. It was pretty funny. They weren’t like normal people. Or at least that’s what I thought at first. They were men who dressed up like ladies, and ladies who looked like men, and they were people who were gay and people who liked men and women. They were homeless people who were on drugs, and they were black people and Hispanic people and Asian people and Arab people and people who were so mixed up I didn’t know what they were. There were women who had definitely done some dirty things, and maybe even sold themselves for money. There were men who were the same way, even. There were criminals and drug dealers and beggars and people who had nowhere else to go. If I had seen these people on the street, I would have definitely been scared of them. If I had seen them in my town, I would have hoped the police were somewhere really close. All the God-fearing, church-going people I knew would have said they were damned to Hell for being sinners. They would have said these people were going to Hell for sure. But when they were in my house I loved them. And I loved them because I saw Ben loved them. I saw him hug them and kiss them. I saw them cry in his arms. I saw him spend hours listening to them and talking to them and laughing with them. I saw him heal them and change them. I saw him treat them like they were real people, which almost all of them said hadn’t been done in a really long time. I saw Ben have sex with them, and all of them wanted to have sex with him, and he with all of them, and saw him marry them. Some of them came to the farm together and were in love or fell in love while they were with us. Men and men and women and women and men and women, every combination you could imagine, gay ones and straight ones. Ben told them that marriage wasn’t about a man and a woman being together, it was about people in love being together. And he said that laws and restrictions against love and marriage, regardless of who was in the marriage and who they loved, weren’t the way of God. God didn’t care about those things. God was beyond those things. Marriage is a human issue, and all humans should be allowed to participate in it, regardless of how they love. And I followed his example. I talked and laughed and listened and hugged and kissed and had sex. I went to the weddings and cried and cheered, I was so happy for everyone, and I danced after, danced until my legs and feet hurt like crazy. I didn’t think about anything except that I was loving people. That that was what mattered. That we were all human beings and we were loving other human beings. And that’s God. Not some silly man with a beard wearing a robe, sitting in a gold chair in the clouds. Not some angry man who knows everything and says what is right and wrong. Not some old man in Italy talking nonsense, or some crazy man in the American South judging everyone. Not some man in Pakistan who thinks he has the right to kill, or some man in Israel who thinks he has the right to oppress. God is not a person or a man or even a being of any kind. God is loving other human beings. God is treating everyone you meet as if you love them. God is forgetting we’re all different and loving each other as if we’re all the same. God is what you feel when there’s love in your heart. It’s an awesome feeling. And it’s the real God. The only real God.

People kept coming. And some who seemed to know Ben from before. A lady doctor from the city who said she had treated Ben in the hospital. A man who used to be his boss when he was working at a construction site. A sweet gay boy who was as pretty as any girl and who used to live with Ben’s brother and who loved Ben and who Ben loved, and they kissed a lot and spent a lot of time in bed. An FBI agent who hugged Ben and cried and said thank you over and over again. Some people would stay for a day or two days, some would come and go, and some never left. Pretty soon people filled up all the bedrooms, and the attic, and the basement, and the living room, and the TV room. They were everywhere, really. And then they started sleeping outside. In the barn and in tents. Over the course of a couple of months, we went from the four of us to thirty or forty people, all living on my farm, and even more kept coming. I couldn’t believe it. It was super fun. The house had never been cleaner. We started growing vegetables. And some of the people brought money and I’d buy things like food and blankets and fruit with my store discount. All day people would do jobs. Some would clean or make dinner or plant food in the garden. People would take care of Mercedes. People would go into town at night and go through dumpsters. And at night we would all sit around the front yard and Ben would talk to us. I wouldn’t say it was preaching. Preachers are always trying to convince you they’re right. Preachers are always trying to make you believe what they believe. Preachers are always trying to tell you if you don’t listen to them you’re going to pay some price. Ben didn’t care if we believed. He said everybody should have the right to believe whatever they wanted. He didn’t need to convince anybody. All anybody had to do to be convinced by Ben was look at him. When you saw him, you knew he was different from the rest of us. You knew he was special, or even something really beyond special. He was divine. He was what people prayed for and begged for and spent their whole lives worshipping. He was the real Prophet. He was the real Son of God. He was the real Jesus Christ born again. He was the real Messiah. He was everything all of the crazy religious people all over the world had been praying for and waiting for for all of these thousands of years. He was God. He was God.

And even though he told us all, every single one of us, that we didn’t have to believe what he said, we did believe it, we believed everything he said, even when it was kooky. I remember the first night it happened. The sky was clear and there was no moon and it was warm. There were millions and billions of stars out, so many I couldn’t even begin to count or guess how many there were. Ben had been in the house, having a seizure. Everyone knew to leave him alone when that was happening. Even if it had been happening in the kitchen or where we could see him, he told us all to leave him alone. He was having this seizure in the living room that night, right on our old carpet. He had been talking during it, talking in some weird language that sounded really old and scary and serious. Everyone had left the house and gone out to the lawn. We were just sitting on the grass, looking up and not saying anything because it was so beautiful we couldn’t even believe it. It was when there were only eight or nine of us at the house. Me and Mariaangeles and Mercedes sleeping in her arms, and a gay man and two transvestites and a woman who had been a crack smoker when she came but wasn’t anymore, and maybe someone else. Ben walked out and sat down with us. He took the crack lady’s hand because she was having a really hard time being off her drugs. He kissed her on the head, and she smiled. One of the men asked him if he was okay, and he said yes. He asked if he knew he was talking when he was having his seizure, and Ben said yes. The man asked if he knew what he was saying, and Ben said yes, I was speaking to God. Everyone was quiet for a couple of seconds. Like they couldn’t believe it, or maybe like they could believe it and did believe it but it was awesome and there was nothing to say. Me and Mariaangeles both knew already. The others looked at each other and one of the men smiled and said I told you, that’s what I heard, that’s why we’re here. The other man asked Ben what God said to him, and Ben smiled and said God wanted to tell you hello, and to make sure you know you are welcome to stay here for as long as you like.

We all laughed. Ben laid down on the ground so he could stare up at the stars and brought the woman down with him and held her in his arms. It was really super sweet. She had been shaking before, her hands and her whole body and even her lips had been twitching and shaking. Ben just held her and ran his hand through her hair over and over and she got really calm and peaceful. We all laid down on the ground like him, like we wanted to see whatever it was he was looking at, and because he looked real comfortable. And Ben just looked up at the stars, and so did everyone else, and they went on forever and ever and ever. Nobody said anything for a long time. We just stared. And I saw stars that twinkled, and stars that looked like they moved, and really bright stars and stars that I could barely even see at all. I tried to count them, but there were too many, so I tried to count them in just one little square in the sky, but there were too many to do even that. Eventually I just got lost in them. I wasn’t even thinking about anything. I was just staring at the wonder of the sky and stuff. And everyone else was the same way. We were lost, and when we had all forgotten he was going to, Ben spoke.

God isn’t what you think, or imagine, or have been taught to believe. Much of what you have been taught to believe about everything in this world is wrong, but so much of it is tied to notions of God that it’s easiest to start there first. We are animals. We were not created in the image of anyone or anything. We are a biological accident, and we are what we are now because of a long process of natural selection, and occasional spontaneous genetic abnormalities that made us stronger, and eventually became part of us. We started as single cells in swamp water, and rose from there, became fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, apes. It happened over the course of billions of years. The idea that this planet, this solar system, this galaxy, and this universe were created five thousand years ago is ridiculous. We know better. We might not have then, but we do now. And even then, when the stories were created, regardless of what culture they came from, they weren’t created because the people creating them actually believed them, they were created in order to consolidate power, and to enslave people. They were created because a few men understood that if they claimed some direct relationship with God, some unique understanding of God, and that God was a God that created all life, and judged life, and knew everything everyone did at any given moment, and if that God was a God that controlled fate, and decided who would live and when we would die, and after death granted eternal life in either Paradise or Hell, they could use that power, that supposed relationship, that supposed understanding, to make people live as they told them to live, and make them do what they wanted them to do. They could use that power to make people slaves. Religion. It’s remarkably simple. A beautiful con. The longest running fraud in human history. I know God. God created all, knows all, and is all-powerful. Do what I say God tells me you should, which also happens to make you subservient to me, or you will burn forever. The Christians are the masters of it. They have built empires with their scam, murdered, tortured, and terrorized literally billions of people. All in the name of their bearded superhero, in the name of their crucified fiction. In today’s world the Roman Catholics, American evangelists, and fundamentalist Muslims are particularly good, though all are guilty: the Jews, the Christians, the Muslims, all the leaders of all the various sects and denominations, anyone on earth who thinks there is one God with the power to know and judge all. They’re all wrong. And they are either slave masters, or they are slaves, worshipping things that don’t exist. God is not a man. God is not a reflection of man. God is not a being or a spirit or a consciousness. God does not live in some place with a staff who does God’s work. God is not a he or a she. God does not have an army of angels or a mortal enemy who was cast out of his kingdom. In terms that mean something to us, God is nothing. God plays no part in our lives. God doesn’t care about earth or about humanity. God doesn’t care about the petty dramas that mean so much to us. God doesn’t care what we say or who we fuck or what we do with our bodies or who we love or who we marry. God doesn’t care if we rest on Sundays or if we go to some building to sing songs and say prayers and chant and listen to sermons. God doesn’t care if we kill in God’s name. God doesn’t give a fuck. God does not give a fuck. Look up. There are twenty-five hundred stars visible in the night sky. Twenty-five hundred. Not that big a number. In our galaxy, our little galaxy, there are three hundred billion more that we can’t see. Three hundred billion. We don’t know how many galaxies there are because we don’t have the technology to know, if it is even possible to know. There are estimates, guesses, darts thrown at a board. Some say a hundred billion, some say five hundred billion, some a trillion. Some say the universe is infinite, which is a concept we pretend to understand, but is beyond our minds. Humans worry about eating, finding shelter, fucking. We worry about jobs and money. We worry about class and status and what other people think of us. We worry about rules imposed on us by men who know nothing. We worry about death and when it is going to find us. We can’t conceive of infinity. We can’t grasp the idea of something that has no boundaries and no end. And that’s where God is. That’s what God is. Beyond our minds. Beyond our understanding. Beyond anything we can categorize or write about or preach about or place into one of our systems of rules. God is infinite. An infinite number of galaxies, an infinite number of stars, an infinite number of planets. Look up. Try to imagine infinity. Your mind shuts down and moves back to some number you can understand, some image you can grasp. Look up. Beyond what you see, beyond what lies behind what you see, beyond what lies behind what lies behind. What stretches out forever. That’s God. All of it is God. An infinite God that we can’t understand. That does not care about our little lives. That is beyond caring about anything, anywhere in this infinite universe. Look up and see God. Look up. Look up.

And we did. We looked up at all those pretty stars, and they were there shining and blinking and maybe moving around a little, but that was probably my eyes playing tricks on me. I tried to imagine all those numbers of billions and trillions and think about things just going on forever and ever and I couldn’t do it, just like he said. My brain would come back to stars I could see and to the little sliver of moon glowing and the grass I was lying down on that was tickling my arms and the sounds of crickets playing and bugs winging real fast and a sweet little breeze moving through the trees and the other people around me breathing, just looking up and breathing.

After that we started doing it every night. It wasn’t like it was required or anything, not like school or church, nobody was going to get in trouble, but almost everybody did it. We’d have dinner and go outside and lie on the grass and Ben would talk. He’d talk about life, about what he thought of it, and how he lived it, and about our world, about how we had allowed it to be destroyed, and about how it was going to end soon. He said life was simple, we were born and we were going to die. There was nothing for us before we were born, and there would be nothing for us after we died. While we were here we had choices. While we were alive we had choices. We could choose to be and do whatever we wanted. We could choose to become part of society, and follow its rules, which were mostly designed to control us and keep us in whatever place we were born into, or we could make our own rules and live our own lives. For him, he’d say, life was about love and fucking and helping other people. Life was about feeling everything he could and experiencing everything he could. Life wasn’t about the accumulation of money and possessions, but the accumulation of friends. He’d talk about living simply. That the more complicated our lives became the more miserable we were. The more we had the more we wanted. The harder we worked the less we lived. He’d talk about patience, and say that there was nothing in life that was made better by being anxious or nervous or aggressive. He’d talk about compassion, how we should have it for ourselves and for other people and for the earth, and that if he could stop people from inflicting pain on everything around them, that the world might have a chance to survive, and that we might have a chance to survive. He said we needed to let go of the idea of death. That death was the end, very simply, and nothing more. That when death came it was blackness and silence and peace, but nothing we could experience. That our obsession with death was killing us. That our obsession with life after death, which did not exist, was destroying what we did have, which was consciousness and all of its gifts, the greatest of which was love. He said life, not death, was the great mystery we all must confront. He said it over and over again. Life, not death, was the great mystery we must confront.

When he talked about the world, it was usually about how we had destroyed it, or allowed religions and governments to destroy it, and how it was all going to end soon. He said religions and governments were never about what they claimed to be, which was helping people and making their lives worth living, but were simply instruments of greed and power and death. That none of them were worth a shit. That even the best of them were evil, and existed solely to control and exploit humanity, and control and exploit the earth’s resources. That he couldn’t, over the entire course of recorded history, find a single example of a government that didn’t exist in the name of power, that didn’t kill in its own quest for power, and that didn’t use its citizens as servants of its greed. Though he said he didn’t know how the world would end, it was obvious it would, that there were too many ways, and that one of them would happen, and it would happen soon. He said that too many people had too many weapons. That once the big weapons started flying, they wouldn’t stop. That once one crazy man pushed a button, all of the buttons would be pushed. That too many people wanted to be right. That too many people wanted to control. That too many people wanted their God to be the only God, their system to be the only system. That Democrats and Republicans, and Capitalists and Communists, and Liberals and Conservatives, and Fascists and Anarchists, and Nationalists and National Socialists, whatever they called themselves, were all the same, and that they were no different than people who worshipped God. But that instead of pretending to believe in a supernatural God, they pretended to believe in Gods called social justice, and equality, and freedom, but that their real goals were no different than the religious people, that all they were truly interested in were money, and power, and control. That between them, they would destroy the world. That they would start a war that they wouldn’t be able to stop, and that would have no winner. That the war to end everything would be coming. And that even if the war didn’t come, everything would end anyway. There were too many people. There were no more resources. The earth itself couldn’t support everything on it anymore. Soon all of its resources would be gone. And when we realized it, we would tear each other apart while we starved. And he said it was too late to try and stop it. That there was nothing anyone could do at this point. That no leader, no religious figure, no man, no woman, no nothing, could do anything about it. That we had jumped off the cliff, and that at some point soon we were going to land. And it was all going to end. And we were all going to die. And that it was best. It was the best thing that could happen. That destroying all of it, razing it, burning it to the ground, was our only chance. And that after it happened, he hoped, though he doubted it, that whoever was left would be smart enough to start again and forget all of it. And start something that revolved around the worship of love instead of the worship of God and money. God and money brought nothing but death and war. Love might bring something worth living for.

And he wasn’t angry or mean when he talked. He didn’t scream or shoot spit out of his mouth like lots of people did when they said stuff. He said it just like someone would say they were going to buy some milk or fill their car with gas. Just like it was something that was going to happen. He said we had choices about how we were going to live before it happened. We could either accept it and live as beautifully as we could before it happened, or we could not believe it and keep wasting our lives doing things and chasing things that didn’t make us happy and make us feel good. He said his choice was to love as much as possible, and give as much as possible, and feel joy and happiness and ecstasy and pleasure as much as possible. Life was hard enough, he said, without denying ourselves the things that brought us into a state of bliss. Those who thought we should deny ourselves were fools. Our bodies were built for it. We should allow them to do what they were made to do.

After he finished speaking, he would always kiss someone. He did it with Mariaangeles the most, but sometimes it would be someone else, and sometimes it would be a man, and sometimes a woman, and sometimes a man that looked like a woman, or a woman who looked like a man. He would kiss them and touch them and love them. Most of us would follow his example and start kissing and touching and loving. Some of us would go into the house or into the barn or the fields, but most of us would stay on the lawn. It didn’t matter who you were or what you looked like or what your background was or what color your skin was or if you had an accent or if you had money or no money or if you had gone to school or not gone to school or anything. Everyone loved everyone else. And everyone had sex with everyone else. And everyone came with everyone else. When we first started, it was just a few of us, but near the end there were lots of people staying all over the place and more would come or would be visiting for the day and people would be everywhere. And there was so much love. And we were all happy. And nothing else in the world mattered at all. Not one single bit.

Seven months after we all came to the farm together, after all of the space in the house and barn were taken up, and people were living in tents in the fields and the woods, and there were seventy-seven people living there, a girl came to see Ben. I was sitting on the porch when she came walking up, and I could tell something was wrong. She was young and sad and her face was bruised and her clothes were not in good shape. It was pretty normal for people like her to show up, but I could tell somehow that she was different. She asked if Ben was around, and I said he lives here but isn’t around right this minute. She asked if she could have something to drink, and I said yes, of course, silly. She sat down on the porch stairs, and I got her some water and gave it to her. I tried to be chatty with her, but I could tell she didn’t want to be chatty, and really she looked like she was going to cry in a sad way so I left her alone. An hour or two later Ben came walking out of the fields with a young couple who had been trying to have a baby but couldn’t and they were smiling and I could tell the woman had been crying in a good way and Ben put his hand on her stomach and put her husband’s hand on top of his hand and they both just looked so happy, like they knew everything was going to be fine for them. As they walked away towards their car, Ben turned towards us. The girl saw him and stood up and Ben smiled and she immediately started crying. He walked over and put his arms around her, and she just cried into his shoulder, really cried, like her whole body was shaking and sobbing. I could tell it was something really serious, so I left them alone there in front of the porch and went inside and read books to Mercedes.

Later everyone at the farm met outside for dinner. Ben seemed really happy and really sad at the same time and the girl was still there. She was sitting with Mariaangeles and they were holding hands. It wasn’t unusual for women to be holding hands, but they were holding hands really tight. We had a really awesome dinner, and afterwards, instead of talking, Ben kissed every single person at the farm. He kissed everyone really nice, and everyone different, like he could tell what kind of kiss they liked and what kind of kiss they wanted and what kind of kiss they needed. When it was my turn, he kissed me real soft on the lips but not really sexy or anything. Just really nice and soft for like ten seconds or so, and then he pulled away and whispered I love you in my ear. After he kissed everyone, he took Mariaangeles by the hand and took Mercedes, who had dinner with us lots of the time, by the other hand, and they walked into the house with each other, and the girl walked with them, right alongside of them. It was really cute. Like he was Mercedes’ dad and Mariaangeles’ husband and the girl was part of their family somehow and it was really super cute. For a minute nobody was sure what to do, but then people started kissing each other just like we did every night when Ben was with us. And then we loved each other. And the sky was clear and it seemed more clear than ever and the stars were out and they seemed brighter than ever and it was a beautiful night, a perfect night, the most awesome I had ever seen and still have ever seen. And everybody loved each other. We all loved each other in some perfect way even stronger than before, like somehow the night made us better than ever and gave us more love. It gave us everything and it was beautiful. The most beautiful thing in the world. Love.

The next morning, when I woke up, Ben was gone. The girl was gone too, and Mariaangeles didn’t come out of her room for the whole day. And when she did, she wouldn’t say where Ben had gone or who the girl was or what had happened. All I knew was that Ben was gone.