For Your Viewing Pleasure
an experimental I wrote drunk new years eve but can't ever stop thinking about
My new hairdresser’s name is Bree. Two E’s. Signifies something different than Bri with an I or Brie with an I-E, but I’m not sure I could explain it. She has such a good fake blonde I mistake it for the real thing and a southern twang I can’t place but can tell is legit: “Yeas-s-s ma’am, we’ll have you blawnder than a Cleeinton.” After my hair appointment, I go to math class and then to my third job at the comic book store where my boss tells me I shouldn’t have gone blonder because now I’ll be even dumber. But he’s bald, and by that logic I might be stupid but at least I’ve got something. I proceed to quit my third job at the comic book store.
There's a taco bar across the street from the comic book store. Vida Taco. Its logo looks like a business analyst’s and every day I walk past it and think, huh, nobody’s told them yet that their logo looks like I could walk in and be told how to strategically increase engagement on my private-personal-business-instagram account. Damn shame. Anyway, picture: God walks into the bar. No. God and Jesus walk into the bar. No. God and a thrones angel (ophanim) walk into the bar and Jesus is the bartender because of the whole ‘service unto others’ thing. (Please note: I picked thrones because it is my favorite, but any biblically accurate angel phenotype would suffice, though some will end up funnier than others.) God sits down and says to Jesus “Make me something. Make me whatever.” and Jesus shakes his head and says “I can’t drink on the job, but here’s some water to start with.”
There are layers to this joke. First, the obvious punchline refers to Jesus and God as one, via the holy trinity. The water refers to that one time Jesus turned water into wine, which if you think too deeply about it in the context of my joke just gets really confusing, so don’t do that. Then if you did use the thrones angel there instead of a substitution (which really I don’t understand what better angel you’d substitute with. Seraphim? Ok less fun ophanim. Cherubim? Ok automatic four drink tab.) it is not made explicitly clear in the bible that thrones can talk, much less drink. They have eyes all over but no mouths. Why are they even in a bar? See, I’m hilarious. It isn’t over.
So now imagine now that my hairdresser Bree walked into the bar while God and the thrones angel are sitting (and spinning, respectively) there and God’s not quick to anger but he’s a little pissed that he visited his son who is also himself at his new job and can’t even get a free drink, like what’s that about? But Bree’s scanning the room and is rightfully a little skeeved by Mr. Eyes over there, so she takes a seat to the right of God (which she only sees as a glowing orb of light) a few chairs down, which the bartender looks slightly relieved over. She’s looking over the menu and turns suddenly to God and asks “What are you drinking? Is it good? It’s my first time here.” She gives the cup a once over and goes “Oh my God is that straight vodka?”
Jesus nearly weeps. Every boat in the Atlantic sinks an inch. God says, “You’re lowkey really lucky I do that whole forgiveness thing.” He chugs the cup. “It’s water.”
I love subverting expectations. See, you thought the joke would be over two punch lines ago. You thought I’d give God the vodka because I’m the writer and I can do that and I am not still afraid of going to hell as if I haven’t secured my spot already in thousands of disgustingly and deliberately poignant ways.
The comic book store, by this point, has closed. My ex boss walks in. He worked his shift and then mine, which is sort of his fault and maybe if he searches inside himself deep down, he knows it, but no matter what he was there for too long. Everyone in the bar is in a pissy mood. My ex boss sits down next to Bree and mutters “I fucking hate blondes.”
Bree says “It isn’t real.”
My ex boss takes God’s cup and swigs, no permission. “I fucking hate fake things.”
Bree’s roots grow out six inches. God grows red; He and Jesus and the ophanim disappear. The bar shuts down, lights off. Doesn’t open until seven. It’s just my ex-boss, sitting on the sidewalk looking directly at his store, drinking a bottle of vodka in a tearing paper bag. My blonde is glowing.
It begins to thunderstorm–rain for the first time in weeks. A block away, I turn away from my bedroom mirror admiring the gold all around me to check on the herbs in our kitchen window box. I say “oh, thank God” when I realize this is what has saved them.