Oh, God! Page 4

  “It’s more than terrific. It gives you legitimacy.”

  “I thought I had that before.”

  “You didn’t. But how can you understand, Darling? You’re a non-professional.”

  Yes, she was really caught up in it. Professional that she was, she announced to me, her zealot’s eyes flashing, that it was time to call another press conference.

  Moving up in class, we scheduled it for the Overseas Press Club in New York. Judy prepared a special press kit for the occasion, a glossy cardboard folder containing the issue of The Good Earth, reprints of subsequent news stories in the press, a biographical data sheet on me, and an overall news release for the press conference, which Judy had dubbed, “An Affirmation”—words which appeared in gothic letters on the cover of the kit.

  I watched the hall filling up—lights and microphones were being set up, photographers were crouching around, newsmen I’d seen on television and who were themselves celebrities to me, were taking their places—and I was beginning to get very nervous.

  “Did we really need that press kit? Isn’t it too flashy?”

  “It’s perfect,” Judy said.

  “But it looks like we’re overselling. Couldn’t I have just made a simple statement?”

  “That’s not the way it works. They need material to work with.”

  “How much did all that cost me anyway?”

  “Nine hundred sixty dollars.”

  “Nine hundred sixty dollars?”

  “You’ll more than get it back.”

  “From God?”

  “In results.”

  Nine hundred sixty dollars. I hoped God appreciated what I was doing for Him.

  We were ready to start and it was mobbed. I introduced myself and explained that I would make a brief statement and then entertain questions from the floor.

  “Members of the press, if you find this hard to believe, well, so do I. But it did happen. I did interview God. And my only objective here is to affirm this fact. I have no other motive, profit or otherwise. To prove that, I have just learned that your press kits are costing me out of my own pocket to the tune of nine hundred sixty dollars”—at which point I laughed nervously and too loudly. There was dead silence. A hall full of people staring at me.

  “Well, it’s called ‘An Affirmation’ and that is what I would like to do. I affirm that I spoke with God. I affirm that the interview as printed in this newspaper is an accurate report of the discussion. And I further affirm that I spoke with God again since then and He was somewhat unhappy with the treatment the interview was originally given.”

  There was an immediate stir in the room. This was something new. They knew about the first conversation, or as the press liked to describe it, the alleged first conversation. Now there was an alleged second one, and the pencils and flashbulbs were flying.

  “Finally, I would like to say there is another affirmation, not mine, yours, and that of all men. The affirmation of faith in God you must make in order to believe what I have told you to be true.”

  I think that last part was a nice way to end. But there’s no such thing as weaving a mood in a room full of hungry reporters. Twenty people started shouting at once. I thought each reporter would announce himself neatly, like “So and so of the Washington Post. My question is .…” The questions came shooting up at me from all sides, reporters all over each other’s lines.

  “What did God say to you the second time?” someone shouted.

  “He reprimanded me. It seems He had hoped for a bigger coverage of the story.”

  “He said that to you?”

  “But I told Him you people made those decisions.” A little gamesmanship.

  “Where and how did this second conversation take place?”

  “The same circumstances as the first.”

  “What else was said?”

  “We talked mostly circulation figures.”

  “Circulation figures?”

  “He knows a lot about it. He knows a lot about everything, if you think about it.”

  “And He was unhappy with the coverage, you say? He used that word?”

  “Yes. He agreed to wait and see if a bigger story develops. But I guess that’s up to you.”

  “Now one minute!” An angry looking man jumped up. “Are you threatening us?”

  “No, I’m just telling what happened.”

  “And what if we think this is a prank?”

  Out of conviction, which I had, and also out of a sense of the need for a public performance, which I knew was required, I drew myself up and in my most offended and earnest manner, I said:

  “This is no prank. And I am not keeping you here, sir, if you feel you are wasting your time. But I tell you that this is the truth!”

  There was applause and someone yelled, “Right on!” It was coming from my kids, Jimmy, Ralph and Rita, but in what had to be a small turning point, there was also a scattering of applause from other people, from strangers.

  “What would a naturally skeptical man find in your story to make him believe it?”

  “Only my word and His.”

  “What documentation do you have?”

  The questions were coming from every part of the room.

  “Only my word and His.”

  “Would you consent to a psychological test for stability?”

  “I think that submitting to a test of the validity of God’s word, is probably by extension, profane, but I would do so.”

  I could just see the headlines: “GOD REPORTER” OKAYS LOONEY TEST.

  “Assuming this is true, just assuming, do you think you’re qualified for the position you’re in?”

  “No I don’t. I would have preferred someone else, especially at this moment.”

  That got a little laugh. It’s hard to resist being a performer up there, but I tried to catch myself.

  “However, I think I’m just as capable as the next person in wondering about God, and to quote Billy Graham—a little deft name dropping there—mine ‘is just one more example of Man’s deep need to know God.’ ”

  On this note, a little lady who had been sitting quietly in the back screamed, “Hallelujah! Praise Be The Lord!”

  It scared me and everyone else. Then she did it again.

  “Hallelujah! Praise Be The Lord!”

  A guard came to remove her, but the little lady wouldn’t budge and rather than make a larger scene, we went on.

  “Do you think God will reveal Himself to you again as you claim He has?”

  “I don’t speak for Him. Let me stress that. I’m just passing on what God said to me.”

  Suddenly a man shouted, “God is Glory! God is Glory!” which keyed off the “Hallelujah! Praise Be The Lord!” lady—and the two of them were shouting in tandem—“God is Glory! God is Glory!” “Hallelujah! Praise Be The Lord!”

  I said to myself, Jesus Christ! It’s a scene out of Elmer Gantry!

  The guard quieted them down and we tried to get back to business, which then turned a bit ugly.

  Someone rose and pointed his finger at me, shouting, “I submit you are a dangerous man, as the outburst a moment ago will attest. Innocent people can be aroused by your irresponsible behavior.”

  “Is that a question?” A little debating point I learned from watching Presidential news conferences.

  “The only question, sir, is your sanity!”

  He had his satisfaction and as he sat down he was greeted by some yeas and boos, which combined with a few more “Hallelujah! Praise Be The Lord’s” and a “God is Glory! God is Glory!” and the whole damn thing was falling apart.

  I hurried to make a closing statement, asking them, if nothing else, as reporters to report my contentions and finally, reaffirmed my affirmation. I rushed through it very fast, like an old Danny Kaye song, because I had just about run out of press conference. Somebody was shouting invectives at me, there were hot arguments on the floor, guards were trying to control the “Hallelujahs” and the “God is Glory
’s” and there were a few “Amens” in there by now. All I could say was “Thank you for coming” which no one heard anyway and with the room in disorder, like bad children, Judy and I fled.

  That night there was formed an “Ad Hoc Committee to Protest the Debasement of God,” made up of assorted clergymen and private citizens. They held a press conference of their own and denounced me.

  What they really accomplished was to give me more publicity. The following day The New York Times did a combined report of my press conference and their press conference—with pictures!

  It had taken a while, but God was finally Page One.

  7

  THE CONTROVERSY, IT WAS now a controversy, started to pick up momentum. Divinity students were convening in retreats to discuss it—and there were several God-ins on college campuses. The Pope wasn’t saying. Eric Sevareid said, but his discourse was so philosophical, I didn’t know where he stood. William F. Buckley called me some names I never did understand, Richard Nixon had no comment. Spiro Agnew labeled me a “Godless buffoon.” And my mother called from Florida. “Hello, dear, how are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “How’s Judy?”

  “Fine.”

  “Is she pregnant?”

  “No, mother.”

  “Everybody down here is a grandmother …”

  “Yes, mother.”

  “So what’s with your writing? Making any money? You know, you have to make money because you’re not going to have a working wife forever because wives do have babies in some families, knock on wood, I should live to see the day.”

  “Mother, have you read the papers lately?”

  “I read.”

  “Have you read anything about me?”

  “I saw. And on the TV. I was very embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?”

  “To say such things about God. That’s not nice.”

  “Not nice?”

  “For that I sent you to Hebrew School?”

  In the media world, they were keeping up the pace. There was a non-committal editorial in The Sunday New York Times about “the salutary effect of thinking of God at all in an increasingly technological society.” There were pictures of models posing in the sands of The Holy Land in Harper’s Bazaar, somehow tied in editorially with the controversy, and I couldn’t see how.

  Time magazine, which ran an all-type “Is God Dead?” cover a few years back, re-ran the cover with the word “Dead” crossed out and “Retired?” written in. The battery of God Is Dead theologians who had been out of print for a while were hauled back in to comment on my interview and their consensus was—God is dead.

  The article quoted a Los Angeles rabbi, reform, who said this was bigger than the Dead Sea Scrolls, a rather conservative statement, I thought. A professor of comparative religion at Hope College in the Midwest said “The God Controversy,” as it was becoming known, was a true test of Man’s faith, and it was fortunate that there lived in our midst a person as pure of soul as me with whom God could communicate, said statement sending old pure-soul me into waves of remorse over the dirty things I had done in my life, like sleeping with ladies before I was married.

  Offers began coming in which I chose to decline—would I give interviews about such matters as my taste in food? Clothing? Shoes? Would I lend my name to a book? The Heavenly Cookbook: Divine Recipes for the Religious Holidays. Would I come to the Pines Hotel in the Catskill Mountains to speak at their Intellectua-thon? Topics: Is Pre-Marital Sex Necessary? Is God Alive? “The Swinging Weekend for Thinking Singles.” And the television talk shows began inviting me to appear, but I felt that type of promotion, appearing alongside the latest star plugging his latest movie wouldn’t be dignified. There was a temptation, though. I saw myself sitting with Johnny Carson and when asked about my previous activities, slyly segueing into a discussion of my plays and getting a production out of the deal.

  I could have used the money, too. I computed that interviewing God had already cost me nearly $2,000 including Judy’s salary, which she insisted on, $200 a week.

  She was working, I’ll say that, servicing reporters with press kits and giving out stock answers for what were the predictable questions. The phone rang constantly, and one evening after a particularly hectic siege of phonecalls, I received a call from the Kansas City Star. I was tired and I answered with the usual line. Yes, it happened. Yes, I am a sane, responsible person. Yes, I would like everyone to accept the truth of the interview—and perhaps because I was tired I broke the rhythm to add, “I also feel deep in my heart that we should be grateful to God for reaching out to us in this time of our need.”

  When I hung up, Judy was looking at me closely.

  “That was a very touching thing you just said. You know, you’ve been awfully consistent in this. I could almost believe you.”

  Now it’s one thing to be a public personality in the eyes of the public. At least there you can close your door at night. But what if you’re public in the eyes of God? That night, when Judy and I made love, I had the oddest feeling that He was watching. And wouldn’t He then, by the very definition of being God, always watch? That’s a very creepy concept. So let’s not go into it any further.

  8

  I DIMLY REMEMBER FROM my high school Spanish textbook a story that passed for humor. A teacher asks a class, “Is God everywhere?” and the children say, “Yes, God is in the heavens, in the fields and in the houses.” One little boy insists God may be everywhere but not in his basement. It turns out God is not in his basement because he has no basement.

  We have a basement. And God was in it.

  We live in the ground floor apartment of a brownstone in Manhattan. Judy was taking a nap and I was working in my room when I noticed the desk lamp flickering. I went downstairs to check the fuse box. There, coming out of the hot-water heater, was His voice.

  “Hey, it’s me. God.”

  You know those comic strips where somebody gets so scared his hair stands on end?

  “You’re going to give me a heart attack,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” He said, which is better than Blue Cross. “I’ve got to meet you here. Outside there are too many reporters following you.”

  “I suppose. But this is very hard to grasp. How do I relate to a hot-water heater?”

  “I’ll tell you what. Go upstairs and see if your wife is sleeping.”

  I went back upstairs and saw that Judy was sleeping soundly. Then I came downstairs again. That’s when it happened. He was actually standing there. God! In person!

  How do you conceive of God? A tall man in a long white beard? A robed, sceptered presence? A flickering substance with the appearance of shape? I’m here to tell you God was a little, Jewish-looking man. He had poor posture. He was nearly bald. And He was wearing a Nehru suit.

  “You’re God?”

  “Better Satan?”

  “But you look like a little Jewish man with poor posture.”

  “Like I keep telling you, it’s for empathy. Better I should appear as somebody from your background.”

  “You’re God?” I just stared at Him, dazed. I can’t be sure of this, but the way I was staring, I think I made Him uncomfortable. He adjusted the buttons of His jacket.

  “Your clothes! That suit!”

  “I thought it looked peppy.”

  God had appeared to me! I sat down on a paint can, shaking my head with wonderment.

  “This is just too much for me.”

  “I know. And in your own basement yet. It’s some nifty miracle.”

  “And this is what you look like …”

  “This is what I look like for you. For somebody else I would look different. And I’ll tell you something, but don’t make any funny remarks. I can also be a lady.”

  It was God!

  “I can be any color, I can do any face or any voice you name. I’m a regular David Frye.”

  “I have seen God.”

  “Look, don’t get too carried away. I w
ant to have a nice discussion.”

  He pulled up a paint can for Himself and sat down. I was sitting face to face with God in front of the hot-water heater, hot-stove-league style.

  As we got close, I could tell he was wearing cologne—Canoe.

  “You’re like a person. Even down to the cologne,”

  “I thought as long as I was getting dressed up …”

  I was staring again. “Can I touch you? Would I feel you?”

  “Oy-oy-oy. No, you wouldn’t feel me, and let’s not get into a science-fiction monkey business about it. We got more important things. Like how it’s going …”

  “I think it’s going very well now.”

  “Well, the kids went back to press a few times. That’s okay.”

  “And the big press conference.”

  “Yeah, the press conference was okay. The yelling at the end I could have lived without.”

  “And we made Page One of the Times.”

  “That I would expect.”

  “And Time. A cover story in Time.”

  “I saw. So what about Newsweek?”

  “Huh?”

  “U.S. News. McCall’s. You going to stop with Time? It should be the cover of every magazine, everywhere you look. Like with Ah McGraw when she was hot.”

  “But I thought—”

  “What? God would make conversation with a person and you shouldn’t see it everywhere you look? God, who made the heavens and the earth and the doggies and the fishes?”

  “Interest is growing.”

  “And how come no Johnny Carson?”

  “That was my decision. I think I should maintain a certain dignity in this.”

  “Dignity? Listen to ipsy-pipsy him. Readership, listenership is what counts.”

  “I just figured in the long run …”

  “You could go on Flip Wilson.”

  “Flip Wilson? It’s a variety show!”

  “So? You could stand up in the audience and wave.”

  Some people have William Morris advising them in their careers, not me.

  “If you think so.”

  “I’m not telling you what to do. It’s just a suggestion.”

  Guess who was going to do Flip Wilson?