call•me•jonah

The night dragged on; a half-paralyzed dog dragging his hind legs home. The three valets borrowed three magazines to pass the time. Kim read Time, Jonah read Newsweek, and Joey left the Rolling Stone untouched.
Everything Kim read in Time, Jonah said two minutes before. Sample:

Jonah (upon hearing about a shirt that simulates hugs): Pretty soon they'll be able to make android replicas of all your friends. You won't even have to see them anymore.
Kim: It says right here look. They've created an exact robot replica of this man. And they'll soon be replacing nurse's aids with robots.
Jonah: It's a strange world we live in.


Jonah (on Iraq): It is a country based on lines drawn in the sand by the British after world war II. It can't hold together because the only reason the Iraqi's were Iraqi's was because Saddam was holding a gun to their heads.
Kim: Did you read this article already?


Jonah meanwhile was growing increasingly irritated by the blurb in Newsweek written by Sam Harris entitled A Case Against Faith. Harris doesn't so much present a case against faith as blow a lot of steam about how absurd he thinks Christian beliefs are, and likewise how stupid the adherers to these beliefs must be. Summary:

A 6000 year old Earth? Idiotic. Embryos have souls? How inane! Jesus descending from the clouds to spare you from a righteous global genocide!? Within the next fifty years?! NUTS! WACKO! LUNATIC! DANGEROUS! Christians are no different from Muslims exploding like firecrackers in shopping malls!

Jonah was reconsidering his interest in Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation. He was rather uninterested in a selfrighteous athiest's narrow-alleyed rant on the pratfalls of faith. He had little interest in this or any religious war.

Let each man make of his life heaven or hell and let each look on to the great unknown afterlife with his own vision of happiness. And let God Almighty judge us. What else can we do?

He put the Newsweek down. Useless magazine. And tried not to watch four bicycle cops harrass Charlie. Charlie is a semi-homeless legless old black man who often sits in his wheelchair at the corner of Houston and Third and gathers money in a cup from the many people in Fort Worth who consider him a friend. The other valet's all hate him. Mostly because he made more money than they did most nights. And he wasn't actually homeless. Jonah couldn't care less. The guy was friendly even if superficially. And what difference did it make if the managers gave him a meal now and then and people gave him $10 for no reason. He wasn't exactly getting in anyone's way by saying "y'all be safe now." He never asked for money. He never bothered Jonah, so when Jonah saw the cops harassing him, Jonah began to grow resentful of the cops. Haven't they got anything better to do? After all Charlie wasn't even breaking a law. He soon cleared off, all sad eyed. He wasn't looking so good these days either.

Apparently minutes later Bennigans called the cops on him. Someone gave him a gift card and he wanted cash. When they refused, he asked for alcohol. Then they called the cops. Then he began ranting about the injustice because he was a black cripple...

Officer Simmons says he's got a nasty coke habit. I don't know if its true. He also says that his house is about to get abated, because its a crack den. Officer Simmons is a good humored, talkative cop who comes by the stand and tells stories practically every night. He has a good heart no-doubt, and a fierce love and devotion to his job. He's the kind of guy you want to make sure you're friends with. He says give money to Salvation Army and churches, not to the bums. Good idea I suppose. Anyway, he made Jonah feel a lot better about the cops. Maybe Charlie is a clever conman. Maybe the smiles and the friendly gestures are an act performed every night to feed his crack habit.

It's hard to know. Jonah probably won't stop being nice to Charlie, but he is still naive. He keeps thinking there are people who's motives aren't peppered with ill intentions. That there are bums who really are just trying to catch a bus to New Orleans and that there are intellectuals who really just want to know the truth. Because life is hard and everyone needs some friends. And you don't lie to your friends.


Maybe he wants to believe these people,

because

when he's reading The Myth of Sysiphus and The Koran,

when he's stranded a long way from home...








he wants people to believe him.