Fiction: Can’t Shoot ’Em(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

“The imbalance of power between women and men since the Middle Ages correlates precisely to the replacement of worship of Astarte with that of Yahweh back in the dusty middle-eastern misogynist deserts of numberless aeons ago.”
    Billy held forth, majestically, he thought.
    Paula was not in the mood. “To make a long story short,” she offered, hopefully.
    He laughed. “Right you are, mi amor. I won’t linger long on this topic. Go ahead and get your ice cream.”
    “You sure you don’t want any? Carry on. I can hear you fine,” she called from the kitchen.

“Women held all the power”

    “Women held all the power in the beginning, and somehow, inexplicably, they let priests of a masculine deity take over,” Billy continued.
    “One who made sex a sin, a crime.”
    “Tried to,” he said. “Tried to, and, if I may say so, failed to. That was like commanding Niagara Falls not to roar.”
    “Lots of kinds of sex are wrong, though.”
    “Yes. I oversimplified. But my point.”
    “Yes, I take your point. Under Yahweh, women’s pleasure is a sin. But David can steal men’s wives, and Solomon can have wives aplenty.”
    “Jesus stopped those old men from killing that girl who wantonly acted on her desire. Maybe her husband allowed her to go to her friend, he himself unable to please her, except in giving her this freedom.”
    “Hahahaha!” rang from the kitchen. “You’re making yourself a star of a gospel, now!”
    “Well, only a minor one,” he chuckled, as she sat back down beside him.
    “Or why forbid masturbation? Sure, He said to be fruitful and multiply, but He was talking to the only two fuckers on the planet. Wouldn’t He say to the eight billion here now, ‘You’ve got to get a grip on yourselves!’ Pun fully intended.”
    “Good one!” Billy shouted. “And yes, the good book seems to have zero room and zero will to allow for contingencies. But have you noticed,” and here he paused, collecting his thoughts, arranging his next argument into a sort of logical sequence.
    “Noticed what, Dahlink?”
    “That the matriarchal gods—goddesses—are staging a sort of a comeback!”
    “You think? I haven’t noticed,” she confessed. “I noticed the politicians stamping out Roe v. Wade.”
    “A last gasp, as I see it. A pitiful, moribund effort.”
    “Oh, good word! I’d forgotten it until you said it. You know, that used to turn me on about you.”
    “See what I’m saying? Women get turned on by all kinds of things. I’ll be able to put it less crudely and with more universal appeal, after I consider how for awhile.”
    Paula enthused, around a spoonful of half-melted Butter Pecan, “No, I know! You’re right. Sunsets. Sunsets happen nearly every evening, and every one of them arouses me, makes me want to lie on some hillside in warm, tall grass and just be ravished by dying slanting rays of beauty as I give silent thanks, from deep inside, for the day. I didn’t ever know I was praying, but of course I was. You really think it’s turning back?”

“I don’t know, but I feel it”

    “I don’t know, of course. But I feel it. Something. A slight rumble. Elizabeth the First, the Second. These things take time.”
    “Yes. Joan of Arc.”
    “Yes. Angela Merkel. The vice-president of the United States.
    “Yes! Anne Rice.”
    “Yes! J. K. Rowling. Toni Morrison.”
    “Who else? Billie Holiday!”
    “Yes! We could keep going all night. See what I mean?”
    “I’m feeling almost convinced,” she said, wanting just one more scoop of the ice cream.
    “But?”
    “But why would the devotees of matriarchal gods just so readily betray them? Sounds like they might have preferred that Yahweh Jehovah I am I, whatever His name is.”
    “So are you suggesting that Astarte, Eostre, Ishtar, Aphrodite, whatever their names were, alienated the faithful by being emasculating harridan banshees? In short, bitches from hell?”
    “I said no such thing, and you know it.”
    “I don’t really want to belabor any point, but I am rather worked up on this topic, curious as to why you’d side against the Eternal Mother, who seems to have a better claim to giving birth to the Cosmos.”
    “I’m not against her. I never studied her like you did. I have heard all those names, but you’re talking about an ancient history I don’t know, and I’m talking about a church, a faith, I’ve known and loved since my earliest childhood. And it’s stupid for you to believe that your girl gods are making a comeback!”
    “I wasn’t going to spring this on you, but I can’t stop myself!”
    She groans, heads back into the kitchen, in search of nothing except distance from this nonstop-talking fool. Maybe some cheese. She inspects the refrigerator for cheese.
    “Working backwards from the Resurrection, I imagined that a conversation such as this had to happen, at some point, but since it took place in Heaven, it never could appear in any gospel.”
    “I’m game. What’s this conversation you made up in your head?”
    “Thought you’d never ask!” Billy exulted, knowing as he commenced that he should stop right now. “The Father tells the Son He’s got good news and bad news. Jesus says, ‘You can have no bad news, Father! But Let’s start with this bad news.’
    “God says that Jesus is to become human, to go down to Earth.
    “ ‘This is wonderful news! What is Your purpose?’
    “ ‘That is the good news! You will take away all sin from all people, so that they will all join the Kingdom of Heaven.’
    “ ‘This is the best of all possible news!’
    “ ‘There is more bad news, my Son.’
    “Jesus smiled.
    “ ‘You will have to die.’
    “ ‘But Father, all men and women die. You mentioned bad news.’
    “ ‘They will put thorns on your brows. Lash you with whips. Parade you through the street, where the mob will curse you, spit on you, throw their waste on you as you stagger under the weight of your cross.’
    “ ‘Cross?’
    “ ‘You are to be crucified.’
    “ ‘Oh.’ After a brief pause, ‘Oh, well. The pain of one day is a small price to pay to keep every soul out of Hell.’
    “ ‘The pounding of nails. Taste of bitter vinegar. Watching your faithful turn away, disillusioned, as you sag, unable to breathe, living still.’

“ ‘But, Father—’ ”

    “ ‘But, Father—’
    “ ‘The sword thrust, finally, and the realization that the miracle you knew was coming was not coming.’
    “ ‘You’re almighty and omnipotent. There must be some other way.’
    “ ‘No, my beloved Son. No other way.’
    “And the rest,” Billy said, “is history.”
    Paula was weeping.
    “Or else it’s not,” he tried.
    “Why are you trying to destroy my faith? Is that what you’re doing?”
    “No, not at all. Of course not, baby!”
    “Coz it sounds like that’s what you’re doing.” Her voice has risen in pitch and in volume.
    “I’m sorry. Calm down! I’ve never seen you get so angry so fast! I mean, I just made that little conversation up; I’ve been considering it for years. I mean, to me, it’s not only conceivable that words like this passed between them, but it’s more than likely, if we are to attribute to Jesus intelligence and a mind of His own.”
    Billy saw his ineffectiveness. All he wanted to do was talk about Aphrodite. He wanted to erase the damage. “It’s all bullshit. Not only my imagined dialogue, but the entire virgin birth and resurrection and everything in between. But wait! I’m not denying anything about Jesus the teacher, the prophet. I’m referring solely to studies I have read, and read about, that say that the gospels were written to different specific audiences, so that some of them emphasize miracles, and some emphasize prophecies from the Old Testament.”
    But he saw this academic approach was the worst possible choice. He relinquished the floor with “I’m just trying to talk about the girl gods, and so, trying to make Jehovah look like a dick in comparison.”
    And Paula did laugh, but she felt only sadness. She hadn’t begun to formulate a response.
    She went to the kitchen and decanted an enormous measure of boxed Merlot and opened and closed every cabinet, calling, “Babe, did you eat all the cheese crackers?”
    “No! I don’t think so. Maybe. I did.”
    She returned with a cutting board, a half-block of sharp cheddar, and a knife in one hand, her goblet in another. Took a long pull on the wine, took her time enjoying it on the way down, breathed a while, took a long pull, said, “See? It’s only just some intellectual exercise to you. You know nothing about faith, true faith.”
    “I have faith in love, faith in music, in the healing power of music.”
    “See? You’re just being clever, trying to change the subject, coz you don’t want to fight. But what’s wrong with Yahweh God being a male? Most of his appeal, for me, is He’s a father, and faith is that I trust Him to show me the right way.”
    “But surely you don’t—” Billy began.

“Shut up! I mean, hang on”

    “Shut up! I mean, hang on. I’m not finished. I like the pagan Christmas stuff, the Saturnalia, the Wicca Samhain dancing naked on the mountaintops. I like Easter and the way the Church made the Christian holidays replace the old, old ones.”
    Billy, relieved: “Right? It’s so intriguing. So exciting. Falling down a rabbit hole or a black hole into the past.”
    “But you’re asking me to turn my back on my family, my faith that I’ve not followed very well, but still, it’s the one constant in my life since early childhood, a connection with my mother.”
    “I am asking no such thing, my love. We’re just talking, shooting the breeze. That’s all!”
    She replied only with tears and another good gulp of the red, so he continued: “You know, Tom Robbins gave me the idea. He sorta asked why can there never be peace in the Middle East? And he answered his own question, too: because they replaced the matriarchy with the patriarchy. And I started to think ol’ Tom was right. And not surprisingly, you can’t find much on the spirituality of the pre-Yahweh world.”
    But Paula pursued her own thoughts, tuning Billy out. “I believe. That is faith. I don’t have to have facts as a basis for what I believe, what I feel. Your science can’t explain the origin of the universe or the birth of the first people. It can’t even make up its mind whether eggs are good or bad. I rely on science for most stuff, but it can’t explain the way I feel when a sunset washes over me and fills me with a powerful ineffable beautiful energy.”
    “That’s so beautiful, Paula,” Billy said, after a pause. “But you just admitted you turn off, only sometimes, the rational part of your brain.”
    “That’s right! It’s the rational part that usually provides the opposite of comfort. It shovels on worry, fear. Keeps me from sleeping.”
    “Some would call those irrational responses.”
    “It’s reason and science that gave us bombs and chemicals, acid rain and pollution. Yeah, the human is a shining example of—I don’t know what.”
    “I’m sorry I mentioned how your father-figure treated His own only Son.”

She threw a book at him

    She threw a book at him and wanted, also, to throw her wine at him, but thought better of that and swallowed it down while he narrowly dodged the book.
    “I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, laughing. “I should have stuck with Anne Frank. With all the shot schoolchildren. I just lost my faith, long ago, in a god who allows such horrors. He seems to enjoy them! Doesn’t He have the power to stop a gunman? Isn’t He omnipotent?”
    “Well, I can’t explain that, and neither can you, and I was just trying to explain the peace I feel when I feel my faith. It’s beautiful. And you know not everything in the world can be explained by facts, evidence, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Like where do songs come from? Or why do certain aromas take us way back in time? Why are so many rational people convinced that ghosts exist? Where do dreams come from?”
    “That one’s easy,” Billy answered. “Dreams come from what we eat. You wanna have wild nightmares? Eat some eggrolls with plenty of soy sauce poured into them right before you go to sleep.”
    “Okay, you made me laugh. Asshole. Now we know why nobody likes to talk about religion.”
    “I never knew, till now, that the taboo extended to married couples.”
    “Isn’t it odd you also never knew till now the extent and depth of my faith?”
    “So odd,” verified Bill, adding, “Cute little Baby Cupid! His pretty mama surfing in, gloriously naked, on a clamshell?”
    Ignoring him, Paula continued on her own train of thought: “I don’t blame you for not knowing. It’s a very private thing I keep to myself. You have noticed I go out often, all alone, to walk in the sunset.”
    “Yes! The one time in the day I finally get a little peace.” He squirmed in the glowering silence a good while, and then added, “I feel like scrambling a ton of eggs. Do we have butter?”
    “Yes.”
    “Grape jelly?”
    “Yes.”
    “You want grits?”
    “Hell, no!”

Copyright © 2022 by Pat Hamilton Pat Hamilton has written three novels, hundreds of songs, and a handful of book reviews for the papers. He taught College English for 30 years, which helps him blend popular and classic literature in his writing. As an Army brat, he traveled the USA and Europe before settling into the beauty of Tennessee, but the rock star he used to be still lives on inside him.