Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow Page A

Feminone capsule in his mouth. Phallic in its contours, the pill seemed designed to torment its consumers: not only do you have prostate cancer, Charlie, but your wife stands a better chance of satisfying herself with one of these things than with
your
disenfranchised dong.
    â€œThis isn’t about revenge,” he said.
    â€œSome people, when they lose a loved one,
some
people go into grief counseling.
Some
people build elaborate tombs. But you—
you
think you have to put God on trial. It’s nuts.”
    â€œNo, Patricia—it’s overdue.” He swallowed the estrogen along with a mouthful of cappuccino.
    Among the individuals closest to Martin, only his ex-fiancée Robin McLaughlin endorsed his scheme. Upon reading Albert Camus’s
The Plague
in Mrs. Felser’s English class at Abaddon High, Robin had come to dislike God intensely, an animus that endured throughout her college years, her relationship with Martin, and her unhappy marriage to a Fox Run proctologist named Derrick Smedley.
    â€œYou’re calling the old Bully to account?” said Robin as she and her fidgety six-year-old son sat down for breakfast with Martin at McDonald’s. “I like it—”
    â€œThought you would.”
    â€œâ€”but it’s not
you.
”
    â€œI’ve changed.”
    She slit a Half and Half capsule with her thumbnail, adding the mongrel fluid to her coffee. “I’m sure you know it’s been done before.”
    â€œElie Wiesel’s play,” he said, unwrapping his Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Biscuit.
    â€œEarlier than that.”
    â€œJeremiah denouncing divine injustice?”
    â€œBefore that even. Job on his dung heap.”
    â€œJob?”
    â€œThe Book of Job.” Robin bit into her Egg McMuffin. “It’s really a kind of courtroom drama. How are you?”
    â€œHow
am
I? Terrible.”
    â€œYou don’t deserve any of this—I hope you know that.” She began cutting up her child’s pancakes for him with a white plastic knife and matching fork. “Is it true you’re taking estrogen?”
    â€œWhere’d you hear that?”
    â€œYour
other
ex-fiancée. Brittany got it from Vaughn, who got it from your sister.”
    â€œJeez . . . you people publish a
newsletter
, do you?”
    â€œThe Internet does nicely. You’re a great topic, Marty.”
    â€œYes, I’m taking estrogen. If I keep at it, I’ll turn into a woman.”
    â€œI don’t recommend it.”
    â€œI have no choice.”
    â€œIf you ever need me, just remember—I’m here.”
    That night Martin read the Book of Job for the first time in thirty years, discovering to his surprise it
was
a kind of courtroom drama, with the perverse twist that the Accused also functioned as Judge and Jury. Equally disturbing was the fact that when God went to make His case, He completely ignored Job’s main concern—justice—opting instead to intimidate him with the majesty of Creation: lions, whales, horses, hail, stars, and, ultimately, the unknowable monsters Behemoth and Leviathan.
    A rigged proceeding, yes, and yet Martin found it gripping. He was moved by both the force of Job’s bitterness and the caliber of his blasphemy. “God bears hard upon me for a trifle and rains blows on me without cause,” railed the sufferer. And then, later: “When a sudden flood brings death, He mocks the plight of the innocent.” And still later: “Far from the city, the poor groan like dying men, and like wounded men they cry out, but God pays no heed to their prayer.” Whether Job of Uz was an actual historical figure or the product of an anguished poetic imagination, this “blameless and upright” desert chieftain was a person to be admired.
    After according the matter considerable thought and much research, Martin concluded he needed thirty-five thousand dollars, the price of a full-page