“thee” jumped automatically into His mouth because of all the years of listening to Baptists and Holy Rollers.
“God,” I joked, “thou hast an impressionable heart.”
Baps, God replied chuckling, thy backside!
And the two of us burst out laughing so loud that a bullfrog sitting on the banks of the river gaped at us as if to ask if we took life for a joke.
I decided to further investigate the dispute between God and the Americans.
One afternoon I closed up my shop and took a walk to the village library and looked up back issues of the Daily Gleaner for stories about the quarrel with God.
I found out that God had resided in Jamaica for many years and had even become a naturalized citizen; that over the years the Americans had repeatedly pressed for His extradition to face charges of contempt of Congress for maliciously creating and obstinately maintaining an un-American heaven and had even given a deadline for raining down hydrogen bombs on the island if their demands about God continued to be ignored.
I read that Parliament had declared a national holiday on the anticipated day of the nuclear bombardment, with banks and insurance companies shutting down for the long weekend so that staff and their families could fully enjoy the anticipated holocaust. Enterprising vendors had printed T-shirts with colorful logos and designs celebrating the occasion. Schools had closed islandwide for the week as they do during Easter so that pupils and faculty alike could have time off to relish Armageddon. The island’s betting shops had posted odds on which parish would receive the first bomb, which the highest recorded megatonnage, which would suffer the greatest radiation fallout.
I continued to read eagerly.
According to the Gleaner , on the day of the anticipated bombardment, all Jamaican public beaches, rivers, and picnic grounds were jammed to capacity with colorful masses of festive people winding up their bodies to the throbbing rhythms of reggae and soca as they eagerly awaited the joys of being blown to bits courtesy of the United States. Bickering and squabbling reportedly broke out among some of the celebrants who were diehard supporters of the Marine Corps and those who were staunch backers of the Air Force about which branch of service could be expected to drop the sweetest bomb. A melee erupted between these rival factions at Dunns River, with rockstones and bottles pelting down on the heads of the teeming throng, busting skulls to the delight of the squealing, carousing revellers.
The Gleaner issue of that eagerly awaited day when the bombs were expected to fall ran erudite editorials and discussions about whether the hydrogen or the atomic bomb would be zestier to the unknowing Jamaican populace, who were amateurs when it came to appreciating the finer points of bombardment. One columnist grumbled that dropping a hydrogen bomb on a Jamaican was casting pearls before swine, for the brute would be just as happy if you busted his skull with a pickaxe. Various connoisseurs weighed in with opinions that pooh-poohed the other side while stoutly arguing for the superiority of their favorite explosives.
The same Gleaner issue also contained full-page ads of appreciation to the Americans for the expected assault, paid for by civic-minded businesses, many of the ads featuring patriotic rhymes about the glories of America written by the winner of an islandwide poetry contest. Only the dreary Seventh Day Adventist churches in Jamaica had refused to participate in the national orgy, the Gleaner reported, threatening their members who partook of the bombing jamboree with expulsion.
I read one story after another and trembled, turning the pages as fast as I could read to see what had happened.
I found out that on the day when fire and destruction were expected to rain down on the innocent and fun-loving Jamaican merrymakers, nothing happened: The Republicans in the American Senate mounted a filibuster against the
“God,” I joked, “thou hast an impressionable heart.”
Baps, God replied chuckling, thy backside!
And the two of us burst out laughing so loud that a bullfrog sitting on the banks of the river gaped at us as if to ask if we took life for a joke.
I decided to further investigate the dispute between God and the Americans.
One afternoon I closed up my shop and took a walk to the village library and looked up back issues of the Daily Gleaner for stories about the quarrel with God.
I found out that God had resided in Jamaica for many years and had even become a naturalized citizen; that over the years the Americans had repeatedly pressed for His extradition to face charges of contempt of Congress for maliciously creating and obstinately maintaining an un-American heaven and had even given a deadline for raining down hydrogen bombs on the island if their demands about God continued to be ignored.
I read that Parliament had declared a national holiday on the anticipated day of the nuclear bombardment, with banks and insurance companies shutting down for the long weekend so that staff and their families could fully enjoy the anticipated holocaust. Enterprising vendors had printed T-shirts with colorful logos and designs celebrating the occasion. Schools had closed islandwide for the week as they do during Easter so that pupils and faculty alike could have time off to relish Armageddon. The island’s betting shops had posted odds on which parish would receive the first bomb, which the highest recorded megatonnage, which would suffer the greatest radiation fallout.
I continued to read eagerly.
According to the Gleaner , on the day of the anticipated bombardment, all Jamaican public beaches, rivers, and picnic grounds were jammed to capacity with colorful masses of festive people winding up their bodies to the throbbing rhythms of reggae and soca as they eagerly awaited the joys of being blown to bits courtesy of the United States. Bickering and squabbling reportedly broke out among some of the celebrants who were diehard supporters of the Marine Corps and those who were staunch backers of the Air Force about which branch of service could be expected to drop the sweetest bomb. A melee erupted between these rival factions at Dunns River, with rockstones and bottles pelting down on the heads of the teeming throng, busting skulls to the delight of the squealing, carousing revellers.
The Gleaner issue of that eagerly awaited day when the bombs were expected to fall ran erudite editorials and discussions about whether the hydrogen or the atomic bomb would be zestier to the unknowing Jamaican populace, who were amateurs when it came to appreciating the finer points of bombardment. One columnist grumbled that dropping a hydrogen bomb on a Jamaican was casting pearls before swine, for the brute would be just as happy if you busted his skull with a pickaxe. Various connoisseurs weighed in with opinions that pooh-poohed the other side while stoutly arguing for the superiority of their favorite explosives.
The same Gleaner issue also contained full-page ads of appreciation to the Americans for the expected assault, paid for by civic-minded businesses, many of the ads featuring patriotic rhymes about the glories of America written by the winner of an islandwide poetry contest. Only the dreary Seventh Day Adventist churches in Jamaica had refused to participate in the national orgy, the Gleaner reported, threatening their members who partook of the bombing jamboree with expulsion.
I read one story after another and trembled, turning the pages as fast as I could read to see what had happened.
I found out that on the day when fire and destruction were expected to rain down on the innocent and fun-loving Jamaican merrymakers, nothing happened: The Republicans in the American Senate mounted a filibuster against the
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