Towing Jehovah by James Morrow

." "So let it be written, so let it be done. . . ." "The people have been plagued by thirst! They've been plagued by frogs, by lice, by flies, by sickness, by boils! They can endure no more!" The Val had left New York with only one movie in her hold, but at least it was a good one. It took him over twenty minutes to wash up. Despite his earplugs, goggles, mask, cap, and jumpsuit, the rust had gotten through, clinging to his hair like red dandruff, covering his chest like metallic eczema, and so he was the last sailor to arrive.
    He'd never been on level five before. Twentieth-century ABs got invited to their officers' wardrooms about as often as fourteenth-century Jews got invited to the Alhambra. Billiard table, crystal chandeliers, teakwood paneling, Oriental rug, silver coffee urn, mahogany bar ... so this was his bosses' tawdry little secret: spend your watches mixing with the mob, pretending you're just another packet rat, then slip away to the Waldorf-Astoria for a cocktail. As far as Neil could tell, everyone on board was there (officers, deckies, priest, even that castaway, Cassie Fowler, red and peeling but on the whole looking far healthier than when they'd pulled her off Saint Paul's Rocks), with the exceptions of Lou Chickering, probably down in the engine flat, and Big Joe Spicer, doubtless on the bridge making sure they didn't collide with the island.
    Van Horne stood atop the mahogany bar, outfitted in his dress blues, the sobriety of the dark serge intermittently relieved by brass buttons and gold piping. "Well, sailors, we've all seen it, we've all smelled it," he told the assembled company. "Believe me, there's never been such a corpse before, none so large, none so important."
    Third Mate Dolores Haycox shifted her weight from one tree-stump leg to the other. "A corpse, sir? You say it's a corpse ?"
    A corpse? thought Neil.
    "A corpse," said Van Horne. "Now—any guesses?"
    "A whale?" ventured gnomish little Charlie Horrocks, the pumpman.
    "No whale could be that huge, could it?"
    "I suppose not," said Horrocks.
    "A dinosaur?" offered Isabel Bostwick, an Amazonian wiper with buck teeth and a buzz cut.
    "You're not thinking on the right scale."
    "An outer-space alien?" said the alcoholic bos'n, Eddie Wheatstone, his face so ravaged by acne it looked like a used archery target.
    "No. Not an outer-space alien—not exactly. Our friend Father Thomas has a theory for you." Slowly, with great dignity, the priest walked in a wide loop, circling the company, corralling them with his stride. "How many of you believe in God?"
    Rumblings of surprise filled the wardroom, echoing off the teakwood. Leo Zook's hand shot up. Cassie Fowler burst into giggles.
    "Depends on what you mean by God," said Lianne Bliss.
    "Don't analyze, just answer."
    One by one, the sailors reached skyward, fingers wiggling, arms swaying, until the wardroom came to resemble a garden of anemones. Neil joined the consensus. Why not? Didn't he have his enigmatic something-or-other, his En Sof, his God of the four A.M. watch? He counted a mere half-dozen atheists: Fowler, Wheatstone, Bostwick, a corpulent demac named Stubby Barnes, a spidery black pastry chef named Willie Pindar, and Ralph Mungo, the decrepit guy from the union hall with the I LOVE BRENDA tattoo—and of these six only Fowler seemed confident, going so far as to thrust both hands into the pockets of her khaki shorts.
    "I believe in God, the Father Almighty," said Leo Zook, "maker of heaven and earth, and in His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord . . ."
    The priest cleared his throat, his Adam's apple bumping against his Roman collar. "Keep your hand up if you think that God is essentially a spirit—an invisible, formless spirit." Not one hand dropped.
    "Okay. Now. Keep your hand up if you think that, when all is said and done, our Creator is quite a bit like a person— a powerful, stupendous, gigantic person, complete with bones, muscles . . ." The vast majority of