Early this morning while taking out the trash, I tripped over Jesus Christ. For a moment, I thought it was Molly, our next-door neighbor's Golden Retriever, cowering there inside a Beauty Rest mattress box, but then I realized that dog was really God, the son of God, and the Holy Spirit-all three Christian gods rolled up into one bodacious sleeping mass of humanity. Christ what a mess! I thought that bum looks more like an Oscar Meyer wiener lathered end to end in yellow vomit and sprinkled with flecks of pea green sputum than the savior of the known universe.

I couldn't tell if Christ was alive or dead so I slowly pealed back the upper layer of cardboard and noticed Jesus was wearing a piss-soaked pair of 'Valentine's Day is for Lovers' boxer shorts in boy's size sixteen; a blue and yellow wife beater inscribed 'Bimini is for Lovers'; a gay visor with an emblazoned rainbow flag superimposed with Harvey Milk's silhouette; and a mismatched pair of size sneakers one with a red top and K Mart logo in fading initials of some kid-scribbled on each side-and the other pale blue like the color of the eyes of the body in the box with Sears inscribed on the back and I thought, is this what has become of the God of the known and unknown universe - is he now reduced to buying his shoes from the thrift store at 7th and E Street?

Jesus looked up at me with his wino eyes and belched noisily as he shot me a glassy-eyed look that said if you touch my beer, I'll kick your sorry ass half way to Cheboygan, so I kept my distance, but his aroma would have forced me to have done that anyway: it was an overpowering mixture of reefer, Double Bubble chewing gum, smegma and Bud Light, a bottle of which Jesus was nursing nosily at fifty sucks a minute, as if he were Maggie Simpson.

"My name's Patrick," I said, extending my knuckled right hand and exhaling slowly as I tried not to inhale his stench. Then I knuckled tapped him once as I turned my head owl-like past my left shoulder, inhaling garbage scented alley air like it was ambrosia.

"I'm Jesus Christ," he coughed in a raspy mid-eastern type of voice with a twinge of a Brooklyn accent spiced with a glob of Anglo-Saxon phlegm. "I'm the Bearer of all Suffering, Savior of the Universe, One with the Father and the Holy Ghost, Maker and Ender of All Things, Timeless and Forevermore. Yadda yadda."

Somehow I knew he wasn't kidding. The Savior's halo, resting uncomfortably on his brown hairy chest. illuminating the gunk dripping out of his left nostril and its holy light singed the hairs in his right ear.

As if reading my mind, Jesus said, "Yeah, it's me already. I am that I am: omniscience, omnipotent and omnivorous.

I sat down next to Jesus and began scribbling my thoughts on his cardboard box. "I hope you don't mind," I said.

Jesus looked over his spring-bridge thick-lensed pince-nez golden eyeglasses (the ones I bet Joseph Smith used while translating the Book of Mormon), flashing the biggest brown eyes I'd seen since watching Lassie as a ten year old, "It's not the fucking Torah," he said. "It's just a cardboard box. Scribble away."

Bless us and protect us! I thought.

I blinked and Jesus yawned cavernously, revealing a half dozen rotting teeth and a gray wooly tongue. "I haven't gotten around to sanctifying this box. Sears and Roebuck's may have, but I didn't, so let's not take any chances with boxes fabricated by the goyim." Jesus Christ stretched his legs until his big toes burst from the lining of his sneakers. Then he spread his legs-which God help me-was not a pleasant sight-and touched both sides of the box simultaneously, "Blessed be ye O Cardboard Box, Hallowed be thy ply. I bless you in the name of me, myself and I. Amen." Jesus Christ drew a large circle in the air with his right forefinger as if drawing a hula-hoop. "Yadda, yadda," he said as he waited another beat and glowered at me with his fiery Mediterranean eyes. "Yadda Yadda," he repeated until he rolled over in laughter shaking the foundations of his Sears box, "I'm just playing with you, Patrick; don't be such a whanker!"

The Living Christ waited a few more beats, but I sensed he knew he'd already whanked my whanker harder and firmed than it'd been whanked since my trip to Tunisia a year before. Yet miraculously, I began to feel the power of this alley dwelling wino who understood my thoughts, sensed my fears, and knew the essence of both my heart and my soul. I blushed crimson, wishing I could shield my face from the Light of the World.

"My tan's fading now," Jesus said, "I've been sunbathing nude in the Caribbean for the past two hundred years. Whatcha think? Do you like my exotic hue?"

I was too absorbed in Jesus Christ's changing costume to respond. He was now wearing a pink chiffon nightgown; orange flip flops; a Playtex living bra that looked as if it had committed suicide several years before; and a golden tiara with dandelions and al dente fettuccini dangling precariously over his Frank Sinatra baby blues.

"Have you ever reeled-in a queen-"

I blushed, praying his disparaging remark was not aimed at my queerness.

"-angelfish," Jesus continued without missing a beat, "Queen Angelfish are glorious manifestations of God. . . " The Living Christ's voice faded as he pursed his lips together gaily, sucking his now perfectly formed pearl-white teeth as his form changed in front of me once more-now he was a six foot four, two-hundred pound young Cassius Clay. "Those angelfish are tiny little suckers, but they're bitchier than a gaggle of Mormons elders at a LGBQT+ meeting." Jesus's voice trailed off. . . then he raised his transformed pure black fist, "right on!" he said.

"I sense you don't believe me, Patrick, but the six-balled gods know a thing or two about your world, even though my Old Man retired to Cygnus a couple millennia ago."

"The Old Man wanted to take up skeet shooting and miniature golf and Cygnus is the only place under the gods' heavens that offers them at the same venue. . . with a buffet lunch-all you can eat for a buck fifty!"

"Six balled gods?"

"You're a little slow on the uptake, aren't you, Patrick!"

"You don't suppose the three of us share the same two fucking balls, do you? That would be blasphemy!"

"Pop, the Holy Spook and I each have our own set, thank you very much. Even the gods are entitled to their own individual jars of Planters!"

Jesus smiled and the earth shimmered in his transforming Jamaican glory!

"I always thought the Spook was feminine." I said, thinking of how much fun it would be to roll my cojones around in front of the living Christ.

A boom of thunder blasted across the rapidly darkening sky.

"'Spook's' our nickname for my lesser third. You may refer to it as the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm just jerking you around, Patrick. "You can call the little bugger any damned thing you want. Just don't call him late to dinner."

"It's an old saw, boy. Get with the program! Or can't you picture a god of thunder with a sense of humor?"

"But getting back to your question, the three of us are males. We haven't allowed goddesses to hoover over our airspace for a couple millennia now, not since we kicked out Aphrodite, Isis and that whore Juno."

"Chill! I'm just yanking your chain, Patrick. I know you fought like H. E. Double Toothpicks to ratify the ERA, so you should learn my latest Commandment, Number 6,432: Bigotry exists equality in heaven and on earth. Get used to it."

"I imagine there's bigotry in hell," Jesus continued, "but I was only up there for three days . . . one, actually, and an hour or so in the evening of the first day and a few seconds on the morning of the third when my angel buddies rolled that stone away. . " The color faded from Christ's face, "It's not something I like to talk about. It's bitter memories of splinters. . . rusty nails. . . .mass derision. . ..full frontal nudity and a hard-on as the Romans drove in the spikes."

"It was not the best of times."

"Hell's a lot like Azkaban and I'm a lot like Harry Potter." Jesus let out a roar, "Except that my wand is significantly bigger than that boy's." Jesus laughed again and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs and I averted my eyes from his 'wand', "More than anything else, picture it like this: Hell's like dropping your first double-decker ice cream cone into a pile of dog crap."

Sure enough, as soon as Jesus spoke, I stepped into a pile of Schnauzer shit.

When I took my eyes off my rank bedroom slippers and looked back at J.C, merely "the twinkling of an eye" later, the Savior of the unknown universe was wearing nothing but a red jock strap with the hottest ass I've seen since admiring Gordon Goehrung's in 9th grade P. E.; a form fitting T-shirt; a foot-high blond Afro wig intertwined with pink and green ribbons, braided diamonds, pink flamingo feathers; and shod with Bozo the Clown shoes. Transformed again before my eyes, he now appeared as a Jamaican drag queen with the hottest cocoa hue; the most virile legs and thighs I'd ever seen; heavenly mocha cocoa café latte eyes; as his T-shirt. . . while only his T-shirt. . . was doused with Atlantic sea water and I saw the tips of his man-tits and the shape of his bulging pectorals peeking through. Jesus's West Indies face was plastered with lilac eye liner, magenta lip stick and tangerine rouge. His eyebrows were shaved bare and his T disappeared, revealing his firm brown nipples that were rapidly hardening in the morning's chill. Jesus did a one-eighty, retrieving a six-pack from his cardboard box, and all I could focus on was Jesus Christ's manically gorgeous ass, outlined in his heart-shaped red jockstrap, as if it were two quivering mangos beckoning me to dine.

Jesus emptied his Bud Light in half a gulp, "You know it's not the same as that damned Miracle at Cana-wine's a piece of cake, but brewing beer inside a cardboard box and keeping it chilled in this Myself forsaken alley-well, let me tell you, brother, that's a bitch!"

Jesus tossed me a cold brew and popped the tab on a second for himself, "The good thing about being one third of a lesser god is that I had an eternity of idleness to earn my Brew-ology Degree. Bob Jones University used to confer them, you know, but after that horrible moment when the late sports commentator, Melvin Bleenstock, delivered his racial diatribe to a hyped crowd of South Carolina fundamentalists, well that ended in a hurry, let me tell you!

But at any rate, I earned my Brew-ology degree and can make beer anywhere I want, any time. The Spook, on the other hand, only has his milking degree and I think he gets jealous. Don't look at me like that. He's old school. He can turn anything into milk-it's disgusting actually. Have you ever watched a pound of pond of green frogs turn into gallons and gallons of whole milk?"

Anyway, the Milk Maid doesn't get angry-he's not a corporeal being, you know, and only humans can get angry but he can be a son of a bitch when he wants to! He has an entire litany of names he calls me: the High Holy Wampa, Big Chief Stinky Feet, the Princeling of Malt Liquor, and the boy with the Bachelor's of Voluminous Degree, a name totally demeaning when you break it down to its initials: BVD and try to picture any God walking accepting it. Add to that, however, is that the Spook's barely halfway through his coursework for his Milking Degree-he failed sheep milking fifteen times and still can't tell a bull from a cow-much, I might add, to the disgust of the bull. Honest to Myself, can you believe a dolt unable to notice the difference? I don't blame that entirely on the Spook, of course, a great deal of the problem is Our Father who created the Spook without a body. I mean, try to imagine wrapping invisible pinkies around cow tits? It freaked out cows ever cow he's ever approached.

"Then, there's the Old Man . . . Oh My Self. . . He's still trying to sort out the fiasco he created when He rained down manna on the heads of the Children of Israel for forty fucking years-Promised Land, my ass. If the Jews had had a choice they would have moved to Cheboygan-at least there's cheese in Wisconsin-and manna and cheese would have at least been palatable." Jesus belched, but this time it smelled like ambrosia. Perhaps I was getting used to this man of so many visages and so many smells. Or perhaps I was just delusionary.

"Anyway," Jesus Christ continued, belching loudly from one end and farting from the other, "I digress. The topic was angelfish, wasn't it?"

I waited a beat. It was a rhetorical question, even I knew that-besides, as an author I wanted to hear what this God-man had to say.

"Angelfish are easy to tame," Jesus continued, "I named my favorite angelfish Lucifer and Lucifette-they were hermaphrodites and got along well with the males and females of assorted species, so I kept them in an underground bunker along with souls of Adolph Hitler, King Richard the Third, and Joseph McCarthy back in Bimini."

"What?"

"Living in an underground bunker was natural to them-Big Old Joe, the Commie Buster, found it utterly delightful-even though he was out of the limelight and grew even more psychotic as time went by . . . even Joseph Welch feels sorry for him and tosses him Fortune Cookies from time to time from up there in the peripheral parts of La La Land." Jesus said, totally ignoring my query.

La La Land, I thought, what the hell is La La Land?

"That's the place the Holy Spook demands their presence on High Holy Days and between his two tiny plastic Tiddlywinks that we inserted in Joseph McCarthy's scrotum when we removed his balls, and the perpetual milking machine we hooked up on his miniscule penis, along with a rousing game of canasta, supervised by Atilla the Hun, I did the best I could to entertain their sorry old asses. . . but what can I say? When you're duty bound to entertain Joseph McCarthy and Adolph Hitler and Richard the Third, you spend half your life stroking their dicks and the other half stroking their egos."

"Oh Myself! I forgot to crate up the little buggers and ship them off to the Spook! Old Joe's probably screwing the crap out of Hitler's flabby old ass right this very minute-they're both horny little buggers and the dildos and butt plugs are never big enough to turn Hitler on, as hard as we all try."

I could see Jesus's mind wandering-as though he couldn't understand human sexuality and I wondered if he was still a virgin.

"You should hear that Kraut moan, "Ach, mein Gott, rette mich! Rette mich aus dieser verdammten Schwanz." If you thought his 'Heil Hitler's' were ear-piercing, you should hear that skinny bitch screech now!"

"Ah. . . you're wondering what "Ach mein Gottt, rette mich! Rette mich aus dieser verdammten Schwanz' means, right? Well, loosely translated it's 'My God, save me from this fucking dick "

"So they're still suffering in purgatory?"

"There is no purgatory. There is no heaven. There is no hell. . . they're all scams-money scams-established by Pope Linus the Rug Bearer a hundred and fourteen years after my death. Blessed be My Holy Name." Jesus Christ cleared his throat, as if he was waiting for me to correct the God of the Universe."

"My death-" he repeated.

"Don't you mean your resurrection?"

"Thank Myself most of you are trained." Jesus Christ winked at me as he continued, "The more people who believed they could pray their way out of hell, the more money Linus made! He died a very rich pope, but his nuts fell off and his pecker putrefied as a long term effect of his syphilis and well. . . that other thing-that thing that didn't even make a footnote to Papal history, that as soon as Linus the Rug Bearer's body began to chill, fourteen of his newly named cardinals sliced off his cock, wrapped it in gold foil and shoved it up his ass."

"He was buried that way and the relic sellers hounded the new Pope to dig him up but, you know how that goes. Once you shove a dick up a dead pope's ass, it's not marketable. . . except to scatology lovers, and they're pretty, for lack of a better term, fucked up the ass to begin with."

Anyway, the cardinals wrapped the son of a bitch up in a Persian carpet and that's why he's called Saint Linus the Rug Bearer. After that, they laid his stuffed ass out in full regalia underneath the Holy See in Rome, next to the Captain Crunch Memorial. It's quite a site to see. I'd take you there, but I've been barred since the Hershey's incident of 1898. Just trust me on this if you don't trust me on anything else: never eat those nuts you find in chocolate bars!"

"What the hell are you taking about?"

"The Hershey's incident. You never heard about the Great Papal Cocoa Chocolate Latte Fiasco?"

To be continued

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