Ghost Writer

This was written in the fall of 1986. I was under treatment at the time for Major Depression. That of course is only half the story... a little more that a year later I would commit suicide in prison...

Yet this story [as well as I] have lingered. The story after all does have a message... It remains to be seen if I do.


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If I was to tell you the Truth, the WHOLE Truth, and nothing but the Truth so help me Joe, you wouldn't believe me, so that's the real reason you are reading this here rather than the front page of your local "Morning Gazette." Besides in fiction, there is Truth.

What better Truth is there than a fictional author telling a fictional story about his fictional god, AND having some innocent fun while getting paid for it?

Everybody knows how all of the schools of religion seem to be obsessed with the idea that "We know the Truth" and "We worship the only true God." 'Round here they call Him Joe Hova.His holy rolling rationalist devotees even have a holy day for Him, Joho Day, the holy day of the mighty, holy, and only rational god. His son is another story for another time.

If you are rational about it, you will see that their ideas, may be your own ideas, or even my strange preconceived notions of what the Creator is, looks like, or does is... irrational drivel. Think about the facts.

If God were so rational, the Universe would never have gotten started. The truth of the matter is that Joe Hova, in all of His radiant holiness, is NOT the rational, high mighty God sitting on a golden throne with a thunderbolt in one hand, a whip in the other and the fire of your damnation in His eyes. No, the truth is He's a little runt with a warped sense of humor. You don't believe me? I have seen Him. I know what the Truth is.

I can hear you snickering. Now you're saying that I'm crazy. Well, that may be so, but that has no bearing on the facts. I have digressed. Let me tell you what I know about Him.

He is a little man - about two feet eleven with a used Girope salesman's phony wide toothy smile. His nose is big and crooked. Big ears hang unevenly on the sides of His head beneath His closely cropped hair.

The afternoon I met Him, He wore the latest Calin Klevin semi- informal wear: a powder blue silk top hat with a bright red band propped slightly askew on His head, a pure white French pleated shirt, black pants, white spats topped over His glossy black shoes, with a bright phosphorescent green top coat with tails. The buttons of His jacket were obviously pure gold. He carried a platinum tipped graphite-composite cane".

"Wonder--full day, isn't it?" He exclaimed.

I looked around. I didn't see anyone.

He hit me in the shins with His one-of-a-kind cane. As the pain exploded in my head, I looked down to see Him smiling up at me.

"As I said before, Literu, a won-dar-ful day?"

"I don't believe we have met." I said through gritted teeth and painful tears.

"Of course we haven't, but that doesn't mean I don't know you.

Literu Litpinni, infamous writer of cheap thriller novels, pulp untrue confessions, and general all around loser. Bet you don't know that I know why you're standing on this bridge." He cheerfully replied.

"Well, I..." I stammered.

He cut me short by saying, "Don't bother telling me some piece of drivel about how you like watching the boats go by three hundred feet below you there." He gestured at the cold steel colored sea.

He continued with a smirk: "You're here, so you think, to kill yourself and end your dismal life."

"Well, I was actually more interested in..." I began to lie.

"Watching the sea hawks? Oh, come on, Man! If you're gonna lie, at least be creative!" he retorted and smiled His huge toothy smile.

"OK, Mister High and Mighty, what do you want?" I was pissed. Not angry, P-I-S-S-E-D. Being pissed is not rational, whereas if you are angry it's the same thing but dressed up in rationalized intellectualized emoting.

"I see you're pissed. Good. As for being High and Mighty-- However did you guess? You're good boy, real, good! As for what I want, well, I want to save your miserable soul and make you rich and famous. And, at the same time, I want you to tell My story."

"You want me to WHAT? Who the hell are you, any way?" I demanded.

"Joe Hova is My Name and Creation is My Game." He replied with a tight phony smile.

"What kind of a fool do you think I am?" I snapped.

"Is there more than one kind of fool." He paused with an All- Knowing smile, then continued with a not quite feigned benevolence,"To respond to your original complaint, I want you to write My story."

Thinking to myself, "I must really be crazy." I asked Him, "Why?"

"Because who better to write my biography than a someone who writes cheap novels?" He responded evenly.

I started to open my mouth in reply but stopped and thought for a moment about the great pompous pious pilgrim who was masquerading as His Holiness, the Right Reverend Archbishop of Pewksbury. I answered without further consideration, "You're right. Obviously I've got nothing to lose."

"Precisely. Let's get out of the wind up here."

He waved his cane. With a loud 'Pop,' we were in a high priced penthouse office where the windows looked out over....well, it's really very hard to describe. The best way to put it is that the windows looked out over Creation. All of it. As I looked out, I found that depending upon what I looked for, determined what I saw.

"Nice view." I observed.

"Goes with the job, of course. As I was saying before, you're to be my biographer and the pay is handsome. Please sign here." He said.

He offered me a pen and a large parchment which exuded the smell of legalese: that rankling dialect which only lawyers understand.

I took the pen and looked at the parchment and just as I suspected, it was covered with indistinguishable printing of indecipherable legal polyglotic declarations.

I looked down at Him and said: "Just how handsome is the pay?"

"Anything you want at all, except a few minor stipulations, as noted in paragraph 4231, sub-section B, last clause; otherwise, it's anything at all you want." He replied with plastic encouragement.

"Can I read this before I sign it?" I asked.

"Why, of course! I have all the time in the world." He replied with a giant smirk.

I began to read. And I kept reading. I think I must have read for at least four hours and I didn't even get to the end of the first sentence. It seemed to be getting longer even as I read. I finally gave it up.

"Doesn't this thing have any end?" I innocently asked.

"No." He said flatly.

"Oh. Why not?"

"I have to cover all of the possible situations which might arise from any of your work as my employee."

"Oh." I signed the contract wondering when I would wake up.

"Now, here is my story: I was. I am. I forever shall be." He proudly exclaimed.

"That's It?"

"Should there be more? Well, I suppose you can embellish it a bit." He replied.

I could not believe what I was hearing. "That's going to take an awful lot of embellishing."

He smiled one of His crookedest smiles and said: "You can do it, I am sure that you can."

"How can I tell All of Creation that God is a little runt with a sarcastic sense of humor. Besides, that bit about 'Forever shall be' has been used before. Some guy named Noah or Job or Sumsuch..." I responded.

"Nothing new under the sun and all that rot. Still a man of many talents such as yourself, should be able to come up with something of interest. Just think someday you could write a bestseller just like my last one." He grinned.

I thought for a moment then said sarcastically, "Right! As I recall it, most of the guys that were in that one died horrible deaths."

"Just so." He replied evenly, the slightest of smiles upon His lips.

"You mean to tell me that I have to die a terrible death?"

"Of course. How else can my creation know Hope, Faith, Love and Forgiveness? They can and will only see it by a willing sacrifice for those gentle ideals. You know all the sins and sadness that's out there." He gestured at the window, "You know how terrible it is."

"I won't do it," I said flatly.

"Sorry, Son. It is in the contract. Remember paragraph 4231 et al?"

"Bastard!" I cursed.

"Why...now that I think of it, you are right! I didn't have any parents!" He grinned a wicked grin. His expression softened then He continued. "Son, it's like this...if I were the terrible God that most of those kids out there believe me to be, I would not be in business very long.

"Sure, there ARE terrible things going on out there. There is great wickedness and soul wrenching sorrows. Yet even with all of those things, there is still Goodness, and Love, and Laughter,and Joy.

You can't have one without the other."

"If I were less joyous and more morose as some of you out there believe me to be, then all there could be or would be infinite infernal damnation. I'm a mathemythical mythimatical beast that lives loving, laughing, crying, birthing, and dying in ALL of my Creation." He paused and looked at me and I felt so small in His gigantic presence.

"Son...I laugh. As I laugh, I love my creation and it loves me. I love you, Boy. Even though you've done your damnedest to sin against me. Even though you doubt me, I am with you. Now you protest the idea of dying when just a short while ago you were standing on a bridge ready to jump? Tell me when have you really lived? Can't you see that death is only a transition from one form of creation to another? Haven't you heard about my Law of the Conservation of Energy? Nothing is ever lost; it's just untouchable in this world that most earth worms choose to live in."

I looked at Him and saw all of these things and more.

"OK. you win." I replied.

So I wrote His biography, _JOE HOVA: The Laughing God of Our Fathers_. It was a best seller, of course, just as He promised it would be. There was a lot of things that resulted from the publication ofthat book.

When "Pious Pilgrims" gathered, the book was burned; yet when the sorrowful read it, there was Joy. Joe popped in one day with a proud gleam and said: "Son, you're better than I Thought you could be, but the time has come for you to make the transition." 

"So soon?"

"Sorry, but I have other things for you to do. I have a job for you in my front office. I need your talents to take care of those things now. Some eon soon, I hope to retire and I think with what has happened, you just might have what it takes to run the whole show."

"What's the job?" I asked with some hesitation knowing His propensity for understatement."

"Oh, something, you're already quite good at doing. Don`t worry about it. You'll enjoy it."

I was still hesitant but he was right.

Later that day the outraged Pious Pompous Pilgrims, who claimed to be Joe's Only True Church, tore me, quite literally, to shreds. It was only natural that in time they made me the patron 'Saint' of authors.

I still do a lot of writing as you can see. I enjoy it and I have many best sellers out on the stands just now. How many? All of them.

What do you expect from a 'Ghost Writer'?" 

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