Joey Cloudy online

chapter 10

TRAMP: God Spoke To Me Once II

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.”

-Patti Smith

God spoke to me once.

Aaron fished around in his leather jacket’s inside pocket and pulled out a pack of Newport 100s while he talked.

I thought you were an atheist?

Brandon used his lemon-yellow Bic lighter to light the dreadlocked black man’s cigarette. He looked through the glass door leading into the coffee shop to see who was already inside. The only people he knew who hung out in Deep Ellum besides Aaron were Trevor and Mona.

I’m an agnostic. I doubt that there is a god. But as a rationalist, I can’t say that there couldn’t be some form of intelligence in the universe so advanced that it would seem god like to us. Remember, you’re talking to a man who’s seen UFOs.

So what did god have to say?

I was standing in the living room of our apartment getting ready to go to school. My girlfriend had already gone to work. I was feeling good, getting good grades, I liked the people I worked with, and I had the love of a brilliant, beautiful woman.

What’s any of this got to do with god talking to your heathen ass.

Aaron watched the blocky-looking white boy with dishwater blonde hair and rectangular gold wire-framed glasses as he adjusted the lapels of his navy blazer. Brandon returned the lighters to his khaki pocket. Noticed he even wore the same brown leather penny loafers. The same white button-down shirt. The same striped necktie. It was his poet uniform. A dress rehearsal for the English professor he would soon become.

I say all of that so that you’ll know that this wasn’t like a jailhouse conversion. At that moment, I was not just content but happy with my life. Then this voice said, “Everything’s going to be all right.”

How do you know it wasn’t an auditory hallucination? Brandon looked inside a group of girls he didn’t know smiled and short thick set blonde girl waved at him as if they knew him. Aaron stood with his back to the door; they must have been waving at Aaron. You know, just a voice in your head. You know you could have imagined the whole thing.

I know that it wasn’t a voice in my head because I know what those voices sound like. I know that it wasn’t in my head the same way that I know that your voice isn’t imaginary. Aaron dropped the cigarette but onto the sidewalk and extinguished the flame beneath the heel of his steel-toed work boots.

It was as if the voice were made of light, and it spoke to me at the molecular level. It wasn’t just some sound; I really can’t say that I heard those words so much as I experienced them. And I knew that it was the truth. I was struck with a sense of awe, then overcome with a feeling of great peace. I knew nothing and understood everything in that moment. All of my fears evaporated I no longer feared death or worried about anything in life.

So, why aren’t you a Christian then if this was god, if you’re so sure that it was god talking to you? Brandon waited on the sidewalk and adjusted his glasses.

Because the voice didn’t have a denomination, it had nothing to do with the church or organized religion of any kind. It was simply what it was.

Well, Brandon retorted. Your god sounds a lot like old Jack Kerouac.

-about the author JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.