Read Online Beware of God by Shalom Auslander - Free Book Online Page B

seemed a long time before the man spoke.
    â€œIt’s Stanley.”
    â€œStanley?”
    â€œStanley Fisher.”
    â€œThere is no Stanley Fisher,” said Sharon.
    â€œI’m Stanley Fisher.”
    â€œYou’re not Stanley Fisher,” said Sharon.
    â€œI’m not?”
    â€œYou can’t be,” said Sharon.
    â€œI can’t be or I’m not?”
    â€œYou’re not,” said Sharon, “because you can’t be.”
    And she hung up the phone.
    The world was a dark and depressing place in those days. But the baby cooed happily from inside the Graco Lite-Rider Stroller/Car Seat Combo, the deliverymen were carrying in the new Italian leather couches, and the tile man was already hard at work in the new master bath.

One Death to Go
    C HAIM Y ANKEL R OSENBERG lived in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, roughly 5,693 miles from the remote hilltop somewhere between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv where a small group of Kabbalists had gathered to figure out the exact timing of the end of the world.
    They should not have been doing that.
    This was not the Kabbalah of Roseanne or Madonna. This was the mysticism of Maimonides, of the Ari Zall, of Luzzato. This was Infinite God, creation ex nihilo, Divine Providence. This was some heavy shit.
    They gathered in a darkened classroom of their yeshiva, surrounded by piles of tattered books, reams of wrinkled notes and gallons of black coffee. The night before, they had stumbled on a hidden code which revealed that at the beginning of creation, God had picked A Number.
    It was a deal He’d cut with Himself, nervous as he was about this new venture called Man.
    A failsafe, really.
    The Number the Kabbalists had discovered buried in the ancient text was the number of violent deaths that God would allow to occur in the world before He got fed up and just pulled the plug.
    That’s all, folks.
    Thanks for playing.
    Coming this fall, version 2.0.
    It seemed a wise plan at the time, and the angels, never big fans of the Mankind project to begin with, backed it heartily. Recently, though, a growing minority had begun to suggest that instead of picking a number in the high million billions, He probably should have picked a number closer to, say, twenty-two, or twelve, or seven.
    According to the Kabbalists’ calculations, as of last night humanity was just one hundred deaths away from The End.
    The Kabbalists were worried, and to make matters worse, they were completely out of cigarettes. Humanity’s only shot—and it was a long one—was peace. No wars, no murders, no exceptions. No gang shootings, no assaults with a deadly weapon, no strangulations.
    One hundred chances.
    The next morning, they issued a press release to every country, every news agency and every law enforcement organization on the planet.
    They sent it to Ariel Sharon, and they sent it to Yassir Arafat. They sent it to the leaders of Hamas and to the leaders of Hezbollah and to the leaders of Al Qaeda. They sent it to Rummy, they sent it to Colin and they sent it to Condi. They sent it to Bush Forty-One, who sent it to Bush Forty-Four. They sent it to the Bloods, who sent it to the Crips. They sent it to the Yakuza who kindly forwarded it to the Italian mafia who kindly forwarded it to the Russian mafia who kindly forwarded it to the Israeli mafia.
    Sunday morning, the Kabbalists appeared on Meet the Press with Tim Russert. “Will you say on this program,” said Tim, “with the eyes of the nation upon you, that if one hundred more people die of unnatural causes, the world will cease to exist?”
    â€œYes,” said the Kabbalists.
    â€œOne hundred?” reiterated Tim.
    â€œOne hundred,” said the Kabbalists.
    â€œThe whole world?” reiterated Tim.
    â€œThe whole world,” said the Kabbalists.
    The following night on Letterman, the Number One Thing the Kabbalists Don’t Know was “Where Did I Leave That Damn