Read Online Bible Stories for Adults by James Morrow - Free Book Online

tourists, a touch of the Arabian Nights in midtown Manhattan, but after eight the show ended, and any underclass scum attempting to breach the skyscraper quickly discovered that these men were real guards equipped with genuine guns.
    â€œ
Buenas noches
, Señor Prete,” said Manuel morosely, his pith helmet shining in the roseate light spilling from the atrium.
    â€œWhat’s new with the Poobah?” asked George, grimacing. A two-foot-high bearskin busby sat atop his head like a treed possum.
    â€œHe’s in Japan,” said Michael.
    â€œBuying it?” asked George, sniggering.
    â€œNot exactly,” said Michael, for it was merely the Island of Yaku Shima that Mr. Nimrod intended to buy.
    Michael entered the atrium—a dazzling space, epic, echoey, and grand, agleam with polished bronze trimmings and florid Breccia Perniche marble. Boarding the escalator, he ascended though the tiers of polyglot shops. Level A, Loewe’s of Spain; Level B, Jourdan’s of France; Level C, Beck’s of Germany; Level D, Pineider’s of Italy. Michael’s own stooped self glided by, caught in a gleaming copper panel—his hunched shoulders, receding hairline, pinched sad-eyed face. He got off on E, the floor from which the multispeed, indoor waterfall, at the moment set on Slow, commenced its perpetual plunge. Marching past Norman Crider Antiques, he flashed his corporation pass to the Vietnamese guard and stepped into the open elevator.
    The penthouse commanded the entire sixty-third floor. A castle in the clouds, Michael mused as he rose, his eardrums tightening with the force of his ascent; a San Simeon of the sky, he decided, disembarking. The front door, a slab of glossy oak, held a bronze ring threaded through the nostrils of a minotaur. He grasped the ring and knocked.
    God answered. At least, that was who the penthouse’s occupant claimed to be. “Hi, I’m God,” he said amiably, “into macroevolution, quantum mechanics, and Jewish history.” Those cosmopolitan tones again, filtered this time through the pressure in Michael’s ears.
    â€œMichael Prete.”
    â€œI know,” said the alleged deity. “Everything,” he added. With his dusky skin, Prince Valiant haircut, and deep chocolate eyes, he seemed of no particular nationality, and his age and gender were likewise indeterminate. A mildly feminine bosom swelled the breast of his white silk housecoat.
    They shook hands.
    â€œI suppose you’d like some sort of proof,” said the penthouse’s owner in a subtly chiding voice. He led Michael into a parlor paved with carpeting so soft and thick it was like walking on a gigantic pat of butter. “I suppose you expect a sign.” They moved past a Steinway grand piano to a tract of window the size of a squash court.
“Viola,”
said the rich man, gesturing toward the storm-swept city below.
    Â 
    Being God, I was able to give Michael Prete several signs that night. First I made the blizzard disappear.
Whoosh, poof
, and suddenly it was a sweltering summer night in New York, not a smidgen of slush, not one snowflake. The thermometer read ninety-one degrees Fahrenheit.
    Michael was impressed, but his skepticism vanished completely only after I filled the nocturnal sky with phosphorescent seraphim singing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and the streets with platoons of cherubim giving out roast turkeys to homeless alcoholics.
    I changed everything back, of course. Restored the season, recalled the turkeys, sent the angels home, wiped all trace of the event from the collective consciousness. If You intervene too profusely in Earth’s affairs, I’ve noticed, the inhabitants become chronically distracted, and they forget to worship You.
    Â 
    â€œWould you like a drink?”
    â€œY-yes. A d-drink. Please.” Michael was so shaken he’d dropped his Spanish-leather valise on the rug. “Are You