The night of the predicted Armageddon atheists set off fireworks down by Red Hook. May 21 had come and gone without the Messiah of the Christians showing his face. I didn’t see much cause for celebration. Those fanatics are mostly trouble-makers and shit-stirrers, but AP, my landlord, Alaska Jack, and I raised our glasses on top of the roof of our Fort Greene brownstone and toasted the strength of non-believers. After downing our drinks we descended to my apartment, where we finished my bottle of Irish Whiskey.
Alaska Jack was obsessed about his bachelor status.
“I have no wife. I have no kids. Nothing.” Alaska Jack wiped his shaved head with a towel. He had a tendency to sweat in his present condition.
“You don’t have nothing. You have me.” I broke out another line of some noxious blow. Nothing complimented nihilism better than cocaine. Even GW Bush liked yea-ho.
Thirty minutes later Alaska Jack left to trawl Billy-Burg for a one-night bride. He was probably going to be lucky. His pocket was filled with cash.
“I’ll join you.” My spirits were aflame from surviving ‘the Rapture’. I wanted more sin. I had money too.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Alaska Jack refused to let me leave my apartment. “You have a wife and kids. Getting fucked up at your age is fine as long as no one sees how fucked up you are.”
“You’re right, I don’t want to be the oldest man in the disco.” I had abdicated that title to my boss, Richie Boy.
He didn’t drink to make the girls pretty. The diamond dealer boozed to reverse the flow of time, but I understood his undying commitment to the nightlife. It was a wild world past midnight in New York.
I watched Alaska Jack get into his cab and then joined AP inside the brownstone.
He had kids too.
I bid him goodnight and went upstairs to my aerie.
Within minutes I was out cold.
Nothing says a drunken coma more lucidly than waking in your clothing on the floor. My taste buds were stiff from bourbon residue and the gray morning grinder my eyes. I got to my feet and staggered into the bathroom. The water ran cold from my shower head. I stood under the spray until the temperature hit boiling. A shave was unnecessary. It was Sunday Morning and I went downstairs to the kitchen.
AP was sitting at the table with his wife and kids. His son and daughter were smart for their age. They recognized that their father wasn’t feeling his oats. This divination was easy. AP sat at the table with his head in both hands.
“Have a good time last night?” His wife asked with dirt on her hands. She had spent the early part of the morning tearing up the garden in the backyard. The kids had been out of bed since dawn. She wanted her revenge and said, “You going for a greasy breakfast?”
The kids chanted ‘greasy breakfast’ in a high-pitched tone and AP groaned in pain.
My kids were on the other wide of the world. They were experts of ruining mornings. It’s a gift all children like to give drunken dads.
I picked up the front section of the NY Times and left AP to his misery.
At the Academy Diner on Lafayette I had my ‘usual’; eggs over-easy, bacon, home fries, whiskey down wet, and coffee.
The NY Times failed to report the failed ‘Rapture’.
I looked around the restaurant.
The tables and stools at the counter were empty.
The clock on the wall said 10:35.
Church-goers were still in their pews. The diner would be packed after 11.
I opened the paper to the Obits. At my age I like to see whom I have outlived, but I didn’t enjoy reading that Randy Macho Man Savage had died in a car crash.
The Macho Man was a true hero to wrestling fans in the 80s and 90s. His epic battles with Ricky the Dragon remain a highlight of Wrestlemania. He had fought all-comers and smote the winners and losers with a pantheon of signature moves such as the Atomic Drop, the Lariat Takedown, the Piledriver, and the ever-vicious Vertical Suplex. The Macho Man reigned as wild man of the ring for over forty years and his athleticism dignified a sham sport.
His ‘Oh Yeah’ sold millions of Slim Jim Beef Jerkys.
He was something else and I read the obit to discover that the Macho man had died of a heart attack while driving with his second wife.
Randy Savage was my age.
58.
He was actually several months younger and I imagined that the perennial champion had exited this mortal coil to the blaring horns of POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE. I exited from the Academy Diner thinking that the Macho Man was back together with Miss Elizabeth, his lovely consort, who preceded his demise with an OD. Neither of them were waiting for the ‘Rapture’ and I returned home to read the Drudge Report, the BBC News, and Al-Jazeera.
Fumbling with my keys I realized why the world had not ended this morning.
The Macho Man had gone into the Here-Forever to save humanity from the Final Day.
He had taken out Jesus.
I went to my computer to check the news.
None of the online press sites could verify any Christians have been transported to eternal bliss. GW Bush was still in Texas. The Jehovah Witnesses were knocking on doors around the world. Fundamentalists were exhorting their flocks to read the bible to the bone, while atheists were celebrating their triumph over the religious fools.
Harold Egbert Camping had warned the non-believers that May 21 was a ‘spiritual day of judgment’.
Now he was claiming that October 21, 2011 was the new dawn of destruction.
His followers would await the new Armageddon with bated exhilaration, however their Rapture will never come in this lifetime, for their beloved Jesus was drop-elbowed by the master of the square circle, Randy Macho Man Savage.
He saved the world.
Oh, yeah.