Six for poker, the usual Saturday night bunch. Peter, Moses, Adam, Gabriel, and Mary shuffle into their usual seats. Jesus' chair is empty.
"So, where's His Nibs?" Adam asks.
"Walkabout," Peter says. "Don't expect him to show."
The others grumble variations of their usual take on the subject of His frequent absences. Jesus does it a lot, taking time to visit the mortal plane, walk about among the natives, get a feel for what's going on among them. A game of His own peculiar design. He did it other days often enough, but He found walking about on the Earth, and going to and fro upon it, seemed to offer a particularly brilliant flash and zest on Saturday nights. Humankind seemed to tingle with leashed tension, but on Saturday nights, the tension often snaps and people do the most extraordinary things. Interesting things.
So Jesus walks about. And watches.
"Five to three he gets back before we fold." Gabriel favors his companions with a toothy smile, the gold incisor flashing like something from a pagan idol, a single gold loop earring bobbing from a fleshy ear under his bald dome, just touching his shoulder. Neckless. A black Buddha with a $1000 suit, a shit-eating grin, a pimp's jewelry and The Horn, ever within easy reach, balanced on one knee, clutched in many-ringed stubby fingers.
"Make it even up and you're on." Mary, sitting on a pillow to soften the hardwood chair bottom, shifts her weight, sets a stack of chips aside. Gabriel matches the stack.
Mary is forever pregnant, symbolically but all too painfully, and the Saturday night game with the boys is one of few stimulating diversions available to her. She often chuckles at the irony of the ancient, chauvinistic role she's forced to play as the Mother Goddess--mixed metaphors--superimposed on her free will, and suppressing it, which, if turned loose, would permit her to jump Adam and screw his lights out.
She eyes the boy across the table and gives him her most alluring smile. She tries to make it seductive, but it comes out beatific. As usual. Genetics.
"Deal." Adam picks at a zit on his chin. He doesn't notice Mary. Not his type. Too old.
Adam is too young to be in the back room of The Half-Acre, the hottest nightspot in heaven, where Gabe and the boys hang out, killing time. Knocking back a few brewskis, shooting a little stick, talking trash, eyeing the babes. Playing a little poker on Saturday night.
Waiting.
But the boys let Adam in because while he isn't as old as the angels, and while he's forever sixteen, he's the oldest human in the ant farm. That gives him a certain status with the babes, and he picks them up and lays them down with ease and grace. Built, he is, and hung. The others are jealous, especially Gabriel, who cops to a stereotypical image that black guys are supposed to have huge dongs. Gabriel's dick is smaller than his pinky. He doesn't let on he feels inadequate, but he doesn't show up at the spa very often.
Adam, racist yuppie, looks for opportunities to get on Gabe's case. Gabe would like to choke the shit out of the pretty man-child, but everybody's actions are governed, dictated from An Unassailable Source, even angels. Gabe's digs at Adam are subtle and, he thinks, more satisfying.
Peter deals, green eyeshade bobbing above his narrow face. Moses cuts. Of course.
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