“This is why I don’t write memoir,” Anil says. “There’s an inherent intransmissibility to experience that memoir purports to be able to breach? You know, thus grounding itself, as a very genre, in a lie?”
“Yeah, no,” Billy says. “Not like that. Well, maybe like that.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?” Anil says.
“I met the Devil today,” Billy says.
Anil contemplates this, drags on his cigarette again.
“The Devil,” he repeats.
“Yeah, the Devil.”
“Which one?” Anil says.
This throws Billy for a second. “Which one? You know, Anil, the Devil.”
“My family is Hindu, man. We don’t have just one devil.”
“Oh, shit,” Billy says. “I didn’t think of that.”
“So, I don’t know, if you’re really telling me that you met the Devil—and I’m still kind of hoping that you mean ‘the Devil’ as some kind of metaphor, like maybe you faced your own personal demon, or you smoked heroin or something—but if you’re really telling me that you met the Judeo-Christian Devil, with the embedded implication there being that Judeo-Christianity is somehow ontologically more real than the Hindu beliefs of my own tradition—I mean, shit, Billy, I’m not the best example of a devout practicing Hindu, but don’t take that to mean that there aren’t a fuck-ton of them out there. And I’m not saying that a billion Hindus can’t all be wrong—I’m pretty sure they all are, in fact—but if they’re all wrong, I guarantee you that the motherfucking Christians aren’t right.”
“I don’t mean to be offensive,” Billy says, cringing. “Is this offensive?”
“Yes,” Anil says. “You’re basically a racist.”
“I’m sorry,” Billy blurts.
“No, man, would you relax?” Anil says. “We’ve been friends for like ten years and you still don’t know when I’m fucking with you?”
“He did something to my brain,” Billy says, morosely. “He did something to my brain and nothing makes sense any more.”
Anil gives him a long look.
“Okay, see, now you sound like a crazy person,” Anil says. “This seems like an actual step down from when you were just going on about the Devil. Maybe you’d better start over.”
“I woke up this morning,” Billy says, “and there was this guy in the apartment.” That seems like a workable way in. He continues from there. Anil finishes his cigarette and starts a second one and doesn’t interrupt. When Billy finishes he closes his eyes, waiting for judgment.
“So what about God?” Anil says, finally.
Billy opens his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“If you believe in the Devil now, you should believe in God,” Anil says. He points upward, by way of illustration.
“Yeah,” Billy says. “That would make sense. But remember the part where I said things don’t make sense any more?”
“I’m going to say a word and I want you to tell me if you have any special feeling about it, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“The word is: Jesus.”
Billy throws out his hands, exasperated. “Really, dude? Really?”
“What?”
“Jesus? Jesus isn’t exactly an emotionally neutral word for anybody raised in the goddamn Western world. It’s maybe one of the top ten words that we have special feelings about? ‘Jesus,’ ‘taxes,’ ‘pedophile,’ and I’m sure there are seven others? But if you’re asking me if I have any special feeling about that word that I didn’t have yesterday, then the answer is no.”
“Okay,” Anil says. “That’s weird.”
“Yeah, asshole, I know. That’s where we came in, remember? Give me a cigarette.”
“I thought you quit.”
“I reserve the right to be un-quit in a mental health emergency such as the one we clearly have before us today.”
“Fair enough.” They huddle together to get Billy lit, and then they separate, standing there for a minute, eyeing one another somewhat suspiciously.
“I dunno, man, you seem normal to me,” Anil says, finally.
“I feel normal,” Billy says. “Except there’s like this one belief in my head that I just can’t make fit.”
“You know what I think?” Anil says. “I think you got pranked.”
Billy, dragging on his cigarette, shakes his head with a vigorous no, but Anil carries on: “I think Jørgen and some buddy of his got the best of you. You said he was out of town, right?”