None of us were sure what to do. Do we clap? Do we hoot and holler? Do we continue to quietly sit on our thumbs, dumbstruck? Maybe, just maybe, God was sitting at the end of the table, and that created a unique uncertainty and anxiety. Just what is the protocol in this situation? I didn’t recall covering this one in any of my Hebrew school classes as a kid.
Harry helped us out, calling, “I said, Welcome to God’s houuuuuuuuuuuusssssse!”
That was our cue. We had been given permission to jump up from our seats and go nuts! High fives were everywhere. Hugs. Some tears, which may have been more about relief than sadness. This would, perhaps, be a fun night after all. I glanced at the shadow at the head of the table. Still. Like a statue.
Harry continued. “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, in death, for the first time ever, you are going to be introduced to one of the great mysteries of life.”
There was a buzz among everyone around the table. Mort turned to me and confirmed what I was thinking and, with both hands on my shoulders, whispered, “We’re going to meet God tonight.”
So it wasn’t just me.
Then the room got even darker. One by one, a chorus of angels singing a haunting harmony, their wings glowing in a soft light, floated into the room. Slowly, they circled and created a sound so deeply nuanced, it was like they were singing emotions. Prior to this moment, I had equated happiness as sounding like laughter and sadness as crying. This was the same, but so completely different. It felt personal, as though the tones they sang were telling a story of my life. I could feel the highs and lows. I could feel the moments of joy and episodes of darkness. Heavenly. There was no other word to describe what they sang or how they sounded. They sounded heavenly. I wondered if the others heard what I heard.
As their harmony began to lighten and the intensity lessened, a series of colored lights began to spin around the room. Randomly, the red, green, yellow, blue, and orange lights danced on the walls, across the table, and even over our faces. The long, laser-like lights created a beautiful web above us and cast just enough of a glow that I could see the smiles, dropped jaws, and awe on the faces of my deceased friends and fellow dinner guests. At least, I think we were all deceased. I wasn’t sure. Another assumption. I really needed to stop doing that.
“In life,” Harry narrated, “many of us wonder about the existence of God. We wonder about the universe and how it operates. Even those of us who don’t believe, or just can’t find their way to believe, are often curious. There are moments for everyone when something happens that shouldn’t have happened. Or something doesn’t happen that should have. And we often chalk up those moments to circumstances, luck, or coincidence—good and bad. Tonight, you’ll learn that most of these situations aren’t circumstance or luck at all. Or maybe they are still just dumb luck. You’ll get to decide.”
My heart was racing. I could feel it crashing against the inside of my chest like it was trying to escape a locked vault. Harry then borrowed from Lennon and McCartney. Only this time, he wasn’t introducing Billy Shears. God probably doesn’t worry too much about royalties.
As he took a big pause, we started screaming like the studio audience of Oprah’s Favorite Things. If this were a reality show like The Voice or Dancing with the Stars, Harry would have thrown his intro to a commercial. Everyone in the room was anticipating the introduction of God.
Then the laser lights started dancing across the wall. The angels started to sing again. This time, the lasers weren’t so random, and the angels not so haunting. It was playful. Whimsical. Almost silly. Like the theme from a circus or carnival. The lasers were writing on the wall.
A word starting with “F.” Another letter. “A.” Confusion set in.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . I give you . . .”
Next came a “T,” and just as the “E” was formed on the wall, Harry bellowed, “FAAAAAAAAAAATE!”
Wait. What? Fate? Not God? Fate? He meant God, right? I looked at Mort. He meant God, right?
Before I could go any deeper into the series of questions flooding my soul and try to interpret what had just happened, a form zipped into the room. A blur. It moved from corner to corner. From ceiling to floor. It would stop just long enough for our eyes to catch a glimpse, but not long enough to figure out what it was. It seemed frantic. Chaotic. Random. At one point, I thought it was standing on the table. Assuming it was God at the head of the table, I thought the blur sat on God’s lap. And if I was not mistaken, God laughed his ass off.
An audible “whoooosh” followed the blur every time it moved. Was it caused by the speed at which it moved or the angels singing sound effects like some kind of a cappella group? At this point, I wasn’t sure of anything. A smile was plastered on my face. I guess I was sure of that. Whatever this was, the lights, the sights, and the sounds made it fun. Laugh-out-loud fun. Belly-laughing fun. I couldn’t remember the last time I let myself laugh like that. Not even with Jess.
A spotlight was cast onto the center of the table, and there he stood—motionless but posing like a supermodel during some kind of absurd photo shoot. Dressed exactly like a court jester with pointy shoes, a multicolored smock, and a funny hat with bells, Fate, at least I had to think this was Fate, slowly looked around the room. He turned to look each of us in the eyes. When he got to me, he seemed to pause and cock his head ever so slightly, his piercing blue eyes looking right through me. He then howled a guttural laugh that startled me. Why did he laugh at me and nobody else? What did he know that I didn’t? Things suddenly felt a little less fun.
Fate was short. Maybe five-foot-five, but he appeared to be in great shape. That, or he was wearing fake muscles like a superhero costume. His gear fit tightly over his body. His purple tights showed off well-formed calves. He wore a white mask with a painted expression that hid any true emotions. The ultimate expression of a chameleon. Someone who could play to any room. This single mask had managed to capture the entirety of my life. In the moment, it felt very sad. And that made me feel very sad. Mort tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “He’s beautiful.” I wasn’t so sure.
Fate spoke, “Please take your seats.” His voice was deeper than I expected. Maybe I didn’t expect him to speak at all. And the fact that his lips weren’t moving was completely off-putting. He continued a slow turn as he spoke.
“I am Fate.” He said it like Darth Vader telling Luke he was his father. He took a beat to let it sink in, then quickly, “AndIamyourentertainmentfortheevening!” He cackled and again started zipping around the room. He was moving so fast that we couldn’t even see the blur; we could only hear the sound. His movement caused an echo, and we all spun in our chairs and craned our necks trying to figure out where he was.
Where did he go? What is he going to do? Card tricks? Is he going to do stand-up? Some kind of vaudeville act? He stopped to show himself and taunted us with a higher pitch, still talking extremely fast. “Youghostshavenoideawhatisabouttohappen!” he screamed with a kind of maniacal delight that made me think of Robin Williams or Jim Carrey. And yet again, he took off around the room. The lights still swirling. The angels still singing. Blondie didn’t move. It’s like she had seen this before. I was glad I wasn’t having a seizure.
Then just as suddenly as he took off . . . he stopped and looked directly at Mort.
“Mort Goldberg, you were exactly right when you told Erik that meeting Jeanie was fate.” Fate winked.
I looked at Mort, mouth open wide. If my jaw could hit the floor, it would have. Mort, though, looked cool. Having his love and life confirmed must have felt comforting. His faith was delivered. Again, Fate took off. Definitely Robin Williams. He seemed to have that kind of brilliance to his madness, and that look in his eye that let everyone know he wasn’t just one step ahead of us but miles and miles ahead.
One by one, Fate stopped in front of everyone and explained situation after situation that he had apparently manipulated. He told stories of wrong numbers. He told us about Billy Tevens, who sat two seats to my left and was apparently fired from his job due to a misunderstanding over a lost file. A file, it turns out, which was later found and resulted in a promotion and finding a long-lost half-brother.
“The file wasn’t lost,” he teased. “You were.”
And then it was my turn. I was last. “Erik, Erik, Erik . . . You have been one of the most frustrating subjects I’ve ever worked with. The questions. The questions. Oy! All the questions. I gave you more opportunities to make life-changing choices than perhaps anyone who ever came before you. But you never budged. Do you have any clue how many different times you and Jess were in the same place at the same time? You talked a big game and then stayed right where you were. Your feet comfortably cemented in place, and your mind in its story.”
I felt like a kid being called out by his coach after a bad game. I was embarrassed. Heaven had become my hell. If I could have traded places with Blondie, I would have. I had forever said that being my dog was the best gig on the planet. Turns out, it was the best gig in the universe. I wanted to hide under the table. Fate noticed my unease and let up.
“We’ll get back to you.”
Fate addressed the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I am going to show you who I am and what I do. The truth is that God has a difficult job,” he said, gesturing to the end of the table and confirming what we had all hoped—God was in the room. “And despite all the love God feels, it’s a lonely job. So my job is that of God’s court jester.” That explained the costume.
“It’s my job to bring levity to the universe. It’s my job to introduce people who might never otherwise meet. It’s my job to create situations where you’re forced to make a choice. Go left? Go right? Or sometimes,” he said, looking right into my eyes, “stay right where you are.”
Mort again placed his hand on my shoulder. And Blondie put her head on my shoe.
“Think about all the times in your life when you felt a kind of wonder at meeting someone. Reconnecting with someone. All the times when some set of circumstances created a moment that was inexplicable. It’s amazing, right?”
We all nodded silently.
“It turns out that many—not all—of those moments are creations of my imagination. They are designed to delight God. To make all the people who have come before you laugh. They are experiments in the beauty of human existence and the human experience.”
I couldn’t decide if this was funny or more like seeing the kitchen of your favorite restaurant and discovering it was infested with cockroaches. Sometimes, it’s not such a good thing to look under the hood or behind the scenes. I always liked the mystery of circumstance. I liked feeling as though chance meetings were random, and immediate intimate connections, a gift. But what if it turns out that it was all just predestined or truly just fated?
Mort told me that getting hit by the car to meet Jeanie was fate. But it turns out—it was Fate with a capital “F.” To me, that lessened the impact of the moment. To me, taking chance out of the story made it far less romantic. If the whole thing was just choreographed, what did it actually mean? I didn’t like feeling as though we were being moved around like chess pieces. Was there no free will? Were we just all puppets in this show? Were we just characters in a video game? Fate said that Jess appeared in my life multiple times, and I missed it. What if I had kept missing her? Were we “supposed to” be together? My whole life already felt like a series of “supposed to.” I wanted less of that. I had blamed my parents for my struggles all these years. I blamed the fights. Were the fights Fated, too? Were we all just following a script?
I felt dizzy as I strained to understand what was happening. I wanted to leave. I wanted to cover my ears and sing, “lalalalalalalalalalalalalala” to make it go away, to make it stop, and avoid hearing anything else. I may have been afraid of taking huge leaps, but I was inspired by the people who did. And if they weren’t real, what did that mean for my inspiration?
