WHEN Yankel Morgenstern died and went to heaven, he was surprised to discover that God was a large chicken. The chicken was around thirty feet tall, and spoke perfect English. He stood before a gleaming eternal coop of gold made of chicken wire of shimmering bronze, and behold, inside, a nest of diamonds.
“Fuck,” said Morgenstern.
“You know,” said Chicken, “that’s the first thing everyone says when they meet me. “‘Fuck.’ How does that make me feel?”
Morgenstern threw himself at Chicken’s feet, kissing his enormous holy claws.
“Hear O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is One!” Morgenstern cried out.
Chicken stepped backward and shrugged.
“Eh?” he said, bobbing his enormous head.
“What?” asked Morgenstern.
“What’s that supposed to do for me? Hero Israel …?” he asked. “How’s it go again?” asked Chicken.
“It’s … it’s Shema,” Morgenstern said with hesitation.
Chicken stomped around in a circle before settling down in His Holy Nest of Nests. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. I’ve been hearing it for years. Still not sure what it means, though. Hero Israel—”
“Not hero Israel,” snapped Morgenstern. He stood up, clutching his black felt hat in his hand. “Hear, O Israel. It means that you are one, that you are the only, you know … God.”
That last word didn’t come easily.
“Of course I am,” said Chicken. “Do you see any other Chickens around here?”
Morgenstern thought of his wife and children down on Earth, praying uselessly to a nonfowl deity that didn’t exist. He thought of all the chickens he’d eaten. Breasts, thighs, giblets, nuggets. So many omelets. Western. Spanish. Californian. Dear God. It was true that in the few months before his death he had switched to free-range, but would that earn the Chicken’s mercy? He thought of the fast-food industry, of KFC, of the horrible retribution spicy chicken wings would surely bring upon all mankind.
“Hey Gabe! Gabe!” called the Chicken. “Is it Hero Israel, or Hear O Israel?”
A stocky old man appeared from the clouds. He wore a pair of dirty Carhartt overalls and smoked a cigarette.
“It is Hero Israel, Sir. You are quite correct.” He turned his head sharply toward Morgenstern.
“Morgenstern?”
“Yes?”
“Follow me.”
Morgenstern bowed to the large chicken and walked backward from Him in a show of deference and respect, but when he looked up, Chicken was already beak-deep in His golden bowl of feed.
Morgenstern felt dizzy. This was all too much.
“Was that really …?”
Gabe nodded.
“But the Bible—” said Morgenstern.
“Don’t you worry about the Bible,” said Gabe. “We’ve got the joker who wrote that thing down in hell. Gabe,” he said, extending his hand to Morgenstern as they walked through the Nothingness toward the Nowhere.
“As in Gabriel, right?” asked Morgenstern. “I expected you to be more, I don’t know—”
“Jewish?”
“I suppose,” answered Morgenstern.
“Asians all think I’d be Asian. Black folks all think I’d be black. It’s a funny world. I’m sort of the head ranch hand around here. I make sure Chicken has enough feed and water, I clean his coop. You know, general maintenance.”
“Couldn’t The Chicken just create his own food?”
“Not ‘The Chicken,’ just ‘Chicken.’ And no, he can’t create his own food. He’s a chicken.”
Morgenstern asked Gabe where he was taking him.
“Nowhere. This is what we do here. Wherever you go, there you are.”
“Christ,” cried Morgenstern. “You’re Buddhist! I knew it. God is a Buddhist! Damn damn damn! I knew the Buddhists were right. Always so happy and peaceful.”
“He’s not a Buddhist,” interrupted Gabe. He paused to light a cigarette. Marlboro, Reds. “He’s a chicken.”
“I need to go back to Earth,” Morgenstern blurted out.
“Earth? Why?”
Morgenstern turned to face Gabe.
“Let me tell them, Gabe. Please. Let me tell my family, just my family, Gabe. He’s a chicken! Not Hashem, Not Adonai! Oh, the years I wasted! Let me tell them so they don’t have to jump through the hoops I did, trying to please some maniacal father who art in heaven! Nine children, Gabe. Nine full, happy, worry-free lives! Let them drive on Saturday, let them eat bacon, let them get the lunch special at Red Lobster! McDonald’s, Gabe! Do you have any of those fries up here, do you? What does a hamburger with cheese taste like? Is anal sex all it’s cracked up to be? Please, Gabe! They can have abs. They can drive Camaros. They can watch television on Friday night. I never saw an episode of Miami Vice, Gabe, never. Mine was no life. I was raised like a veal. Not chosen. Just … people. Oh, what freedom. Please. Let me tell them, Gabe.”
Gabe took a long drag from his cigarette and shook his head.
“They won’t listen,” he said. “I’ve tried telling a few myself. But you want to go back to Earth? Go. Go back to Earth.”
Morgenstern hugged Gabe tightly.
“Don’t you have to clear it with The Chicken?”
“Not ‘The Chicken,’” said Gabe, “just ‘Chicken.’ And no, I don’t. Chicken doesn’t care either way.” He flicked his cigarette butt off to the side. “He gets his feed filled in the morning, and his droppings cleaned in the afternoon and that’s all He really wants to know. I’ll see ya in a couple years.”
“Hey!” a voice from below called upward. “Watch where you flick your butts!”
“Well, well!” Gabe shouted down. “If it isn’t Mr. Bible Writer.”
“I said I was sorry!” the man shouted back.
When Gabe looked up, Morgenstern was gone.
MORGENSTERN awoke. He rolled his head slowly to the side and saw his wife and his daughter Hannah sitting at the table in the hospital room, eating their dinner.
Chicken.
“Don’t … eat….” was all he could manage.
His wife jumped, startled at his sudden awakening.
“Boruch Hashem!” she clapped. “Blessed is the Lord who makes miracles happen every day! Don’t shake your head, Yankel, you have tubes in your nose. Hannah, come quick, your father is alive!”
His daughter approached cautiously, holding a barbecued chicken drumstick in her right hand and a half-eaten wing in her left.
“May Hashem grant you a full and speedy recovery,” she mumbled in Yiddish while staring at her shoes. She spotted a piece of barbecued God on her blouse, picked it off with her greasy little fingers and popped it into her mouth.
Morgenstern groaned and passed out.
FRIDAY afternoon he was back home in his very own bed. He’d decided to put off telling his family about Chicken until he was out of the hospital. He would tell them tonight, as they gathered around the Shabbos table. He would speak to them the Word of Chicken, and thus would they be freed.
Maybe jump in the car afterward, catch a movie.
When the sun had finally set and Shabbos had finally arrived, Morgenstern pulled himself into his wheelchair, took a deep breath and rolled himself into the dining room.
His wife had set the table with the good tablecloth, the good silverware and the good glasses. He watched her light the good Shabbos candles, covering her face with her hands and silently praying to a God who wasn’t there.
“Please hear my blessings,” she prayed to nobody, “in the merit of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.”
She’d have had better luck with a handful of scratch. Maybe some cut-up apple.
She turned to him with love in her eyes.
“Blessed is God,” she said in Yiddish.
She came to him, knelt beside his wheelchair and hugged him.
“I have to tell you something,” he said.
“I know,” she sobbed into the good napkin. “I know.”
“I don’t think you do.”
He rolled away from her. “When I was dead,” said Morgenstern, “I met God.”
“We all meet God every day,” said his wife, “if only you know where to look.”
“No!” shouted Morgenstern. “You’re not listening! How do you think I got back here?” he asked her.
“Who else but the All-Merciful would send you back to me?”
He could take no more.
“Who?” shouted Morgenstern as he wheeled himself around to the head of the table. “I’ll tell you who!”
The loud voices attracted the children, and they gathered slowly around the Shabbos table.
“Let me tell you a little something about your, uh, All-Knowing! Let me tell you a little something about your All-Merciful!”
Morgenstern looked from Shmuel to Yonah to Meyer to Rivka to Dovid to Hannah to Deena to Leah to little Yichezkel.
The children were all showered, their hair neatly combed, and dressed in their finest Shabbos clothes.
He looked at his wife. She was wearing his favorite wig. There was a picture of Jerusalem on the wall above her right shoulder, some family pictures above her left. Bar mitzvahs, weddings, last year’s seder at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami.
“Children,” he began.
“God,” he said.
“Is,” he continued.
“A,” he added.
The light from the Shabbos candles flickered in the eyes of his children. Little Meyer was wearing a brand new yarmulke, and couldn’t stop fidgeting with it. Shmuel held a handful of Torah notes from his rabbi he would read after the meal, and the girls would be looking forward to singing their favorite Shabbos songs.
“God is a what?” asked little Hannah.
He couldn’t do it.
“God,” Morgenstern said to his children, “is a merciful God.” His wife came to his side. “He is the God of our forefathers. Blessed is God who in His mercy restores life to the dead.”
The children cheered.
“Amen, may His name be called out in joy!” they shouted, jumping up from their seats to hug him all at once.
Morgenstern closed his eyes and hugged his children tightly.
His wife bent over and kissed him gently on his forehead. “May His kindness shine down on us forever,” she whispered.
She smiled then, went into the kitchen and brought out the soup.
Chicken.