Good to Be God by Tibor Fischer

can usually tease off some 43

    TIBOR FISCHER
    shavings. But not this pistachio. I don’t know what they did with this tub, but it must have been involved in some extreme refrigeration activities for years.
    I smile. Always smile. “It’s really hard,” I say to the mother in the hope that she’ll acknowledge my predicament and say “we’ll come back in ten minutes”. She doesn’t. I decide to put the tub on the hotplate for burgers, but either the hotplate doesn’t work or I don’t have the ability to switch it on. I push the scoop as hard as I can. The scoop gets a slight veneer of grease. I push again until I sweat. Is this stuff really ice cream?
    The mother watches me with contempt. This is worse than being shouted at. This isn’t my fault, but it might as well be.
    “Where’s the ice cream?” the kid asks predictably.
    “The man’s just making it for you,” the mother replies. This is what’s interesting about kids. They believe. They believe the man’s making it. They believe we can fly.
    I push the scoop so hard my vision goes, and the scoop buckles.
    Out of curiosity, I examine the other two tubs. Like rock. I smile at the mother. There we are, attendees at an unfortunateness.
    G
    My mishap with the ice cream persuades me not to mess around any more. I need to get on with my mission, and to trust that money will come from somewhere. Unidirectional.
    Pondering how to give off hints of divinity, it occurs to me that a house of worship would be rich in believers and where God-grade actions would be appreciated (I’m not wasting my time trying to persuade people who don’t even believe in God).
    I hang out in a few local churches to get a picture of piety in Miami and I can see that the mission won’t be at all easy.
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    GOOD TO BE GOD
    If you want something, you can work hard to create or to earn it, to assemble it day by day, week by week, year after year, or you can go out and steal one someone else made.
    The big churches are well organized, they have skilled pul-piteers. Like any successful business they are well placed to repel boarders. St Mary’s Cathedral puts on a great show, but it would take me years to work my way through the ranks. It’s the pyramid scheme all over, you have to pay before you get. And I suspect that the Catholic Church would be rather upset about God turning up and wilting their authority.
    The smaller congregations, on the other hand, seem too nutty, too poor to bother hijacking, but are also quite jealously controlled by cult masters.
    I spend an afternoon strolling down the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. No one I talk to knows why it’s called the Miracle Mile, but then it’s very likely the staff in the shops I browsed in have only been in Miami a month longer than me.
    The Miracle Mile is a row of glitzy shops, but has nothing out of the ordinary about it. Would it be too corny to simulate a miracle on the Miracle Mile? On the other hand the copy would be prewritten for the journalists. I’ve got to make my act press-friendly.
    Turning off the Miracle Mile, I saunter into Books & Books, which I assume is a bar with an odd name, as a bar is what greets you in the courtyard, until I see they also do books. Are there any short books about becoming God?
    As I’m hot and tired, I sit down and order a drink instead.
    The walking’s drained me, and I also spent the morning thrashing the punchbag Dishonest Dave supplied. With Sixto’s permission, I fixed a screw into a tree branch in the garden, and hung the punchbag.
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    TIBOR FISCHER
    I’ve never had a go at a punchbag, but immediately discovered I had a vocation for violence. I beat that punchbag senseless.
    Punches, jabs, elbows, roundhouse kicks (in a lame, forty-something way, but it was fantastic). I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed hitting it. I was enjoying it so much I was certain someone would come and stop me.
    My vocation for violence is, however, a vocation for violence against the