Madonna and the Starship (9781616961220) by James Morrow

savior complex. I tell him there are worse role models than Jesus.”
    Mirabile dictu , as in a minor-league reenactment of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, our store of victuals was sufficient to feed everyone who showed up that night. After supplying the last tramp with his chowder and bread, we four missionaries—I now considered myself an honorary Assisian—commandeered the remaining portions and adjourned to the basement, a warm but gloomy grotto suffused with cigarette smoke and crammed with vagrants consuming their dinners at dilapidated picnic tables. Slurping sounds filled the air. The far corner evidently functioned as the editorial offices for the Catholic Anarchist —conference table, Silex coffee-maker, bank of typewriters, mimeograph machine, back issues papering the walls—and it was here that Connie and I alighted to eat in privacy.
    â€œSo how’d it go at the White Horse?” I asked her.
    â€œHorribly,” she replied, thereby producing a rush of pleasure in my Schadenfreude gland.
    â€œThings not working out between you and Sidney?”
    â€œI’m talking about Dylan Thomas. The man is killing himself. After six straight whiskies, he went to his hotel to lie down. He wanted me to go with him.”
    â€œAs his nursemaid?”
    â€œHis tavern wench.”
    â€œNaturally you refused.”
    â€œSidney did that for me,” said Connie. “An hour later, Mr. Thomas was back with us. He drank another six, kissed me on the lips, and collapsed. They took him to Saint Vincent’s. I expect to read his obituary in tomorrow’s Times .”
    â€œ ‘Though they go mad, they shall be sane,’” I recited, sipping lukewarm coffee. “‘Though they sink through the sea, they shall rise again. Though lovers be lost, love shall not.’”
    â€œâ€˜And death shall have no dominion.’” Connie smeared butter on her bread. “What shall we discuss first, your Martians or your Bread Alone script?”
    â€œI’m afraid I’ve lost confidence in my script.”
    â€œMaybe you can salvage part of it for a Brock Barton episode or an Andromache story,” Connie said with an acerbic grin.
    â€œAndromeda.”
    â€œRight.” She took a bite of bread. “Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that these crustaceans are exactly what they say they are. Somewhere beyond our solar system lies a planet of logical positivists.”
    â€œLogical positivists?” I offered Connie a perplexed frown, then swallowed a spoonful of chowder.
    â€œLook it up in your Britannica . The Vienna Circle of the nineteen-twenties. Verify, verify. No metaphysics allowed. The concept of God is not so much false as incoherent. Eventually the movement reached Cambridge. I hope your Qualimosans aren’t typical of alien races. What could be more boring than a galaxy run by Bertrand Russell?”
    â€œA galaxy run by Bishop Sheen?” I suggested. “I hear you’ll be announcing tomorrow’s show. How about, after the awards ceremony, you join the lobsters and me for our night on the town? I could use an expert in the care and feeding of logical positivists.”
    â€œSure, why not?” said Connie. “Relax, Kurt. They’re a couple of frat pledges, probably from Columbia.”
    â€œI wonder if Qualimosans die.”
    â€œHuh? Everybody dies, Kurt.”
    â€œBut then you Christians are rewarded with eternal life,” I noted.
    â€œI don’t know anything about eternal life. Donna says our job is to steal little pieces of Heaven and smuggle them into this mission. As for death, I’ll defer to a better writer than myself. ‘Do not go gentle into that good night...’”
    â€œâ€˜Old men should burn and rave at close of day,’” I added. “‘Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.’”
    â€œAmen,” said Connie.
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