A car horn blares. No -- it's a trolley, moaning long and low like a sickly whale, as the cars speed across the tracks that run down the center of the street, their scorched treads screeching in reply. It's getting cold. A man can hardly think, let alone hold his own in a conversation with Christ.

"I've always wondered," I ask Jesus, who scrunches down inside his Army jacket as an icy wind begins to blow, "about the U.S. hockey team in '79." Christ rolls his eyes. "It was 1980," he says. (Who am I to argue with the Son of God? He's NEVER wrong.) "Fine," I say. "Why'd you let them beat those Russians and win the gold medal?" Now, Christ has a way of getting caught up in details, minutiae, and he begins explaining that the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team in 1980 actually beat Finland in the gold medal game, not Russia. But everyone remembers the earlier win against the Russians, because the U.S. and Russia (which Christ just HAS to remind me was called the Soviet Union back then) were such bitter rivals on the global stage. "But WHY let America win at all?" Christ smiles. I know he knows the answer. He's just not saying.

Right about then, as I shiver and cough, a doorway of brilliant light appears in the distance. I'm running through a long tunnel with peacelovewarmth and music waiting for me at the far end. Racing toward the light ... pumping my legs faster … with all my might … but my knees buckle and the light recedes ... grows dimmer … I'm falling back fast …

I hear myself say, "Buckner's legs." Jesus shoots me a look, like I'm crazy, or he doesn't understand what I'm asking. (Christ looks a LOT like that Southern rock guy who married Cher. Greg Allman. Skinny ... no real meat on his bones. A lean and hungry look. Hair long and matted. Short scraggly beard. Not dirty, exactly ... but, unkempt. Thoroughly unkempt. Khaki jacket smudged with stains (wine, beer, coffee?) and scarred with tiny gray-black pock marks from cigarettes. And what's with that halo -- winking onoffonoffonoff like a neon sign in a liquor store?) Christ frowns. He mouths a word: "unkempt." I don't want to get him angry, so I quickly press ahead: "The ball rolled right through Buckner's legs and the Sox lost the World Series." Jesus nods, noting for the record that the miscue took place in 1986. "Right," I say. "So … why'd that have to happen? I mean, he was a damn fine player. Had a perfectly respectable -- some would even say a GREAT career. Past his prime then, sure. But no slouch. No bum. He works like 15, 20 years to get in a position to win the World Series, and a ground ball rolls right between the guy's legs. And now, he's, like, the worst GOAT in baseball history!" (I'm a little nervous here. Does "goat" have any Biblical connotations that might piss off Jesus? Didn't God punish the Israelites for worshipping a goat? A ram? No wait … it was a calf! All right, then.) I continue: "C'mon. I really want to know. Just tell me. Why make him the goat?"

The tunnel returns, but it's not a tunnel, I realize, just my eyes going narrow, squinting hard against the sting of the freezing rain, focused on a lighted window three floors up in the All-Night Chinese Dim Sum Emporium. Car horns moan. So cold, I can't feel my feet.

Before vanishing as if he'd never been there at all -- before I even have a chance to broach the subject of Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay -- Christ lights my cigarette and winks. (Geez, would it kill him to let me borrow that jacket?) ... I know he knows. He absolutely 100% surely KNOWS. Because he's the:

… I mean, he's freakin' GOD for Chrissakes! 

And for a moment I see him once more, a huge and terrible figure above the tenement rooftops, adorned in a shimmering Monday Night Football blazer, microphone held high, voice booming down through the clouds. "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these. Of course, I am!" That's when I understand pretty much EVERYTHING, including the reasons Chirst had the initials "H.C." on his jacket and a diamond-studded "Howard" clip attached to his tie. And laughter peals through the hail-flecked sky before the night cuts away to a commercial.