CONFESSIONS OF AN IDOLATOR

My tab came due.

When a man gives himself up to covetousness, the world is his God.

We were effective like a baseball bat is effective in smashing a skull or shin.

We were mayhem and ballet, balancing on broken, hemorrhaging toes. The blood trail led to the bar.

Macallan, please, neat. Ice is for Eskimos. Keep ‘em coming until the boss calls it a night.

I was an idolator once, and I was damn good at it. And I emerged with other kindred spirits from the thick, thick mud to rut and hunt. Our sparkling new office building was our killing floor, the pink and indigo Sandia Mountains a majestic backdrop for felonious intent. We were profane, we were philanderers, we were blasphemers, we were moneychangers, we were greedy, we were liars, cheats, and very, very good at selling and buying, pillaging, and gutting. We did not merge with other companies; we consumed them. We lulled the conga lines of blue suits and beige dresses into a false sense of security, our sales pitch fair and serene, the wheels greased with booze, T-bones, pills, and slaps to the back and knee. We always laughed uproariously before the guillotine dropped, and we'd watch the heads roll on the marble floor and punch out. When we pounced, it was brutal and lethal, and we slept for days, hungover and digesting our massacre, and then the scent of another plodding gazelle would hit our nostrils, and we chased, seduced, and gobbled again and again.

I never understood why our quarry could not see the bile pooling behind our eyes. We’d let a few live and allow them to join our team; most would eventually be culled from our feral flock because they could not keep up, could not compete, could not breathe deeply enough in the thin air, our dark lair too many strides high in the flat New Mexico sky. Elevation is disconcerting, so you never, ever look down.

Me: Tom just got canned.

Jim: The new guy? He was only here about three months, right…

Me: Yeah, I heard a bunch of screaming from the conference room. I saw him in the parking lot with a cardboard box right after. The walk of shame.

Jim: I’m surprised they gave him a box.

Me: The King must be feeling generous today.

Dulled by too much blood and feast, we got sloppy and lazy and lost our edge. It became easier to stalk each other, and the weakest of the strong slowly vanished. Soon, those of us that were left became the bill of fare, and we were predictably mauled by a younger, sleeker, and hungrier version of us, and the wheel turned, and it was lights out. Check, please.

We scattered, shirttails tattered, high heels snapped, and hid, licking our wounds. The luckier ones escaped with a small severance—payment and penance for going hip-deep in the muck. Whatever I got, it wasn’t enough for what I traded. It took me years to see straight. To avoid the temptation to plunder and pillage and wreck. All in the name of being me—or so I thought. Stalin once said that a man equals a problem, but no man equals no problem. Uncle Joe proved that point diabolically millions of times. I only needed to self-immolate and rise once, a matchstick a flamethrower in my hand.

I am in a better, tamer place now. I can mingle with the other sheep and resist the urge to lunge at their soft throats, to eat, and to win. My eyes are more transparent. My mind is calmer. Some say I look taller, my skin supple. Maybe so, but old echoes still chase, tease, and nip at my heels. For me, the Devil is always whispering in the breeze, bitter ash on his breath.

I was an idolator once, and I was damn good at it. I could be again. Knowing that is enough.

But, man, did I have fun.

He has only to reside among gross idolaters to become one, or at least a favorer of their abomination.