'Am I a dog?' he raged, and drew another large breath to rage some more.
Feigning deafness, I interrupted immediately. 'What?' I called in reply.
I slipped the larger of my two stones into the hollow of my sling, which now was free and held furtively against my thigh.
'Am I a dog, I said!' he bellowed with annoyance. 'Are you deaf or something? Am I a dog that thou comest to me with staves?' As I moved steadily toward him, he began to curse me by his gods--by Dagon and Moloch, and Baal, and Belial. Oh, what a mouth there was on that giant! 'Come to me--come on, come on!' He was moving both arms now, rabidly beckoning me toward him. 'And I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field.'
'What?' Again I pretended to be unable to hear.
He repeated his threat verbatim as, barefoot, I slid closer and closer to him. Now he was addressing himself only to me. This time I chose to answer.
'You'll give my flesh unto the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the fields?' I replied with an insulted passion of my own. 'I'll give you flesh. I'll show you who'll give whose flesh. I'll give your flesh unto the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field. Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield.' 'Where is the shield?' he sneered, and raised his hands to display them empty.
'Where is my spear, where is my sword?'
'But I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts,' I proceeded without answering his questions, 'the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.' My voice was filled with righteousness. Ask me to this day what I thought I was talking about when I said 'Lord of hosts' and I still will be unable to tell you. I have many phrases whose meaning is likewise unintelligible to me, but rhetoric is rhetoric. 'This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand,' I informed him gamely. 'And I will smite thee and take thy head from thee. And I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you unto our hands.'
Now, quite frankly, this doesn't sound to me like anything I would have said under normal circumstances, although back then the underlying sentiments might have been mine. Those were my salad days, when I was green in judgment, and I believed in a great number of things about which I'm skeptical now. I believed in the future. I still believed in God. I even believed in Saul. I have had three fathers in my life--Jesse, Saul, and God. All three have disappointed me. I have lived without God a long time now, and probably I can learn to die without Him too.
The response of Goliath, to my rather stilted announcement was unexpected. Cupping his hand to his ear, he said: 'What?' Imagine my surprise to discover that Goliath the Philistine giant truly was a little hard of hearing. That may be why he talked so loud.
I shook my head, refusing to repeat a syllable, and thumbed my nose at him. Next I stuck out my tongue. I was conserving my breath for the sudden sprint I intended to begin in a matter of moments.
This time when Goliath began to curse me by his heathen gods, he even threw Astarte and Chemosh in with the others, but he never got to complete his list. He was still dilating on Baal when I began my charge. Casting away my staff when I was less than fifty paces off, I rushed toward him without warning, running at him in a straight line as fleetly as I could and lifting my sling to whirl it above my head with an accelerating momentum greater than any I had ever been able to muster before in my whole life. The mass of the stone in the hollow of my sling seemed to double in weight by the second. Goliath stood riveted in place like something inanimate, his mouth gaping. I felt wonderful. Who could put it into words? The mounting pull on my muscles of the centrifugal force I was generating was more exquisite in its pleasure than any sensation I had ever experienced or could possibly have dreamed of. An intoxication of over-confidence brought me nearer and nearer, and my reason Was in peril of being swept away. Fortunately, I took hold of myself. Thirty paces was about near enough, I decided, and skidded to a stop when I was already closer than that, digging my legs in for my throw. It was with all my strength that I brought my arm about the next two times. I took dead aim at the dark hole of the open mouth between his huge and repulsive teeth. Coming around on my final spin, I let slip the loop from my thumb. I felt my shot unroll with the sling and fly from the pocket without the slightest waver, and I knew in my bones that there really was no way I could possibly miss. I missed. I caught him in the forehead instead, above the left eye. Blood gushed out yards in front of him for the second or two he remained standing. Then he dropped like a boulder. He struck the ground with a crash. His shield carrier fled. Goliath lay where he had fallen, staining the sandy earth brown. There was not even a twitch. My joy was immense.
It was all over but the shouting, and God knows there was plenty of that. Wails of anguish came from the Philistines when they saw their champion so suddenly dead. They scurried about in frenzied circles, preparing to assemble their equipment and flee. At the same time, the men of Judah and Israel arose from the mountains with wild cries and came plunging down past me to assail the retreating Philistines with axes, clubs, and cutting weapons and to pursue them where they fell down by the way to Shaaraim, and even unto Gath, and unto Ekron too.
For my part, I was taking no chances. I watched the fallen giant warily. When a full minute passed without the smallest hint of life from him, I sprang forward and ran the rest of the distance to his still figure, took his sword out of the sheath, and, to put my mind at rest, cut off his head. Now, at least, I could be sure he was slain. Barbaric? Who cares! Remember, those were primitive times. They did much worse to Saul and Jonathan and the other two sons when they found them fallen on Mount Gilboa, didn't they? They fastened Saul's head in their temple of Dagon. And nailed all the rest of the four bodies to the outer wall of their bastion city of Bethshan, until the valiant men of Jabesh-gilead came in the night to take their bodies down and burn them respectfully and bury their bones, to end the sacrilege. Compared to that, I was practically too full of the milk of human kindness. I wanted to bring back Goliath's head as a trophy. The remainder of him, of course, would be left unto the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field. Didn't he say he would have done the same to me?
The danger from Goliath past, I relaxed awhile in total contentment with my foot on his chest. The dirty work lay ahead, removing those greaves of brass from his gigantic legs, his target of brass from his strapping shoulders, his coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels of more brass. How was I going to carry that spear of his with a staff like a weaver's beam? And I still had his head to manage, with yet more brass in the helmet. That head of his would weigh a ton.
I hadn't counted on the overwhelming charm of celebrity. Luckily, I was soon engulfed and aided by those children of Israel streaming back after routing the Philistines from their bases and spoiling their tents. Whooping with cheers and congratulations, they relieved me of these burdens and hoisted me upon their shoulders. With boisterous cries and songs of victory, they bore me back up the hill and set me down in Saul's102 compound. Somewhat reserved and puzzled, Saul peered at me strangely, his eyes blinking and watery, regarding me once more as though he had never had sight of me before.
Looking sideways at his commander of the host, he asked, 'Abner, whose son is this youth?'
'I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite,' I spoke up boldly before Abner could answer, and then waited with my heart in my mouth for what I prayed would follow.
I got what I wanted. Saul took me into his army.
Naturally, I was acclaimed all along the way on the journey back to Gibeah. Who wouldn't be, after what I had done? They set me on an ass, elevating me above all the rest, even above Saul, so that all could see me. I was pleased people stared. My cheeks were flushed, my neck was as a tower of ivory, my curls were' black as a raven's, my head was
of beaten gold. Reports of my spectacular triumph preceded us into the city. Michal painted her face and sat by her window. Imagine how doubly blessed--no, thricely blessed--she considered herself when I traveled past and she saw how goodly I was to look at. I was not unaware of the splendid appearance I made. I was happy as a pig in shit. I remembered my Creator in the days of my youth, and I loved what He created when He created me!
4 The Days of My Youth
That was the best day of my life. Most days now feel like the worst. My palace is drafty, yet permeated by strong, unpleasant odors. If I were Adonijah, I would fumigate the whole fucking harem. It tickles me to consider what Bathsheba has thus far overlooked: that she will be part of the harem he succeeds to. My mind is somewhat troubled about Abishag. I don't think I want her in anyone's arms but mine--yet. That's how new love is, as terrible as an army of banners.
No such nagging concerns about women and harems clouded my mind on the day I killed Goliath. There was no envy or suspicion yet of which I was the object, no enmity, or fear, no shadow of danger stretching toward me like the spearhead of some unavoidable angel of fate, no intimations of a forlorn destiny ahead. Who could have thought back then that a king like me might someday find himself embarrassed by hemorrhoids and an enlarged prostate, or that one favored with so hale and auspicious a beginning would eventually lapse almost daily into moldering spells of solitary depression and anxiety? Who needs it? Who can stand it? My teeth chatter a hundred times a minute when the chills take possession of me. Desire has failed. I get up with the fucking cricket. I can't keep awake and I can't fall asleep. In the morning I wish it were evening, in the evening I wish it were dawn. And I have the discouraging impression now that it has been this way for me always. How a person feels at the end of his life will tell you what he feels to have been the quality of it all. Who would have believed that a time might come when a man like me would regard the day of his death as better than the day of his birth?
Nothing fails like success.
Believe me, don't I know? How dispiriting I find it, even after all my personal triumphs, that we must grow up and grow sad, that we must age, weaken, and in time go down to our long home in the ground, and that even golden lads and girls all must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust. I've missed Saul. I've missed even my old and innocuous father. I have dreams about both of them, in which they were interchangeable figures and occupy the same roles. I want their love. And both are gone. And ironically, I'm drawn to repeat my well-known apothegm of futility: that, just as the person who wants praise will never be satisfied with praise, the person who wants love cannot be satisfied with love. No want is ever fulfilled. And I therefore still don't know whether it is better to fear God and keep His commandments or to curse God and die. Fortunately, I've been able to get by very neatly without doing either.
Back then I had no Nathan castigating me with allegations of fornication and murder. It was a grave indiscretion for me to employ Joab to have Uriah killed; Joab knows of my crime, and I know that he knows. We each know a bit too much about the other. I had no raped daughter then and no butchered sons, no stubborn Abner impeding for seven years my fated reign over a Judah joined with Israel in a united Palestine. Daily I wished that pockmarked son of a bitch dead. When I needed him alive, Joab killed him. Under the fifth rib, he smote him.
Joab sure does love that fifth rib, doesn't he?
Once, in a mood of whimsy, I thought of suggesting to Joab that he stick it to my first wife Michal under the fifth rib. How soothing to my frazzled nerves was the prospect of being rid forever of that venomous witch. How I reproached myself for ever having wanted her back after Saul had given her away to another husband. There are certain men of mild disposition who seem evolved by nature for no other purpose than to be browbeaten by domineering viragoes. I do not think I am one of them. For someone of my estate to be subjected to a henpecking shrew was a gross anomaly. The jealousy and acrimony with which she assailed me regularly after I had demanded her back was intolerable. It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house, so much better to live in a fucking wilderness like Ziph, Maon, or Engedi than with a contentious and angry wife. Even for a king this is true. All the more true for a king. A virtuous woman like Abigail is a crown to her husband, but one like Michal that makes him ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. Do you wonder I was so happy when they told me she was dying? She was even in pain. 'God is holy! God is good!' I cried, and sacrificed a lamb that same day.
One reason I didn't suggest to Joab that he stick it to Michal under the fifth rib was that I had no doubt he would do it.
No premonitions of such vulgar wrangling to come diminished my spirits on that day of my killing of Goliath. I had no shrews complicating my life, I had no wives at all. No dead babies. My throbbing memory pains me still for the loss of that little child I did not know, and for the grisly, cold-blooded slaying of that older one I loved too much. Poor boy. While the child was ill, I lay with my face on the ground and prayed that God might be gracious and that the moaning infant might lie. His parched skin was on fire. I might just as well have been talking to myself. And I found out again what I had known before: there is never, never any mercy to be expected from heaven. I have still not forgiven God for getting back at me that way, and I know I never shall, no matter how much He begs me, not if He begs me for a million years, even if it does turn out He was never really there in the beginning. Look how He always does what He wants, not what you want. Look How He lifts the blame from me and kills the guiltless child. Now there's an original sin for you, isn't there? Look how He gives me now this angelic, amorous virgin, with eyes as dark as grapes and nut-brown dusky skin, whose heart-shaped face I want to cup with tender warmth in my shivering palms, when I am already much too old to enjoy her fully and fear I lack the power ever to enter a virgin again. And how He has me hungering anew in gnawing frustration for my wife Bathsheba, who tells me she is sick of love and rejects me always in the most demeaning way imaginable: she is oblivious to my need for her. She would not believe how wounding that is. She would not care.
I don't believe I disgust her, for she will usually taste and often finish the food I leave in my bowl, stuffing herself with her fingers while complaining of nightly indigestion and increasing overweight.
'What is that red stuff you're putting on his bread and beans and shredded lettuce?' she inquires of Abishag with a dim stirring of interest in both the girl and the meal she is diligently preparing for me.
'Red chili peppers,' says Abishag.
'Why don't you ever call me Your Highness?'
'He tells me you're not a queen.'
'What is that green stuff you're putting in his chopped lamb?'
'Green chili peppers.'
'What is it you're making?'
'Tacos, with green chili lamb stew and refried beans and sour cream.'
'Tacos?'
'Tacos.'
'Can I eat some? It looks delicious. I'm hungry. Why do you do so much work for him? That's stupid, to work so hard when you don't have to.' Bathsheba makes a face at the first forkful she tastes and puts her bowl on the floor. Abishag bends gracefully at the knees to lift it and carry it away. She moved like a ballerina--you would think she had gone to modeling school. 'You'll ruin your looks if you keep doing so much for him,' adds Bathsheba. 'You'll spoil your skin. Your hands will crack. You should use emollients all over your body when it's hot and dry like this. I do. Look at me.' Bathsheba opens her robe without inhibition to expose her oiled limbs and flanks. She is wearing white bloomers, and I feel my privy part give a small jiggle. Bathsheba my blonde wife still uses kohl and antimony to give dark prominence to her small, shrewd eyes. Indolently, she picks at her teeth with the quill of a dove's feather. With her other hand she scratches hard, but absently, at the side of her broad hip and buttock and then at the inside of her thigh, as though troubled by fleabites again. Her legs and waist have remained thin. I am familiar
with her uncouth traits from our days of lechery together. I want her again. She arouses desire in me in a way Abishag has not been able to. I gaze at the meaty, obese swell of middle-aged flesh of my wife's thighs and belly, at her rotund pelvis and feel I could fuck her again if only she would come to my bed and open herself to me. A lot of good that feeling does me. Can I, the king, say to my unfeeling and indifferent wife that if she allows me to do it to her again I will give to her son Solomon the Israel empire I have created and allow her indeed to become the queen mother she wants to be? Why not, the Preacher might saith, since I easily could break that promise afterward? But not for her or anyone else in the universe would I pay so shameful a price as to confess to so desperate a longing for another piece of ass from her.
In the old days, which were my younger days, I could sweep her off her feet and onto her back every time I108 tried, even when her flowers were upon her, with a dizzying flow of honeyed words that left her dazed and flattered and brought a glistening rush of blood to her face. Oh, the dauntless skill with which I could always conquer her, gushing fluently:
'Open to me, my sweetheart, my love, my dove, my undefiled. Kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth. Thy love is better than wine, I will remember thy love more than wine, O, thou fairest among women. Thy banner over me is love. I have compared thee to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.'