"Jorge" the man called out when he saw me for the first time after his first trip to the john. He did not call me "attorney" or "sir" which I have become conceitedly accustomed to, so I assumed that this guy knew me before I passed the bar exams.
I waved. The man approached our table and said, "You don't recognize me do you?"
"Of course I do." I lied. My wife told me it has become my hobby--lying. It's way too comfortable. I did it mainly to escape awkward moments like this, as I don't like being aggravated too much.
"God has told me all about you. It's like you've become his new pet prophet of sorts." said the strange man.
Upon the mention of God, I realized that this dude was a biblical character. I've already met Michael the archangel, and something told me that this feller is not an angel on Jacob's ladder. Or one who fell from it. But I stil can't place the dude.
"I am Moses." the man declared.
Alex, who was minding his cellphone that moment raised his head and looked at Moses and was only able to sarcastically utter "Wow..."
I already believed the guy when he said he was Moses but Alex didn't. He took it as a big joke from a drunk, perhaps drug-crazed hippie.
"You? Moses?" asked Alex.
Moses did not answer.
"'Lex, he's Moses. The Moses Moses." I tried to explain.
"Wow." I could see in his face that his sarcasm was already seemingly mixed with a bit of confusion.
"Bullshit." said Alex. I wouldn't believe it too if I haven't met God Almighty Himself during law school.
"Jorge, your friend does not believe." said Moses. "Perhaps I could convince him, if you couldn't." Moses continued.
"What the hell, er, I mean heck...go ahead, go crazy." This is going to be a long night, I thought. I pulled out a chair and asked Macy, our waitress, to give Moses a beer.
"If you're Moses, you can turn your staff into a snake. Tangina, you dont even have a staff..." Alex challenged the biblical man.
"Staff? That's so old school. So B.C.! (Before Christ) I ditched that thing a long time ago. But don't worry, I still have this." Moses took out from his pocket what looked to me as a black chrome vibrator-the discreet looking kind which did not actually looked like a fuckin' penis. WTF does Moses have a vibrator? Anyways, he turned it on and placed it at the table. A few moments after, and for a split-second, it seemed that the mist of the gods of Olympus blinded our eyes and the thing turned into a wiggly black mamba--one of the world's most venomous snakes.
"Moses, by Jove, put that thing away!" I almost yelled. The cashier at the bar mockingly looked at me as if I was a sissy girl.
"Fuck!" Alex was surprised for a moment but after a minute or two after Moses-the deliverer changed the snake back into a vibrator, Alex regained his skeptical composure. "That's one fine trick! Was that David Blane or Criss Angel?"
"You remind me of my brother Ramses, Alex." said Moses. "Let me try another. Macy, can I get a beer mug?" Alex and I were drinking straight from the bottle.
Moses filled the mug with ice water and dropped the vibrator thingy inside. It seemed silly. Then Moses stirred it with his middle finger, the vibrator twirling inside the water-filled mug. The water turned red, and after a few seconds, the liquid was no longer water. It turned to blood.
"God," I gasped. "Do you really have to do that, dude?" I turned to Moses. "I was about to order some crispy dinuguan..." The latter BTW, tastes exquisite.
"You must be a magician. Not a very good one, but still, you're entertaining...If we just have a deck if cards here, I'll show you my own tricks, cool tricks, not that water color bullshit you just pulled..." retorted my friend Alex. Moses sighed in frustration.
"Ok, here's another one to prove I am who I say I am..." Moses started again.
"No locusts, old man, we're at a restaurant." I interrupted. Moses did not even flinch.
"Take out your cellphone." Moses ordered Alex.
Alex yielded and got his cellphone out from his front jeans pocket. He held it up and Moses blew on it, like one would blow a candle on a birthday cake. The Sony-Ericsson transformed into a huge grasshopper the size of a NYC sewer rat.
In his surprise, Alex lost hold of the giant grasshopper, it dropped to the ground and a split-second before it actually hit the floor, it turned back into a cellphone. Well, it used to be a mobile phone. It shattered on impact, as if the same was frozen with nitro.
"What the fuck?!?" Alex, who is a deep-rooted Bulakenyo, cursed in American. I looked at him as if to say "See dude, I told you he's Moses." I thought he'd get what I did not have to say but then he started picking up pieces of his used-to-be cellphone from the floor and when he was done, he sort of slammed the parts into the table and said "You're paying for this, geezer, or else..." as if he could actually threaten a biblical prophet.
"So let it be written, so let it be done." said Moses. He picked up the vibrator-thingy and jabbed it at Alex's head, just a little above his right ear. Alex litteraly froze. Stranger things may have happened to others, but this is the strangest and most wicked shit I have ever seen. Alex's right earlobe grew a shower head, and from it coursed jets of lukewarm water. As I was sitting right beside the non-believer, I received a good dose of spray.
"Fuck you, Moses! Fuck you." I said. "You really have to do that sort of shit, don't you?" I continued as I wipe myself with the hankerchief my lovely wife placed at my left rear pocket that morning.
Thereafter, Moses broke the showerhead and handed it to me. Alex regained consciousness but was a tad catatonic.
"Now I hope you believe, you dumb fuck!" said the deliverer to the non-believer.
Alex then grabbed a beer bottle and smashed it at Moses' head. Moses collapsed on the floor.
"Now we can finally drink in peace, pare." Alex turned to me.
"Peace. Yes...To peace" I offered a toast, as Moses, adopted child of the Great Pharoah's sister, the deliverer of the Jews from captivity in Egypt, the bearer of God's Ten (10) commandments, and drop dead look-a-like of a young Charlton Heston, lied on the floor, head cracked open and bleeding.
"Fuck Moses." Alex said. "We ain't Jews anyway."
"Fuck Moses." I followed suit and drank my pilsen.
To those who believe, no proof is necessary, and to those who don't, no explanation is ever enough.
