I hope that enough time has passed for me to talk about the last time I saw Hitch[I]. Fortune had blessed me with the opportunity to interview the shrunken titan, and also to test the mettle of my confidence against the confidence of his mettle. [Editor: Strike, no one cares about your B.A. – people want to know about Hitchens because he’s dead, not you]
I had planned to write an article for McSweeney’s (who had paid for our lunch at a hotel bar whose mis en scene better suited the Economist than the hipster rag, but hypocrisy is missed so often by those who swear in irony’s name).
Man plans and God schedules a funeral. I didn’t cry for a long time, despite missing him straight away, as if we had known each other since olden days, or as if I needed him to fix something desperately which he only could.
I cried yesterday, and today I agreed to share a man who was mine for the length of a happy hour.
/ – / – /
We agreed within minutes that transience was the most elevated of vanities, and so eschewed recordings or notes, and in lieu I smoked and Hitchens coughed.
Here’s what I remember, and also what I wish to remember; I don’t care to ever know the difference.
/ – / – /
Hitchens: I miss being able to do what I know I could regret. Now I just regret.
Me: So debauchery is the wages for the pain of guilt?
Hitchens: You don’t have to try so hard. And not exactly. I never appreciated how the present was a dance. I inherit yesterday’s hangover and decide what to give myself for tomorrow. Now I just receive.
Me: Sounds like being on the dole.
Hitchens: Precisely.
Me: So why don’t you kill yourself?
This was the only time Hitchens smiled. He never answered, and I caught a glimpse of death’s abyss within my own mindscape, and so retreated with another careless attempt at dazzling the man I wished to have loved sooner.
Me: I discovered god.
Hitchens: Raises an eyebrow, and shifts into a coy character I imagine would have swept me to his bed within the hour if he wasn’t carrying his skin like stale washing left in the laundry far too long.
Me: It was this morning. I mean I’d been thinking about it for a while, but it all came together really nicely with my second coffee.
Hitchens: Did you discover him when someone showed you or was it when you really needed to find god because you wanted something you knew you couldn’t have? I prefer the desperate believer to the gullible fool.
Me: Neither. I was just thinking about life, and what it meant to be a person, and how I could see more.
Hitchens: More words?
Me: More world.
Hitchens: I’m getting tired, I’ll have to go soon.
Me: You don’t believe me.
Hitchens: I believe most people are capable of being idiots, and I believe that statistical regularity is provable from the circumference of a circle. I believe that humans spill their dreams into pretty garbage to let everyone else know how special their inner world must be. I believe that you’re a failed author of a novel about not being loved by your parents, and I wouldn’t be the least surprised if you’re hoping to impress me with nonsense as if I could make up for your father who wanted a son instead.
Me: I’ve never written a novel in my life.
Hitchens: And you’ve never seen God, so I guess we’re both bullshit amateurs.
Me: Here… look.
I closed my hands together, moved them across the table, opened them, closed them, opened them, closed them, opened them, and watched the most jaded man alive gasp as a pair of butterflies flew up, merged into a flower which slowly metamorphosed into a raven which smouldered from its amber eyes, and whose thermal vortices and flapping wings carried its ashes far enough to be grasped by the breeze from the window, through which it too departed, crawing until indiscernible from the noise of cars and trams and other birds.
Hitchens: Christ Almighty! That was brilliant. Sheer brilliance. Best interview of my life, which is a title I think you’ll own for good… But how did you do it!
Me: I channelled god into possibilities.
Hitchens: I won’t insult you more than I must, but let’s trust that a dying man can be trusted to die with a secret. Or is “god” a magician who thinks his tricks are too special for sharing? Come on already, I’m captivated, you win. What’s the secret?
Me: I told you.
Hitchens: Fuck you and Dave Eggers only gave you this interview because he wants your head wrapped around his cock, fuck off and goodbye.
Me: No it’s not like that. I can prove it to you. Put your hand here.
I held him and showed him that the whole world was a fire and that the embers were birds of paradise, and the smoke was children buried in mud and the tree was a spaceship carrying a bride to her wedding day. I filled the room with feathers and sent rainbows cascading across the dimming sky. I took him back to see his mother being born and stood in the very centre of the earth feeling the thick iron rolling around us. He marvelled at the numbers which acted like lights, and metaphysics drawn like galactic circuitry. We fell through dimensions, and when we finished, it was obvious that the eternity we had witnessed still lay before us, a hair’s breadth below the surface of every table and chair and waiter.
I held his hand until he finished crying, and then I called over a waiter and we both gave our tomorrow’s headaches (he would be nauseous regardless), and we laughed and laughed and laughed.
He laughed, but I never saw him smile. Nevermore.
<3[II]
[Editor: Great piece, some of your phrasings reminded me of Bukowski[III]. I did, however, have some ideas for extending it, maybe turning it into a 4-page piece with artwork why not. I’ll be busy until 8, but it shouldn’t take more than an hour to finalize in time for tomorrow press deadline. See you tonight.]
[I] “Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an Anglo-American author, columnist, essayist, orator, religious, literary and social critic, and journalist. Hitchens was the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of over 30 books, including five collections of essays on culture, politics and literature. A staple of public discourse, his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded intellectual and a controversial public figure. He contributed to New Statesman, The Nation, The Weekly Standard, The Atlantic, London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Slate, Free Inquiry and Vanity Fair“. For further details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens[II] “<3 viewed sideways, appears to be the outline of a heart. Used in an expression of love”. See https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%3C3.
[III] Probably a reference to “Henry Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) who was a German-American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambiance of his home city of Los Angeles.” For further details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski.
