"I stand here before my country and before God," he began, pushing his notes aside. "And most of all, I stand here before Jesus Christ."

And at that moment 35 percent of the opinionated but nonvoting public sighed with relief, assuming that Junior had lost his grip, once and forever, on the boundaries of the presidency, the separation of logic and lunacy, of scripture and law. Presidents were allowed to invoke the name of God, for the Christian God could be reconciled with the Judaic God, and even had semantic kinship with the Muslim God and a handful of others. Saying "under God" or "thank God" or "God bless America" was expected and was seldom heard for what it was, which was the invocation of not quite a universal God, but more specifically a Protestant God. Still, everyone let it slide. Monotheism, they said, was monotheism. Let's not quibble over details.

But Jesus Christ was another matter entirely. The words "Jesus Christ" hadn't publicly left the lips of a president in decades. Thus when Junior uttered the name, a different 35 percent, this one active at the polls, took notice. They took notice in Birmingham, and in Baton Rouge, in Chattanooga and Gainesville and Lancaster.

"I stand here," he continued, "hoping that my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, who is very large and powerful, will, first of all, deliver my dad from the tree out by the parking lot. And after he does this, I hope he'll go one more, and deliver our country, America -- the country founded in the Lord's name -- from the bad forces which threaten to do bad things to our people."

And with that, jaws dropped inside the auditorium, angry fists pounded the tables in the Muslim suburbs of Detroit, and beatific smiles spread across the faces of many in the aforementioned locales. But J. Junior Inferior Jr. wasn't finished.

"And because it's my dad out there, in the tree," and here he looked over at Alexander Hamilton, full of contempt, "I think it fair that I should be able to lead us in prayer. Please, my friends, won't you join me?"

He bowed his head. The members of the audience did, too, but most of them immediately lifted their eyes so as not to miss anything. Was this really happening? An opening statement had turned into a plea to Jesus Christ. Fantastic.

Junior himself thought it fantastic, too, though whenever he prayed to Jesus Christ, he felt a weird twinge of guilt, fearing, above all, hubris. When praising Jesus Christ he felt, oddly, as if he were patting himself on the back. Not because he was pious and fearful and deserving of rapture, but because there was a persistent voice in his brain telling him that he, J. Junior Inferior Jr., was Jesus Christ.

He'd had the feeling since he was in college. One sultry Saturday in early September, he was invited to a party, one advertised as a rager, a 20-kegger, a blowout. When he arrived, though, there was no beer at all, not a drop to drink. The party sucked and everyone was bummed. It was hot, oppressively humid, and the revelers were so thirsty they were actually drinking water.

Junior said enough. Junior took a stand. He jumped in his pickup and returned 12 minutes later with a flatbed full of Miller in bright silver barrels -- even bringing along five taps to get things going speedily. He was received like a hero, and that night had intercourse with two different women, and also got a very pleasant reach-around from his faculty advisor, Michael.

Somewhere amid the festivities, his drunken friend Karl threw his arm around Junior and told him that he was the savior.

"You saved this party, man," Karl said. "Like in the Bible, with the wine and Jesus and shit." Karl then ran into the street and was hit by a small child riding an ATV.

Until then, Junior had only heard general information about the Bible and Jesus, but that night, just before following Michael to the roof, he vowed to take a look at the Bible. And true to his word, just seven months later, he stole one from the dorm library and finished reading it, or a lot of it, over the next three or four years.

And it spoke to him. It immediately became one of his favorite books. He wanted to know more about it. He began to read the lifestyle magazines and even the Paris Review, hoping one day they would interview its author.

In the meantime, every time he read about the deeds of Jesus, he felt as if the author of the book was talking about him -- J. Junior Inferior Jr.! This was not the first time this had happened. A few years earlier, he had the same feeling when he read his other favorite book, a biography of Don Drysdale called "Don Drysdale, On Top of the World." He was so enthralled by the heroics of Drysdale, star pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, that he began to imagine that he was Don Drysdale! The words were so vivid! The actions so likely to have been performed by him, J. Junior!

He became so confused that one day he devised a test, to determine once and for all whether or not he was in fact Don Drysdale, subject of "Don Drysdale, On Top of the World."

One day, he put the book on the kitchen table, where he could see it from the backyard. Then he ran around outside, jumped up and down, climbed a tree and hit his cat with a shovel. When he came back inside, he checked all the pages of the book. But nowhere was there anything about Don Drysdale running, jumping and hitting a cat with a shovel. He checked twice, and that was that. Mystery solved. He was not Don Drysdale.

But with the Bible and Jesus, it was different. There seemed to be so many similarities between him and Jesus. Both of them were white and were men, for starters. There were many other things, too.

So over the years, as he came to know the Word of the Lord more personally and tried to read even the less interesting parts of the Bible, he always kept his secret to himself. He told no one that he would not be surprised if one day it was discovered that Jesus Christ had returned to earth and was actually him, J.J.I. Jr. Everyone else would be surprised, but Junior would just shrug and say, sheepishly, "Well, I had a feeling this would happen!"

Lately, these thoughts had come to him more and more often. He'd been caught many times in the last year not quite there, spaced out during Cabinet meetings, at memorials for dead soldiers, on so many occasions. The media took this for his lack of seriousness, his staff hoped it was his concentration on global events, when it was something else entirely. The tilt of his head, parodied by cartoonists to seem like that of a dog hearing a high-pitched whistle, was caused by a call of his own: the call of God, or one of his helpers, giving him orders. Or trying to. The connection was not always good.

But every time this whistle voice began -- it reminded him, strangely enough, of the voice of Ricardo Montalban, booming and dignified but with a distinct Latin accent -- Junior was taken away from wherever he was, and again had to face this most interesting of questions:

"Am I, J. Junior Inferior Jr., actually Jesus Christ?"

It was happening almost once a day lately.

While playing tennis, while bowling, while chewing gum, came the question:

"Am I, J. Junior Inferior Jr., actually Jesus Christ?"

While pleasuring himself in the closet, while sitting in a briefing session, surreptitiously counting his ribs under his shirt (14):

"Am I, J. Junior Inferior Jr., actually Jesus Christ?"

And even now, while he was delivering his opening statement/prayer, while his father was stuck in a tree out by the parking lot. Without making the voice angry, he pressed on.

"Oh lord Jesus Christ, who art thou in Heaven, let me be allowed to say your name."

There were scattered titters from the audience, quickly shhhed.

"Oh lord, you have sacrificed so much for us over the years. You sometimes didn't get enough to eat, and you battled addiction and the Jews. You were whipped and kicked and had to carry heavy wooden objects around while wearing dirty clothes. You had people spit on you. You had no money or shoes. You wandered in the desert and were betrayed by some of your best buds. But you persevered, until you died. Then you persevered again."

And here Junior looked up to the audience and the camera and nodded, as if to say Whew! Can you believe it? This really happened! I read about it.

"Oh Lord, please give us all the strength you can spare. I know you are preparing for the apocalypse -- I read the books and I'm preparing, too -- so you're probably pretty busy, but if you can ride your golden chariot down here just one more time" -- and here he nodded ever-so-slightly in Carol O'Mealy's direction at the precise moment his red light went on, indicating his minutes were up -- "and slay the Medusa [he rolled his eyes for emphasis] I sure would appreciate it, as would all of your faithful servants here in your chosen land. I love you, I will always love you no matter what. Thank you and amen. Your friend, Junior."