An Interview With Enkidu

Let’s Start From the Very Beginning

[Editor’s Note: Longtime readers will recognize that this is part of a series. We mention this with the hopeful expectation that someone will read an entry from the backlist. So far that hasn’t happened. I understand why. If you eat a cup of yogurt and it tastes bad, you’re not going to look for a container of older yogurt, are you?]

Gutbloom: Today we have as our guest the wingman of the Gilgamesh Epic, Enkidu.

Enkidu: That is the world’s worst introduction.

Gutbloom: This is going to be the world’s worst interview. Didn’t your PR people tell you that?

Enkidu: No, they just said that it was going to be an unfunny version of Between Two Ferns, but unlike Between Two Ferns it would be in writing and on a platform that nobody reads.

Gutbloom: I was doing this before Between Two Ferns.

Enkidu: But not as well.

Gutbloom: OK, I agree. What do you want from me? I should probably tell our readers a little bit about who you are, in case their knowledge of Sumerian mythology is a little rusty.

Enkidu: Do you want me to help?

Gutbloom: No, I’ve got this.

Enkidu: I doubt that, but go ahead.

Gutbloom: In the Gilgamesh Epic, Gilgamesh needs a playmate and so the gods find you, a wildman who lives with the animals and “eats grass and drinks the milk of wild cows.”

Enkidu: OK, if you say so.

Gutbloom: That’s not right?

Enkidu: Really, Gilgamesh and I are the same hero. I’m an earlier version, the real deal… the original hero character of Western Civilization. He is a later adoption and overlay, but the Sumerians and Assyrians maintained me as a separate character to preserve some of the stories that didn’t fit with the more complicated religious system of later societies. But go ahead, I’m sure your readers don’t care.

Gutbloom: [Flips through he notes for a while. Adjusts his tie. Clears his throat.] The way you are brought to the city of Uruk is that the temple priestess, Shamhat, calls to you and exposes her nakedness. You respond. She takes you to a cabin where she feeds you bread and wine and then you have intercourse. You have sex for five days.

Enkidu: Seven. Six days, seven nights. Like a Carnival Cruise.

Gutbloom: And when you return to the wild the animals reject you. They run from you. You are dismayed and ask Shamhat, “What have you done?” The answer is, you’ve been civilized.

Enkidu: So, what’s your question?

Gutbloom: Was it a mistake?

Enkidu: Was having sex with Shamhat a mistake?

Gutbloom: Was civilization a mistake?Would you have been happier if you had stayed wild?

Enkidu: Oh, I see where you are going. You want me to say that humans were happier as hunter-gatherers and if we just went back to living in communal, closely related, egalitarian bands of 30–50 people and there were only eight million people on the earth, everything would be better. Is that what you want me to say?

Gutbloom: I’m asking for a friend.

Enkidu: It doesn’t work like that, but it’s hard to explain. First of all, when Shamhat drops her priestly vestments and shows you the goods, you’re not thinking, “how much do I care about plastic in the ocean?” That’s not on your mind at all. There is no question about whether wild food tastes better or if befriending animals is more enjoyable than most interactions with humans, especially online. I’ll admit that the first time I ate bread, I was like “this shit sucks wild onager balls”… there were no donkeys yet… but, you know, Shamhat had bread. When you are eating an oreo, do you think to yourself, “wild salmon tastes better than this,” or do you just eat the fucking Oreo?

Gutbloom: You just ate the Oreo. Thanks for that.

Enkidu: You can stop eating Oreos anytime you like.

Gutbloom: You know better than anyone that there is no going back.

Enkidu: [thinks for a while] That’s true. Hey, it’s after noon. You got any beer or wine?

Gutbloom: Tell me about killing the demon Humwawa who protected the Cedar Forest. What was that about?

Enkidu: I thought you were going to ask me about my new album? I think that my team made it clear the interview wasn’t supposed to be centered on the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Gutbloom: Do you want me to play a cut from the album? I’ll do that. Which track do you want me to play?

Enkidu: Track six.

Gutbloom: [Begins playing music.] Isn’t this a cover of the Elmore James song “Stormy Monday”?

Enkidu: Kind of.

Gutbloom: Is that you playing guitar?

Enkidu: No, that’s my friend, Stan. I’m playing bass. What do you think?

Gutbloom: It’s not Elmore James.

Enkidu: Obviously. There is only one Elmore James, man, but do you like it?

Gutbloom: Sure.

Enkidu: How about that wine?

Gutbloom: We’ll get you your wine. Let me just ask, what were you thinking when Ishtar sent the Bull of Heaven and you killed it?

Enkidu: I knew her as Inanna. Is that who you mean?

Gutbloom: Yes.

Enkidu: That was a mistake. Killing the bull of heaven was a mistake. I never should have let Gilgamesh talk me into it. You know, it took me a long time to figure this out, but Gilgamesh wasn’t really my “friend”. Don’t get me wrong, I think there was genuine affection… he loved me as much as he could love anyone… but really our relationship was limited to what we could do together. It was all about fighting like bulls, riding rafts down the Euphrates, challenging the gods. I don’t think nowadays you would call that a “friendship”.

Gutbloom: How about that Inanna?

Enkidu: Oh my gods. So freaking beautiful. So cool. She flipped out when we killed the bull, of course. She was right. I knew it as soon as I saw her face. I knew it was the second biggest mistake of my life.

Gutbloom: The first was eating bread and having sex with Shamhat?

Enkidu: No, the biggest mistake was not becoming an actor instead of a musician. You have to understand, in Uruk the concepts of “drama” and theater hadn’t been developed yet. I think I could have had quite a career as an action hero. I mean, look at Thor, he had the biggest opening day ever and that guy ain’t shit.

Gutbloom: I noticed that you’re not wearing any shoes or shirt. You go into a diner like that?

Enkidu: I may be civilized, but I’m nobody’s bitch, and if I don’t get some wine pretty soon we may have a reenactment of the battle with Humwawa.

Gutbloom: Understood. We’re on it.

Enkidu: And put on track #2.

Gutbloom: “TB sheets?”, isn’t that a John Lee Hooker song?

Enkidu: It’s really a Van Morrison song.

Gutbloom: How is this better than sitting around the fire telling stories and singing after a successful hunt?

Enkidu: It’s not, but we’re here now, asshole, so GET ME MY WINE.

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