Joshua and I looked at each other as if our tongues had suddenly been struck from our mouths. I saw that Josh was having no luck finding words, and Maggie seemed to be getting angry.
“Well?”
“Uh, Maggie, it’s not that we’re not overjoyed with your good fortune, but…”
She took the opportunity to backhand me across the mouth. The jar she carried on her head didn’t even waver. Amazing grace that girl had.
“Ouch.”
“Good fortune? Are you mad? My husband’s a toad. I’m sick at the thought of him. I was just hoping you two would come to help me through the ceremony.”
“I think my lip is bleeding.”
Joshua looked at me and his eyes went wide. “Uh-oh.” He cocked his head, as if listening to the wind.
“What, uh-oh?” Then I heard the commotion coming from ahead. There was a crowd gathered at a small bridge—a lot of shouting and waving. Since the Romans had long since passed, I assumed someone had fallen in the river.
“Uh-oh,” Josh said again, and he began running toward the bridge.
“Sorry.” I shrugged at Maggie, then followed Josh.
At the river’s edge (no more than a creek, really) we saw a boy about our age, with wild hair and wilder eyes, standing waist-deep in the water. He was holding something under the water and shouting at the top of his lungs.
“You must repent and atone, atone and repent! Your sins have made you unclean. I cleanse you of the evil that you carry like your wallet.”
“That’s my cousin, John,” Joshua said.
Trailing out of the water on either side of John stood our brothers and sisters, still tied together, but the missing link in the string of siblings was my brother Shem, who had been replaced by a lot of thrashing and bubbling muddy water in front of John. Onlookers were cheering on the Baptist, who was having a little trouble keeping Shem under water.
“I think he’s drowning Shem.”
“Baptizing,” Joshua said.
“My mother will be happy that Shem’s sins have been cleansed, but I have to think we’re going to be in a lot of trouble if he drowns in the process.”
“Good point,” Josh said. He stepped into the water. “John! Stop that!”
John looked at him and seemed a little perplexed. “Cousin Joshua?”
“Yes. John, let him up.”
“He has sinned,” John said, as if that said it all.
“I’ll take care of his sins.”
“You think you’re the one, don’t you? Well, you’re not. My birth was announced by an angel as well. It was prophesied that I would lead. You’re not the one.”
“We should talk about this in another place. Let him up, John. He’s cleansed.”
John let my brother pop out of the water and I ran down and dragged him and all the other kids out of the river.
“Wait, the others haven’t been cleansed. They are filthy with sin.”
Joshua stepped between his brother James, who would have been the next one dunked, and the Baptist. “You won’t tell Mother about this, will you?”
Halfway between terrified and furious, James was tearing at the knots, trying to untie the rope from around his neck. He clearly wanted revenge on his big brother, but at the same time he didn’t want to give up his brother’s protection from John.
“If we let John baptize you long enough, you won’t be able to tell your mother, will you, James?” Me, just trying to help out.
“I won’t tell,” James said. He looked back at John, who was still staring as if he’d dash out and grab someone to cleanse any second. “He’s our cousin?”
“Yes,” Joshua said. “The son of our mother’s cousin Elizabeth.”
“When did you meet him before?”
“I haven’t.”
“Then how did you know him.”
“I just did.”
“He’s a loony,” said James. “You’re both loonies.”
“Yes, a family trait. Maybe when you get older you can be a loony too. You won’t tell Mother.”
“No.”
“Good,” Joshua said. “You and Biff get the kids moving, will you?”
I nodded, shooting a glance back to John. “James is right, Josh. He is a loony.”
“I heard that, sinner!” John shouted. “Perhaps you need to be cleansed.”
John and his parents shared supper with us that evening. I was surprised that John’s parents were older than Joseph—older than my grandparents even. Joshua told me that John’s birth had been a miracle, announced by the angel. Elizabeth, John’s mother, talked about it all through supper, as if it had happened yesterday instead of thirteen years ago. When the old woman paused to take a breath, Joshua’s mother started in about the divine announcement of her own son’s birth. Occasionally my mother, feeling the need to exhibit some maternal pride that she didn’t really feel, would chime in as well.
“You know, Biff wasn’t announced by an angel, but locusts ate our garden and Alphaeus had gas for a month around the time he would have been conceived. I think it might have been a sign. That certainly didn’t happen with my other boys.”
Ah, Mother. Did I mention that she was besought with a demon?
After supper, Joshua and I built our own fire, away from the others, hoping that Maggie would seek us out, but it turned out that only John joined us.
“You are not the anointed one,” John said to Joshua. “Gabriel came to my father. Your angel didn’t even have a name.”
“We shouldn’t be talking about these things,” Joshua said.
“The angel told my father that his son would prepare the way for the Lord. That’s me.”
“Fine, I want nothing more than for you to be the Messiah, John.”
“Really?” John asked. “But your mother seems so, so…”
“Josh can raise the dead,” I said.
John shifted his insane gaze to me, and I scooted away from him in case he tried to hit me. “He cannot,” John said.
“Yep, I’ve seen it twice.”
“Don’t, Biff,” Josh said.
“You’re lying. Bearing false witness is a sin,” John said. The Baptist started to look more panicked than angry.
“I’m not very good at it,” Joshua said.
John’s eyes went wide, now with amazement instead of madness. “You have done this? You have raised the dead?”
“And healed the sick,” I said.
John grabbed me by the front of my tunic and pulled me close, staring into my eyes as if he was looking into my head. “You aren’t lying, are you?” He looked at Joshua. “He’s not lying, is he?”
Joshua shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
John released me, let out a long sigh, then sat back in the dirt. The firelight caught tears sparkling in his eyes as he stared at nothing. “I am so relieved. I didn’t know what I would do. I don’t know how to be the Messiah.”
“Neither do I,” said Joshua.
“Well, I hope you really can raise the dead,” John said, “because this will kill my mother.”
We walked with John for the next three days, through Samaria, into Judea, and finally into the holy city. Fortunately, there weren’t many rivers or streams along the way, so we were able to keep his baptisms to a minimum. His heart was in the right place, he really did want to cleanse our people of their sins, it was just that no one would believe that God would give that responsibility to a thirteen-year-old. To keep John happy, Josh and I let him baptize our little brothers and sisters at every body of water we passed, at least until Josh’s little sister Miriam developed the sniffles and Joshua had to perform an emergency healing on her.
“You really can heal,” John exclaimed.
“Well, the sniffles are easy,” Joshua said. “A little mucus is nothing against the power of the Lord.”
“Would—would you mind?” John said, lifting up his tunic and showing his bare privates, which were covered with sores and greenish scales.
&
nbsp; “Cover, please cover!” I yelled. “Drop the shirt and step away!”
“That’s disgusting,” Joshua said.
“Am I unclean? I’ve been afraid to ask my father, and I can’t go to a Pharisee, not with my father being a priest. I think it’s from standing in the water all of the time. Can you heal me?”
(I have to say here that I believe that this was the first time Joshua’s little sister Miriam ever saw a man’s privates. She was only six at the time, but the experience so frightened her that she never married. The last time anyone heard from her, she had cut her hair short, put on men’s clothes, and moved to the Greek island of Lesbos. But that was later.)
“Have at it, Josh,” I said. “Lay your hands upon the affliction and heal it.”
Joshua shot me a dirty look, then looked back to his cousin John, with nothing but compassion in his eyes. “My mother has some salve you can put on it,” he said. “Let’s see if that works first.”
“I’ve tried salve,” John said.
“I was afraid you had,” said Joshua.
“Have you tried rubbing it with olive oil?” I asked. “It probably won’t cure you, but it might take your mind off of it.”
“Biff, please. John is afflicted.”
“Sorry.”
Joshua said, “Come here, John.”
“Oh, jeez, Joshua,” I said. “You’re not going to touch it, are you? He’s unclean. Let him live with the lepers.”
Joshua put his hands on John’s head and the Baptist’s eyes rolled back in his head. I thought he would fall, and he did waver, but remained standing.
“Father, you have sent this one to prepare the way. Let him go forth with his body as clean as his spirit.”
Joshua released his cousin and stepped back. John opened his eyes and smiled. “I am healed!” he yelled. “I am healed.”
John began to raise his shirt and I caught his arm. “We’ll take your word for it.”
The Baptist fell to his knees, then prostrated himself before Joshua, shoving his face against Josh’s feet. “You are truly the Messiah. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. I shall declare your holiness throughout the land.”
“Uh, maybe someday, but not now,” Joshua said.
John looked up from where he had been grasping Josh’s ankles. “Not now?”
“We’re trying to keep it a secret,” I said.
Josh patted his cousin’s head. “Yes, it would be best not to tell anyone about the healing, John.”
“But why?”
“We have to find out a couple of things before Joshua starts being the Messiah,” I said.
“Like what?” John seemed as if he would start crying again.
“Well, like where Joshua left his destiny and whether or not he’s allowed to, uh, have an abomination with a woman.”
“It’s not an abomination if it’s with a woman,” Josh added.
“It’s not?”
“Nope. Sheep, goats, pretty much any animal—it’s an abomination. But with a woman, it’s something totally different.”
“What about a woman and a goat, what’s that?” asked John.
“That’s five shekels in Damascus,” I said. “Six if you want to help.”
Joshua punched me in the shoulder.
“Sorry, old joke.” I grinned. “Couldn’t resist.”
John closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, as if he might squeeze some understanding out of his mind if he applied enough pressure. “So you don’t want anyone to know that you have the power to heal because you don’t know if you can lie with a woman?”
“Well, that and I have no idea how to go about being the Messiah,” Josh said.
“Yeah, and that,” I said.
“You should ask Hillel,” John said. “My father says he’s the wisest of all of the priests.”
“I’m going to ask the Holy of Holies,” Joshua said. (The Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant—the box containing the tablets handed down from God to Moses. No one I knew had ever seen it, as it was housed in the inner room at the Temple.)
“But it’s forbidden. Only a priest may enter the chamber of the Ark.”
“Yes, that’s going to be a problem,” I said.
The city was like a huge cup that had been filled to its brim with pilgrims, then spilled into a seething pool of humanity around it. When we arrived men were already lined up as far as the Damascus gate, waiting with their lambs to get to the Temple. A greasy black smoke was on the wind, coming from the Temple, where as many as ten thousand priests would be slaughtering the lambs and burning the blood and fatty parts on the altar. Cooking fires were burning all around the city as women prepared the lambs. A haze hung in the air, the steam and funk of a million people and as many animals. Stale breath and sweat and the smell of piss rose in the heat of the day, mixing with the bleating of lambs, the bellowing of camels, the crying of children, the ululations of women, and the low buzz of too many voices, until the air was thick with sounds and smells and God and history. Here Abraham received the word of God that his people would be the Chosen, here were the Hebrews delivered out of Egypt, here Solomon built the first Temple, here walked the prophets and the kings of the Hebrews, and here resided the Ark of the Covenant. Jerusalem. Here did I, the Christ, and John the Baptist come to find out the will of God and, if we were lucky, spot some really delicious girls. (What, you thought it was all religion and philosophy?)
Our families made camp outside the northern wall of the city, below the battlements of Antonia, the fortress Herod had built in tribute to his benefactor, Marc Antony. Two cohorts of Roman soldiers, some twelve hundred strong, watched the Temple courtyard from the fortress walls. The women fed and washed the children while Joshua and I carried lambs with our fathers to the Temple.
There was something unsettling about carrying an animal to its death. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen the sacrifices before, nor even eaten the Passover lamb, but this was the first time I’d actually participated. I could feel the animal’s breathing on my neck as I carried it slung over my shoulders, and amid all the noise and the smells and the movement around the Temple, there was, for a moment, silence, just the breath and heartbeat of the lamb. I guess I fell behind the others, because my father turned and said something to me, but I couldn’t hear the words.
We went through the gates and into the outer courtyard of the Temple where merchants sold birds for the sacrifice and moneychangers traded shekels for a hundred different coins from around the world. As we passed through the enormous courtyard, where thousands of men stood with lambs on their shoulders waiting to get into the inner temple, to the altar, to the slaughter, I could see no man’s face. I saw only the faces of the lambs, some calm and oblivious, others with their eyes rolled back, bleating in terror, still others seeming to be stunned. I swung the lamb from my own shoulders and cradled it in my arms like a child as I backed out toward the gate. I know my father and Joseph must have come after me, but I couldn’t see their faces, just emptiness where their eyes should have been, just the eyes of the lambs they carried. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t get out of the Temple fast enough. I didn’t know where I was going, but I wasn’t going inside to the altar. I turned to run, but a hand caught my shirt and pulled me back. I spun around and looked into Joshua’s eyes.
“It’s God’s will,” he said. He laid his hands on my head and I was able to breathe again. “It’s all right, Biff. God’s will.” He smiled.
Joshua had put the lamb he’d been carrying on the ground, but it didn’t run away. I suppose I should have known right then.
I didn’t eat any of the lamb for that Passover feast. In fact, I’ve never eaten lamb since that day.
Chapter Eight
I’ve managed to sneak into the bathroom long enough to read a few chapters of this New Testament that they’ve added to the Bible. This Matthew fellow, who is obviously not the Matthew that we knew, seems to have left out quite a little bit. Like everything from the time Joshua was
born to the time he was thirty!!! No wonder the angel brought me back to write this book. This Matthew fellow hasn’t mentioned me yet, but I’m still in the early chapters. I have to ration myself to keep the angel from getting suspicious. Today he confronted me when I came out of the bathroom.
“You are spending a lot of time in there. You don’t need to spend so much time in there.”
“I told you, cleanliness is very important to my people.”
“You weren’t bathing. I would have heard the water running.”
I decided that I needed to go on the offensive if I was going to keep the angel from finding the Bible. I ran across the room, leapt onto his bed, and fastened my hands around his throat—choking him as I chanted: “I haven’t been laid in two thousand years. I haven’t been laid in two thousand years. I haven’t been laid in two thousand years.” It felt good, there was a rhythm to it, I sort of squoze his throat a bit with every syllable.
I paused for a moment in choking the heavenly host to backhand him across his alabaster cheek. It was a mistake. He caught my hand. Then grabbed me by the hair with his other hand and calmly climbed to his feet, lifting me into the air by my hair.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,” I said.
“So, you have not been laid in two thousand years? What does that mean?”
“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” I replied.
The angel set me on my feet, but kept his grasp on my hair. “So?”
“It means that I haven’t had a woman in two millennia, aren’t you picking up any of the vocabulary from the television?”
He glanced at the TV, which, of course, was on. “I don’t have your gift of tongues. What does that have to do with choking me?”
“I was choking you because you, once again, are as dense as dirt. I haven’t had sex in two thousand years. Men have needs. What the hell do you think I’m doing in the bathroom all of that time?”
“Oh,” the angel said, releasing my hair. “So you are…You have been…There is a…”
“Get me a woman and maybe I won’t spend so much time in the bathroom, if you get my meaning.” Brilliant misdirection, I thought.
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