Lamb (32 page)

“I’m allowed,” said Josh. “I’m the Son of God.”

“Oh fuck,” Philip said.

“Way to ease them into the idea, Josh,” I said.

The following Sabbath a man with a withered hand came to the synagogue while Joshua was preaching and after the sermon, while fifty Pharisees who had gathered at Capernaum just in case something like this happened looked on, Joshua told the man that his sins were forgiven, then healed the withered hand.

Like vultures to carrion they came to Peter’s house the next morning.

“No one but God can forgive sins,” said the one they had elected as their speaker.

“Really,” said Joshua. “So you can’t forgive someone who sins against you?”

“No one but God.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Joshua. “Now unless you are here to hear the good news, go away.” And Joshua went into Peter’s house and closed the door.

The Pharisee shouted at the door, “You blaspheme, Joshua bar Joseph, you—”

And I was standing there in front of him, and I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I popped him. Not in the mouth or anything, but right in the phylacteries. The little leather box exploded with the impact and the strips of parchment slowly settled to the ground. I’d hit him so fast that I think he thought it was a supernatural event. A cry went up from the group behind him, protesting—shouting that I couldn’t do such a thing, that I deserved stoning, scourging, et cetera, and my Buddhist tolerance just wore a little thin.

So I popped him again. In the nose.

This time he went down. Two of his pals caught him, and another one at the front of the crowd started to reach into his sash for something. I knew that they could quickly overrun me if they wanted to, but I didn’t think they would. The cowards. I grabbed the man who was pulling the knife, twisted it away from him, shoved the iron blade between the stones of Peter’s house and snapped it off, then handed the hilt back to him. “Go away,” I said to him, very softly.

He went away, and all of his pals went with him. I went inside to see how Joshua and the others were getting along.

“You know, Josh,” I said. “I think it’s time to expand the ministry. You have a lot of followers here. Maybe we should go to the other side of the lake. Out of Galilee for a while.”

“Preach to the gentiles?” Nathaniel asked.

“He’s right,” said Joshua. “Biff is right.”

“So it shall be written,” I said.

James and John only owned one ship that was large enough to hold all of us and Bartholomew’s dogs, and it was anchored at Magdala, two hours’ walk south of Capernaum, so we made the trip very early one morning to avoid being stopped in the villages on the way. Joshua had decided to take the good news to the gentiles, so we were going to go across the lake to the town of Gadarene in the state of Decapolis. They kept gentiles there.

As we waited on the shore at Magdala, a crowd of women who had come to the lake to wash clothes gathered around Joshua and begged him to tell them of the kingdom. I noticed a young tax collector who was sitting nearby at his table in the shade of a reed umbrella. He was listening to Joshua, but I could also see his eyes following the behinds of the women. I sidled over.

“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” I said.

“Yes. Amazing,” said the tax collector. He was perhaps twenty, thin, with soft brown hair, a light beard, and light brown eyes.

“What’s your name, publican?”

“Matthew,” he said. “Son of Alphaeus.”

“No kidding, that’s my father’s name too. Look, Matthew, I assume you can read, write, things like that?”

“Oh yes.”

“You’re not married, are you?”

“No, I was betrothed, but before the wedding was to happen, her parents let her marry a rich widower.”

“Sad. You’re probably heartbroken. That’s sad. You see those women? There’s women like that all the time around Joshua. And here’s the best part, he’s celibate. He doesn’t want any of them. He’s just interested in saving mankind and bringing the kingdom of God to earth, which we all are, of course. But the women, well, I think you can see.”

“That must be wonderful.”

“Yeah, it’s swell. We’re going to Decapolis. Why don’t you come with us?”

“I couldn’t. I’ve been entrusted to collect taxes for this whole coast.”

“He’s the Messiah, Matthew. The Messiah. Think of it. You, and the Messiah.”

“I don’t know.”

“Women. The kingdom. You heard about him turning water into wine.”

“I really have to—”

“Have you ever tasted bacon, Matthew?”

“Bacon? Isn’t that from pigs? Unclean?”

“Joshua’s the Messiah, the Messiah says it’s okay. It’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten, Matthew. Women love it. We eat bacon every morning, with the women. Really.”

“I’ll need to finish up here,” Matthew said.

“You do that. Here, I’d like you to mark something for me,” I looked over his shoulder at his ledger and pointed to a few names. “Meet us at the ship when you’re ready, Matthew.”

I went back over to the shore, where James and John had pulled the ship in close enough for us to wade out to. Joshua finished up blessing the women and sent them back to their laundry with a parable about stains.

“Gentlemen,” I called. “Excuse me, James, John, you too Peter, Andrew. You will not need to worry about your taxes this season. They’ve been taken care of.”

“What?” said Peter. “Where did you get the money—”

I turned and waved toward Matthew, who was running toward the shore. “This good fellow is the publican Matthew. He’s here to join us.”

Matthew ran up beside me and stood grinning like an idiot while trying to catch his breath. “Hey,” he said, waving weakly to the disciples.

“Welcome, Matthew,” Joshua said. “All are welcome in the kingdom.” Joshua shook his head, turned, and waded out to the ship.

“He loves you, kid,” I said. “Loves you.”

Thus we did become ten.

Joshua fell asleep on a pile of nets with Peter’s wide straw fishing hat over his face. Before I settled down to be rocked to sleep myself, I sent Philip to the back of the boat to explain the kingdom and the Holy Ghost to Matthew. (I figured that Philip’s acumen with numbers might help out when talking to a tax collector.) The two sets of brothers sailed the ship, which was wide of beam and small of sail and very, very slow. About halfway across the lake I heard Peter say, “I don’t like it. It looks like a tempest.”

I sat bolt upright and looked at the sky, and indeed, there were black clouds coming over the hills to the east, low and fast, clawing at the trees with lightning as they passed. Before I had a chance to sit up, a wave broke over the shallow gunwale and soaked me to the core.

“I don’t like this, we should go back,” said Peter, as a curtain of rain whipped across us. “The ship’s too full and the draft too shallow to weather a storm.”

“Not good. Not good. Not good,” chanted Nathaniel.

Bartholomew’s dogs barked and howled at the wind. James and Andrew trimmed the sail and put the oars in the water. Peter moved to the stern to help John with the long steering oar. Another wave broke over the gunwale, washing away one of Bartholomew’s disciples, a mangy terrier type.

Water was mid-shin deep in the bottom of the boat. I grabbed a bucket and began bailing and signaled Philip to help, but he had succumbed to the most rapid case of seasickness I had ever even heard of and was retching over the side.

Lightning struck the mast, turning everything a phosphorus white. The explosion was instant and left my ears ringing. One of Joshua’s sandals floated by me in the bottom of the boat.

“We’re doomed!” wailed Bart. “Doomed!”

Joshua pushed the fishing hat back on his head and looked at the chaos around him. “O ye of little faith,” he said. He waved his hand across the sky and the storm stopped. Just like that. Black clouds were sucked back over the hills, the water settled to a gentle swell, and the sun shone down bright and hot enough to raise steam off our clothes. I reached over the side and snatched the swimming doggy out of the waves.

Joshua had laid back down with the hat over his face. “Is the new kid looking?” he whispered to me.

“Yeah,” I said.

“He impressed?”

“His mouth is hanging open. He looks sort of stricken.”

“Great. Wake me when we get there.”

I woke him a little before we reached Gadarene because there was a huge madman waiting for us on the shore, foaming at the mouth, screaming, throwing rocks, and eating the occasional handful of dirt.

“Hold up there, Peter,” I said. The sails were down again and we were rowing in.

“I should wake the master,” said Peter.

“No, it’s okay, I have the stop-for-foaming-madmen authority.” Nevertheless, I kicked the Messiah gently. “Josh, you might want to take a look at this guy.”

“Look, Peter,” said Andrew, pointing to the madman, “he has hair just like yours.”

Joshua sat up, pushed back Peter’s hat and glanced to the shore. “Onward,” he said.

“You sure?” Rocks were starting to land in the boat.

“Oh yeah,” said Joshua.

“He’s very large,” said Matthew, clarifying the already clear.

“And mad,” said Nathaniel, not to be outdone in stating the obvious.

“He is suffering,” said Joshua. “Onward.”

A rock as big as my head thudded into the mast and bounced into the water. “I’ll rip your legs off and kick you in the head as you crawl around bleeding to death,” said the madman.

“Sure you don’t want to swim in from here?” Peter said, dodging a rock.

“Nice refreshing swim after a nap?” said James.

Matthew stood up in the back of the boat and cleared his throat. “What is one tormented man compared to the calming of a storm? Were you all in the same boat I was?”

“Onward,” Peter said, and onward we went, the big boat full of Joshua and Matthew and the eight faithless pieces of shit that were the rest of us.

Joshua was out of the boat as soon as we hit the beach. He walked straight up to the madman, who looked as if he could crush the Messiah’s head in one of his hands. Filthy rags hung in tatters on him and his teeth were broken and bleeding from eating dirt. His face contorted and bubbled as if there were great worms under the skin searching for an escape. His hair was wild and stuck out in a great grayish tangle, and it did sort of look like Peter’s hair.

“Have mercy on me,” said the madman. His voice buzzed in his throat like a chorus of locusts.

I slid out of the boat and the others followed me quietly up behind Joshua.

“What is your name, Demon?” Joshua asked.

“What would you like it to be?” said the demon.

“You know, I’ve always been partial to the name Harvey,” Joshua said.

“Well, isn’t that a coincidence?” said the demon. “My name just happens to be Harvey.”

“You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?” said Josh.

“Yeah, I am,” said the demon, busted. “My name is Legion, for there are a bunch of us in here.”

“Out, Legion,” Joshua commanded. “Out of this big guy.”

There was a herd of pigs nearby, doing piggy things. (I don’t know what they were doing. I’m a Jew, what do I know from pigs, except that I like bacon?) A great green glow came out of Legion’s mouth, whipped through the air like smoke, then came down on the heard of pigs like a cloud. In a second it was sucked into the pigs’ nostrils and they began foaming and making locust noises.

“Be gone,” said Joshua. With that the pigs all ran into the sea, sucked huge lungfuls of water, and after only a little kicking, drowned. Perhaps fifty dead pigs bobbed in the swell.

“How can I thank you?” said the big foaming guy, who had stopped foaming, but was still big.

“Tell the people of your land what has happened,” Joshua said. “Tell them the Son of God has come to bring them the good news of the Holy Ghost.”

“Clean up a little before you tell them,” I said.

And off he went, a lumbering monster, bigger even than our own Bartholomew, and smelling worse, which I hadn’t thought possible. We sat down on the beach and were sharing some bread and wine when we heard the crowd approaching through the hills.

“The good news travels quickly,” said Matthew, whose fresh-faced enthusiasm was starting to irritate me a little now.

“Who killed our pigs?”

The crowd was carrying rakes and pitchforks and scythes and they didn’t look at all like they were there to receive the Gospel.

“You fuckers!”

“Kill them!”

“In the boat,” said Josh.

“O ye of little—” Matthew’s comment was cut short by Bart grabbing him by the collar and dragging him down the beach to the boat.

The brothers had already pushed off and were up to their chests in the water. They pulled themselves in and James and John helped set the oars as Peter and Andrew pulled us into the boat. We fished Bart’s disciples out of the waves by the scruffs of their necks and set sail just as the rocks began to rain down on us.

We all looked at Joshua. “What?” he said. “If they’d been Jews that pig thing would have gone over great. I’m new at gentiles.”

There was a messenger waiting for us when we reached Magdala. Philip unrolled the scroll and read. “It’s an invitation to come to dinner in Bethany during Passover week, Joshua. A ranking member of the Sanhedrin requests your presence at dinner at his home to discuss your wonderful ministry. It’s signed Jakan bar Iban ish Nazareth.”

Maggie’s husband. The creep.

I said, “Good first day, huh, Matthew?”

We came up to Jerusalem, in the gate at Bethsaida called the Eye of the Needle, where you had to duck down to pass
through, out the Golden Gate, through the Kidron Valley, and over the Mount of Olives into Bethany.

We had left the brothers and Matthew behind because they had jobs, and Bartholomew because he stank. His lack of cleanliness had started to draw attention lately from the local Pharisees in Capernaum and we didn’t want to push the issue since we were walking into the lair of the enemy. Philip and Nathaniel joined us on our journey, but stayed behind on the Mount of Olives at a clearing called Gethsemane, where there was a small cave and an olive press. Joshua tried to convince me to stay with them, but I insisted.

“I’ll be fine,” Joshua said. “It’s not my time. Jakan won’t try anything, it’s just dinner.”

“I’m not worried about your safety, Josh, I just want to see Maggie.” I did want to see Maggie, but I was worried about Joshua’s safety as well. Either way, I wasn’t staying behind.

Jakan met us at the gate wearing a new white tunic belted with a blue sash. He was stocky, but not as fat as I expected him to be, and almost exactly my height. His beard was black and long, but had been cut straight across about the level of his collarbone. He wore the pointed linen cap worn by many of the Pharisees, so I couldn’t tell if he’d lost any of his hair. The fringe that hung down was dark brown, as were his eyes. The most frightening and perhaps the most surprising thing about him was that there was a spark of intelligence in his eyes. That hadn’t been there when we were children. Perhaps seventeen years with Maggie had rubbed off on him.

“Come in, fellow Nazarenes. Welcome to my home. There are some friends inside who wanted to meet you.”

He led us through the door into a large great room, large enough in fact to fit any two of the houses we shared at Capernaum. The floor was paved in tile with turquoise and red mosaic spirals in the corners of the room (no pictures, of course). There was a long Roman-style table at which five other men, all dressed like Jakan, sat. (In Jewish households the tables were close to the ground and diners reclined on cushions or on the floor around them.) I didn’t see Maggie anywhere, but a serving girl brought in large pitchers of water and bowls for us to wash our hands in.

“Let this water stay water, will you, Joshua?” Jakan said, smiling. “We can’t wash in wine.”

Jakan introduced us to each of the men, adding some sort of elaborate title to each of their names that I didn’t catch, but which indicated, I’m sure, that they were all members of the Sanhedrin as well as the Council of Pharisees. Ambush. They received us curtly, then made their way to the water bowls to wash their hands before dinner, all of them watching as Joshua and I washed and offered prayer. This, after all, was part of the test.

We sat. The water pitchers and bowls were taken away by the serving girl, who then brought pitchers of wine.

“So,” said the eldest of the Pharisees, “I hear you have been casting demons out of the afflicted in Galilee.”

“Yes, we’re having a lovely Passover week,” I said. “And you?”

Joshua kicked me under the table. “Yes,” he said. “By the power of my father I have relieved the suffering of some who were plagued by demons.”

When Joshua said “my father” every one of them squirmed. I noticed movement in one of the doorways to Jakan’s back. It was Maggie, making signals and signs like a madwoman, but then Jakan spoke. Attention turned to him and Maggie ducked out of sight.

Jakan leaned forward. “Some have said that you banish these demons by the power of Beelzebub.”

“And how could I do that?” Joshua said, getting a little angry. “How could I turn Beelzebub against himself? How can I battle Satan with Satan? A house divided can’t stand.”

“Boy, I’m starving,” I said. “Bring on the eats.”

“With the spirit of God I cast out demons, that’s how you know the kingdom has come.”

They didn’t want to hear that. Hell, I didn’t want to hear that, not here. If Joshua claimed to bring the kingdom, then he was claiming to be the Messiah, which by their way of thinking could be blasphemy, a crime punishable by death. It was one thing for them to hear it secondhand, it was quite another to have Joshua say it to their faces. But he, as usual, was unafraid.

“Some say John the Baptist is the Messiah,” said Jakan.

“There’s nobody better than John,” Joshua said. “But John doesn’t baptize with the Holy Ghost. I do.”

They all looked at each other. They had no idea what he was talking about. Joshua had been preaching the Divine Spark—the Holy Ghost—for two years, but it was a new way of looking at God and the kingdom: it was a change. These legalists had worked hard to find their place of power; they weren’t interested in change.

Food was put on the table and prayers offered again, then we ate in silence for a while. Maggie was in the doorway behind Jakan again, gesturing with one hand walking over the other, mouthing words that I was supposed to understand. I had something I wanted to give her, but I had to see her in private. It was obvious that Jakan had forbidden her to enter the room.

“Your disciples do not wash their hands before they eat!” said one of the Pharisees, a fat man with a scar over his eye.

Bart, I thought.

“It’s not what goes into a man that defiles him,” Joshua said, “it’s what comes out.” He broke off some of the flatbread and dipped it into a bowl of oil.

“He means lies,” I said.

“I know,” said the old Pharisee.

“You were thinking something disgusting, don’t lie.”

The Pharisees passed the “no, your turn, no, it’s your turn” look around the room.

Joshua chewed his bread slowly, then said, “Why wash the outside of the urn, if there’s decay on the inside?”

“Yeah, like you rotting hypocrites!” I added, with more enthusiasm than was probably called for.

“Quit helping!” Josh said.

“Sorry. Nice wine. Manischewitz?”

My shouting evidently stirred them out of their malaise. The old Pharisee said, “You consort with demons, Joshua of Nazareth. This Levi was seen to cause blood to come from a Pharisee’s nose and a knife to break of its own, and no one even saw him move.”

Joshua looked at me, then at them, then at me again. “You forget to tell me something?”

“He was being an emrod, so I popped him.” (“Emrod” is the biblical term for hemorrhoid.) I heard Maggie’s giggling from the other room.

Joshua turned back to the creeps. “Levi who is called Biff has studied the art of the soldier in the East,” Joshua said. “He can move swiftly, but he is not a demon.”

I stood up. “The invitation was for dinner, not a trial.”

“This is no trial,” said Jakan, calmly. “We have heard of Joshua’s miracles, and we have heard that he breaks the Law. We simply want to ask him by whose authority he does these things. This is dinner, otherwise, why would you be here?”

I was wondering that myself, but Joshua answered me by pushing me down in my seat and proceeding to answer their accusations for another two hours, crafting parables and throwing their own piety back in their faces. While Joshua spoke the word of God, I did sleight-of-hand tricks with the bread and the vegetables, just to mess with them. Maggie came to the doorway and signaled me, pointing frantically to the front door and making threatening, head-bashing gestures which I took to be the consequences for my not understanding her this time.

“Well, I’ve got to go see a man about a camel, if you’ll excuse me.”

I stepped out the front door. As soon as I closed it behind me I was hit with the spraying girl-spit of a violently whispering woman.

“YoustupidsonofabitchwhatthefuckdidyouthinkIwastryingtosaytoyou?” She punched me in the arm. Hard.

“No kiss?” I whispered.

“Where can I meet you, after?”

“You can’t. Here, take this.” I handed her a small leather pouch. “There’s a parchment inside to tell you what to do.”

“I want to see you two.”

“You will. Do what the note says. I have to go back in.”

“You bastard.” Punch in the arm. Hard.

I forgot what I was doing and entered the house still rubbing my bruised shoulder.

“Levi, have you injured yourself?”

“No, Jakan, but sometimes I strain a shoulder muscle just shaking this monster off.”

The Pharisees hated that one. I realized that they were waiting for me
to request water so I could go through the whole hand-washing ritual before I sat down to the table again. I stood there, thinking about it, rubbing my shoulder, waiting. How long could it possibly take to read a note? It seemed like a long time, with them staring at me, but I’m sure it was only a few minutes. Then it came, the scream. Maggie let go from the next room, long and high and loud, a virtuoso scream of terror and panic and madness.

I bent over and whispered into Joshua’s ear, “Just follow my lead. No, just don’t do anything. Nothing.”

“But—”

The Pharisees all looked like someone had dropped hot coals into their laps as the scream went on, and on. Maggie had great sustain. Before Jakan could get up to investigate, there came my girl—still shrieking, I might add—a lovely green foam running out of her mouth, her dress torn and hanging in shreds on her blood-streaked body and blood running from the corners of her eyes. She screamed in Jakan’s face and rolled her eyes, then leapt onto the table and growled as she kicked every piece of crockery off onto the floor where it shattered. The servant girl ran through screaming, “Demons have taken her, demons have taken her!” then bolted out the front door. Maggie started screeching again, then ran up and down the length of the table, urinating as she went. (Nice touch, I would never have thought of that.)

The Pharisees had backed up against the wall, including Jakan, as Maggie fell on her back on the table, thrashing and growling and screaming obscenities while splattering the front of their white cloaks with green foam, urine, and blood.

“Devils! She’s been possessed by devils. Lots of them,” I shouted.

“Seven,” Maggie said between growls.

“Looks like seven,” I said. “Doesn’t it, Josh?”

I grabbed the back of Joshua’s hair and sort of made him nod in agreement. No one was really watching him anyway, as Maggie was now spouting impressive fountains of green foam both out of her mouth and from between her legs. (Again, a nice touch I wouldn’t have thought of.) She settled into a vibrating fit rhythm, with barking and obscenities for counterpoint.

“Well, Jakan,” I said politely, “thank you for dinner. It’s been lovely
but we have to be going.” I pulled Joshua to his feet by his collar. He was a little perplexed himself. Not terrified like our host, but perplexed.

“Wait,” Jakan said.

“Festering dog penis!” Maggie snarled to no one in particular, but I think everyone knew who she meant.

“Oh, all right, we’ll try to help her,” I said. “Joshua, grab an arm.” I pushed him forward and Maggie grabbed his wrist. I went around to the other side of the table and got hold of her other arm. “We have to get her out of this house of defilement.”

Maggie’s fingernails bit into my arm as I lifted her up and she pulled herself along on Josh’s wrist, pretending to thrash and fight. I dragged her out the front door and into the courtyard. “Make an effort, Joshua, would you,” Maggie whispered.

Jakan and the Pharisees bunched at the door. “We need to take her into the wilderness to safely cast out the devils,” I shouted. I dragged her, and Joshua for that matter, into the street and kicked the heavy gate closed.

Maggie relaxed and stood up. A mound of green foam cascaded off of her chest. “Don’t relax yet, Maggie. When we’re farther away.”

“Pork-eating goat fucker!”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Hi, Maggie,” Joshua said, taking her arm and finally helping me drag.

“I think it went really well for short notice,” I said. “You know, Pharisees make the best witnesses.”

“Let’s go to my brother’s house,” she whispered. “We can send word that I’m incurable from there.

“Rat molester!”

“It’s okay, Maggie, we’re out of range now.”

“I know. I was talking to you. Why’d you take seventeen years to get me out of there?”

“You’re beautiful in green, did I ever tell you that?”

“I’ve got to think that that was unethical,” Joshua said.

“Josh, faking demonic possession is like a mustard seed.”

“How is it like a mustard seed?”

“You don’t know, do you? Doesn’t seem at all like a mustard seed, does
it? Now you see how we all feel when you liken things unto a mustard seed? Huh?”

At Simon the Leper’s house Joshua went to the door first by himself so Maggie’s appearance didn’t scare the humus out of her brother and sister. Martha answered the door. “Shalom, Martha. I’m Joshua bar Joseph, of Nazareth. Remember me from the wedding in Cana? I’ve brought your sister Maggie.”

“Let me see.” Martha tapped her fingernail on her chin while she searched her memory in the night sky. “Were you the one who changed the water into wine? Son of God, was it?”

“There’s no need to be that way,” Joshua said.

I popped my head around Josh’s shoulder. “I gave your sister a powder that sort of foamed her up all red and green. She’s a bit nasty-looking right now.”