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Chapter 24

Chapter 24

I've finally finished reading these stories by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John These guysseem like an accident, like five thousand people just showed up on a hill onethe theanize sermons like that, and sometimes we even had to put Joshua in a boat and float hi htmare

And that's not all, there were two sides to Joshua, his preaching side and his private side The guy who stood there railing at the Pharisees was not the sa Untouchables in the arm because it cracked him up He planned the serh he roup that understood any of them

What I'uys, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they got so stuff, but they missed a lot (like thirty years, for instance) I'll try to fill it in, which is why, I guess, the angel brought me back from the dead

And speaking of the angel, I'one psycho (No, psycho isn't a word I had back in h television and I'll have a whole new vocabulary It applies I believe, for instance, that "psycho" was the perfect term for John the Baptist More about him later) Raziel took me to a place where you wash clothes today A Laundromat We were there all day He wanted to make sure I kneash clothes I may not be the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but it's laundry, for Christ's sake He quizzed et this story told if the angel keeps deciding to teach uess that Raziel is trying to prepare me to be an international spy

Bartholomew and his stench rode one camel while Joshua and I shared the other We rode south to Jerusalem, then east over the Mount of Olives into Bethany, wherea yellow-hairedtree I had never seen a yellow-haired person in Israel, other than the angel I pointed hih to convince ourselves that he wasn't one of the heavenly host in disguise Actually, we pretended to watch hi each other

Bartholo? You two seem nervous"

"It's just that blond kid," I said, trying to look in the courtyards of the large houses as we passed

"Maggie lives here with her husband," Joshua said, looking atno tension whatsoever

"I knew that," said Bart "He's a h up, they say"

The Sanhedrin was a council of priests and Pharisees who made most of the decisions for the Jewish community, as far as the Romans would allow them, anyway Aside froovernor, they were the most powerful men in Israel

"I was really hoping Jakan would die young"

"They have no children," Joshua said What Josh was saying was that it was strange that Jakan hadn't divorced Maggie for being barren

"My brother told me," I said

"We can't go see her"

"I know," I said, although I wasn't sure why not

We finally found John in the desert north of Jericho, preaching on the bank of the Jordan River His hair was as wild as ever and now he had a beard that was just as out of control He wore a rough tunic that was belted with a sash of unscraped camel skin There was a crowd of perhaps five hundred people there, standing in sun so hot that you had to check road signs to make sure you hadn't accidentally taken the turnoff to hell

We couldn't tell what John was talking about froot closer we heard his ready There's one that's co after me, and I'm not qualified to carry his jockstrap"

"What's a jockstrap?" Joshua asked

"It's an Essene thing," Bartholohtly, to control their sinful urges"

Then John spotted us over the croere on ca "You re you that one would co, that's him on the camel On the left Behold the Lamb of God!"

The crowd looked back at Josh and ht, he just happened along right when you were talking about him What, we don't know from a shill e see one?

Joshua glanced nervously at rinned sheepishly (as one ritted teeth he asked, "So a?"

"Just wave, and say, 'Go with God,'" Bart said

"Waving here - waving there," Josh rin "Go with God Thank you very "

"Louder, Josh We're the only ones who can hear you"

Josh turned to us so the crowd couldn't see his face "I didn't knoas going to need a jockstrap! Nobody told uys"

Thus did begin the ministry of Joshua bar Joseph, ish Nazareth, the Lamb of God

"So, who's the big guy?" John asked, as we sat around the fire that evening Night crawled across the desert sky like a black cat with phosphorus dandruff Bartholos down by the riverbank

"That's Bartholomew," Joshua said "He's a Cynic"

"And the village idiot of Nazareth for over thirty years," I added "He gave up his position to follow Joshua"

"He's a slut, and he's the first one baptized in theHe stinks More locusts, Biff?"

"No thanks, I'm full" I stared down at my bowl of roasted locusts and honey You were supposed to dip the locusts in the honey for a sweet and nutritious treat It was all John ate

"So this Divine Spark, all that time away, that's what you found?"

"It's the key to the kingdom, John," Josh said "That's what I learned in the East that I' to our people, that God is in all of us We are all brothers in the Divine Spark I just don't kno to spread the word"

"Well, first, you can't call it the Divine Spark The people won't understand it This thing, it's in everyone, it's permanent, it's a part of God?"

"Not God the creator, my father, the part of God that's spirit"

"Holy Ghost," John said with a shrug "Call it the Holy Ghost People understand that a ghost is in you, and they understand that it goes on after you, and you'll just have to make them believe that it's God"

"That's perfect," Joshua said, s

"So, this Holy Ghost," John said, biting a locust in half, "it's in every Jew, but gentiles don't have it, right? I dom comes?"

"I was getting to that," said Josh

It took John the better part of the night to deal with the fact that Joshua was going to let gentiles into the kingdoh he kept looking for exceptions

"Even sluts?"

"Even sluts," Joshua said

"Especially sluts," I said

"You're the one who is cleansing people of their sins so they will be forgiven," Joshua added

"I know, but gentile sluts, in the kingdom" He shook his head, assured now by the Messiah hi to hell in a handbasket Which really shouldn't have surprised hie for over ten years That, and identifying sluts "Let "

Shortly after I had met him on the road to Jerusalem, John had joined the Essenes You couldn't be born an Essene, because they were all celibate, even indrink, adhered strictly to Jewish dietary law, and were absolutelythe point for John They had a thriving community in the desert outside of Jericho called Qumran, a s scrolls, and aqueducts that ran out of the mountains to fill their ritual baths A few of them lived in the caves above the Dead Sea where they stored the jars that held their sacred scrolls, but the most zealous of the Essenes, which included John, didn't even allow themselves the comfort of a cave He showed us accommodations near his own

"It's a pit!" I screamed

Three pits, to be exact I suppose there's so a private pit Bartholo into his new pit

"Oh, John," Josh said, "remind me to tell you about karma"

So, for over a year, while Joshua was learning from John how to say the words that would make people follow him, I lived in a pit

It makes sense, if you think about it For seventeen years Joshua had spent his ti quiet, so what did he know about cootten fro skills from that side of the fa for those same seventeen years, and that squirrelly bastard could preach Standing waist deep in the Jordan, he would wave his arms and roll his eyes and stir the air with a ser to open and the hand of God Hisownself was going to reach down, grab you by the balls, and shake you till the evil rattled out of you like loose baby teeth An hour of John's preaching and you were not only lining up to be baptized, you'd juht in the river and try to breathe the bottom muck just to be relieved of your oretchedness

Joshua watched, and listened, and learned John was an absolute believer in who Joshua was and what he was going to do, as far as he understood, anyway, but the Baptist worriedthe attention of Herod Antipas Herod had married his brother Philip's wife, Herodia, without her obtaining a divorce, which was forbidden by Jewish law, an absolute outrage by the more severe laws of the Essenes, and a subject that fit well into John's pervasive "slut" theuard hovering around the edge of John's crohen he preached

I confronted the Baptist one evening when he caes to auy as we sat around eating our locusts

"Slut!" John shouted with his "thunder of Elijah" voice, waving a finger under Bart's nose

"Yeah, John, Bartholo for sarcasm

"Almost," said Bart

"I , Bart"

"Oh Sorry Never mind"

John wheeled on the new guy, who put his hands up "I'm new," he said

Thus rebuked, John spun to face Joshua

"Celibate," Joshua said "Always have been, alill be Not happy about it"

Finally John turned to me "Slut!"

"John, I'm cleansed, you baptized me six times today" Joshua elbowed me in the ribs "What? It was hot Point is, I counted fifty soldiers in the crowd today, so ease up a little on the slut talk You're backed up or soe, no sex, no fun, ascetic thing"

"And the honey-and-locust living-in-a pit thing," said the new guy

"He's no different than Melchior or Gaspar," Joshua said "They were both ascetics"

"Melchior and Gaspar weren't running around calling the provincial governor a slut in front of hundreds of people It's a big difference, and it's going to get him killed"

"I a down by the fire now, soone

"Yeah, are you cleansed of guilt? Because you're going to have the blood of thousands on your hands when the Roet you In case you haven't noticed, they don't just kill the leaders of a movement There's a thousand crosses on the road to Jerusalem where Zealots died, and they weren't all leaders"

"I a his head until the ends of his hair were dipping into the honey in his bowl "Herodia and Herod are sluts He's as close as we have to a Jewish king, and he's a slut"

Joshua pushed his cousin's hair out of his eyes and squeezed the wild el foretold, you were born to preach the truth"

I stood up and tossedsparks over John and Joshua "I've only els, and three-quarters of them are loony" And I stormed off to my pit

"Auy

That night, as I was falling asleep, I heard Joshua scra or an idea had roused him from his bedroll "Hey!" he said

"What?" I replied

"I just did the math Three quarters of two is - "

"One and a half," said the new guy, who had moved into the pit on the other side of Josh "So John's either all crazy and you're half crazy, or you're three-quarters crazy and John's three-quarters crazy, or - well - actually it's a constant ratio, I'd have to graph it out for you"

"So what are you saying?"

"Nothing," said the new guy "I'm new"

The nextJoshua leapt out of his pit, shook off the scorpions, and after a longwhiz, kicked some dirt clods into my pit to thunk me from my slumber