chapter 01

Two of my uncles that worked with my dad were called Jesus so my family all called me Howie. Some Howard. And when I did something that got Mom mad, which wasn’t hard, Jesus H.

Many of my teachers called me Jesus H. Christ when I told them they were wrong.

I like my name so I told them often that they were wrong. They were wrong often enough. And of course, I went to a Jewish private school. My teachers were mostly old priests.

“Jesus H. Wash your hands properly. Look at this towel. Did you use any soap.”

I didn’t say anything. It was Dad. He was so often in and out of his office and in the shop helping get a shipment of tables and chairs ready for transport to half the cities in Egypt. He was so preoccupied all the time that he seldom took notice of his wife and children. And seldom thought of the soap.

“How was your day at school, Howie.”

“Good Dad. I told our Torah teacher that he didn’t understand the character of Moses and he threw me out of class so that he could brain wash the other kids without me contradicting his teachings.”

“Jesus H. We send you to a private Jewish school and you talk like a common Gentile.”

“I got an ‘A’ on my math test, Mom.”

“That’s good James.”

“Pass the goat cheese.”

Mom liked to tell us we weren’t just special because we were Jewish but we had a direct family tree to King David. Being the oldest son, I was in line for the throne. Back in a land I never got to know because it was ruled by Romans. Dad though I could take over his furniture business.

“King David was a tyrant and a murderer. Most of our ancestors were either sheepherders or sheepherder slaves. King Solomon went through his fame having sex with hundreds of women. Everyone trying to see who can make the most descendents to take over the world from some other bunch of mad monkeys that if you believe the bloody Torah, don’t even exist.”

“Jesus H. Go to you room before I wash your mouth out with soap.”

Mom thought it was part of her job to show me her dedication to the laws of our ancestors. As if they came from a time when they knew everything about God.

People in Egypt didn’t think much about Moses or King David. Most of my friends didn’t even know who they were. They had different ideas about God.

I was being unruly in school one day and the teacher sent me out of the classroom to chill in the hallway for a little while. I hadn’t even had time to realize what had happened when I saw a dark figure down the hall.

The high priest of the school happened to come out of his office and walked right up to me with his clothing of authority. Begging me to defy him. He must have been 80 years old. Everyone knew he didn’t like children who stepped out of line.

“What are you doing out here.”

“The teacher wanted me to relax and not interrupt his lesson.”

“You go back in and apologize before the class.”

I shook my head in the negative.

“Too my office, young man.”

We walked in silence down the long hall to his office. Everyone knew that his office was not a good place for students to have to go.

When we got to his office and the door was closed, he took the whip off the wall and put it on his desk. He sat behind his desk with a serious expression. He made the best live portrait to represent authority that his limited talent would allow.

“You need to learn to respect authority.”

He said many more things to convince me that I had committed a serious crime. I stood and looked down and heard him but didn’t really listen. I was a little confused still to what was happening to me. When he figured that he could not convince me to bend to his will on his own, he decided to send for my mother. Double the troops. Scare me into submission. And my mother came, looking a little nervous. But she was pretty like an angel and she was proud that her son was a stubborn bastard. She tried to hide her smile but she couldn’t help from shining.

“Whip him, if you must, you won’t change his mind if he has made it up.”

That wasn’t quite that answer he was looking for. She was supposed to tell me what to do and she simply didn’t even bother to try.

The High Priest was a little flustered at my mother’s lack of intervention so he sent for my teacher and attempted to convince him to help in the mission to make me repent.

But the teacher was one of the young priests that actually liked children and he couldn’t see the point in torturing me any longer when all he had intended was that I spend a few moments of reflection out of the classroom. He had no intension to make a big show of it.

“I think he has had enough, maybe we should all go back to what we were doing.”

The old priest didn’t even look at my teacher. It turned out to be three against the one who had intended to have it three against me. The old priest threw up his hands waved us out.

“Go. All of you. Jesus, I’m watching you.”

Watch closely, dead camel flogger, I’m not done yet.


chapter 02

“Herod is dead. We are moving back to Israel.”

“Israel sucks, why can’t we stay in Egypt.”

“Herod is dead.”

“Yes, Mom, so what. What is that to us.”

This was a subject like sex. No discussion.

“We are from Israel. Your dad has many contacts there and is leaving Uncle Jesus and Uncle Jesus to run this place and he’s going to open another place in Galilee.”

Part of the deal was that Dad would have more time for us. He planned on importing Lebanon cedar and African hardwoods. Then it would come to pass that he would specialize in expensive furniture for Roman officials with too much money.

It sounded like an excuse. Mom wanted us back in the land of her forefathers. And when she had her next baby, who would be called Judas or Judith depending on if it was a boy or a girl, we were packing the donkeys and camels and moving back to a place me and my brothers and sister didn’t know.

Dad made the money and Mom managed the family. Children had no vote.

One day I went out and played with my wooden boat in the little stream.

While I played alone in the woods, I was visited by a man. I knew there wasn’t really a man there because I hadn’t heard him approach. I knew that when I looked around, he would not be there. The man had a message for me. I didn’t know what it could be and I didn’t understand why I knew he was there when I knew he wasn’t there. And when I finally looked up he wasn’t there and I could have supposed it was just my imagination but I didn’t get around to wondering. Someone else was really there in front of me.

“Hi Howie, what’s up.”

It was my nameless friend. I wasn’t certain why I put up with my nameless friend that seemed to come out of nowhere. Sometimes he came to steel my sister Sharlie’s toys. He avoided James because James punched him in the head one day.

“Nothing.”

“No, come on, tell me.”

“I found a bird’s nest with eggs.”

“No way.”

“There is always a way.”

“I’d really like to see those eggs.”

I bet you would. I thought. And he understood my not speaking for the only answer it could mean.

“Come on Jesus. Trust me. I won’t touch them. I just want to see them. I bet they are pretty.”

“Yes. They are blue.”

“Ya. That’s nice. Show me. I promise on my mother’s tits I won’t touch them.”

I was in a fix. I knew I didn’t trust him. I felt stupid for even telling him about the eggs. Like I had sinned against the birds. But he was persistent and he promised me on his mother’s tits that he wouldn’t do what I most feared.

Reluctantly, I took him behind the house, listening to him go on about his promise that ended as soon as he saw the eggs. He didn’t hesitate long enough for me to make a sound.

He grabbed all three eggs and threw one after the other at the back wall of our house.

I stood and looked at my nameless friend who I was now certain I did not like.

“They are just stupid Gobin eggs.”

And that was the explanation for their destruction.

They are just sinning Gentiles.

I think he stopped existing after that. It was like he had been sent by a daemon to terrorize me. To destroy my faith. But that was how my ancestor’s thought.

I knew something was wrong with him. I didn’t think, oh, the poor stupid fellow likely has an alcoholic mother and his two brothers are in jail for raping a little Jewish girl and his dad had killed himself because my dad put him out of business with his modern tools and imported craftsmen.

I didn’t think that because it still wouldn’t make it make sense. There was no sense to be made of it. He was a senseless boy that liked to lie, steal, deceive and smash things.

Like my own ancestors and relatives. Killing birds to wash away sins or mold from a house. Telling people to get circumcised then murdering them all.

Most of my memories from Egypt were all right. Most of the kids didn’t care if I was a Jew. They told me I could be whatever I wanted to be.

We often picked someone different for different games.

I never picked a Jew. I liked playing Hercules and held baby goats over my head. I sometime played the hero that started a world war to get to take Helene as his lover. Especially if there was a pretty girl playing with us.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do with her. Sex was taboo. Even thinking about it. And I was just a confused kid. They told me. But I was a bright kid. Grampa Jacob took a special interest in my abilities. He was a Mathematics professor and enjoyed giving me hard problems to figure out. Things he taught to boys much older than me. He tried not to get over excited but he adored my little curious contradictory mind.

Grandparents are like that. Giving you cookies before dinner and everything else.

When Judas was born and old enough to travel, we packed up and moved to Galilee up until Dad wasn’t certain if it was such a good idea and we went to Nazareth.

We were supposed to be Israelites again. Roman Jews. Obeying Moses and Herod the son of Herod at the same time.

And it was so obvious to me that they were both idiots and kids believed in balls that could be kicked around and olive trees that could be climbed, forts that could be built and any other kind of adventure or entertainment that had little to do with the dead and live tyrants that told our obedient parents what to do.

“Ha, you’re dead on a cross.”

That game was stupid but my friends loved to play it. The Romans were always hanging the insubordinates on crosses to be eaten by dogs and birds. To scare us. My friends like to make a game of it.

The Roman soldiers always laughed at us.

“One day you little brats will grow up to be thieves and we’ll nail you all to real crosses.”

When they weren’t looking, we gave them the finger.


chapter 03

I started in on my mother shortly after puberty, trying to explain to her that proclaiming belief in the murder God of our ancestors was madness.

“Our ancestors were stinking sheep and goat herders. Chicken farmers, cattle ranchers. What is so bloody holy about any of them.”

“You are King of the Jews, Jesus H.”

“Not without an army, I’m not.”

“We’ve been worshipping the God of Abram, Isaac and Israel since God put us on the Earth.”

“God. Did God put us on the Earth to worship him. Has he an ego problem.”

“Oh, Jesus, why can’t you just believe like everyone else.”

“You mean every other faithful obedient Jew too terrified to put anything to question. The Earth is covered in people who never heard the name of Moses. The great bastard son of a Pharaoh.”

“Jesus H. You drive me crazy with your constant contradiction.”

“You’ve read the book Mom. A bastard can’t be a Jew. They have set aside Hell for me and you too.”

My cousin John eventually convinced me to give it up with my mother. She was chained by her guilt. It mattered not that the guilt was a lie. A lie passed on over generations.

“Why does everyone feel better feeling guilty and hopeless. John.”

“Because, Howie, my clever brother, they are simple. They haven’t the courage to question something as big as, have our Ancestors been foolish slaves for 3 thousand years.”

John and I spent many afternoons and evening conspiring. Conspiring to plot a meaning between the gods of the east, gods of Greece and Rome, gods we never heard of and the god that helped Moses kill people.

“What we need, John.”

“Go on.”

“A God whose main preoccupation isn’t murder and law.”

“Well, Jesus, my boy. What do you suggest.”

“How about a god of love.”

“I’ll help you sell that.”

“God of life. God for the living and not something to kill yourself for in war so the kings can get rich.”

“I’m hearing you.”

“So how do we do it.”

“That will take a little effort. We’ll have to have all the answers because we’ll have to be very public and execute some major theater. You are talking a war against war itself.”

“I want to do it.”

“You are a king, brother.”

John was my second cousin as well as a half brother. No one liked to talk about us being half brothers because no one liked to admit that our mothers were raped by King Herod. King Herod had raped so many Jewish virgins that we didn’t know how many half brothers and half sisters we had. Rumor had it that he had out done King Solomon long before he died. No one really knew how he died but almost every king was murdered. It was tradition. Just like it was tradition for them to take the firstborn.

John had actually got to see Herod several times before he died. John was permitted in the little private library Herod had and never used except to impress visitors. John would sit in the library and real as long as no one noticed he was there. Sometimes Herod would find him there and tell him to read aloud. Not because he found anything interesting. He wasn’t that bright. Herod liked to hear the sound of John’s voice and look out the window at his little domain.

“Okay, Johnnie, piss off now, I’ve got visitors coming this evening.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

Herod usually smiled when his bastard children called him My Lord. It pleased his vulgar super ego.

“What are you thinking, John.”

“I was just thinking of our father.”

“I never got to meet him.”

“He was a bit of a fucking moron but his son Herod is worse. He is an erection looking for a place to cum. He can barely see beyond his dick.”

“My erection is also looking for a place to cum.”

“But you don’t go around raping Jewish virgins.”

“I think about them when I jerk off.”

“That doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“Hurts my dick sometimes.”

John laughed then gave me a serious look like it was time for me to listen up.

“We are going to need to deal with the Romans if we want to bust open our religion. We are talking a major disruption. It’s a camel train running in circles thousands of years.”

“You’ve already been thinking about this, John.”

“I’ve read many books, Jesus Christ. And few of them were written by Jews. Anyone who can see can see that the whole thing is fucked up. But I can tell you. I don’t think knowing what we know that we can just ignore it. We should really do something.”

“John, I hear you.”

“Jesus, it’s a dirty job. But we have to do it.”

“John, I’m with you.”

“No, Jesus Christ. I’m with you.”

“John. Stop looking so damn serious.”

“This is serious, Brother.”

“Life is too beautiful to be talked about seriously. Come, Brother, let us lighten up a little.”

We decided to swear on our mission before our new, yet to be known god. Neither of us really liked the idea of taking an oath. It was a retarded apish ritual. So instead, we swore every curse we knew all the way back in to Nazareth. No one herd us but the sheep and birds and they seemed to smile at the two young men that had decided to really fight a war against the system of slavery that the rulers had handed down through the resent ages.

“You murdering raping childrenfuckers can all go fuck your selves.”

“You lying snakes of hell can piss off and rot in a pile of shit.”

“Stick you holy fucking lies and laws up you stinking assholes.”

“Long enough with genocide and plunder, now we’ll have no more of it.”

“See you tomorrow, Brother.”

“We’ll put an end to this fucking tyranny.”

“If it takes 2,000 years.”

“John Levi, are you serious.”

“Jesus Christ, think about the walls we must break down.”


jesus chapters 04 - 06