chapter 01

Two of my uncles that worked with my dad were called Jesus so they all called me Howie. Some Howard. And when I did something that got Mom mad, 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 they were wrong. They were wrong often enough.

Egyptians were so bloody traditional and my Family was worse.

"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 saw who his children were. And seldom thought of the soap.

"How was your day at school, Howie."

"Good Dad. I told our Torah teacher he was wrong and he threw me out of class so he could finish brain washing the other kids that are too stupid not to believe him if he tells them."

"Jesus H. We send you to a private Jewish school and you talk like a Gentile."

"I got an 'A' on my math test."

"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. And I was in line for the throne. Or I could take over Dad's business.

"King David was a tyrant and a murderer. Most of our ancestors where sheep herders 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 monkies that if you believe the bloody Torah, don't even exist."

"Jesus H. Go to you room."

Mom thought it was part of her job to show me her dedication to the laws of our ancestors.

Eight out of ten people I knew didn't even know King David was a topic. In Egypt they did as the Egyptians.

I was being unruly in school one day and the teacher sent me out of the tent to chill under a tree for a moment.

And just my luck, 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.

"Jesus is my name, my friends call me Howie."

"Why aren't you in class."

"The teacher wanted me to relax and not interrupt."

"You go in and apologize."

"No."

"Too my tent, young man."

He took the whip off the wall and put it on his desk. Sat behind his desk and made the best live portrait of authority as his limited talent would allow.

"Bla bla bla."

Then he sent for my mother. And she came, looking a little nervous. But she was with her angel and she glowed and was proud that her son was a stubborn bastard.

"Whip him, if you must, you won't change his mind if he has made it up."

Unless you can show me why I should let you belittle me as if my being a child gives you authority over me.

The High Priest sent for my teacher and attempted to plot against me to do his will.

But the teacher couldn't see the point in torturing me when all he had intended was that I spend a few moments of reflection so I could relax and conduct myself moderately in class.

So it was three against one and the old priest threw up his hands and said.

"Get out. All of you. Jesus, I'm watching you."

"Watch closely, dead camel flogger, and learn something."

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.

"Your dad has many contacts there and is leaving Jesus and 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 if it was a boy or Judith if it was 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.

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

There was a man. And when I looked, he was not there. The man had a message for me. Since he wasn't really there, I packed him away into my imagination. He left me a mission. I didn't know it. I didn't understand it was my own projection of the man that was becoming me.

"Hi Howie, what's up."

It was my nameless friend. I felt a bit like an alien, so maybe I put up with my nameless friend that seemed to come out of nowhere, sometimes steel my sister Sharlie's toys.

"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 have such a simple magnificence. And one day they will be birds that can fly and lay eggs."

"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 but he used the same language I used and he told me on his mother's tits.

He wasn't supposed to promise on her tits. Especially since he was a lyer.

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 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. 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 and desceive and smash things.

Like our ancestors before us.

Most of my memories from Egypt are 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 liked playing Hercules. In a school play I wanted to be the hero that started a world war to get to take Helene as his lover.

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 kept saying I was special. He tryed 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 Jews again. Roman Jews. Obeying Moses and 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 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 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 gods 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 to 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."

"Oh, Jesus, why can't you just believe like everyone else."

"You mean every other faithful obedient Jew.

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. Hell for me and you too."

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.

"Why does everyone feel better feeling guilty and hopeless. John."

"Because, Howie, my clever boy, they are simple. They haven't the courage to question something as big as, have our Ancestors been foolish slaves for 4 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."

"I want to do it."

"You are a king, brother."

John was a second cousin or something. His father's uncle was one of my Jesus uncles that took over Dad's furniture shop in Cairo.

A city full of people.

Nazareth was full of sheep.


jesus chapters 04 - 06