A Graveyard for Lunatics (Crumley Mysteries 2)

“Christ was on time, dammit! The world called. And He arrived!”

“You don’t believe all that guff, do you?”

“Yes!” I was astonished with what vehemence I exploded it upward along his limbs to his thorn-crowned head.

“Fool.”

“No, I’m not!” I tried to think what Fritz would say if he were here, but there was only me, so I said:

“We arrived, J. C. We poor stupid human beings. But whether it’s us arriving or Christ, it’s all the same. The world, or God, needed us, to see the world, and know it. So we arrived! But we got mixed up, forgot how incredible we were, and couldn’t forgive ourselves for making such a mess. So Christ arrived, afte

r us, to say what we should have known: forgive. Get on with your work. So Christ’s arrival is just us all over again. And we’ve kept on arriving for two thousand years, more and more of us, mostly in need of forgiveness of self. I’d be frozen forever if I couldn’t forgive myself all the dumb things I’ve done in my life. Right now, you’re up a tree, hating yourself, so you stay nailed on a cross because you’re a self-pitying pig-headed dim-witted thespian bum. Now get the hell down before I climb up to bite your dirty ankles!”

There was a sound like a mob of seals barking in the night. J. C., his head thrown back, sucked air to refuel his laughter.

“That’s some speech for a coward!”

“Don’t fear me, mister! Beware of yourself, Jesus H. Christ!”

I felt a single drop of rain hit my cheek.

No. I touched my cheek, tasted my fingertip. Salt.

J. C., above, leaned out, staring down.

“God.” He was truly stunned. “You care!”

“Damn right. And if I leave, Fritz Wong will come, with his horsewhip!”

“I don’t fear his arrival. Only your departure.”

“Well, then! Come down. For me!”

“You!?” he exclaimed softly.

“You’re up high. Over on set seven, whatta you see?”

“Fire, I think. Yes.”

“That’s the bed of charcoals, J. C.” I reached out to touch the base of the cross and call softly up along its length to that figure with its head raised. “And the night almost over and the boat pulling in to the shore after the miracle of the fish, and Simon called Peter moving along the sand with Thomas, and Mark, and Luke and all the rest to the bed of baking fish. The—”

“—Supper after the Last Supper,” murmured J. C., high against the autumn constellations. I could see Orion’s shoulder over his shoulder. “You did it!?”

He stirred. I pursued quietly: “And more! I’ve got a true ending now, for you, never filmed before. The Ascension.”

“Can’t be done,” murmured J. C.

“Listen.”

And I said:

“When it is time for the Going Away, Christ touches each of his disciples and then walks up along the shore, away from the camera. Set your camera low in the sand, and it looks as if he were climbing a long slow hill. And as the sun rises, and Christ moves off toward the horizon, the sand burns with illusion. Like highways or deserts, where the air dissolves in mirages, imaginary cities rise and fall. Well, when Christ has almost reached the top of a dune of sand, the air vibrates with heat. His shape melts into the atoms. And Christ has gone. The footprints he left in the sand blow away in the wind. That’s your second Ascension following the Supper after the Last Supper. The disciples weep and move off to all the cities of the world, to preach forgiveness of sin. And as the new day begins, their footprints blow away in the dawn wind. THE END.”

I waited, listening to my own breath and heart.

J. C. waited, also, and at last said, with wonder, softly, “I’m coming down.”

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