Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

You can travel the whole world, but there are always new things to learn. For instance, on the way to Capernaum I learned that if you hang a drunk guy over a camel and slosh him around for about four hours, then pretty much all the poisons will come out one end of him or the other.

"Someone's going to have to wash that camel before we go into town," said Andrew.

We were traveling along the shore of the Sea of Galilee (which wasn't a sea at all). The moon was almost full and it reflected in the lake like a pool of quicksilver. It fell to Nathaniel to clean the camel because he was the official new guy. (Joshua hadn't really met Andrew, and Andrew hadn't really agreed to join us, so we couldn't count him as the official new guy yet.) Since Nathaniel did such a fine job on the camel, we let him clean up Joshua as well. Once he had the Messiah in the water Joshua came out of his stupor long enough to slur something like: "The foxes have their holes and birds have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head."

"That's so sad," said Nathaniel.

"Yes, it is," I said. "Dunk him again. He still has barf on his beard."

And so, cleansed and slung over a camel damply, Joshua did by moonlight come into Capernaum, where he would be welcomed as if it were his home.

"Out!" screeched the old woman. "Out of the house, out of town, out of Galilee for all I care, you aren't staying here."

It was a beautiful dawn over the lake, the sky painted with yellow and orange, gentle waves lapped against the keels of Capernaum's fishing boats. The village was only a stone's throw away from the water, and golden sunlight reflected off the waves onto the black stone walls of the houses, making the light appear to dance to the calls of the gulls and songbirds. The houses were built together in two big clusters, sharing common walls, with entries from every which way, and none more than one story tall. There was a small main road through the village between the two clusters of homes. Along the way were a few merchant booths, a blacksmith's shop, and, on its own little square, a synagogue that looked as if it could contain far more worshipers than the three hundred residents of the village. But villages were thick along the shores of the lake, one running right into the next, and we guessed that perhaps the synagogue served a number of villages. There was no central square around the well as there was in most inland villages, because the people pulled their water from the lake or a spring nearby that bubbled clean chilly water into the air as high as two men.

Andrew had deposited us at his brother Peter's house, and we had fallen asleep in the great room among the children only a few hours before Peter's mother-in-law awoke to chase us out of the house. Joshua was holding his head with both hands as if to keep it from falling off his neck.

"I won't have freeloaders and scalawags in my house," the old woman shouted as she threw my satchel out after us.

"Ouch," said Joshua, flinching from the noise.

"We're in Capernaum, Josh," I said. "A man named Andrew brought us here because his nephews stole our camels."

"You said Maggie was dying," Joshua said.

"Would you have left John if I'd told you that Maggie wanted to see you?"

"No." He smiled dreamily. "It was good to see Maggie." Then the smile turned to a scowl. "Alive."

"John wouldn't listen, Joshua. You were in the desert all last month, you didn't see all of the soldiers, even scribes hiding in the crowd, writing down what John was saying. This was bound to happen."

"Then you should have warned John!"

"I warned John! Every day I warned John. He didn't listen to reason any more than you would have."

"We have to go back to Judea. John's followers - "

"Will become your followers. No more preparation, Josh."

Joshua nodded, looking at the ground in front of him. "It's time. Where are the others?"

"I've sent Philip and Nathaniel to Sepphoris to sell the camels. Bartholomew is sleeping in the reeds with the dogs."

"We're going to need more disciples," Joshua said.

"We're broke, Josh. We're going to need disciples with jobs."

An hour later we stood on the shore near where Andrew and his brother were casting nets. Peter was taller and leaner than his brother, and he had a head of gray hair wilder than even John the Baptist's, while Andrew pushed his dark hair back and tied it with a cord so it stayed out of his face when he was in the water. They were both naked, which is how men fished the lake when they were close to the shore.

I had mixed a headache remedy for Joshua out of tree bark, and I could tell it was working, but perhaps not quite enough. I pushed Joshua toward the shore.

"I'm not ready for this. I feel terrible."

"Ask them."

"Andrew," Joshua called. "Thank you for bringing us home with you. And you too, Peter."

"Did my mother-in-law toss you out?" asked Peter. He cast his net and waited for it to settle, then dove into the lake and gathered the net in his arms. There was one tiny fish inside. He reached in and pulled it out, then tossed it back into the lake. "Grow," he said.

"You know who I am?" said Joshua.

"I've heard," said Peter. "Andrew says you turned water into wine. And you cured the blind and the lame. He thinks that you are going to bring the kingdom."

"What do you think?"

"I think my little brother is smarter than I am, so I believe what he says."

"Come with us. We're going to tell people of the kingdom. We need help."

"What can we do?" said Andrew. "We're only fishermen."

"Come with me and I'll make you fishers of men."

Andrew looked at his brother who was still standing in the water. Peter shrugged and shook his head. Andrew looked at me, shrugged, and shook his head.

"They don't get it," I said to Joshua.

Thus, after Joshua had some food and a nap and explained what in the hell he meant by "fishers of men," we became seven.

"These guys are our partners," Peter said, hurrying us along the shore. "They own the ships that Andrew and I work on. We can't go spread the good news unless they are in on it too."

We came to another small village and Peter pointed out two brothers who were fitting a new oarlock into the gunwale of a fishing boat. One was lean and angular, with jet-black hair and a beard trimmed into wicked points: James. The other was older, bigger, softer, with big shoulders and chest, but small hands and thin wrists, a fringe of brown hair shot with gray around a sunburned bald pate: John.

"Just a suggestion," Peter said to Joshua. "Don't say the fisher-of-men thing. It's going to be dark soon; you won't have time for the explanation if we want to make it home in time for supper."

"Yeah," I said, "just tell them about the miracles, the kingdom, a little about your Holy Ghost thing, but stay easy on that until they agree to join up."

"I still don't get the Holy Ghost thing," said Peter.

"It's okay, we'll go over it tomorrow," I said.

As we moved down the shore toward the brothers, there was a rustling in some nearby bushes and three piles of rags moved into our path.

"Have mercy on us, Rabbi," said one of the piles.

Lepers.

(I need to say something right here: Joshua taught me about the power of love and all of that stuff, and I know that the Divine Spark in them is the same one that is in me, so I should have not let the presence of lepers bother me. I know that announcing them unclean under the Law was as unjust as the Brahmans shunning the Untouchables. I know that even now, having watched enough television, you probably wouldn't even refer to them as lepers so as to spare their feelings. You probably call them "parts-dropping-off challenged," or something. I know all that. But that said, no matter how many healings I saw, lepers always gave me what we Hebrews call the willies. I never got over it.)

"What is it you want?" Joshua asked them.

"Help ease our suffering," said a female-sounding pile.

"I'll be over there looking at the water, Josh," I said.

"He'll probably need some help," Peter said.

"Come to me," Joshua said to the lepers.

They oozed on over. Joshua put his hands on the lepers and spoke to them very quietly. After a few minutes had passed, while Peter and I had seriously studied a frog that we noticed on the shore, I heard Joshua say, "Now go, and tell the priests that you are no longer unclean and should be allowed in the Temple. And tell them who sent you."

The lepers threw off their rags and praised Joshua as they backed away. They looked like perfectly normal people who just happened to be all wrapped up in tattered rags.

By the time Peter and I got back to Joshua, James and John were already at his side.

"I have touched those who they said were unclean," Joshua said to the brothers. By Mosaic Law, Joshua would be unclean as well.

James stepped forward and grabbed Joshua's forearm in the style of the Romans. "One of those men used to be our brother."

"Come with us," I said, "and we will make you oarlock makers of men."

"What?" said Joshua.

"That's what they were doing when we came up. Making an oarlock. Now you see how stupid that sounds?"

"It's not the same."

And thus we did become nine.

Philip and Nathaniel returned with enough money from the sale of the camels to feed the disciples and all of Peter's family as well, so Peter's screeching mother-in-law, who was named Esther, allowed us to stay, providing Bartholomew and the dogs slept outside. Capernaum became our base of operations and from there we would take one- or two-day trips, swinging through Galilee as Joshua preached and performed healings. The news of the coming of the kingdom spread through Galilee, and after only a few months, crowds began to gather to hear Joshua speak. We tried always to be back in Capernaum on the Sabbath so that Joshua could teach at the synagogue. It was that habit that first attracted the wrong sort of attention.

A Roman soldier stopped Joshua as he was making the short walk to the synagogue on Sabbath morning. (No Jew was permitted to make a journey of more than a thousand steps from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday - all at once, that is. One way. You didn't have to add up your steps all day and just stop when you got to a thousand. There would have been Jews standing all over the place waiting for Saturday sundown if that were the case. It would have been awkward. Suddenly I'm thankful that the Pharisees never thought of that.)

The Roman was no mere legionnaire, but a centurion, with the full crested helmet and eagle on his breastplate of a legion commander. He led a tall white horse that looked as if it had been bred for combat. He was old for a soldier, perhaps sixty, and his hair was completely white when he removed his helmet, but he looked strong and the wasp-waisted short sword at his waist looked dangerous. I didn't recognize him until he spoke to Joshua, in perfect, unaccented Aramaic.

"Joshua of Nazareth," the Roman said. "Do you remember me?"

"Justus," Joshua said. "From Sepphoris."

"Gaius Justus Gallicus," said the soldier. "And I'm at Tiberius now, and no longer an under-commander. The Sixth Legion is mine. I need your help, Joshua bar Joseph of Nazareth."

"What can I do?" Joshua looked around. All of the disciples except Bartholomew and me had managed to sneak away when the Roman walked up.

"I saw you make a dead man walk and talk. I've heard of the things you've done all over Galilee, the healings, the miracles. I have a servant who is sick. Tortured with palsy. He can barely breathe and I can't watch him suffer. I don't ask that you break your Sabbath by coming to Tiberius, but I believe you can heal him, even from here."

Justus dropped to his knee and kneeled in front of Joshua, something I never saw any Roman do to any Jew, before or since. "This man is my friend," he said.

Joshua touched the Roman's temple and I watched the fear drain out of the soldier's face as I had so many others.

"You believe it to be, so be it," said Joshua. "It's done. Stand up, Gaius Justus Gallicus."

The soldier smiled, then stood and looked Joshua in the eye. "I would have crucified your father to root out the killer of that soldier."

"I know," said Joshua.

"Thank you," Justus said.

The centurion put on his helmet and climbed on his horse. Then looked at me for the first time. "What happened to that pretty little heartbreaker you two were always with?"

"Broke our hearts," I said.

Justus laughed. "Be careful, Joshua of Nazareth," he said. He reined the horse around and rode away.

"Go with God," Joshua said.

"Good, Josh, that's the way to show the Romans what's going to happen to them come the kingdom."

"Shut up, Biff."

"Oh, so you bluffed him. He's going to get home and his friend will still be messed up."

"Remember what I told you at the gates of Gaspar's monastery, Biff? That if someone knocked, I'd let them in?"

"Ack! Parables. I hate parables."

Tiberius was only an hour's fast ride from Capernaum, so by morning word had come back from the garrison: Justus's servant had been healed. Before we had even finished our breakfast there were four Pharisees outside of Peter's house looking for Joshua.

"You performed a healing on the Sabbath?" the oldest of them asked. He was white-bearded and wore his prayer shawl and phylacteries wrapped about his upper arms and forehead. (What a jamoke. Sure, we all had phylacteries, every man got them when he turned thirteen, but you pretended that they were lost after a few weeks, you didn't wear them. You might as well wear a sign that said: "Hi, I'm a pious geek." The one he wore on his forehead was a little leather box, about the size of a fist, that held parchments inscribed with prayers and looked - well - as if someone had strapped a little leather box to his head. Need I say more?)

"Nice phylacteries," I said.

The disciples laughed. Nathaniel made an excellent donkey braying noise.

"You broke the Sabbath," said the Pharisee.

"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?"

***