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“Celibate,” Joshua said. “Always have been, always will 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 something. You really need to rethink this no marriage, 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 ru
“I am cleansed of sin and unafraid,” said John, sitting down by the fire now, some of his verve gone.
“Yeah, are you cleansed of guilt? Because you’re going to have the blood of thousands on your hands when the Romans come to get 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 am unafraid.” John hung 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 man’s shoulder. “If it be so, then so be it. As the angel foretold, you were born to preach the truth.”
I stood up and tossed my locusts into the fire, showering sparks over John and Joshua. “I’ve only met two people whose births were a
“Amen,” said the new guy.
That night, as I was falling asleep, I heard Joshua scrambling in the pit next to mine, as if a bug 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 next morning Joshua leapt out of his pit, shook off the scorpions, and after a long morning whiz, kicked some dirt clods into my pit to thunk me from my slumber.
“This is it,” Joshua said. “Come down to the river, I’m going to have John baptize me today.”
“Which will make it different from yesterday in what way?”
“You’ll see. I have a feeling.” And off he went.
The new guy prairie-dogged up out of his pit. He was tall, the new guy, and the morning sun caught on his bald scalp as he looked around. He noticed some flowers growing where Joshua had just relieved himself. Lush blossoms of a half-dozen vibrant colors stood surrounded by the deadest landscape on the planet. “Hey, were those there yesterday?”
“That always happens,” I said. “We don’t talk about it.”
“Wow,” said the new guy. “Can I tag along with you guys?”
“Sure,” I said.
And thus did we become four.
At the river, John preached to a small gathering as he lowered Joshua into the water. As soon as Joshua went under the water a rift opened across the desert sky, which was still pink with the dawn, and out of the rift came a bird that looked to be fashioned from pure light. And everyone on the riverbank said “ooh” and “ahh,” and a big voice boomed out of the heavens, saying, “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.” And as quickly as it had come, the spirit was gone. But the gatherers at the riverbank stood with their mouths open in amazement, staring yet into the sky.
And John came to his senses then, and remembered what he was doing, and lifted Joshua out of the water. And Joshua wiped the water out of his eyes, looked at the crowd who stood stu
“No, really, Josh, that’s what the voice said, ‘This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.’”
Joshua shook his head and chewed a breakfast locust. “I can’t believe he couldn’t wait until I came up. You’re sure it was my father?”
“Sounded like him.” The new guy looked at me and I shrugged. Actually it sounded like James Earl Jones, but I didn’t know that back then.
“That’s it,” said Joshua. “I’m going into the desert like Moses did, forty days and forty nights.” Joshua got up and started walking into the desert. “From here on out, I’m fasting until I hear something from my father. That was my last locust.”
“I wish I could say that,” said the new guy.
As soon as Joshua was out of sight I ran to my pit and packed my satchel. I was a half day getting to Bethany, and another hour asking around before someone could direct me to the house of Jakan, prominent Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin. The house was made of the golden-tinged limestone that marked all of Jerusalem, and there was a high wall around the courtyard. Jakan had done very well for himself, the prick. You could house a dozen families from Nazareth in a house this size. I paid two blind guys a shekel each to stand by the wall so I could climb on their shoulders.
“How much did he say this was?”
“He said it was a shekel.”
“Doesn’t feel like a shekel.”
“Would you guys quit feeling your shekels and stand still, I’m going to fall.”
I peeped over the top of the wall and there, sitting under the shade of an awning, working at a small loom, was Maggie. If she had changed, it was only that she’d become more radiant, more sensuous, more of a woman and less of a girl. I was stu
“Ouch, dammit.”
“Biff?” Maggie said, as she looked me in the eye right before I tumbled off the shoulders of the blind guys.
I had just climbed to my feet when Maggie came around the corner and hit me, full-frontal womanhood, full speed, leading with lips. She kissed me so hard that I could taste blood from my cut lips and it was glorious. She smelled the same—ci
“He dead?” said one of the blind men.
“Don’t think so, I can hear him breathing.”
“Sure smells better than he did.”
“Biff, your face cleared up,” Maggie said.
“You recognized me, with the beard and everything.”
“I wasn’t sure at first,” she said, “so I was taking a risk jumping you like that, but in the midst of it all I recognized that.” She pointed to where my tunic had tented out in the front. And then she grabbed that betraying rascal, shirtfront and all, and led me down the wall toward the gate by it.
“Come on in. You can’t stay long, but we can catch up. Are you okay?” she said, looking over her shoulder, giving me a squeeze.