“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?”
Chapter 27
The angel and I watched Star Wars for the second time on television last night, and I just had to ask. “You’ve been in God’s presence, right, Raziel?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think he sounds like James Earl Jones?”
“Who’s that?”
“Darth Vader.”
Raziel listened for a moment while Darth Vader threatened someone. “Sure, a little. He doesn’t breathe that heavy though.”
“And you’ve seen God’s face.”
“Yes.”
“Is he black?”
“I’m not allowed to say.”
“He is, isn’t he? If he wasn’t you’d just say he wasn’t.”
“I’m not allowed to say.”
“He is.”
“He doesn’t wear a hat like that,” said Raziel.
“Ah-ha!”
“All I’m saying is no hat. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I knew it.”
“I don’t want to watch this anymore.” Raziel switched the channel. God (or someone who sounded like him) said, “This is CNN.”
We came up to Jerusalem, in the gate at Bethsaida called the Eye of the Needle, where you had to duck down to pass through, out the Golden Gate, through the Kidron Valley, and over the Mount of Olives into Bethany.