“Who are you?” I finally ask.
I hear him sitting next to me. Dead leaves crackle.
He says, “I am Jesus Christ.”
When I open my eyes, I see a roll-pudgy man with a beard wearing a janitor’s outfit. A tag on his shirt tells me, “This is Jesus.”
I can’t say anything, or maybe I can’t think of anything to say. I’ve never met the messiah before and I’ve never met anyone who ever has. I don’t seem to care.
He continues, “Satan was right. The walm is your only out.”
My mouth doesn’t say anything
He says, “You have to save your immortal soul.”
Then I shake my head. “I don’t know if it’s worth saving anymore.”
“Don’t say that!” Jesus says, waggling sense into me. “That’s the walm stealing your lifeforce that made those words. You have to fight it.”
I realize Jesus is right. Sort of.
Richard Stein always wanted to meet Jesus Christ. Of course, he never got to. Maybe he did after his death, but I’m not sure how the afterlife situation works. I don’t know if you get to talk to Jesus right away or if you have to wait a hundred years. I think I’m one of the only living people to ever meet Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. I should probably feel special or something. But I don’t.
Richard Stein was very Jesus-curious during his early thirties. This Jesus-curiosity caused him to accept Jesus into his life. But Richard Stein didn’t like God. He didn’t like the way God capitalized the word “He,” in regards to Himself. God seemed too-too superior to Richard Stein, and Richard Stein called superior people like Him Hot Shots. This is the way I figured it: “God is the ultimate authority figure, and people like Richard Stein don’t like authority figures.”
Jesus was a lot like Richard Stein, though. Jesus was a human, he could be killed, stopped. He was the savior, but still needed saving. He could walk on water, but could still drown. He caused the better organization of society, but also caused wars over faith in him. To Richard Stein, Jesus was both a saint and a devil, and that’s what he liked about him.
Richard Stein always wanted to meet Jesus so that he could see what he looked like, what clothing styles he liked, what foods tasted best to him, what regrets he’s ever had — all the small things that would make Jesus more human. He especially wanted to know if Jesus hated anything. He wondered if Jesus hated Satan — or if he pitied him, or was frightened by him. He wondered if Jesus hated evil and sin.
Once Richard Stein said, “I already know that Jesus hates sin, I just want to hear him say that he hates something.”
If Richard Stein was in my position, he’d have a whole bundle-pack of questions lined up for the savior. He would have loved the idea of Jesus being a BIG fat guy, ugly instead of the beautiful image people paint. But of all the questions he would’ve had, I can only think up one for him.
I ask, “Why are you wearing a janitor’s uniform?”
At first, I figured he wore it because he was the janitor at Satan Burger, but Satan said his demons did all the cleaning, so I just had to ask him.
He responds, “I am the janitor of mankind, not the shepherd as the BIG bible says. I clean up the dirty parts of society, the dirty sides of men’s souls. It is the job I was born to do, and I don’t get paid anything to do it.”
“God won’t pay you anything?”
“Well, God isn’t the person who would pay me if I got paid. He hires accountants from an agency to handle all of his income. But his chief accountant doesn’t think there is a reason for me to be the janitor of mankind, so he does not pay me. It is volunteer work.”
I say, “It sounds too hard to be volunteer work.”
“Hard work doesn’t bother me. To tell you the truth, I love to work.”
“What?” I’m shocked to hear love and work in the same sentence. Jesus is beginning to seem crazy.
“Work keeps my life in order. Keeps an even amount of hard times and good times in my life. When I work, I learn to appreciate the free time I have, I don’t waste it on trivial things like music and television.”
“You don’t like music or television?”
“Are you joking? I love those things.”
“I don’t like commercials,” I tell him, wand-spindle voice. “That’s what makes television a waste of time.”
“Commercials are better than nothing,” Jesus says. “If there were no commercials, what would fill the spaces where the commercials are supposed to be? The announcer would say ‘we’ll be back after these messages.’ There would be three minutes of black space. There would be nothing. Wouldn’t you prefer commercials over that?”
I guess he’s right, He is Jesus, but I think television networks would just make television shows longer if there weren’t any commercials instead of add in black space. Jesus knows best though. “I guess you’re right, but commercials represent corporations and money. And money is the ultimate evil.”
“No, I don’t believe so. Money is extraordinarily good. Money gives people a reason to work. Without work we’d still be sleeping in caves.”
“Oh.” I seem annoyed by his replies.
There has to be something that Jesus Christ doesn’t like. I’ve already asked him about the three evils of the world. Richard Stein always said that nothing is more evil than work, money, and commercials.
“Is there anything that you don’t like Jesus?” I ask.
“I love everything,” he responds.
“You can find good in every single person, every single object?”
“Of course.”
Thinking of Richard Stein, I say, “But there is one thing you hate. You hate evil.”
Jesus just shakes his head.
“People don’t understand evil,” Jesus says, pinching a piece of sand. “Nobody realizes how absolutely necessary evil is.”
He pauses, staring at the street people in the rain. The water drops are getting slender, and shrill-winding waves start in.
He continues, “Satan wasn’t the person that started it either. Of course, the bible says he did. But God was the one responsible for evil, and everyone in heaven knows this. He made Man with an evil side, but told him not to use it. God expected Man to succumb to his dark side eventually, wanted Man to, because without evil there is no God.
“After evil was invented, there had to be an opposite to it. That is where good came from. So you see why I have to love it? Good comes out of evil. Without bad in the world, there cannot be good, because there is nothing to compare good with. That is one reason why I am not in heaven. Heaven is a terrible, boring place. It is too perfect. It is paradise. Sure it seems nice, but there is no evil there, no conflict, there is no such thing as satisfaction. And people forget how beautiful satisfaction can be.”
He gives examples. “Nobody works in paradise, so there is no such thing as coming home after a hard day of work, and just sitting on your ass, doing absolutely nothing and getting absolute pleasure from it. Even love is boring in heaven, because there is constant love all around you there, and no hate at all. So love is nothing special. And you never go through the hardships of falling in love, which is what gives the winning of love a feeling of victory. And all the food is perfect in heaven, so you can’t compare it to bad food. And there is no excitement in heaven, because conflict and danger makes excitement. There is also nothing there to fear. Everything is comfortable in heaven, so even comfort isn’t satisfying. You last about two months in paradise before you get completely bored. And if boredom doesn’t find you, you’ll become one of the heaven zombies.”