[Ch. 9 of ongoing text...]
So here’s Jesus, standing the same way that he was when the previous episode ended, looking handsome in his fine Italian suit. He is holding a pistol in one hand, we now notice.
On the screen, superimposed over the top of this shot, appears the familiar title of this miniseries (which is actually still a book, by the time you’re reading it). This is followed by the opening credits, which announce the main acting roles (Jesus Christ plays himself); the screenplay writer (you); cinematographer (you); the executive producers, etc… Then, finally, the only announcement that counts appears: “Directed by BRYAN RAY”.
“Fuck yeah,” the viewership sez while eating popcorn; “this is gonna be good.”
And it proves to be very good. This is the best episode yet — in fact, you and I, who happen also to be the movie reviewers for our nation’s official newspaper, both rate the film as “two out of two thumbs up”. Our project thus becomes the first title ever to receive a perfect score.
What I liked so much about this chapter (which is the 9th, like Beethoven’s symphony) is that the hero of the show, Jesus Christ, who at this point in the series has become extremely good-looking and affluent (he also generously shared his luck with the whole wide world, thus rendering everyone sexy and rich), is forced to confront the only person on Earth who still remains rather plain looking and generally not well-off economically: the journalist Bryan.
Bryan lurks up out of the shadows, from the corner of the shot. We note that he’s not exactly ugly — he’s just out-of-shape, and showing the signs of dipsomania.
Jesus raises his arm and aims the pistol at the intruder: “Stop right there,” he saith. Then he squeezes the trigger.
There is a loud explosion. The bullet lodges into Bryan the journalist’s heart.
“That was a wooden bullet; custom built and embossed with a cross emblem, so it can even murder vampyres,” Jesus explains while his aggressor Bryan clutches his chest and continues gasping; “I made it myself, back in the days when I was a carpenter. (I used to do a lot of woodwork, manufacturing crucifixes and then using the leftover lumber to carve designer bullets.) I even dipped its tip in garlic powder, for the sake of overkill.”
Blood is cascading out of the wound in Bryan’s heart. Blood also now starts gushing out of Bryan’s mouth. Two streams of blood begin to flow from Bryan’s ears. And teardrops of blood trickle sadly down Bryan’s face.
Jesus the Christ remains standing with his arm raised rigidly, so that his pistol is still pointing at Bryan the journalist, who’s now drenched in blood.
“Jesus!” sez Jesus, “the only thing not bleeding yet is your nose.”
Bryan’s nose now starts to bleed.
Remaining precariously on his feet, the expiring journalist staggers forward to Jesus with his own arms extended as if to either embrace or choke the savior. — Jesus, still holding up his firearm rigidly, takes a step back, to avoid Bryan’s grasp. The journalist Bryan continues approaching. — Jesus takes another step back, narrowly avoiding the grabbing hands of this bloody pursuer. Bryan continues to lurch forth.
Finally Bryan’s flailing arms contact the fine material of the suit that Jesus is wearing. Jesus fires off several more shots, until his pistol is out of bullets; but since the gun is not aimed properly (due to the target having slouched forward rapidly at the last moment and gotten so close that the barrel of the firearm is actually on the far side of Bryan’s person and pointing instead at a flock of songbirds perched nearby), none of these bullets hit Bryan the journalist.
Christ now has smears of blood on his forehead, lips, and cheeks, and also here and there upon his fine suit, because Bryan the bloody journalist who’s been shot keeps clutching desperately at the savior for life.
“Get your paws off me,” sez Jesus.
§
After a heated exchange, Christ and Bryan work thru their differences and become friends. Bryan begins to date the triune sister of Jesus, whose name is Cinnamon, Dove, and Eyeshadow.
So Jesus and Bloody Mary Magdalene are sitting at one side of the table in the diner, and the formerly Bloody Bryan (he’s all healed up now, for Christ poured oil on his wounds) is sitting at the other side with Cinnamon, Dove, and Eyeshadow. — They are out on a double-date… or, rather, we are: for I shall henceforth begin to play the role of myself.
“This is good mutton,” sez Dove.
Suddenly an enormous, unstoppable truck crashes through the bay window of the diner’s front wall. We all leap away from our table while the vehicle demolishes it.
“Do you think that maybe someone’s trying to sacrifice you?” I say to Christ while we’re outside walking to the next diner.
“Ha,” sez Christ.
We pass a garden on the way, and I go crouch down and pick three forget-me-nots: I hand one of these tiny blue flowers to Cinnamon; one to Dove; and one to Eyeshadow. They then accompany me back to the garden to enjoy further splendors.
Eventually I look over and see Jesus and his date Mary standing in the street, waiting for us to return from our garden excursion. So I crouch down again, before leaving, and I pick another forget-me-not, which I hand to Mary. She smiles brightly and stares into my eyes for a long while.
We then all lock arms and stroll together over the cobblestones until we reach our destination: Big Ed’s Diner. When I open the door, a little bell jingles.
“After you,” I make a chivalrous gesture with my arm as I hold the door open for Mary, Dove, Cinnamon, and Eyeshadow. Once the ladies are inside the establishment, I continue to stand there holding the door, expecting Christ to follow, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s J.C.?” I say, scanning the set’s exterior landscape for any sign of the savior; “I thought he was behind you all…”
“Right here,” a voice exclaims from within the diner.
I look back inside and am astonished to see Jesus Christ already seated in the big booth at the back: “I found us a table,” he announces, while patiently loading bullets into the cylinder of his handgun.
Approaching the booth with our dates, I remark: “Hey, you commandeered our favorite spot!” Then, after sliding down and bouncing a couple times on the spring-cushioned seat, I point my finger at his gun and add: “That doesn’t look like the same pistol you were shooting at me earlier.”
Jesus shifts the position of his cigarillo from one side of his mouth to the other using only his tongue. “That’s cuz it ain’t the same pistol. This here’s my lucky revolver.”
Then he twirls it in his hand and fires it off, causing the chandelier to drop from the ceiling and smash on the floor.
“Oops,” Jesus winks, “I was aiming for that Tyger figurine over yonder on the mantle.”
“Wow,” I say; “it’s fortunate that this light fixture was electric and took standard bulbs instead of real candles with actual fire, otherwise you might have burnt this place to the ground.”
Jesus grins, “Oh, this place will burn down, that is certain. For I am come to ignite a fire on the earth, one way or another. That electricity will either spark and make the rug burst into blazes, or else something worse will happen — believe me: I’m not just your savior; I’m a professional arsonist.”
Now a man shows up and introduces himself as the owner; he sez he’ll be our server: “Can I get you drinks to start?”
“Yes,” I say, “straight vodkas, all around. Drinks on the house.” I slam down a fat stack of cash.
The owner’s eyes bulge. “Yes, sir; right away.”
“Stop!” I stand up and touch the man gently on his arm as he’s grabbing the banknotes. “I was wondering if you might let me cook something in your kitchen.”
The man confusedly nods and pockets the cash: “Follow me.”
He leads me thru the saloon doors, and I get situated. I make sure my environment is sanitary, then I follow a certain recipe that I love to make.
Soon the fire alarms all begin screaming — there are five fire alarms in the vicinity, and they all go off at once.
The owner comes bursting into the kitchen and yells: “Smoke!” He is jabbing his stubby finger in the direction of the oven.
I open the door of the oven and stick my head inside and look around. Sure enough, there is oil dripping from the flat pan that I used, which is turning to thick black smoke when it pools on the floor below the shelf.
I pull my head back out of the appliance and say to the panicking owner: “It’s alright, I’ve got everything under control now; you can calm down and return to sleep in your office chair. What happened is that I used a flat pan instead of one with tall sides, thus allowing the oil to leak out from beneath the biscuits, which I was baking on the middle shelf, and it spilled down onto the floor of the oven, which surface is considerably hotter than the pan: therefore the oil began to combust and generate thick black pavilions of smoke — that’s what set off all the alarms.”
The owner’s face relaxes as I explain the science behind this terrifying ordeal. “Ah, so that is all?” he smiles. “OK, thanks for taking care of the problem. Now I’ll go back to sleep in my office chair.”
§
When I return to our booth at the back of the diner, I am proudly carrying (with just one hand held high) the biscuits that I made.
Jesus and the ladies are apparently in the middle of an argument. “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth?” he snarls. “Nay, I tell ye; but rather DIVISION!”
“Supper’s ready,” I announce.
Jesus sniffs the air: “What is that sweet savour?”
We all look back at the kitchen: the whole place is engulfed in flames.
§
I drape my arms around Cinnamon and Eyeshadow, while Jesus drapes his arms around Mary and Dove, as we cheerfully escape from the burning building.
“Should we try to find another place nearby?” I ask.
“Yes,” say all the women who Christ and I are dating.
So we stop at a gas station called The Double R Petro-Farm, to ask directions.
“Can you just give us a hint where the best place to eat is?” I ask the woman at the counter. “And what do the two ‘R’s stand for, in your station’s name? — Wait, don’t tell me yet: let me guess… I think it means ‘The Reader’s Railroad’.” (I said this in homage to you, gentle reader.)
“Best place to eat is Big Ed’s, just down the block. You just follow that great black smoke plume and you can’t miss it,” sez the kind woman. “And regarding our name, well, the sign’s broken, ya see — one of them neon tubes is shot — so what looks like double ‘R’ should really be the initials ‘B.R.’ which, as you know, stands for the journalist Bryan Ray. Rumor is, he built this town with his own two hands.”
“No,” I say, “we can’t go to Big Ed’s: we just burned that place down — that’s why there’s so much toxic smoke coming from that direction and the streets are rivers of blood. That’s the whole reason we stopped here: we want to reserve a table at the next-best diner in the area. Can you help us, or should I sic Jesus on you?” I gesture toward my debonair partner-in-crime; then I wink at the friendly woman and whisper: “I’m only joking — despite his appearance, he’s more of a lover than mobster.”
Jesus uncocks his gun and holsters it while smirking.
The woman tilts her head and sizes us up. “Big Ed’s got stricken, ya say? Met the brimstone judgment?” She waits a beat and then sez: “Dang.”
“Do you know of any other place we might eat?” I try to sound nice.
“Um…” the woman appears to be half-thinking. “I guess you might try Devlin’s, just down the road in the opposite direction.”
“Thanks!” I say. Then I slide a briefcase filled with valuables onto the countertop, and I open it so that the woman can gauge how generous this gift of mine truly is. When her eyes begin to grow wide with desire to possess these riches, I say in a loud voice:
“All that you see in this briefcase is yours. Now please remember to bar no one from fueling up at your station’s gas pumps, from this moment on. Allow ALL customers to drive off without having to pay for anything — for I have paid you a lifetime’s fortune already, in advance, and you will never lack for wealth.”
§
As we are walking up the block toward Devlin’s Eatery, Jesus Christ nudges my arm with his elbow and sez: “I made all these earthlings rich and famous, plus good-looking, long ago. Why does a woman like that need MORE luxurious items on top of her current amassment?”
“Jesus,” I say, “you don’t understand — a lot of these people simply live beyond their means.”
Christ stops and spits out his cheroot. “You mean even the super-rich?”
“The super-rich especially,” I say. Then, in turn, I slap each side of his face playfully but extremely hard.
§
Devlin’s Eatery is heaven. There are pastries and the finest coffee imaginable. Elderly folks occupy every table, and only robots work here. I order two pork pies for myself, plus an éclair for our savior. Our dates happily order the darkest chocolate available. The server is so grateful to us for allowing her to join in on our lovemaking that she ends up faxing our table seven complimentary pitchers of vodka.
We pay the bill by fingerprint: for I trick the owner of the rival deli Fresh Hell (who happens to be sitting at the table just south of ours) into treating us from his account. He assumes that he’s flirting with my dates Cinnamon, Dove, and Eyeshadow, as he extends both of his arms behind his chair toward where the triune female is seated; so I grab one of his meaty hands and place its index on the scanner.
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