It’s a January morning, and I find Him in a corner of my back yard, curled up fetal, wrapped in the sheets I’d thrown over my bougainvilleas the night before.

“Hey, fucker,” I say. “This ain’t a hotel. You can’t just sleep anywhere you want.”

I don’t know he’s Jesus yet, so it’s not like I’m intentionally being profane.

“Hey! Yes, you! Get the fuck up!”

Jesus stirs. He has the sheets pulled up to His chin. He’s wearing a black knit cap, but His hair’s untucked, spread out on the ground. You can see He hasn’t had it cut in about two years. Or had a shave in about a month. His nose is red. His lips are purplish, shivering, moving a little, like he’s trying to say something, only no sound’s coming out.

“Get a move on,” I say. “Get your ass outa here.”

I’m still in my pajamas, wearing bedroom slippers. I take a sip of coffee from the mug I’m carrying, give Jesus a little kick in His side.

“Up and at ‘em!”

I put the mug on the ground, reach over, grab at the sheets. They’re wrapped around Him tight, too tight to get hold of, so I feel around until finally I get my hands on one of His shrouded bony arms. I pull at Him.

“Upsy-daisy! C’mon, mister. Let’s get going.”

Jesus shrugs me off, falls back to the ground. I set the coffee mug down in the grass, bend down to try and get a better grasp on Him, when suddenly His hands slip out from under the sheets. He reaches over, grabs the coffee mug, brings it to His face.

He takes a quick sip, and then lets out a bobcat howl. The mug goes flying. There’s coffee all over Him and then He’s on His feet, throwing off the sheets, stomping around in circles. I can see now that His clothes are all a few sizes too big, and old, worn-out layers on layers whirling around Him, making Him look like some high-Himalayan dervish-dancer. He’s wearing sandals over about a dozen pairs of socks. Red long johns are showing through the rips at the knees of His faded blue jeans.

His tongue’s sticking out and flopping around, and He’s flapping His hands at it, still making the howling sounds from the back of His throat.

After a minute or so, He stops dancing. His tongue goes back inside His mouth.

“Hot holy fuck!” He says, His voice wrenched up to a squealed falsetto. “What’re you trying to do, kill me?”

He spends an hour and twelve minutes in the bathroom. I time Him. I’d gotten Him a clean towel and new bar of soap and an old terry cloth bathrobe (an old red thing that somehow got mixed in with the whites one time and had gotten itself bleached to a light orange, ruining, in the process, every pair of jockey shorts I’d owned at the time) and then He went in the bathroom. When He comes out, it’s an hour and twelve minutes later.

In the meantime I’d made toast and oatmeal. The oatmeal got cold and gummy. The toast went limp. I left it all on the kitchen table, gave it up for lost. I’m sitting on the king-size in my bedroom thinking how stupid I was to let this bum inside my house. I’m tapping my feet, wringing my hands, when out from the bathroom walks Jesus. I mean, that’s when I know He’s Jesus, like He’s walked right out of the Jordan River and into my bedroom.

He still hasn’t gotten all the dirt off. Up around His eyes and at the corners of His mouth, you can see the dark lines, the grime caked in there like it won’t ever come out. He hasn’t shaved, hasn’t cut His hair, and it’s laying along the side of His face, wet, getting caught in His whiskers. He has that saffrony bathrobe tied loose around Him and He’s wearing those old leather sandals He’d been wearing earlier. Only now He’s not wearing socks. His toes are showing, bare toes, still a little dirty under the nails.

I’m pretty sure it’s the feet that make me flip out. I couldn’t explain it if I tried. It’s just a thing I have, bare feet, dirty toenails, hairy ankles, all of which are suddenly right there on display. I look Him up and down, feel that old familiar itchy feeling in my midpoints. I know for a fact I have to fuck Him, or die trying.

“Jesus,” I say. It comes out as a murmur, a soft whistle.

“Yep,” He says, “a little water makes a world of difference. Thank you for that.

And by the way, they call me—”

I shake my head, hold up a hand, say, “Want your cock sucked?”

He goes blank for a second or two. Then He undoes His bathrobe, tells me to watch the teeth.

He’s on His belly, spread-eagle. I’ve got my tongue about halfway up His ass, already past the outer sphincter, working my way through the inner, when it happens. It always happens. Every time. No exceptions, apparently, because if there was ever a time for an exception, I mean, this would be it, right? Every time, I’m really into the sex, really into it, and then at some point I’m not. Suddenly I’m paying bills in my head, or planning out what to have for breakfast the next morning.

What I’m thinking this time is: I wonder what Jesus’ shit looks like? Does it look like regular people’s shit? Is it some special kind of supernatural ectoplasmic shit? Does Jesus even have to shit at all? Ever? Maybe (I’m thinking) that’s the miracle they never talk about in the Bible. Maybe Jesus doesn’t ever take a dump, doesn’t even have to.

My eyes are closed. My tongue’s on autopilot. I’m picturing Jesus, squatting to take this imaginary shit, when another picture pops into my head. It’s a memory, this time, of a little plastic chicken I had when I was a kid. You press down on its back and out from the tail end pops a gumball. You press down again, out comes another gumball. I played with the damn thing for about a week straight, chewed my jaws sore with that cheap gritty gum before the legs finally broke and the chicken wouldn’t lay anymore. Which anyway at that point–with my tongue up Jesus’ ass, I mean–makes me think of Jack’s goose. Or the Giant’s goose, which became Jack’s goose after Jack killed the Giant. Along with the harp and all the other stuff. Anyway, I picture Jesus again, squatting again, and this time I see Him shitting out golden eggs.

Then I get into it again, fuck Him good with my tongue. When Jesus is all loosened up, I go for a finger, then two. I poke around in there for awhile, like a plumber at the kitchen sink looking for a lost wedding ring.

Finally I decide enough’s enough. I flip Him onto His back, sling His legs over my shoulders. I stab my dick in, pound away, deeper and deeper, trying to slip inside completely, trying to disappear in there, body and soul. I can see it in my head, can see it like it’s really happening. In my head, I fuck Jesus so hard I split Him open, two halves of Him laid out on the bed, and I see myself crawling up to those two halves, lying down between them, pulling them around me like a chick crawling back into its shell, and staying like that, wrapped up inside the body of Jesus forever amen.

I don’t remember what words I screamed when I came, but I remember screaming. I flopped down on the bed, panted for awhile, finished Jesus off with a handjob.

For the rest of the afternoon, we mostly laze around. Call out for pizza. Watch Green Acres re-runs on cable. Jesus likes Arnold Ziffel best, He says; says Oliver’s too selfish; gives Lisa Douglas points for patience.

After 60 Minutes, I decide to clean Him up a little more, that it might help Him adjust better to modern life, might help Him get a job, that sort of thing. Back in the bathroom, it turns sensual, me scooping out the grime beneath His fingernails, trimming His toenails, giving Him a shave, a decent haircut, touching Him in ways even lovers don’t normally touch. I grovel as I work. I coo and purr, finally getting up the nerve to ask some questions I’ve been wanting to ask.

“What’s the meaning of life?” I say. “What’s the point of it all?”

Jesus isn’t forthcoming. He raises His hands to heaven, like He’s saying either, “Your puny mind is too underdeveloped to know such things,” or else, “Whaddaya asking me for?” Neither of which is really an answer.

I try again, with the Suffering question.

“What’s the reason for pain in the world?”

This time I get a shoulder shrug and a scowl. Jesus is hard again, and apparently I’m harshing His buzz. He tells me to shut up and suck.

Gleaming, spotless, shaved, coifed, Jesus tries on one of my best wool suits. Starched white shirt. Red power tie. Wingtips.

“So?” He says, flicking His lapels. “How’d’I look?”

“Like a million bucks,” I say.

And He does.

But He doesn’t look like Jesus anymore.

“Oh, c’mon. What’s the problem?”

Later that night, He has a right to complain. For the life of me, I can’t get it up. We’ve been trying for hours.

“I don’t know,” I say, finally. “It’s just not the same, somehow. You’re not--”

“What, for Christ’s sake?”

“You’re not. I don’t know. Dirty. Anymore.”

Jesus laughs. “Hell,” He says, “that’s all you want, I’ll give you dirty. Daddy wants it dirty, huh?”

Jesus stands up on the bed, facing me, straddles His legs either side of my hips. I’m staring up at His perfect hairy legs, His perfect bouncing balls, His perfectly slim torso.

And a face I don’t recognize.

Jesus grabs hold of His half-hard dick, wags it in the air above me. He closes His eyes, throws His head back, grunts. That’s when the stream comes at me. Piss splashes into my mouth, goes up my nose. I cough, choke, but I can taste it. We haven’t had anything but Diet Coke with the pizza, haven’t even had so much as a beer all day. But I swear I taste alcohol. And grapes. A citrus bite, some woody undertones.

Sauvignon blanc?

“C’mon, Daddy,” Jesus says, “C’mon. Take my love juice. Oh, yeah. Yeah.”
Maybe He sees the change in my face. Maybe He notices I’ve stopped fisting my dick. Suddenly He’s standing there looking down, His well-groomed face now the saddest I’ve seen it.

I can’t say exactly what’s going through my mind, what it is I’m wanting to say right then, but whatever it is, I try to say it. It comes out sounding like a baby’s cry.

“Mwah,” I say. “Mwah.”

Jesus hears me. He knows what I need. He turns around, stands right over my tear-streaked face.

And be not faithless but believing . . .

Jesus squats.

 

© 2006 Hugo Vaughn - Contributor's Bio