Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

Bart, I thought.

“It’s not what goes into a man that defiles him,” Joshua said, “it’s what comes out.” He broke off some of the flatbread and dipped it into a bowl of oil.

“He means lies,” I said.

“I know,” said the old Pharisee.

“You were thinking something disgusting, don’t lie.”

The Pharisees passed the “no, your turn, no, it’s your turn” look around the room.

Joshua chewed his bread slowly, then said, “Why wash the outside of the urn, if there’s decay on the inside?”

“Yeah, like you rotting hypocrites!” I added, with more enthusiasm than was probably called for.

“Quit helping!” Josh said.

“Sorry. Nice wine. Manischewitz?”

My shouting evidently stirred them out of their malaise. The old Pharisee said, “You consort with demons, Joshua of Nazareth. This Levi was seen to cause blood to come from a Pharisee’s nose and a knife to break of its own, and no one even saw him move.”

Joshua looked at me, then at them, then at me again. “You forget to tell me something?”

“He was being an emrod, so I popped him.” (“Emrod” is the biblical term for hemorrhoid.) I heard Maggie’s giggling from the other room.

Joshua turned back to the creeps. “Levi who is called Biff has studied the art of the soldier in the East,” Joshua said. “He can move swiftly, but he is not a demon.”

I stood up. “The invitation was for dinner, not a trial.”

“This is no trial,” said Jakan, calmly. “We have heard of Joshua’s miracles, and we have heard that he breaks the Law. We simply want to ask him by whose authority he does these things. This is dinner, otherwise, why would you be here?”

I was wondering that myself, but Joshua answered me by pushing me down in my seat and proceeding to answer their accusations for another two hours, crafting parables and throwing their own piety back in their faces. While Joshua spoke the word of God, I did sleight-of-hand tricks with the bread and the vegetables, just to mess with them. Maggie came to the doorway and signaled me, pointing frantically to the front door and making threatening, head-bashing gestures which I took to be the consequences for my not understanding her this time.

“Well, I’ve got to go see a man about a camel, if you’ll excuse me.”

I stepped out the front door. As soon as I closed it behind me I was hit with the spraying girl-spit of a violently whispering woman.

“YoustupidsonofabitchwhatthefuckdidyouthinkIwastryingtosaytoyou?” She punched me in the arm. Hard.

“No kiss?” I whispered.

“Where can I meet you, after?”

“You can’t. Here, take this.” I handed her a small leather pouch. “There’s a parchment inside to tell you what to do.”

“I want to see you two.”

“You will. Do what the note says. I have to go back in.”

“You bastard.” Punch in the arm. Hard.

I forgot what I was doing and entered the house still rubbing my bruised shoulder.

“Levi, have you injured yourself?”

“No, Jakan, but sometimes I strain a shoulder muscle just shaking this monster off.”

The Pharisees hated that one. I realized that they were waiting for me to request water so I could go through the whole hand-washing ritual before I sat down to the table again. I stood there, thinking about it, rubbing my shoulder, waiting. How long could it possibly take to read a note? It seemed like a long time, with them staring at me, but I’m sure it was only a few minutes. Then it came, the scream. Maggie let go from the next room, long and high and loud, a virtuoso scream of terror and panic and madness.

I bent over and whispered into Joshua’s ear, “Just follow my lead. No, just don’t do anything. Nothing.”

“But—”

The Pharisees all looked like someone had dropped hot coals into their laps as the scream went on, and on. Maggie had great sustain. Before Jakan could get up to investigate, there came my girl—still shrieking, I might add—a lovely green foam running out of her mouth, her dress torn and hanging in shreds on her blood-streaked body and blood running from the corners of her eyes. She screamed in Jakan’s face and rolled her eyes, then leapt onto the table and growled as she kicked every piece of crockery off onto the floor where it shattered. The servant girl ran through screaming, “Demons have taken her, demons have taken her!” then bolted out the front door. Maggie started screeching again, then ran up and down the length of the table, urinating as she went. (Nice touch, I would never have thought of that.)

The Pharisees had backed up against the wall, including Jakan, as Maggie fell on her back on the table, thrashing and growling and screaming obscenities while splattering the front of their white cloaks with green foam, urine, and blood.

“Devils! She’s been possessed by devils. Lots of them,” I shouted.

“Seven,” Maggie said between growls.

“Looks like seven,” I said. “Doesn’t it, Josh?”

I grabbed the back of Joshua’s hair and sort of made him nod in agreement. No one was really watching him anyway, as Maggie was now spouting impressive fountains of green foam both out of her mouth and from between her legs. (Again, a nice touch I wouldn’t have thought of.) She settled into a vibrating fit rhythm, with barking and obscenities for counterpoint.

“Well, Jakan,” I said politely, “thank you for dinner. It’s been lovely but we have to be going.” I pulled Joshua to his feet by his collar. He was a little perplexed himself. Not terrified like our host, but perplexed.

“Wait,” Jakan said.

“Festering dog penis!” Maggie snarled to no one in particular, but I think everyone knew who she meant.

“Oh, all right, we’ll try to help her,” I said. “Joshua, grab an arm.” I pushed him forward and Maggie grabbed his wrist. I went around to the other side of the table and got hold of her other arm. “We have to get her out of this house of defilement.”

Maggie’s fingernails bit into my arm as I lifted her up and she pulled herself along on Josh’s wrist, pretending to thrash and fight. I dragged her out the front door and into the courtyard. “Make an effort, Joshua, would you,” Maggie whispered.

Jakan and the Pharisees bunched at the door. “We need to take her into the wilderness to safely cast out the devils,” I shouted. I dragged her, and Joshua for that matter, into the street and kicked the heavy gate closed.

Maggie relaxed and stood up. A mound of green foam cascaded off of her chest. “Don’t relax yet, Maggie. When we’re farther away.”

“Pork-eating goat fucker!”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Hi, Maggie,” Joshua said, taking her arm and finally helping me drag.

“I think it went really well for short notice,” I said. “You know, Pharisees make the best witnesses.”

“Let’s go to my brother’s house,” she whispered. “We can send word that I’m incurable from there.

“Rat molester!”

“It’s okay, Maggie, we’re out of range now.”

“I know. I was talking to you. Why’d you take seventeen years to get me out of there?”

“You’re beautiful in green, did I ever tell you that?”

“I’ve got to think that that was unethical,” Joshua said.

“Josh, faking demonic possession is like a mustard seed.”

“How is it like a mustard seed?”

“You don’t know, do you? Doesn’t seem at all like a mustard seed, does it? Now you see how we all feel when you liken things unto a mustard seed? Huh?”

At Simon the Leper’s house Joshua went to the door first by himself so Maggie’s appearance didn’t scare the humus out of her brother and sister. Martha answered the door. “Shalom, Martha. I’m Joshua bar Joseph, of Nazareth. Remember me from the wedding in Cana? I’ve brought your sister Maggie.”