A complex man, playful and sad, full of contradictions and surprises — a laughing god. Sacrilegious? Perhaps, for those compelled to see Jesus as the grave figure presented in the Gospels. Yet by creating a Jesus who is psychologically intricate and compellingly human, Romulus Linney, in Jesus Tales, adds a rich, new dimension to Jesus and to his teachings.
Originally published in 1980 and just reissued in paperback by North Point Press, Jesus Tales is a rich collection of stories chronicling the marriage of Joseph and Mary, Jesus’ birth and youth, his meeting with Peter and the other disciples, and their walk around the world. It’s a daring book, quirky and mischievous, written in a deceptively simple style that uses the plain language and spare structure of traditional oral narratives. I couldn’t put it down.
We’re thankful to North Point Press for permission to reprint these two stories from Jesus Tales.
— Ed.
How Saint Peter Got Bald
Saint Peter loved Jesus,
said the Basque Country Spaniard,
but he didn’t always understand him.
One time they were traveling here in Spain. They walked up and down the roads, the dust spreading out from their heels, naming towns, founding churches, baptizing babies, and doing good.
Early one morning, they passed a farmer on the road. His wagon had hit something and tipped over on its side. His vegetables, his wheat, his wine kegs, his cheese gourds, everything lay spilled out over the road and into the ditch.
It was a mess.
But this farmer, he was calm about it. He was a big, fat fellow, who just wasn’t getting himself upset like his wagon was. No, instead he was down on his knees, in a very relaxed way. His hands were clasped together. His eyes were closed.
He was praying.
“Lord Jesus,” he was saying, not very loud. He certainly couldn’t see Jesus and Saint Peter coming up behind him or know that they were there. “This is just what I deserve. I am a careless, miserable sinner. I could have seen that big rock in the middle of the road but I wasn’t watching. But I’m not going to feel bad about it. I’m going to be grateful for all the good things that have happened to me. Praise God.”
Saint Peter was impressed.
“What a healthy, humble attitude,” he said to the Lord. “Let’s give him a hand, and get all his goods back in his wagon.”
Jesus looked straight ahead.
“Keep walking,” he said.
“But Lord,” said Saint Peter.
“Hush,” said Jesus.
They walked right past this unfortunate man, and right on down the road. Saint Peter kept looking back until Jesus told him to stop it.
They didn’t get very far until they came upon the same sight all over again. Another wagon was in a ditch. This time a whole side of the wagon was smashed in. There was a big load of hay and wood, thrown every which way.
This farmer was on his knees, too, but he wasn’t praying. He was swearing. He had one bony shoulder jammed under one side of his wagon bed, trying to rock the wagon up out of the ditch. He was sweating and straining and swearing, and he couldn’t do it.
This was a tough, stringy fellow: scars on his face and hands; a long, crooked nose, all squashed up and damaged-looking. And that swearing.
Saint Peter was dismayed. The man was sending one evil curse after another upon the innocent world. They didn’t even make sense, thought Saint Peter, being about highroads that ate manure, and haywagons that slept with their mothers.
But it put Saint Peter off.
“Don’t stop,” he whispered to Jesus.
Jesus stopped.
“Lord, we better leave this man alone.”
Jesus stood right by him, looking down.
“What are you doing?” said Jesus.
The farmer sat back on his heels, scowling. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes.
“The hell you mean, what am I doing? What does it look like?”
“In trouble, eh?”
That farmer got up slowly. Lean and stringy, but big and mean.
“If I am, I don’t need you to tell me. Get moving!”
And he cursed Jesus roundly.
Saint Peter didn’t believe what he saw.
Jesus socked the farmer. He hauled off and belted him. Knocked him flat.
The Lord Jesus Christ did that.
Saint Peter knew it couldn’t happen. If Jesus said it once, he said it a thousand times. Don’t hit other people. Just don’t.
But here he laid this farmer out cold.
Saint Peter put a hand over his face, and shook his head.
When he looked again, he saw Jesus down on one knee. He was fitting one end of his little walking stick under the wagon bed. Jesus glanced at the knocked-out farmer, and chuckled. He stood up, pulling on his little stick.
The wagon rocked up out of the ditch. It rolled out onto the road, and stopped. It stood right side up, axles straight. There wasn’t a mark on the side that was smashed. All the wood and hay were back where they had been.
“There,” said Jesus.
He walked off down the road.
Saint Peter stared at the wagon, and the sleeping farmer. He ran after Jesus.
Who didn’t want to talk about it.
Now, Saint Peter was a good man. But he had to be certain in his mind about every little thing, or he worried. He was brave as a lion, when he knew what the trouble was. When he wasn’t sure, he got nervous.
I mean, if someone near him acted cold, he worried. If they seemed disappointed, he worried. And if he saw somebody laughing, and couldn’t figure out why, he always thought it was at him.
And he came unstrung, and got uncertain, and started making excuses for himself for no reason.
This is what Jesus enjoyed about Saint Peter. He loved kidding him about that, and never got tired of it.
Take the first time Saint Peter took Jesus fishing. He was sure he knew where the big schools of fish would run in the Sea of Galilee that day. He had Jesus up and into his boat before dawn.
They were first out of the harbor. Saint Peter stood up in his boat and called to the other fishermen.
“Follow me!” he shouted. He was out to show Jesus how professional fishermen operated.
Away they sailed, the other boats following. They sailed way out there to the middle of the Sea of Galilee. They couldn’t see anything but water, all around.
Saint Peter slacked his sail. He sniffed the air. He slid one hand quietly into the water. He tasted a finger.
In their boats, gliding silently around them, the other fishermen waited.
Saint Peter pointed about a hundred feet to his left.
“There,” he said softly.
The nets went out, easily. They weren’t thrown. Jesus watched with interest.
“Why don’t we throw the nets?” he whispered.
“Because there are so many fish down there, we don’t want to scare them.”
It was true. They were there.
“Oh,” said Jesus.
He peered down into the water. He tapped the edge of the boat with his walking stick, softly.
More fish than anybody can count dived straight to the bottom of the Sea of Galilee.
The nets were pulled through the water. They were pulled and pulled, and they came up empty.
Not one fish.
Saint Peter sat there dumbfounded. When several throws brought up nothing, his boat was soon surrounded by other boats, full of angry professionals. They called Saint Peter, in no uncertain terms, a damn blockhead. They swore about his wasting half a day for them. They sailed off.
Saint Peter rubbed his head. He went over his calculations. He’d never been that wrong before. He inspected his nets. Not a hole anywhere. He couldn’t understand what had happened.
Jesus said fishing sure was an interesting profession. That made Saint Peter feel very queer.
Which is just the way he felt, running after Jesus down the road, after Jesus knocked out that mean farmer and then fixed his wagon.
And didn’t want to talk about it.
It had Saint Peter all confused. Finally, he just stopped, in the middle of the road.
“Lord, wait a minute!” he shouted.
Jesus turned around and came back to him.
“Well?”
Saint Peter counted it off on his fingers.
“One farmer in a ditch prays to you. You pass him by. Another farmer in a ditch swears at you. You do to him what you plainly tell every Christian never do to anybody, and then you save his neck by pulling his wagon out of the ditch.”
“Well?”
“I don’t understand. What was so bad about the first farmer? What was so good about the second farmer? If something was so good about the second farmer, and not about the first farmer, why hit the second farmer before helping him? I can’t find the sense in it.”
“Try,” said Jesus.
It was getting close to noon, and hot. Jesus saw a good shade tree a few yards off. He laid himself down beneath its branches, ate a pear from his pack, and took a nap.
While Saint Peter tried. He figured things this way, and he figured them that. He paced about in circles, drew lines and arrows in the dirt, put one stone over here and another over there and lined them up in different ways, rubbed his head and knocked his fist against his palm. He thought about it from every side, top and bottom.
When Jesus woke, Saint Peter was ready for him.
“Lord, I understand.”
“Good,” said Jesus. He yawned.
“A decent man’s curse is better than a shifty man’s prayer.”
Jesus seemed impressed.
“That’s it. Isn’t it?”
Jesus complimented Saint Peter on his powers of deduction. Saint Peter blushed with pride and pleasure.
Jesus yawned again.
A spasm of doubt hit Saint Peter.
“But if the second farmer was so decent, and the first farmer wasn’t, why hit the second farmer and not the first farmer?”
Jesus stretched, and shook himself awake.
“Because if the second farmer was too proud to be helped, which is possible, and had to be put to sleep so you could help him, which is reasonable, then why was he worth helping in the first place, being proud? And if the first farmer —”
But Jesus was off down the road again. His step was light and bouncy. He was feeling good about the pleasant afternoon, and wasn’t going to say any more about it.
Saint Peter felt queer again.
He ran down the road after Jesus, thinking as he ran. He rubbed his head, and scratched his head, and rubbed his head, and scratched it.
That is how Saint Peter got so bald so young.
The Good Lord’s Curse
My story,
said the Basque Country Frenchman,
is about the Lord, Saint Peter, two drunks, and some Basque Country farmers.
This was when the Lord and Saint Peter were on a tour of the world. They came down out of the Spanish mountains and stood on a ridge not far from here, looking at some farms in a valley.
What they saw looked good. Crops were growing. The fields looked dark-loamed and rich. In a settlement they saw pens, fences, barns, some solid timber-and-plaster homes. The people looked healthy and hard-working. Children ran about happily.
There was a big sign stuck up on two poles, so it could be seen from all the fields. It said: THEY SERVE MOST WHO PROSPER BEST.
Saint Peter liked all this very much. He turned to the Lord to say, let’s visit these good people, but when he did, the Lord wasn’t there.
Jesus had turned right around. He was already moving, climbing a rocky slope just behind them. Saint Peter saw it led up, high up, toward rough mountain country. He sighed, and followed the Lord.
They hadn’t climbed more than a mile when clouds gathered. The air got cold and damp. It was going to rain.
“Lord, where are we going?” said Saint Peter. “It looked so nice in that valley.”
Jesus pointed to an outcropping of stone, shadowed by the coming dusk.
“What’s up there?” said Saint Peter.
“Let’s go see,” said Jesus.
And off he went. Saint Peter, grumbling, scrambled after him. Halfway to the big rock, night caught them. Gusts of a raw wind swept the slope.
Behind the outcropping, the land leveled out. Through the wind-blown rain, Saint Peter saw a light flickering about a hundred yards inside a stand of scrawny scrub pine. It was in a shack of some kind.
When they reached it, they were wet and their feet were muddy. Their hair was plastered down over their faces. They looked a miserable sight, but so did the shack they saw through the rain.
Its walls were all split and warped and twisted. Its frail timber was chinked together not by plaster or even hard clay, but by dried mud held together by sticks and weeds. It leaned way over on one side, and way in on the other. You couldn’t call it a house. There wasn’t even a dog around the place to bark at them.
“Knock,” said Jesus.
Saint Peter did, gently. He didn’t want to knock in the door. In a minute, it creaked open.
Faces. That’s all they could see. One on top of the other, filling up the crack in the doorway, like buttons on a coat. Big ones, little ones, all staring out at Jesus and Saint Peter.
They belonged to the skinniest, puniest passel of farm children Saint Peter had ever seen. Big eyes, hollow cheeks, bony, scabby arms. Little white potbellies sticking out of rags, worn, Saint Peter could tell, and slept in until they fell off.
A man holding up a candle appeared behind the children. He had an unkempt beard and feverish eyes. He was dressed in rags, too.
“What do you want?” the man said.
Saint Peter felt so sorry for these people, he didn’t know what to say. Jesus nudged him with an elbow.
“I am Saint Peter, and this is the Lord Jesus. May we come in?”
The man stared at him, with his feverish eyes. “Who?” he said.
“We’ve been traveling all day,” said Saint Peter. “We’re tired and hungry and rained on. We need some place to spend the night.”
A voice called out from within the shack. It was blurred and indistinct. Saint Peter couldn’t tell what it said. The man with unkempt hair turned and called back into the darkness.
“It’s two men saying they are Jesus and Saint Peter,” he said.
Somebody laughed. “Wait a minute,” a voice called out. A woman came to the door.
She moved in lurches, staggering. Under her eyes, as under the eyes of the man and all the children, the skin was dark, and elsewhere sallow. She, too, was dressed in rags, and now Saint Peter realized that from both the man and the woman came a heavy, fruity odor. It explained the lurching. They were both drunk.
They peered into the rain.
“Why, sure,” said the woman. “You’re right. There’s Jesus, and there’s Saint Peter.”
“You think so?” said the man.
“No, but what difference does it make?” said the woman. “If they want to cut our throats, all they have to do is kick down the door.”
Thudding gusts of wind hit the shack. Everything moved. Rain lashed Saint Peter and the Lord.
“We’re getting drenched,” said Saint Peter.
“Well, come in,” said the man.
“Just in time for supper,” said the woman, laughing.
Saint Peter said, whew, covered his nose with his hand, and followed Jesus inside.
It was bleak in there. One whole wall of the shack was solid rock, a side of the mountain, wet and cold. In another wall there was a stone fireplace, in another one window, in another the door, and that was all. The floor was dirt and clay, littered with corn husks and rushes and conifers to soak up the moisture and cold. A pile of shuck mattresses was stacked in one corner.
A small fire burned meagerly in the stone fireplace, on just a few sticks, each with an inch or so of flame crawling on it. There was an iron pot. One table. Three slat chairs. An old wooden chest. Shelves holding more rags, propped up off the ground by sticks.
This was a hard-time family.
“All right, then!” said the woman. “Jesus sits at the head of the table, and Saint Peter, I suppose, on the right hand, or something like that.”
She drank the last of something dark out of a clay mug. She walked unsteadily to the pot that hung over the meager fire. She blinked her eyes and grabbed some wooden bowls from her shelves. She ladled shallow dishes two-thirds up with sour, lukewarm soup. She cut everyone a thumb’s width of stiff, stale bread.
There were seven children. They each came by and got the same portion as the grownups. They went to a corner, where they sat in a dark circle. They ate muttering and sometimes snarling, like little animals.
Now and then the woman would yell at them.
It was plain squalid. Saint Peter had a hard time eating. This kind of situation got on his nerves. He liked order, calm at the dinner table, and quiet children.
And the food they were eating was garbage.
Jesus didn’t seem to mind. He ate the thin soup as if he enjoyed it, smacking his lips. When he was through, he reached down and picked up a little stick that was lying among the corn husks and rushes.
He waved it, ever so gently. Everybody suddenly felt better. Their stomachs were suddenly nourished by the soup they had eaten.
There was a whooshing sound. The sticks in the stone fireplace blazed.
Jesus stood up.
He looked at the children. They were fighting with each other, saying, shut up, leave that alone, yes, no, give it to me, and so forth.
Jesus sat down in the middle of them, and said, “Now, listen.”
They looked at him with suspicion and distrust.
He told them a story about a worried peacock. He told them a story about a fat lion. Then he told them a story about two brothers and two sisters, lost in a dark wood, who couldn’t find their way home. The children smiled at the first two stories, but not at the third. One by one, they slid over close to Jesus and listened. Jesus finished his story with hair-raising escapes from waterfalls, storms, and monsters, but got the brothers and sisters out of the dark forest, home again, and then he fingered that stick, and waved it gently at his side. Seven children fell down on their mattress beds like empty sacks. Jesus spread worn blankets over them, over the flopped-out tangle of arms and legs and the sounds of snoring. Then he came back to the table.
“You see?” he said. “This is Saint Peter. I am the Lord Jesus.”
The halos lasted only a second. Then they were gone.
The man and woman tried to get down on their hands and knees. But they were drunk and clumsy about it. Jesus said never mind.
It was an embarrassment. Nobody knew what to say.
Saint Peter finally spoke, sternly.
“What are your names?”
“Jacques,” said the man.
“Jeannette,” said the woman.
“Are you married?”
They hung their heads in shame. They were a sorry sight. Jacques, with his gaunt face, hair and beard all unkempt. Jeannette, bone thin, lines running deep in her face, with a crazy laugh and shrill yell. They went with that shack, all right. And there they stood, before Saint Peter.
“Do you go to church?”
“No,” said Jacques.
“No wonder you’re in a mess,” said Saint Peter.
“It wasn’t always this way,” said Jacques. “We thought we were like everybody else at first. But we stayed home more and more.”
“And drank,” said Saint Peter.
“Yes,” said Jeannette. “Before we knew it, we were living up here with our children, alone.”
“Do you fight?” asked Saint Peter. “Beat each other, and the children?”
“Sometimes,” they admitted. They turned to Jesus.
“What happened to us, Lord?” they asked him.
Jesus said he didn’t know exactly. Life can be mysterious and sad.
It was another embarrassment. Since Jesus evidently ruled out sermons on the matter, Saint Peter didn’t know what to say. Jacques and Jeannette didn’t know what to say, either.
The only question left was what tribute this miserable hovel could pay to the Lord and his Apostle, who had condescended to visit it. There was an obligation to do something.
So Jacques went to the shelves propped up by sticks. There was a small box there, locked. He opened it and took out a small clay jar. He set it carefully on the table. Jeannette put down four clay cups. Jacques drew a thick cork from the neck of the jar.
He poured half a finger of brandy into each cup, and handed them out.
“We don’t mean to insult you,” he said. “But this is the best thing we have.”
Saint Peter was about to say, put it away, man, that’s what’s caused your trouble in the first place, when he caught the glance from Jesus.
“It will do,” said Jesus. He lifted his cup in a salute.
“To this house,” said the Lord.
There was nothing for Saint Peter to do but the same. He took a sip. It was awful. It tasted like sulfur.
But soon Jacques was leaning comfortably against the stone wall, his shame forgotten. Jeannette relaxed, too, and was smiling at Jesus. Saint Peter realized they were all sitting in considerable comfort, hands curled around their cups, watching the fire, which began to warm them.
“Do you fight?” asked Saint Peter. “Beat each other, and the children?” “Sometimes,” they admitted. They turned to Jesus. “What happened to us, Lord?” they asked him. Jesus said he didn’t know exactly. Life can be mysterious and sad.
It was Jesus who started it.
“Know what it means when you stumble over a stone?”
“No, Lord,” said Jacques. “What?”
“On that spot a musician lies buried.”
Jacques and Jeannette stared at each other. Jacques got a barrel from a corner, and sat next to Jesus.
“Know the cure for leprosy?” he said.
Jesus shook his head.
“You have to wash your skin in the blood of a man whose life you have saved.”
Jesus considered that.
So did Saint Peter.
“Where did you hear that?” he said.
“Around,” said Jacques. “I know a man who claims you can teach anything. He says he taught cats to hold candlesticks.”
“He did?” said Jesus. “What for?”
“So he could turn a mouse loose, Lord, and see what happened. He did.”
“And?” said Jesus.
“They dropped the candlesticks, and went after the mouse. They learn, he decided, but they forget.”
Saint Peter thought this was the dumbest talk he’d ever heard. He couldn’t understand why Jesus had a sparkle in his eyes, or why Jacques and Jeannette did, too.
It was like the three of them were taking a few idle throws before some kind of a ball game.
“A foolish man had two sons,” said Jeannette. “One was a thief and tried to steal everything he had. The other was a killer and tried to murder him. What to do? He loved his sons. He sent them to school. One became a lawyer and the other a doctor.”
Saint Peter waited for what came next, but nothing did. Jesus sipped his brandy.
“A blind man and a hunchback robbed a merchant,” said Jacques. “They sat dividing the spoils. They soon fell out. The blind man said the hunchback was cheating him. The hunchback said the blind man wasn’t really blind. The hunchback rubbed dirt in the blind man’s eyes. This gave the blind man back his sight. The blind man then beat the hunchback so hard, he broke his hump, and the hunchback stood before the blind man, tall and handsome. The both lived happily ever after.”
Saint Peter looked out the one window of the shack at the rain coming down. He tried to put the blind man and the hunchback together, but gave up.
Jesus held up his cup. “More brandy?” he said.
“I’m sorry, Lord,” said Jacques. “There isn’t any.”
“Look and see.”
Jacques did. The brandy jar was full. He poured Jesus a big, fat dollop. He poured everyone else one, too, and the brandy jar was still full.
It didn’t taste like sulfur this time. It was rich and smooth.
Logs grew fresh in the fire, thick ones, sizzling and popping as flames leapt along their backs. Heat flooded the shack. Outside, sheets of rain and gusts of wind passed over the shack without touching it.
Saint Peter yawned. He talked about brandy and rain making him sleepy, and wasn’t it about time they all turned in.
“A deaf man,” said Jacques, “went to comfort his sick neighbor. He went to the man’s bed, and said, ‘How are you?’ The sick man said, ‘Dying.’ The deaf man said, ‘Thank God for that. Who’s your doctor?’ The sick man said, ‘Doctor Death! Get out!’ The deaf man said, ‘He’s the best! What medicine did he give you?’ The sick man said, ‘Poison!’ The deaf man said, ‘Wonderful. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ ”
Saint Peter thought Jacques was not in his right mind. But Jesus was smiling.
“There was once a ghost,” said Jesus, “doomed to perform amazing tasks every day, and to frighten men.”
Saint Peter couldn’t believe his ears. The Lord of all creation was telling a silly story about a ghost who had these phantom things to do, and found them tiresome. He wanted the freedom to stay in one place, and not even haunt it, but do ordinary things.
Not only did Jesus tell this pointless story, he gave an imitation of that ghost howling, cupping his hands in front of his mouth, and producing a ludicrous noise. When he finished, Jacques and Jeannette not only grinned, they applauded.
Saint Peter knew that no matter how strange the Lord acted, he followed Jesus, and wanted nothing more than to imitate him.
He knew he had to tell a story, too.
“Listen to this,” said Saint Peter.
He told a story he remembered from his childhood, How the Mole Got His Tail. But he forgot the part where the mole gives up his eyes for his beautiful tail; he didn’t understand his own story, had to admit it, and gave up.
Jacques, Jeannette, and Jesus were very polite. They said it was very interesting. Then, eyes shining, they plunged into the telling of their own again.
Logs burned. The jar stayed full of brandy. Rain and wind went past the house, leaving it dry. There was more thunder and lightning. It only made them feel safe.
Jacques told The Moon Frog, The Cornfield Bed, and The Breaking of the Stone of Patience.
Jeannette told The Water Man, Prince Unexpected, Immortal Bony, and The Ogre Schoolmaster.
Jesus told The Boy Who Could Not Shudder, Our King in Lethargy, and Phantom Funerals.
Saint Peter knew this had gone far enough. He had to stop it. With something strong. Their own medicine. Something with a punch.
He had it.
“Listen to this,” said Saint Peter. “Once upon a time, there was a Sailor and a Parrot.”
He didn’t see Jesus close his eyes, or Jacques and Jeannette put their hands over their mouths.
“The Sailor sold the Parrot to the Queen. She kept him in her bedroom, in a golden cage. He had everything he wanted. He grew vain and lazy. One day the Queen came naked out of her bath. The Parrot said, ‘Whew-o! I see your ass!’ The Queen opened the golden cage, pulled the Parrot out by his neck, and throttled him. She gave him to a servant, who threw him on the garbage pile outside the Queen’s kitchen. He lay there with his neck wrung, but still alive, when a scrawny Chicken, plucked bare, neck wrung, came flying out of the kitchen window and landed on the garbage pile beside the Parrot. The Parrot thought a minute, whistled, and said to the Chicken, ‘Whew-o! Whose ass did you see?’ ”
Saint Peter then slapped his knees. He laughed and laughed until his face was red and he choked and gasped.
Jesus, Jeannette, and Jacques waited patiently until Saint Peter stopped laughing.
When he did, Jeannette told The Lady Who Gave Birth to a Rat. Thunder crashed. In the rain outside, winds howled like beasts.
Saint Peter’s skin crawled.
Jacques told a tale from the life of the hero, Sir Ever. It was about the death of his son, Sir Now. Sir Now got a maiden named Selma with child. When Selma told Sir Now she was going to have a baby, he laughed at her. Selma’s three brothers were listening at the window, and when Sir Now laughed at her, they came in and killed him with sickles. Selma made a chair from his bones, a mattress from his skin, a goblet from his skull, beer from his blood, candles from his fat, wicks from his hair, pies from his flesh, and soup from his fingers. Then she invited his father, Sir Ever, to dinner.
Saint Peter choked, coughed, swallowed, and then had the hiccoughs.
Sir Ever was suspicious. He came to Selma’s house, but when she asked him to eat the meal she had prepared for him, he wanted to know who she was. She answered him with a riddle.
Jacques sang the riddle song the betrayed Selma sang Sir Ever. It went like this:
I sit with my love-o, I drink with my love-o, I cook with my love-o, I sleep with my love-o, My love is my light-o. I’ll give you a pint of wine-o, When you read my riddle right-o.
Then Jacques told how Sir Ever guessed Selma’s riddle, and drew his famous sword. Her brothers rushed in, and he killed them first before he cut off Selma’s head.
Then Sir Ever wept bitterly for his evil son, touching the bone chair, lifting the burning candles, and smelling the simmering soup.
This reminded Jesus of Flowering Cholera, and Jeannette of the Catfish God.
They sank into the night, telling wild stories.
Saint Peter sat in his chair wishing he were somewhere else. He gave up trying to stop them.
But it was hard to take. Saint Peter didn’t mind a story, even if it was made up. But it ought to have a point to it. It ought to be about life the way life really is. He really did mind tales about people eating other people, and rats instead of babies born from ladies, and impossible heroes who never existed, with names like Sir Ever.
Soon he just wasn’t listening to them any more.
That is, until Jeannette said, “Anybody want to hear a Jesus Tale?”
Saint Peter heard that, all right.
“A what?” he said.
“Tell one,” said Jesus.
“You’re sure?” said Jeannette.
“Wait a minute,” said Saint Peter.
“Tell it,” said Jesus.
So Jeannette told Saint Peter’s Divorce, in which Saint Peter is so miserable at home, he asks Jesus to give him a divorce, and Jesus says only if Saint Peter will marry the next woman they meet on the road, and Saint Peter says yes, anything, and of course, the next woman down the road is the ugliest poor creature anybody ever saw. Saint Peter begs off until the next woman down the road, and she is beautiful but mean as the devil, and the next isn’t able to talk until Jesus takes a nail from a coffin and sets it against her back tooth and hammers the tooth out, and she talks and talks and can’t stop, until Saint Peter begs off her, too, and goes back to his wife.
This time Saint Peter sat in his chair stiff with resentment. But Jesus was laughing, so what could he do?
Then Jesus told Jesus, Saint Peter, the Goose, and the Bean, and it made Jacques and Jeannette laugh until the tears ran down their cheeks.
And Saint Peter wondered then, a little bitterly, why it was he was always the fool in these matters, no matter how right he actually was. He could see them smiling at him. He felt foolish, as always. He didn’t want to make a fuss. But he still did wonder why Jesus provoked him so often, crossed him, got him into positions where he always did the wrong thing, as if he were some sort of big booby on a string Jesus loved to guide and fool.
Why are we sitting up here, in this miserable shack, Saint Peter wondered. Why aren’t we down in that valley, with those good, healthy farmers?
Jesus filled his cup with brandy.
“Well, one more,” said Jesus. “Does anybody know Old Man Joseph the Carpenter?”
Jacques and Jeannette said they both did.
“Tell it,” said Jesus.
And so they did, how Joseph the Carpenter was an old man when he met Mary, eighty-nine, in fact, and she only fifteen and not wanting to marry a young man. How hard he was on her, never believing the wise men and the shepherds and the star were anything but an accident. How furious he got whenever Mary said Jesus was anything special, but how he taught Jesus everything he knew about the world. How because Mary did believe Jesus was something special indeed, Jesus had great troubles as a boy. He wouldn’t obey his teachers. He talked back. He looked right through grown-up people. Townsfolk in Nazareth became afraid Jesus had charms and spells and was a Child Terror. Joseph and Jesus had a terrible fight then, and with Mary standing helplessly by, the awful family squalor unfolded itself. Joseph hit Jesus in the face and Jesus hit him back, knocked the old man’s crutches out from under him, so that Joseph fell down and didn’t know where he was. It was that very night that Joseph died. Outside his house, he saw Azrael, the Angel of Death, with his minions all in black who stood waiting behind him. And finally Joseph became afraid; his great common sense deserted him. He looked at his son, and said he knew the boy was a holy child and was killing him with his great powers. Then Joseph said he wasn’t good enough to be the father of Jesus, that he hoped Jesus would not hate him. He was only the boy’s daddy, and a poor foolish one at that. Then Joseph pointed to the wall and told Jesus to look out a window and see what was out there, to tell him the truth, as any good son must when his father lies dying. Jesus didn’t know what to do. He looked out the window and saw nothing there, but Joseph described Azrael and his minions and how they come for the dead, and wanted to know the truth, had they come for Joseph now or not. And Jesus, who was only a boy, was never so frightened in his life, but he saw what he had to do. He stood by Joseph and he said, yes, he saw them all there, Azrael the Angel of Death with his great sword and all the rest of them, and yes, it was true they had come for Joseph, but first they would wait, because he was Jesus the son of Joseph the Carpenter, and so commanded them. They would wait while he paid his father his respects. They would wait while he told him all was well, no fires would burn him, and the seas of demons would be calm. So when Joseph died, in peace, Jesus wept, and kissed the hands that had slapped him.
When the story was told, the fire was going out, and Jesus did not make it burn any longer. The brandy was all gone. The storm outside had passed. The night was quiet and black.
Jesus stared, in silence, at the dying fire.
Saint Peter said, “But none of that happened, did it?”
A few red embers glowed through the ashes. Jesus looked at Saint Peter, sitting in shadow, his big hands crossed on his lap, the country fisherman Jesus loved to fool, who might have been easily taken for a country carpenter instead.
“Of course not,” said Jesus softly.
He felt foolish, as always. He didn’t want to make a fuss. But he still did wonder why Jesus provoked him so often, crossed him, got him into positions where he always did the wrong thing, as if he were some sort of big booby on a string Jesus loved to guide and fool.
In the morning, when Jesus and Saint Peter were leaving, Jeannette was in the back yard, washing the family rags in a battered tin tub.
“What this morning you first begin,” said Jesus softly, “will not stop until tonight.”
They said goodbye, and went off down the road.
Soon Jeannette was calling Jacques and the children to come at once. Her hands were tingling and felt wonderful and strong, and she couldn’t stop washing the clothes that came out of the tub. Work clothes, Sunday clothes, hunting clothes, sleeping clothes, lace handkerchiefs and gaily dyed bandanas, fur-lined gloves, elegant velvet dresses, heavy winter robes, thick, warm socks, everything came soft and sweet-smelling, and dried at once in a huge, growing pile on the ground at her feet.
This lasted all day. Everybody heard about the bottomless tub of clothes, about Jesus and Saint Peter, and everybody wondered when they would come again.
They didn’t, for five years. And when they did come again, Saint Peter insisted they spend the night in the valley with the farmers whose sign still proclaimed, THEY SERVE MOST WHO PROSPER BEST.
Dinner on that night was thick bean and bacon soup, meat and fish, too, and good red wine, bread like cake with cheese and strawberries and plenty of fresh milk. Then pie.
The farmers’ children gave a pageant about Jesus riding into Jerusalem. A boy, playing Jesus, came in on the backs of two other boys playing the mule. The children clapped their hands and sang a song. The farmers’ wives gave the boy playing Jesus fresh flowers, and he gave them to Jesus and Saint Peter.
There was a dance for the Lord.
Jesus changed his flowers into beer, and sat sipping it, saying not a word.
The next morning, when they were ready to go, Saint Peter said to Jesus, “You must do it for them, too.”
“The clothes?”
“They know about it. You have to.”
“I won’t.”
They had an argument.
“Now, listen,” said Saint Peter, finally. “I stayed up half that night, listening to those crazy wild stories. I was nice to your kind of people. You be nice to mine.”
What could Jesus say after that? When the farmers gathered around to wish them goodbye, and it was obvious they expected something, Jesus said, “What this morning you first begin will not stop until tonight.”
They hardly waited until Jesus and Saint Peter were off down the road before they all gathered around the richest farmer.
“You all know what to do,” he said. “Everybody has his purse. You start right now, counting money out of your purses. The money, like those clothes, will keep coming out, all day long. Everybody ready?”
They all were. But the farmer stopped a minute, and thought.
“Wait,” he said. “We should all go into the woods and relieve ourselves first. That way we won’t have to stop later, or waste any time counting money.”
All the farmers agreed. They ran into the woods.
On the road, not far from the valley, Jesus and Saint Peter looked up and saw the high ridge they’d climbed five years before.
An old woman in a floppy hat was leading her cow past them on the road. Saint Peter stopped her.
“There is a man and a woman who live up there,” he said, pointing. “With many children. Do you know who I mean?”
“Yes, Saint Peter,” said the old woman. “They died.”
“Both?”
“Yes. They were troubled. They drank. The mother caught pneumonia. The father threw himself off a cliff. The children were given out to strangers.”
When the old woman was gone, he turned to Jesus. “You see?” he said.
Then Jesus stared angrily at him and pointed back down the road, toward the valley. Dark, swirling storm clouds swept over it, and, as the Lord pointed, rain poured out of them, lightning flashed, the most ominous of thunders rolled. Cries and moans and furious shouts of many farmers rose and fell against the wind. They were all still in the woods, fighting their bodies, their bowels giving and giving, without stop. They remembered then that what they first began would go on all day, and in a tangle of fury, they were amazed at their own stupidity.
Jesus then pointed to that high slope above the ridge, where of a flimsy shack of drunkards who told stories against the night, only the broken stones of a fireplace and the mouldering walls of a home remained. There the sun was shining brightly.
When Saint Peter looked again at Jesus, a halo was blazing around the head of the Lord.
Then Jesus stomped down the road, with Saint Peter following, but very carefully, knowing that the passions of God are deep and unfathomable, and even if he, Saint Peter himself, demanded the truth, he wouldn’t get it.
Excerpted from Jesus Tales. © Copyright 1980 by Romulus Linney. Published by North Point Press and reprinted by permission.
