Jesus Mysteries: Episode #2

The Adventure of the Bludgeoned Blind Man

The holy Son rose away from the reach of the living. He ascended into the heavens to visit his Papa. Upon recognition the angels flung open the golden gates. As he walked across the clouds towards God's pad, the ground below his feet faded from white, fluffy clouds to a bright orange shag carpet.

He parted the hanging beads in the doorway and walked into God's luuve shack. It was complete with a heart-shaped waterbed with a giant mirror above it, and numerous lava-lamps were glowing about the room.

He then bumped into a caramel-skinned man with long dreads and a spliff between his lips.

"Oh! My apologies," Jesus said immediately, helping him pick up the bags of what he assumed was oregano off the ground.

"Nah mon, all my fault" he said in a thick Jamaican accent.

"What might your name be?" Jesus asked curiously.

"Bob," he said taking a long drag from his spliff.

"Well hello Robert," Christ smiled, "you wouldn't happen to know where my father is?" The question turned out to be pointless, for, as Jesus turned, God was suddenly there in a puff of funny smelling smoke.

"Jay!"

Down below, and a day later, Jesus and his disciples where conducting miracles in the town of Bethsaida where a line had formed. Numerous lepers, a three-legged dog, and a boy made up the most of the line, but at the end slouched under a tree was an old blind man. His early, rather uninformed childhood, in a pre-Christ sort of way, had been used staring at the sun too much. According to him, he had thought it was God, which, as we all know, is way beyond the real thang. He wanted nothing more than to see the earth as he knew it just once more before he passed from the world he called home.

But the day was getting dark and Jesus knew there was time for only one more miracle.

"Look at that one!" Judas said, mocking a leper and pointing.

"You, my child," the Son of God spoke to the blind man.

"Ohh Jesus Christ!" shouted a leper.

"He's just going to die, I have my whole life ahead of me!" yelled the boy.

"Jesus, why not I?" asked a leper with a peeling, scaly bottom lip curled.

"My child, my heart fills with love when I see you... but don't touch me." Addressing the blind man again he said, "Meet me in the orchard in ten minutes, I must prepare."

"My lord," asked Peter after they had left the congregation, "why heal the blind man when you could have easily cured that poor boy or one of the lepers?"

"Because my friend, lepers scare the bejesus out of me." he said

Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream filled the air. "O-M-G!" Jesus said, "follow me, we haven't a moment to lose!"

"Jinkies!" Peter said. When they reached the orchard the saw the source of the scream. The blind man had been beaten, to DEATH!

"Well gang, looks like we have another mystery on our hands," said Christ.

"He's been beaten," Phillip said, "to DEATH!"

"Thank you Phil, thank you for that brilliant deduction," Jesus sharply replied, somewhat sarcastically. "O.K. gang, let's split up and look for clues."

Jesus, Pete, Matt, and Judas began to scour the area in search for new clues, while the rest of the disciples questioned anyone who might be a witness. The dog and his boy knew nothing, and the lepers denied even being there.

"We left when we realized the 'messiah' wouldn't help any of us, but when we heard that wretched scream we rushed back."

"Helloa!" Jesus exclaimed, "What's this?" Jesus, looking up, noticed a branch had been broken off one of the tall orchard trees, then looking around, noticed a dirt pile.

"Hmm, my woodworking sense is tingling." Digging though the pile of dirt he unearthed a rather large branch, roughly a meter in length, which was cracked and stained with blood at the top.

"Wow! Lemme see," pleaded Judas. He took it and began swinging it like a baseball bat. "Yeah! It's got a nice feel to it."

"Yes, yes now put it down, it's evidence!" Jesus scolded. Judas did as he has told but began sneering at Jesus while doing so.

"Aww, Goddamn! What the hell!?!" exclaimed Judas.

"What is it brother?" asked Bart.

"There's some kind of shit on my hand," he returned rubbing his hands on James' shirt.

"No wait! That's myrrh!" shouted James.

Judas licked his fingers, "It is!"

"Where on earth did you find myrrh?" questioned James.

"I don't know, but I want more," he said as he rubbed his finger briskly on his gums.

James examined the branch more closelier. The top of the branch had blood and hair on it but the bottom was covered in an ointment that Judas was trying to fit into a syringe.

"There's only two places in town you can get myrrh as pure as that is, Samson's and Amos', but which do we go to first?" said an apostle who we really don't need to name as you won't remember in a second anyway.

There was a silence and a cool breeze blew past over Jesus and the disciples. It almost seemed to whisper, "Samson, ya foo's."

Jesus smiled at his students. They ambled companionably toward Samson's market.

Samson was a tall burley man with long, straight hair, as black as a dessert's night. As they approached, Samson yelled, "Get outta here ya dirty, thieving Jews!"

"What do you mean, thieving?" Jesus called.

"Just what I said! Dirty. Thieving. JEWS!"

The disciples voices mingled together, "How dare you! We are not thieves!"

Jesus stopped the arguing, "Calm yourselves children! We are all the same through the shutter shades of the Lord!"

The shopkeeper, upon looking closely at Christ, exclaimed disdainfully, "Oh, you're that prophet."

"Yes, and you're that shop keep who is going to tell me why we deserved such a warm welcome," the Son of God said with a gleam of anger in his eye.

"Well, it's just that the last Israelite what came by here took two cases of ointment from my shelves."

"What sort of ointment?"

"Myrrh."

"Ah-ha! What did he look like?"

"Well I couldn't out right say cause he had a cloak on over 'is head, but I'll tell you he smelled like a dead camel that'd been out in the sun a tad too long."

"Dromedary or Bactrian?" Peter asked curiously.

"Oh Bactrian of course."

"Hmm so we have an Asian-offender or so it would seem, ah?" Jesus said.

"I would suppose if he is in fact from Bactria." Peter replied.

"Yeah okay, so are you going to buy anything or not?"

"No, my good sir. Thank you for your assistance."

"Psh, yeah, yeah." The man stomped off mumbling.

As they walked away a loud cry for help rang out in the distance, "Christ, come back quick! There he is, he's back!"

Jesus turned around and sprang into action. Diving through stands, darting through groups of people, and weaving between carts, he had found his man at last. Just as the hooded figure turned a corner, a herd of cattle began down the alley halting Jesus' progress. He ran back down the alley and dove into a side doorway, narrowly avoiding being trampled.

"Damn," he muttered.

He walked back to the disciples padding the dirt and dust off of his trench coat. "My lord, what happened," asked one of the disciples.

"Don't ask. I lost him. Looks like we're back at square one," Christ said disappointedly.

"Not quite," spoke Tom, "I mean look, how many Asian or Indian people could be staying here of all places."

"Why in my father's name you're right!" The glimmer of joy returned in his face, the glimmer only the chase could bring about. After asking around they came to no further insight, so they decided to spend the night at James's and John's parents house, as they lived near the area.

"Oy vey! Get in here young man or you'll catch cold, and freeze off your kishkas!" shrieked John's mother. "Why couldn't you have been a doctor like your brother Robert, now there's a son! You two just go off on your little, pardon me if I say it, homosexual adventures."

The little woman bustled about her kitchen and occasionally pinched her son's cheeks. "My yutzi little boys!"

. Despite the insistence from Mrs. Salome that they eat something, the disciples soon went to bed.

As they slept, Jesus went to the back of the house in the garden and prayed. Suddenly a tree in the yard burst into a bright blue flame, which after a moment became a swirling tie-dye.

"What's crackin' son?"

"Oh Father, it's this new case, it has me at my wit's end."

"Hey keep cool my baby, don't be cryin' like a little bitch! Check it, I was chillin' with David, you know him, the blind dude"

"Wait, you talked to him? In Heaven?"

"We wuz just chillin,' I swear! You got nothing on me ya po'po'!" God stopped, and took a breath. "Anyway he said…"

"Did he see who killed him?

"Goddamn man I'm talkin' shee-it,"

"Sorry.... S'alright?" Christ asked anxiously.

"S'alright, anyway as I was sayin' before I was interrupted, course he didn't see him, but he did hear them, he said it aint' one killa."

"More than one?"

"S'what I said, mo' than one. Hells yeah he said he had a weird as hells accent too"

"Yes, we think he, or they are from Bactria."

"That would explain the smell, but what about the ointment?" After a moment of silence Jesus burst out, "Oh Father! I've got it!!! Thank you! I'll tell mother you said hello!" Jesus said rushing away.

"Yee-uh! I tell the hos you said wassup! Just you make sure yo step-daddy keeps his hands off my boo! Ya hear!?"

The un-burning fire slowly faded to ghostly blue cinders, then the tree was left unburned and unmarked save a new carving that read,

'YAWEH WUZ HERE.'

Jesus and the apostles returned to Bethsaida, where the whole mess began. They approached a Roman soldier kicking a begging peasant and asked him to follow them.

"Ul'right, guv'nah!" he agreed.

They approached the small dog and the crippled boy. "Lord, what are we doing here?"

"Shh my child, it's O.K." the s.o.g. approached the child, touched his head and told him to rise. With eyes on Jesus, he stood up. His crutches dropped to the dirt and tears of joy ran down his face. Jesus simply smiled.

"Look at your dog," he said. The dog now had all four limbs and was wagging his tail and licking Jesus' hand.

"Jesus!" shouted the soldier.

"Oh that was nothing my child. This is where the fun begins!" He rubbed his palms together and very nearly created fire, almost.

As the 14 men approached a hill Jesus told them all to duck down and to be very quiet. Over the hill sounds of arguing and fighting could vaguely be heard.

"I told you not to!" one yelled.

"Yeah but you were the one who stole the myrrh!" shouted another.

"At least we're not killers like you three are!"

"Yeah but you helped cover it up, you're just as guilty!"

The shouts were getting louder by the minute. Jesus leaned over and whispered to the apostles and the soldiers.

"One, two," Jesus intoned, "THREE!"

Coming down the hill, they saw five men in robes standing in a circle. They were quickly overwhelmed by the hoard of followers yelling and running down the hill.

"Officer," Jesus said proudly, "arrest these men!"

"But on what charge?" he said.

"For the willful murder of David the blind man!" he replied.

"But who are they?" Drew asked.

"Don't you recognize them?" Jesus returned as he removed the hoods from their heads.

"Jinkies!" cried Peter, "It's the lepers!"

"Eww I touched one!" Judas shouted.

"These three men murdered the blind man yesterday. This man robbed Samson of his ointment, and this one tried to do the same the next day when the first was used up." Christ explained.

"But why?" asked the soldier.

"Because they thought they were more worthy of my healing touch than David was, so they thought if they killed him, I'd surely heal them, not knowing that I would have healed everyone, such is the will of our heavenly father."

"Why myrrh?" asked Simon.

"They're lepers. The myrrh was helping them and their skin, did little though if you ask me," Jesus said, "Ughh! Now I think we all need a good long bath!"

"Hahahaha!" they all laughed.

"Righ don't get it," Spot said confused.

Yes, all in another days work for…

JESUS P.I.