The Jesus Twin, Page 2

"Look."

  "Matthew, is that Madonna?"

  "Yes, circa 1995. Look at the resolution on her nipple spikes? Have you ever seen clarity like that?"

  "Can't say I have."

  "I'm telling you, Margy, there is nothing like this Mac Book," Matt said as he took back control of the amazing laptop. "You can see the seams on a moving curveball, you could even count the hairs on Abe Vigoda's nose."

  "Abe Vigoda?"

  "The guy from Barney Frank, Sal Tessio in The GodFather."

  "Did he have a hairy nose?"

  "Yes, very."

  "I see."

  "And you know what else my new Mac is awesome for?"

  "What, dare I ask?"

  Matt smiled and then handed the laptop back to Margaret.

  "Displaying ancient text."

  Margaret looked at the Retina display and then screamed.

  "Oh my God, Matthew. Thank you so much! Is it the three jars?"

  "It's Jar one. The other two are in the works."

  "Oh my God, Matt. I can never thank you enough."

  "Well."

  "Well what?"

  "Well, read the Goddamn thing. I'm dying to hear what it says."

  Margaret composed herself. "Okay, okay. Let's give it a look."

  Margaret was the world's leading expert in deciphering Samarian scrolls, so she effortlessly began reading the virtual papyrus, taking liberties where needed to fulfill the translation without ever changing the scroll's original intent.

  "Okay, here goes nothing," Margaret said.

  "Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?" Dad yelled.

  Matthew's eyes bulged. "Jesus Christ?"

  "Yes, Matt. It says 'Jesus Christ.'''

  "Unbelievable."

  "It is," Margaret said.

  "Keep reading!"

  "Okay. Okay…"

  As usual I interceded.

  "Come on, Dad," I said.

  Dad turned and looked at me. He was pissed.

  "Shut up, Jessup! I'm talking to your brother."

  "Jesus, you call this thing a chair?" Dad screamed as he held Jesus' latest attempt at carpentry in the air.

  "Sorry, Dad," Jesus meekly replied.

  "Sorry, sorry, sorry," Dad screamed, each word louder than its predecessor. "Sorry does not pay the bills!"

  "I'll do better next time, Dad," Jesus calmly said, having often been the subject of Dad's tirades.

  "Matthew, is this some sort of practical joke?"

  "Margy, on my mother's grave. This document came from the papyrus dust you gave me. We have the proof."

  "Matthew, this is astounding."

  "It is," Matthew said. "Keep reading, Margy!"

  "Goddamnit, Jesus, every leg is a different length. How is somebody supposed to sit down on this fucking thing?" Dad yelled as he parked his ass on Jesus' chair and rocked back and forth.

  "Sorry, Dad, I'm just not a carpenter," Jesus replied.

  Dad coughed.

  "Not a carpenter," Dad screamed. "I am a carpenter. My father was a carpenter, and his father was a carpenter. So, Jesus Christ! You're a carpenter!"

  "Okay, Dad," Jesus said. "I'm a carpenter."

  Dad collected himself for a moment.

  Our family was poor. We could not afford to make bad chairs. Dad was stressed out. A couple minutes passed before Dad spoke again.

  "Jesus," Dad said, no longer mad. "Get over here."

  Jesus walked over to Dad. Dad smiled.

  "I love you, kid," Dad said as he patted Jesus on his head, matting his long brown hair.

  Jesus smiled. "I love you too, Dad."

  Jesus smiled again. Nobody smiled like my brother, Jesus. His happiness was infectious.

  Dad turned to me. "Jessup, fix your brother's chair."

  "Will do," I replied.

  I was a carpenter.

  Jesus ran up to me and gave me a hug.

  "I love you, bro," Jesus said. He then tapped his heart with two forefingers and pointed at me.

  I smiled.

  "I love you too, Jesus," I said, and I did.

  To the best of my recollection, Jesus was sixteen when Dad finally gave up on him. He had just made a baby cradle that would flip over with the slightest push.

  Mom had a way of keeping Dad calm. She said carpentry simply was not Jesus' calling.

  "Jesus is special," Mom said. "He is destined to do great things."

  "Great things," Dad would reply. "How is Jesus going to do great things when he can't even make a chair?"

  "Jesus can read, write, and he has the gift of gab. Give him time," Mom would say, so Dad did.

  Years went by; we worked, and Jesus slacked. At twenty-eight years old, Jesus was still living in the family hut with my mother and father. He never held a job for more than a month. Usually he was fired for incompetency, but most often he was let go because he could not keep his damn mouth shut. My brother Jesus was, above all, a storyteller. Frankly, he was one pathetic dude.

  I suppose at this point in my narrative it would be proper to introduce myself. My name is Jessup, and yes, I am the younger brother of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

  Matthew was mesmerized.

  "Is that it, Margy?"

  "Yes," she replied.

  There was a moment of silence.

  "Matthew, this is crazy.

  "What do you mean, crazy? This is the greatest discovery in the history of mankind."

  "Maybe," said Margaret.

  "Maybe, phooey," Matthew said as he jumped to his feet while grabbing the laptop from Margaret Theoshasky.

  "Where are you going, Matthew?"

  "Margy, where do you think I'm going? I have to decode jar two!"

  For the next three months, Margaret's contact with Matthew was limited to a daily text message, which usually said something like "getting there!" Finally, one evening, about three a.m., Margaret's cell phone rang. It was on her nightstand, per Matthew's instruction.

  "Margy, it's me, Matt! Jar two is done. Where can I meet you?"

  "Matthew, what'dya say we catch breakfast tomorrow."

  "Breakfast? Margy, you gotta be fucking kidding me. This can't wait until breakfast. Jar two has been rendered. We have text. I'm coming over."

  "Matty, don't speed!"

  Margaret lived twenty miles from campus. Matthew arrived at her door in fifteen minutes.

  "Matthew, you look like hell. You haven't been getting enough sleep. I'm worried about you."

  "Margy, don't worry about me. I'm fine. Jar two has been rendered. Let's have at it!"

  Margaret yawned and then led Matthew to her kitchen table where she began reading…

  In my day, only a few people in Nazareth knew how to read or write. History was kept by carving symbols into rocks using rocks. It was tedious work, so only important events were recorded. My birthday did not qualify. Consequently, I don't know exactly when I was born. I'm old now, so my memory is poor, but I distinctly recall being a head shorter than Jesus when we were kids, so I figure he was two years older than me.

  By the time I had a beard, I looked just like my brother. There were differences, but you had to be sharp to notice them. I was an inch taller than Jesus, and Jesus had a deeper voice, but I could run faster. I also had a one-inch scar on my left cheek. (When I was a young boy, I stabbed myself in the face while repairing a fishnet.) We both had brown eyes and wavy, long, dirty-blond hair. We were thin from subsisting on figs and fish. We both had scraggly beards, and although poor, we both walked like we owned the world. Consequently, growing up I was often called Jesus, and Jesus was often called Jessup. It was a mistake we both instantly, and emphatically, corrected. Because Jesus was prone to exaggeration, he would say that we were polar opposites, "the two most different people in the world." Whereas, I would simply say, we were "not alike."

  "Hmmm," Margaret said. "The next section is difficult. In ancient Nazareth, there was no way to classify a personality because terms like 'laid back' and 'type A' had not been inv
ented yet. Instead, people used simple singular words to describe a person, place, or thing. In this passage, Jessup is saying Nazarenes called him 'the realist,' and Jesus, 'the dreamer.'"

  "Wow!" Matthew said. "Keep reading! Keep reading!"

  "Your wish is my command, professor."

  Despite our differences, Jesus and I never fought when we were kids. In fact, Jesus never fought with anyone. Jesus lived to be loved. Mom called him a "people person." I think this meant that Jesus was good with names and faces, which was true. Jesus remembered everyone he ever met. He could connect any two people with a half dozen friends after a couple minutes of introductory chatter. Jesus had quite a memory, too. And I must admit he was super smart. I always thought Jesus would be a politician, a leader of men, but I guess he had other plans…

  I have to say, despite his many shortcomings, it was impossible to get mad at Jesus. He was way too loveable. I'll never forget the time my dad and I framed a bath for a Roman captain. We were given three days to complete the task or face the whip. Jesus was supposed to fetch our water and sharpen our tools, but he never showed up. We worked sixteen-hour days in one-hundred-degree heat, carving beams out of logs. During the ordeal, we constantly spoke of killing Jesus, but when we returned home, my older brother ran up to us, then hugged us like he was a child. Jesus' happiness was so pure that we instantly forgave his transgression. He then insisted on washing our feet while he heaped praise on us for being such good providers. It wasn't an act. Jesus loved us unconditionally, and we loved him too.

  Later, Jesus told us he was busy reading, so he forgot about the job. We knew he was telling the truth because Jesus never lied. Ultimately, Dad and I laughed off the incident, as we always did. "Oh that Jesus Christ," we would say. "Oh that fucking Jesus Christ!" To be honest, our good humor toward my incompetent and lazy-ass brother was mostly forced, for both Dad and I knew getting even with Jesus was not an option because my mother protected him.

  "Mary?" Matthew asked.

  "Yes, Matt. He's talking about Mary, the mother of God."

  "Virgin Mary?"

  "One and the same."

  "Shall I continue."

  Matthew grinned. "Please do."

  My mother was great. She always took good care of me, and I knew I was loved, but without a doubt, Jesus was her favorite son. I'm not telling you this because I am jealous. I'm just stating a fact.

  It would be an understatement to say Mom and Jesus were tight. They had a way of communicating without talking that neither my Dad nor I ever understood. It was like they could read each other's minds. Sometimes they'd exchange glances then laugh for no apparent reason. It was spooky.

  To Mom, Jesus could do no wrong. When he got fired from a job, she'd blamed the boss. When he got kicked out of Temple for talking too much, she'd blame the Rabbi.

  Mom was not bothered in the least that Jesus was an unemployed fuck-up. For some inexplicable reason, Mom considered Jesus too great to work. She was once told me he was a "prince" among men.

  Religion was the other area where Jesus and I parted company. I attended the supposedly critical annual religious ceremonies, but like most Nazarenes my priority was to make enough money to buy fish and bread while trying to avoid Roman beatings. I had little time to attend Temple. The last thing I wanted to do was to walk half a day so I could listen to some grey-bearded rabbi talk about Moses or lecture me about the evilness of ham—as if I could afford a pig. Jesus, on the other hand, thrived on the religious shit; he loved reading scriptures and then "interpreting" their meaning for any fool that would listen.

  I had been married, had two kids, and buried my entire family by the time Jesus finally left the hut for good. He departed to form a "Messiah" band. He said it was "his calling." My best guess is he was thirty-one years old at the time.

  In Nazareth, during our day, the religious types had convinced themselves, for reasons only they understood, that a savior was living in their midst. They believed a supernatural person had been sent by God to lead the Jews in forming a Roman-free kingdom. It was complete nonsense.

  There were at least ten competing Messiahs in Nazareth alone when Jesus started his band. I never followed his rise, but occasionally, my mother would travel to meet Jesus in some Godforsaken town to observe his good "work." Upon returning, Mom would gush about how well my brother was doing. She reported that Jesus had a large group of followers that fed and clothed him in exchange for spiritual guidance. I was happy for my brother. It sounded like he had finally found the perfect job.

  Approximately two years after leaving home, Mom got word that Jesus was in trouble. It appeared the Romans had nabbed him for disturbing the peace. It was never a good thing to disturb Romans. In general, regardless of the crime, the Romans either beat you silly or killed you. And they weren't into quick executions; they liked to drag it out to make an example of you. This meant they either nailed you to a cross or fed you to a lion that might gnaw on your limbs for days, having just eaten a family of five.

  "This is incredible. " Matthew injected.

  "This story is hard to believe," Margaret said before reading on.

  It appeared Jesus had pissed off some of the Temple's uppity-ups by claiming he was the "Son of God," while at the same time, more or less, referring to them as a bunch of incompetent douche bags. It was the type of tit-for-tat stuff that people without jobs do. I thought it was unlike my brother to cause such a row, but Mom told me Jesus had changed since becoming the Messiah and could no longer tolerate fools lightly.

  Unfortunately, once every few months, the Romans would let the Temple's big shots execute somebody that was bothering them. The practice was designed to make our powerless leaders feel important and unoppressed. Mom told me Jesus was officially condemned for blasphemy. But she said the real reason Pontius Pilate ordered Jesus' death was to appease a bunch of whiny rabbis who were insanely jealous of my erudite brother.

  Death by Roman was a grim thing, and they did not go easy on Jesus. First, they made my carpentry-impaired brother build a cross. He was then forced to carry the cross through the streets of Jerusalem, where people spit on him and called him names. My brother was then stripped and beaten before being nailed to his cross, which was planted high on a hillside, so his distinctly non-Messiah-like state could be appreciated by the gratefully alive masses. By the time my brother died, I heard even his most loyal followers had abandoned him. In my experience, impending death has an undeniable momentum; it turns normally kind people into frightened pigs.

  Luckily, I missed my brother's crucifixion. I arrived in Jerusalem the day after his death to retrieve my mother. When I found Mom, she was inconsolable. Sadly, she had witnessed the whole tragic event. Mom was too weak to travel, so we retreated to an inn a mile outside Jerusalem, where my mother wept herself to sleep.

  Margaret looked up to Matthew. "That's Jar two. I don't know what to think."

  "What do you mean? This is awesome!" Matthew gushed. "I gotta go."

  "Jar three?"

  "What else?" Matthew said.

  "Matthew, please stop and have some breakfast. And promise me you'll get some sleep. You look terrible."

  "Terrible scherrible," Matthew said. "Margy, this is the greatest discovery in the history of mankind. Who cares if I eat or sleep?"

  "I do, Matthew. Promise me you'll stop and get a donut, and then get some rest."

  "I will, Margy," Matthew said, fingers crossed. "I promise."

  The third jar contained four hundred grams of papyrus fragments. But, having perfected his reassembly algorithms, its conversion to readable Samarian text took less than two months. This time when Matthew called, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. So Margaret rushed to Matthew's imaging lab to do her reading.

  "Matthew, my God. You've lost fifty pounds. You look like a Kenyan marathoner."

  "It doesn't matter, babe. There's plenty of time to get fat again. The Mac Book is waiting. Have at it!"

  "Matt?"

  "Y
es, Margy?"

  "I love you."

  "Of course you do," Matthew said. "The Mac."

  "Do I have time to take off my coat?"

  Matthew grinned. "If you have to."

  "Oh my God, Matthew. The resolution is even higher. This image is fantastic."

  "Nothing but the best for you, Margy my dear," Matthew said. "Dig in."

  Margaret coughed and then began her translation.

  The following morning, the weirdness began. When I awoke, Mom was at my side. She was no longer crying, and she said we had to talk. She had somehow readied my favorite breakfast, white fish and olives. Mom began the conversation by saying, "Jessup, it's just you and me now," my dad having died two years earlier from a combination of tumors and old age. (He was the first guy in our family to reach forty.) After chronicling Jesus' life on the road, a thoroughly amazing story, Mom told me that we were not going to betray Jesus by letting his legacy be overshadowed by his grim death. Then she hit me with the bomb. "Son," Ma said, "Jesus told his followers he was going to rise from the dead, and you and I are going to make them believe he did. It is the least we can do for your dead brother."

  "Ah ha!" Matthew yelled. "The whole Jesus rising from the dead thing is a scam. What did I tell you? We've been duped for two thousand years."

  "Not so fast, my friend." Margaret said. "There are other gospels."

  "But, the other gospels were not written by the brother of Jesus," Matthew proclaimed. "This is the real deal. Please keep translating Margy. Please!"

  "Will do, Matt. Calm down."

  I told Mom I saw no value in tricking a bunch of people about my brother's death.

  "Everybody dies, Mom," I said. "My wife and kids were taken by the fever, and two days after they were gone, nobody cared."

  I could tell Mom respected my opinion, but she had made up her mind, so I did not put up a big fight. I knew, as the now only son, I'd ultimately help Mom execute any plan—even if it was crazy.

  Mom had it all figured out. Since I looked like Jesus, I was to appear to his apostles and claim I had died, gone to heaven, and returned to earth "to forgive the sins of man."

  Crazy shit.

  "They said 'crazy shit' back then?" Matthew asked.

  "The literal translation is 'psychotic fecal matter,'" Margaret said.

  "Crazy shit will do."

  "I thought so. Shall I continue?"

  Matthew smiled.

  "Yes, please do, my dear."

  Mom knew I was shy and had a high-pitched voice. She also knew I lacked the communication skills to pull off an imitation of my loquacious brother. So she told me to explain the dissimilarities by saying the trip to heaven and back caused some transformations, the resurrection being a relatively new and untested process.

  My mom was a clever woman. She had developed quite a plan. First, I was to remove my brother's body from his tomb and then bury him nearby. Mother told me to carefully mark my brother's new grave so we could retrieve his remains at a later date. Ultimately, our plan was to transfer his body to the family tomb outside Nazareth, where he would rest for eternity alongside my dad.

  After moving Jesus, I was to wait outside his tomb until one of his followers stopped by, whereupon I would begin my ruse. Mom was certain a lady named Mary Magdalene would stop by with flowers. When I asked her why she was so confident, Mom said that it was a "woman thing." She then reported that Mary Magdalene displayed intense grief while she stood by her side while my brother suffered on the cross. "Her pain revealed she had a special thing for your older