I patted my pockets as if I carried such items all the time and shook my head. I turned to glance at the Reverend, who with a burst of invective scuttled behind the throne and shoved some red wine at me.
J. C. lunged, but I grabbed and held it as lure. This way. Then the cork comes out.
You would dare talk to Christ like that!
You would dare to be Christ!? cried the Reverend. J. C. reared back. I do not dare, sir. I am.
He arose with a jaunty attempt at hauteur, and fell down the steps. The Reverend groaned, as if murder moved his heart to move his fists.
I got J. C. up and, waving the bottle, led him safely up the aisle and out.
The cab was still there. Before getting in, J. C. turned to see the Reverend in the doorway, his face blazing with hatred.
J. C. held up both crimson paws. Sanctuary! Yes? Sanctuary?
Hell, sir, shouted the Reverend, would not have you! Slam!
Inside the temple I imagined a thousand angel wings, knocked free, sifting down the now unholy air.
J. C. stumbled into the cab, grabbed the wine, then leaned forward to whisper to the cab driver.
Gethsemane!
We drove away. The driver glanced at his map book with one eye. Gethsemane, he muttered. Is that street? avenue? or place?
Even the cross isnt safe, even the cross isnt safe, anymore, mumbled J. C. crossing town, his eyes fixed to his wounded wrists as if he couldnt believe they were attached to his arms. Whats the world coming to? J. C. peered out the cab window at the flowing houses.
Was Christ manic-depressive? Like me?
No, I said lamely, not nuts. But youre in the bowl with the almonds and the cashews. What made you go there?
I was being chased. Theyre after me. I am the Light of the World. But he said this last with heavy irony. Christ, I wish I didnt know so much.
Tell me. Fess up.
Then theyd chase you, too! Clarence, he murmured. He didnt run fast enough, either, did he?
I knew Clarence, too, I said. Years ago
That scared J. C. even more. Dont tell anyone! They wont hear it from me.
J. C. drank half the wine bottle at a chug, then winked and said, Mums the word.
No, sir, J. C.! You got to tell me, just in case
I dont live beyond tonight? I wontl But I dont want both of us dead. Youre a sweet jerkoff. Come unto me, little children, and, by God, you show up!
He drank and wiped the smile off his face.
We stopped along the way. J. C. fought to leap out to buy gin. I threatened to hit him and bought it myself.
The taxi sailed into the studio and slowed near my grandparents house.
Why, said J. C., that looks like the Central Avenue Negro Baptist Church! I cant go in there! Im not black or Baptist. Just Christ, and a Jew! Tell him where to go!
The taxi stopped at Calvary at sunset. J. C. looked up at his old familiar roost. Is that the true cross? He shrugged. Just about as much as Im the true Jesus.
I stared at the cross. You cant hide there, J. C. Everyone knows thats where you go, now. We got to find a really secret place for you to stay in case theres a call for retakes.
You dont understand, said J. C. Heaven is shut and so is Hell. Theyd find me in a rathole or up a hippos behind. Calvary, plus wine, is the only place. Now, get your foot off my toga.
He put the rest of the wine down his cackle, then moved out and up the hill.
Thank God, Ive finished all my major scenes, said J. C. Its all over, son. J. C. took my hands in his. He was immensely calm now, having veered from the heights to the depths and now steadied somewhere between. I shouldnt have run away. And you shouldnt be seen here talking to me. Theyll bring extra hammers and nails and youll play the second extra thief on my left. Or Judas. Theyll bring a rope and suddenly youre Iscariot.
He turned and put his hands on the cross and one foot on the little climbing peg on one side.
One last thing? I said. Do you know the Beast? God, I was there the night he was born!
Born?
Born, dammit, what did it sound like? Explain, J. C., I got to know!
And die for knowing, you sap, said J. C. Why do you want to die? Jesus
saves, yes? But if Im Jesus and Im lost, youre all lost! Look at Clarence, the poor bastard. The guys that got him are running scared. And, scared, they panic and when they panic they hate. You know anything about real hatred, junior? This is it, no amateur nights, no time off for good behavior. Someone says kill and its kill. And you wander around with your stupid naive notions about people. God, you wouldnt know a real whore if she bit you or a real killer if he knifed you. Youd die, and dying, say: oh, thats what its like, but its too late. So listen to old Jesus, fool.
A convenient fool, a useful idiot. Thats what Lenin said.
Lenin!? You see! At a time like this, when Im screaming: Theres Niagara Falls! wheres your barrel!? you jump off the cliff with no parachute. Lenin!? gah! Which way to the madhouse?
J. C. trembled as he finished the wine. Useful, he swallowed, idiot.
Now, listen, he said, for it was hitting him now. I wont tell you again. If you stay with me, youre squashed. If you knew what I knew, theyd bury you in ten different graves across the wall. Cut you up in neat sections, one to a plot. If your mom and dad were alive, theyd burn them. And your wife
I grabbed my elbows. J. C. pulled back.
Sorry. But you are vulnerable. God, Im still sober. I said nulverable. Your wife is back when?
Soon.
And it was like a funeral gong sounding at high noon. Soon.
Then hear the last book of Job. Its over. They wont stop until they kill everyone. Things got out of hand this week. That body on the wall you saw. It was put there to
Blackmail the studio? I quoted Crumley. They afraid of Arbuthnot, this
late in time?
Scared gutless! Sometimes dead folks in graves have more power than live folks above. Look at Napoleon, dead a hundred and fifty years, still alive in two hundred books! Streets and babies named for him! Lost everything, gained in losing! Hitler? Will be around ten thousand years. Mussolini? Will be hanging upside down in that gas station the rest of our lives! Even Jesus. He studied his stigmata. I havent done bad. But now I got to die again. But Ill be screwed six ways from Sunday if I take a sweet sap like you along. Now, shut up. Is there another bottle?
I displayed the gin.
He grabbed it. Now help me up on my cross and get the hell out! I cant leave you here, J. C.
Theres nowhere else to leave me. He drank most of the pint.
Thatll kill you! I protested.
Its painkiller, kid. When they come to get me, I wont even be here. J. C. began to climb.
I clawed at the worn wood of the cross, then hit it with my fists, my face pointed up.
Dammit, J. C. Hell! If this is your last night on earthare you clean! He slowed in his climb. What?
It exploded from my mouth: When did you last confess!? When, when? His head jerked from south to north so his face was toward the cemetery
wall and beyond.
I surprised myself: Where? Where did you confess?
His face was fixed rigidly, hypnotically, to the north, which made me leap to scramble up, seizing the climb pegs, groping with my feet.
What are you doing? J. C. shouted. This is my place!
Not anymore, there, there, and here!
I swung around behind him so he had to turn to yell: Get down! Where did you confess, J. C.?
He was staring at me but his eyes slid north. I swiveled my gaze to fix it along the great stretch of crossbar where an arm and a wrist and a hand could be spiked.
God, yes! I said.
For, lined up as in a rifles sight was the wall, and the place on the wall where the wax and papier-mache dummy had been hoisted in place, and, further on across a stone meadow, the facade and the waiting doors of St. Sebastians church!
Yes! I gasped. Thanks, J. C. Get down!
I am. And I took my eyes away from the wall but not before I saw his face turn once again to the country of the dead and the church beyond.
I descended.
Where you going!? said J. C. Where I shouldve gone days ago
You stupid jerk. Stay away from that church! Its not safe! A church not safe? I stopped going down and looked up.
Not that church, no! Its across from the graveyard and, late nights, open for any damn fool who drops in!
He drops in there, doesnt he? He?
Hell. I shivered. Before he goes in the graveyard nights, he first goes to confession, yes?
Damn you! shrieked J. C. Now you are lost! He shut his eyes, groaned, and began the last positioning on the dark pole in the midst of dusk and
coming night. Go ahead! You want terror? You want fright? Go hear a real confession. Hide, and
