Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:20:46 +0000
From: Timothy Stillman <menovember@hotmail.com>
Subject: g/m "He Was a Man of Infinite Sorrows"

He Was a Man of Infinite Sorrows
              By
          Tim Stillman

(responses greatly appreciated)



John came to him in the nighttime hours. They lay together, without a word.
He was a man of eloquent silences, this man who would come to be known as
Jesus. He was a man who John the Beloved was named for; predestinator,
passionate profit, this man who was his friend--sharp and firebrand, running
the money lenders out of the temple, lashing the thieves and their dens in
their hatred of him and the guilt of gold in their gilded eyes. There was a
rich world outside Palestine. There were teams that would carry them.
Magnificent steeds that would take them far away from the morrow.

But though John tried to convince this man who was also his lover, Jesus who
would come to be named so many things, not all of them kindly, only shook
his head no, twice. And the sounds of the night were the bleats of the herds
of sheep and cattle. And the sounds of the night were heat come forecasting,
heat come to lay them in sweaty embrace on John's pallet. He could not bear
to see his friend go, for what would John do without him? There was only a
hole of emptiness in his heart now and he touched his love on the chest and
on the tips, fingertips that the Master kissed one at a time.

Jesus seemed weak now. His voice was slight and rasping when before it had
been full and deeply bodied. He seemed even to shrink physically. As though
he were un-aging. As though he was turning from age 33 backwards to boyhood
and the days and the nights where he was lost to the lands of his secrets
where he would tell no one of the adventures there. John touched Jesus'
penis and found it flaccid. He touched the hood at the tip. Jesus pushed his
hand away--gently.

"I can't stand to see you go through with it, my Lord," John said, not
daring to look at the face with the fine black beard and the obsidian eyes
and the dark skin that looked like the color of sable in the harsh punishing
light of this land. "Not this way. Not to go through it at all. Please,
there is more than time enough to leave."

"You mean to run away..." Jesus' voice should have been accusatory, but it was
just far away and hollow instead. Oh Jesus, John thought, do something, hit
me, scream at me, do something to hurt me so I will not pine away with your
going. How can I stand to see you up there and broken boned and servile and
a common thief thus displayed--

Jesus said, "Bring me some wine."

John heaved himself up wearily and brought his love wine.

Jesus drank of it deeply and in two gulps was finished with the cup, which
he handed back to John. John took it and held it dearly for his beloved had
touched it.

Jesus remained sitting now and he looked at the night, the final one he
would see here. And John believed the final one he would see anywhere. For
John had come to the conclusion his friend was quite mad. This world was too
venal for a God of love. A God of vengeance, yes, a God of wrath and hell
fire, yes...and though Jesus talked much of hell, he also talked of doing good
for your neighbor, and of being kind, and of giving what you have to the
poor and needy. But, John knew, Jesus was deluded, but still lovely.

A body that was, or had been, now it seemed wasting away, corded with
muscles and big bronze hands and strong titan legs, and arms that freely
engulfed everyone, man, woman, child, animals Jesus loved as well. When
Jesus was around, there were his friends, there were his sycophants, the
ones who loved to drop his name, the ones who loved to be seen with him, but
no disciples here tonight, no memories but the Last Supper, which had been
like a death knell.

"They don't care about you, my Lord; else why would there not be your
servants here to carry you to safety? They only wanted things of you. They
wanted to see you do your magic. To hear your words. To be around you. Now,
they say, I have heard them, that your life is worthless and they have used
you up and there is no more need..."

Jesus laughed, hollowly, like a teenage boy, who is quite frightened, but
still willing to go through the fear for the order of a greater truth to
come.

"Judas values me--values at least my death---"

John laid his head in Jesus' lap and touched him and tried to interest his
friend, but it was not possible for either of them.

Jesus stroked John the Beloved's head, held John's thick hair in his
fingers, shushed through the hair, and said, "Well, he values my death...or
someone does...20 pieces of silver--I am worth something at long last in
currency. 20 pieces of silver."

John placed Jesus' hand on his lips and kissed them, and tasted endless
night of never forgetting, of remembering over and over, of reliving it like
having a painful sore that you try getting over by imagining it never
existed, or trying to go back before it happened and make it never happen
again.

"Judas is my love," Jesus said, faintly, but with some of his old force in
it.

The lay of the land was hilly and grassy and the moon was full. The sounds
of animals lowing in the background, over some distance, desultory word
fragments and blossoms of sheep tenders having trouble falling asleep that
night.

"What?" John asked in stunned surprise.

Jesus nodded, once.  "Yes, it is he I am doing this for."

John pulled away and the two naked men sat and looked at each other.

"I can't believe--"John started...his eyes wet with tears.

"It's always been for Judas," Jesus said, his shoulders dipping and his
lungs taking in big breaths for the time he would not be allowed to take
more breaths ever. "Even before Judas, it was for him. It was for--an--image
of him--before I met him--and then when I did--it was everything--we slept
together, we had love together, we did things I had no idea man could do
with man...."

John suddenly furious, jumped to his feet and shouted out, "And me? What of
me?"

Jesus then did something in the moonlight and starlight burning bright in
this wilderness, he smiled cruelly. John froze and then turned his back on
him.

"He is going to have you crucified tomorrow, Jesus. He hates you."

"I know," Jesus said, "that is the whole point."

There was silence. The night was exhaustively hot. There were suddenly no
sounds. John turned round and put on his robe. Before it was on all the way,
he asked Jesus, "did this mean nothing?" Jesus shook his head, "No, it's
Judas I loved. That's the secret, you see, John" and some of the old
forcefulness was returned. "I never cared for man as Man. I never wanted to
do anything but be liked and popular and to be loved and to be admired. I
came to it naturally. And then, Judas, and he was the only man for me, ever.

"You, John, were kind of a--" Jesus fumbled with his hands, looking for the
word, "a disguise. To keep Judas safe."

"Safe?" John was rushing to the naked Jesus at this point and wanting to hit
him but instead crushed him in a massive embrace.

"Because he was paid to kill me. That meant it would work. That meant my
mission will be fulfilled."

"And what of your damned true love after you die?"

Jesus smiled and pulled away from John, and pulled on his own robe, sliding
over his genitals at the last chance, slowly, so it could pain John even
more, the absence forever.

"He, Judas, will be crucified upside down. He will have his blood let as
though he were a stuck pig." And here Jesus laughed. He roared with
laughter. It was the old full bodied laughter he had when he picked up a
child in his corded but so very gentle loving arms and made that child feel
he was the most special being in the world when Jesus was holding him.

But it was--a gimmick? A forgery of life? Jesus imagined Judas slaughtered,
and all of us believing in Jesus as the son of the Most High--and John was
suddenly struck by the odd fact that because of all of this revelation or in
spite of it, he believed it too, exactly now that Jesus said it was a lie.
And John knew he would never know.

He had one last question to ask his love who had used him as a lie, a
puppet---

"Jesus, did you make a mockery of everyone and everything? Was it all a lie
and were you laughing at all of us when we were not looking?"

There was a hint of vague light in the sky, beginning shadow purple traces
of upcoming sunlight on this the day Jesus would be turned in and crucified.
All politics and no one wishing to take the blame--just    in    case.

Jesus, fully dressed, went to John and put a hand to his shoulder.

"You figure it out," Jesus whispered, that same kind of whisper that he made
when they were at the apex of making love. A sound John cherished now no
longer. There was no place to hide now. Jesus had taken care of that. You
have stolen my soul, Jesus, he thought. Then, or has there ever been a soul
to steal?

John pushed Jesus' small withered now hand away, Jesus' body trying to
escape the morrow as much as it could. And John walked angrily away. Jesus
saying to him, "Can you be at the festivities tomorrow? Everyone's coming."

John did not turn around. He spat as he kept walking.

Jesus watched him go. There were tears beaded in Jesus' eyes.

And the whisper on his lips was the sound of the loneliest wind ever created
as Jesus said, "Goodbye John the Beloved, my true friend. I hope you will
hurt less now. I deeply hope so."