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| Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. |
End of the month, end of a sales trip, end of the day, I went to my favorite bar in all of Texas, Jackie’s Cold Day Inn, my last stop before I checked in at the Lazy Bones Motel. Doc Harris and Les were already seated at their usual table in the corner next to the windows facing the street . The Sheriff’s seat was empty. No one else ever sat there. He liked to have a clear view of the street, the front door and the exit in case there was any trouble which there never was.
Wendy saw me come in, waved hi, and held up two fingers, meaning Jack & Coke and a beer chaser. I nodded and took my place at my friends’ table. I heard Jackie at the back door hollering at Rollie to clean up the alley like she’d told him that morning and if he thought he’d get another free beer don’t even ask. She slammed the door and huffed into the store room.
I told Doc Harris I’d never heard Jackie yell at anybody. If she wants your undivided attention all she has to do is set her chin and flash her green laser eyes on full power. Look at her straight on you know your future health depends on doing exactly what she expects you to do. I suspect Rollie is very busy cleaning up right now.
Les said she’s upset because Sheriff Tom had arrested her friend, Judy, and was taking her down to the lockup in Snyder. “I heard she busted up a church or something like that. Tom’s pickin’ her up now. He’ll probly stop in before he heads out to Snyder. Jackie told him she wants a word with him before he goes.”
Jackie came out of the store room, went behind the bar and poured herself a drink. Les waved her over and we made room at the table. A few minutes later Sheriff Tom and Judy came in.
Wendy brought the Sheriff’s drink and a Coke for Judy.
Judy was early to mid 30s; slender, dark hair, dark eyes. She was dressed in jeans and a green plaid shirt, shiny riding boots, a new Stetson set back on her head. Judy was every inch of five feet tall. Everyone said hi and introduced me.
Wendy told me about her once. Judy Butler is a fixture at Billy’s Last Stand. Billy claims that she was already inside the bar the day he opened for business. She loves to dance and isn’t too proud to pull a cowboy out of his chair to dance with her when the Lonesome Foursome get started on San Antonio Rose. According to Billy she can nurse a Lone Star three, four hours. In the meantime, her dance partners keep buying drinks just to sit and listen to her talk. She knows more stories than Sheriff Tom. They say old stories sound new when she tells them. Judy’s never settled on any man for a life partner. The way she looks at it, after a few years a wife and husband stare at each other across the kitchen table to see which one of them is the most boring. So she samples here and there, she’s happy as she is.
Sheriff Tom saw Jackie giving him the stink eye. He raised his hands chest high, palms up and said he’s doing his job like the judge ordered. According to the arrest warrant Judy was charged with inciting a disturbance in a church, stomping on a Sheriff’s hat (after knocking it off his head), and leaving the scene of the crime.
I looked around. Wendy and Jackie smiled admiringly at Judy. Les and Doc Harris looked a little confused. Judy did that?
Jackie aimed her low beam laser eyes at the Sheriff who crossed his arms and said it’s better if Judy tells it.
Judy hesitated then stood up and pointed at Sheriff Tom.
“I don’t remember all of it but this is more ‘r less what happened.
“First of all, the old coot Sheriff they got down there made it sound like I set fire to the church. I know he’s your friend but he’s still an old coot.
“It’s true I stomped his hat but it was on accident. A dozen folks saw it, they’re on my side. And, yeah, I did run out of the church because people were fighting, tossing chairs, and yelling. But I didn’t start no fight.”
Sheriff Tom cleared his throat. “Tell ‘em how the fight started, Judy. Why were you there?”
“Well, I was visitin’ my sister, Deb, and she says come with her to the church social. I said, Deb, you know I don’t do church stuff and she says, it’s just cookies and punch, come on. So I say ok and we go. There’s 30, 40 people there eatin’ cookies, yakking at each other. I get a cookie and some strawberry punch. I don’t know anybody ‘cept for Deb so I got nothin’ to say to anybody. Everything’s fine. I figure hang around half hour then get outa there.
“Then the preacher, Jason something or ‘nother, gets on the microphone and says welcome everyone and starts on Bible readings. He does that for a couple of minutes and stops to look at the people standing around. He sees me and Deb says, ‘She’s my sister, Judy, from Panhandle.’ Well, if you know Deb, she’s Bible thumper like you’ve never seen. She knows every word King James ever put in his Bible. If she gets to heaven King James is gonna run the other way if he sees her coming. She leads Bible studies every Wednesday, rain or shine.
“I guess Jason thought I was the same way but I gotta tell you I’ve been thrown outa three or four churches in my time; not thrown out zactly, just told never to come back. There’s lots of stuff that ain’t in the Bible that nobody thinks to ask. Some folks don’t like it when I ask questions.
“Anyhow, Jason says why don’t I come up and share the Good Word with us, Judy. My sister’s poking me in the ribs, go on, she says. You were the star in Sunday School when we were kids. Jason’s sayin’ come on up, Judy. Everybody’s looking at me and Deb. I say, Deb, you don’t wanna hear what I gotta say but she pushes me in the back. Now I’m mad at Deb for gettin’ me in this fix. You asked for it. I’m ready. I get on the stage and waited for everybody to sit down.
My Grampa gave me a Bible when I was a little girl and I read it twice, three times or more. There were some good stories but the Jesus stories went kinda fast, didn’t say much about women, or what people did on regular days. One Sunday after services, I asked the minister if the Apostles had wives. He said some did. I got to thinking what about the wives and how they lived. I imagined them in the market, grocery shopping.
“Hi, I’m Mrs. St. Peter.”
“Nice ta meecha, I’m Mrs. St. James.”
“From the infirmary?”
“No, from the Red House up the hill at the end of the street. Lotta folks confuse us.”
Well, that was kinda disrespectful, I guess, but I saw people sit up in their chairs, ‘specially the women. I’m pretty sure Jason never told Bible stories this way. I see him in the back stuffing cookies in his pockets, not listening, and he walks out.
At Sunday school they said Jesus picked a dozen guys to follow him around. A couple of them were fishermen, another was a tax collector, and I suppose the others were just common folk like everybody else.
Next, I’m wondering how he organized them. Maybe he calls the first meeting and tells them what each of them what their job is. First thing they’re gonna need is money so he says they have to sell all their stuff and give the money to the guy he appoints as treasurer. Then he says, we’re gonna need food and tells St. Peter and another guy they have to go fishing every day. St. Peter says great, I love fishing every day. It’s like I retired!
Now none of these guys is rich and Jesus knows they’re gonna need more money than they have altogether so he says they have to depend on other people givin ‘em food and a place to sleep while they’re travelin’.
He teaches them how to beg by preachin’ on the street corners. He says, tell ‘em that even though things are bad now, there will be plenty of everything after they die, but for now you need some of their cash to keep your body and soul together while you preach salvation to the rest of the world.
If you do it right, he said, they’ll empty their pockets for you. I’ll show you how. You see, you don’t say exactly what’s in store after they die. All you say is IT’S GONNA BE GREAT. YOU’RE GONNA LUUUUUV IT. Each one listening will work it out in his own mind whatever it is he thinks will make him happy forever. But first, he needs you to help him out. There was a guy I knew in carpenter school who said he’d be happy forever if he could have virgins at his disposal anytime he wanted. I asked how many would make you happy? He said, 30 or 40. His buddy said 72 would be good. Crazy as that sounds, who knows, it could sell sometime in the future; somebody write that down.
After weeks of training they’re ready to put their show on the road. They’ve got their cross-fit sandals on just in case they gotta run away sudden like. Their backpacks are by the door outside Jesus’ house.
They have a going away party, invite the neighbors, set out some barbecue, loaves and fishes, big jugs of water. Judas’ cousin brings his band, Priest, for entertainment. Next morning, they all gather in front of Jesus’ house. The whole family’s there to say goodbye. The women and kids wave as the men set out to the next village.
Mary, Jesus’ mom, turns to her neighbor, Mrs. St. Peter, and says, “They’ll be back a lot sooner than you expect. If I know those boys they don’t know much about taking care of themselves. They’re used to us women doing everything for them; wash and mend their clothes, fix their food, and… you know.” Mrs. St. Peter nodded.
Mrs. St. Peter says, “Hmmph, what are they gonna do for breakfast tomorrow morning? They got money for a couple days eating at the inns but after that they’d better do some mighty preaching to get enough money for 13 Happy Meals, three times a day.”
Some of the women snickered. The men frowned and shifted around in their chairs.
St. Thomas’s live-in girlfriend was there, too. She said he was useless around the house. She couldn’t even send him to the market to get the basics for meals. It took him three hours wandering around the stalls to do what she could do in twenty minutes. And he always got something wrong; three pounds of lentils instead of barley. And forget about the meat. I told him a thousand times that the prepared meat was too expensive but he got it anyway. He’s starting to bug me, too. He questions everything I do. I used to think it was real nice that he was paying attention but now if I say I’m going to see my mother he looks at me like he doesn’t believe me.
Back in Bible times there were lots of preachers wandering around. Maybe there wasn’t enough other work so preaching was a way to stay busy and get some money without working with your hands.
Grampa thought maybe Jesus was that way since he was a child, always telling the other kids how they oughta behave. His dad never taught him how to fight so he got beat up a lot for being so bossy. It really hit the fan when he was about 12 years old. He would go into town and stop people on the sidewalks and preach at them. People usually ignored him but one time he came up to three Pharisees, got in their faces about being hypocrites or something. Anyway, they brought him home, complained to his folks, told ‘em they’d better do something about the boy. They sent him to carpenter school in another town and he quieted down for a few years.
He was fine, helping out at his dad’s shop, got real good at making right angle cuts. But on his time off he’d be off in the desert preaching to the bushes or talking to the hermits that lived in the hills.
I don’t remember when it was but he musta been a grown man, he went to the temple one afternoon and got mad about something and attacked the moneychangers, turning their tables upside down, whipping whoever was nearby. Big riot. The Pharisees weren’t having any of his excuses and they took him before the King but the King let him go, probly because the Pharisees were a bunch of blowhards.
When he came home, Mary tried to explain that there had to be moneychangers because the town was a crossroads for trade from all over the east and they all had different kinds of money. They set up shop at the temple because it was smack in the middle of town and had a big open area with shade. Plus, there was a huge food court there. You could have lunch without having to go home. If you needed something from God there was lambs and other livestock you could buy to offer as sacrifice. Funny thing about that is that you gave the lamb, doves, or whatever to the Pharisees to do the ceremony but you never got to see it. You had to trust them to do it right. Jesus said okay, okay, Mom, but I don’t think she got through to him.
Grandpa had other ideas that he said flat out weren’t in the Bible. He said he thought about it a lot that Jesus and the Apostles traveled all over by themselves and he didn’t think that was the way things happened. In his way of thinking, the Apostles traveled with their families because it didn’t make sense to leave the women and kids at home without money coming in. And they needed the women and kids for cooking and cleaning, minding the flocks, milking the goats; all kinds of stuff a normal Jewish household had to do every day.
In those days there were two kinds of women – super holy or super bad. Mary and her mom were good ones, doing a happy dance when Mary said she was pregnant with Jesus. Another good one was a widow who donated her last thin dime to the temple and all the time there’s the Pharisees makin’ fun of her.
Some folks think one of the bad ones was Mary Magdalene who nobody knows for sure what she, being single, was doing traveling with a dozen men. And there was a bad woman accused of sleeping around. It’s true, Jesus saved her from being stoned to death but it made the Pharisees look bad. Eventually that kind of stuff got him killed.
By now everybody’s listening hard. I could tell it was a good story. Leaning forward in their chairs nobody even coughed. They were probly used to Jason spending half the service tellin’ ‘em about goin’ to heaven then the other half sayin’ how bad they were, makin’ the Baby Jesus cry every minute of the damn day.
I was gonna say some more when some old fart stood up and yelled “Out, Jezebel! Get out Jezebel!” But when he stood up, he knocked his chair into the man behind him who pushed him hard so he fell into the row in front. Just like that you got men throwing punches and chairs, women gettin’ away fast. Me, I’m headin’ for the door, Deb can take care of herself. I bump into the Sheriff as he’s rushin’ in, his hat falls off and I kick it with one boot and step on it with the other and I’m gone. And now, here I am.
Honest, I’m kinda scared. The Sheriff’s upset about his hat. Deb says I committed the sin of blasphemy and my soul’s possessed by a demon. And Minister Jason’s mad because some of his folks want him to bring me back for more Bible teaching.
