Chapter Eight: Jesus

Jesus is sitting on a bench in the stupid heat of Phoenix and he’s grinning, it really feels like from ear to ear. It almost hurts, this feeling. Reminds him of one he got when he was a kid, those times he’d sneak away to a place nobody knew he was. Down to Dead Creek where the willows hung their branches out over the water; where once a pair of mallards splashed down right before his eyes, making that impossible transition from flying to floating so fast he couldn’t exactly say how it happened. Or out to the airfield where he’d scale the perimeter fence and, from the top of the chain-link, stretch his hands up toward the heavens, reaching for those others kinds of birds as they broke away from the earth, performing an equal but opposite miracle.

It’s funny, you go somewhere new and all of a sudden, without any effort except the effort it took to arrive there—in Jesus’s case, three hours on the Greyhound—you discover you’ve been made anew. 

And, why is that? How is it? What makes the miracles happen? 

His Nancy would say it was Him at work. She likes to talk about God like she knows Him so well. Like, who else could she ever be talking about? But, try as he might—and he really has tried—Jesus can’t bring himself to believe in that figment, that fiction, to his mind an obvious human invention, which any a modicum of critical thought turns to a mist that drifts away on the wind. No, ma’am. 

Ask Jesus what he does believe and he’ll size you up and tell you what you want to hear. To Pastor Frank he confesses his fear and trembling at the approach of The End of the World. To the bank teller he speaks of the Almighty Dollar. When he’s putting in an application, like he meant to do this morning, he praises A Good Day’s Work. When he’s out late again with his buddies he agrees a Model solves all the world’s problems. And to Nancy he swears that Love is the answer, specifically his love for her. Because she might worship Him, but she wants Jesus to worship her. 

He’s learned it’s easiest to be agreeable; makes no difference to him what you think he thinks. Because, what Jesus truly believes is, it doesn’t matter what he or you or I imagines to be going on. It is what it is, this thing called life, and no quantity of faith has the power to alter that reality. Smarter men than he, he figures, have failed to get to the bottom of things. So why should he waste his time chasing the phantom of understanding? 

Credit who or what you will with his sudden transformation. Jesus is just enjoying the results. One of which seems to be a kind of imperviousness to the world’s petty annoyances, which, twenty-four hours prior, would have been positively itching his brain: the jackhammer half a block south, the cactus wren’s rasping cha-cha-cha, the traffic and the sirens and those girls FaceTiming at full volume, not to mention the stench of something that definitely shouldn’t have been left in the heat cooking in the trash just beyond the pavilion. It’s wilder than that he doesn’t mind. It’s, holy shit, he loves it all. For it is all a part of the world in which he is this happy. 

He shakes his head in bafflement at the wonder of it. Chuckles at the memory of the man he was so recently, who is no more—RIP yesterday’s Jesus; the Jesus of just this morning—not minding the side-eye he gets from the grandmother fanning herself to his left. He gives her a grin. “Hace calor hoy, ¿verdad?” Which she answers with the smallest possible nod. 

That’s okay! He gets it. He was like her once—recently, he reminds himself—caught up in his own misfortune, harried by life’s demands, as he perceived them. “¡Aguanta!” he tells her. You never know around what corner your deliverance might be waiting. 

What luck!—or, what whatever—that he came by his. 

He hadn’t exactly wanted to make the trek. A fool’s errand, he told Nancy it was. But circumstance forced his hand. Namely, six months of unemployment, stringing odd jobs together to make ends meet, hard labor made harder by the heat of summer, and all the while the material demands of life hanging like an anvil above his head, threatening to ruin him with their weight. 

It was just a rumor, his cousin’s buddy’s brother’s word—that a new development was underway in Maricopa, that they were hiring all hands, that the work would pay well for what it was, that the job was sure to last two years, offering stability without costing him his dignity. But so cloaked in secrecy were the particulars, so scant the details, that he had to believe it was, at best, a fiction, and, at worst, a trick, a trap. ICE was ever devising new ways to lure the undocumented out into the open. 

Which wasn’t Jesus! He was second generation, born in Bethlehem, Texas, and everywhere he went, at all times, he carried his license and a copy of his birth certificate folded in his wallet to prove it. Though he knew there was no guarantee that the truth would suffice to protect him. 

Still, it wasn’t fear of detention or deportation that gave him pause. It was fear of disappointment. Again he laughs, thinking of it, and the grandmother stands and walks to the far end of the bus stop pavilion. Does he seem like he’s lost his mind? Well, maybe it does. And maybe he has! But what else could he do besides laugh, remembering how thick the fog clung about him, that’s now parted; recalling how heavy was the burden that he’s now set aside? When he thinks how fast the change came upon him, how absolute the difference…it might be a miracle, but it is certainly absurd. 

It isn’t even that he found what he was looking for here in the Promised Land of Phoenix. He didn’t! The rumored job was real enough, but he was too late for it. Presented himself at the appointed hour, on the appointed day, to the appointed address, only to find a line of men stretching three blocks east. Ya lo sabía, he thought, feeling cursed. Feeling like nothing would ever go his way again and unable to think of when it ever had, anyway. He couldn’t conceive of the project that would require this many hands, but what else could he do, having gone to such lengths to arrive here? He took his place at the back of the line figuring he would inch along with it at least as long as it took him to think what he could tell Nancy. And, soon enough, there were a dozen more behind him. 

The sun inched higher, the proverbial mercury rising with it, and the only reprieve was that they faced their own shadows. Among the men, little was said, and less as the morning wore on. The front of the line was more jocular, pleasantries traded among the fortunate ones who only needed to look over their shoulders to confirm just how lucky they were. But were Jesus stood? Each soul was sunk in his sense of loss and felt no need to discuss it. 

How long did it take them to move half a block? By the time they had, Jesus was sweating and he’d already scrolled through his whole list of contacts twice, trying to think who might have the next odd job for him, or might know someone who knew someone who did. 

It was only out of boredom that he began reading the flyers stapled to the telephone pole against which, some time later, he found himself leaning. Someone’s cat was missing. Someone’s father needed eldercare. Someone was offering palm readings, and someone else, singing lessons. There were numbers to call and there were QR codes to scan. Humanity’s wants and needs, no different here than anywhere else, and the mundanity made Jesus feel so disenchanted, he nearly stopped reading before he’d read the one that mattered, the one that was meant for him. 

Of course he doesn’t believe in the hand of God coming down to direct a person on his way. Yet, for some reason, against all odds, right then and there, just when his prospects looked bleakest, just when he was eyeing the bar across the street and thinking he might as well jump off the wagon since the wagon wasn’t getting him anywhere, the fateful words caught his eye:

CASTING CALL

for roles in a Major Motion Picture

And they did feel like an answer, or a gift. Like the beneficence of some force, which he had never previously credited. 

Among the roles enumerated, near the bottom of the sheet, was ERNESTO DARKSTAR, “Hispanic, middle-aged, average build and features, with a friendly if forgettable face and a mysterious, troubled past.” Had they written the part just for him? 

The auditions were that day, on the other side of town. Jesus pulled out his phone to find the address and how long it would take him to make his way there. He was hardly qualified. But he had taken a turn as Tybalt in Burlington High’s summer production of Romeo and Juliet. “Excellent death, Jesus,” Mr. French had commended him. “I believed it more every time.” 

Recalling that praise and the glow it kindled in him, he glanced up and down the interminable line, which really did feel like some cruel metaphor for the world itself, and he recognized that he could choose to leave it. A realization like a bird stirring awake in his chest, shaking out its wings, getting ready to fly, and without a moment’s more contemplation he stepped out of line and started running. 

Holding his phone before him like a dousing rod, he followed its blue line up and down unknown streets to the bus stop he needed, arriving just in time to dash up the steps before the doors folded closed. More luck. 

He was not late for the auditions. He was early. And he didn’t have to wait outside in the stifling heat. He was invited in, to a plain but air-conditioned room around the back of a little theater that slowly and then more quickly filled. It was funny, the men in this room looked just like the men with whom he’d been waiting in line, only dressed in different clothes and, notably, not so miserable. Not miserable at all! They met one another’s eyes, they smiled. There was little conversation, but this silence was not the silence of the line, of dreary, weary hopelessness. This was a studious silence, of minds at work. Artists preparing to perform their art. 

What was he doing here, Jesus wondered. He was no artist! He was no actor! At his best he was a carpenter, at his worst he was a bum. But, he was here for a reason, wasn’t he? Desire, he supposed, that was the thing that had actually pulled him here, out of that wretched line. Not any deity. Desire. To be a different man, to live a different life. To belong here in this room, as everyone around him seemed to suppose he did. Which, by the grace of their supposition, felt suddenly not quite impossible. 

Jesus had been given a number—number eight—by the short and boyish woman who admitted him, who had given him a smile, too, and a 3x5 notecard on which to print his contact information, informing him that, before the auditions began, someone named Graham would be popping out to say a little more about the project. 

Who was Graham? At five minutes after the hour, a tall and gangly white guy emerged through he door Jesus that led to the theater. Half Jesus’ age, with an intense if unfocused energy, like a crackling fire casting sparks in every direction, he strode to the center of the room and took a bow. 

“Hello, hello, welcome, everyone! Thanks for coming out today. We’re eager to see what you’ve got. Gonna give you a quick explainer of the part—” 

Graham, it turned out, was the film’s writer and director. And the film, it turned out, was not exactly the major motion picture the flier on the telephone poll had given it to be. It was more of an independent project, “a bootstraps production,” in Graham’s parlance. Which didn’t disappoint Jesus. He figured this gave him a better shot. 

Graham was vague about the exact nature of the project—Vampires in Space, he told them they could call it, making clear that this would not be its final title. What he would say about it was that it was important. An “allegory for our times,” he claimed it was, piling the superlatives high, promising “we really reckon with the whole Western-settler-colonial-capitalist-mindset that’s fucked this planet. Like, we fucking go there.” They, Jesus and the men around him, were auditioning for “a small but pivotal role, about which I’d rather not say more, to preserve the integrity of the mystery of the film.” 

“Looking forward to seeing what you’ve got!” he concluded, and disappeared. 

Rising, when his number was called, to walk to the unremarkable door that would admit him into the theater, Jesus’ heart beat fast. That bird again, stirring. His face flushed. He felt reckless. But there was something about the way the day had unfolded that assured he was where he needed to be, and so it was with a relative calm, with a paradoxical peace, that he stepped across the threshold. 

The theater was modest in size and design, but a stage and those velvet curtains drawn back were enough to give Jesus goosebumps. A spotlight shone on the place where he was meant to stand. The house lights were on, but dimmed. Five rows back, Graham sat between two men and a woman whom he did not introduce, all young, all white, all dressed in black. The woman waved him forward, and, in exchange for his notecard, handed him a page of dialogue. 

“When you’re ready,” she said. “I’ll read the space madam’s part.” 

There was little he could discern about ERNESTO DARKSTAR from the lines he had been given. An ultimatum, a profession of love, and, strangest of all, a dinner order, to be read “with reverence.” He stumbled once or twice, but delivered the lines with what he felt to be conviction. By the end of the page, he was even pacing the stage, gesticulating with the real emotion he felt. 

When he had spoken his last, “mark my words,” an apparent verbal tic of the character’s, they asked him to perform a series of actions: to fly a kite, to play a fiddle, to leap across an imaginary stream. And, lastly, to his amazement, they bade him to fall to the stage as if he had been run through with a sword, then slowly die. This was precisely how Tybalt met his end, and Jesus remembered precisely how he had acted that death. So, with utter assurance, he recreated the scene, staggering back, falling to one knee, before he fell to the floor, where he slumped and then lay prone until a smattering of applause broke out. 

“Maybe our best death yet,” Graham said, which the others did affirm. “You’ve got the knack for it.”

“Gracias.” Jesus bowed. 

“Jesus, is it?” Graham said, pronouncing his name in the English way, which Jesus saw no need to correct. He nodded. 

“Jesus. You’ve got something here. Made some unusual choices. I like that. A maverick. Gave me some new insights on my script. We’ve got a lot of folks to see, of course, but it’s fair to say you’ve made an impression. So, we’ll be in touch.” 

We’ll be in touch, we’ll be in touch, we’ll be in touch. So sweet the words, running around in his mind. A door cracked open and a blaze of light shining through. 

He shakes his head again at the wonder of it. Laughs, shedding tears. 

“You alright there, my dude?” 

Where the grandmother was sitting, a cowboy has arranged his lanky form in a posture of easeful ownership. A sprawl, a slouch, a spread. A cowboy for real? He’s playing the part, at least; he’s got the outfit on. But he doesn’t looked wizened enough, worn by the elements as one would have to be. 

Jesus wipes his tears on his sleeve and tries to tone down his grin. “Sí, yes, gracias.” 

The cowboy nods. “Alright then.” Settles back at his ease. 

But his question has recalled Jesus to the present moment, and the generosity of the inquiry has awakened in him an atrophied instinct—to reach out, to connect. 

“Appreciate the consideration,” he says to the dude. 

“Don’t mention it.” 

“Are you a cowboy?”

The cowboy laughs. “Naw, I just play one on TV.” 

“For real?” Jesus swivels in his seat to face the man, feeling the kismet of the day dancing on his skin like lightning. 

“Naw, naw, just a manner of speaking. Musician’s my gig. But yeah, like, cowboy’s my vibe, you know? My credo.” 

“Sí, right on,” Jesus says. And before he can stop himself he declares, “I am an actor myself.” 

Now it’s the cowboy’s turn to take an interest. The possibility of celebrity does this, apparently. “Are you on TV?” 

“Film,” Jesus says. “La película.” 

“That’s dope, man. What you been in?” 

“Did you hear of Vampires in Space?”

The cowboy gives it some thought. “Rings a bell. Yeah, must have heard the buzz when it came out.”

Jesus nods. Who wouldn’t have heard the buzz? “That was the role that made me famous.”

“Righteous.” 

Three seats down, at the end of the bench, a sad man who’s been staring off into space stirs from his stupor to say, “What’s a fancy movie man doing waiting on the Greyhound?”

Jesus, light in his heart and light on his feet, answers easily, “Well, I should not say, but I do not mind telling you. I am getting into character for my next role.” 

“Huh.” The sad man is unimpressed. He can only enjoy depressing news. 

But this information has piqued the curiosity of two teenaged sisters who were giggling over things on their phones on the other side of the plexiglass. Trading a look, they pocket their devices and, together, skip around the shelter to stand before Jesus. 

“What’s the movie?”

“What’s it called?”

“When’s it coming out?”

“When are you filming it?”

“Are you filming it here?”

“Who’s in it? Who else?”

“Like, anyone we’d know?”

“Who’s the director?”

“What’s the story?”

“Yeah, yeah, what’s it about?”

“Well,” Jesus says, laughing, thinking nervously of their phones. “I should not say much. It is very hush-hush.” 

“We won’t tell a soul!” 

“We promise!” 

“Yes, tell us something, at least!”

The cowboy has said nothing during this deluge, but he’s listening, and gives a nod when Jesus looks his way. “I wanna to hear it, too, man.” 

Finding himself now the center of attention for the second time today—something he’s never been before—Jesus sits up straighter, clears his throat, and begins:

“So, the story goes, I am playing this deadbeat guy. Perdedor empedernido. This real looser. Can’t keep a job, doesn’t think much of himself, he is always letting everyone down, especially his wife, the one person who most deserves the best of him, but she gets the worst. And he sees it, yes? He knows he is failure, but he doesn’t know how to change it. Doesn’t know what it takes to be a winner.

“It feels like a curse. Because this is how it has always been. He has been up against it from the very start. Born with nothing, single mom, never knew his dad, always on the move, scraping by, you know? Clásico Americano. 

“His life hasn’t been easy, but it has never been this hard. He has hit rock bottom, that’s where we find him. On a bus just like the one we are waiting for, headed from the small town to the big city to try to find work. He has heard there might be some opportunities for him, and he is determined not to come home without good news.”

This, of course, is Jesus’s own story. It’s funny, he’s never thought of his life as a story. But now that he’s telling it, it sounds like a good one. Now that he’s telling it, everything that felt like such a pain to live through has been turned into a plot point and he sees how it serves the larger narrative, builds tension, teaches lessons, imbues a sense of adventure. 

“Everything goes wrong,” he says with some relish. “When he gets to the city, nothing works out. Job he was counting on is gone. And he is across the street from this bar, he is three years sober, but there is this bar, and he has hit rock bottom, and he is about to walk across the street and throw it all away when he catches sight of this flier—”

His biography meets the present moment and then it sails on into fantasy. 

The deadbeat lands the acting gig. It’s a small part, but Hollywood loves him. They cast him as their next superhero. He’s the toast of the town. He’s a global sensation. And at last he can give his wife, the one who’s loved him and stood by him all this time, the easy life she deserves. 

Jesus isn’t actually sure how to wrap up this précis when all he really wants to do is go on imagining his happy ending, down to the smallest detail. 

He pauses to take in his audience. The cowboy has slid a seat nearer. The sisters are silently clapping their hands. Even the sad man seems a little less glum. Maybe he’s heard a strain of his own story in Jesus’ tale; maybe he’s having the same revelation Jesus is, that his sorry life could be more than it is. What’s certain is, they are listening. What’s certain is, his story has got them on the edges of their seats. 

“I cannot tell you the ending, of course,” he says, enjoying their obvious disappointment. “You must see the movie.” 

“When’s it coming out?”

“What’s it called?”

“So, you’re the star?” The sisters are at it again.

“Can we have your autograph?” 

It feels good. It feels right. To be fielding these questions at the center of a circle. It feels like at last he is living the life he was made for. Though it’s a life he’d never have dared to imagine. He can’t forget it now: the dream. His dream. He names it. He claims it. He sets his resolve, to never give up until he has made it a reality. Not be dissuaded if Vampires in Space doesn’t come through for him. There are more acting gigs than that one. There are many paths to the place he wants to go. 

He knows it won’t be as easy as the telling of it was. He knows he might never reach the heights he’s just described. But he also knows he wants to. Knows what he wants!

It’s been a long time since he could say that. As a boy he understood his desire—to fly off on one of those airplanes he watched from the fence top, to escape from nowhere into somewhere, turn from no one to someone. But life informed him he shouldn’t wish for such things, and so he obeyed. Set his expectations as low as they could go, aiming only ever to make ends meet. Which meant that most of what he did, he did without passion. Did it only because he was supposed to. Because it seemed impossible to do anything else. 

But no more of that! No more. He’s working on formulating some kind of promise to himself, to ensure he stays the course when things get tough, when he sees the grandmother, the only one who wasn’t stirred by his story—who didn’t join the circle but, from her seat at the far end of the pavilion, kept watch with a stern eye—standing, hustling to the curb to claim the first spot in line, for she has spied their bus approaching. 

The sad man follows suit, while the cowboy and the sisters hang back with Jesus, strolling to the queue, keeping the questions coming. 

“After you, after you,” Jesus says when they reach it, waving the others forward, happy, now, to be standing at the end of the line.