Crude artists rendering. The sketch artist told me he was no good at drawing eyepatches, though.

September 4, 2002

I’m shaking as I type this, but it must be made known…

This morning, at about 0100 hours, I found Jesus. Yes, that’s right, I found him. Only this Jesus wasn’t the one I thought I knew. This Jesus was surly, had an eyepatch, and an empty forty in his hand.

But let me start at the beginning. It was about 0050, and I was sprawled across the couch, paying keen attention to the test patterns wiggling by on my TV screen. I like to watch them sometimes…there’s a sort of soothing rhythmic *essence* that makes order of the chaos. Or the other way around, depending on which side of the couch I’m on.

So there I was, my eyes red and itchy (couldn’t blink, didn’t want to miss anything), about five minutes before the headache generally begins to kick in. Across the street, I can just make out the motion-sensitive light flip on and shine it’s wormy intrusive way into the room. I figure it’s one of the hundred million skunks, raccoons, or spies my neighborhood’s infested with, so I pay it no mind. I *am* annoyed, but I figure I’ll live.
But then the dog starts. I didn’t mention the dog? Well, the house across the street has a dog.

It’s always chained up back there, and I don’t think I ever heard it bark or howl or yelp or anything in its whole life. Local rumor holds it that the guy who used to live there went nuts, thought his wife was fooling around with other men, so he cut the dog’s vocal cords out and disguised them as a spaghetti dinner for her one night. You know, I’m not even sure anyone lives over there anymore. Just the dog. Would YOU want to move a dog that had its vocal cords cut out? Didn’t think so.

Anyways. There’s a dog back there at the house whose motion light just came on. I heard the chain dragging around, a little scrabbling, like the mutt was really excited about something. It’s annoying as hell, but I figure I’ll live.

But a minute later, I hear the damn thing whine. Then I hear a thud, then I hear a yelp. And another thud, and another yelp. And again. And again. And again. Goddamn was it annoying! I figured I’d live, but someone had to get to the bottom of this.

“Hey!” I yelled out my front door. “I’d get away from the dog, if I were you. Don’t you know it had its vocal cords cut out?”

But the figure I see silhouetted in the motion light doesn’t seem to pay any attention to me. There was a thud, then a yelp. Again.

Well, that wasn’t gonna do at all. I took one last look at the TV screen, and I hoped I wouldn’t miss too much. I headed out my front door and across the street. Midway across, though, I noticed a couple of large wooden planks kind of casually tossed over the figure’s shoulder. Then I heard a thud, and a yelp. Weird guy, I thought, as I hurried across the street.

“You there!” I called to him when I was about ten feet away. “Didn’t you hear me? I said the dog’s vocal—” I stopped mid-sentence as the figure turned and regarded me with his one good, albeit bloodshot, eye. The eyepatch was new, and his hair was a good deal greasier and lankier, but I recognized him from all those pictures. Also, he had on boots instead of sandals. But the robes and the wood were exactly right! “You’re that Jesus, aren’t you?!” I exclaimed. You have to realize, I’d never met anyone famous before, so I was justifiably excited.

Jesus swayed a little as he looked at me, and then turned back and kicked the dog again. I just stood there, hands on my hips, kind of amazed, and watched this go on for another minute or so. Then I remembered something.
“Hey Jesus!,” I called to him as I walked right up to him. He turned towards me, shakily, once again, and I said, “you know…my friends’d never let me live it down if I ignored this opportunity.” He just swayed there, not quite understanding, apparently, what I meant.
So I swung on him. Hard. Nailed him with a left hook right in the jaw, and then stood there smiling at him, ready to give him a high-five. Instead, he swiveled his head back so that his good eye was looking right at me, then he looked down at the bottle in his hand, and drained the last couple ounces from it, wincing as he did so. Nobody likes the “ass ounces,” I guess! Then he looked back at me, hiccuped, and returned my beaming smile.

So I never expected him to crack me in the temple, shattering his empty forty on my skull. I don’t mind telling you, I dropped like a rock, glass fragments, blood, and all. As I lay there on the driveway, before the darkness completely covered my vision, I did feel a swift kick in the ribs, then a second. Then I heard the shatter of glass as Jesus dropped the remaining half of his broken forty on the driveway right next to me. But that’s all I remember for a little while.

I’m still picking glass out of my head as I write this, but I just couldn’t wait to share this any longer! Who’d have thought?